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We're celebrating one of Argentina's most beloved Italian imports, gnocchi! At their most basic, gnocchi take the form of small dumplings made from potato and flour, but with a bit of imagination, you can transform any number of ingredients into gnocchi. Add a luscious sauce of your choosing, and you've got one satisfying meal.
Last year, my blogging pals and I joined forces to spread the love about alfajores. This time, at the initiative of Aledys Ver at From Argentina to the Netherlands, For Love!, we decided to team up again to tackle gnocchi. At the bottom of my post, you'll find links to visit everyone's recipes. Follow the gnocchi trail and decide which recipe tempts you most!
Ñoquis del 29
Whether in neighborhood restaurants or at home, Argentines typically enjoy a heaping plate of gnocchi (ñoquis in Spanish) on the 29th of each month. The Gnocchi Day tradition supposedly came about because these cheap and filling potato dumplings were the only food struggling Italian immigrants could afford come the end of the month, just before payday. In the hopes of attracting prosperity and good luck, a one peso coin was placed under diners' plates while eating; however, these days, with inflation running rampant in Argentina, we've resorted to $2 or $5-peso bills.
[San Martín's eyeballin' my gnocchi. I guess even independence heroes have to eat.]
Humorously, government workers in Argentina have also been given the nickname "ñoquis." Elected officials frequently placed friends and family in positions within local government, but these ghost employees never put in an honest day's work. Nonetheless, they would show up like clockwork at the end of the month (around the 29th) to collect their pay, and as a result, civil servants came to be known as ñoquis.
Tips and Tricks for Preparing Gnocchi
Cooks and food bloggers routinely employ the phrase "little pillows" to describe perfect gnocchi. They should be light in texture and actually taste of potato, squash, spinach, beets—or whatever other ingredient you've chosen as your base—rather than flour. I've eaten my fair share of gummy, tasteless gnocchi, even at restaurants, which goes to show that for a dish with a relatively short list of ingredients, gnocchi can be a challenge to prepare well.
And so I set about my first solo attempt at making gnocchi, a combination of butternut squash and potato, determined to achieve the ethereal, much sought-after pillows. Let's just say that the results of round one could only be described as little pillows if I tacked on "filled with lead bricks." Although my family ate the gnocchi with gusto (they're not the most discerning lot) at our weekly Sunday get-together, I was disappointed in my dumplings. They were floury. They were tough. And boy, were they heavy. I swear they were still doing somersaults in my stomach four hours later.
My initial failure prompted me to read up on the ins and outs of gnocchi, and I came away with this sage advice.
The Enemies of Good Gnocchi
» Moisture: The wetter your ingredients, the more flour you'll have to add to the dough. And too much flour leads to heavy gnocchi [trust me on this one]. Baking, rather than boiling, your squash or what have you helps on this front.
» Warmth: Warm squash/potato/etc. will require more flour to form a workable dough, so let your ingredients cool sufficiently. Later in the process, chilling the formed dough also cuts down on the stickiness and makes it easier to handle.
» Over-handling: The dough needs a gentle touch. If you overmix it, you'll wind up with tough gnocchi.
[Light-as-a-feather butternut squash gnocchi]
Determined not to let a few lumps of dough get the better of me, I prepared to do battle once again, this time working off a different recipe that swapped out the potato and incorporated ricotta instead. The results were sublime—tender, pillowy (!), flavorful gnocchi. I chose to use butternut squash, but feel free to experiment with other types of pumpkin or winter squash. I've included two different recipes for sauces, a walnut cream sauce and a butter sage sauce. They're equally lovely with the gnocchi, so choose whichever appeals most to you (or try both!).
Butternut Squash and Ricotta Gnocchi | Ñoquis de Zapallo y Ricota
Adapted from a recipe by Biba Caggiano
Yields 4 servings
1 medium butternut squash
vegetable oil, for brushing squash
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 c. whole-milk ricotta, drained
¾ c. grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp. kosher salt, plus 1 Tbsp. for boiling gnocchi
1 1/3 to 1 2/3 c. all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Preheat oven to 375°F. Cut the squash in half lengthwise and remove the seeds. Lightly brush each half with vegetable oil, and place cut side down on a baking sheet. Roast the squash until tender, about 1 hour. Let cool slightly and scoop out the flesh, discarding the skin. Puree the squash until smooth in a food processor. If the squash puree seems watery, transfer to a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until liquid evaporates and puree thickens. Measure 2 packed cups squash puree, and chill in the refrigerator.
