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Problem of moral responsibility, the problem of reconciling the belief that people are morally responsible for what they do with the apparent fact that humans do not have free will because their actions are causally determined. It is an ancient and enduring philosophical puzzle.
Freedom and responsibility
Historically, most proposed solutions to the problem of moral responsibility have attempted to establish that humans do have free will. But what does free will consist of? When people make decisions or perform actions, they usually feel as though they are choosing or acting freely. A person may decide, for example, to buy apples instead of oranges, to vacation in France rather than in Italy, or to call a sister in Nebraska instead of a brother in Florida. On the other hand, there are at least some situations in which people seem not to act freely, as when they are physically coerced or mentally or emotionally manipulated. One way to formalize the intuitive idea of free action is to say that a person acts freely if it is true that he could have acted otherwise. Buying apples is ordinarily a free action because in ordinary circumstances one can buy oranges instead; nothing forces one to buy apples or prevents one from buying oranges.
Yet the decisions a person makes are the result of his desires, and his desires are determined by his circumstances, his past experiences, and his psychological and personality traits—his dispositions, tastes, temperament, intelligence, and so on. Circumstances, experiences, and traits in this sense are obviously the result of many factors outside the individual's control, including his upbringing and perhaps even his genetic makeup. If this is correct, then a person's actions may ultimately be no more the result of free will than his eye colour.
The existence of free will seems to be presupposed by the notion of moral responsibility. Most people would agree that a person cannot be morally responsible for actions that he could not help but perform. Moreover, moral praise and blame, or reward and punishment, seem to make sense only on the assumption that the agent in question is morally responsible. These considerations seem to imply a choice between two implausible alternatives: either (1) people have free will, in which case a person's actions are not determined by his circumstances, past experiences, and psychological and personality traits, or (2) people do not have free will, in which case no one is ever morally responsible for what he does. This dilemma is the problem of moral responsibility.
Determinism is the view that, given the state of the universe (the complete physical properties of all its parts) at a certain time and the laws of nature operative in the universe at that time, the state of the universe at any subsequent time is completely determined. No subsequent state of the universe can be other than what it is. Since human actions, at an appropriate level of description, are part of the universe, it follows that humans cannot act otherwise than they do; free will is impossible. (It is important to distinguish determinism from mere causation. Determinism is not the thesis that every event has a cause, since causes do not always necessitate their effects. It is, rather, the thesis that every event is causally inevitable. If an event has occurred, then it is impossible that it could not have occurred, given the previous state of the universe and the laws of nature.)
Philosophers and scientists who believe that the universe is deterministic and that determinism is incompatible with free will are called "hard" determinists. Since moral responsibility seems to require free will, hard determinism implies that no one is morally responsible for his actions. Although the conclusion is strongly counterintuitive, some hard determinists have insisted that the weight of philosophical argument requires that it be accepted. There is no alternative but to reform the intuitive beliefs in freedom and moral responsibility. Other hard determinists, acknowledging that such reform is scarcely feasible, hold that there may be social benefits to feeling and exhibiting moral emotions, even though the emotions themselves are based on a fiction. Such benefits are reason enough for holding fast to prephilosophical beliefs about free will and moral responsibility, according to these thinkers.
The extreme alternative to determinism is indeterminism, the view that at least some events have no deterministic cause but occur randomly, or by chance. Indeterminism is supported to some extent by research in quantum mechanics, which suggests that some events at the quantum level are in principle unpredictable (and therefore random).
Philosophers and scientists who believe that the universe is indeterministic and that humans possess free will are known as "libertarians" (libertarianism in this sense is not to be confused with the school of political philosophy called libertarianism). Although it is possible to hold that the universe is indeterministic and that human actions are nevertheless determined, few contemporary philosophers defend this view.
Libertarianism is vulnerable to what is called the "intelligibility" objection. This objection points out that a person can have no more control over a purely random action than he has over an action that is deterministically inevitable; in neither case does free will enter the picture. Hence, if human actions are indeterministic, free will does not exist.
The German enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), one of the earliest supporters of libertarianism, attempted to overcome the intelligibility objection, and thereby to make room for moral responsibility, by proposing a kind of dualism in human nature. In his Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant claimed that humans are free when their actions are governed by reason. Reason (what he sometimes called the "noumenal self") is in some sense independent of the rest of the agent, allowing him to choose morally. Kant's theory requires that reason be disconnected from the causal order in such a way as to be capable of choosing or acting on its own and, at the same time, that it be connected to the causal order in such a way as to be an integral determinant of human actions. The details of Kant's view have been the subject of much debate, and it remains unclear whether it is coherent.
Although libertarianism was not popular among 19th-century philosophers, it enjoyed a revival in the mid-20th century. The most influential of the new libertarian accounts were the so-called "agent-causation" theories. First proposed by the American philosopher Roderick Chisholm (1916–99) in his seminal paper "Human Freedom and the Self" (1964), these theories hold that free actions are caused by the agent himself rather than by some prior event or state of affairs. Although Chisholm's theory preserves the intuition that the ultimate origin of an action—and thus the ultimate moral responsibility for it—lies with the agent, it does not explain the details or mechanism of agent-causation. Agent-causation is a primitive, unanalyzable notion; it cannot be reduced to anything more basic. Not surprisingly, many philosophers found Chisholm's theory unsatisfactory. What is wanted, they objected, is a theory that explains what freedom is and how it is possible, not one that simply posits freedom. Agent-causation theories, they maintained, leave a blank space where an explanation ought to be.
Ancient and medieval compatibilism
Compatibilism, as the name suggests, is the view that the existence of free will and moral responsibility is compatible with the truth of determinism. In most cases compatibilists (also called "soft" determinists) attempt to achieve this reconciliation by subtly revising or weakening the commonsense notion of free will.
Compatibilism has an ancient history, and many philosophers have endorsed it in one form or another. In Book III of the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384–322 bce) wrote that humans are responsible for the actions they freely choose to do—i.e., for their voluntary actions. While acknowledging that "our dispositions are not voluntary in the same sense that our actions are," Aristotle believed that humans have free will because they are free to choose their actions within the confines of their natures. In other words, humans are free to choose between the (limited) alternatives presented to them by their dispositions. Moreover, humans also have the special ability to mold their dispositions and to develop their moral characters. Thus, humans have freedom in two senses: they can choose between the alternatives that result from their dispositions, and they can change or develop the dispositions that present them with these alternatives. One might object that the capacity for self-examination and reflection presupposed by this kind of freedom implies the existence of something in humans that is outside the causal order. If this is so, then Aristotle's compatibilism is really a disguised form of libertarianism.
For medieval Scholastic philosophers, free will was a theological problem. If God is the prime mover—the first cause of all things and events in the universe, including human actions—and if the universe is deterministic, then it seems to follow that humans never act freely. How can humans do other than what God has caused them to do? How then can they be morally responsible for their actions? An analogous problem obtains regarding God's omniscience: if God, being omniscient, has foreknowledge of every choice that humans make, how can humans choose other than what God knows they will choose?
In the late 4th and early 5th centuries, St. Augustine played a key role in combining Greek philosophy with Christianity; his attempts to reconcile human freedom with Christian notions such as divine foreknowledge are still cited by theologians. According to Augustine, God—a perfect, omnipotent, and omniscient being—exists outside the realm of time. Temporal directionality does not exist for God, as it does for humans. Hence, it makes no sense to attribute foreknowledge of human choices to God.
Nearly a millennium later, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) grappled with the same problems. Like Augustine, he lived during a major turning point in Western intellectual history, when the relationship between philosophy and religion was being freshly examined and recast. In his Summa theologiae (1265/66–73), Aquinas wrote that, if humans do not have free will, all "counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain"; such a conclusion is simply inconceivable. In response to the apparent conflict between freedom and God's role as the prime mover of human wills, Aquinas claimed that God is in fact the source of human freedom. This is because God moves humans "in accordance with our voluntary natures."
Just as by moving natural causes God does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary.
Because humans are created by God, their wills are naturally in harmony with his. Thus, God's role as prime mover need not get in the way of free agency.
Modern compatibilism
Following the rediscovery of Classical learning during the Renaissance, philosophers sympathetic to compatibilism shifted their focus from the divine back to the individual. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) argued that the only condition necessary for free will and moral responsibility is that there be a connection between one's choices and one's actions. In his Leviathan (1651), he asserted that free will is "the liberty of the man [to do] what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do." If a person is able to do the thing he chooses, then he is free.
The Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711–76), another staunch compatibilist, maintained that the apparent incompatibility between determinism and free will rests on a confusion about the nature of causation. Causation is a phenomenon that humans project onto the world, he believed. To say that one thing (A) is the cause of another thing (B) is nothing more than to say that things like A have been constantly conjoined with things like B in experience, and that an observation of a thing like A inevitably brings to mind the idea or expectation of a thing like B. There is nothing in nature itself that corresponds to the "necessary connection" thought to exist between two things that are causally related. Since there is just this kind of regularity between human choices on the one hand and human actions on the other, it follows that human actions are caused by human choices, and this is all that is needed for free will. As Hume claimed in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), "By liberty we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will."
The British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–73) was the major champion of compatibilism in the 19th century. He proposed that a person is free when "his habits or his temptations are not his masters, but he theirs," while an unfree person is one who obeys his desires even when he has good reason not to. Mill's position is situated at an interesting turning point in compatibilist thinking. It echoes Kant in its reliance on reason as the vehicle of freedom, but it also anticipates contemporary compatibilism in its notion that a free person is one whose internal desires are not at odds with his reason.
In his Ethical Studies (1876), Mill's countryman F.H. Bradley (1846–1924) argued that neither compatibilism nor libertarianism comes close to justifying what he called the "vulgar notion" of moral responsibility. Determinism does not allow for free will because it implies that humans are never the ultimate originators of their actions. Indeterminism does no better, for it can imply only that human decisions are completely random. Yet it is intuitively obvious, according to Bradley, that humans have free will, and no philosophical argument in the world will convince anyone otherwise. He thus advocated a return to common sense. Given that the philosophical theory of determinism necessarily conflicts with people's deep-rooted moral intuitions, it is better to abandon the former rather than the latter.
Contemporary compatibilism
Notwithstanding Bradley's argument, compatibilism remained popular among 20th-century thinkers. The Cambridge philosopher G.E. Moore (1873–1958) attempted to reconcile determinism and free will through a conditional analysis of freedom. When one says that a person acted freely, according to Moore, one simply means that, if he had chosen to do otherwise, he would have done otherwise. The fact that the person may not have been in a position to choose otherwise does not undermine his free agency. But what does it mean to say that one could have done otherwise? In "Freedom and Necessity" (1946), A.J. Ayer (1910–89) maintained that "to say that I could have acted otherwise is to say that I should have acted otherwise if I had so chosen." The ability to do otherwise means only that, if the past had been different, one might have chosen differently. This is obviously a very weak notion of freedom, for it implies that a choice or action can be free even though it is completely determined by the past. It is an open question whether Ayer's account provides a satisfactory explanation of the intuitive notion of free will. Supporters maintain that this is the only type of freedom worth wanting, while detractors believe it does not come close to providing the kind of free agency that humans desire, in part because it does not imply that humans are morally responsible for their "free" actions.
Other contemporary compatibilists have attacked the hard determinist's argument at a different juncture. In an influential paper, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility" (1969), the American philosopher Harry Frankfurt questioned whether the ability to do otherwise is truly necessary for freedom. Suppose that John is on his way to a voting booth and is undecided about whether to vote for candidate A or candidate B. Unbeknownst to him, an evil neuroscientist has implanted in John's brain a device that will, if required, fire a signal that forces John to vote for candidate B. But John decides to vote for candidate B on his own, so the device turns out to be unnecessary. The device does not fire, so John acts freely. But John could not have acted otherwise: if he had shown the slightest inclination toward candidate A, the neuroscientist's device would have made him change his mind. This "Frankfurt-style" counterexample has proved to be quite powerful in contemporary debates about free will. It demonstrates that being able to do otherwise is not necessary for free agency.
If the ability to do otherwise is not necessary, what is? Like Hobbes and Hume, Frankfurt locates freedom solely within the self. In "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person" (1971), he proposed that having free will is a matter of identifying with one's desires in a certain sense. Suppose that Jack is a drug addict who wants to reform. He has a first-order desire for a certain drug, but he also has a second-order desire not to desire the drug. Although Jack does not want his first-order desire to be effective, he acts on it all the same. Because of this inner conflict, Jack is not a free agent. Now consider Jack's friend Jill, who is also a drug addict. Unlike Jack, Jill has no desire to reform. She has a first-order desire for a certain drug and a second-order desire that her first-order desire be effective. She feels no ambivalence at all about her drug addiction; not only does she want the drug, but she also wants to want the drug. Jill identifies with her first-order desire in a way that Jack does not, and therein lies her freedom.
In "Freedom and Resentment" (1962), the British philosopher P.F. Strawson (1919–2006) introduced an influential version of compatibilism grounded in human psychology. Strawson observed that people display emotions such as resentment, anger, gratitude, and so on in response to the actions of others. He argued that holding an agent morally responsible for an action is nothing more than having such feelings, or "reactive attitudes," toward him. The question of whether the agent acts freely matters only insofar as it affects the feelings toward him that others may have; apart from this, freedom is beside the point. Moreover, because people cannot help but feel reactive attitudes, no matter how much they may try not to, they are justified in having them, whatever the truth or falsity of determinism. (This is not to say that the specific reactive attitude a person may have on a given occasion—of blind rage as opposed to mere annoyance, for example—is always justified.)
Yet it is far from clear that people are always justified in having reactive attitudes. Pertinent information can drastically change one's feelings toward an agent. For example, a person might become less angry with a man who ran over his cat if he discovers that the man was rushing to the hospital with a desperately ill child. He may even lose his anger altogether. Given the enormous influence that everyday factual information has over what reactive attitudes people have and whether they even have them, it seems unwise to treat them as accurate barometers of moral responsibility.
Although the central issues involved in the problem of moral responsibility have remained the same since ancient times, the emphasis of the debate has changed greatly. Contemporary compatibilists such as Frankfurt and Strawson tend to argue that moral responsibility has little if anything to do with determinism, since it arises from people's desires and attitudes rather than from the causal origins of their actions. Humans may not be free to as great an extent as the intuitive notion of free will suggests, but there is no other freedom to be had. Addressing the problem of moral responsibility requires establishing guidelines for holding people accountable, not lunging after some impossible notion of free will.
Contemporary libertarians such as Chisholm, on the other hand, continue to maintain that moral responsibility requires a certain kind of robust free will that compatibilism does not allow for. Their prime concern is to untangle the metaphysical issues underlying the intelligibility objection and to make room for free will in an indeterministic world.
How much of human behaviour is determined by past events, and how much does this matter—if it does matter—for free will and moral responsibility? In the end, the important question may be not whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic but whether one is willing to accept a definition of free will that is much weaker than intuition demands.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
free will
Free will, in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints. Free will is denied by some proponents of determinism. Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt,…
Determinism, in philosophy, theory that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previously existing causes. Determinism is usually understood to preclude free will because it entails that humans cannot act otherwise than they do. The theory holds that the universe is utterly rational because complete knowledge of any…
human genetics
Human genetics, study of the inheritance of characteristics by children from parents. Inheritance in humans does not differ in any fundamental way from that in other organisms.…


