text:
Dien, Bruce | |
Casler, Michael | |
Hector, Ronald - Ron | |
Iten, Loren | |
Nichols, Nancy | |
Mertens, Jeffrey | |
Cotta, Michael |
Submitted to: International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 10/27/2011 Publication Date: 12/12/2011 Citation: Dien, B.S., Casler, M.D., Hector, R.E., Iten, L.B., Nichols, N.N., Mertens, J.A., Cotta, M.A. 2012. Biochemical processing of reed canarygrass into fuel ethanol. International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies. 7:338-347. Interpretive Summary: Reed canarygrass has potential as a dedicated bioenergy crop for production in the North Eastern United States because it is well adapted for growth in marginal soils, is a perennial, and has high productivity. Reed canarygrass biomass was evaluated for conversion to fuel ethanol. The biomass was treated with dilute ammonia to open up the plant cell wall structure. The ammonia was evaporated and a combination of enzymes and fermenting yeast used to convert the carbohydrates present in the biomass into ethanol. Under optimized ammonia treatment conditions, the biomass was converted with a conversion efficiency of 72% based solely upon the amount of glucose present in the biomass. This work will be of interest to farmers who might consider growing bioenergy crops and potential producers of cellulosic ethanol. Technical Abstract: Reed canarygrass is a temperate perennial grass of interest as a bioenergy crop. The canarygrass was evaluated for conversion to bioethanol using liquid hot water and dilute ammonia pretreatments prior to fermentation. Resulting hydrolysates were evaluated for production of ethanol, xylose, and soluble xylans. Dilute ammonia gave higher yield efficiencies than liquid hot water. The optimal condition for dilute ammonia (4% w/v) pretreatment was 170 deg C for 20 min. Hydrolysates were converted to ethanol using Saccharomyces in the presence of a blend of commercial cellulases and additional carbohydrases. The final ethanol conversion efficiency was 84% based upon total hexosans, with 72% of the xylan converted to soluble xylan oligomers. |


text:
If you want to try the Instant Messaging with CyberBuddy, and I am online, try my CyberBuddy UIN #1000 or UIN#1500 Like to see additional  features? Found any bugs or problems? Please let me know - thanks. If you have a question, have you read the FAQ ? Mirror Sites TheCyberBuddy.com CyberBuddy.org MyCyberBuddy.com YeaYou.com/CyberBuddy |
Microsoft®  Agents are animated characters that can move around the screen and talk to you..  CyberBuddy will help you install them if you do not already have them on your system. There are hundreds of characters to choose from.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
CareLink is the Best in Class
Solution for House Call Patient Scheduling!
Yes I'd Like to Schedule a Free 30 Minute Demo
CareLink is the #1 solution on the market for Mobile Medical Practice Patient Scheduling
CareLink is a powerful practice management tool specifically designed to meet the needs of mobile medical providers. CareLink provides best in class map based patient scheduling tools. CareLink also can provide a direct a link between patient's care givers, assisted living homes, group homes, doctors' offices, and others who are managing the care of a large group of patients within your practice. CareLink can be integrated directly with most popular EMRs.
Use the built in powerful map based scheduling tools to optimize patient scheduling. Minimize your provider driving time and increase the amount of time you spend on patient care.
Get Turn by Turn Directions, check in and check out of appointments, and manage your patients right through your provider's mobile device.
We know that many house call providers have recently incorporated E-Visit (Telehealth) Visits into their practice. Our platform support scheduling patients at home, in your clinic or remotely via telehealth.
Fax your documents into CareLink to link to sign, forward and link to patient's records. Also upload faxes automatically to popular EMRs. No more download and uploading!
Sign all of your faxed or uploaded documents and send them to where they need to be in just a few mouse clicks. Turn around home health orders or other documents in a matter of minutes.
The facility and specialist portals allows you to securely transmit electronic data to and from care facilities as well as allow 24 x 7 access to your office. Fast turn around on orders ensure growing your business from facilities and group homes.
New mobile medical themed website links directly to your CareLink account. Manage your site through your admin area. SEO, Mobile and Conversion Optimized.
CareLink streamlines the process of creating, signing, and sending home health orders. Also allows home health agencies access to the specialist portal to view archived documents. Don't waste more time printing and signing documents!
We have integrations with popular service providers including Square for card payment processing and Zoom for secure televisit and communications.


text:
As with any drug rehabilitation program, individual results will vary.
What Graduates Say | What Families of Graduates Say | Public Service Announcements |
Grandmother of Narconon Graduate
Sandy W.
My granddaughter was such a happy-go-lucky child. She was vivacious and very popular.
We began to notice a change in her. She just seemed to be tired all the time. She didn't really want to participate in what the family wanted to do, which is kind of typical for teenagers. But the tiredness—I just didn't understand. And I even mentioned it to her mother, "Why is this child so tired? I'm an old lady and I'm not that tired." You know, I just couldn't understand it.
She was on heroin, which we didn't know anything about. We had no idea. And they're very good at covering up.
I have a very large Christmas party every year and my daughter had to stop at a Walmart to buy her a sweater before they arrived to cover up her arms because she didn't want me to see.
My daughter called me one morning at work and she was hysterically crying. She had taken her to the doctor and the doctor had given her something to help her off the drug. She had tried to inject it. She thought it would work faster and better. And she was OD'ing. And this nearly caused her death.
After my daughter called me, I came right away. We spent the entire day on the telephone and on the computer, trying to find some place that would help her.
And one of the places that we called was Narconon. That was the beginning of such a success story, you cannot imagine.
My granddaughter became a totally different person than what she was when she came to Narconon. I actually saw the old child back again. And she just had this sense about her that she wanted to help everybody. It just did so much for her.
You love your grandchildren, but when they've gone through something like this and they've absolutely hit the bottom, and they're able to come back up again and be useful, contributing—she's great. She's absolutely great.


text:
The peer-reviewed research journal receives about 300 new submissions annually.
The Water Environment Research (WER) journal has developed www.editorialmanager.com/wer/ a new website to enable authors to more easily submit manuscripts for publication.
"We've made this change because the new site is easier to use and more intuitive, while preserving the best aspects of our old system," said WER Editor-in-Chief Mike Stenstrom. "We invite our readers to submit articles for consideration and look forward to seeing even more great research."
Published since 1928, WER features peer-reviewed research papers and research notes, as well as state-of-the-art and critical reviews on original, fundamental, and applied research in all scientific and technical areas related to water quality, pollution control, and management. Originally known as the Sewage Works Journal, WER is available in both print and online formats and receives approximately 300 new research submissions each year.
Source: Water Environment Research
This free educational webinar will provide a detailed process for climate-driven "pre-response" in a variety of key areas including: Supply Chain Disruptions, Employee Safety and Productivity, Regulatory and Compliance Risks …and many more areas.


text:
Contact Us
Hope Landing > Contact Us
Hope Landing Charlotte MI
Contact us today! We are ready to serve you with all your related needs. We proudly serve the Charlotte, MI area and ALL surrounding communities. We are ready now.
Hope Landing
1252 N. Cochran Ave.
Charlotte, MI 48813
M – F 9:00am – 6:00pm
The Haven
1146 N. Cochran Ave.
Charlotte, MI 48813
M – F 9:00am – 6:00pm
Where do I begin? I don't have enough words to thank you for all you and everyone at Hope has done for myself and especially my mom! The care and compassion that you all have shared is overwhelming. I've made wonderful friends & wonderful memories at Hope! Mom loved her little apartment! She loved the fireplace and she loved all of you! Th… Read more
We just wanted to say thanks for all you did for Iva. You don't know how much peace we had knowing she was in good hands. Your staff was wonderful. I know she always talked about going home, but I know she liked it there and she liked the people and staff. (She thought it was a real nice hotel.) Denny says if you ever need anything, call. He really… Read more
Dennis, Vicki and Wendy
The comfort and peace of mind we felt as we walked through the doors of Hope Landing for the first time, was remarkable. We had visited many different places, but at Hope Landing we felt welcomed in the same way you would from a family member. We knew from that very first visit, this was the place where we would want our father to stay. The manner … Read more
Kelly K
We wanted to thank you again for all the care and thoughtfulness you gave to our mother over the last two and a half year of her life. She was at home there and greatly appreciated all that you and Cheri and the entire staff did for her. She wasn't real hard to please, but I know she had her moments. We found your care superb and your generosity of… Read more
The children of Lois Podany
Dear Lyle & Cindy, Thank you for the wonderful care you and your staff gave to mom during her four and a half years at Hope Landing. Hope Landing really became her home and you did so much to make her comfortable. It was such a comfort knowing she was safe and so well-cared for also. The concern and compassion extended to all of us during her fina… Read more
Alice & Dan
You have created a "Dream" assisted living facility. Thank you for providing a beautiful facility that is attractive, has delicious food, social activities, and most important – spectacular staff. Thank you for your personal touch. God bless you.
Don & Jan C.
Dear Lyle and Staff, Thank you so very much for the wonderful care you gave my Mother Leona for the last 6 years. She made wonderful friends at Hope Landing and enjoyed all the activities you provided. When Sheri and Joel went to the hospital to visit with Mom, Sheri picked up Mom's hand to comfort her. Mom looked into Sheri's eyes and asked he… Read more
Judy W
There is no way our family can express our gratitude for your compassionate and gentle care you gave our dear mother. She was so comfortable and at home there. When we asked her who her favorite was, she always replied, "Oh, they're all good kids, and I like them all." Thank you all for making her last sixteen months as easy and enjoyable for her a… Read more
The family of Maggie Kenny
Good morning to you all! Nothing special in this email except to say that I was just thinking about Dad and a feeling of such gratitude for all you do came over me. So I thought I would just share how much you are appreciated! Susie and I talked this weekend, (I had called Dad to tell him my youngest daughter received a Naval ROTC scholarship and … Read more
Hope Landing is a small, caring hometown assisted living facility. I feel very lucky that I found such a wonderful place for my Mom. From the moment you walk into the building, you feel at home. Each resident has a small but comfortable room, where they may bring their own belongings. The rooms are kept very clean by a wonderful staff. Activities a… Read more
Sue C.