In a large bowl, mix the squash, egg, ricotta, parmesan, nutmeg and 2 teaspoons salt with a wooden spoon. Gradually fold in 1 1/3 cups flour, taking care not to overwork the dough. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface, and, using your hands, gently knead the dough, adding up to 1/3 cup more flour if the dough sticks too much to your hands and to the work surface. Lightly sprinkle the dough with flour, and place in a bowl. Cover the bowl with a dishtowel, and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.
To form gnocchi, tear off a piece of dough about the size of your fist, returning the remaining dough to the refrigerator while you work. Flour your hands and the work surface lightly. Using a gentle back-and-forth motion, roll out the piece of dough into a rope about the thickness of your pointer finger. Cut the rope into 1-inch pieces. Using a floured gnocchi board or a fork, lightly press with your thumb and roll the gnocchi to form ridges. Repeat with the remaining dough until all the gnocchi have been formed. Transfer gnocchi to a lightly floured baking sheet, keeping them in a single layer. Chill the gnocchi in the refrigerator while you boil the pot of water.
Bring a large pot of water and 1 Tbsp. of salt to a boil. Add the gnocchi in batches, and cook until they float to the surface. Let cook for an extra 30 seconds, and then remove them from the pot with a slotted spoon. Drain off any excess water, and add the gnocchi to the sauce of your choice.
Walnut Cream Sauce
4 Tbsp. butter
1 c. chopped walnuts
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ c. heavy cream
¼ c. grated parmesan cheese
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
While waiting for the water to come to a boil, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the walnuts and sauté 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the garlic and sauté 1 minute, until fragrant. Add the cream and stir to combine. Simmer for a few minutes, just until sauce slightly thickens. Transfer the gnocchi to the pan with the sauce, and season with parmesan, salt and pepper; toss to coat. Serve immediately.
Sage Butter Sauce
Adapted from a recipe by Biba Caggiano
4 Tbsp. butter
10 fresh sage leaves, chiffonade
1/3 c. grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
While the gnocchi cook, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Once the butter foams, add sage, and stir 1 minute. Transfer the gnocchi to the pan with the sauce, and season with parmesan, salt and pepper; toss to coat. Serve immediately.
Follow the Gnocchi Trail!
Arugula Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce a la Ana from Ana at Ana Travels
Roasted Beet Malfatti from Meag at A Domestic Disturbance
Gnocchi alla Romana from Aledys at From Argentina to the Netherlands, For Love!
Ñoquis de Espinaca [link in Spanish] from Paula at Bee My Chef
Potato and Ricotta Gnocchi from Rebecca at From Argentina With Love


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Las Gaviotas: Sustainability in the Tropics
Las Gaviotas:
Sustainability in the Tropics
In the early 1970s, facing overwhelming obstacles, a young visionary named Paolo Lugari set out to build a sustainable village on los llanos, the remote plains of Colombia, some 500 kilometers east of the country's capital, Bogotá. Lugari and a diverse and creative team of collaborators worked on the supposition that if it could be done there, it could be done anywhere. Supported by ingenious renewable energy technologies, hydroponic farming techniques, and-improbably-a regenerating rainforest, Las Gaviotas has survived and flourished for 30 years, even in the midst of Colombian internal conflict.
The son of an Italian geography professor whose fieldwork led him to settle in southwest Colombia, Lugari first visited the inhospitable llanos in the 1960s. Here, during the December-to-April dry season, a merciless tropical sun bakes the savannah; the rest of the year, severe rains inundate the landscape, making the unpaved roads impassable for several months. In this climate, forests exist only alongside permanent streams, which thread the savannah like tendrils creeping upland from the massive rivers that drain the eastern slopes of the Andes into the Orinoco River and finally the Caribbean Sea.
At a time when the OPEC oil embargo was creating worldwide energy shortages, the restless Lugari conceived the idea of returning to the llanos to build a sustainable village that would support itself with renewable energy. During the first trip with his brother, Lugari camped in an abandoned and overgrown settlement originally meant to support construction of a road that was never built. A visit to their camp by a yellow-billed tern (Sterna superciliaris), commonly called gaviota (gull) by the local people, inspired the name of the project.
Lugari assembled a team of engineers, artists, students, natives, and even orphans from the streets of Bogotá. Among their early products was a super-efficient turbine to generate 10 kilowatts of electricity from the flow over a small dam just one meter in height. Later they created a double-action tail-less windmill, which can capture energy from fleeting breezes yet has the mechanical strength to withstand gusts in the violent thunderstorms of the rainy season. Another effort led to a novel manual pump that can extract water from far greater depths than conventional pumps, enabling users to reach the savannah water table even in the dry season. In a typically creative application, Lugari's team attached one of the pumps to a seesaw, so that kids can do useful work and learn about their water source, while having fun at the same time. Experiments with local soil allowed the team to create adobe pipe systems and mechanically pressed bricks. Still other research led to the development of a solar water distiller to obtain pure water for medical emergencies and vehicle batteries, as well as solar-powered hot oil cookers.