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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who keep small poultry flocks may be at an increased risk for salmonellosis, but the infections are preventable, researchers say.
The growing local foods movement has sparked a rise in the number of people keeping small flocks of chickens or ducks at home, and a rise in human infections with Salmonella bacteria has been linked to birds from mail-order hatcheries, according to a new study.
"We have seen an increasing number of outbreaks of Salmonella infections in people being sick that have been linked back to having chickens and ducks in your backyard," said Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, who led the study.
Barton Behravesh, a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service, is affiliated with the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
She and her colleagues reviewed the available research since the rising infection rates have been in conjunction with the increasing popularity of having backyard flocks, and it was important for her team to document the problem, she told Reuters Health.
"Salmonella in poultry, whether we're talking about chickens or ducks, or even geese or turkeys, go together - its' something that's a normal germ found in the intestinal tracts of the birds," Barton Behravesh said.
The bacteria don't always make the birds sick, she said, but Salmonella can coat their feathers and beaks, be present in their environment and can lead to human illness.
The researchers report that 45 outbreaks of salmonellosis (Salmonella infection) in humans due to contact with live poultry were reported from 1996 to 2012. The outbreaks resulted in 1,581 illnesses, 221 hospitalizations and 5 deaths.
"We've seen outbreaks and illnesses occur all year around, although there is a peak in the spring season and we've really documented illnesses all across the United States, so it's not a regional issue," Barton Behravesh said.
It's difficult to know for sure how many people keep backyard flocks, but the researchers said that a survey of four cities had found 1 percent of households owned chickens and 4 percent were planning on buying backyard flocks.
The study team also found that common risk factors for infection included bringing baby chicks indoors, cleaning the birds' food and water dishes in the kitchen and kissing or cuddling with the birds, which are often seen as pets rather than livestock.
Barton Behravesh said most people know that handling raw poultry meat in the kitchen can be a problem, but many people don't know the live birds can carry salmonella that can make people sick.
"Most backyard chicken owners are new to this, so it's exciting to them," said Dr. Jeff Bender, a veterinarian and co-director of the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center at the University of Minnesota. "They view their animals not only as poultry, but they view them as pets too."
He agrees Salmonella infections are becoming more common among backyard flock owners.
"From surveys that we've done, we've noticed that not many people are concerned about Salmonella, influenza, or Campylobacter," Bender said, adding that's probably because new chicken owners aren't aware of those diseases, or that live poultry can spread them.
But backyard chicken owners generally are well educated and most of them are asking questions and getting their information from the Internet, he said.
"We just have to make sure we provide reputable places that they can go to and that they feel comfortable using," he said.
The CDC has a tip sheet for keeping backyard poultry here: http://1.usa.gov/O8ngKs
Prospective buyers of new chicks or poultry should recognize that the birds can have Salmonella or other diseases, and that hand washing is important, Bender said.
"Supervision - especially with children - is incredibly important too," he said.
Most people get their birds from agricultural feed stores or have them shipped to their homes directly from the hatcheries, and Bender said the first step is to find a reputable source.
"Ideally a source that has a Salmonella control program or is part of the National Poultry Improvement Plan, which basically is a plan that says 'we're trying to raise the healthiest birds possible'," he said. The next step is to try to keep the birds healthy.
"Make sure they're being fed appropriately and they're not stressed and they are kept in the right environment," he said.
"There are a lot of benefits of having backyard flocks (and) people need to know the risks so they can enjoy the birds without getting sick," Barton Behravesh said.
Additional precautions, the study authors write in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, include keeping birds away from young children, the elderly or people with immune system problems, and keeping the birds out of the house or parts of the yard where people eat or drink.
In addition, all equipment, such as cages and food and watering containers, should be cleaned and disinfected, but that shouldn't be done in the house, they write.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1l6LcZP Clinical Infectious Diseases, online February 5, 2014.