text:
Growth was the order of the day at the recent IHS World Petrochemical Conference in Houston. The mood was much better than it was at similar events five years ago, most of which could have been titled "How To Prepare for the Coming Apocalypse."
That's because economies in the U.S. and around the world were in free fall at that time as a global recession took hold. Overspeculation and too-easy credit had the world economy on the brink. Governments had to act in many cases to slam on the brakes and prevent society from reverting to hunting and gathering as primitive tribes did.
All of this, of course, was before improved methods of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling allowed exploration firms throughout North America to access natural gas deposits throughout the region. These ample supplies of gas then were converted into ethane and into ethylene by the region's petrochemical kingpins. As a result, instead of wondering if North America ever would build a new polyethylene resin plant, more than 10 billion pounds of new capacity has been announced since late 2011.
If even half of this new capacity comes on line as expected beginning in 2016 and 2017, the rules of the PE game will be changed. ExxonMobil Chemical President Steve Pryor did a great job of evangelizing this message as the keynote speaker at the IHS event. As a 40-year industry veteran, Pryor knows of what he speaks. ExxonMobil also is adding so much new capacity in Baytown, Texas, that Pryor could be elected mayor of that Houston-area town in a landslide.
Some surprises did emerge from the IHS event, which drew more than 1,000 attendees. IHS staffer Robin Waters predicted that North America would receive new polypropylene resin capacity, although no such moves have publicly been announced. Waters' colleague Mike Smith made a similar prediction for the North American PVC market.
PVC, like PE, could benefit from low-priced ethylene feedstock as well as from low costs for gas-fired electricity needed to make chlorine. The region's PVC makers, however, might want to be sure the U.S. housing market is on sturdier legs before throwing open the floodgates. They've impressively been able to reposition PVC as an export material
and have weathered the last half-decade in better shape than other commodity resin makers. PE makers should be looking to PVC's example, since a still-recovering North American consumer market is unlikely to absorb these waves of new PE, making exports a needed option.
Surprising comments were made by ExxonMobil's Pryor and IHS expert Nick Vafiadis that new PE processing capacity is likely headed for North America to cash in on the cost-advantaged PE that will be surfacing. Vafiadis said this new capacity likely would be in production of film and bags. These PE end products then would be exported from North America to markets around the world. Makers of plastic processing equipment must have felt tingles down their spines when Pryor and Vafiadis made their predictions.
So are happy days here again? Well, the first thing that needs to happen is for natural gas exploration to continue and for all those wells to keep producing up to expectations. This will require the industry to respond to concerns about alleged environmental impacts of the fracking process. It's handled these concerns well to date, using science and a solid track record of safety to make its case.
If even half of the predictions made by the IHS gang come true, the North American plastics market is going to be a much more enjoyable place to be in the years ahead.
Esposito is an Akron, Ohio-based Plastics News senior reporter.


text:
FONZWORTH BENTLEY FEAT LIL WAYNE & PIMP C lyrics : "C.O.L.O.U.R.S"
This is what we call, the movin' sidewalk (let's see)
Movin' sidewalk, movin'-movin' sidewalk (what am I gon' wear today?)
This is what we call, the movin' sidewalk (gimme them Cedar gloves)
Movin' sidewalk, movin'-movin' sidewalk (I'm goin' into my cashmere closet)
This is what we call, the movin' sidewalk (I got mo' cashmere than y'all)
Movin' sidewalk, movin'-movin' sidewalk (where my trousers?)
This is what we call, the movin' sidewalk (cream brown and 3 inch cuffs)
Movin' sidewalk, movin'-movin' sidewalk (where my sneakers?)
(I don't wear sneakers, I wear slippers)
[Fonzworth Bentley]
The rumor, of me in the Isuzu Trooper, fooled ya
It was a Porsche, a super duper
Charger, it wasn't Bankhead it was Boulevardin'
Wasn't Shawty it was comedian not it (uh-uh)
That wasn't my car, I was walkin', in velvet slippers
Know ya talkin' but before you do you need to know that
That's the type of brother got a castle wit' the cognac river
For a moat, I'll tell you what floats my boat
Purple silk linin', in, all of my coats
What you want? You want cashmere in the winter?
Really wanna know my worth? Wanna know my splendor?
Before, I deliver, gonna warn ya, may offend ya
Tesh and Kina this thang while you just a Simba
Watch the beak on this penguin his raps are sicker
I can weave in this lane, halogens I flicker
Foreign somethin' sittin' in the back wit' drivin' gloves and wavin' lazy
We gon' paint the town tonight
They gon' faint and fall in line (yeah)
Faded cause we're out of sight
Cool Outrageous Lovers Of Uniquely Raw Style
We gon' paint the town tonight
They gon' faint and fall in line (yeah)
Faded cause we're out of sight
Cool Outrageous Lovers Of Uniquely Raw Style
[Pimp C]
Pimp mode, meat good like pie a la mode
On parole, still keep me a calico ('co)
Never them gym clothes, cut Hilfiger ('figer)
Polo horses on my bed, pillow and spread
That girl want a wild bull between her legs
Too much game for them squares and them lames
I'm in a wet car (car) candy thang (thang)
Cologne smell good taste like a candy cane
Lane to lane (lane) brain to brain (brain)
I wrecked the Spur (Spur), it really ain't no thang
I'm in red, brand new, hoggin' the game
I got the Phantom, car's tuned true, just bought a Range
At press time hadn't dropped the album yet
Chinese girls love me long time on the G4 jet
Unh, ya hear that noise in my closet?
That's the gator tryna talk to this chinchilla tryin' to
Touch the ostrich
[Lil Wayne]
Umm... microphone check twelve or just one two
I am me, who are...
And I'm one too, high, you should look, up to me
My French girls love it when we smoke the oohwee (translate)
Um bellan France, I don't when we smoke the oohwee
I do me, she feel me comin' like new teeth(ow!)
I got paper like loose leaf
Come over here and maybe you can get a few sheets
My body's unique like the Sistene chapel
Fresh, six green apples
I should cut myself to see, if my blood's red
Baby I brainstorm, call me Floodhead
Married to the money, and if she leaves me bury me money
And when you're not good then ya arrogance is funny
And when you're really rich, then asparagus is yummy
Weezy F. Baby
[Bridge 2]
What's that spell?
Cool Outrageous Lovers Of Uniquely Raw Style
What's that spell?
Cool Outrageous Lovers Of Uniquely Raw Style
Submit Corrections


text:
When I found this roll of "For a Special Man" wrapping paper for 29 cents at the thrift store, I knew I wanted to make the most of it. I wrapped an offering of presents in it this weekend and saved several of the scrap pieces that had the whole "special man" wording on them. I mounted them on construction paper and secured them to grosgrain ribbon on the presents.
Do you save wrapping paper you've received for craft projects?
Join Make: Community Today


text:
It's game day. We've been working toward this for almost a year. It's just dawn and I'm watching a dull orange glow creep up the eastern sky. The 6 a.m. outdoor alarm just went off at the factory building, indicating that it is time for the workers to start their day. They start early here because many of them are farmers as well, and will go home in the afternoon to work their second jobs.
Our job this morning starts with getting the staff, volunteers, and vendors parked in the main field. Yesterday we carefully checked all of the parking fields with a heavy truck and a bunch of volunteers, to identify potential wet spots. There's a section in the northeast corner we call "Lake Bambi," and there are two smaller spots we call the South and North China Seas. They are pretty wet, so we have marked them off. There's also a section we had coded-named "Cairo" that we won't be able to use even though it is mostly dry, just because we can't get to it.
But otherwise the field is drying out very nicely. In the morning I estimated we could use about 80% of the available spaces, but at the rate things were drying we might be up to 90% this morning. We had a nice hot breeze all day and lots of sunshine. In any case, we'll have no trouble parking everyone who is signed up for the event.
The tent went up yesterday, and it is just plain huge. We've got room for 450 people in there, plus a large stage. It's the first things you see as you arrive. Looks like the circus has come to town. There are three smaller tents too, for registration, yoga classes, and vendors.
The Terra Port filled up yesterday, as we expected. Adam and Susan are here in their unique Class C, Alex and Charon showed up with Laura (from our Anza-Borrego trip last December), Kirk the amazing sign guy showed up with his usual bag of swag plus this cool Happy Hour sign, plus Michael Depraida, Hunter Hampton, and many other well-known Airstream characters.
With all these people, it wasn't surprising to see a couple of big chat circles set up under the shady trees every afternoon. Eleanor and I had enough to do that we didn't have time to join them for more than a few minutes. She was off until mid-afternoon making an airport run again, and then we needed to go back to the tent area to drop off the registration trailer (a U-Haul) and set up some things in the main tent. Then I had to go out with Brett & Adam to set up signs on the entry roads (which look awesome, by the way, thanks to Kirk).
We finally got a chance to clean up and break away around 6 p.m. in the Miata for a top-down cruise through the countryside — just us, away from the bustle and crowd for a few hours. We zipped down to the old downtown of Sidney, checked out a few quiet spots in town, then had dinner and came back via the Interstate. The convertible is surprisingly habitable at highway speeds, especially on a night like last night when the temps were still running about 88 as we cruised home.
So here we are, 6:25 a.m. now, and it's time to get moving. The sun has risen as I've typed this. I can hear a few people outside already. They want to get going. We'll start parking the staff and vendors around 8 a.m., and the general public at 9 a.m. I've got to get going now if I'm going to be hitched up and ready to lead the parade …


