text:
Over the past two years, I've lived in six cities in two states — Arizona, New York — and the District of Columbia. And one of the first things I always notice about each new place is the street harassment.
Manhattan and Brooklyn were rough. During my first week of work in Manhattan, a tall man in a coat said "good morning, baby" to me as he masturbated. Calls of "hey baby" were almost as common as "good morning." In Phoenix, I got harassed in my car during rush hour gridlock with honks, "heys" and sexually explicit gestures. And during my first month interning with NPR in Washington, D.C., I was honked at, leered at, "hey baby'ed" and, once, even followed to work.
I'm not alone. A 2014 survey commissioned by , a nonprofit that works to document and end street harassment, showed that 65 percent of all women in the U.S. said they had experienced street harassment. In the 2,000-person nationally representative poll, 23 percent of U.S. women said they'd been touched and 20 percent had been followed. Among men, about a quarter surveyed said they had been harassed on the street.
It seemed to me that in a country where a carbonated drink is known as soda, coke or pop, depending on where you are, there might be some regional differences in the language of sexual harassment as well. After all, people say "howdy" a whole lot more in my hometown of Hereford, Ariz., than they do in New York City.
Through a social media callout on NPR, we asked people to share their experiences of street harassment, and received more than 200 responses.
In Cincinnati, Ohio, a man yelped "Damn girl," at Rebecca Vachon. In Chicago, Ill., Stephanie Pelzer was walking by when a man yelled, "Oh damn baby, damn you sexy thing." Meredith Young was on her way to work in Washington, D.C., when a man stopped to say, "Damn, look at the a** on that thing."
Turns out that just as with the phenomenon of street harassment, the language of street harassment is pretty consistent across the country.
Holly Kearl, the founder and executive director of Stop Street Harassment, says that common words and actions from street harassers are virtually the same across the entire U.S. — and even around the globe.
"I was shocked to find women have similar experiences with harassment in different places of the world, not just regions in the U.S.," she said, noting that the language - and actions - is pretty consistent among all harassers. "I'm like, 'Is there some school [harassers] are all going to? What is going on?'"
Words such as "damn" and "baby" are among the most common kinds of street harassment, as are sexual gestures, honks and whistles.
Benjamin Bailey, an associate professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst who researches street remarks, says one reason for this consistency is because harassers use vague language so they can easily deny they meant any harm.
"My most striking finding is mostly it's 'hi,' 'hi beautiful,' 'hi sweetie,'" Bailey says. "Very boring, surely sexist, but the vast majority of [street harassment] are these subtle things that are appropriate in other contexts and give an out to that person."
The harasser can say, "I was just saying hi!" — which makes it harder for the victim to speak out against them, Bailey says.
Bailey says he thinks these men want attention, and there are limited ways of doing that. "And if you do it in a way that, on the surface, is culturally appropriate, such as 'greeting,' you don't seem to be trespassing so much."
"You have this subtle way of reproducing the patriarchy," Bailey says. "It's hard to fight back against. The threats of violence and extremely offensive ones exist, but 95 percent are these other things."Unless you're like Erin Petersen in Baltimore, who experienced both in the same incident: A man tried to get her attention with "Hey!"s until finally he gave up when she didn't respond — and called her a "stupid b****" and a "dumb c***."
In cities, people are often harassed by strangers on the street or during gridlock in their cars. That leads many people to believe that street harassment is mostly an urban problem, says Kearl of Stop Street Harassment.
It isn't.
A survey of 612 women from 2000 found that women in all areas experience street harassment: 90 percent in rural areas, 88 percent in suburban areas, and 87 percent in urban areas.
Kearl describes one woman's experience in Alaska. This woman lived in a very small town — there was one general store in the entire area. Men would linger outside the store and harass women as they entered and exited.
"The difference is that in Alaska that's the only store they can go to," Kearl said. "So there's some regional differences like that, but the actual harassment is pretty much the same."
So whether it's walking alone to the corner store in a small town in Alaska or returning home after a night out in New York City, women are likely to hear the same catcalls and experience the same harassment.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
St. Andrews Presbyterian College
by James I. Martin Sr., 2006; Revised December 2021
See also: Elise Academy and High School; Flora MacDonald College.
St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg was preceded by a number of institutions with ties to the Presbyterian Church. They include Donaldson Academy and Labor School, which was founded in Fayetteville in 1833 and existed in some capacity until 1883; Floral College; and Flora MacDonald College, previously called Red Springs Seminary (1896-1903) and Southern Presbyterian College and Conservatory of Music (1903-14). Other predecessors to St. Andrews included Elise Academy in Robbins, which came under the jurisdiction of the Fayetteville Presbytery in 1904 and remained open until 1940; and Presbyterian Junior College for Men (1929), an offshoot of Elise Academy located at Maxton.
Flora MacDonald and Presbyterian Junior College merged in 1958 to form what would become St. Andrews Presbyterian College, named for the University of St. Andrews (founded in 1411), the premier Christian university of Scotland. The new institution, briefly called the Consolidated Presbyterian College, was situated on 800 acres of land south of Laurinburg. St. Andrews formally opened in 1961 and soon acquired a reputation for innovative curricula and facilities. Its Christianity and Culture Program included courses in European history, non-Western cultures, American studies, and futurism. The late 1970s witnessed the implementation of the St. Andrews General Education Program, which sought to integrate elements of the Christianity and Culture Program with more consideration of world affairs. The college augmented its preprofessional offerings as well as majors in business administration, mathematics, natural sciences, and psychology. In 1978 the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction designated St. Andrews as the campus for the Governor's School East.
In 1985 St. Andrews began conducting overseas programs in Beijing, China; Cuenca, Ecuador; and Brunnenburg Castle, Italy; the school also has exchange arrangements with Kansai Gaidai University in Japan and Han Nam University in Korea. In 1989 the Scottish Heritage Center was established in the school's DeTamble Library. In the early 2000s curricular offerings included Equine Business Management and Therapeutic Riding. Enrollment was approximately 700 students served by 83 faculty members. The college boasts an award-winning pipe band, a four-time national champion equestrian team, and St. Andrews College Press, the first undergraduate college press in the country.
St. Andrews Presbyterian College changed its name to St. Andrews University in 2011, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the college's opening in 1961.
Robert F. Davidson, Adventures in Ideas and Values (1984).
Roy Parker Jr., Cumberland County: A Brief History (1990).
Ruth J. Trivette, The Merging of the Gaels: A History of the Fayetteville Presbytery, 1813-1983 (1987).
Additional Resources:
St. Andrew's University Yearbooks: https://lib.digitalnc.org/search?ln=en&p=691:%22St.+Andrews+University%22%20AND%20655:%22Yearbooks%22&sf=year&so=a
"St. Andrews to become a University." [2011]. https://www.sapc.edu/PDF/2011/092211sau.php (accessed November 20, 2014).
Image Credit:
"Presbyterian Junior College." Photo courtesy of St. Andrews Presbyterian College History website. Available from #aboutsa/history.php (accessed May 2, 2012).
1 January 2006 | Martin, James I., Sr.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
By using the TweakFS Online Shop you agree to adhere to the following terms and conditions:
General Conditions
* Accounts that are fraudulent or lack credible information (fake names, addresses, etc.) will be deleted without notice.
# The secure link must have the "https://www.paypal.com" as part of the address. Also check that the SSL secure "padlock" is displayed on your web browser status bar as further confirmation that you have accessed the genuine PayPal web address (Please note: For performance reasons the TweakFS product information pages are non-secured, however after being redirected to the PayPal site for your own protection you must verify it is secure, this is always a good practice and something we strongly recommend).
To view our strict privacy policy please see the Privacy Notice page.
All products, images and text on this site are Copyright of TweakFS or their respective authors. Unauthorized copying and distribution is prohibited and all content on this site is protected by US and International Copyright law.