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You've worked for decades to build the practice of your dreams. You've overcome obstacles and, sure, you've seen your share of ups and downs. But in the end, you're proud of what you've accomplished.
What do you do to ensure your dream lives and thrives in the next generation? It's all dependent on a well-thought-out succession plan.
By developing an effective succession plan, you can feel a bit more confident that your business will be passed on to a qualified and appropriate successor as seamlessly as possible.
Ken White, DVM, Perryville, Mo., and Randall Spragg, DVM, Rogersville, Mo., both have worked on succession plans of their own. They say with a bit of planning and foresight, any veterinarian can ensure a successful future for his or her practice.
The beginning of their dreams
Dr. White began his practice in 1971, upon graduation from the University of Missouri school of veterinary medicine in 1970.
In 1997 his son, Brad, followed in his footsteps, graduating from the Missouri school of veterinary medicine and returning to the home practice. Brad's wife, Christine, also a veterinarian, began practicing at a clinic 30 miles away.
Before long, Brad had developed a beef marketing alliance with producers in the area and took on public speaking engagements.
"He then went back to school and found his niche," Dr. White says. "Today, he works at the Kansas State University vet school. He does an excellent job there and he did an excellent job in our practice, too. But he's now following his passion."
For Dr. Randall Spragg, the veterinary passion runs in the blood. His father, Robert M. Spragg, began the Spragg Veterinary Clinic in 1959.
Dr. Spragg's brother, Gary, graduated from the Missouri school of veterinary medicine in 1967 and after a two year term in the Army, returned to the practice in 1970. In 1982, Dr. Spragg received his veterinary degree and immediately joined his father and brother in the practice. And moving into the third generation, Gary's son, Michael, has joined the practice, as well.
"The clinic has grown from a one-man practice to a three-man practice," Dr. Spragg says. "We're seeing more small animals and horses today. And, we see a good amount of cow-calf operations spread out across a greater distance than in the past."
Although the practices are unique, one concept is the same; the need for a succession plan was realized well before it was actually needed.
Making A Plan
In the mid-'90s, when Dr. White's son, Brad, was still a part of the practice, he and his wife, Ann, incorporated the business and began a process of distributing business stock to Brad and Christine.
"After a period of years, we would have transitioned the practice to them, without a great deal of money being exchanged," he says. "It would have worked out very well, had it been the life Brad had wanted."
Dr. White utilized the assistance of an accountant to begin his succession plan.
"We wanted to be incorporated and we used the help of an accountant and a lawyer," he says. "We set up the stock and I became 'president' of the company."
Each year, the Whites transferred a certain percentage of stock to Brad and Christine. In addition, life and disability insurance policies were established.
"They were set up with Brad as the beneficiary, so that he would be able to have full ownership of the practice if something happened to me, without any out-of-pocket expenses," he says.
In addition, Dr. White says he ensured the practice had been evaluated for the value of inventory, equipment and client numbers. Even if you're not ready to pass on your business, he says, this process can be beneficial.
"Things change over time, and it's nice to know what you have, even if you're not ready to walk out the door."
Dr. Spragg recommends doing your research before deciding on a firm to handle your plan.
"You have to ask a lot of questions and find a good, reputable trust outfit," he says. "You must be able to rely on and put full faith in whoever you choose."
Dr. Spragg's father, Robert, established a trust for the business in 1998 with a local trust attorney in Springfield, Mo.
He says developing a plan does take some investment.
"There is some cost to it," he says. "But it's nothing like the inheritance tax and federal tax would be."
The Spraggs' practice grew rapidly in the 1990s and 2000s, which could have led to some consequences with the inheritance, Dr. Spragg says.
"My dad passed away in 2006 and the ownership of the property went to my mother and her trust," he says. "Because of the exclusion amount on federal inheritance tax, we leased the practice from my dad until he passed away. And when my mother passed away in 2010, it was divided equally between my brother and me."
The Spraggs were lucky to have inherited the practice in 2010, as this was the year of the repeal of the federal income tax, Dr. Spragg says. However, times have changed, making it imperative for practitioners to consider the consequences.
In 2012, the exclusion for federal inheritance tax is $5.12 million. However, according to current law, that will change to $1 million next year.
Now more than ever, Dr. Spragg says, a succession plan is critical for any practice.
"My dad was an astute businessman," he says. "It's a good idea to develop a succession plan. Everyone seems to put it off until the last minute, but it's something that needs to be done—especially in these uncertain times. The government will try to grab revenue any way they can.
We need to protect our businesses as best we can."
Get It In Writing
Dr. White says he ensured his business succession plan was in writing when it was initially created nearly 20 years ago.
"We wanted to spell out how we planned to transfer the stock, provide the equipment he would need and adapt to a changing practice," he says.
Because the succession plan has changed with Brad's move to academia, Dr. White says his new succession plan is a work in progress. One thing is certain; a plan is a "must."
"It's important for a practice to develop a plan, as the veterinary medicine business is so unique," he says. "You must have a transition process in mind to move into the next phase of your life – whether it be a different career within the vet medicine industry, or to retirement."
It's not the most pleasant topic, Dr. Spragg says. But it is important.
"It helps to have things somewhat spelled out, and it can certainly save grief or a bad situation from occurring," he says. "In the case of sudden death or a disabling injury, it helps protect you and your practice."
The Spraggs' plan is continually evolving and Dr. Spragg says he and his brother will soon develop a plan to pass the practice onto the next generation.
"My nephew wants to continue on, and I'm sure we'll get it figured out," he says. "No one wants to face their own mortality, but life's just like that. You have to do some planning."
By taking the time and making the investment of developing a succession plan for your practice, you can ensure your life's work can carry into future generations.
What better way to allow your legacy to live on?
Practical Tips For Making The Transition
Michael Whitehair, DVM, Abilene, Kan., has helped numerous veterinarians across the country work through the process of succession planning for their businesses. He offers these tips for developing a plan of your own.
1. Think long term. "It takes years to build a solid business, one that someone will want to pay true value for," Dr. Whitehair says. "I like it best when someone has 10 years left in their professional business life and can take the time to effectively allocate time and resources to the planning process."
2. Include everyone. If your practice involves multiple owners, ensure everyone is involved in the succession planning.
"You must work together to determine the business's purpose and value," Dr. Whitehair says. "Then, from there, you can work together to develop a succession plan."
3. Ask the experts. Dr. Whitehair says it's valuable to locate a professional you trust to assist with your succession plan creation. "It can be beneficial to utilize an accountant or attorney, someone who is more versed in the area of tax law and creating these types of documents," he says. "It can be expensive. But in the end, it can give you a vehicle to get it right and avoid misunderstandings or problems."


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The LG Optimus G doesn't even hit AT&T stores until Nov. 2, but that hasn't stopped us from teaming up with them to give one lucky reader this awesome new phone!
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This giveaway is open to only those in the U.S. as this phone is locked to AT&T. To enter, all you need to do is leave one (1) comment per day on this post through 11:59 PM PST on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. More than one comment per day will result in disqualification. The comment can be about anything. We do ask, however, that you login with either Facebook or Twitter so we have a way of communicating with you should you win.
To recap:
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- Limit of one (1) comment/entry per day.
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- Limited to residents of the United States and its territories.
- The winner will be chosen at random from the comments by entering the final number of comments into Random.org and choosing them randomly.
Remember, the contest closes 11:59 PM PST on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012.
Good luck, and here's hoping you win! If you can't wait to get your hands on the device, you can pre-order the LG Optimus G from AT&T right now.
If you don't win this week, don't fret! Check the TechnoBuffalo Giveaways page each week to see what new giveaways there will be!


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WELCOME to BURKE PUBLISHING
FASHION DESIGN Series | PROJECT MANAGEMENT Series
We are academic publishers specializing in FASHION, PROJECT MANAGEMENT, ENTREPRENEURSHIP and SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT.
Our books are available internationally from Bookshops worldwide, and online from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Book Depository UK etc.
We offer all of our titles as eBooks via CourseSmart and VitalSource.


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Management and the Gartner Magic Quadrant
As we've been discussing this week, Gartner just came out with their Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure Magic Quadrant report. If you haven't had an opportunity to read the report, you should.
We address the subject of the report—the converged wired/wireless network—through a "One Policy, One Management, One Network" approach. "One Management" is made possible with Prime Infrastructure which provides the "best-of-breed" management for end-to-end wired and wireless lifecycle management. That means one place to manage, design, deploy, monitor, optimize, and administer your entire network—regardless of whether the connection is wired or wireless.
Through a single, integrated management solution, you no longer need to stitch together unconnected applications to get a glimpse of the real state of your network. Your IT team only needs to learn one application, greatly simplifying operations while reducing both capital and operation expenses.
Even better, as part of this new solution, you'll find it very easy to deploy Prime Assurance Manager—our end-to-end performance management tool. Prime Assurance Manager allows you to monitor and manage the performance of applications and processes over the network. You can use this performance data to identify bottlenecks or performance degradation and address end-user and application response time issues in the network.
So maybe we should refine our "One Policy, One Management, One Network" to include "One Solution" because with Cisco Prime, that's all you need—one solution.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose
In an effort to keep conversations fresh, Cisco Blogs closes comments after 60 days. Please visit the Cisco Blogs hub page for the latest content.