text:
"Contents: delivery of supplies to the USSR by the south route
December 27th, 1941
To: General Panfilov
CC: General Fedorenko
I received a report that the light tanks which we delivered through Persia arrived in Zanjan, where they are being transferred to Soviet authorities.
I am being told that training of Soviet personnel with these tanks will happen in Zanjan. I am also being told that an officer of the British Mission in Tbilisi is being sent to Zanjan to help.
I would like to know if everything is going well or if you have some issues that demand my attention.
Lieutenant General [signature]
British Military Mission


text:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Election Day is less than 50 days away, but results from the election could take a lot longer.
That's because a record number of voters are voting by mail this election and different states have different rules regarding when those ballots can be opened and processed.
Absentee ballots or mail-in ballots generally take a lot longer to count compared to in-person voting machines, because ballots need to be opened and scanned.
For instance, in the crucial swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, ballots can't be opened until Election Day. That differs from other states, like Colorado, which can open ballots as they come into election offices.
That means it will take election officials in those swing states a herculean effort to process and scan ballots to get accurate results by the end of election night.
Each state is facing either pending legislation at their State Capitol or various lawsuits asking the rules be changed.
Those aren't the only reasons results may be delayed.
In many states, like North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Minnesota, ballots are allowed to be postmarked on Election Day. That means it may take a few days to arrive to an election office.
"I think we are looking at five to seven days to roughly a week," said Ted Trimpa, a political consultant.
"The challenge is you are going to have so many states doing mail-in ballots that have never done mail ballots," Trimpa said.
And it may not just be swing states that are the issue.
In New York, a state that will almost certainty vote Democrat, primary results from earlier this year took four weeks in some cases.
Henry Rosoff, a political reporter with WPIX in New York City, explained New York law requires 48 hours to pass after the election before absentee ballots can be counted.
"We are not going to even begin to count half of our votes until 48 hours after Election Day," Rosoff said.
"If we were a swing state, it would seem absolutely outrageous," Rosoff said.


text:
This doubleheader CD presents digital premieres of two swinging sex comedy scores from 1966: Not With My Wife, You Don't! and Any Wednesday , as re-recorded for Warner Bros. Records.
Not With My Wife, You Don't! starred Tony Curtis, George C. Scott and Virna Lisi in a wacky love triangle involving two servicemen and an Italian beauty. The score by John "Johnny" Williams was one of several he composed for adult-oriented "screwball" comedies in the 1960s, three of them already released by FSM: John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!, Penelope and A Guide for the Married Man.
Williams's work on Not With My Wife, You Don't! is noteworthy for his collaboration with legendary lyricist and performer Johnny Mercer, with whom he wrote three songs: the upbeat "Big Beautiful Ball," romantic "My Inamorata," and goofball-pop "Not With My Wife, You Don't." The album, as was the custom for the day, features vocal and instrumental versions of the songs, selected score cues, and expanded versions of source music.
Although he was many years away from his worldwide fame, Williams's gifts for composition and cinema were more than evident on "light" fare such as this; his score is tuneful, diverse and imaginative in its symphonic and dance-band orchestrations.
Any Wednesday was based on a Broadway hit and starred Jane Fonda as a ditzy, heartsick mistress to an industrial tycoon played by Jason Robards. The score—very much of a piece with Not With My Wife, You Don't!—was composed by George Duning, an underrated composer with a gift for melody who was a contract composer at Columbia Pictures in the late 1950s (when Williams was the studio orchestra pianist).
This bargain doubleheader is long overdue for John Williams collectors, a rare release for aficionados of George Duning, and a charming delight for fans of the Henry Mancini/Neal Hefti school of "swinging sixties" comedy. The albums have been remixed and remastered from the 1/2" four-track masters for superb stereo sound quality.
George Duning (1908-2000) was a longtime contract composer at Columbia Pictures (From Here to Eternity, Picnic) who later did feature films as a freelancer (including several of the titles released by FSM) as well as a great amount of television (including Star Trek). A former bandleader for Kay Kyser, he was comfortable in jazz idioms and had a sensitive and melodic touch as a symphonic dramatist. FSM is one of the only labels to showcase his work, from action-adventure (The Devil at 4 O'Clock) to magical comedy (Bell, Book and Candle) to bluesy and lyrical (Toys in the Attic). IMDB
John Williams (b. 1932) is not only the composer of most of the biggest blockbusters of all time—including Star Wars, E.T., Jaws, the Indiana Jones films, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and many more, many of them directed by Steven Spielberg—but he has transcended film music to become the world's most famous living composer, and an American institution. His popular symphonic scores are so iconic that they often overshadow the fact that he has been equally proficient at sophisticated, adult fare (Schindler's List, Images) and had a successful career in composing (for television and often comedy features), arranging and performing well before he even met Steven Spielberg. FSM, like most labels, will release everything it can of Williams's music, and has concentrated (for reasons of availability) on his early years as "Johnny" Williams when he was doing sterling work on relatively little-known television and films—always with an amazing attention to melody and detail. In fact, his early works are fascinating for the ways in which they foreshadow his later, world-renowned efforts. IMDB
Click on track TIME for MP3 sound clip. Click on track title (selected tracks only) for Real Audio.
Not With My Wife, You Don't!
Music Composed and Conducted by Johnny Williams
Total Time: 30:16
Any Wednesday
Music Composed and Conducted by George Duning
Total Time: 25:59 Total Disc Time: 56:22
Total Time: 25:59
Total Disc Time: 56:22
Leader (Conductor):John T. Williams
Violin:Herman Clebanoff, Sam Freed, Jr., David Frisina, Irving Geller, Thelma Hanau (Beach), Anatol Kaminsky, Nathan Kaproff, George Kast, Marvin Limonick, Alexander Murray, Erno Neufeld, Irma W. Neumann
Viola:Allan Harshman, Virginia Majewski, Robert Ostrowsky, Sanford Schonbach
Cello:Armand Kaproff, Raphael "Ray" Kramer, Edgar Lustgarten, Eleanor Slatkin
Bass:Joseph Mondragon
Flute:Arthur Gleghorn, Ronald Langinger (aka Ronny Lang)
Oboe:Gene Cipriano
Clarinet:Justin Gordon
Saxophone:Gene Cipriano, Charles Gentry, Justin Gordon, Ronald Langinger (aka Ronny Lang), John Lowe, Ted Nash
French Horn:Vincent N. DeRosa, William A. Hinshaw, Richard E. Perissi, Henry Sigismonti
Trumpet:Austin "Bud" Brisbois, Conte Candoli, W. Pete Candoli, Henry Jack Laubach
Trombone:Michael J. Barone, Francis L. "Joe" Howard, Richard "Dick" Nash
Tuba:John Bambridge, Jr.
Piano:Artie Kane, Ray Sherman
Organ:Artie Kane
Guitar:Robert F. Bain, William Pitman, Thomas "Tommy" Tedesco
Harp:Dorothy S. Remsen
Percussion:Larry Bunker, Sheldon "Shelly" Manne, Emil Radocchia (Richards), Jerry D. Williams, John F. Williams
Arranger:James H. Bryant
Orchestra Manager:Robert Helfer
Copyist:Dan Franklin, Arthur W. Grier, Robert G. Hartley


text:
In the logic,
Under the hood,
What might this involve?
Since the car and cdr of any normed cons must be normed, we need to hons-copy x and y. This requires little work if x and y are already normed, but can be expensive if x or y contain large, un-normed cons structures.
After that, we need to check whether any normed cons equal to
Generally speaking, these extra operations make
(defun hons (x y) (declare (xargs :guard t)) (cons x y))