As a customer you are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the information provided for the setting up and accessing of your account. Any account that has been verified as fraudulent will be terminated without notice. Any persons under the age of 18 must have parental/guardian consent to open an account. You must not pass on your login information to any third party. This site and its download links are monitored and any attempt to abuse this system will also result in the termination of the account.
The base currency for transactions on this site is the US dollar (US$). When being transferred to the PayPal secure payment page the total figure will be displayed in US dollars and the payment page may offer the option to view the amount in another currency. However, any other currency quoted on the TweakFS Shop site is only meant as a comparative guide, we do not update the exchange rates on a daily basis.
Try Before You Buy - Free Demo Software
All TweakFS products sold on this site are released as fully-working demos, usually with a time limitation. While this exposes us to piracy and increases development time, with little perceivable revenue benefits, we insist on folks having the opportunity to evaluate the software before committing to a purchase.
There is no difference between the demo and the full product - they are one and the same. Usually they are unlocked with a registration key which is downloaded immediately after purchase (if paying with PayPal), or in some cases delivered via email within 24 hours (in the case of certain products that indicate "Registration Delivered Via Email"). Please try the free demo or sample before purchasing, we want you to be a satisfied customer.
Refunds Policy
Due to our practice of providing free working demos, refund requests by TweakFS customers are a rare occurrence. However, at times it may be necessary, please see our Refunds Policy for more information.
Downloadable Products
We recommend making a personal backup of the purchased software and registration for future installation purposes. However, hard drive failures and data loss are a reality so as a service to our customers this store will preserve the links to your purchased products so you may download again at any time.
If you agree to these terms you may go to the Create New Account page


text:
Required Reading
- What's Your Problem with Joe Biden?
- Dirty Rubles: An Introduction to Trump/Russia (My New Book)
- Youth for the President
- A Summary of the Conspiracy Against the United States
- Trump: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Part 3)
- Postcards from the Resistance, Vol. 8: Mother of All
- From Lance Armstrong to Trump: The Rise & Fall of the Deified Narcissist
- Reading Malcolm X in Texas
- Playing the Donald Trump Game
- President Rapist: Women Under Trump
- An Open Letter to My Fellow Liberals
- The Democrats Can't Win If They Won't Fight
Please Visit:
Tag Archives: Theon Greyjoy
Game of Thrones: Hurts So Good
Game of Thrones is the ultimate in horror, Tom Gualtieri says. Continue reading
Posted in Literature, Popular Culture, The Arts
Tagged A Song of Ice and Fire, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Cersei Lannister, D.B. Weiss, Daenerys Targaryen, David Benioff, Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jack Gleeson, Joffrey Lannister, Lena Headey, Maisie Williams, Mother of Dragons, Ned Stark, Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, Red Wedding, Rory McCann, Sansa Stark, Sean Bean, Sophie Turner, The Exorcist, The Last House on the Left, Theon Greyjoy, Tyrion Lannister
Leave a comment


text:
Take precautions against potential allergy attacks before you travel to enjoy a pleasant flight.
Food allergies
Foods which are often associated with allergies are dairy, nuts and seafood. However, foods which cause allergies vary from person to person.
Hay fever
If you suffer from hay fever, check the weather forecast before traveling and take the necessary precautions. You can wear a pollen mask in the seasons which affect you most severely.
Pet allergies
Before traveling ask whether or not an animal has been given permission to be in the cabin. If an animal is traveling on the same flight as you, please make us aware so we can seat you a sufficient distance away.
Other allergies
Disinfect your hands regularly while traveling and reduce the risk of any possible respiratory infection. If you have an allergy to feathers or wool, do not use the pillow or blanket provided in-flight.
Dust allergies
This allergy is caused by microorganisms in stuffy environments and can irritate the respiratory system. If you find yourself in a stuffy environment, ventilate it as much as possible. Washing your nose thoroughly before traveling can help relax your respiratory system.
Allergies in children
Before traveling with children, be sure to take all necessary precautions for their allergies.


text:
Art & Design
The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
There is a huge, over-lifesize photograph of Gertrude Stein and her family at the entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition, The Steins Collect. From the left, it shows Leo Stein wearing what appears to be a Stetson hat, a bemused Gertrude with her hand resting on the shoulder of her nephew, Allan, a family friend named Theresa Ehrman in the center, with Gertrude's sister-in-law, Sarah Stein, and her elder brother, Michael Stein on the right.
The photo was taken in Paris in 1905. It shows what appears to be a happy American family at the turn of the 20th century. They are posed, seemingly, during a brief interval of a visit to the City of Light. The Steins, however, were no ordinary American family. Their vacation trips to Europe turned into sojourns that lasted for most of the remainder of their lives.
The Steins spent much of their time and a considerable amount of their wealth purchasing avant-garde art by visionary painters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. But as one commentator, Henry McBride of the New York Sun, later said of Gertrude, the Steins "collected geniuses rather than masterpieces."
Leo Stein (1872-1947) played the key role of initiating the family quest for modern art. A brilliant student at the University of California, Berkeley, followed by a short-lived enrollment at the Harvard Law School, he was unable to settle on a course of study that satisfied him. Then, in 1895-1896, globe-traveling jaunts to Japan, Egypt and Europe introduced him to the study of art.
Everywhere that Leo Stein went, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) followed. When Leo went to Harvard, Gertrude studied at Radcliffe. When Leo reached Europe on the final stage of his multi-nation journey, he sent for Gertrude to join him for a summer tour of the Rhine. Leo and Gertrude were extremely close, in age and temperament. They were soul-mates, as well as siblings, until different views of art and life strangled their once intimate bond.
Leo continued to search for a way to nurture his love of art and his desire to be painter. In 1900, during a stay at the art community in Fiesole, Italy, he struck up a friendship with Bernard Berenson, who would go on to become one of the world's greatest authorities on Renaissance art. Berenson encouraged Leo to collect the work of Paul Cézanne. Another friend, the cellist Pablo Casals, asked a pointed question that forced Leo's hand. When Leo remarked that he might have been an artist had he been born thirty years earlier, Casals asked him why he could not do so now.
Leo responded by renting a small studio and two bedroom apartment in Paris, located at 27, rue de Fleurus, near the museum of art at the Luxembourg Gardens. The address is important. When Gertrude joined him in 1903, they pooled their modest financial resources and began to buy contemporary art, including works by Cézanne. Many works by the now popular Impressionists were beyond their means, so they chose judiciously. Cézanne's Bathers, purchased from Ambrose Vollard's gallery is a prime example of the small, high quality works of art that Leo and Gertrude selected as the foundation of their collection.
Leo and Gertrude hung their newly acquired treasures on the walls of their apartment, using the paintings as a magnet to draw like-minded enthusiasts into discussions of the new art. Together they turned 27, rue de Fleurus into the epicenter of Modernism, with Saturday night salons that were a must for anyone interested in the cultural revolution now underway in Paris.
Another of the early works which Leo and Gertrude purchased was Woman with a Hat, by Henri Matisse. Leo initially reacted to Woman with a Hat, calling it "the nastiest smear of paint I had ever seen."
Why then did the Steins spend 500 francs for this controversial work? First of all, Leo was a great admirer of a crucifixion scene by the Renaissance master, Andrea Mantagna, which he characterized as a painting "with the color running through it." Leo looked with favor on bold works of art at this stage of his life.
"I wanted an adventure," Leo said of his decision to embrace the avant-garde world that was emerging with amazing force in Paris. And of course that is what his sister Gertrude was looking for too.
The second motivating factor in the purchase of Woman with a Hat was the arrival in France of Michael Stein, the eldest brother of Leo and Gertrude. Michael Stein (1865-1938) had managed the finances of the family after the death of their father, ensuring that all the Stein siblings received equal shares of the modest estate. Michael had an impressive career with the San Francisco transit authority. His visit to France, in the company of his art-loving wife, Sarah, (1870-1953) and their son, Allan, was expected to be only a short vacation. Michael and Sarah, however, experienced the same creative awakening as Leo and Gertrude. They would not leave France, except for a brief return to San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake, until 1935.