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Gambles won the race in 2011, setting the course record at 3 hours, 45 minutes and 35 seconds. Then last year, he broke that record winning again in 3:44:04.
The 31-year-old triathlete said he'll try to defend his title again this year, but said he plans to race smarter in Boulder this year so he can get results at the 70.3 world championships in Las Vegas in September.
"I sort of left my season at Boulder the last couple of years," he said. "I've raced really well at Boulder... I want to do well and I want to defend my title, but it's really about Vegas."
In 2011, Gambles finished 5th at the world championships and then in 2012, finished 12th. This year will be different, he said.
A stacked pro field with athletes like Greg Bennett, Jordan Jones and Gambles' own training partner, Ben Hoffman, will make it more difficult for Gambles to win again.
"We're giving each other a hard time," said Gambles, of competing against Hoffman.
In early July, the two shared a horrifying training ride together with their friend and fellow triathlete Richie Cunningham. The three were riding north on 83rd Street when a car passed the duo, then slammed on its brakes. Cunningham braked hard, flipped over his handlebars and ended up breaking his elbow and separating his shoulder. Hoffman tracked down the car and wrote down its license plate, though no charges were filed against the driver.
For the three training partners, Cunningham is the "glue" that holds everyone together, Gambles said, so watching him go down was extremely difficult.
"Ben and I both had a really tough time," Gambles said. "The week after that we lost all motivation. I just didn't have that spark. It shook us up for sure."
Cunningham is doing well, Gambles said, and is rehabbing from his injuries. He should be back to racing by the end of September.
For Hoffman, who won and set the course record at Ironman Coeur d'Alene earlier this summer, seeing his friend taken out for a good chunk of his season by an angry driver made him appreciate his friendships with Cunningham and Gambles more, Hoffman said.
"It made all of us more aware of how we rely on each other for training motivation and just how quickly things can change," he said. "All of us were enjoying a high point in our racing season and then suddenly it switches over and Richie is out for at least six weeks and back to square one. It has certainly give us perspective and made us appreciate the friendships more."
Gambles' course record will be thrown out after this year's 70.3 race because of a new bike course, said race director Dave Christen.
The bike course has been a double loop all contained within Boulder County, but starting this year, the bike leg will be a single loop that stretches up into Larimer County, Christen said.
Christen said the pending 2014 full Ironman race, which is scheduled for Aug. 3, 2014, has brought more excitement and interest to the 70.3 race. Christen said he's seen more training groups around town and Ironman has received a massive influx of people wanting to volunteer at the 70.3 race.
The women's professional field is also stacked for the Boulder 70.3 race, with athletes like 2012 Ironman world champion and 2012 70.3 world champion Leanda Cave racing for the win. She'll compete against 2011 Boulder 70.3 winner Angela Naeth and 2009 70.3 world champion and multiple-time Xterra world champion Julie Dibens, who hasn't raced for the last two years. Also scheduled to race is Melissa Hauschildt, the 2013 ITU Long Distance world champ.
"The women's field is just loaded," Christen said. "I look at the female field, and this just has to be one of the strongest female fields that we've had in recent history."
--Follow Sarah Kuta on Twitter: @SarahKuta.
What: Boulder 70.3 triathlon
When: Sunday, 7:05 a.m.
Where: Boulder Reservoir
More info: www.ironman


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Seth J. Smiley, partner at Wolfe Law Group, LLC and author of ConstructionLawMonitor.com is now a formally trained mediator. New Orleans just hosted the AAAU's (American Arbitration Association University), Essential Skills for the New Mediator workshop in downtown, hosted by Neil Carmichael.
Why would parties want to mediate a dispute instead of going to court? That answer is easy, yet has many factors. The most important are that mediation is less expensive and much more efficient compared to litigation. But the most important factor is that the parties control their own outcome, rather than a group of strangers (jury).
So if you are in a dispute and are looking for an economical, logical and swift conclusion that is mutually agreeable between you and your adversary, then mediation may be just what you are looking for. Contact the Wolfe Law Group, LLC for more details.


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This book tells the hundred-year history of Three Rivers, 1850s to the 1950s. Three Rivers has always been a special place; one of rolling wooded hills, nestled close to the high mountains; those mountains feed the rivers that give the place its name. It was an ideal place for the pioneers of this story to settle.
The book is divided into two basic parts: the first tells the story of events and places; it tells what life was like for those hardy souls who homesteaded in these hills. Read more
About Sophie Britten
Sophie Britten has a rich background and a deep appreciation for the history of Three Rivers and the surrounding mountain areas. She is the third generation of her family to have deep roots in the foothills and mountains. Those roots go back to the 1800's and include cattle ranching, stock packing, as well as very early citrus farming. Her writing credits include family histories and several published manuscripts. Read more
Excerpt from the Book
For many years, October was the month of the apple harvest in Three Rivers. Read more


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When you hear a catchy song, you listen to it over and over again. When you see an amazing movie in theaters, you buy it on DVD. And the same goes for landing upon a stellar collection at New York Fashion Week — you just can't get enough. That's why we found ourselves walking 'round and 'round in circles at the Clover Canyon spring '13 presentation yesterday.
With stand-out-in-the-crowd prints, suiting pieces we'd live in, and embellishments in all the right places (read: everywhere), the new(ish) designer quickly became one of our favorites of the week and one to watch from now on. Teaming the out-there (but totally wearable) designs with slicked-back faux-hawks and simple makeup and nails, the presentation played to daring dressers and more subtle style lovers alike. Last prediction? This label is the one to watch and snag (before all the street-style stars load up for the next NYFW!).


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Weekend Edition Sunday on KSJD
Weekend Edition Sunday premiered on January 18, 1987, and was the last of NPR's major newsmagazines to hit the air. Since then, Weekend Edition Sunday has covered newsmakers, artists, scientists, politicans, musicians, writers, thinkers, theologians and all manner of news events. Originally hosted by Susan Stamberg, the show has been anchored by Liane Hansen since 1989. Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr and Puzzlemaster Will Shortz have been with the program from the beginning, and a wide variety of commentators and essayists help round out the weekly offerings: humorist Andy Borowitz slings satirical arrows at big-shots, celebrities, and politicans of all stripes; Diane Roberts takes a sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant view of life in the South; and transplanted Brit Tim Brookes offers his impressions of life on these shores. For more information, please go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=10


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Stranded Wire Extensometer - Inches
W-E441-A | Stranded Wire Extensometer
General purpose extensometer for axial tensile testing of stranded wire requiring a long gauge length device and the ability to measure axial elongation accurately on a specimen that twists when pulled. Removal of the extensometer from the specimen prior to fracture, to avoid damage to the instrument, is strongly recommended. Quick attach kit (included) allows easy one hand mounting on specimen.
- Gage Length: 24.000 in.
- Strain : 2.00 in.
- Angle of twist: 15 degrees
- Specimen sizes: Rounds 0 to 1 in (0 to 25 mm) dia.
- Standard Temp. Range: -40°F to 210°F (-40°C to 100°C)
Instrument supplied with Instron standard 25 pin ID connector.
|Gauge Length
|mm (24 in )
|Specimen Diameter
|mm (Rounds 0 to 1 in )


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Eliminating – or at least reducing – leakage should be a cooperative project between a company's management and its maintenance department.
There are two types of leakage: external and internal. Because internal leakage (inside components) is a complex topic all its own, this discussion is limited to troubleshooting external leakage. Monitoring external leakage is fairly easy, Figure 9; stopping it is not difficult; but preventing its recurrence may be a challenge.
Tapered threads
All other factors notwithstanding, the single and by far greatest contributor to external leakage is the tapered pipe thread. When components with pipe threads are assembled, the threads leave a space shaped like a conical helix. This helix is a ready-made leakage path. Various methods have been used to eliminate this leakage path – mechanically crushing the threads, using sealing tapes or other sealant materials – but results are not always satisfactory, particularly when connections must be opened and remade. The solution is not to use NPT threads at all. Substitute straight thread connections that are leak-free.
Technical and professional societies continue to emphasize the need to get rid of NPT plumbing. Unfortunately, many manufacturers are still using this outmoded technique. On the positive side, specifications calling for the elimination of NPT plumbing are beginning to filter down from large OEMs, including the automotive and primary metals industries and others.
Other companies that buy and operate hydraulic equipment should involve themselves in this situation by only considering machinery with straight thread connections. While these connections may add slightly to original equipment prices, they will pay for themselves in the long run – often in money saved just by not having to add make-up fluid to the system. If users elect not to specify straight thread connection, they must resign themselves to living with leakage and paying for it.
Other causes
Many other conditions can cause external leakage. Vibration that can loosen connections is obviously a major culprit. In addition, the troubleshooter should consider the possibility of improper plumbing assembly, where fittings were not tightened properly in the first place.
Damaged or worn seals (in linear as well as rotary components) are a common cause of leakage. While replacing defective seals, the troubleshooter should also consider steps that might be taken to eliminate – or at least minimize – seal leakage in the future. For instance, are seals made of the appropriate elastomers? Might a different seal design reduce leakage? Should cylinder rods be specified with different surface finishes? Would boots help extend seal life and thus reduce leakage?
Such thoughts should be communicated to the company's own top management which should review these factors in the future when the company plans to buy additional manufacturing machinery. Good planning before purchasing might help eliminate the necessity for a lot of troubleshooting!