text:
Warm Ginger Glow [ HM2 Burner Series ]
Give your home the warmth and beauty of a real fire with the Warm Ginger Glow gas log system from HEATMASTER.
This brand new generation gas log set gives the most realistic look yet. Beautiful natural flames dance and curl around the logs to mirror nature's unique design. HEATMASTER introduces a highly efficient burner system that provides the warmth of the fire. Controls are hidden from view so as, not to interfere with the beauty of the fire. The Warm Ginger Glow gas log set truly looks like a roaring fire. A few of the features of the HEATMASTER Warm Ginger Glow gas log system:
- Vent-free gas logs are a convenient and clean way to enjoy a beautiful fire, as well as provide supplemental heat with our highly efficient burner system.
- HM2 burner system is highly efficient while generating substantial heat. It is designed to hide unsightly valves and control dials.
- Quick and easy setup, only gas live is needed to get started.
- ODS pilot ensures safe use of log set.
- Years of maintenance-free care.
- Lifetime warranty for log sets.
- Available in LP or Natural Gas.
- Available in 18″, 24″ or 30″.
- Operating system: electronic ignition or millivolt.
- Remote ready.
- Optional circulator: SBF-300


text:
Migration is usually monitored at coastal watchpoints and bird observatories, where careful daily counts of visible migration, birds flying overhead, and grounded migrants are taken. These counts give the first indication of how our summer visitors have fared over the winter months.
The situation this spring has been very different with many observatory websites reporting very quiet days, in fact looking at the various websites gives the impression that it has been a very poor spring for migrant birds, and by association a bad winter. This couldn't be further from the truth. In the very settled conditions birds have had a relatively easy migration and have flown high over the coast, too high to be seen by observers on the ground, and nocturnal migrants just haven't been grounded.
A walk around my local patch, Lakenheath Fen, on Monday morning confirmed the presence on territory of many summer migrants. Reed and Sedge Warblers were in full song everywhere, as were Whitethroats and seven Grasshopper Warblers. Two Nightingales were singing around the car park, a pair of Common Terns looked settled in on the washland and there was a good number of Swallows, Sand Martins and House Martins feeding over the water, and four Cuckoos were singing for over three hours non-stop. In fact the Fen was alive with summer visitors - a very different picture from the one that coastal observers are getting.
Nightingale by Edmund Fellowes
However, it's not all over yet, we are now coming to the peak migration time and as the winds turn north and north-easterly over the next few days birds could well be forced to fly lower over the coast, and nocturnal migrants could well be grounded. We could see some large counts of hirundines during the day and grounded warblers and chats at first light, particularly on the south and east coasts, and, in the next day or two Swifts should arrive in force, the only thing that might stop them is if the northerly winds become too strong. This is an event that I always look forward to, as it seems that all of the UK's Swifts arrive on the same day, or two.
Black Tern by Lawrence G Baxter
So this weekend enjoy the summer migrants already on territory, look out for the mass arrival of Swifts, which can often be accompanied by Black Terns as they feed over large waterbodies, and if the chance arises, go hunting for grounded migrants at the coast. And, even though the winds have turned northerly it is always worth keeping an eye out for southern overshoots - Black-eared Wheatear could be on the cards.


text:
Here are a few observations inspired by conversations I had during the just concluded PyData conference1.
The Python data community is well-organized:
Besides conferences PyData, SciPy, EuroSciPy, there is a new non-profit (NumFOCUS) dedicated to supporting scientific computing and data analytics projects. The list of supported projects are currently Python-based, but in principle NumFOCUS is an entity that can be used to support related efforts from other communities.
It's getting easier to use the Python data stack:
There are tools that facilitate the dissemination and sharing of code and programming environments. IPython2 notebooks allow Python code and markup in the same document. Notebooks are used to record and share complex workflows and are used heavily for (conference) tutorials. As the data stack grows, one of the major pain points is getting all the packages to work properly together (version compatibility is a common issue). In particular setting up environments were all the pieces work together can be a pain. There are now a few solutions that address this issue: Anaconda and cloud-based Wakari from Continuum Analytics, and cloud computing platform PiCloud.
There are many more visualization tools to choose from:
The 2D plotting tool matplotlib is the first tool enthusiasts turn to, but as I learned at the conference, there are a number of other options available. Continuum Analytics recently introduced companion packages Bokeh and Bokeh.js that simplify the creation of static and interactive visualizations using Python. In particular Bokeh is the equivalent of ggplot (it even has an interface that mimics ggplot). With Nodebox, programmers use Python code to create sketches and interactive visualizations that are similar to those produced by Processing.
Large-scale data processing and wrangling tools have improved:
Pandas and PyTables are already popular, and there was very strong interest in the forthcoming Blaze project at the conference. Other options include the Disco Project, a data processing platform that includes an implementation of Map/Reduce, and PySpark, the Python API for the Spark data analytics framework.
There are viable tools for large-scale data analytics:
Scikit-learn (machine-learning library) and scikit-image (image processing) are used by many academic research groups and companies. Both have extensive libraries of algorithms, and come with lots of examples to help users get started3. Another tool written in Python focuses on deployment4: Augustus is an open source system for building and scoring, scalable data mining and statistical algorithms. Augustus produces and consumes PMML, and includes components for simple data wrangling (users can embed Python code for data processing in their PMML files).
In addition, new tools like H20 and wise.io plan to make their massively scalable algorithms accessible via Python. Frameworks that expose distributed algorithms to Python programmers include GraphLab (Python/Jython interface) and Spark (algorithms5 in Scala that are accessed via PySpark). Finally, there are also tools that let Python programmers target GPU's for parallel programming: NumbaPro and PyCUDA
(1) The event drew about 300 attendees and is one of three PyData conferences scheduled this year (Boston in the summer, NYC in the fall).
(2) The new language Julia, and IPython are starting to work well together.
(3) In practice these tools let Python programmers efficiently develop prototypes that are later re-implemented (in another language) and optimized before being deployed to production.
(4) Data scientists tend not to focus on the deployment and maintenance of "models". The Hazy project may change this mindset.
(5) A suite of distributed algorithms will be available upon the release of MLbase on Spark.
Reilly Strata Conference — Strata brings together the leading minds in data science and big data — decision makers and practitioners driving the future of their businesses and technologies. Get the skills, tools, and strategies you need to make data work.


text:
This week I celebrated my birthday! We had a little family party to celebrate the Utah holiday of Pioneer Day and my nephews birthday, and Spencer took me to the zoo too. The coolest part was seeing a polar bear... and eating a churro.
Since I have been celebrating... I have a gift for you! ANOTHER GREAT GIVEAWAY! You can enter to win 1 of 2 $30 gift cards to JUNIEblake. This is a new clothing company that sells trendy and modest clothes. You can see a few options in the photo below, but go to their site to see all the products.
JUNIEblake is really trying to get the word out about their company so there are a few things you need to do to help them in order to be eligible to win. Be sure to leave a SEPARATE comment for each thing you do. If you just leave one comment you will only get one entry.
1. Like JUNIEblake on Facebook
2. Share something about JUNIEblake with your Facebook friends (click SHARE on a JUNIEblake post so that it reposts to your wall.
3. Leave a comment on the JUNIEblake Facebook page (tell 'em YBB sent you)
The contest will close on THURSDAY, AUGUST 2 and the winners will be chosen by random.org on Friday. Even though you can enter multiple times, you cannot win both of the gift cards. Random numbers will be selected until 2 different people win.
Good Luck!