The Steins pooled their resources and bought Woman with a Hat. Soon they were purchasing many of the works of Matisse, with Michael and Sarah especially favoring his work.
Leo also led the way in adding Pablo Picasso to the Steins' collection of geniuses. In 1905, having seen a Picasso painting in a store window, Leo bought two of his works. By the standards of the day, this was a rash move, investing funds from the family's limited bank account on relatively unknown artists.
Explaining the daring additions of paintings by Matisse and Picasso to the Stein collection, Leo wrote a friend in the United States, "All our recent accessions are unfortunately by people you never heard of so there's no use trying to describe them, except that one of those out of the salon [the Matisse] made everybody laugh except a few who got mad about it and two other pictures are by a young Spaniard named Picasso whom I consider a genius of very great magnitude."
Gertrude initially was aghast at a Blue Period nude that Leo purchased, but was quickly won-over after meeting Picasso. Again, Leo and Gertrude used their limited funds to tremendous advantage, purchasing a number of signature works by Picasso. These included Boy Leading a Horse, probably the greatest work of Picasso's early, pre-Demoiselles d'Avignon career.
Once acquainted, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso got along famously. Gertrude encouraged other leaders in the Modernist movement, like Alfred Stieglitz, to promote Picasso (and Matisse), which he did in his art journal, Camera Work. Picasso, responded by painting Gertrude's portrait during 1905-06, a landmark image that secured their respective legends.
"For me, it is I, and it is the only reproduction of me which is always I, for me," Gertrude wrote about her portrait by Picasso in 1938. If ever the word "icon" can be applied to a work of modern art, this is surely an appropriate use of the term.
Gertrude's growing self-appreciation was stroked by the attention Picasso paid to her. Her portrait involved endless sittings and three major revisions of the face, which went from a profile view to the head-tilted frontality of the final state. Picasso famously changed the focus as well, basing the depiction of Gertrude on his current enthusiasm for "primitive" African masks. It was a radical departure for both painter and subject, a daring deconstruction of hallowed traditions of Western art dating back to the Renaissance. Gertrude showed her approval by aiming for the same effect with her experimental style of writing. In 1946, at her death, she bequeathed her portrait to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, making it the first Picasso in the collection of the museum.
In 1916, Matisse painted matching portraits of Michael and Sarah Stein. This was the only instance in his career that Matisse painted pendant portraits. But the circumstances were hardly to the liking of either painter or patrons. Michael and Sarah were his most enthusiastic early patrons. Their apartment at 58, rue Madam, not far from Leo and Gertrude, was said to be the best place for viewing Matisse's works except for his studio.
In July 1914, at Matisse's urging, Michael and Sarah sent nineteen of his works to an art exhibition in Berlin. When World War I broke out in August, the paintings were marooned in Germany. Even though the United States was still neutral, Michael and Sarah were unable to negotiate the return of the paintings, the cream of their collection. They opted to sell the paintings to collectors from Norway and Denmark. It was a devastating set-back. The matching portraits were Matisse's way of expressing his regret at the turn of events.
By the outbreak of World War I, the close bonds between Leo and Gertrude had snapped. In 1913, their relationship strained by the presence of Alice B. Toklas at 27, rue de Fleurus, Leo departed. The collection he shared with Gertrude was divided, the Renoirs and Cézannes going to Leo, the Picassos remaining with Gertrude.
The Metropolitan Museum documents the sibling split in a generally sensitive manner. A wall text does quote Leo's disparaging comment that he refused "to accept the later phases of Picasso with whose tendency Gertrude has so closely allied herself. . . . Both [Picasso] & Gertrude are using their intellects, which they ain't got, to do what would need the finest critical tact, which they ain't got neither, and they are in my belief turning out the most go'almighty rubbish that is to be found."
The abrasiveness of Leo's comment conceals hurt and yearnings that are beyond the scope of even a great exhibition like The Steins Collect. Fortunately, an excellent joint biography of Leo and Gertrude, Sister Brother by Brenda Wineapple, treats their parting of the ways with insight and compassion.
In the concluding galleries of the exhibit, Leo disappears from view. He married in 1921 and lived a quiet, retiring life painting and writing about art. These were the years during which Gertrude came into her own as a cultural guru. She continued to patronize Picasso, Francis Picabia and other artists. Along with her literary works, she wrote the libretto for Virgil Thompson's opera, Four Saints in Three Acts. The Metropolitan Museum exhibit concludes with newsreel footage of this revolutionary musical production which was predicted "would finish opera just as Picasso had finished oil painting."
But the most striking part of the exhibition's final galleries may well be the display of architectural plans, photos and home movies of the home built by Michael and Sarah Stein during the 1920's. They commissioned Le Corbusier to design a modernist residence in the manner of his Pavilion de l'Esprit Nouveau.
The radical, slab-sided house was subsidized by the Stein's friend, Gabrielle Colaço-Osorio, who had a separate apartment. It was built at Garches, west of Paris. Like most edifices constructed as an architectural manifesto, Villa Stein-de Monzie was extremely expensive to build. But it gave the Steins, especially Michael, the opportunity to make a final statement of their extraordinary family's devotion to art, culture and creativity.
"After having been in the vanguard of the modern movement in painting in the early years of the century," Michael Stein declared, "we are now doing the same for modern architecture."
It was a fitting valedictory for the Steins, a family that had made the collecting of modern art into a fine art in itself.
The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde February 23–June 3, 2012, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street), New York, NY 10028
Ed Voves is a freelance writer, based in Philadelphia, where he lives with his wife, the artist Anne Lloyd, and a swarm of cats who love curling up with good books.
Mr. Voves graduated with a B.A. in History from LaSalle University in 1976 and a Masters in Information Science from Drexel University in 1989. After teaching for several years with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, he worked in the news research department for "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and the "Philadelphia Daily News," 1985 to 2003. It was with the "Daily News," that he began his freelance writing, doing book reviews and author interviews with such notable figures as Umberto Eco, Maurice Sendak, and Peter O'Toole. For the "Inquirer," he specialized in reviews of major historical works. Following his time with the newspapers, he worked as an independent researcher for Knowledge@Wharton, the online journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the staff of the Free Library of Philadelphia in 2005 and is currently the branch manager of the Kingsessing Branch in southwest Philadelphia. In 2006, he began writing for the "California Literary Review." History of Yoga


text:
Many pet owners are aware of the dangers to dogs and cats in extreme heat, but the risks can be even greater during a cold snap.
With record low temperatures across the nation, and the East Coast preparing for a winter storm this week that forecasters are calling a "bomb cyclone," owners should protect their pets from freezing temperatures. A common misconception is that dogs and cats are more resistant to cold weather than humans because of their fur, according to the American Veterinary Medical Assocation.
So how cold is too cold to take dogs outside for a walk? Dr. Kim Smyth, a staff veterinarian with Petplan insurance and a pet health writer, adapted guidelines from the Tufts Animal Condition and Care system to help pet owners determine if the weather is safe.
She tells Here & Now's Robin Young that there is no one right answer for every dog, but owners should consider the size of their dog, breed and their overall health. Smaller dogs with thinner coats are more at risk, she says.
"Under 30 degrees, factoring in the wind chill, it's not going to be safe for any dog to be outside for an extended period of time," Smyth says." You can buy yourself a little bit of time with warm weather clothing," such as dog sweaters and booties to cover their paws.
Just like people, dogs are at risk of hypothermia when they are left out in the cold for prolonged periods.
"Shivering would be the first sign ... so you want to get these dogs inside, wrap them up in a warm towel or blanket and get them to the vet if you need to," Smyth says.