Sustaining the Village
The early accomplishments of Las Gaviotas earned support from the United Nations Development Programme, among other international agencies. In the 1980s, the Las Gaviotas team was hired to install their innovative "appropriate technologies" in other parts of the country. This work included installation in many villages of water systems based on the Gaviotas windmills and pumps. The largest single effort was a solar hot water system for Ciudad Tunal, a 6,000-apartment public housing project in Bogotá. The units still work perfectly, owing greatly to the fact that they require no moving parts.
One notable project undertaken at Las Gaviotas in the 1980s was the design and construction of a remarkable self-sufficient rural hospital facility. Despite external temperatures that can exceed 38 degrees Celsius, with very high humidity, the one-of-a-kind facility provided appropriate climate control for an operating room, using bioclimatic technologies such as subsurface tunnels and double ventilation systems on the walls and roof. The kitchen featured solar cooking, although repeated efforts to design an effective solar refrigerator never succeeded. Patient rooms included louvered windows for ventilation and sliding roof panels that would admit daylight and allow for disinfection by exposure to ultraviolet sunlight. The hospital was enhanced by a maloca, a tall open-sided thatch-roofed structure built by indigenous Guahibo neighbors to provide shelter for families of patients staying close to loved ones.
Unfortunately, in the early 1990s a new national health-care policy, modeled on the U.S. managed-care system, led to closing of the hospital. The low population of the llanos could neither support three permanent doctors (as the law demands) nor meet the statutory minimum subscriber base for an independent health-care cooperative. However, in a creative transformation facilitated by its award-winning modular design, the sterile facility became a bottling plant for Gaviotas' Tropical Drinking Water. Distributed free to local residents, the potable water serves public health perhaps even more effectively than the hospital did, because medical emergencies are rare and the clean water has helped to greatly reduce the once-high rates of gastrointestinal disease.
As internal strife grew in Colombia in the 1990s, Las Gaviotas remained an oasis of harmony: anyone looking for medical care was welcome. The egalitarian social structure of the village, where everyone's ideas and opinions contributed to community decision-making and no one held a position of authority, made its lack of defense its most important strength. In the end, the social and cultural value of Gaviotas allowed it to transcend the violence.
Regenerating the Forest
From the outset, food supply for the village was a major challenge due to the acidity of the savannah soil and its low fertility when measured by conventional methods. Streams provided fish, the widely scattered ranches on the isolated llanos provided beef, and the streamside forests provided fruits, but growing staple crops in local soils proved impossible and the village came to rely on hydroponic gardens. "These soils are very poor, but only to poor brains," Lugari says. Part of his dream, based on knowledge that thousands of years ago the savannah was part of the Amazon forest, was to find a way to regenerate forest areas. This quest forms the latest and most significant chapter in the evolution of Gaviotas.
Beginning in the 1980s, experiments with the acidic soil of the llanos took root. When inoculated with a specific mycorrhizal root fungus, the Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea), a species native to Central America, could grow in the "poor soil" of the savannah. The consequences seemed almost miraculous. The newly rooted seedlings provided shade, leading to lower soil temperatures and greater moisture penetration and retention. Between the pines, other plants started to grow and, contrary to the practice in monoculture plantations, were allowed to flourish. All contributed to building soil. As the pines grew to many meters, the understory supported an explosion of biodiversity, with botanical studies reporting more than 190 different plant species. Animals have followed the plants, and the emerging ecosystem will continue to develop as the pines reach maturity. Because the pines are sterile in this habitat, however, they simply serve the role of catalysts in regenerating the rainforest.
After 1990, the forest provided a new economic base for the resilient village. The Caribbean pine produces abundant resin, and for reasons still unknown, Gaviotas resin production is particularly high. With use of an anticoagulant, cuts in the bark lead to resin production for about two weeks until the tree seals itself again. The resin trickle fills a 50-gram bag in one week, yielding more than 3 kilograms in annual production. This process can begin when the tree is 10 years old and can be carried on continuously for 5 years. After a few years of rest, the process can be repeated without adverse effect on the tree.
Workers collect the small bags of resin into larger ones and load them onto a flatbed truck on a roadway that serves the dual purpose of forest access road and fire break. The truck delivers to the "biofactory," a state-of-the art distillery designed by Gaviotas engineers and powered by a steam/electrical cogeneration plant, itself fueled by lumber harvested to thin the growing forest and maximize forest growth. In the factory, the tacky resin is liquefied, while the bags are recycled. After filtration and sedimentation, the mix goes through a distillation process that yields turpentine and a residue known as colophony or rosin. The liquid turpentine is drawn off the top into steel drums. In a remarkable prize-winning innovation, the Gaviotas team designed a triple-layered cardboard container to receive hot rosin. Upon cooling, the rosin cools and solidifies in 25-kilogram blocks, providing an easy medium for shipping and simple extraction by the end user. No part of the distillation process requires additional chemicals.
