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So I'm working on a piece for the inaugural issue of this little journal. Having spent a year and more composing a careful argument about Jewish-Christian neighboring in the English Middle Ages -- a project that is in some ways heavily reliant upon theory and philosophy, but that keeps much of this frame in the background, and so seems a little old fashioned (though I love it for that) -- anyway, being a little weary of the scholarly voice that I use, for example, when I write a Speculum essay, I am trying something different in this piece, a more experimental mode. Not that such experiments in voice are exactly new in my work, but this one so far takes it farther. The first issue of Postmedieval is devoted to the post-human, and that topic seems to me not well addressed without playing somewhat with the most fundamentally human of our tools, language.
Maybe I go too far? I am worried about sounding arch or stilted rather than engaging and creative. The worst result would be to render the piece unreadable or uninviting. Let me know what you think: this is how the essay begins.
What could be less geologic than itinerant, adaptive humanity?
Geochoreography I
Rock solid. Stone faced. Bedrock. Written in stone. Stony silence. Stone cold. Cornerstone. Stone hearted.
The cultural truth of the mineralogical: nothing could be less expressive, less unyielding and unchanging, less taciturn or unfeeling, less fundamental than stone. Stone gives terra its firmness, mundane reality its comforting solidity. Stone is immobile. At those rare times when it slides or shakes or melts, what surprises us most is that something so inert can for a moment become kinetic. This movement is always brief, always the forgettable exception. Houses rise swiftly after an earthquake's leveling, grass and trees effloresce after the lava flow expands the contours of an island, landslides bury troves that bulldozers can with exertion retrieve. Stone's movements are its aberrations, not its nature.
Or so it seems to us, we whose lives are so short that were the stone we walk and build upon sentient, our presence would register nothing, we mayflies who live and perish in less than a blink. Small things who think our ephemeral walking and building expansive, who measure the world as if it were likewise swift and small. Small things who dwell in a large and rocky world. If stone could speak, what would it say about us?
Stone would call you transient, sporadic. The mayflies analogy was bruising to you, but apt. Stone was here from near the beginning, from the time when the restless gases of the earth decided they did not want to spend their days in swirling chaos, in couplings without lengthy comminglings, and settled into solid forms. Dolomite knows that story. Early organic things clung to stone's solidity. It is harder than you suppose to tell the difference between nanobacteria and late animals, between starfish and human forms. They adhere, they multiply, they move. Yes, humans have always loved the permanence of stone, beholding in its endurance a thing they wish for in themselves. They scratch a small hole and bury their dead, they place rocks upon the bodies as if to keep the spinning world still. Organic life can hold perdurability only if the bacterial and the mammalian are one: then stone can see you. And it is from this vantage, this vantage so anthropodiscentered that language almost fails its imagining, it is from this lapidary point of view that stone can be seen to possess a life of its own.
A protean substance that retains no form in permanence, stone moves. Stone creates: architectures, novelities, art. Lava is the truth of stone, not a rocky aberration. All stone is in motion. Yet the humming bird pulse of human time is too rapid for geologic mobility to be seen. You expect stone to be heavy, but stone is light. If stone had a voice it would be less ponderous than your own. If you lived more slowly, if your hurried heartbeat did not limit the rhythm of your discerning, did not bind you to your swift smallness, you would know that you and stone are both human, or both stone.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Stratification and Prejudice in Current Events
Stratification and Prejudice in Current Events
LASA 2: Stratification and Prejudice in Current Events
The purpose of this assignment is to explore stratification and prejudice in current events. Despite great advances towards equality between the races and genders, racial and gender discrimination, as well as class stratification remain serious social problems. To conclude this course, you will use the news media to discover current social issues with regards to race and gender.
To complete this assignment, perform the following tasks: ◦Using newspapers, news websites, or news magazines, select three current events (within the last six months) that reflect our studies on stratification. One event should represent racial issues, one gender issues, and one class issues. All three should demonstrate discrimination and/or stratification in American society.
◦Using your research, describe the current events and how they are reflective of your studies on racial, gender, and class discrimination and/or stratification.
◦Analyze the events and apply the lecture and text to the news articles. What theories of stratification apply? Are the current events representative of the historical trends of racial, gender, and class discrimination and or/stratification? What solutions, if any, should be applied to these current events?
◦In your discussion, apply your personal experiences and observations to the current events.
◦How do you feel that the media perpetuates discrimination and/or stratification based on race, gender, and class? Support your ideas with concepts from the text and/or appropriate outside resources.
Provide a minimum of three references and apply the correct APA standards in the format of text, citations, and references. Your paper should include a title page and reference. Your paper should be at least five pages in length, not including the title and reference pages.