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Domain outfit's TV ad 'crosses line of decency'
Oz's Advertising Standards Bureau has declared that fantasy bikini-clad minxes hosed with cream in a slo-mo cavort is not a legitimate way to punt an internet domain registration outfit:
The ASB received 40 complaints over the ad for Perth-based Crazy Domains. Viewer analysis concluded the video was "all about sex, got nothing to do with domains, unless it's to start a porn site", and "overtly sexist and exploitative".
ASB chief exec Fiona Jolly agreed, and said: "It's meant to be a cheeky, over-the-top depiction but in the bureau's view it did cross the line."
Cue a ban from Australian TV, while Crazy Domains MD Gavin Collins fingered "feminist bloggers" for encouraging unimpressed viewers to voice their disapproval. ®
Sponsored: Becoming a Pragmatic Security Leader


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We just uploaded photos from Jannick Delauriers' exhibition Whats Left? to the gallery's flickr page.
Jannick Deslauriers: What's Left? Exhibition Photos
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
We just uploaded photos from Jannick Delauriers' exhibition Whats Left? to the gallery's flickr page.
Show & Tell Gallery is Toronto's premier location for contemporary artwork from the world's most cutting edge emerging and mid career artists. Providing a comfortable environment for collectors both new and established to realise their own artistic tastes, Show & Tell Gallery hosts a diverse roster of artists from across North and South America, Europe, and Asia.
Without losing the humane, accessible virtues of art inspired by city landscapes, found materials, urban subcultures, and alternative ways of life, the artists represented by Show & Tell Gallery draw upon the languages of figurative representation, abstract innovation, graphic design, and classic typography. Show & Tell Gallery aims to contextualize this diverse group of artists and their works within an international fine art context. The current roster of artists make their acutely contemporary voices known through photography, sculpture, and video in addition to painting.
Show & Tell Gallery offers a large main exhibition space as well as a smaller project area for artists to display their work. In addition to selling artwork, the gallery provides custom archival framing services, special event rentals, and retails books and magazines. For the most up to date gallery info please subscribe to the news page.


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"10 years of the Euro"
External ring: CuNi
Center disc: 3 layers, Ni-Brass, Ni, Ni-brass
Diameter: 25.75 mm
Width: 2.20 mm
Weight: 8.50 g
Numismatic News and Information about recent coin types and varieties released worldwide. Focused mainly on official and legal tender issues.
You can email me at: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
This resource section contains links to numerous Cal South forms which can be downloaded and printed for your use, along with other links to areas on CalSouth.com where more detailed information can be obtained.
Most of the downloads on this page are in the "Adobe Acrobat" format. In order to read and print these forms, you may need to first obtain the Adobe Acrobat Reader by clicking here and then finding and clicking on the FREE Adobe Reader download icon.
|Click on the links below to go to each section on this page
|Youth Travel
|Adult Foreign Travel
|Coaching Education
|Sanctioned Tournaments
|Risk Management
|General Soccer Information
|Miscellaneous Forms
|Supply Ordering
|Logos and Identity Guide
|Player Registration Form
Also known as the Medical Release Form
|Program Administrator Registration Form
|Player Release and Transfer Process
As of Monday, November 26, 2012, Cal South introduced a new online Release and Transfer process. The downloadable paper version will no longer be used. Full information about the new process will be released to our full membership by email and on our homepage. If you have any questions regarding the new process, please feel free to contact the Cal South Account Management department at 714.451.1513 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
|Cal South Senior Trial Games Card
For youth eligibility clearance only. It allows a youth player to continue to play for his/her current team while participating in senior trial games. Please see form for further details.
|Youth Minor Release Form to Play in Adult Leagues
|Youth Medical Play Down Policy Form
Request for a medical play down exception to allow a Recreational player to play down in age one year if the certain criteria are met for one seasonal year.
|Youth Play Up Policy Form
Request for player to participate on team aged three (3) or more years beyond player's proper birth date age division.
|United States Soccer Federation International Waiver Form
|United States Soccer Federation International Clearance Request Form - ITC 5-11 (Adult)
All players age 18 and over participating in affiliated leagues, who are not eligible for the Prior to 12 or First Registration option, will be required to complete the ITC Request Form (ITC 5-11).
|United States Soccer Federation Amateur Reinstatement Form - AR 3-03 (Adult)
|United States Soccer Federation Prior to 12 Process - P12-5-11 (Adult)
In case of an injury during a Cal South sanctioned event, including league play and practice. The claim form must be e-mailed or faxed directly to AIG within 90 days of the injury.
|Adult Soccer Insurance Claim
A copy must be faxed or mailed to the Corporate Office in case of an injury during a Cal South sanctioned event, including League play, within 90 days of the injury.
|Liability Insurance
Only Cal South sanctioned League Presidents may log in to request Proof of Field Liability Insurance
|Special Events Liability Insurance Application
|Coaching Education
|Practice Planner
A printable version of the Practice Planner found in the Cal South Coaching Education Handbook.
|Game Planner
A printable version of the Game Planner found in the Cal South Coaching Education Handbook.
|Session Plan + Self Reflection Form
|Back to top
|Risk Management
|Request for Live Scan Service Form
Fill out and print 2 copies to take with you to your chosen Live Scan Site.
Live Scan Session Host Form
|IBT Live Scan Sites
IBT (Integrated Biometric Technology, LLC) is the exclusive Live Scan provider for Cal South. For more information about Live Scan, or if you want to schedule an appointment online, visit www.l1enrollment.com/locations/?st=ca.
|Referee Fee - Payment Form
To be used for any State Cup and National Cup Referee Payments - Please be sure to fill this form out completely.
|Supply Ordering
Sanctioned League Registrars:
|Youth Travel
|US Youth Soccer Travel Requests
For teams participating in non-Cal South or non-US Youth Soccer Region IV sanctioned events.
|Cal South Player Loan Form
For teams using guest players in non-league play, non-State Cup play or non-Cal South but USSF-sanctioned tournaments.
|Permission to Play in a Neighboring State Form
For individual player participating in any tournament with a team from another state.
|Adult Foreign Travel
|Adult Soccer Application for Foreign Travel
|Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act (TTED 3-03) (As it Relates to Permission for Foreign Travel)
|Back to top
|Sanctioned Tournaments
|Sanctioned Youth Tournament Application Forms Reporting Documents
|Sanctioned Tournament Application Amendment Request
|Sanctioned Youth Tournament Manual of Operations Revised 01/14
|Sanctioned Adult Tournament Information Packet
|Post-Tournament Recording Documents
|Safety Information
|Hosting Rules Checklist
|Sanctioned Adult Tournament Information Packet
|Safety Information
|Hosting Rules Checklist
|Label Request
Label request forms are only available to be used by tournaments which have been approved and sanctioned by Cal South.
|Team Roster
|Miscellaneous Forms
|Cal South Non-Disclosure Form
|Foreign Document Translation Form
|Cal South Employment Application
|Cal South Sanctioned Tournament Manual of Operations
|Rosenberg's Rules of Order
Simple Parliamentary Rules for the 21st Century - an excellent resource for affiliate member leagues and clubs.
|Cal South Logos
|Cal South Identity Guide
The Cal South Identity Guide was developed to provide the foundation for consistency of the Cal South brand across all media, business documents and apparel. These include broadcast, web, merchandise, collateral, promotions and advertising. Consistently expressing the Cal South visual identity builds strong brand awareness.
|Logo Downloads Page
The most up-to-date versions of Cal South's various logos can be found via the link. Each download is a zip file featuring the logo in the listed file format. A link for a zip file featuring all of the listed types is also available.
|Back to top