Both turpentine and rosin are valuable sales products. Turpentine finds universal use as an organic solvent and disinfectant; it also is used in the production of fragrances. Rosin is a component of products as diverse as glossy papers, paints, and cosmetics, as well as the gripping agent used for violin strings and baseball bats. The domestic Gaviotas rosin production helps to displace costly imports. In addition to these products, the Las Gaviotas arbochemistry program plans more sophisticated biorefining to yield 12 other products, including oils and fragrances.
The initial achievement of viable forest growth led to a massive tree-planting effort. During the three-month planting season, an imported American tractor-now fueled by raw palm oil, eliminating the need to import diesel fuel-pulls a Gaviotas-designed double-rowed planter. This machine makes it possible to transplant 30 nursery seedlings per minute, 24 hours every day except Sundays. Since the initial planting in the early 1980s, the forest has grown to 8,000 hectares.
Besides generating resin products, the forest yielded a serendipitous bonus: systematically cooler temperatures over the forested land have caused a local increase in rainfall. Moreover, the increasingly rich biomass in the soil provides more effective filtering. Wells under the forest now yield drinking water of the highest purity, which is bottled along with tropical fruit juices in the sterile facilities of the converted hospital. Thus, the forest provides an enhanced supply of safe drinking water as well as additional sale products to support the village. With characteristic creativity, the Gaviotas team has designed plastic bottles for reuse as interlocking toys.
Expanding Social Sustainability
Las Gaviotas is managed to provide employment for as many people as come to work. The village now supports some 200 laborers, who earn daily wages on a task-based scheme that pays at least double the national minimum wage (which is about $200 a month), in addition to room, board, and medical care. Among the workers are a large percentage of long-time residents-we met gray-haired Pompilio Arciniegas, who recalls planting the very first tree more than 20 years ago, and Henry Moya, whom author Alan Weisman described as an 11-year old in the 1970s-joined by young men from outside the village attracted by the idea of earning an income that would help them legitimately satisfy the needs of their families. Other workers come eagerly to a place where they do not have to live in fear of the civil unrest. Aside from the direct jobs provided, more than 3,000 people receive indirect benefits from Gaviotas.
The village itself has about 50 resident families, totaling about 200 people. Over the years, some 30 children have been born in the village and some 500 children from the village and from the surrounding region have attended the Gaviotas school. Adult residents rotate among the various jobs in the village, from construction to planting to gardening to cooking. Among other benefits, this equips everyone to contribute creatively to improving productivity and to overall satisfaction. Four residents are on pension after working for 25 years.
The success of Las Gaviotas in sustainably supporting the community from the products of the regenerated rainforest has prompted new dreams of expanding the forest across the savannah, with both environmental and social benefits. A map on the factory wall shows the regions of Vichada province that have sufficient drainage and appropriate mineralogy. The total comes to 3 million hectares, nearly 400 times the present size of Las Gaviotas, without consideration of additional land in neighboring Meta province. Carbon sequestration by the growing forest is estimated at 18 tons per hectare, so that the forest will sequester about 50 million tons of carbon per year during its 50-year growth cycle, offsetting roughly one-quarter of Colombia's entire projected contribution of global greenhouse gas emissions during this time.
The expansion of a Gaviotas-inspired biodiversity project to such a scale would employ tens of thousands of workers and support hundreds of thousands of people. Lugari's enlarged dream conceives these people living in scores of economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable villages in productive harmony with nature. Achieving this would change the living conditions of a great part of the Colombian people and transform the world's view of the country.
Plans to achieve this extraordinary environmental and social transformation, beginning with a tenfold expansion of the forest around Las Gaviotas, won endorsement from President Alvaro Uribe in 2004. Moreover, to support the project, the Colombian Air Force has offered a site for the initial replication of the Gaviotas initiative. The name of the place is Marandúa, which in the local dialect means "bearer of good news." The land encompasses about three-quarters of a military reserve that occupies over 70,000 hectares, about 100 kilometers from the Orinoco River in eastern Vichada. This Air Force commitment to sustainable development as a path to peace is unprecedented in the history of any Latin American military.