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Use of a Private U.S. Corporate Structure to Disguise a Government Program
Part 1: How United States Intervention Against Venezuela Works
Part 2 of 3
C. Venezuela: Some Examples of the Current U.S. Intervention Against the Bolivarian Revolution
In Venezuela the administration of George W. Bush is intervening in the political process with a combination of activities very similar to those the U.S. carried out in Nicaragua in the 1980s, but without a terrorist war on the scale of the Contras, and—at least until mid-2005—without an economic embargo. These activities, with a 2005 budget approaching $10 million, masquerade as "civic education," "support for the electoral process," and "strengthening the democratic system." In reality, all these programs, carried out almost silently, support the opposition against President Chávez and his coalition.
The action agencies of this "open support for democracy in Venezuela" are the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) with its four associated foundations. The largest amount of money, some $7 million in 2005, is channeled by AID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) through a private contractor, Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), a consulting firm based in Bethesda, Maryland, next to Washington D.C. Additionally the CIA, as always, has its role in supplying secret funds and providing clandestine support.
The web page of DAI describes the company, established in 1970, as having 250 employees at its headquarters and about 1500 others working in international projects. It has carried out development projects in 150 countries, mostly in the Third World, "to build fair and effective government, strengthen local capacity to manage natural resources and agriculture production, fuel the economic engines that power growth from micro-finance to enterprise development, and leverage the impact of private investment in emerging markets. Clients include the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, bilateral development agencies, global corporations, and host country governments." Its projects deal with agriculture and natural resource management, banking and financial services, crisis mitigation and recuperation, democracy and governance, solutions for global businesses and mitigation of the effects of AIDS. DAI, as we shall be see further on, is an ideal corporate structure for inserting CIA officers and agents under commercial cover in foreign countries.
In Washington there is no doubt a high level committee that directs the operations with a name like the Venezuelan Inter-Agency Working Group. The representative of the Department of State would normally chair the committee, and its other members represent AID/OTI, the Pentagon, CIA, NED, and other interested agencies. Among its various responsibilities, this committee sets the budgets and decides what mechanisms will be used to channel the funds. The committee also has to evaluate the effectiveness of the operations and keep appropriate committees of Congress informed.
The Department of State closely controls the interventionist program in Venezuela through the U.S. Embassy in Caracas where AID/OTI has an office. The CIA, as a matter of course, also has an office in the Embassy under diplomatic cover. Just as in Washington, there will be a coordinating committee in the Embassy chaired by the Ambassador or the Deputy Chief of Mission and whose members will include the chief of the political section, OIT representatives, the CIA station chief, a representative of the military attachés and perhaps others.
Also in Caracas, but apart from the Embassy and having legal status as private foreign entities, there are offices of two of the foundations associated with NED. The International Republican Institute has its office in Altamira, Second Avenue, between Eighth and Ninth Transversals, Quinta Retana, ground floor; and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) is at Avenue Francisco de Miranda, Edificio Torre La Primera, 14th floor, Office 14B, Campo Alegre. Additionally Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), the consulting firm, has its office on Guaicaipuro Street, Hener Tower, 2nd floor, office 2-B, El Rosal. Each of these three operations centers has U.S.-citizen personnel selected in Washington plus Venezuelan employees whose employment must receive prior approval in Washington.
The activities of these action agencies in Caracas—IRI, NDI and DAI—take the form of individual project contracts with activities, cost, dates of beginning and end, and some, as in the OTI-DAI contract, with options for extensions. IRI and NDI project descriptions are submitted by their Washington offices to the Department of State, AID/OTI, or NED for approval and financing under a contract. The funds are then distributed to the Caracas offices that pass the money to Venezuelan beneficiary organizations under sub-contracts, each of which requires approval by the headquarters of the agency where the funds originated.
The three action agencies with offices in Caracas also have to submit to their Washington headquarters the résumés of leaders of proposed beneficiary organizations, undoubtedly so that the CIA may do a background security check on them, internally and with other security agencies, as part of the approval process. Additionally, each contract requires that the executing agency in Caracas submit progress reports every three or six months plus special reports on important issues. On the whole, this system of projects, approvals, contracts, and subcontracts are a concrete, sophisticated mechanism totally controlled by the U.S. government. The evidence is contained in the hundreds of official documents, including contracts, obtained since 2003 through the Freedom of Information Act. A great quantity of documents is published at http://www.venezuelafoia.info. These documents reveal that NED has been directly financing at least 17 Venezuelan non-governmental organizations apart from its financing of many others through its four associated foundations.
The activities directed and financed by the U.S. have been and are very diverse, but they all have as their objective the development and strengthening of the political opposition both in political parties and in NGOs such as the Venezuelan Workers Confederation (CTV). These include workshops, seminars and conferences, training courses to develop political parties, promotion of unity through party coalitions, campaigns to register voters and to assure that the greatest number vote, establishment of a parallel non-official list of voters, training of election observers to detect fraud, close monitoring of the National Electoral Council (CNE) to denounce irregularities, organizing parallel vote counts, rapid calculation of results ("quick counts") for possible announcement before they are announced by the CNE. Apart from these specific objectives, the activities are designed to attract medium and long-term new volunteers to the electoral process but always in opposition to the Bolivarian Revolution. The favored parties include Acción Democrática (social democrats), COPEI (christian democrats), Movimiento al Socialism, Projecto Venezuela and Primero Justicia.
Among the many beneficiaries of this intervention was the Coordinadora Democrática,[1] with representatives from business, labor and political parties, that fulfills a role quite similar to that of the Nicaraguan Coordinadora Democrática during the 1980s. Another beneficiary is the organization Súmate that emerged in 2003 at the end of the failed oil strike to begin the campaign for the recall referendum. This organization is very similar to Via Cívica in Nicaragua. Finally, the consulting firm DAI functions just as the Delphi International Group functioned in Nicaragua, financing the anti-Chavez propaganda campaign called Venezuela: Initiative to Build Confidence (VICC).
To understand how US political interference functions in Venezuela, it is well to examine five AID/OTI contracts with the three action agencies that have offices in Caracas: DAI, IRI and NDI. The following pages analyze: 1) the OTI contract with DAI set up following the failed coup of April 2002; 2) two contracts with IRI to intervene in the recall referendum of August 2004 and possible elections afterwards; and 3) two contracts with NDI also to intervene in the referendum. The value of these five contracts in the two years before the referendum was about US$12 million and the original texts are published in English at www.venezuelafoia.info under USAID Contracts.
1. OTI-DAI Contract to establish Venezuela: Initiative to Build Confidence (VICC)
OTI/AID began operations in Venezuela as a key player in the U.S. government's program after the failed coup of April 2002. Until then, political intervention had been mainly in the hands of NED and its four associated foundations with an annual cost of about $ 1 million. To run operations on the ground, IRI had set up an office in Caracas in 2000 followed by NDI in 2001, offices that continue operating to this day. These two institutes financed various organizations directed by those who signed the Carmona Decree during the coup that abolished democratic institutions, and they continued to support the coup plotters after it failed. However, after the coup, there was an obvious decision taken in Washington to multiply its efforts in Venezuela with much more money, but now through OTI/AID and a contracted consulting firm, Development Alternatives Inc. This firm would act as a branch of OTI/AID under the guise of a private company.
In June 2002, OTI/AID started this new program in Venezuela by sending two officials to the U.S. embassy in Caracas to supervise the program. The OTI web page indicates that this office is in charge of interventions in crisis areas where there is a transition from war to peace or transition from a non-democratic government to a democratic system. Apparently, AID/OTI considers Venezuela to be a country "in transition towards democracy" despite the various free and fair elections since the first election of President Chávez in 1998. The OTI budget in Venezuela for the first year was $2.2 million, more than double the annual budget that NED then had for Venezuela.
In August 2002, OTI contracted the consulting firm DAI to establish in Venezuela programs intended to "support democratic institutions and processes…to ease societal tensions and maintain democratic balance," and in October of that year DAI opened its office in Caracas.
The budget was USD$5.2 million for the first year and almost USD$4.9 million for the second year of operations. These were quantities much greater than the annual budgets for NED and its foundations, which were around $1-2 million. For each year the DAI budget included $3.5 million for distribution in money or materials among the beneficiary Venezuelan organizations and the rest was for fixed costs, salaries, transport investments, communications, computers and other administrative costs plus DAI's commission, the amount of which was censored in the contract released under FOIA. As it happened, this program continued during the optional second year, and the contract has been prolonged until September 2005. In all probability, it will be extended again through the national elections in late 2006.
According to the contract, the reasons why OTI decided to establish a program in Venezuela were:
1) "Political tensions have increased dramatically" since April when "several protesters were killed outside the presidential palace" (no mention of the coup);
2) The U.S. has "a strong interest in ensuring that (democracy) endures in Venezuela;"
3) Venezuelan "institutions" need support to "restore democratic balance" and "ensure the protection of human rights and the free expression of ideas, including, at both at the national and local levels, by the media, civil society, political parties and the government institutions."
The AID/OTI contract with DAI, dated 30 August 2002, consists of 49 pages that detail the way in which DAI will have to work in Venezuela. In the introduction, OTI describes itself as a rapid response force in the face of social, economic, and political crises as in Kosovo, the Philippines, Haiti, or Columbia. It describes its programs as "fast, flexible, innovative, tangible, targeted, catalytic, and overtly political." It adds, "OTI is often engaged in the most sensitive political issues of the U.S. government's priority and high profile countries." Its money comes from the U.S. International Disaster Assistance Fund, and its programs normally last one or two years at the end of which OTI generally passes the operations on to another AID department or they are closed down. The contract makes it clear that OTI is the equivalent of an international political fire brigade that is used by the government to bring under control social and political upheavals that threaten U.S. interests – something similar to the military's Special Forces.
The types of foreign organizations that OTI supports, according to the contract, are a list that until the 1980's and the adoption of Project Democracy, would have been the CIA's list for covert actions: local, regional and national governments; private, voluntary organizations; international organizations; indigenous groups; cooperatives, associations and student groups; informal groups; media, private sector and coalitions of these groups. Its activities include the promotion of reconciliation; prevention and resolution of conflicts; promotion of independent media with training in journalism; legal reform; de-mobilization and re-integration of ex-combatants; promotion of national messages using television, radio and the press; reactivating key non-governmental organizations with initial funding; and promoting governance with electoral support and the development of a strong civil society.
Specifically in Venezuela, the contract requires DAI to work with "labor, business, political organizations, government, and civil society to strengthen democratic institutions and processes" as well as "media institutions through journalistic training." Furthermore, DAI is required to work with "NGOs that seek to promote dialogue on an inclusive social and political agenda for Venezuela and open avenues of dialogue currently closed due to the polarization of the population." The contract stipulates that the programs will be non-partisan and that no support will be given to organizations that seek to alter the political order by unconstitutional means. In fact all financing under this program has gone to the political opposition, including some who signed the Carmona Decree that abolished democratic institutions during the failed coup of April 2002.
According to the contract, an official at AID headquarters in Washington, called the Cognizant Technical Officer (CTO) supervises each OTI program, and his approval is necessary for every important decision. The CTO, named in the contract as Russell Porter, works in close coordination with the Department of State and directs the activities of the OTI staff assigned to the embassy in Caracas who are designated OTI Field Representatives. These officers supervise the day-to-day activities financed by OIT and executed by the IRI, NDI, and DAI offices in Caracas.
According to the contract, DAI has full responsibility for executing the program, including administrative, logistics, acquisitions, and financial matters. DAI is required to establish the office, buy office equipment and vehicles, recruit Venezuelan employees, establish communications and accounting systems, develop and maintain a database with all the details of their activities, develop a program to distribute funds via subcontracts and monitor their effectiveness and impact. The system of disbursing funds requires that DAI propose funding for NGOs and other Venezuelan organizations to the Senior Field Representative of the OTI in the Embassy who can authorize payments up to $100,000. Any proposal greater than that has to be approved by the CTO at AID/OTI's Washington office.
The contract has several pages of details relating to the responsibilities of DAI U.S.-citizen personnel both before and after they arrive in Venezuela. It underlines the speed with which DAI has to organize equipment and prepare itself to start the program, including preparation of a list of contacts in Venezuela such as NGOs, government offices, and international organizations. It is also noteworthy that the contract demands that distribution of funds should begin as soon as possible after the team arrives in Caracas. From these requirements it is obvious that before going to Caracas the DAI team must have had a good understanding of the previous NED activities and its four foundations so that they can to begin work immediately in coordination with the IRI and NDI offices in Caracas.
DAI furthermore is required to rent space for offices and obtain furnished accommodation for its personnel and any OTI personnel assigned to Caracas. The selection of offices and residences has to comply with Embassy security requirements and to have prior written approval from the AID Regional Security Office. The contract states that the office should be no lower the 3rd floor if it is in an office building. It must have strong doors and iron bars on the windows if it is on a ground floor. It must be set back from the street, with secure, well-lit parking spaces and surrounded with walls or fences. Additionally the contract established that DAI has to arrange necessary services such as landline telephones, fax, internet connection, portable radios, radios in the vehicles, cell phones, satellite telephones, GPS systems, and an in-house computer network. It also requires that DAI prepare an evacuation plan for the U.S.-citizen personnel and OTI officials, and it mentions the possibility of firing personnel for security violations. On the whole these detailed requirements bind DAI to quickly establish an operation of high security, self-sufficient, and capable of leaving Venezuela from one minute to the next.
The most interesting aspect of this contract is the designation of the U.S. personnel for the DAI Caracas office (5 people) plus one coordinator based in Washington. These 6 people, referred to as "Key Personnel", are named in the contract by OTI, but only by last name and initial:J. McCarthy, Chief of Party; H. Méndez, L., Blank and G. Díaz, Program Development Officers; G. Fung, Financial Management Specialist; and J., Jutkowitz, Local Program Manager in Washington. The contract does not state one word about who these people are nor where they come from for this urgent and quickly mounted operation. Obviously each one had to have extensive knowledge about Venezuela, U.S. policy there, and fluency in Spanish in order to carry out their duties from the moment they arrived. Under the contract OTI reserves the right to substitute any one of the six. Thus DAI, a private consulting company, cannot choose the project personnel. One cannot dismiss the possibility that these 6 people are CIA officers placed under commercial cover with DAI. Furthermore, for each prospective Venezuelan employee, DAI has to submit his/her resume and other information for approval by the CTO before hiring. It is obvious that with this contract OTI is simply renting DAI's corporate structure for a wholly governmental operation, while attempting to disguise it as a private sector program. And in fact all the OTI requirements in the contract are tasks that are to be carried out by personnel assigned by OTI, with DAI being only a commercial cover.
As for the possibility that this OTI and DAI activity is really a CIA operation, it is convenient to recall what I wrote in Inside the Company: CIA Diary (1975) about the use of commercial cover for CIA officials in foreign countries. From its beginnings in 1947, the CIA placed officers overseas to manage operations under non-governmental cover in order to separate very sensitive activities from the officers working in embassies with diplomatic cover. Through the years various U.S. international corporations cooperated by placing CIA officers in their overseas operations. However, a CIA officer working in an embassy always had to back up the non-official cover officer in many ways, and this administrative task typically took up much, if not too much, time.
During the 1960s, an effort was made to establish small, self-sufficient groups of officers under commercial cover with direct communications with CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, outside Washington. The goal was to reduce the demands for so much time from the officers working in the embassies. That was the case in Mexico City where a group of three CIA officers established an import business with the code name LILINK. Even though the CIA officials inside the embassy directed this non-official cover office, there were secure communications that reduced the need for personal meetings and other support from the embassy. The DAI office in Caracas fits perfectly in this pattern, both to give supposedly private and commercial cover to CIA officers and to try to disconnect embassy officers from such sensitive intervention in internal Venezuelan politics.
To sum up this contract, after the failed coup of April 2002, the government of the United States widened its program of intervention in the Venezuelan political process through the Agency for International Development (AID) with budgets much greater than those of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its four associated foundations whose programs with the opposition nevertheless continued. In August 2002 AID/OTI contracted the consulting firm Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) to develop various programs to support the political opposition with annual budgets of around $5 million. DAI then established an office in Caracas, very possibly as a front for and with personnel from the CIA, while passing as an ordinary subsidiary of a U.S. transnational corporation. In reality, it is a key office of the U.S. embassy disguised as a private company.
At least 67 projects up to end of 2004 have been financed by the DAI program called Venezuela: Initiative to Build Confidence. The first projects started in the fall of 2002 were designed to support the lockout and sabotage of the oil industry from December 2002 to February 2003. This support included financing the TV ad campaign in favor of the strike. When the strike failed, DAI focused its projects on the referendum of August 2004, and among its main beneficiaries was Súmate, the main NGO that promoted the referendum against Chávez. Parallel to these activities DAI has financed the development of the opposition's political program against the Bolivarian Revolution known as Plan Consensus. Some of the beneficiaries of this project were Queremos Elegir (We want to Choose) and Liderazgo y Vision (Leadership and Vision). Now, since the victories of President Chávez in the referendum and in the local and state elections of October 2004, DAI is focusing on the national elections of 2005 and 2006.
At the end of 2004, OTI had active operations in 11 countries including Venezuela, Iraq, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Bolivia, and Haiti. It is noteworthy that on the OTI web page that has a list of the countries where they have programs, all the countries have a link to pages that describe the programs, except Venezuela which does not have a link or a description of the program. As for DAI, at the end of 2004 it had programs in dozens of countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Apart from Venezuela, it had programs in Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, and Mexico among others). These OTI and DAI programs certainly merit review to see if they operate under the same conditions as in Venezuela, that is, as possible fronts and covers for the CIA.
Translated from Spanish by Maria Victor
Part 3: Analysis of Four USAID Contracts with with Republican and Democratic Party Foundations in Venezuela
[1] Editor's note: the Coordinadora Democratica fell apart shortly after the August 15, 2004 presidential recall referendum.