text:
Carol A Patterson Franz
Arsenal Technical High Class of 1962
Personal Info
- Name:
- Carol A Patterson Franz
- Graduation Year:
- 1962
Memories of Carol A Patterson Franz
To protect privacy, contact info has been removed from this post. Register to see the original with contact info.
Hello classmate. Although we have you on our Website at http://www.*****.com please register for this site as well. Email me, Webmaster, *****@gmail.com if you have any questions. This site is secure, whereas the other is not... you can enter and edit your information on your own here... and have total control over your content and also receive private email here (you can also set the settings so that it will forward to your other email account).
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DataNucleus, by default, provides certain functionality. In particular circumstances some of this functionality may not be appropriate and it may be desirable to turn on or off particular features to gain more performance for the application in question. This section contains a few common tips
You should perform enhancement before runtime. That is, do not use java agent since it will enhance classes at runtime, when you want responsiveness from your application.
DataNucleus provides 4 persistence properties datanucleus.schema.autoCreateAll, datanucleus.schema.autoCreateTables, datanucleus.schema.autoCreateColumns, and datanucleus.schema.autoCreateConstraints that allow creation of the datastore tables. This can cause performance issues at startup. We recommend setting these to false at runtime, and instead using SchemaTool to generate any required database schema before running DataNucleus (for RDBMS, HBase, etc).
Where you have an inheritance tree it is best to add a discriminator to the base class so that it's simple for DataNucleus to determine the class name for a particular row. For RDBMS : this results in cleaner/simpler SQL which is faster to execute, otherwise it would be necessary to do a UNION of all possible tables. For other datastores, a discriminator stores the key information necessary to instantiate the resultant class on retrieval so ought to be more efficient also.
DataNucleus provides 3 persistence properties datanucleus.schema.validateTables, datanucleus.schema.validateConstraints, datanucleus.schema.validateColumns that enforce strict validation of the datastore tables against the Meta-Data defined tables. This can cause performance issues at startup. In general this should be run only at schema generation, and should be turned off for production usage. Set all of these properties to false. In addition there is a property datanucleus.rdbms.CheckExistTablesOrViews which checks whether the tables/views that the classes map onto are present in the datastore. This should be set to false if you require fast start-up. Finally, the property datanucleus.rdbms.initializeColumnInfo determines whether the default values for columns are loaded from the database. This property should be set to NONE to avoid loading database metadata.
To sum up, the optimal settings with schema creation and validation disabled are:
#schema creation datanucleus.schema.autoCreateAll=false datanucleus.schema.autoCreateTables=false datanucleus.schema.autoCreateColumns=false datanucleus.schema.autoCreateConstraints=false #schema validation datanucleus.schema.validateTables=false datanucleus.schema.validateConstraints=false datanucleus.schema.validateColumns=false datanucleus.rdbms.CheckExistTablesOrViews=false datanucleus.rdbms.initializeColumnInfo=None
Creation of EntityManagerFactory objects can be expensive and should be kept to a minimum. Depending on the structure of your application, use a single factory per datastore wherever possible. Clearly if your application spans multiple servers then this may be impractical, but should be borne in mind.
You can improve startup speed by not specifying all classes in the persistence-unit so that they are discovered at runtime. Obviously this may impact on persistence operations later if classes are not known about.
Some RDBMS (such as Oracle) have trouble returning information across multiple catalogs/schemas and so, when DataNucleus starts up and tries to obtain information about the existing tables, it can take some time. This is easily remedied by specifying the catalog/schema name to be used - either for the EMF as a whole (using the persistence properties datanucleus.Catalog, datanucleus.Schema) or for the package/class using attributes in the MetaData. This subsequently reduces the amount of information that the RDBMS needs to search through and so can give significant speed ups when you have many catalogs/schemas being managed by the RDBMS.
DataNucleus, by default, will allocate connections when they are required. It then will close the connection. In addition, when it needs to perform something via JDBC (RDBMS datastores) it will allocate a PreparedStatement, and then discard the statement after use. This can be inefficient relative to a database connection and statement pooling facility such as Apache DBCP. With Apache DBCP a Connection is allocated when required and then when it is closed the Connection isn't actually closed but just saved in a pool for the next request that comes in for a Connection. This saves the time taken to establish a Connection and hence can give performance speed ups the order of maybe 30% or more. You can read about how to enable connection pooling with DataNucleus in the Connection Pooling Guide.
As an addendum to the above, you could also turn on caching of PreparedStatements. This can also give a performance boost, depending on your persistence code, the JDBC driver and the SQL being issued. Look at the persistence property datanucleus.connectionPool.maxStatements.
Clearly the structure of your application will have a major influence on how you utilise an EntityManager. A pattern that gives a clean definition of process is to use a different persistence manager for each request to the data access layer. This reduces the risk of conflicts where one thread performs an operation and this impacts on the successful completion of an operation being performed by another thread. Creation of EM's is not an expensive process and use of multiple threads writing to the same manager should be avoided.
Make sure that you always close the EntityManager after use. It releases all resources connected to it, and failure to do so will result in memory leaks. Also note that when closing the EntityManager if you have the persistence property datanucleus.detachOnClose set to true (when in an extended PersistenceContext) this will detach all objects in the Level1 cache. Disable this if you don't need these objects to be detached, since it can be expensive when there are many objects.
To optimise the persistence process for performance you need to analyse what operations are performed and when, to see if there are some features that you could disable to get the persistence you require and omit what is not required. If you think of a typical transaction, the following describes the process
for (int i=0;i<1000000;i++) { if ((i%10000)/10000 == 0 && i != 0) { pm.flush(); } ... }
If you are retrieving an object by its identity and know that it will be present in the Level2 cache, for example, you can set the persistence property datanucleus.findObject.validateWhenCached to false and this will skip a separate call to the datastore to validate that the object exists in the datastore.
DataNucleus provides a series of value generators for generation of identity values. These can have an impact on the performance depending on the choice of generator, and also on the configuration of the generator.
The auto identity generator value is the recommended choice since this will allow DataNucleus to decide which identity generator is best for the datastore in use.
DataNucleus has 2 ways of handling calls to SCO Collections/Maps. The original method was to pass all calls through to the datastore. The second method (which is now the default) is to cache the collection/map elements/keys/values. This second method will read the elements/keys/values once only and thereafter use the internally cached values. This second method gives significant performance gains relative to the original method. You can configure the handling of collections/maps as follows :-
The second method also allows a finer degree of control. This allows the use of lazy loading of data, hence elements will only be loaded if they are needed. You can configure this as follows :-
Performing non-transactional reads has advantages and disadvantages in performance and data freshness in cache. The objects read are held cached by the EntityManager. The second time an application requests the same objects from the EntityManager they are retrieved from cache. The time spent reading the object from cache is minimum, but the objects may become stale and not represent the database status. If fresh values need to be loaded from the database, then the user application should first call refresh on the object.
Another disadvantage of performing non-transactional reads is that each operation realized opens a new database connection, but it can be minimized with the use of connection pools, and also on some of the datastore the (nontransactional) connection is retained.
Reading fields of unmanaged objects (outside the scope of an EntityManager) is a trivial task, but performed in a certain manner can determine the application performance. The objective here is not give you an absolute response on the subject, but point out the benefits and drawbacks for the many possible solutions.
Object copy = null; try { EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager(); em.getTransaction().begin(); //retrieve in some way the object, query, find, etc Object obj = em.find(MyClass.class, id); copy = em.detach(obj); em.getTransaction().commit(); } finally { em.close(); } //read or change the detached object here System.out.prinln(copy.getName());
Object obj = null; try { EntityManager pm = emf.createEntityManager(); em.getTransaction().begin(); //retrieve in some way the object, query, find, etc obj = em.find(MyClass.class, id); em.getTransaction().commit(); // Object "obj" is now detached } finally { em.close(); } //read or change the detached object here System.out.prinln(obj.getName());
The bottom line is to not use detachment if instances will only be used to read values.
When fetching objects you have control over what gets fetched. This can have an impact if you are then detaching those objects. With JPA the maximum fetch depth is -1 (unlimited). So with JPA you ought to set it to the extent that you want to detach, or better still make use of DataNucleus fetch groups to control the specific fields to detach.
I/O consumes a huge slice of the total processing time. Therefore it is recommended to reduce or disable logging in production. To disable the logging set the DataNucleus category to OFF in the Log4j configuration. See Logging for more information.
In most applications, the performance of the persistence layer is very unlikely to be a bottleneck. More likely the design of the datastore itself, and in particular its indices are more likely to have the most impact, or alternatively network latency. That said, it is the DataNucleus projects' committed aim to provide the best performance possible, though we also want to provide functionality, so there is a compromise with respect to resource.
|What is a benchmark? This is simply a series of persistence operations performing particular things e.g persist n objects, or retrieve n objects. If those operations are representative of your application then the benchmark is valid to you.
To find (or create) a benchmark appropriate to your project you need to determine the typical persistence operations that your application will perform. Are you interested in persisting 100 objects at once, or 1 million, for example? Then when you have a benchmark appropriate for that operation, compare the persistence solutions.
The performance tuning guide above gives a good oversight of tuning capabilities, and also refer to the following blog entry for our take on performance of DataNucleus AccessPlatform. And then the later blog entry about how to tune for bulk operations
There is an interesting presentation on JPA provider performance that was presented at GeeCon 2012 by Patrycja Wegrzynowicz. This presentation takes the time to look at what operations the persistence provider is performing, and does more than just "persist large number of flat objects into a single table", and so gives you something more interesting to analyse. DataNucleus comes out pretty well in many situations. You can also see the PDF here.
The PolePosition benchmark is a project on SourceForge to provide a benchmark of the write, read and delete of different data structures using the various persistence tools on the market. JPOX was run against this benchmark just before being renamed as DataNucleus and the following conclusions about the benchmark were made.