Not only do booties keep dogs' paws warm, but they protect paw pads from toxic chemicals on the ground, such as deicing agents and antifreeze. After a walk, owners should wipe down their dog's feet and check lighter paw pads for redness or swelling, Smyth says.
As NPR previously reported, pets are attracted to antifreeze because "ethylene glycol, the main antifreeze ingredient, is sweet, but it's also quite toxic."
A dog's age and overall health can also help determine its tolerance of cold temperatures. The AVMA suggests winter is a good time to take your dog to the vet for a checkup, so owners can be aware of any new or worsening health problems.
"Pets with diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, or hormonal imbalances (such as Cushing's disease) may have a harder time regulating their body temperature, and may be more susceptible to problems from temperature extremes," the AVMA writes on its website. "The same goes for very young and very old pets."
For outdoor cats, Smyth recommends providing an insulated shelter outside and access to water that is not frozen.
"Cats are really good at hiding, finding nice warm hiding spots, including under the hood of your car," she says. "So in the morning when you go out, before you start your car please bang on the hood, scare the cat out, so they don't get trapped in the fan."
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
Table of Contents
FIRE Letter to Wilson College President Lorna Duphiney Edmundson, May 2, 2006
President Lorna Duphiney Edmundson
Office of the President
Wilson College
1015 Philadelphia Avenue
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201
Sent via U.S. Mail and Facsimile (717-262-2046)
Dear President Edmundson:
As you can see from our Directors and Board of Advisors, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) unites leaders in the fields of civil rights and civil liberties, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of liberty, legal equality, freedom of religion, academic freedom, due process, and freedom of speech and expression on America's college campuses. Our web page, www.thefire.org, will give you a greater sense of our identity and activities.
FIRE is gravely concerned about Wilson College's attempt to punish five students for their online affiliation with a profile on the Internet community MySpace.com. The charges of slander and identity theft show an ignorance of the time-honored use of parody and a complete lack of respect for students' individual freedom of expression. Furthermore, the charge of harassment trivializes actual harassment by equating it with satirical speech and chills open expression on Wilson's campus.
This is our understanding of the facts. Please inform us if you believe we are in error. In late January, 2006, students Kathryn Webber, Daniella Care, Miranda Fuller, Jacinta Reeder, and Ashley Culligan all received e-mail messages inviting them to become "friends" with a profile for Selena Robinson on MySpace.com. Robinson—the director of the Women with Children program at Wilson, in which all five students are enrolled—says she did not create the profile herself. All five students also deny creating the profile, and report that the profile was blank when they first accepted the invitations. Throughout February and March, satirical information, such as Wilson College's Dean of Students being listed as Robinson's personal hero, was added to Robinson's profile.
In late March, the MySpace profile apparently came to the attention of Robinson and of Wilson administrators. All five students received e-mails from Robinson herself on March 28 notifying them that they were "formally being charged with slander, identity theft and blatant disregard to the honor code (respect the dignity of all
persons, the rights and property of others and demonstrate concern for others' feelings and their needs for conditions which support their work and development)."
Students report that a Joint Honor Council (JHC) hearing was held on the matter from April 4-7. On April 10, the students received letters from Chair of the Faculty Committee on Student Affairs Ginger Fisher stating that they had been found "responsible" for the Honor Code violations and that an investigation into a charge of harassment, though not mentioned in the initial e-mail from Robinson, was still "ongoing by outside parties." On April 12, Webber appealed the JHC decision, and a second JHC hearing was held on April 21. At that hearing, the students were informed that the charges of slander, identity theft, and harassment were still pending. Administrators presiding over that meeting also attempted to have the students sign a waiver allowing MySpace to release all information in connection with the students' personal MySpace accounts to Wilson, no doubt in an attempt to determine which of the five students, if any, had created the profile for Robinson. The students refused to sign these waivers, and the charges of slander, identity theft, and harassment are still pending.
First, there is no reasonable claim to be made that the students' online affiliation with the profile for Robinson constitutes "slander." The students hold that the profile was obviously satirical, containing material that blatantly parodied Robinson. Although it is a private institution and therefore not bound by the First Amendment, Wilson would nonetheless be wise to learn from the landmark Supreme Court decision in Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al. v. Jerry Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). That case involved Hustler's publication of a parodic advertisement stating that prominent evangelical Christian Jerry Falwell's first sexual encounter occurred "during a drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse." The Court ruled that farce, exaggeration, and parody, even involving material far more offensive than that involved in the present case, are fully protected forms of expression under the law. Calling satirical expression "slander" when it is clearly not meant to misrepresent the subject of the expression is an abuse of the term and should be beneath the dignity of any institution of higher education.
The fact that the profile in question contained parodic information that could not have reasonably been taken seriously renders the charge of identity theft untenable as well. Not only is there no evidence suggesting that the students planned to use the information on the profile for illegal or fraudulent purposes, but the distinct and contemporary nature of online communities like MySpace is such that MySpace users commonly create profiles for their favorite actors, politicians, or even friends, often in jest, with the intention of lauding or deriding those individuals. Such actions are not immoral, but are merely the byproducts of the free expression of ideas in a new medium. Accusing these students of identity theft is simply not credible.
In addition, being a friend of a parodic profile on MySpace falls significantly short of any reasonable definition of harassment—including that put forth by Wilson College. Wilson's student handbook contains the following definition of conduct that constitutes harassment:
(1) Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work or academic performance; or (2) Such conduct has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work or academic environment; or (3) Such conduct adversely affects an individual's employment or academic standing.
While Robinson may well have been offended by the profile, the students' actions, confined as they were to the Internet, simply could not have created an "intimidating, hostile, or offensive" work environment, nor could they have interfered in any substantial way with Robinson's ability to work. Robinson's exposure to the profile was not unavoidable but in fact required that she seek out the correct profile on MySpace's Internet site. Further, Wilson's policy goes on to state that "[t]his definition will be interpreted with sensitivity toward academic freedom and freedom of expression." By equating expression that is simply opinionated or potentially offensive with harassment, Wilson dangerously trivializes actual harassment, which is a serious and potentially very harmful offense.
Finally, Wilson's persistence in leveling charges of slander, identity theft, and harassment against the students, despite two JHC hearings in which sufficient evidence to find the students responsible of these charges was not found, represents a disturbing attempt to intimidate the students into confessing to having created the profile. Threats and intimidation are not tactics that any institution of higher education, especially one that purports to uphold high standards of honor and respect, should use.
FIRE strongly urges Wilson College to make a clear distinction between actual illegal activity and the expression of potentially insulting ideas by dropping the charges of slander, identity theft, and harassment. Please do not let one administrator's feelings of offense trump students' ability to engage in parodic and satirical expression. FIRE hopes that this situations will be resolved thoroughly and swiftly; however, we are committed to using all of our resources to seeing this process through to a just and moral conclusion.
Because of the serious nature of the allegations against these students, FIRE requests a response on this matter by May 9, 2006. Enclosed are waivers of rights under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) signed by Kathryn Webber, Daniella Care, Miranda Fuller, Jacinta Reeder, and Ashley Culligan, allowing Wilson College to communicate with FIRE about the current case involving these students.
Tara Sweeney
Program Officer
Tammy Samuels, Dean of Students, Wilson College
Elisa Harding Hunt, Assistant Dean of Students, Wilson College
Mary Hendrickson, Associate Dean of the College, Wilson College
Selena Robinson, Director of the Women with Children Program, Wilson College
Ginger Fisher, Chair of the Faculty Committee on Student Affairs, Wilson College


text:
STEVE KAUFMAN aka "SAK" (1960 - 2010)
Steve Kaufman is the former assistant of legendary pop artist Andy Warhol and Steve also known as aka SAK is now regarded as one of the most highly sought after and important pop artists of our time. After leaving the Warhol Studio, Kaufman embarked on establishing himself and his innovative vision and approach to art. He has refined the silk-screening process for greater self-expression. Kaufman's works are today in major collections including Andy Warhol Foundation, The White House, The Smithsonian, Van Gogh Musuem, Amsterdam Museum, Saatchi & Saatchi, Marilyn Monroe Estate and More. We carry a large selection of hand signed Steve Kaufman works.