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Utility companies say all residents will have power back by the end of Monday.
More than 100,000 customers lost electricity over the weekend amid heavy snow and wind that slowed the recovery.
Energy company Eversource saidin a news release that it had 1,700 crews working to restore power in Massachusetts after relief was sent in from Connecticut and New Hampshire.
Schools will open Monday in Boston, where the National Weather Service reported a one-day record of 23.6 inches of snow Saturday. Mayor Michelle Wu said the city's snow emergency would end Monday morning.
The "bomb cyclone" that brought freezing weather and snow over the weekend affected states along the Atlantic coast with the National Weather Service reporting 9.5 inches of snow in Wallops Island, Va.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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At Ball State, you have lots of options when it comes to choosing a major. If you've known since you could talk that you wanted to be a paleontologist or a venture capitalist, we can keep you on track. If you might not be sure what you want to study—or change your mind once you get here, no worries. We can help you evaluate your interests, set some goals, and establish a plan for your education. And just to be sure, you'll get plenty of hands-on, immersive learning opportunities that will let you test-drive career paths and fields of study as they are in the real world. And when you make your decision, we will prepare you for your life, not just a degree.
To help you along the way, we have supportive professors. They're passionate about their disciplines and about teaching. Their creative teaching methods allow personal learning that is based on your needs and interests and push the limits of the standard curriculum. We also keep our class sizes small to allow faculty and student interaction and personal mentoring.
Trying to decide what major is right for you? Take a quick test and use our online tool to match your personality type with our programs.
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A burial vault is a lined and sealed outer receptacle that houses and protects the casket.
More InfoView this short video to learn more about what happened when the tornado passed through our plant.
A funeral/memorial service gives family and friends a chance to come together to honor and commemorate the life of a loved one. It is an essential part of the grieving process.
More InfoThere are a number of choices available for cremation. The cremation process includes the service selection, the final resting place for the cremated remains, memorial urns, personalization, etc.
More InfoWilbert offers multiple ways to personalize a burial vault or urn vault with words, symbols, and images that speak of a singular spirit. Your loved one had a unique personality. The selections you make for the visitation and service should communicate that singular spirit. In the past year, did your funeral home serve any famlies who experienced a death from COVID and were unable to conduct a service or complete their final arrangements? If so, we have an important message about FEMA funds...https://www.wilbertcore.com/files/uploaded/FEMA_fillable_document.pdf
We can always count on Wilbert Vault Co. of Paducah for not only following through on their commitments, but for going above and beyond what is expected. They are simply the best in the industry.