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To celebrate the release of the fourth and final
To find out more about Spud - Exit, Pursued by a Bear launch events happening around the country visit the Official Spud Books Facebook page now.
To enter, please tell us (in 100 words or less) why you are John van de Ruit's biggest fan. Email your answer to firstname.lastname@example.com and include your name, address and contact number. Competition closes on 13 July 2012 and is only open to South African residents.
Spud: Exit, Pursued by a Bear storyline revealed!
After an unexpected and diabolical farewell breakfast conversation with his father, Spud Milton returns to boarding school for his 1993 Matric year, his last as a schoolboy. Armed with a prefects' tie and a raging libido, Spud soon discovers that being a large(ish) fish in a small pond has its fair share of challenges. He finds himself embroiled in fighting for his own room, directing a house play where both lead actors refuse to learn their lines, and assisting in Vern Blackadder's dramatic return from the dead with nothing more than a drip cord and a pair of oven gloves.
Dear Purveyors of Fine Potatoes
It's been a while since my last update and I am so dreadfully sorry for leaving you in the lurch. My feeble excuse of writing the fourth (and final) Spud novel was quite rightly laughed out of town. So to temper the hostility I shall soften your resistance with two slices of breaking Spud news:
Yesterday I received news, courtesy of producer Ross Garland's carrier pigeon, that prefers to fly under the curious pseudonym of Henry Charles Bukowski, that it carried with it an important missive. After languidly wolfing down a bowl of seed and slotting half a Red Bull, the feathery creature kindly extended its leg and I was able to remove the small note attached to its knobbly ankle. The note read:
Home | About John Van De Ruit | Spud | Spud - The Madness Continues... | Spud - Learning to Fly | Spud - Exit, Pursued by a Bear | Spud Journal | Spud - Audiobook | The Making of Spud The Movie | Spud – The Madness Continues… Film Tie-In


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9DM Vs Tantrum Rap Battle [Grind Time West]
Drect reports 'Battle from Battle of the Bay part 3 in Oakland, CA on February 28, 2009. Tantrum goes for his first win against, 9DM one of the best battlers in the North West division. "
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Stolen Santa Returned with a Cash Prize, But Penguins Are Still Missing
Disney may not be making the case of the stolen, inflatable Santa into a Christmas Special any time soon, but this holiday story does have a happy ending.
A thief stole an inflatable Santa Claus and two inflatable penguins from James McClaren's yard in Unionville, IN. With no way of tracking him or her, McClaren was out a Santa. Then on Saturday, someone left the Santa in his yard, in a trash bag, deflated with $100 and a note.
McClaren said the note made it clear that the person who returned the Santa was not the one who stole it. It did say,
Returning your property is the right thing to do, and apologies for the thief who took it in the first place.
The penguins are still missing, but McClaren is grateful to have the Santa back and said he will use the money to buy more decorations.


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The Skipper Sailing Club of Chalkida is a privately owned club of individual yacht owners who have their own place on location where two other sailing clubs are also housed. The entire marina is owned by the Chalkida Nautical Office which is sponsored by and operated.
The panoramic shot was taken abroad the Avantes yacht owned by John Afendras who was kind enough to help us in this venture. I would like to extend my deepest gratitude for his hospitality.


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- From the President
Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica
Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica
Wed, 09/07/2016 - 10:00pm - 11:00pm
September 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of the historic prison rebellion at the Attica State Correctional Facility in upstate New York—a dramatic civil rights protest that ended with Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordering over 600 state troopers to storm the prison and retake it with force. As a result of this forcible retaking 39 people were shot to death—hostages and inmates alike—and scores of other prisoners were severely wounded and tortured for days.
Rochester's own Chris Christopher and Dave Marshall, the multiple Emmy Award-winning filmmaking team, reveal the story of what really happened during the 1971 Attica prison riot in Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics in Attica, airing Wednesday, September 7, 2016 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV.
Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica brings this historical event to life in completely new and startling ways. Based on scores of interviews of eyewitnesses who just now are telling their stories, as well as filmmaker access to newly discovered documents, Criminal Injustice brings genuinely new evidence to light regarding what exactly happened at Attica between September 9-13, 1971 and the role played there by local, state, and even federal officials. Indeed this film raises important new questions about the deaths caused at Attica, about the involvement by individuals in the White House at Attica, and the influence of Nelson Rockefeller's political aspirations on decision made before, during, and long after the controversial and deadly retaking of that prison.
Forty years after this cataclysmic and highly charged event, filmmakers Marshall and Christopher found that many are willing to speak with new candor that adds depth, and in some cases alters, the historic record. The film includes the final interview regarding Attica given by NYT reporter Tom Wicker (who was an observer/negotiator on the scene and author of A Time to Die about his experiences at Attica), Malcolm Bell, the special prosecutor turned whistle blower, Dr. Heather Thompson who is the nation's leading academic authority on the Attica prison uprising -- as well as inmates, former hostages, law enforcement officers and others.


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Former WWE referee Dave Hebner is synonymous with many successful Hulk Hogan title defenses, a few infamously unsuccessful ones, and refereed what is generally considered the greatest Wrestlemania match of all-time. Hebner recently shared some of his favorite moments, including his role in the epic Wrestlemania III matchup between Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage.
The Steamboat-Savage match remains a compelling story and for good reason. Their match-up was a culmination of critical components like quality TV production, play-by-play, and a storyline containing extraordinary ring talent and a quality referee, with the result captivating fans in a dramatic way. And wasn't Hebner's ref bump near the end a thing of beauty? Dave confirmed the bout as one of his favorite moments in the WWE.
"That was the best match of the Wrestlemanias," Hebner told SLAM! Wrestling. "We had about 22 false finishes in that match. We went over it, over and over. Randy and Ricky, I have to tell you, they gave it all they got. They are professionals. They know what they�re doing and are both great athletes and just give you everything, so you have to know your spot, know your timing," he said.
"It�s a lot of people. And just coming out of the back, going to the ring, you just got cold chills. You just see all those people, 93,000 people. I mean how many people walked out to 93,000 people? I was so excited; sometimes I almost forgot what I was supposed to do," he laughed.
The dirt sheets in the day were not nearly as quick as today's online contemporaries in reporting background information, adding a dense layer of mystique to the event. Hebner recalled the basic preparation: "You get it [Wrestlemania match-ups notice] about a month in advance so you can start working it every night at the house shows so you know what you�re going to do," he said simply. "Every night, they would wrestle each other, then they would go to the big show for the belt."
In a recent conversation with SLAM! Wrestling's Jason Clevett, Steamboat praised Hebner's disappearing skills. "We have had a number of referees come and go [in the WWE]. Dave to me was excellent; he was there when you needed him and then would become a ghost. When I would go out there with Randy Savage and wrestle, Dave wasn't somebody you would have to worry about running into or tripping over. He knew when to be there and when to disappear. As a guy, a great guy but as a referee he was excellent," said the 2009 Hall of Fame inductee.
Hebner was good friends with the late Joey Marella, and noted that Marella was a great guy and a fine referee. He also noted Marella was assigned to referee the main event, much like how he and the other refs were assigned to theirs.
The refs did get along for the most part. "Some of the referees you didn�t get along with, most of the referees we got along good with," said Hebner. "The only referees we ever had trouble with was the ones in New York because they had a stipulation that said that we had to use referees from New York, we couldn�t have referees that didn�t live in New York referee the matches. That�s why I missed the first Wrestlemania, because they wouldn�t let me referee up there.
"Danny Davis was a referee that was cocky. He was a real cocky guy but I always got along with him. I never had the first bad word with him, he and I always got along. He would complain all the time about this and that. But he ended up wrestling [at Wrestlemania III]; he was a good guy. A lot of people didn�t like him, like I said he was cocky.
"But you got your referees like Timmy White, who is one of the greatest referees of all time. He broke his shoulder and he went back refereeing and broke it again, so he had to give it up because it wasn�t going to work. It was the same for me, I had a kneecap put in, a planted kneecap. That�s what made me have to quit refereeing. But I could go back and do one match today, if I had to."
"It was a good match," Hebner recalled. "We had to have police escorts to the airport, because people wanted to kill us. One of the biggest things ever in the wrestling world today. I don�t think anyone has ever topped that one," he said in an understatement.
Quite comical was the verbal and physical exchange between the Hebners after the match. The official story according to Dave is that he was locked in the closet while Earl refereed the match. Earl ended up socking Dave with a right hand and then some serious kicks to the ribs that would have made Randy Orton proud.
Apparently, it was too good.
"Yeah, he [Earl] broke one of my ribs. He got so excited that when he laid it into me, he really laid into me. That�s when you see me take that bump over by the rope where I could just roll out of the ring and hit the floor. I don�t know what happened. He must have gone nuts, trying to kill me, man," he said half-jokingly.
"I was out a couple of weeks with that thing. A rib, it has to heal on its own, there isn�t anything much you can do with it. So he put it to me and then when Hogan picked Earl up and threw him and everybody missed him, he went over [DiBiase, Andre and Virgil] and hit the railing and broke his shoulder."
Hebner is currently working on his book called Nothing but the Truth. "It tells you everything, it tells you about the setup with Bret Hart and Shawn [Michaels]. It tells you everything. That�s all I�ll say about the book because I want people to buy and read it," he said candidly.
The book is expected to be out in May or June of this year.
EDITOR'S NOTE: SLAM! Wrestling will have more on Dave Hebner's career in an upcoming piece.
Kenai Andrews is Media Relations Director of SuperEyeSpex Optical and the Senior Writer for new Caribbean culture based Yush Magazine. Email him at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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ACC M5: 04.05.13 EditionPosted by mpatton on April 5th, 2013
- State of the U: Miami filed a 45-page motion for the NCAA to dismiss all charges against the university due to the NCAA's questionable actions during the investigation (which have already resulted in multiple firings at several levels of the NCAA enforcement staff). Miami is officially not going away, no matter how much the NCAA wants it to. Between USA Today's recent blitzkrieg of Mark Emmert, the Miami fiasco and what I expect to be substantial fallout from any NCAA reaction to Miami, look for the NCAA to have a new person at its head in the near future.
- San Jose Mercury News: Filed away under "fun historical ACC coaching factoids" is this gem from Jeff Faraudo. Apparently NC State legend Everett Case popularized cutting down the nets in college basketball, bringing the tradition from Indiana high schools. That leads me to believe that one of the colleges in Indiana probably did it first (and helps explain the Hoosiers' zealous behavior for cutting down the nets this season), but Case made it big — especially once he led the way for the ACC Tournament, which would've given Case the platform to spread his tradition.
- Winston-Salem Journal: Dan Collins does a great job previewing Wake Forest's basketball team for next season player by player before coming to the conclusion that Codi Miller-McIntyre holds the key to the Demon Deacons' success. I have a couple of thoughts on his take: I agree wholeheartedly that next year's Wake Forest team will only be as good as Miller-McIntyre, but I think the most valuable players will be Devin Thomas and Travis McKie. Despite the fan base's dismay over keeping Jeff Bzdelik on board, there's a lot more talent on this roster than people give it credit for (and a lot more talent than Clemson or Virginia Tech will have next season). That said, Bzdelik needs his rising sophomore point guard to break out.
- Run the Floor: Miami has had a rough go at the NBA Draft recently. The school boasts three current NBA players amongst its alumni ranks, but John Salmons was the last player to be drafted in the first round in 2002 (James Jones was drafted in the second round and DeQuan Jones wasn't drafted at all). This year that could change if Shane Larkin decides to go pro. He probably played himself into the first round this season, despite his size (although he looks taller than his listing). Kenny Kadji has the second-best chance, but his age will hurt him significantly (though whatever NBA team gets him in the second round should be thrilled).
- Blogger So Dear: Another player who will look to help Wake Forest next year is Daniel Green, the freshman starting center who tore his ACL before last season. It's unclear exactly what Green will mean, other than added size and strength, but he could be another big piece of Wake Forest's turnaround. The biggest issue for Jeff Bzdelik is playing Green and Thomas at the same time forces Travis McKie to play more on the perimeter against quicker defenders. Regardless, Green should help shore up the boards in Winston-Salem.
EXTRA: Shane Ryan did an awesomely esoteric piece on the history of basic basketball statistics — mostly focused on the "dead ball rebound" (the statistic that balances the rebound/missed shots books without rewarding teams or individuals). It's worth a read.