text:
Edit (2024): parseUri has had a major update and is now available on GitHub and npm
I've just updated parseUri. If you haven't seen the older version, parseUri is a function which splits any well-formed URI into its parts, all of which are optional. Its combination of accuracy, flexibility, and brevity is unrivaled.
- Comprehensively splits URIs, including splitting the query string into key/value pairs. (Enhanced)
- Two parsing modes: loose and strict. (New)
- Easy to use (returns an object, so you can do, e.g.,
). - Offers convenient, pre-concatenated components (path = directory and file; authority = userInfo, host, and port; etc.)
- Change the default names of URI parts without editing the function, by updating
. (New) - Exceptionally lightweight (1 KB before minification or gzipping).
- Released under the MIT License.
Older versions of this function used what's now called loose parsing mode (which is still the default in this version). Loose mode deviates slightly from the official generic URI spec (RFC 3986), but by doing so allows the function to split URIs in a way that most end users would expect intuitively. However, the finer details of loose mode preclude it from properly handling relative paths which do not start from root (e.g., "../file.html" or "dir/file.html"). On the other hand, strict mode attempts to split URIs according to RFC 3986. Specifically, in loose mode, directories don't need to end with a slash (e.g., the "dir" in "/dir?query" is treated as a directory rather than a file name), and the URI can start with an authority without being preceded by "//" (which means that the "yahoo.com" in "yahoo.com/search/" is treated as the host, rather than part of the directory path).
Since I've assumed that most developers will consistently want to use one mode or the other, the parsing mode is not specified as an argument when running parseUri
, but rather as a property of the parseUri
function itself. Simply run the following line of code to switch to strict mode:
parseUri.options.strictMode = true;
From that point forward, parseUri will work in strict mode (until you turn it back off).
The code:
// parseUri 1.2.2 // (c) Steven Levithan <stevenlevithan.com> // MIT License function parseUri (str) { var o = parseUri.options, m = o.parser[o.strictMode ? "strict" : "loose"].exec(str), uri = {}, i = 14; while (i--) uri[o.key[i]] = m[i] || ""; uri[o.q.name] = {}; uri[o.key[12]].replace(o.q.parser, function ($0, $1, $2) { if ($1) uri[o.q.name][$1] = $2; }); return uri; }; parseUri.options = { strictMode: false, key: ["source","protocol","authority","userInfo","user","password","host","port","relative","path","directory","file","query","anchor"], q: { name: "queryKey", parser: /(?:^|&)([^&=]*)=?([^&]*)/g }, parser: { strict: /^(?:([^:\/?#]+):)?(?:\/\/((?:(([^:@]*)(?::([^:@]*))?)?@)?([^:\/?#]*)(?::(\d*))?))?((((?:[^?#\/]*\/)*)([^?#]*))(?:\?([^#]*))?(?:#(.*))?)/, loose: /^(?:(?![^:@]+:[^:@\/]*@)([^:\/?#.]+):)?(?:\/\/)?((?:(([^:@]*)(?::([^:@]*))?)?@)?([^:\/?#]*)(?::(\d*))?)(((\/(?:[^?#](?![^?#\/]*\.[^?#\/.]+(?:[?#]|$)))*\/?)?([^?#\/]*))(?:\?([^#]*))?(?:#(.*))?)/ } };
You can download it here.
parseUri has no dependencies, and has been tested in IE 5.5–7, Firefox 184.108.40.206, Opera 9.21, Safari 3.0.1 beta for Windows, and Swift 0.2.


text:
5:00 - 23:59
From the gate for arrival, follow the signs to the Exit. When you are come in to the public area, follow the "Car Rental" signs. (The signs are also visible from the Exit)
All additional drivers must meet all rental requirements. All additional drivers must appear at the rental counter with the primary renter. All additional drivers must sign the rental agreement. An additional daily fee may apply for any additional drivers. The additional driver can only be added to the contract at the pick-up location.
The minimum age requirement is 18. For drivers under the age of 21 the "Young Driver" condition will be included in the rental agreement. An additional daily fee of 29.90 BRL per day applies for every vehicle type.
It is only allowed to drive the rented vehicle within the territory of Brazil. In case of breaching that rule by the customer, the rental agreement may be terminated by the lessor with immediate effect and the contracted protections such as Collision Damage Waiver (CDW/TP), Third Party Liability (SLI), Glass and Tires coverage may be cancelled.
All rentals where the vehicle is not returned to the same location as it is collected from will be subject to a one way fee. The one way fee varies based on car category, location and pick up date. The exact amount of the one way fee will be displayed during the reservation process when entering the dates, desired route and car category.
If the renter does not choose to purchase an optional fuel product at the start of the rental period and does not return the vehicle with the same level of fuel as at the start of the rental period (as indicated on the Rental Agreement) the renter will be required to pay a refueling service fee calculated as the difference between the fuel level recorded on the Rental Agreement and that recorded upon the return of the vehicle multiplied by the fuel price displayed at the branch. Unused or excess fuel will not be refunded.
It is mandatory to present a physical credit card in the customer's name with an available limit for pre-authorization and/or future payments. We accept cash in the form of BRL, debit/credit card payment upon return of the vehicle. Credit Cards Honored: American Express®, MasterCard® and VISA®. An authorization on the credit card will be taken on all rentals and the deposit amount may vary, based on the pickup location, dates of rental, and type of vehicle rented. This authorization amount may be used toward damage or late charges in the event vehicle is returned with damage or late.
All customers must be over 18 years old, have a valid driver's license from country of origin, valid passport, CRNM (National Migration Registration)/Boarding pass, and a physical credit card in addition to the valid driver's license. The name on the credit card must match the name of the renter. A percentage of the final amount of the rental agreement (12%) will be charged as a rental/service fee to cover operating costs and help maintain a great quality infrastructure. If the driving license is written in a language and characters different to those of the country of rental, an International Driving Permit is also required. Renters are advised to check whether local authorities require foreign drivers to present an International Driving Permit to avoid the risk of potential fines. Renters with licenses from countries who are not part of the International Driving Permit Agreement should carry a certified translation.
Choosing to purchase this protection, the customer has coverage for bodily harm to third parties, material damage to third parties and moral damage to third parties up to the limits below: Bodily harm to third parties: 200.000 BRL Material damage to third parties: 100.000 BRL Moral harm to third parties: 10.000 BRL The customer will bear Localiza's indemnification for operating costs, limited to the above amount, whenever responsible for the damage. SLP has a deductible of 1.000 BRL .