text:
The following article appeared in Left Business Observer #121, September 2009. Adolph Reed Jr. dissects 'anti-racism'. Unfortunately Reed deals only with liberal anti-racism and does so in order to defend social democracy rather than a liberatory politics.
Antiracism is a favorite concept on the American left these days. Of course, all good sorts want to be against racism, but what does the word mean exactly?
The contemporary discourse of "antiracism" is focused much more on taxonomy than politics. It emphasizes the name by which we should call some strains of inequalitywhether they should be broadly recognized as evidence of "racism" over specifying the mechanisms that produce them or even the steps that can be taken to combat them. And, no, neither "overcoming racism" nor "rejecting whiteness" qualifies as such a step any more than does waiting for the "revolution" or urging God's heavenly intervention. If organizing a rally against racism seems at present to be a more substantive political act than attending a prayer vigil for world peace, that's only because contemporary antiracist activists understand themselves to be employing the same tactics and pursuing the same ends as their predecessors in the period of high insurgency in the struggle against racial segregation.
This view, however, is mistaken. The postwar activism that reached its crescendo in the South as the "civil rights movement" wasn't a movement against a generic "racism;" it was specifically and explicitly directed toward full citizenship rights for black Americans and against the system of racial segregation that defined a specific regime of explicitly racial subordination in the South. The 1940s March on Washington Movement was also directed against specific targets, like employment discrimination in defense production. Black Power era and post-Black Power era struggles similarly focused on combating specific inequalities and pursuing specific goals like the effective exercise of voting rights and specific programs of redistribution.
Clarity lost
Whether or not one considers those goals correct or appropriate, they were clear and strategic in a way that "antiracism" simply is not. Sure, those earlier struggles relied on a discourse of racial justice, but their targets were concrete and strategic. It is only in a period of political demobilization that the historical specificities of those struggles have become smoothed out of sight in a romantic idealism that homogenizes them into timeless abstractions like "the black liberation movement"an entity that, like Brigadoon, sporadically appears and returns impelled by its own logic.
Ironically, as the basis for a politics, antiracism seems to reflect, several generations downstream, the victory of the postwar psychologists in depoliticizing the critique of racial injustice by shifting its focus from the social structures that generate and reproduce racial inequality to an ultimately individual, and ahistorical, domain of "prejudice" or "intolerance." (No doubt this shift was partly aided by political imperatives associated with the Cold War and domestic anticommunism.) Beryl Satter's recent book on the racialized political economy of "contract buying" in Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, is a good illustration of how these processes worked; Robert Self's book on Oakland since the 1930s, American Babylon, is another. Both make abundantly clear the role of the real estate industry in creating and recreating housing segregation and ghettoization.
Tasty bunny
All too often, "racism" is the subject of sentences that imply intentional activity or is characterized as an autonomous "force." In this kind of formulation, "racism," a conceptual abstraction, is imagined as a material entity. Abstractions can be useful, but they shouldn't be given independent life.
I can appreciate such formulations as transient political rhetoric; hyperbolic claims made in order to draw attention and galvanize opinion against some particular injustice. But as the basis for social interpretation, and particularly interpretation directed toward strategic political action, they are useless. Their principal function is to feel good and tastily righteous in the mouths of those who propound them. People do things that reproduce patterns of racialized inequality, sometimes with self-consciously bigoted motives, sometimes not. Properly speaking, however, "racism" itself doesn't do anything more than the Easter Bunny does.
Yes, racism exists, as a conceptual condensation of practices and ideas that reproduce, or seek to reproduce, hierarchy along lines defined by race. Apostles of antiracism frequently can't hear this sort of statement, because in their exceedingly simplistic version of the nexus of race and injustice there can be only the Manichean dichotomy of those who admit racism's existence and those who deny it. There can be only Todd Gitlin (the sociologist and former SDS leader who has become, both fairly and as caricature, the symbol of a "class-first" line) and their own heroic, truth-telling selves, and whoever is not the latter must be the former. Thus the logic of straining to assign guilt by association substitutes for argument.
My position isand I can't count the number of times I've said this bluntly, yet to no avail, in response to those in blissful thrall of the comforting Manicheanismthat of course racism persists, in all the disparate, often unrelated kinds of social relations and "attitudes" that are characteristically lumped together under that rubric, but from the standpoint of trying to figure out how to combat even what most of us would agree is racial inequality and injustice, that acknowledgement and $2.25 will get me a ride on the subway. It doesn't lend itself to any particular action except more taxonomic argument about what counts as racism.
Do what now?
And here's a practical catch-22. In the logic of antiracism, exposure of the racial element of an instance of wrongdoing will lead to recognition of injustice, which in turn will lead to remedial actionthough not much attention seems ever given to how this part is supposed to work. I suspect this is because the exposure part, which feels so righteously yet undemandingly good, is the real focus. But this exposure convinces only those who are already disposed to recognize.
Those who aren't so disposed have multiple layers of obfuscating ideology, mainly forms of victim-blaming, through which to deny that a given disparity stems from racism or for that matter is even unjust. The Simi Valley jury's reaction to the Rodney King tape, which saw King as perp and the cops as victims, is a classic illustration. So is "underclass" discourse. Victimization by subprime mortgage scams can be, and frequently is, dismissed as the fault of irresponsible poor folks aspiring beyond their means. And there is no shortage of black people in the public eyeBill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey are two prime examples, as is Barack Obamawho embrace and recycle those narratives of poor black Americans' wayward behavior and self-destructive habits.
And how does a simple narrative of "racism" account for the fact that so many black institutions, including churches and some racial advocacy organizations, and many, many black individuals actively promoted those risky mortgages as making the "American Dream of home ownership" possible for "us"? Sure, there are analogies availableblack slave traders, slave snitches, "Uncle Toms" and various race traitorsbut those analogies are moral judgments, not explanations. And to mention them only opens up another second-order debate about racial authenticityabout who "really" represents the black community. Even Clarence Thomas sees himself as a proud black man representing the race's best interests.
My point is that it's more effective politically to challenge the inequality and injustice directly and bypass the debate over whether it should be called "racism."
I do recognize that, partly because of the terms on which the civil rights movement's victories have been achieved, there is a strong practical imperative for stressing the racially invidious aspects of injustices: they have legal remedies. Race is one of the legal classes protected by anti-discrimination law; poverty, for instance, is not. But this makes identifying "racism" a technical requirement for pursuing certain grievances, not the basis of an overall political strategy for pursuit of racial justice, or, as I believe is a clearer left formulation, racial equality as an essential component of a program of social justice.
I've been struck by the level of visceral and vitriolic anti-Marxism I've seen from this strain of defenders of antiracism as a politics. It's not clear to me what drives it because it takes the form of snide dismissals than direct arguments. Moreover, the dismissals typically include empty acknowledgment that "of course we should oppose capitalism," whatever that might mean. In any event, the tenor of this anti-Marxism is reminiscent of those right-wing discourses, many of which masqueraded as liberal, in which only invoking the word "Marxism" was sufficient to dismiss an opposing argument or position.
This anti-Marxism has some curious effects. Leading professional antiracist Tim Wise came to the defense of Obama's purged green jobs czar Van Jones by dismissing Jones's "brief stint with a pseudo-Maoist group," and pointing instead to "his more recent break with such groups and philosophies, in favor of a commitment to eco-friendly, sustainable capitalism." In fact, Jones was a core member of a revolutionary organization, STORM, that took itself very seriously, almost comically so.
And are we to applaud his break with radical politics in favor of a style of capitalism that few actual capitalists embrace? This is the substance of Wise's defense.
This sort of thing only deepens my suspicions about antiracism's status within the comfort zone of neoliberalism's discourses of "reform." More to the point, I suspect as well that this vitriol toward radicalism is rooted partly in the conviction that a left politics based on class analysis and one focused on racial injustice are Manichean alternatives.
This is also a notion of fairly recent provenance, in part as well another artifact of the terms on which the civil rights victories were consolidated, including the emergence of a fully incorporated black political class in the 1970s and its subsequent evolution. By contrast, examining, for example, the contributions to historian and civil rights activist Rayford Logan's 1944 volume What the Negro Wants, one sees quite a different picture. Nearly all the contributorsincluding nominal conservativesto this collection of analyses from a broad cross section of black scholars and activists asserted in very concrete terms that the struggle for racial justice and the general struggle for social and industrial democracy were more than inseparable, that the victory of the former largely depended on the success of the latter. This was, at the time, barely even a matter for debate: rather, it was the frame of reference for any black mass politics and protest activity.
As I suggest above, various pressures of the postwar periodincluding carrots of success and sticks of intimidation and witch-hunting, as well as the articulation of class tensions within the Civil Rights movement itselfdrove an evolution away from this perspective and toward reformulation of the movement's goals along lines more consonant with postwar, post-New Deal, Cold War liberalism. Thus what the political scientist Preston Smith calls "racial democracy" came gradually to replace social democracy as a political goalthe redress of grievances that could be construed as specifically racial took precedence over the redistribution of wealth, and an individualized psychology replaced notions of reworking the material sphere. This dynamic intensified with the combination of popular demobilization in black politics and emergence of the post-segregation black political class in the 1970s and 1980s.
We live under a regime now that is capable simultaneously of including black people and Latinos, even celebrating that inclusion as a fulfillment of democracy, while excluding poor people without a whimper of opposition. Of course, those most visible in the excluded class are disproportionately black and Latino, and that fact gives the lie to the celebration. Or does it really? From the standpoint of a neoliberal ideal of equality, in which classification by race, gender, sexual orientation or any other recognized ascriptive status (that is, status based on what one allegedly is rather than what one does) does not impose explicit, intrinsic or necessary limitations on one's participation and aspirations in the society, this celebration of inclusion of blacks, Latinos and others is warranted.
We'll be back!
But this notion of democracy is inadequate, since it doesn't begin to address the deep and deepening patterns of inequality and injustice embedded in the ostensibly "neutral" dynamics of American capitalism. What A. Philip Randolph and otherseven anticommunists like Roy Wilkinsunderstood in the 1940s is that what racism meant was that, so long as such dynamics persisted without challenge, black people and other similarly stigmatized populations would be clustered on the bad side of the distribution of costs and benefits. To extrapolate anachronistically to the present, they would have understood that the struggle against racial health disparities, for example, has no real chance of success apart from a struggle to eliminate for-profit health care.
These seem really transparent points to me, but maybe that's just me. I remain curious why the "debate" over antiracism as a politics takes such indirect and evasive formslike the analogizing and guilt by association, moralistic bombast in lieu of concrete argumentand why it persists in establishing, even often while denying the move, the terms of debate as race vs. class. I'm increasingly convinced that a likely reason is that the race line is itself a class line, one that is entirely consistent with the neoliberal redefinition of equality and democracy. It reflects the social position of those positioned to benefit from the view that the market is a just, effective, or even acceptable system for rewarding talent and virtue and punishing their opposites and that, therefore, removal of "artificial" impediments to its functioning like race and gender will make it even more efficient and just.
From this perspective even the "left" antiracist line that we must fight both economic inequality and racial inequality, which seems always in practice to give priority to "fighting racism" (often theorized as a necessary precondition for doing anything else), looks suspiciously like only another version of the evasive "we'll come back for you" (after we do all the business-friendly stuff) politics that the Democrats have so successfully employed to avoid addressing economic injustice.
Adolph Reed Jr. is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Source: http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Antiracism.html