Partnership with ZERI
An important partner and promoter of the Marandúa reforestation project is Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI), led by Belgian entrepreneur Gunter Pauli, one-time CEO of the ecological home products manufacturer Ecover. Pauli founded ZERI in 1994, following the realization that even his biodegradable products depended on a system of production that was unsustainable. Under his leadership, ZERI propagates the "uncompromising, but self-evident" sustainability standard of zero waste, fosters research needed to bring it to reality, and implements systems conceived to build value by taking residues from one enterprise as raw materials for others, rendering the very concept of "waste" anachronistic. ZERI has generated projects on five continents. They include the Montfort Boys Town in Fiji (see World Watch, July/August 1997).
Pauli initially met Paolo Lugari in 1984, when Pauli visited Colombia with his mentor Aurelio Peccei, founder of the Club of Rome (which is best known for commissioning the groundbreaking 1972 study Limits to Growth). Recognizing in Las Gaviotas a living example of the principles he espouses, Pauli has become its most vocal champion as a world model of sustainable development. ZERI has supported the efforts of Las Gaviotas by generating close to $100,000 in private donations. It has also assisted the Marandúa project by searching for international investors under the standard of "corporate social responsibility," as well as by implementing innovative funding mechanisms.
One such mechanism couples two components of the reforestation system: carbon sequestration and the production of pure water. In the face of growing demand for both products, Las Gaviotas is seeking longterm contracts to provide drinking water, providing incentives for institutional buyers to secure carbon sequestration certification under the Kyoto Protocol. Such contracts would offset the buyers' carbon emissions (and those resulting from overseas transport of the water) by financing the planting of new, biodiverse forests.
The second mechanism for financing the reforestation effort is ecotourism. Colombia is a nation of extraordinary biodiversity, owing to its location in the tropics and its range of habitats, from coasts on the Caribbean and the Pacific, to the three spines of the Andes that divide the country with peaks as high as 5,800 meters above sea level, to the vast plains and rainforests of the eastern provinces. Among the attractions of the eastern savannah is the pristine Tuparro National Park, which lies just across the Río Tomo from Marandúa. Although the domestic violence that has plagued Colombia has limited tourism and ecological research, the potential for future development is enormous.
In the spring of 2005, after almost 10 years during which the conflict prevented the visit of any outsiders, foreigners and Colombians alike, the authors had the privilege of visiting Las Gaviotas and Marandúa with tours led by Gunter Pauli. The timing of the first visit, in May, was dictated by the filming of a documentary by Fuji TV that would be broadcast in early June during a state visit by Colombian President Uribe to Japan.
Through efforts such as water sales, international site visits, and high-level diplomacy, the Marandúa project is becoming a reality. This growing fruit represents the organic development of the dreams and efforts of many people: Paolo Lugari himself, the Colombian government, the Air Force commander-in-chief and his deputies, a Belgian entrepreneur who believes in Colombia, and many others who trust in the great potential offered by the richness and biodiversity of the country. The ultimate dream is that the reforested savannah will become home to hundreds of thousands of people who will be able to live in peace and contribute with their work to generating wealth in one of the cleanest environments in the world.
Spanning one wall of the community center in Gaviotas is a colorful mural painted by a local artist who signs his work only with his ID number. The mural portrays the past, present, and future of Las Gaviotas, along with the artist's dreams: residents and their children at work and at play, making music and dancing amid a rich company of indigenous wildlife. In the center of the mural is a sign: "Maturity consists of making dreams come true." Paolo Lugari is fond of saying: "If you aren't dreaming, you must be asleep!" The waking dream of Lugari and his fellow Colombians shines as a beacon of hope in a troubled world.
Richard E. White is professor emeritus of astronomy at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and chair of the Sustainability Alliance of Southwest Colorado in Durango, Colorado. Gloria Eugenia González Mariño is associate professor and research and development director in the College of Engineering, Universidad de la Sabana, Chía, Cundinamarca, Colombia.

subset: commoncrawl


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Over the last few months I've become increasingly curious about the projects that use Productiontrax media files. Day after day I see files being purchased, but we rarely hear from users telling us what they are doing with the tracks. This curiosity has led us to create a new feature on the blog. Several times a week we would like to share projects that use royalty free media purchased at Productiontrax. If you'd like to share your project (and get some free publicity), send us a description of the project and any appropriate links or media that you'd like us to use. You can send these to firstname.lastname@example.com, and we will choose a few every week to post on the blog.
To get things rolling, we'll start with a project that Brad Clement shared with us:
Brad Clement, owner of Spindrift films (www.spindriftfilms.com), is a freelance producer and camera operator specializing in photos and footage of high-altitude mountaineering and wilderness adventure. His most recent film features wild areas in Chile and Argentina, including those two countries highest respective peaks, Ojos Del Salado (Chile) and Aconcagua (Argentina). Clement writes, "It combines the drama and beauty of mountain climbing with some humor and humility about trying to stay sane in the often outrageous conditions."