text:
After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States. I expected criticism from right-wing and centrist people, given their common commitment to this country's distorted self-image that supports the triumphalist/supremacist notions about the United States so common in conventional politics, and I got plenty of such critique. But I was surprised by the resistance from liberals — even some on the left, including a considerable number of my friends. The most common argument went something like this: OK, it's true that the Thanksgiving Day mythology is rooted in a fraudulent story — about the European invaders coming in peace to the "New World," eager to cooperate with indigenous people — which conveniently ignores the reality of European barbarism in the conquest of the continent. But we can reject the culture's self-congratulatory attempts to rewrite history, I have been told, and come together on Thanksgiving to celebrate the love and connections among family and friends. The argument that we can ignore the collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving and create our own meaning in private has always struck me as odd. This commitment to Thanksgiving puts these left/radical critics in the position of internalizing one of the central messages promoted by the ideologues of capitalism — that individual behavior in private is more important than collective action in public. The claim that through private action we can create our own reality is one of the key tenets of a predatory corporate capitalism that naturalizes unjust hierarchy, a part of the overall project of discouraging political struggle and encouraging us to retreat into a private realm where life is defined by consumption. So this November, rather than mount another attack on the national mythology around Thanksgiving — a mythology that amounts to a kind of holocaust denial, and which has been critiqued for many years by many people — I want to explore why so many who understand and accept this critique still celebrate Thanksgiving, and why rejecting such celebrations sparks such controversy. Once We Know, What Do We Do? At this point in history, anyone who wants to know this reality of U.S. history — that the extermination of indigenous peoples was, both in a technical legal sense and in common usage, genocide — can easily find the resources to know. If this idea is new, I would recommend two books, David E. Stannard's American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World and Ward Churchill's A Little Matter of Genocide. While the concept of genocide, which is defined as the deliberate attempt "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group," came into existence after World War II, it accurately describes the program that Europeans and their descendants pursued to acquire the territory that would become the United States of America. Once we know that, what do we do? The moral response — that is, the response that would be consistent with the moral values around justice and equality that most of us claim to hold — would be a truth-and-reconciliation process that would not only correct the historical record but also redistribute land and wealth. Such a process is hard to imagine in the short term. So, the question for left/radical people is: What political activity can we engage in to keep alive this kind of critique until a time when social conditions might make a truly progressive politics possible? In short: Once we know, what do we do in a world that is not yet ready to know, or knows but will not deal with the consequences of that knowledge? The general answer to that question is simple, though often difficult to put into practice: We must keep speaking honestly, as often as possible, in as many venues as possible. We must resist the conventional wisdom. We must reject the cultural amnesia. We must refuse to be polite when politeness means capitulation to lies. I have not always been strong enough to meet even these basic moral obligations. Most of us in positions of unearned privilege and power would be wise to avoid pontificating about our moral superiority and political courage, given our routine failures. Can any of us not point to moments when we went along to get along? Have any of us done enough to bring our lives in line with the values we claim to hold? Still, we need to help each other tell the truth, even when the truth is not welcome.
The Illusion of Redefining Thanksgiving Imagine that Germany won World War II and that a Nazi regime endured for some decades, eventually giving way to a more liberal state with a softer version of German-supremacist ideology. Imagine that a century later, Germans celebrated a holiday offering a whitewashed version of German/Jewish history that ignored that holocaust and the deep anti-Semitism of the culture. Imagine that the holiday provided a welcomed time for families and friends to gather and enjoy food and conversation. Imagine that businesses, schools and government offices closed on this day. What would we say about such a holiday? Would we not question the distortions woven into such a celebration? Would we not demand a more accurate historical account? Would we not, in fact, denounce such a holiday as grotesque? Now, imagine that left/liberal Germans — those who were critical of the power structure that created that distorted history and who in other settings would challenge the political uses of those distortions — put aside their critique and celebrated the holiday with their fellow citizens, claiming to ignore the meaning of the holiday created by the dominant culture. What would we say about such people? Would we not question their commitment to the principles they claim to hold? Would we not demand a more courageous politics? Comparisons to the Nazis are routinely overused and typically hyperbolic, but this is directly analogous. These are fair, albeit painful, questions for all of us. Left/liberals who want to claim they are rejecting that European-supremacist and racist use of Thanksgiving and "redefining" the holiday in private clearly avoid the obvious: We don't define holidays individually — the idea of a holiday is rooted in its collective, shared meaning. When the dominant culture defines a holiday in a certain fashion, one can't pretend to redefine it in private. One either accepts the dominant definition or resists it, publicly and privately. Of course people often struggle for control over the meaning of symbols and holidays, but typically we engage in such battles when we believe there is some positive aspect of the symbol or holiday worth fighting for. For example, Christians — some of whom believe that Christmas should focus on the values of universal love and world peace rather than on orgiastic consumption — may resist that commercialization and argue in public and private for a different approach to the holiday. Those people typically continue to celebrate Christmas, but in ways consistent with those values. In that case, people are trying to recover and/or reinforce something that they believe is positive because of values rooted in a historical tradition. Those folks struggle over the meaning of Christmas because they believe the core of Christianity is experienced through the people we touch, not the products we purchase. In that endeavor, Christians are arguing the culture has gone astray and lost the positive historical grounding of the holiday. But what is positive in the historical events that define Thanksgiving? What tradition are we trying to return to? I have no quarrel with designating a day (or days) that would allow people to take a break from our often manic work routines and appreciate the importance of community, encouraging all of us to be grateful for what we have. But if that is the goal, why yoke it to Thanksgiving Day and a history of celebrating European/white dominance and conquest? Trying to transform Thanksgiving Day into a true day of thanksgiving, it seems to me, is possible only by letting go of this holiday, not by remaining rooted in it. If there were a major shift in the culture and a majority of people could confront these historical realities, perhaps the last Thursday in November could be so transformed. But that shift and transformation are, to say the least, not yet here. For too long, I ignored these troubling questions. To get along, I went along. I buried my concerns to avoid making trouble. But in recent years that has become more difficult. So, this year I want to acknowledge my past failures to raise these issues and commit not only to renouncing Thanksgiving publicly but also to refusing to participate in any celebration of it privately.
Make People Comfortable by Engaging or by Disengaging Obviously there are people in the United States — indigenous and otherwise — who do not celebrate Thanksgiving or who mark it, in private and/or in public, as a day of mourning. Also obvious is that there are people who may not have a family or community with which they celebrate such holidays; it's important to remember that there are people on such holidays who are alone and/or lonely, and to them these political questions may seem irrelevant. But for those of us who do get invited to traditional Thanksgiving Day dinners, how do we remain true to our stated political and moral principles? I think we have two choices. We can go to the Thanksgiving gatherings put on by friends and family, determined to raise these issues and willing to take the risk of alienating those who want to enjoy the day without politics. Or, we can refuse to go to such a gathering and make it known why we're not attending, which means taking the risk of alienating those who want to enjoy the day without politics. This year, I've decided to disengage and explain why to the people who invited me. These are people I love, yet who have made a different decision. My love for them has not diminished, and I trust the conversation with them about this and other political/moral questions will continue. Once I make that decision, of course I also have the option of participating in a public event that resists Thanksgiving. I'm not aware of one happening in my community, and because of commitments to other political projects I didn't feel I could organize an effective event in time for this Thanksgiving Day. But on the assumption that others may feel this way, I have started thinking about what kind of public gathering could make such a political statement effectively, and in the future I hope to find others who are interested in such an event locally. So, what will I do on Thanksgiving Day this year? I'll probably spend part of the day alone. Maybe I'll take a long walk and think about all this. I'll try to be kind and decent to the people I bump into during the day. I'll miss the company of friends and family who are gathering, and I'll try to reflect on why I've made this choice and why this question matters to me. I'll think about why others made the choices they made. But this year, whatever I do, I won't celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm going to let that parade pass me by.


text:
Over the last couple of years as the global financial crisis unfolded, a subject I have spent a lot of time thinking about is the nature of money. I have been planning a blog post on the topic and the time has finally come.
The catalyst for finally writing this post was attending last week's 16th national conference on unemployment at the University of Newcastle, hosted by the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE). I found myself there because the centre's director, Professor Bill Mitchell, is the author of billy blog, which I read regularly. Bill's research and advocacy in the area of unemployment and underemployment is firmly rooted in a detailed understanding of how money works in a modern economy (hence the appeal for me) and the implications these mechanics have for government spending policy. This theme also underpinned many of the talks at the conference and the program included a panel discussion on the subject of "Modern Monetary Theory". The panel comprised Bill Mitchell, Randy Wray and Warren Mosler, all strong advocates of what is sometimes referred to as "chartalism". Along with another billy blog regular, Ramanan, I was invited to participate by providing a brief wrap-up at the end of the discussion.