text:
So I'm super-excited to announce that, not only have I made this wacky thing (originally suggested by readers) actually happen, but I've been able to do an unprecedented simultaneous e-book and paperback launch.... (read more)
Last week Glynn and I met with some very nice folks at a small-to-maybe-midsized publisher who wanted to buy the print rights to our Arisen series. I just sent them a very gently worded rejection letter.... (read more)
It's time. The epic conclusion to the first half of the ARISEN story - and the most terrifying and thrilling adventure yet - starts today.... (read more)
Glynn and I are ridiculously excited to announce the launch of the next book in our ARISEN series. Both sales and reader response to the books have been super-fantastic, and we are so happy and grateful for it all - so we figured the best way to live up to that was to fill the next book with even more of the things readers have been cheering about. That means CRAZY-ASS OVER-THE-TOP NON-STOP ACTION, in spades, and poured on with a dumptruck.... (read more)
Readers are calling the ARISEN series 'a non stop thrill ride' ... 'unputdownable' ... 'the most original and well-written zombie novels I have ever read' ... 'riveting as hell - I cannot recommend this series enough' ... 'the action starts hot and heavy and does NOT let up' ... 'astonishingly well-researched and highly plausible' ... 'non-stop speed rush! All action, all the time - got my heart racing' ... 'A Must Read, this book was a hell of a ride' ... and 'may be the best in its genre.'... (read more)
I've just been meme-slapped by novelist/psychologist Ian Hocking with a Ten-Questions-About-Your-Book thingy that's going around. So come with me now for a candid, behind-the-scenes, insider tour of the making of ARISEN : GENESIS.... (read more)
Delighted and amazed to announce that our new ARISEN books have both pleasingly popped up on Amazon's bestseller lists - and have proceeded to climb them.... (read more)
COUNTER-ASSAULT is the second book in my D-BOYS series of high-concept, high-tech special operations military adventure novels. It is also the biggest, smartest, most ambitious, and most thrilling work I've ever produced. It assaults off the page, and does not relent.... (read more)
My writing partner Glynn James and I are enormously excited to announce publication of the second book in our ARISEN series of spec-ops zombie-apocalypse dark action thrillers. And to celebrate, we're giving away up to 6.97 billion copies of Book One (Fortress Britain) absolutely free, for the next five days.... (read more)
A world fallen - under a plague of seven billion walking dead. A tiny island nation - the last refuge of the living. One team - of the world's most elite special operators. The dead, these heroes, humanity's last hope, all have... ARISEN.... (read more)
I'm incredibly excited to announce the publication of the first book in my new D-Boys series of high-concept, high-tech special operations military adventure novels.... (read more)
So I got such a good reaction to my experiment of publishing the actual browsing history of a writer of high-tech, special forces, nuclear terror action thrillers, that I've done it again. Also, here are the very last two short stories that I amused myself by doodling covers for.... (read more)
It was when I was looking at a PDF which recounts in horrifying detail, with body diagrams and a lot of Chinese, the 108 acu-points/acupunture cavities on the human body that when struck can result in "pain, numbness, unconsciousness, internal organ damage and/or death." And that's when it hit me: if anybody saw my browsing history, they'd probably call MI6 or the FBI on the red phone, and/or run screaming.... (read more)
Well, it's done. After eight months of bashing full-time... and two years of doing story and structure work... and coming out of probably six years of reading and research... I've finished the new novel. It's by like a factor of four the most ambitious thing I've ever attempted. But I think I may have just pulled it off.... (read more)
I'm modestly happy to announce the publication of a special sneak preview of my forthcoming (keep touching wood there) novel, D-BOYS. This one's free as the clouds.... (read more)
... (read more)
I'm tickled to announce the stand-alone publication of my short-ish novella (or long-ish short story), THE CONTRACTOR.... (read more)
I couldn't conceivably be any happier to announce the publication of my new, my favourite, and I'm pretty sure my very most entertaining book: DON'T SHOOT ME IN THE ASS, AND OTHER STORIES.... (read more)


text:
Shop Storage Cabinets
(380 Products)Storage Cabinets & Lockers That Provide Space for Office Essentials
Keep office supplies neatly tucked away while maintaining easy access with storage cabinets in a wide array of colors and styles. Choose units with shelves, drawers or both, depending on your storage needs. Construction from a variety of materials makes selecting an ideal match for your office simple and convenient. High-quality engineering from top-notch brands such as Prepac and Sandusky ensure these storage cabinets hold up well to daily use in your busy work space.
Designed for Fashion and Function
Never sacrifice style for function when choosing a storage cabinet for your office or work area. Sleek black models from HON meld effortlessly with a multitude of decor styles and color palettes while crisp white units add a fresh touch and an airy feel to tighter spaces. Neutral hues such as putty and gray from brands such as Tennsco last through multiple office redecorating projects, and highly detailed wood storage cabinets provide an upscale look perfect for blending in with traditional office decor.
Perfectly Sized for Your Space
Select from brands such as Edsal designed to hold multiple reams of paper and other heavy supplies, or choose from Winsome and other top brands ideal for stowing personal supplies beside your desk or in a work area shared with just a couple of people. No matter the needs of your office, Quill's selection of storage cabinets has you covered, with everything from small and simple units without doors perfect for placement beside the copy machine to extra-large units designed for use in warehouses and industrial facilities.
Durable Construction for Lasting Use
Our selection of storage cabinets spans the gamut from plywood models to brands such as Ameriwood to steel models from HON. Each one offers exceptional durability based on the type of storage your office or facility needs, allowing you to choose the precise storage cabinet to fit your purpose. Some units feature sturdy doors with locks that help you keep a close eye on your supplies, while others feature multiple drawers perfect for stowing bulky or oddly shaped items at the ready. Many have multiple sturdy shelves, some of which adjust to meet your needs, helping you remain organized and reduce the amount of time wasted seeking out key supplies when you need them most.
Simple to Integrate Into Your Space
Never worry about running out of storage space by selecting mini storage cabinets designed to help you expand without taking up valuable floor space. Choose small units designed to hang on the wall or fit on your desktop from brands such as Furrino and Foremost. These compact units keep you well organized and help increase the productivity and efficiency of your work area.