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MovingKit.com has Launched a New Program to Help Customers Reach The Best Movers Quickly
(PRWEB) January 24, 2014 -- MovingKit.com has recently announced their new web portal that will now let customers choose the best movers for their needs. At first, the company solely focused on offering moving assistance to the large pool of customers in this country; however, now, the company has expanded its sphere of service and wants to help all potential customers find the most reliable moving service companies. The job is definitely not easy and needs unconditional dedication. This is why the top professionals from the company have hired a few specialized people to help them develop a fast and flawless system. The new web portal is technically very simple and can be used for customers to access numerous sources of information and facilities.
The company has always strived to help customers in a simple and effortless manner and after years of research, the company professionals have finally been able to come up with a remarkable web design. The site is full of features to help their customers, such as tips and information about how to find good movers, various moving processes, and how to find the best deal on moving companies.
MovingKit.com is a very established company in this industry and understands the problems faced by customers. To protect the customers from service providers who are not completely forthright the company has built the new web portal and expanded its database of professional moving companies. The new web portal and database is basically a way for customers to reach a huge base of movers and get fair bids from them. As selecting a good mover with all required and specialized skill is becoming tougher day by day, the web portal developed by MovingKit.com can be very helpful.
Finding the best service providers is very difficult. When customers try to find the service providers through advertisements in the phone book or local newspapers, they might choose the wrong movers. In order to experience a good, hassle free relocation process, it's good to be sure about the capabilities of the movers in advance. The web portal of http://www.MovingKit.com also describes how to understand if a moving company is good for local or international relocation process. If customers want to know more about different relocation processes and want to receive good deals, they should visit the new web portal designed by MovingKit.com.
Simon Miller, Moving Network, +1 (561) 444-7195, [email protected]


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This service is for direct customers of Schaeffler and Schaeffler sales partners.
You can use the following e-mail form to register to use Bearinx-online Linear Calculation. The Department Corporate Analysis & Simulation at Schaeffler will contact you, send the necessary contract documentation and arrange for you to take part in a training program.
See also: Bearinx-online: Requirements
You will be connected to Bearinx-online Linear Calculation according to the conditions stipulated in the contract after you have completed our training seminar.
Fees are charged for both the training program and the registration to use Bearinx-online.
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Compress 2000 AWF Installation and Operating Instructions
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Previous Lesson
Complete and Continue
Blade & Shade by Tina Davies
Meet Tina (0:41)
What is "Blade & Shade"?
Course Outline
Getting Started
Consultation (3:22)
Numbing (0:59)
Safety and Sanitation During Your Procedure
Set-Up (3:55)
Assemble Facemask (1:05)
Pigment Color Selection
Pigment Preparation (1:36)
Brow Design and Pre-Draw
Design Considerations
Brow Designing and Pre-Draw (5:09)
The Difference Between the Skinny and Pro Pencil (2:33)
One and Done: How Many Microblades do I need for this procedure?
Microblade Selection and Needle Preparation (1:20)
How Deep Should I Stroke
How To Get Ink Flow with I LOVE INK (3:46)
Checking for Symmetry (1:19)
Technique: Creating Hair Strokes with the U Needle (5:27)
The Perfect Deposit: Hitting the Sweet Spot (0:38)
Technique: Creating Hair Stokes with the 9 Classic (3:18)
The Three Point Stretch (2:28)
Reinforcing the Stroke: Greater Deposit on the Second Pass (1:40)
Technique: Creating Hair Strokes with the 14 Curved (4:37)
Build Saturation: Shading with the 19 Shader (12:43)
Checking for Symmetry (1:57)
Aftercare Instructions (3:14)
Red or Orange Looking Brows: What to Expect After the Procedure
Final Result (1:01)
Proper Healing: What Your Client Should Expect (2:51)
Healed Results (4:02)
Close-Up Shading (2:28)
Infection: What to Do
Proper Disposal of Microblades (0:18)
How to Upsell Shading to Your Clients
Test Your Knowledge
Blade & Shade Quiz
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Good evening, everybody. I know we've been on a long flight, but given the extraordinary interest in the shootings that took place in Louisiana and Minnesota, I thought it would be important for me to address all of you directly. And I want to begin by expressing my condolences for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
As I said in the statement that I posted on Facebook, we have seen tragedies like this too many times. The Justice Department, I know, has opened a civil rights investigation in Baton Rouge. The Governor of Minnesota, I understand, is calling for an investigation there as well. As is my practice, given my institutional role, I can't comment on the specific facts of these cases, and I have full confidence in the Justice Department's ability to conduct a thorough and fair inquiry.
But what I can say is that all of us as Americans should be troubled by these shootings, because these are not isolated incidents. They're symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system. And I just want to give people a few statistics to try to put in context why emotions are so raw around these issues.
According to various studies—not just one, but a wide range of studies that have been carried out over a number of years—African Americans are 30 percent more likely than Whites to be pulled over. After being pulled over, African Americans and Hispanics are three times more likely to be searched. Last year, African Americans were shot by police at more than twice the rate of Whites. African Americans are arrested at twice the rate of Whites. African American defendants are 75 percent more likely to be charged with offenses carrying mandatory minimums. They receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than comparable Whites arrested for the same crime. So that if you add it all up, the African American and Hispanic population, who make up only 30 percent of the general population, make up more than half of the incarcerated population.
Now, these are facts. And when incidents like this occur, there's a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same. And that hurts. And that should trouble all of us. This is not just a Black issue. It's not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we should all care about. All fairminded people should be concerned.
Now, let me just say, we have extraordinary appreciation and respect for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day. They've got a dangerous job. It is a tough job. And as I've said before, they have a right to go home to their families, just like anybody else on the job. And there are going to be circumstances in which they've got to make split-second decisions. We understand that.
But when we see data that indicates disparities in how African Americans and Latinos may be treated in various jurisdictions around the country, then it's incumbent on all of us to say, we can do better than this, we are better than this, and to not have it degenerate into the usual political scrum. We should be able to step back, reflect, and ask ourselves, what can we do better so that everybody feels as if they're equal under the law? Now, the good news is, is that there are practices we can institute that will make a difference. Last year, we put together a Task Force that was comprised of civil rights activists and community leaders, but also law enforcement officials: police captains, sheriffs. And they sat around a table, and they looked at the data, and they looked at best practices, and they came up with specific recommendations and steps that could ensure that the trust between communities and police departments were rebuilt and incidents like this would be less likely to occur.
And there are some jurisdictions out there that have adopted these recommendations. But there are a whole bunch that have not. And if anything good comes out of these tragedies, my hope is, is that communities around the country take a look and say, how can we implement these recommendations, and that the overwhelming majority of police officers who are doing a great job every single day and are doing their job without regard to race, that they encourage their leadership and organizations that represent them to get behind these recommendations.
Because ultimately, if you can rebuild trust between communities and the police departments that serve them, that helps us solve crime problems. That will make life easier for police officers. They will have more cooperation. They will be safer. They will be more likely to come home. So it would be good for crime fighting, and it will avert tragedy.
And I'm encouraged by the fact that the majority of leadership in police departments around the country recognize this. But change has been too slow, and we have to have a greater sense of urgency about this.
I'm also encouraged, by the way, that we have bipartisan support for criminal justice reform working its way through Congress. It has stalled and lost some momentum over the last couple of months, in part because Congress is having difficulty, generally, moving legislation forward, and we're in a political season. But there are people of good will on the Republican side and the Democratic side who I've seen want to try to get something done here. That, too, would help provide greater assurance across the country that those in power, those in authority, are taking these issues seriously. So this should be a spur to action to get that done, to get that across the finish line. Because I know there are a lot of people who want to get it done.
Now, let me just make a couple of final comments. I mentioned in my Facebook statement that I hope we don't fall into the typical patterns that occur after these kinds of incidents occur, where right away, there's a lot of political rhetoric, and it starts dividing people instead of bringing folks together. To be concerned about these issues is not to be against law enforcement. There are times when these incidents occur and you see protests and you see vigils. And I get letters—well-meaning letters sometimes—from law enforcement saying, how come we're under attack? How come not as much emphasis is made when police officers are shot?
And so, to all of law enforcement, I want to be very clear: We know you have a tough job. We mourn those in uniform who are protecting us who lose their lives. On a regular basis, I have joined with families in front of Capitol Hill to commemorate the incredible heroism that they've displayed. I've hugged family members who've lost loved ones doing the right thing. I know how much it hurts. On a regular basis, we bring in those who've done heroic work in law enforcement and have survived. Sometimes, they've been injured. Sometimes, they've risked their lives in remarkable ways. And we applaud them and appreciate them, because they're doing a really tough job really well. There is no contradiction between us supporting law enforcement—making sure they've got the equipment they need, making sure that their collective bargaining rights are recognized, making sure that they're adequately staffed, making sure that they are respected, making sure their families are supported—and also saying that there are problems across our criminal justice system; there are biases, some conscious and unconscious, that have to be rooted out. That's not an attack on law enforcement, that is reflective of the values that the vast majority of law enforcement bring to the job.
But I repeat: If communities are mistrustful of the police, that makes those law enforcement officers who are doing a great job and are doing the right thing, it makes their lives harder. So when people say, "Black Lives Matter," that doesn't mean blue lives don't matter, it just means all lives matter, but right now the big concern is the fact that the data shows Black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents.
This isn't a matter of us comparing the value of lives, this is recognizing that there is a particular burden that is being placed on a group of our fellow citizens. And we should care about that. And we can't dismiss it. We can't dismiss it.
So let me just end by saying, I actually, genuinely, truly believe that the vast majority of American people see this as a problem that we should all care about. And I would just ask those who question the sincerity or the legitimacy of protests and vigils and expressions of outrage, who somehow label those expressions of outrage as, quote, unquote, "political correctness," I'd just ask folks to step back and think, what if this happened to somebody in your family? How would you feel?
To be concerned about these issues is not political correctness, it's just being American and wanting to live up to our best and highest ideals. And it's to recognize the reality that we've got some tough history and we haven't gotten through all of that history yet. And we don't expect that in my lifetime, maybe not in my children's lifetime, that all the vestiges of that past will have been cured, will have been solved, but we can do better. People of good will can do better.
And doing better involves not just addressing potential bias in the criminal justice system. It's recognizing that too often we're asking police to man the barricades in communities that have been forgotten by all of us for way too long, in terms of substandard schools and inadequate jobs and a lack of opportunity.
We've got to tackle those things. We can do better. And I believe we will do better.
All right. Thanks very much, everybody.
NOTE: The President spoke at 12:42 a.m. at the Warsaw Marriott Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Mark B. Dayton of Minnesota.
Barack Obama, Remarks on the Deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in Warsaw, Poland Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/318182