But how hard can it really be to understand how money works? You earn it and you spend it or save it. Or, as the textbooks would have it, money serves as both a medium of exchange and a store of wealth. Is there anything more to say?
In fact there is. Most people and, indeed, many economists have not given very much thought to the mechanics of money and this leads to a number of misconceptions, all of which have made frequent appearances in the press and in political debate around the world over the course of the financial crisis. One example is the suggestion that the UK government could run out of money, an idea given further credence by the decision of rating agency Standard & Poor's to put the UK's rating on "negative outlook". Even Barack Obama seems to be saying that the US is running out of money. The fact is, governments in many developed countries simply cannot run out of money. China could (but it is very unlikely) and so could member states of the European Monetary Union, but the US, UK, Japan and Australia could not. I will explain why here. In later posts I will continue the theme of the mechanics of money and will look at other misconceptions such as the idea that banks can "hoard" their reserves at central banks or that government deficits inexorably lead to high interest rates (the short answer to this one is: look at Japan).
In this post I will start with the basics of how money works and cover the following points:
- how lending can "create" money
- the limits to money creation
- the difference between "fiat" money and money that is convertible on demand
A useful parallel to money in a real economy can be found in gaming chips in a casino. So, imagine a fairly standard sort of casino. You walk in, James Bond-style, hand over a thousand dollars to the cashier and get a pile of chips in return. The chips are marked with various denominations and total one thousand. This is an old-fashioned sort of casino: every game is played on a green felt table, there is not a poker machine in sight and, of course, you need your chips to play. To make your stay easy, you can also use your chips to buy drinks and snacks. When you have finished your evening's play, you can redeem any chips you have not gambled away for cash.
There might be hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of chips circulating around the casino, but so far behind every chip is a corresponding amount of money sitting in the cashier's safe. If we call this money the casino's "reserves", then the chip supply in circulation around the tables is equal to the casino's dollar reserves. Of course, there might be a few cases of chips in the croupier's office and even a chip-pressing machine in the basement, but these chips are not yet in circulation. They are just waiting to be handed over to the next patron who walks in the door with a full wallet. Under this regime, every gambler can be completely certain that they will be able to redeem their winnings at the end of the night.
While your thousand dollar stake might seem like a lot, there are a few high-rollers who frequent the place who like to play with much larger sums. Rather than producing chips with very high denominations, this casino has introduced convenient "smart chip cards". High rollers can pay the cashier as much money as they like and the cashier will add it to the virtual chip balance on their smart cards. At every gaming table, the croupier has a card reader which can be used to debit the balance on the card in return for actual chips. This means that the total chip supply in circulation is the sum of actual chips and virtual chip balances on the smart cards. But still, this chip supply is matched by money in the cashier's safe.
Now suppose you are a trusted regular at the casino and one night you turn up short of cash. No problem, the casino is happy to advance you your thousand dollars in return for a quickly scribbled IOU with your signature. Your credit is good. You take your $1,000-worth of chips and walk to the Blackjack table. But now something has changed. The total chip supply in the casino is $1,000 higher than the money in the cashier's safe. In theory this could be a problem. You could immediately lose the $1,000 in chips and walk out. Then if everyone in the casino wanted to redeem their chips, there would not be enough money to go around. But, it isn't likely to be a problem in practice. The casino operates 24 hours a day and so there are always far more than $1,000 in chips in circulation. On top of that, the house takes a decent cut on the tables, so it would not take very long for the casino to win back over $1,000-worth of chips and then $1,000 can be held back from the profits that the cashier regularly sends up to the manager's office. In fact, the credit seems so safe, the casino decides to offer credit more widely. While they are at it, they introduce a few other innovations, like offering lucky door prizes in chips, which also adds to the supply of chips in circulation without a corresponding increase in money in the cashier's safe.
These loans that the casino has introduced give it the ability to "create" an additional supply of chips. But not all lending creates new chips. If instead of borrowing from the house, you had offered your IOU to a high-rolling friend you would still get your $1,000 in chips for the evening, but you got them from your friend so the chip supply does not change.
The new lending arrangements are working well, but the system is limited by the fact that the cashier does not know all of the patrons very well, and is naturally being very cautious about who to lend chips to. To manage this bottleneck, the casino decides to allow senior croupiers to provide loans to gamblers they know well as long as they take responsibility for the credit-worthiness of the borrower. So now getting credit is simply a matter of providing an IOU to the senior croupier who knows you best and he or she will charge up your smart chip card. If you need actual chips, that is not a problem either as the senior croupier has a stash under the table borrowed from the cashier. Of course, the croupier is taking a bit of a risk providing you with this advance since the house expects him or her to make good any amounts you do not repay. So to make it worth their while, you give the croupier a few chips for their trouble each time you need an advance. This works so well that the cashier no longer offers loans directly to anyone other than the senior croupiers.
As successful as the new arrangements are, the casino does have to be very careful about putting strict limits on the number of chips that the senior croupiers can create through lending. Otherwise, the day may come when there are simply too many chips and not enough money in the safe and a successful gambler may walk up to the cashier to cash in their chips only to find that the cashier does not have enough money in the safe. Word will spread and everyone will want their money back, but the casino will be unable to oblige. It would be bankrupt. So while there may be no limit to the number of chips that the casino could physically manufacture (and of course it has complete control of smart chip card balances), there is a constraint on the number it can put into circulation. This constraint is a direct consequence of the fact that chips are redeemable for cash.
The analogy to the real economy should be clear here. The cashier operates like a central bank and government treasury combined. The senior croupiers are the banks. Chips are money and smart chip card balances correspond to bank account balances. In the same way that senior croupier lending effectively creates new chips, so bank lending adds to the money supply in an economy. But what is the analogy to the money in the cashier's safe? While central banks around the world do maintain reserves of gold and foreign currencies (think of all the US dollars that the central bank of China has), for many countries the analogy breaks down in one important respect.
The casino made a commitment to redeem your chips for cash. Some central banks do make similar commitments. In the days of the gold standard, central banks in Australia, the US, the UK and elsewhere would exchange currency for gold. Of course there were times, as in war, when this convertibility was suspended, but in those days having something backing money was seen as just as important as having money backing chips in a casino. The gold standard system was abandoned after the second world war and instead, under the Bretton Woods system, domestic currencies could be exchanged at the central bank for a fixed number of US dollars. This system collapsed in turn in the 1970s. Today, some countries such as China do maintain currencies pegged to the US dollar (or some other currency) and so still make a commitment of convertibility. However, most countries have adopted so-called "fiat" money. The word fiat is Latin for "let it be" and fiat money does not derive its value from any form of backing. It is declared to be money, and so it is. Many people still assume that Australian dollars are in fact backed by something, but if you tried to take a $10 note to the Reserve Bank of Australia, you would be lucky to get two $5 notes in return. You could certainly not be assured of getting any particular amount of gold or US dollars.
Some people find the entire concept of fiat money deeply disturbing and pine for a return to the "real" money days of the gold standard. But fiat money is in fact an extremely powerful innovation. In the casino analogy, the cashier must always be careful about how many chips are put into circulation to avoid the crisis of being unable to convert chips back to cash. However, in a country with fiat money, the central bank makes no convertibility commitments, so this risk simply does not exist. It has monopoly power in the creation of currency. So, the government simply cannot run out of money. There may be very good reasons for a government to curb its spending. For example, it may not want to add too much to demand in the economy because it is concerned about inflation. But running out of money is not one of those reasons, whatever the president of the United States may think.
I will leave it there for now, as this post is long enough already. But, stay tuned for more on the macroeconomic implications of a modern fiat money system.


text: Flash Furniture: Quality office furniture - at the speed of light. Flash Furniture takes pride in offering the highest quality office chairs and furniture at the best price that you will find anywhere. Flash Furniture proudly presents an extensive selection of quality furniture for the commercial and home office. Flash Furniture offers a wide selection of office, hospitality, and restaurant furniture.