Clement shot the original footage in Dec. 2007 and Jan. 2008, following the program host with a lightweight Sony FX-7 digital HD camera. When he returns from his current climb of Mt. Everest, he will complete the narration, and then the footage will be edited in Final Cut Studio to create a 45-minute show ready for television broadcast.
Even though he's not in post-production yet, Clement has already secured rights to the soundtrack music through Productiontrax. He writes, "Our goals were to capture the beauty of nature, along with the human character and spirit. We wanted a full range of mood and emotion from our music, with an authentic style from the region of the world in which we were filming. The tracks we were able to find and purchase from Productiontrax were perfect! We selected some great, authentic Andean flute music with a wide variety of styles and moods. "
As a mountaineering guide, guide instructor, and filmmaker, Clement has climbed the world's great mountain ranges. In the past eight years, his productions have been featured on major networks such as The Discovery Channel, The Travel Channel, CNN, PBS, NBC and The Outdoor Channel. He has successfully climbed Mt. Everest with camera in hand, and been involved as a producer and camera operator for four production projects involving Everest: the six-hour Discovery Channel series "Ultimate Survival, Mt. Everest", the award-winning documentary for Novo Nordisk "Pharmaceuticals, Peaks and Poles – The Will Cross Story", a television commercial for Liberty Medical, and a recently released documentary film covering the historic Everest Peace Project expedition.
Clement's next project, a historic climb of Annapurna in north-central Nepal, is detailed at:
Brad was also kind enough to share some incredible photos taken during production.


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Jennifer Arnold, who has been principal at the Jenkins Elementary School for six years, will officially step into the position of interim assistant superintendent for Scituate Public Schools.
"I am very much excited for this," Arnold said. "I am excited to work with such a strong district administrative team, and I am especially excited to work with Ron (Griffin), the new superintendent. He has brought some great energy that has already impacted the schools in such a positive way. I am excited to continue that work."
Arnold will be the interim assistant superintendent for the 2017/2018 school year, according to Griffin.
Griffin had taken on the responsibilities of the assistant superintendent, in addition to his own job, since Jill Proulx resigned in August.
In the spring, the search process will begin for a permanent assistant superintendent.
Arnold is scheduled to officially start as the interim assistant superintendent on Sept. 27. Until that time, she will assist in the transition process of the interim Jenkins principal, Garry Pelletier.
Pelletier is a recently retired school principal who has worked in Weymouth and Norwell.
He will remain in this position for the current school year. A search will be conducted in the spring when school principals are available for hire.
"Thank you for the opportunity," Pelletier said during the Sept. 18 school committee meeting. "I went for the interview at the Jenkins and you could actually sense what as great place it is. I hope to continue the great work that is happening there. I am looking forward to working with the staff, the families, and the kids."
Pelletier will start on Sept. 21.
"He brings over two decades of elementary school leadership to the position," Griffin said. "I look forward to working with him."
Griffin is also anticipating a successful partnership with Arnold as well.
"Jen compliments my leadership really well," Griffin said. "I have a middle school/high school background. She brings an elementary school background. It's a nice balance to our senior leadership team. She's well respected across the district."
Last year, Arnold did an internship as an assistant superintendent in Scituate, Griffin said.
"The work she did in her internship was focused on curriculum development, which is what the district is working on right now."
Follow Ruth Thompson on Twitter @scituateruth.


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Tressie on Family Tree Circles
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Looking for John O'Brien, Brien, Brian from County Wexford, Ireland
He was born in County Wexford, Ireland in 1803. He is buried in Topsail, Newfoundland Canada. This information is stated on his headstone. His wife was Mary, maybe, O'Donnell. Don't know if they were married in Ireland or Newfoundland. No siblings or parents in this area with him. He was listed in cenus in Topsail in 1833 he died in 1875.
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THIRTEEN's Broadway: The American Musical Returns to PBS Tonight, 10/7
Today, with musicals such as THE BOOK OF MORMON enjoying phenomenal box office success, revivals like The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess delighting new generations, and musical stage versions of popular films such as Once and Newsies dominating the Tony Awards, Broadway is proving yet again that its vitality and magic endure. Nominated for five 2005 Primetime Emmy Awards and winner of two, including Outstanding Nonfiction Series, THIRTEEN's landmark Broadway: The American Musical returns tonight, October 7 at 10 p.m., and continues on six consecutive Sundays through November 11 (check local listings).