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Explore a new app that allows students to develop a more sophisticated understanding of fractions.
Anderson Norton, email@example.com, is an associate professor of mathematics education in the mathematics department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia. His research focuses on building psychological models of students' mathematics.


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Best of the Best Attorneys
Law Practiced At A Higher Standard
This honor is reserved for those lawyers who exhibits excellence in their practice. Of the 1.3 million attorneys practicing in the United States less than .05% of Attorneys will receive this distinction. Selection to this list provides independent third-party validation of you as an attorney, your practice, and influences potential new client's hiring decisions. New clients can be assured that they are hiring the absolute Best of the Best!
–Menard Lawyers, LLC
3261 Main St
Barnstable, Massachusetts 02630
Phone: 508-437-3010


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You know you're supposed to go hands-free with your phone in the car, but did you know in some states it's illegal to wear headphones when you're driving? Is your state one of those? We teamed up with the American Automobile Association (AAA) to get to the bottom of the issue. Find out where you can rock out while you drive and where you should make sure your earbuds are out before you head down the highway.
It's not exclusively a hands-free phone issue, of course. You may also have wondered if you can wear headphones and listen to music while driving—maybe because your radio was broken, or you wanted to listen to something on your phone but had no way to hook it up to your speakers, or maybe because you saw someone else driving with earbuds in and wondered "Hey, is that legal?!"
In some states, wearing headphones is perfectly legal; in others, it's 100% illegal; and in many states, the law is a little less clear cut—for example, in some states it's only legal to wear headphones in one ear, but not two.
Click your state on the interactive map below to see what the law says where you live.
Is It Legal to Wear Headphones While Driving?
Click on any state for details
If the map above isn't displaying correctly in your browser or you just want a copy to save for later, click here to download the map as an image instead.
Many thanks to the AAA for their help with this post. They point out—and we agree—that regardless of the legality of wearing headphones in your state, listening to music on headphones while driving is a distraction, and can impair your ability to hear the sirens from emergency vehicles nearby and other important traffic sounds that would be audible if you were only listening to the radio. They point out that a headphone cable across your lap could become tangled and present a steering hazard. Whatever you choose to do, make sure you take the law, your safety, and the safety of others on the road into account first.


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Tender, Swollen, Bleeding Gums? What You Need to Know Before It's Too Late!
As children, missing a few teeth was considered cute. The prospect of money under your pillow from the tooth fairy even made losing a tooth exciting.
It's safe to say, as an adult, losing teeth is not something anyone looks forward to. If you knew you were putting yourself at risk of a toothless smile in the future, you'd want to do everything you could to prevent it, right?
"I brush and floss (almost) every day, isn't that enough to keep my teeth from falling out?"
Brushing and flossing are very important to maintaining healthy teeth and gums. Very few people floss as often as needed to prevent bacteria from growing. It's important to realize gingivitis can develop in as few as 24 hours! While excellent home care is the most important step to preventing gum disease, there are many risk factors.
In addition to age, these factors can increase your risk for gum disease:
- Poor nutrition or eating habits
- Being overweight
- Smoking or tobacco use
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Skipping dental cleanings
- Medications
- Family history
- Stress
- Hormone fluctuations
- Grinding or clenching teeth
- Diabetes
- Cardiovascular disease
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Osteoporosis or osteopenia
"Wouldn't it be obvious if I had gum disease?"
The American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) [www.perio.org] estimates approximately three out of four Americans suffer from some form of gum disease and only a very small percentage seek treatment. You can have gum disease with very few – sometimes no symptoms or pain at all – until it's progressed to very advanced stages!
Symptoms of advanced gum disease include:
- Bad breath that won't go away
- Red or swollen gums
- Tender or bleeding gums
- Painful chewing
- Loose teeth
- Sensitive teeth
- Receding gums
The only sure way to know if you have gum disease, what stage the disease may be, and to develop a plan of action to stop the progression and attempt to repair any damage that's already been done is to have a comprehensive periodontal evaluation by a licensed dental professional.
If you live or work in or around Seattle Dentist, Dr. Fidler can help. Even if it's been years since you've had a dental exam, we can develop a plan to save or preserve your smile, before it's too late. Your future self will thank you!


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Please fill out the following form in order to ask a question.
Wordpress today is the most capable platform for building websites without needing to write code. Wordpress allows us to rapidly build and deploy beautiful, responsive and functional websites. For even faster deployments, we use the mobirise framework.
Linux is the foundation on which all of the world's 500 top supercomputers run. It also is what powers by far most websites and servers as well as cloud services such as Amazon & Google. And it also is the core operating system on which Android runs. So Linux is by far the most prevalent and capable operating system. We've been using Linux ever since 1996 when it started to gain traction. Today it is the operating system on which we build most of our projects and services.
Namecheap.com API
For a partner we're developing a wordpress plugin to manage domains registered through namecheap.com.
Letsencrypt API
For a partner we're developing a wordpress letsencrypt plugin with which we can manage https certificates.
Stripe.com API
For a partner we're developing a Stripe payment API plugin.