text:
A SolNYC/GEO Interview
Building a Solidarity Financial System for co-operatives and democratic work places through a culture of belief
This is Part I of the SolidarityNYC (SolNYC) interview with The Working World (TWW). It is an alternative loan fund that supports worker run co-operatives and other democratic workplaces with micro-credit loans and technical support. They also refer to themselves as a "solidarity financial organization" which promotes community wealth maximization and worker ownership through loans to worker-run companies.
In Part I Annie McShiras talked with Brendan Martin, founder and president, and Ethan Earle, a board member, about the solidarity philosophy they use as an organized loan fund, their goal of maximizing community wealth through their loan funds, and the importance of building a "culture of belief." She also reviewed the basic kind of work they do with them.
In Part II, they discuss how TWW's loan funds works and several of the projects they are working on now, especially their major success in helping to convert the famous Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago into the New Era Windows worker co-operative.
The original interview was part of SolNYC's Deep Listening Project. Michael Johnson helped edit it for GEO.
Working Worlds work
Annie McShiras (AMc): Would you like to give a brief introduction to who you are and what your organization does? Ethan, would you start.
Ethan Earle: I'm Ethan Earle. I joined The Working World (WW) originally as a volunteer and as an intern in late 2007, and I am currently a board member. I was formerly the U.S. director. That was between the end of 2010 and the summer of 2012. Before that I was a loan coordinator and loan agent for The Working World's La Base Loan Fund in Buenos Aires, Argentina. from 2008 until I came to the U.S.
Annie: Brendan?
Brendan Martin: My name is Brendan Martin. I founded The Working World along with Avi Lewis and some colleagues in Argentina at the end of 2004. I'm currently the global coordinator.
The Working World came out of the documentary, The Take which was about the phenomenon of factories being reopened, or "recovered," by their workers and put under democratic worker control as co-operatives. After meeting the director of the film, Avi Lewis (Naomi Klein's partner), I went to Argentina with him and met a number of the people who had worked in or with recovered factories, and I presented the idea of starting the Working World (also called La Base). The Working World was to be an alternative financial organization that would both parallel and support the alternative production of the recovered factories. There was strong interest in the idea from people Avi and I spoke with, so in 2004, I moved to Argentina and lived there full-time for the next five years. In 2009, I began living part-time in Nicaragua to help set-up a second branch of Working World along with Emma Yorra, who began living there full-time. This new branch was intended to test out the applicability of what we did in Argentina in a totally different environment.
Most recently, in 2010, I started working with Ethan on opening up our third branch here in the U.S.
Annie: Could you give us your elevator pitch as to what The Working World does.
Ethan: The Working World is an alternative loan fund that supports worker run co-operatives with loans and technical support. I don't know if that was my best elevator pitch, but it's a pretty good one.
Brendan: Yeah, we've had so many different ones and the concepts have developed. The one I'm thinking of now is a mouthful, but it covers the ground: we're a solidarity financial organization which promotes community wealth maximization and ownership distributed through solidarity loans to worker-owned companies.
Our goal is to couple together the pillar of alternative production with the pillar of alternative finance in order to show the possibility of building a new economy.
Current projects
Annie: So you've told us about yourselves and how you came to be doing this work. Let's shift to some of your current projects and how they show what your basic work is? Can we start with a brief summary of your very exciting breakthrough in Chicago—the grand opening of the New Era Windows Co-operative.?
Ethan: Well, a lot of people know the history of this factory, formerly known as Republic Windows and Doors, which was closed in a financial scandal and subsequently occupied by its workers for illegal treatment in 2008. See This struggle actually captured the imagination of the country, which was going through its own financial scandal and economic crisis.
Brendan: In February 2012, the same workers who occupied and won their fight for fair treatment came to us for help to buy their old factory and re-open it as a worker-owned co-operative. Six months later in August we were able to invest $665,000 to buy the needed equipment and start the business.
It has taken an incredible amount of work and dedication on everyone involved to achieve this victory. To begin, the workers had to fight for the basic right to be at the table and buy the business. [See](http://www.thenation.com/blog/168727/workers-vs-investors-famous-windows-factory-danger-liquidation]. They then had to dismantle the old factory, move it across the city to a more appropriate and affordable space, and put it back together again piece by piece. Each of these steps the workers did on their own, and in the process they demonstrated incredible potential that had never been tapped in their old jobs.
Ethan: And Democracy Now recently did an interview with two worker-owners and Brendan right after the opening.
Annie: Guys, this is really amazing, but let's get to the full story later in the second part because in this first part we want to cover the whole foundation of your approach to solidarity financing. Can we start with just some snapshots of some of your other current projects so we know the territory we are covering?
Ethan: Sure. I'll start. I've been working a lot with Sí Se Puede on a project to design their own green cleaning products. They came to us and said they'd like to make their own green cleaning products like another cleaning co-op in New York City, Apple Eco-Cleaning. Sí Se Puede members view this as a great multiple opportunity: to work in healthier ways, to provide healthier services to clients, and, if all of that works well, maybe to also improve their bottom line by bringing in new clients through the advertising. This would enable their co-op to create more jobs in their community. And a far off possibility is to sell their green cleaning products. And if that happens, maybe even spin off a production cooperative.
Annie: And what is The Working World's main focus in this project?We've been working with a subcommittee to develop a long-term business plan and to begin implementing it. Those co-op members then take the results of our meetings back to the assembly. So far we've already rolled out their first 2 products: a wood cleaner and all-purpose cleaner.
Ethan: We're financing the new products project. As with all the projects we work on, we only want the money to be returned if loan is actually able to generate revenue for the co-op. Right now, we're sinking very little money into it, and it's been well worth it for us because it's a project with great potential.
In addition, we've been working from the tech side working out the kinks and getting the right sort of branding for the products, and helping with coordinating of the project. Aside from all of that is accompanying and just being there and really helping the women to believe that it's possible—keep that drive going.
Brendan: Our basic role is financing, but as an alternative solidarity financier, we have to be very aware to provide capital in a way that will help build economic power for people, not take it away, as mainstream banks so often do.
In this case, as Ethan said, there's not yet much capital needed, so we're not investing a lot at the moment, whereas a mainstream bank would be motivated to get the co-operative indebted as soon as they could if there was any profit for the bank to capture.
At some point, though, a large investment could be very powerful for the co-op. For example, if Sí Se Puede decides to produce these products on a larger scale, then they would need a serious capital infusion for the manufacturing, marketing and distributing of the product. In this case, the capital could give them the potential to become a company generating significant wealth for the co-operative. If that opportunity arises, we'll be there for them.
A fundamental principle is to make investment projects when the worker co-operative wants to grow or wants to increase their productive capabilities. We don't make any investment, just those where the capital will create real growth and not create debt. When we do identify such a project, we work with the co-operative to design a plan and then help them see the plan through to the end.
In the New York City region, we are doing this with a few other co-ops as well: Third Root, OccupyCopy, Bluestockings Bookstore and a women's textile factory in Long Island.
Ethan: One other thing to add—and this is relatively new to us, that we began doing previously in Argentina and Nicaragua—is to help groups with their bylaws and more broadly with the formation of their co-operatives, even imagining on a more detailed level what that co-operative is going to look like. We do this also with co-operatives that are going through difficulties—trying to sort through what are the roots of those difficulties and how to resolve them. I think that's sort of becoming a role we're taking on more and more.
Brendan: There are times when I sort of feel like a co-operative "counselor" or "therapist"—talking people through problems. For sure, co-operatives need therapy just the way a person needs therapy and couples need therapy. And the need to be able to say that when issues come up.
Our last project currently in the U.S, a very big one in this case, is the Republic Windows and Doors where we've put in over half a million dollars. It represents a lot of different people and organizations including the New Economy Network, which helped to promote it.
Loaning money, interest, and solidarity
Annie: How does WW handle charging "interest" for its loans. As a "solidarity loan organization" how do you do that with worker co-ops and other democratic workplaces?
Brendan: First, the idea is not to be a zero-interest loan fund. The idea is to cover our costs, to pay for our labor, and ultimately to be a sustainable part of the solidarity economy. We should cover our costs the same way the people at the Occucopy co-operative would say, "we're giving you a piece of paper and some ink and some of our labor and that's a total of 10 cents a copy." So to cover our costs, we have to bring in income from on our loans.
Ethan: The reality is that our interest doesn't cover any reasonable income at all. We'd love for it to, but we're not there yet. It barely covers some secondary administrative costs and, say, financial transaction fees.
Brendan: One key in loaning money through a solidarity model is not just simply calling it interest and obscuring how it works and where it goes. Institutions like banks and loan sharks can make a fortune off of "interest," but that is not a goal in a solidarity economy. We do a similar thing that Occucopy does with its print product: break what would look like "interest" into component parts and be very clear about what that includes—we're charging in order to cover our costs, cover inflation, and cover the risks involved in all of the investments we are making. But we're not doing is charging interest at a level which would generate massive returns or extract wealth from co-operatives.
Ethan: This is called disaggregating what interest really is. It's a way of unbundling the black box rather than getting people to pay a bunch of interest and not knowing what it's for or what it means. We're building a mutual relationship explaining how the money they are paying in interest will be used. Saying, "Okay, the first point and a half or 2 that you pay back are to cover the inflation over the length of the loan." If we don't charge this, then the fund will get eaten up by inflation.
Then we go to the next component: "The next two to three percent is our historic loan loss rate as an organization." So, you who are borrowing money for your single project will be doing your part to collectivize the losses of the loan fund across the entire community of co-operatives using The Working World as opposed to charging other projects disproportionately —
Brendan: those solidarity businesses who are taking on a higher risk for a project that is well worth doing —
Ethan: who have quote unquote a "higher risk profile."
Brendan: There are additional factors involved with collectivizing risks. We only allow co-ops to pay us back from the profit a project generates. If one of them is a complete failure despite our collective best efforts—say, because of some "act of god,"—then maybe we'll get paid back nothing. Or, if the project is sort of a marginal failure, we might get back 80% of the total amount we've loaned. Another factor comes because we also forgive interest when a project may have just barely paid itself off.
All of these factors exist because of one of our fundamental commitments: to use finance to create wealth, and never to extract it from the communities it's meant to serve.
Ethan: The last component is for eventually covering all of our labor and organizational costs. Our aim is to be able to do this with about 4-5%, though we are not there yet. But it is through this last component that we hope to grow more sustainable and self-sufficient as an organization.
So covering costs, inflation and the risk factors, all adds up to about five to nine percent.
Maximizing community wealth through a culture of belief
Annie: So, you have this commitment to collectivizing risk among all the co-operatives using The Working World loan fund. How open are people to it?
Brendan: One of the interesting lessons we've learned, and now it's one of the more important things we can offer, is simply the belief that a new kind of economy, a solidarity or alternative economy, is possible. This doesn't mean that all you need is heart and things will work out. You need at least as much hard work as you need heart.