The first comprehensive documentary series on the history of the American musical created for television, Broadway: The American Musical is a co-production of Ghost Light Films, THIRTEEN, NHK, and the BBC in association with Carlton International. The series was produced and directed by Michael Kantor, whose credits include Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, Give Me the Banjo and Quincy Jones: In the Pocket for the American Masters series.Julie Andrews, Academy Award-winning star of stage, film and television - and public television's unofficial "ambassador for the Broadway musical" - is the series host. In her introduction to the series' companion book, Andrews fondly recalled, "I was so pleased that Michael [Kantor] asked me to participate because the Broadway musical has been a passion of mine for so long. It was about time, truthfully, for this kind of attention to be paid to such an influential art form. There is something visceral about the appeal of a great American musical...it just grabs you."Broadway: The American Musical tells two stories: the 100-year history of musical theater and the story of its relationship to 20(th)-century American life. Kantor's chronological approach begins with the immigrant experience at the turn of the century, when a melting pot of voices and styles gave rise to a popular new form of entertainment. The series ends with contemporary Broadway, where big-budget new productions and revivals of classic favorites compete side by side for box office success. When the series first aired in 2004, People Magazine named the series one of the "Top Ten Television Programs" of the year. Matt Zoller Seitz in the Newark Star-Ledger, declared, "'Broadway' is such an immense and immensely enjoyable documentary with a cheery relentlessness [legendary producer Florenz] Ziegfeld himself might have appreciated." And Nancy DeWolf Smith in the Wall Street Journal affirmed, "'Broadway' unfurls a vivid history of America itself in the last century." Ed Siegel in the Boston Globe raved, "'Broadway: The American Musical' beautifully create(s) a near perfect blend of entertainment and art."Peppered throughout are legendary moments in Broadway history: George Gershwin's sojourn to Folly Island, where he began to compose his legendary score for Porgy and Bess; the thrill of Oklahoma!'s opening night; comedienne Fanny Brice's heart-grabbing performance of "My Man." From the titillating yet artful spectacle of The ZiegfeldFollies to Ethel Merman's brassy rendition of "I've Got Rhythm," and from Julie Taymor's visionary staging of The Lion King to a behind-the-scenes look at Wicked's opening night, the series enlightens, educates and offers unique insight into this truly American art form. Broadway: The American Musical assembled first-person accounts from dozens of theater luminaries: writers, lyricists, producers, performers, directors, and critics. Among them are Mel Brooks, Carol Channing, Jerry Herman, Margo Jefferson, John Kander, Joel Grey, Harvey Fierstein, John Lahr, Donna McKechnie, Chita Rivera, Stephen Sondheim, Tommy Tune, Ben Vereen, and many others. The many late greats interviewed for the series include Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Brendan Gill, Peter Stone, "Ziegfeld Girl" Dana O'Connell, Al Hirschfeld, Fred Ebb, Arthur Laurents, Jerry Orbach, Kitty Carlisle Hart, John Raitt, Gerald Schoenfeld, Marvin Hamlisch, and Frances Gershwin Godowsky."There's no place in the world like Broadway - it's the entertainment engine that drives New York. Its theaters are what turned Times Square into the "Crossroads of the World" says Michael Kantor. "We take you inside those theaters for the most important performances of the last one hundred years, and we were fortunate to be able to film many of the titans of Broadway telling their stories in their own words." The series traverses a century of national events with seismic reverberations on the Broadway stage, including recorded sound, the rise of Hollywood, the Great Depression, both World Wars, labor relations, the advent of television, civil rights, the sexual revolution, and the AIDS crisis. Each of the six films demonstrates how America's ever-changing cultural landscape is reflected back from the Broadway stage.To bring this story to life, Broadway: The American Musical uses an extraordinary collection of archival footage, newsreels, private home movies, original cast recordings, still photos, diary excerpts, personal correspondences, rare television and audio archives, and autobiographical material.Broadway: The American Musical is geared toward audiences of all ages, offering insights from Irving Berlin, Bert Williams and Yip Harburg through to Agnes DeMille, Harold Prince and George C. Wolfe, while spanning a century of musical productions from Show Boat, Anything Goes and On the Town to Company, Hair and The Producers."With this series, we not only showcase the magic of the musical theater, we discover its underlying connection to history," says executive producer David Horn. "And it's a history underscored by some of the most memorable music ever written - songs that are brash, unforgettably passionate and indelibly American." Kantor also co-authored a lavishly illustrated companion book, Broadway: The American Musical with series co-writer and NYU Graduate Acting Associate Chair Laurence Maslon; an updated paperback edition is now available from Applause Books with an introduction by Julie Andrews. The BROADWAY series, accompanied by hours of extra material, is being reissued on Blu-ray by PBS Home Video, for release on October 16. A dynamic Web site and extensive educational print materials are accessible at pbs.org/broadway.For 50 years, THIRTEEN has been making the most of the rich resources and passionate people of New York and the world, reaching millions of people with on-air and online programming that celebrates arts and culture, offers insightful commentary on the news of the day, explores the worlds of science and nature, and invites students of all ages to have fun while learning.Broadway: The American Musical is a co-production of Ghost Light Films, THIRTEEN, NHK, and BBC in association with Carlton International. Directed by Michael Kantor, the series was produced by Kantor with Jeff Dupre and Sally Rosenthal. The series was written by Marc Fields, Michael Kantor, Laurence Maslon, and JoAnn Young. Bill O'Donnell served as supervising producer, with Jac Venza and David Horn as executive producers. Funding for the series was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dorothy and Lewis Cullman, The Shubert Organization, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Cornelius V. Starr Fund for Arts Programming, the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Philanthropic Fund, Judith B. Resnick, Vivian Milstein, Rosalind P. Walter, Bob Boyett, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Inc., Mary and Marvin Davidson, Allen & Company, Susan R. Malloy and the Sun Hill Foundation, the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, the Karen A. and Kevin W. Kennedy Foundation, Mary Rodgers and Henry Guettel, public television viewers, and PBS.