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Honolulu Hawaii
- Major Airports:
- Honolulu (HNL)
- States:
- Hawaii
A laid-back tropical metropolis
Must-See Scenery
Diamond Head is an extinct volcano southeast of Honolulu near the Kahala and Kaimuki neighborhoods. The iconic cone is popular with hikers and photographers, who gain a view of the entire leeward coast of Oahu. You'll find the white sands of Waikiki Beach inviting and its calm waters perfect for surfing lessons. Beach kiosks will offer equipment and varying-length lessons, as will many hotels.
Historic Landmarks
Plan to take a tour of Iolani Palace, the sole royal residence on U.S. soil. The palace served as the home for Hawaii's last two monarchs. Cross the street to see the bronze King Kamehameha statue, which memorializes the monarch who unified the Hawaiian Islands.
Pearl Harbor, the joint military base west of Honolulu, is an emotional site and a National Historic Landmark. Daily tours are given of the USS Arizona Memorial, a battleship sunk in the 1941 attack. The 10-story Aloha Tower was erected in 1926 to welcome passenger ships arriving at Honolulu Harbor. Shop at the Aloha Tower Marketplace, a harborside complex of stores and restaurants. And greeting you with open arms at Waikiki Beach, the Duke Kahanamoku statue memorializes the Olympic medal-winning swimmer and surfer who popularized the sport worldwide.
Local Flavor
The neighborhoods of Honolulu are rich with tastes of every variety. You'll find just about anything you could crave at the hotels and resorts in the Waikiki Beach area, but if you'd like to venture farther afield, try the busy and diverse neighborhood of Kalihi. Seek out markets serving the very-Hawaiian poké, cubes of seasoned, raw fish served with pickled vegetables.
Downtown Honolulu's Chinatown has become the up-and-coming neighborhood for nightlife. The many restaurant offerings, such as dim sum and barbecued ribs, are popular in the day. At night, the 20-block neighborhood comes alive with a multitude of bars and entertainment venues.
Family Fun
From snorkeling at Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve to a helicopter tour of the island, your child will never forget a trip to Honolulu. With its renowned resorts, gorgeous beaches, surfing lessons, restaurants and luxury-brand stores, the Waikiki Beach neighborhood is full of upscale fun.
But elsewhere, children can get all wrapped up in aerial adventures on the ropes and trapezes at Samadhi Hawaii on Cooke Street, take an art class at the downtown Honolulu Museum of Art, learn about the ocean environment from instructors at Na Kama Kai classes on Waikiki, or experience ocean kayaking at Kaneohe with the Kamaaina Kids.
Fun Fact
Honolulu means "sheltered bay" in Hawaiian.


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Photo copyright Graham Collins and SCUBA Travel.
Taken on Malapascua, Cebu Island in the Philippines.
Ornate Ghostpipefish (Solenostomus paradoxus)
Back to the Philippines Diving Pictures...
Further Reading
A diver's guide to Underwater Malaysia, Andrea and Antonella Ferrari, 2003
Seahorses, Pipefishes and Their Relatives: A Comprehensive Guide to Syngnathiformes, Rudie H. Kuiter, 2003
The Underwater Photographer: Digital and Traditional Techniques, by by Martin Edge, Paperback, 536 pages (2009)


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Tsunami Response
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami , 2005-01-11
Any major tragedy in the world invokes a three-step response. The first step that is appropriate comes from the heart - compassion, prayer, sympathy. The second step that comes after that, is from the hand - we need to help in various ways. The third step is from the head - we need to think about it.
Unedited Transcript:
We have put out two messages in response to the tsunami. We have a general one on our website, which I am sure you have all seen. This is a more specialized one, written to go out to Sri Lankan Tamil temples. It talks more about Yogaswami. We don't have any quotes from Yogaswami on the one on our website. It is more specific. So, I thought I would share that this morning but first of all, introduce it (in a very,) as an overview. So, in terms of response to the tsunami or any major tragedy in the world, a simple way of thinking about it is, a three-step response. (One,) Step one, step two, step three.
The first step that is appropriate comes from the heart - compassion, prayer, sympathy. The second step that is appropriate that comes after that is from the hand - we need to help in various ways. The third step is from the head - we need to think about it. What does this mean? Philosophically, am I OK with this? Are my beliefs shaken here? Is my philosophy alright? Do I have a solid way of encompassing this or in a way that is really discouraging to me? Sometimes, we get discouraged by events and we don't even realize it because from our head or from our philosophy, we haven't really encompassed them - (About,)how that could happen or why that could happen, how can I look at that.
So, that is the 3-step response. The heart, the hand and the head. Easy to remember. So, let me read.
Over the last few days, I have been asked by a number of individuals to share some thoughts on the massive global destruction and death caused by the South Asia Tsunami that ravaged such a large part of the world in the last days of 2004.
The first and foremost response, of course, is the need to awaken our compassion and offer our prayerful thoughts to those who have passed on and give expression, inwardly and outwardly, to our deep-felt sympathy for the relatives and friends who survived.
That is the heart. The first response.
The natural second response is to provide practical help as millions face the challenges of the aftermath of this awesome natural catastrophe, the worst in our lifetime. I have noticed a remarkable welling up of such support among devotees of the monastery and the general public in many countries, and seen people go to extraordinary lengths to collect medical supplies, raise funds at work and even offer to fly to the affected areas to provide succor with their own hands. These are life-saving, life-affirming reactions, for without the generous financial and in-kind donations that reach the affected areas many more could die in the days ahead for lack of food, medical supplies, temporary shelter and sanitary water.
So, that is the hand. The hand comes in three time frames. First is immediate, immediate help.
Medium term, communities need to be rebuilt and resources provided to individuals to enable them to resume supporting themselves through their chosen occupation. For the longer term, governments need to ponder the issues of providing effective warning systems, such as currently exist in the countries in the Pacific Ocean region, to protect their populations against future tsunamis, and to better prepare their populations for any large-scale disaster, whether from earthquakes, storms, droughts or other threats to security. On all levels, we need to learn from this experience, so we face our next massive threat better.
So, that is the hand. It is interesting that lots of the damage, at least in Sri Lanka, was caused to people living too close to the ocean, building too close to the ocean. We have been in touch with the ideas of rebuilding there and it seems the Sri Lankan Government is coming out with a new law that you cannot build within 300 meters, approximately 300 hundred yards, of the ocean. That is a very simple way of protecting the population in the long run, against similar disasters.
Now, we move on to the head.
On the personal level, major disasters in the world cause everyone to stop and think--think about ourselves, our family, friends, community, nation and the world itself. If our faith is not strong, our thoughts can be of a negative nature. You have heard people wondering aloud why God would allow such a thing to happen, why good people are suffering so, how can there even be a God if such tragedy can occur on Earth? However, if our faith is strong, then our reflections and our reactions remain positive.
From the Hindu point of view, our soul is eternal and through its many lives on Earth undergoes a variety of experiences - many joyful, others sorrowful - but benefits spiritually from all experience, whether seemingly good or bad. Gurudeva, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, boldly proclaimed that everything is as it should be, including the occurrence of major disasters. "When a large group of people pass on to the inner world," says Gurudeva,"drop off their physical body unexpectedly through a natural disaster, it is called a group karma. They were all born to have this experience at the same time in togetherness."
Paramaguru Yogaswami of Jaffna many years ago foresaw the difficult times that Tamils in Sri Lanka have faced for over two decades. He expressed his advise on how to cope with these adverse situations in his Natchintanai song, Nalluran Tiruvadi: "Even if war and famine come and the world is burnt to ashes, shall we know any fear, O Parrot? Arumukam is our refuge." In other verses in his Natchintanai, Yogaswami stresses that the atma is eternal and states that Murugan is our protection and clinging to his holy feet will cause all distress and anguish to disappear. Yogaswami's sagely advise is clear - difficulties are a part of life on this planet and the sorrow they bring can be overcome through the worship of Lord Murugan.
Those with strong faith when confronting a major disaster such as the recent tsunami have the ability to step back from life's daily routine and look more deeply at themselves to see if there are changes they could make to add deeper meaning to their life. The physical and psychic power of this tsunami offers such thoughtful people an opportunity to examine and change their own lives, for life-changing moments are rare and often provoked by something bigger than us.
Perhaps there are changes you have been considering for years but always end up putting off. Now is the time to implement them. Perhaps there are new patterns of life, new habits, new commitments that can take root at this rare moment in our personal and global history. Perhaps our love for family members needs to be verbalized more often. Now is the moment to begin. Perhaps we have plans to improve our community. Now is the time to set these plans in motion. Perhaps we have always wanted to deepen our spiritual efforts and expand our charitable work. Now is the time to make such ideals real.
In all these ways, we can take the energy surrounding this catastrophe and transmute it into something that benefits our lives, our family's lives and our community, rather than diminishes them. As Gurudeva would often say, "It matters less what happens to you in life than how you react to all that happens."
Aum Namah Sivaya! Thank you.