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HARTSVILLE, S.C. – A trio of Cobras broke the 10 kill mark, but Coker could not overcome the offensive attack from Barton, as the Bulldogs took the Conference Carolinas match 3-1 on Saturday afternoon. Barton picked up wins in sets one, two and four with scores of 25-22, 25-22 and 25-16. Coker earned the win in the third set, 25-19.
Sophomore Taylor Willis (Zephyrhills, Fla.) had 13 kills, sophomore Hannah Vadakin (Centennial, Colo.) ended the match with 11 kills and junior April Griggs (Bishopville, S.C.) each had 10 kills for the Cobras. Four players had double digit digs, with freshman Anna Schwark (Coaldale, Alberta) leading the way with 24 digs followed by junior Brittany Bass (Bethune, S.C.) with 17 and sophomores Katie McElveen (Hartsville, S.C.) and Kelly Stine ((Fort Collins, Colo.) with 15 and 10 respectively. Stine added 23 assists to the match and freshman Samantha Celek (Charleston, S.C.) handed out 24 assists.
Freshman Melissa Cochran (Knightdale, N.C.) was a force to be reckoned with for Barton as she tallied 13 kills. Both freshmen Amanda Grandy (Rolesville, N.C.) and Meka Hoover (Seagrove, N.C.) had 15 digs for the Bulldogs.
Coker's record now falls to 6-12, 4-5 in conference play; Barton improves to 8-10, 4-6 in Conference Carolinas matches.
Coker's next home match is Friday, October 28, at 7 p.m. against Lees-McRae. The Cobras will be on the road for their next three matches, with the next being at King College on October 14. Match time is scheduled for 7 p.m.


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Helium Shortage Puts Touchdown Balloons on Hiatus
Randy York's N-Sider
One of Nebraska's top five football traditions will be altered for the 2012 season opener and then go on indefinite hiatus until and unless a global helium shortage is solved. The odds of that happening any time soon appear rather prohibitive, so Husker fans who love watching Big Red balloons go up, up and away after Nebraska's first touchdown every home game will have to be understandably patient, if not appreciatively creative when the air temporarily comes out of a tradition that dates back to Memorial Stadium games in the 1940s.
Before going on hiatus, the release of red helium-filled balloons will get at least one final curtain call in Nebraska's season-opener against Southern Miss on Saturday, Sept. 1. But instead of expecting 4,000 to 5,000 balloons celebrating that first touchdown, expect 2,000 to 2,500 balloons, giving Nebraska fans one last traditional touchdown release. That way, Big Red fans can take pictures with both their cameras and their minds while media and staff photographers commemorate the occasion with photos that just might define an historical footnote.
Fortunately, Nebraska's four other major football traditions will go into extra gear to compensate for one that Nebraska Sports Information Director Emeritus Don Bryant says has been around since a student-based women's group "hawked" red helium-filled balloons on "O" Street in the 1940s. "They would sell those balloons downtown hours before kickoff and then sell whatever they had left inside the stadium, along with food and popcorn," Bryant said.
Priorities: Hospitals and Industrial Construction
What that group started will now be temporarily on hold. Nebraska's traditional provider of helium for touchdown balloons has no current supply and will not have any until late September or early October, at the earliest. Even more importantly, when that helium becomes available, there are higher causes for its use. Hospitals are the No. 1 priority for available national helium (for MRI machines). Industrial construction (for arc welding) comes next. Even the staunchest fans would favor helium for those two causes ahead of football games, weddings, birthdays, babies and product launches.
Janell Hall, the director of Concession Operations in her 33rd year with Nebraska's Athletic Department, coordinates Big Red Touchdown balloon sales. She's helped make each home game's flight of balloons a time-honored tradition. The costs to produce the helium on Game Day has been part of the Concessions Department's responsibilities, and that first touchdown sight is every bit as important to Hall as a pre-game flyover.
"A student organization used to handle the balloons from the Student Union," Hall recalled. "As the costs went up, the Athletic Department took over sales. We started charging for balloons, but changed our policy, thanks to First National Bank's sponsorship that allowed us to give balloons away because they're such an important part of our game day atmosphere. Releasing balloons before that first touchdown is a tradition that's been important to us, so we did our due diligence before we made any decision."
Ethan Rowley, director of Athletic Marketing, agrees. "We've exhausted our possibilities to continue this tradition at this point in time," he said, pointing out that Hall has checked every available option, and nothing looks promising. "We're not necessarily permanently shelving this tradition," Rowley said. "We're just putting it on hiatus until the helium inventory is replenished."
Although the shortage might take months, it's more likely to take years. "We want to be good stewards," Rowley said. "We don't want to take away helium from hospitals and industries that need it more than we do right now."
First Game: Last Chance for a Long Time?
In the interim, Athletic Marketing still has a few tanks from last year that will produce 2,000 to 2,500 balloons for the first game. After the season opener, Nebraska's plan is to hold one tank of helium back for the remaining six games and then come up with a way to symbolize the balloon tradition for the rest of the season.
One idea is to feature a "Touchdown Balloon Kid of the Game". Each honoree would release a small batch of balloons (no more than a dozen) from either the field or a corner of the stadium. "That would allow us to keep a small measure of the tradition through the hiatus," Rowley said. "Whenever helium supply is restored, we can explore the opportunity to restart our tradition, which seems to be a fan favorite and one of our most visible."
Meanwhile, Nebraska fans will cherish their other four primary traditions more than ever:
1) The Marching Band's pregame spectacular;
2) The Husker Power chant just before The Tunnel Walk where half of Memorial Stadium yells "Husker!" in unison while the other half answers "Power!";
3) The Tunnel Walk entrance that blends psych-up videos of Husker legends with highlights of current players while the song Sirius seriously stirs the emotions through the magical music of Alan Parsons Project ; and
4) "Throwing the Bones", the fans' exclamation point that celebrates a Blackshirt making a big play and then crossing his arms in an X across his chest, affirming the skull and crossbones logo that has been used by the Blackshirts since the 1960s.
Mural Celebrates the Touchdown Tradition
Whether Nebraska loses one of its unique football traditions temporarily or for a much longer period of time, Husker fans will find a way to pick up the slack. Personally, all I intend to change is the tense when I describe why balloons are featured in a Mike Sullivan Mural that was unveiled before Nebraska consecutive sellout No. 300 just three seasons ago.
The mural hangs in the North Stadium lobby. It is the largest mosaic tile mural in North America. At the top of the mural are four banks of stadium lights and 21 red balloons, depicting another sold-out Memorial Stadium with players celebrating while red balloons take flight to signal Nebraska's first touchdown of the game.
That mural is still historically accurate, but an eight-decade tradition is winding down through the fault of no one. So make sure you appreciate the red-helium balloon release in the season-opener. It may be the last big batch of balloons you see for quite some time.
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