text:
18 Years Ago: Gretchen Wilson Hits No. 1 With 'Redneck Woman'
Eighteen years ago today (May 29, 2004) was a life-altering day for Gretchen Wilson: It was on that date that her debut single, "Redneck Woman," claimed the No. 1 spot on the charts and stayed at the top for an impressive five weeks.
"Redneck Woman" comes from Wilson's freshman album, Here for the Party, which also soared to the top of the charts and sold more than 5 million units. The song -- which says, "I'm a redneck woman / I ain't no high-class broad / I'm just a product of my raising / I say 'Hey y'all' and 'Yee-haw'" -- helped usher in a new era of women in Nashville ... perception-wise at least. "Redneck Woman," as well as Wilson's follow-up single, which was the album's title track, depicted women in Music City as less refined and more prone to partying like their male peers.
While she may have never intended to be a trendsetter, Wilson certainly raised a high bar for artists. "Redneck Woman" earned platinum status, and the Illinois native's two follow-up albums, All Jacked Up in 2005 and 2007's One of the Boys, both landed at No. 1 as well.
Wilson performed "Redneck Woman" when she made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry in May of 2004. The song also earned Wilson her only Grammy Awards trophy, for Best Country Female Vocal Performance.
This story was originally written by Gayle Thompson, and revised by Annie Zaleski.
LOOK: Gretchen Wilson + More Country Stars' First Jobs


text:
Key Details of Cookie + Kate - Celebrating Whole Foods!
- Introducing the Cookie and Kate app, featuring over 100 recipes from Kathryne Taylor of Americas most popular vegetarian food blog and author of...
- Last updated on February 22, 2024
- Virus scan status:
Clean (it's extremely likely that this software program is clean)
Developer's Description
Introducing the Cookie and Kate app, featuring over 100 recipes from Kathryne Taylor of Americas most popular vegetarian food blog and author of the bestselling cookbook, Love Real Food! Loyal readers flock to Cookie and Kate each month for Kathryne Taylors approachable recipes, friendly encouragement and vibrant food photography (plus the occasional snap of her funny crumb-catching mutt, Cookie).
If you are looking for an app designed to help you eat more healthy, affordable, meatless meals, this app is for you! Kate has curated over 100 of her most popular recipes into the Cookie and Kate app, complete with step-by-step voice guidance from Kate herself, and photos that guide you through the process. Shell personally guide you through each recipe, right in your kitchen. She is here to show you that cooking with real, wholesome ingredients can yield incredibly delicious results!
Ive teamed up with SideChef to bring you a beautiful app that is packed with helpful features. I always want you to feel entirely confident every step of the way, and now I can guide you through each recipe, from start to finish. This app will become your own interactive, customizable Cookie and Kate cookbook! - Kate
Here's why youll love the Cookie and Kate app:
-Cook along with Kate via step-by-step voice guidance.
-See beautiful, colorful food photos of the finished dish and the steps along the way.
-Browse Cookie and Kate recipes through the same easy-to-use category and search filters that youve learned to appreciate on the website.
-Keep your favorite Cookie and Kate recipes handy with convenient offline access.
-Save recipes to your own cookbooks to find your favorites even faster.
-Adjustable serving sizes scale the recipe up or down to suit your needs and reduce food waste.
-Easily email ingredients lists for reference at the grocery store.
-Built-in timers help you stay on track as you cook.
-Quickly filter recipes by season, course, cuisine and occasion.
-Find recipes that suit special diets, including dairy free, egg free, gluten free, nut free, soy free, sugar free and tomato free.
-Nutrition facts per serving are viewable on a simple click, and you can filter recipes by calories per serving.
Upload photos of your results to share with Kate and fellow Cookie and Kate app users. Leave comments and ratings, too!
Users outside of the United States will love the option to convert all recipes from U.S. measurements to metric.
We've uploaded over 100 of the most popular Cookie and Kate recipes to the app, and more will be added monthly!
Questions, comments or concerns? Email email@example.com.


text:
Good Morning! Happy Thursday! This is a post that is a little hard for me today as it's my last post for Delightful Challenges. After a year and a half being on this fabulous team, it's time for me to say good-bye. I have truly enjoyed being a part of this challenge blog and working with Wendy and the other amazing designers. I will miss this weekly post. Wendy, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for allowing me to be on the team.
This week's challenge is an Anything Goes challenge and you know that I personally feel that in order to truly play along with this type of challenge, that one must really challenge themselves. Now you may see this as another treat box, but it was a challenge. Let me show you....
The base is an easy to make mini-pizza box. I did use the heavy weight 120 lb card stock from Gina K to create the box. I felt this needed to be sturdy to hold what goes on the inside and what sits on top. Then I created the tree with a large circle made into a cone. Then I added layers of 1" x 2" strips of paper to create the limbs. Then topped it off with a scallop circle punch out made into a little cone.
This is a close up so you can see the snow baby (Baby Snow) image that I cut out and created a little easel that he's adhered to so he can be 3D.
I hope to see you join the challenge this week - it will surely be a hit!
Image: Baby Snow
Card stock: Neenah Classic Crest, Creamy Caramel, 120 lb wt Pure Luxury white (Gina K)
Paper: Dashing (SU!)
Copics: BG10, R11, R27, YG17, YG67, YR04
Tools: Scor-Pal, Scor-Tape, scallop circle punch
Thursday, December 20, 2012
8 Encouraging Thoughts:
- Shell Shearer Swinscoe said...
Gorgeous creation, love your tree!
hugs shell xx - December 20, 2012 at 6:49 AM
- Jessi Fogan said...
Gah, he's so cute! ANd that TREE is incredible :) Love it!
- December 20, 2012 at 8:10 AM
- Lisa Foster said...
Hi Mel!
Oh gosh! Is this ever CUTE!!! I Love it!
Merry Christmas to you and yours. Best Wishes for a fab 2013!
Lisa F. - December 20, 2012 at 11:01 AM
- Wendy Hall said...
This is soooooooo cute Melissa! I shall miss you and your beautiful work, don't be stranger!
Wendy (aka Louby Loo) - December 20, 2012 at 2:03 PM
- Sassy Raggedy said...
Hi Melissa, Sorry to see you leave us. I love your project and making an easel for "Baby Snowy" is a wonderful idea. Many wonderful wishes to you. joann sassy raggedy
- December 20, 2012 at 9:18 PM
- Larelyn said...
What a great project1 We'll miss you and your fabulous creations.
Merry Christmas!
Larelyn - December 21, 2012 at 11:38 AM
- Denise @ kc242 said...
Beautiful project. Merry Christmas!
Denise - December 22, 2012 at 1:04 AM
- Grandma Bonnie said...
Melissa, such a cute idea!
- December 23, 2012 at 8:24 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Events and entertainment Russia
Entertainment facilities are nowadays an essential part of tourism. As tourism progresses, the need for content to tourists time spent on it more fun and enjoyable way. Thus, the need for entertainment content prompted a variety of projects that focused on dating tourists such as plays, concerts, sports activities, various competitions, festivals and many others. Wide range of entertainment content we provide tourists filled holiday and a lot of happy memories.


text:
Sign In
The City of Tallahassee (COT) is providing information via this website as a public service.
PLEASE NOTE Users of this website are responsible for checking the accuracy, completeness, currency and/or suitability of all information themselves. COT makes no representations, guarantees or warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability of the information provided via this website. COT specifically disclaims any and all liability for any claims or damages that may result from providing the website or the information it contains, including any websites maintained by third parties and linked to the COT website. COT makes no effort to independently verify, and does not exert editorial control over information on pages outside of the "talgov.com" domain.
COT does not endorse any of the products, vendors, consultants, or documentation referenced in this website. Any mention of vendors, products, or services is for informational purposes only.