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Surely part of my love for tennis springs from our abiding agreement on the superiority of white.
This is one of the Stella McCartney for Adidas Barricade dresses. There are a few similar styles, slight variations on this, featuring fitted torsos, flared skirts, asymmetrical netting details and stylish cutouts. Most are straight dresses (nothing built in) that come with a matching white bra and shorts. It's a lovely, basic shape with interest created in the texture of the netting and the asymmetrical seaming.
This one features an oval cutout in the back that's a nice surprise (which proved impossible to capture with my phone…).
I appreciate this kind of designer collaboration. It adds a great injection of style to the host brand yet (usually) at a much friendlier price than the designer brand. So many compliments on the court wearing this.
Above: New Balance shoes, Wilson racket. There's a white visor going on as well.
Anybody else watching the U.S. Open?


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Well, it's official— and let the bloodbath begin.
Texas has been growing (this we knew), but by enough to mean that we will get 4 new Congressional seats. Much of our growth has been occurring in suburbs and exurbs, and we've been losing relative population in rural areas, so it will be interesting to see how our Congressional and Legislative seats are reapportioned.
How these district lines will be drawn are now up to the Legislature, who will draw the maps that they, themselves, will run in. Obviously, this creates a serious conflict of interest, as instead of having voters choose their representatives, we have representatives choosing their voters.
Some have guessed that the sudden party switch of the now-tilde-less Rep. Aaron Pena may be due to his desire to run for Congress– getting a seat at the table to carve up a custom-made Congressional seat would certainly make that tempting. And this is exactly the kind of problem that we have when Legislators draw their own districts.
Given Texas' troubled history with redistricting, including but not limited to the illegal redistricting plan forced through the Lege by Tom DeLay and the subsequent flight of Democratic lawmakers to Oklahoma, it is time for Texas to do the right thing and move to a system of independent redistricting.
Many states have adopted this vital reform, and Texas has considered this before, including bills in the last Legislative session by Rep. Mark Strama, a Democrat, and Senator Jeff Wentworth, a Republican.
The problem is, partisan politics is getting in the way of what is a bipartisan-supported reform measure. Neither party wants to give up the possibility of being able to control redistricting, as Democrats believe demographic changes are moving in their favor, and Republicans think they can maintain control over a traditionally conservative state. As to who is right and who is wrong, I don't care. But both parties need to be less like the partisan animals they so often can be, and more like Frodo. (please forgive my nerd birdwalk here, but it illustrates an important point)
Frodo didn't want to get rid of the ring of power, and it corrupted him, but he needed to get rid of it. Unfortunately, when faced with the choice and standing at the precipice, he failed to make the right choice. He had to have the ring forcibly taken from him, and cast into the fire. I hate to compare "the people" to Gollum, but that's what we have to do– bit the ring of power off of our leaders' fingers and destroy it forever, so they can deal with more important issues, like, oh, say, $20-$25 billion dollar deficits and such.
Whatever bloodletting occurs over the upcoming redistricting fight (and there will be a fight), it ought to be accompanied by a bipartisan support for an independent, non-partisan redistricting plan.
And for a little bit more fun:


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Weidman the clear underdog in rematch with Silva
It didn't take long for Anderson Silva to change his mind about his fighting future.
Just moments after being knocked out by Chris Weidman in the main event of UF 162, the long-time middleweight champion said he no longer wanted to fight for the title, and a rematch with Weidman wouldn't be happening.
A week later, the rematch has already been booked.
Weidman will make his first title defense against Silva as the main event of UFC 168 on Dec. 28 in Las Vegas.
The champion, Weidman, is the clear underdog in the rematch, as many feel Silva can beat Weidman as long as he doesn't clown around.
It is not often that a champion comes into a fight, especially a rematch against an opponent he already beat, as the clear underdog.
Only a few come to mind when it comes to title fights.
Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre at UFC 83: Serra shocked the world by winning the UFC Middlweight Championship, beating GSP at UFC 69, but most looked at the win as a fluke. Serra did little to fight off those opinions in the rematch, as St. Pierre dominated the bout and finished him off with body shots in under 10 minutes.
Frankie Edgar vs. B.J. Penn at UFC 118: Edgar won a controversial decision over Penn at UFC 112 for the UFC Lightweight Championship, and shocked the MMA world just by lasting 25 minutes with Penn. Many expected a motivated Penn to come out and run through Edgar in the rematch, but the opposite happened. Edgar fought a nearly flawless 25 minutes and earned the decisive decision over Penn. It was a fight that put Edgar on the map and forever dethroned Penn as the king of the lightweights.
Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski at UFC 61: It was at UFC 59 that Arlovski looked to be set to successfully defend his UFC Heavyweight Championship against Syliva. He had rocked the challenger with a big hand that sent Sylvia crashing to the mat. However, Sylvia got up, and as Arlovski was in a flurry trying to finish the fight, Sylvia caught Arlovski right on the button and finished him for the shocking comeback win. Months later, the two had the immediate rematch and many expected Arlovski to get the best of Sylvia, but that didn't happen. In a rather tame fight, Sylvia won a 25-minute decision. Arlovski was too timid and seemed to be afraid of getting knocked out. The former champion never seemed to be the same fighter after losing to Sylvia.


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The Avengers
When an unexpected enemy emerges and threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins!
Track 34 trackers | Status: Released | Release Date: 2012-04-25 | Rating: 7.715