It's not just about optimism, but so much of why things don't get done is that people don't think they can. In Argentina many of the first recovered factories took years to happen. But once they succeeded and people realized it was possible, things would happen much more easily in subsequent efforts to cooperatize a factory. There were times when it started taking only a matter of weeks. This wasn't just because the workers believed it was possible, it's also because people's families began to believe, government officials came to believe, the police came to believe, judges came to believe. Even the neighbors near the factory who at first thought the takeovers implied violent revolution began to believe. In that context of belief, everything you wanted to do began easier.
Ethan: Right, it was a culture of belief.
Brendan: Once the takeovers became known, the reaction wasn't, "It's a revolution! They're taking over the factories! Communists are gonna behead us!" It became "Oh, the workers are running the factory, we've seen that, glad it won't be idle anymore."
And now, in the U.S., we have to believe "this is possible." Now we're bringing that lesson from Argentina and trying to bear witness to this potential and assure people "yes, this can work, you can do this." And again, this is needed with would be worker-owners, but it's also needed with the public at large. I recently had to talk an insurance company off a ledge who didn't believe co-ops really existed and didn't want to give New Era Windows in Chicago any coverage. So I put on my suit and became an advocate for the belief that cooperatives are possible. It's an odd job, but it's a form of persuasion we've found to be very important.
Ethan: A culture of belief has to emerge here as it did in Argentina. It has to happen on several levels at the same time. If it were happening people would be understanding that co-operatives, etc. were viable models for doing business. Then there would be people wanting and trying to start more of them. And there would be more and more people who would buy from them, etc. And there would also be enough people who believed they could safely invest in these alternative kinds of businesses rather than put it all in profit-maximizing institutions.
Brendan: Right, when people here begin believing as they have in Argentina and Nicaragua, then it will be much easier for co-operatives or The Working World to thrive. So one of our basic activities is to show that these cooperative models can work, and to help stimulate that kind of culture to emerge.
Annie: So you think this could happen in the US?
Brendan: I think there are enough people in the various communities who would support our financing work if they believed their investments would really help build community wealth as well as give them a small return. Even if it begins with people just moving a small percentage of their savings from profit-maximizing investments into community wealth maximizing investments, that would have an enormous impact.
Annie: So it seems like there's a sort of "win-win-win" dynamic in this approach, no? There would be the success of a venture you finance, and the growing of its local community's wealth, as well as the sustaining of TWW to grow its loan fund for other alternative businesses.
Brendan: Very true. Because we only "win" if the co-operative succeeds, more revenue for them is also better for us, and the solvent fund is then also better for other alternative ventures. We need to sell this idea much better than we are. Unions, as one example, have billions of dollars that they keep with the most ill-reputed and anti-labor of investment. That same money is then put back into the very corporations that are trying to break their unions and turn them into wage slaves.
There's lots of power in communities already if we could cultivate it, make people believe in it. But we don't believe in just preaching about it, we want to demonstrate it. That's why we created The Working World.
The conundrum: getting enough people to believe
Annie: So how do we get that culture of belief going here in the US?
Ethan: Since we are still new here in the States, we have to bootstrap. And we have a lot of companies, like most of the new start-ups. We need more money to help more co-operatives start, but, at the same time, we need a sufficient number of succeeding co-ops so that we can show that these alternative models work.
Annie: So where are you now in this bootstrapping struggle?
Brendan: Right now we are in a squeeze because that culture of belief doesn't exist in any significant way in the States. We have proven this different economy can work in Argentina. Our job in Argentina was to prove that people could support those worker-run factories, since no financial institution on the planet was willing to give them support. Our job was to show that they could succeed if they could get adequate financing. And we did it. We can now show that well over 95% of our loans to recovered, worker-run factories them have been paid back. This can happen here as well.
But there are other beliefs that need to change too, like the myth that if you start a co-operative, you will have conquered strife and work will become a big love-fest. Or, our fetishizing of any one co-operative, so that if a cooperative fails, it suggests that perhaps worker co-operatives just don't work period. We have to understand that the majority of corporations fail, and yet corporations dominate the planet. If we want to replace the corporate form, we better be able to stomach a fair amount of failure in the getting there.
So much is simply about education, building cultures of belief in alternative possibilities. To get traction around these ideas and possibilities, with people in the communities where co-ops and other kinds of businesses want to start-up.
Ethan: I think Brendan has given you a great answer that gets to the underlying issues. It's a cultural problem that we're trying to break through. Visibility is a part of that certainly, but it's also trying to break through a certain mindset and a common understanding of how things should be. That investing doesn't have to be just about profit maximization. That people can invest with their social values and put their money into low interest savings accounts that promote those values. That they'd be doing it because they believe it's the right thing to do. So it all just comes down to culture. That means that a lot of our work in The Working world and all of the co-ops and solidarity groups is to show how these alternative forms of business can work. To do the public education part.
Everything challenging us is based on there not yet being that culture of belief. For example: Right now TWW couldn't become solvent on interest alone even if we wanted to. We don't have a big enough fund for it. Therefore, we don't have enough money for staff, our US work has been all voluntary so far. Still, that's not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is not enough people believing an alternative economy is possible.
We're proving that solidarity and co-operative loan funds can do these kinds of loans sustainably like a regular bank does, but that's not enough to get people to support alternative businesses, a whole alternative economy. That's why having people around, movement people, who keep saying in many different ways, "Hey! Look at these things! This works! It's not a magic thing, maybe we should all put 5% of our money in an alternative financial organizations to build a different kind of economy." It can't happen without that kind of movement. The kind of work you all do in SolidarityNYC, getting people to realize these alternatives aren't just in books. They're actually here already. That map on your web site makes everything seem so real and present. Like, "Oh! It's already happening." That's how we can build support.
Brendan: Yes, this is how we can find people who want alternatives but don't yet know them or don't believe they exist: "Oh, I didn't know there was a shop down the street, so I'll buy from them sometimes." Or: "I'll put some of my money into this fund." It's about finding people who want to participate in an alternative economy. You need people to participate in an economy to have an economy.
Ethan: For example, we've been starting to try to imagine using crowdsourcing by having a South Bronx fund or something dedicated to supporting the development of worker co-operatives in the South Bronx. I think things like that will be more successful if you already have the community of people who consider themselves a part of the solidarity economy or having already bought in. That's the power of the belief thing. People have to believe that something is really real, that it is happening. That it's legitimate. There are some threshold barriers.
Annie: So, what would be a breakthrough point? Or, a key, concrete way to break through?
Ethan: Having a broad swath of people probably who already consider themselves to be members or sympathizers with the solidarity economy, and who want to put, on average, say 5% of their savings. Or, maybe a sliding scale percentage would be more like it. Because that's how you grow these things outward. Becoming stakeholders in these funds—coming back to what Brendan was saying before about making this a real community of people that thinks of itself as such would be a real breakthrough.
Annie: And what are some specific things in the way of getting there?
Ethan: You have the collective action problems. You really need to have people who are willing to be the first people in. Who aren't afraid to jump in and support things they believe in a meaningful way, and sort of take it on faith that other people will follow that lead and come in behind them as peers.
Brendan: Visibility. I meet very left-wing people who say things like, "I thought co-ops can't work?" But then you find they are just going on something someone said at a party once or the like. It's so important to get these stories of functioning alternatives out there.
Ethan: I think that's also a broader problem here, the idea of consumption being the primary form of civic participation. I support consumption as one kind of civic participation, but I have big problems with the effort to sell it as the major way of being a good citizen, of participating in a democracy or engaging with your community. It's by definition incapable of breaking the stranglehold of consumerism and consumption on our world. As long as politics are defined by consumption, consumption in one form or another will continue to dictate the world around us. It just brings you into this very narrow way of looking at your relationship to the things around you in the world.
Annie: Are there policy issues that are in the way?Brendan: Then there's the big problem of resources. WW is mostly all volunteer, like many alternative business projects. It's not at all like when someone starts a new bank. They can get money from a bigger bank. Starting co-operatives or solidarity businesses is usually a bootstrap thing. Its really hard and it takes a lot of sweat equity from the members. And we need that from supporters as well. Not just money from those who can give, but also time from those who can give that, specific skills and knowledge that people can help support with. That could be a different way of approaching people who want to support our work. We're not building a small fix, we're working on systemic changes, and that take deep, long-term resources and support.
Brendan: Yes, there are definitely regulatory issues. For example, we're allowed to take tax-deductible donations and solidarity, zero-interest loans, but it's much more complicated for us to pay out interest to people who are "investing" in our fund. Also, it's very, very difficult to take on other bank-like functions, like serving as a savings bank on any serious level. The field is very much tilted toward the big banks, something you can see pretty easily through the last crisis and the banking sector consolidation in the past years. This something you can even ask successful credit unions about, how much harder it's been for them.
Toward a tipping-point
Annie: So, overall, what I am hearing is that building the culture of belief and an alternative economy is a long, slow process. Is that right?
Ethan: Yes. We take an evolutionary perspective about the process, and that includes cobbling things together as we go. If you look into revolutions that seem spontaneous, you will usually find their antecedents stretching back for a long time. Then, suddenly, they hit a tipping point, and all kinds of opportunities break open.
I think solidarity economics is moving toward such a tipping point. We're talking about a tipping point 20 years from now. Here's a possible scenario. Just trying to imagine a "how it would happen." It's like we would be going along where there actually were enough local solidarity economies across the country for a big shift, but they still just weren't visible enough. Then, boom! Maybe some laws got changed and in the ripple effects people in the US began to see big changes in a lot of economic and human relationships occur and that they were good. And exciting. And that they were just became very moving to a lot of people.
Brendan: That's why steadily building the visibility of these alternative ways of doing business is so important. It's how we will grow the network of people who find them useful and valuable, and who become interested in this work. Growing the number of those people will shorten the bootstrap period. A new solidarity company would be getting more customers, the new solidarity bank more depositors. There would be more people wanting to start various kinds of co-operatives. It's literally just getting the necessary resources and hands and minds and hearts involved.
Ethan:I think there's a lot in Park Slope Food Co-op's model, about how they take and enable people to work for two hour and 45 minute shifts doing different sorts of work out in New York City communities. And I don't know all of the details of this but I think it's been about trying to help start up food coops in Brooklyn. But I think that there is real potential in that kind of thing.
Brendan: And there's the time bank practice for getting people involved. Like letting people know about these opportunities. This and all the other ideas are essentially about creating community. So much will become possible as these communities emerge and grow and connect to each other.
Annie McShiras (2013). The Working World and Financing Workplace Democracy: A SolNYC/GEO Interview. Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO). https://geo.coop/story/working-world-and-financing-workplace-democracy