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Mansion on Main
Yesterday we official visited one of the historic homes on the "Year of the Virginia Historical Homes" tour. We have seen many that are on the list, but this is the first one that we will get to count on our "Master Traveler Passport". To see this home, your tour starts at the antique store just behind the house. The mansion's owner, Betty Clark, owns this wonderful store called "Mansion House Art and Antiques".
As you enter this beautiful antique store, you are greeted by so many wonderful things. The "Official Greeter" Chloe, stands guard and greets those who stop by.
In every corner of this store are treasures of days go by. Lovingly displayed, it is hard not to purchase each item. Two antique cars, silver and beautiful paintings are at every turn. The delicate china is laid out on the table in wait for guest to arrive.
One phone call later, we were sent to the back door of the Mansion through the back garden. Poor Brett had to stop almost every two steps as I took pictures of garden and outdoor sitting areas. We were greeted by Dawn, the innkeeper. She was wonderful and provided us with lots of history of the home.
This beautiful Queen Ann style Victorian is located in downtown Smithfield, Virginia. This home, nicknamed the "Mansion on Main" is the showplace home of Richard Samuel Thomas (1837-1915). The urban home was built in 1889 and changed the face of Smithfield from Victorian cottage and federal style homes to the "trend-setting" urban architecture with Queen Anne and Art Nouveau influences.
The home stand proudly on the corner edge of the original colonial roads and is at the top of Wharf Hill, a thriving port on the Pagan River. Attorney and town historian Richard S. Thomas made the showpiece his home and business office.
Richard S. Thomas and his wife Frances Boykin Jordan Thomas were connected to several other Smithfield historic properties and their preservation. The Thomas brothers dedicated stain glass windows at St. Luke Church in honor of two ancestors who were "vestrymen" (lay leaders) in the 1750s. One of the vestrymen was Jordan Thomas. He was not only Richard S. Thomas's ancestor but also the county surveyor who mapped out Smithfield's first streets.
In 1873, the elder brother of Richard S. Thomas purchase the 1750 Courthouse, which was the first building erected in the new Town of Smithfield.
An older Thomas brother converted the colonial plantation called "The Grove" into a boarding house. The elder brother of Richard S. Thomas inherited Four Square Plantation, which was started in 1693.
Due to the endless efforts of Richard S. Thomas to preserve the historical sites of Smithfield, the Virginia Historical Society bestowed on him the title of "a Virginian of Virginians". Their remarks were "Only a sketch, en silhouette, can we give of another devoted friend of this Society, Richard S. Thomas of Smithfield, whose most salient characteristic, if we may term it so, was his devotion to Virginia… Steeped in Colonial lore, a first-and student of Virginia records, he was an enthusiastic member of this Society, and published several valuable monographs, which brought him no small reputation among scholars… We, who knew him long and well, entertain no misgivings that we yield him the tribute that he himself would have most prized when we say simply that he lived and died "a Virginian of Virginians." ["Proceedings of the Virginia Historical Society at its Annual Meeting held in the House of the Society on February 25, 1915," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 23, xxxi – xxxiii]
The Mansion was a private residence for many years. In the late 1995, Sala Clark purchased this historical home and started restoring it with the idea of opening a bed and breakfast. On hearing the nickname, she christened it the "Mansion on the Main" Bed and Breakfast. Sadly Sala Clark would pass away in 1998. Although Sala Clark did not live to see the restoration completed, her vision and efforts resurrected a place that offers the romantic beauty of a bygone era. Her mother, Betty Clark continues to oversee the property as a bed and breakfast in memory of Sala.
The Mansion was the first house in the Historic District to return to authentic "Painted Lady" splendor. The museum-like interior retains original marble finish fireplaces and heart pine floors and is resplendent with furnishings dating from the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Extensive intricate hand carved woodwork crafted by European artisans is exhibited in plaster crown moldings and medallions, a grand staircase, pocket doors, and wainscot. Today, the mansion features museum-quality antiques and Victorian to Edwardian period furnishings.
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MIT Researchers Help Create Best-Yet Map Of Mars' Terrain
- Date:
- May 31, 1999
- Source:
- Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
- Summary:
- Researchers have known for some time that Mars has a deep dent in its southern hemisphere. Until recent measurements yielded a highly accurate, global map of the red planet's topography, they didn't know that the Hellas basin could swallow Mt. Everest, or that the asteroid that caused the crater hurtled debris as far as 2,500 miles across the planet's surface.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Researchers have known for some time that Mars has a deep dent in its southern hemisphere. Until recent measurements yielded a highly accurate, global map of the red planet's topography, they didn't know that the Hellas basin could swallow Mt. Everest, or that the asteroid that caused the crater hurtled debris as far as 2,500 miles across the planet's surface.
"Probably the most unexpected finding was how much the Hellas impact basin dominates the topography of the southern hemisphere," said Maria Zuber, Griswold Professor of Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another major finding is the planet's dramatic slope from its south to north pole. This would have significantly affected water transport and cycles on the planet, she said, leading to ponding of water in certain places.
Zuber and three other MIT researchers are part of a team of 20 scientists who created a global grid of Mars based on data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), an instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Their work, published in today's (May 28) issue of the journal Science, is expected to lead to new insights about how Mars evolved over the past 4 billion years.
The map is expected to give scientists the basis for years' worth of further exploration and definition of the red planet. "The most significant aspect of the data is that it is going to allow us to reconstruct the evolution of the planet," Zuber said. "From the shape of the surface and information on gravity, magnetics and surface composition, we can model the internal structure and the planet's thermal evolution. These models bear closely on the history of climate and water.
"It is going to take some work, but the potential is there to construct and evaluate models of the planet as a global system. This is an extraordinary opportunity to study how the different parts of a planet influence and are affected by other parts," she said.
Dramatic shifts in terrain
Mars has the highest mountains and deepest craters of any of the terrestrial planets. There is a big contrast in elevation between the mostly flat northern hemisphere and the heavily cratered southern hemisphere, which sits on average three miles higher than the north. The topography of Mars has a 30-kilometer (19-mile) dynamic range, one and a half times that found on Earth, said David Smith of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, principal investigator for MOLA and lead author of the study.
Researchers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the Carnegie Institute of Washington (D.C.), Washington and Brown universities, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, both in Pasadena, worked on the map. MIT researchers Gordon Pettengill, professor emeritus of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS); EAPS research scientist Gregory Neumann and EAPS graduate student Oded Aharonson are part of the team.
The high-resolution map represents 27 million measurements gathered during March and April this year and summer 1998. Each elevation point is known with an accuracy of about six feet in the flat northern hemisphere to 42 feet elsewhere. The level of detail is made possible by MOLA, which works by sending and receiving infrared laser pulses.
Zuber said that even though the researchers designed MOLA to be very accurate, they were nonetheless "rather startled at how well we have been able to measure the elevations. The topography of Mars is now known in a global sense better than many areas of Earth's continents. And we have not yet implemented the most advanced post-processing techniques, so the values are going to get better yet." MOLA continues to collect about 900,000 elevation measurements daily during the ongoing Mars Global Surveyor mission.
The data will be used, among other things, to assess where NASA's Mars Polar Lander mission will set down this winter.
A deep impact
"Before our map, it was known that Hellas was a big hole. But we believe that we have identified evidence that the material excavated from the basin was deposited in a mile-high ring that extends out to 2,500 miles from the center of the basin," Zuber said. "This material contributes significantly to the high elevation of the southern hemisphere and underscores the role of major impacts in shaping the early surfaces of the solid planets."
The volcanic Tharsis province includes the Olympus Mons volcanic shield, which shoots up nearly 17 miles. This area is in sharp contrast with the Hellas impact basin -- six miles deep and 1,400 miles across -- that was probably caused by an asteroid. The basin is surrounded by a ring of material that was ejected from it that would cover the United States with a 2-mile-deep layer.
The MOLA data suggest that the elliptical northern hemisphere depression was likely shaped by vigorous convection of the planet's mantle or tectonic plate recycling during the planet's formative stages.
The dramatic slope from Mars' south to north poles would have influenced the predominant way water flowed early in Martian history. The northern hemisphere's lowlands would have drained three-quarters of the Martian surface, but the map shows there are local areas, such as within the massive Valles Marineris canyon system, where Mars' limited water supply may have formed ponds, Zuber said.
MOLA was designed and built by the Laser Remote Sensing Branch of the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at Goddard. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA, a division of the California Institute of Technology. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, which developed and operates the spacecraft.
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Materials provided by Massachusetts Institute Of Technology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
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Published on Sep 19, 2023
The objective:
My objective is to test if there was higher mortality of Pinyon Pines on steeper slopes and on hotter slopes (south aspect) during the last drought. Steeper slopes have greater water runoff and south aspects have the highest insolation.
At a site in pinyon-juniper woodlands I set up 16 random plots, four in each aspect. I counted the number of trees and recorded if they were alive or dead and measured the slope they grew on using a contractor's level and a protractor.
I added the results for each aspect and slope to the results from my project last year and then used a Chi-square Goodness of Fit Test to see if the differences among slopes and among aspects were significant. I also compared the differences in mortality at last year's site with this year's site to see if the sites differ.
The south aspect had the highest tree mortality (67%), followed by north (56%), east (38%) and west (30%). The differences were significant (chi-square = 9.67). The least steep slope, 0-15 degrees, had the greatest mortality (67%) followed by the 16-30 degree slope (36%) and last was the steepest slope (29%).
These differences were significant (chi-square = 7.61). At the 2005 site 54% of the trees were dead but at the 2004 site 46% were dead. The differences between the two sites were not significant (chi-square = 0.68).
My hypothesis that the hotter south aspect would have the highest mortality was correct. My hypothesis that the steepest slope would have the highest mortality was wrong, the least steep slope had the highest mortality.
There were more trees and shrubs on the least steep slope that might have competed for water. Even though the two sites were not significantly different, by adding data from the two together I increased the sample size and got different results than from one site alone.
The project looked at how slope and aspect might have affected mortality of Pinyon Pine trees during the drought.