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can someone explain the billing system for the TC how they bill us and based on what they do bill us.
in july we obtained one normal test license but we did not use it, while the hardware arrived to datacenter in AUG and the system is installed in AUG and we got 3 days test for Pro license at the end we found TC request us to pay for Jul and Aug ...
an anyone tell us how their bill flow works ???
Last edited by ziro_axis; 08-28-2017 at 12:10 PM.


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I've been inviting folks who've just joined Atheist Nexus, and haven't had time to figure out how it works. This discussion is intended to ease that learning curve.
The most common confusion I've encountered is that the boxes for adding comments and replies to discussions are easy to see, but how to start a discussion is almost hidden.
Look for a plus sign and blue words "add a discussion" above the bar setting off the comment wall.
You don't have to be new to leave a question here. Anyone who is experienced, and confident of an answer can post one. You don't have to wait for me to respond.
Views: 1007
Thanks, many sites have at least a small learning curve, and it doesn't help that with Web 2.0 sites, features are constantly changed or added (last time I was on before today, for example, I don't think there were "likes", but that seems pretty self-explanatory!).
Back when I was a kid, websites were boringly static and could go years without changing anything major...and we liked it! :-)
Thanks for getting me started Ruth. I've been spending time on ThinkAtheist but really haven't tried out Atheist Nexus yet. You inspired me to give it some time.
Here's a little navigation hint:
I just discovered that by clicking on a person's name, you get to their discussion page.
BUT By clicking on their profile photo, you get to their home page. Just thought I would share this little tip if you haven't figured that one out yet. It's not very intuitive.
By visiting a home page, you can learn a little more about a new friend or member.
Thanks for this hint; I did not know it and look forward to using it.
Favorite food and drink? ummm....that depends. I do drink a lot of diet Coke, and may be addicted to fresh hot pizza, and what is better then a hamburger? Not the fast food hamburger the real ones, cooked (for me) rare and stacked with lettuce, tomato, pickles - wonderful.
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Starting a garden can be hard work. What can be even harder is maintaining that garden. Naturally, all the pests, weeds and insects will come along and could destroy what you put so much effort into getting started. However, there is one battle that many face in gardening every year. It has nothing to do with the pests, weeds or insects, but has everything to do with the water you use. We all know that watering is a must for any garden (if you don't water it, it will die), but what we may not know is that the water you use could actually be hurting your garden. Most water contains chlorine that can actually harm your garden and stunt the growth of the plants in your garden. Fortunately, there are great Rainshow'r products that not only help you maintain your garden, but can keep it looking beautiful as well.
The Rainshow'r Gard'n Gro Garden Filter System is a completely non-toxic de-chlorinator that promotes healthy plant nutrition and growth in your garden by eliminating the harsh toxic effects of chlorinated water. This Gard'n Gro system enhances the effectiveness of non-chemical pest control methods while protecting ladybugs, lacewings and other beneficial nematodes. It also processes a minimum of 20,000 gallons of water and removes 85% of chlorine from your garden hose water.
The Rainshow'r Gard'n Gro Prefiltration Filter Kit is designed to prevent sediment from reaching your Gard'n Gro Garden Filters. It comes with a 15 micron double screen sediment filter and a 3-foot, flexible, high-vinyl hose saver. When installed, this will filter out sediment that is up to 5 times smaller than human hair!
As with most filters, eventually you will need to replace it. This is where the Rainshow'r Gard'n Gro Replacement filter screen comes in handy. This filter screen is used in the Rainshow'r Gard'n Gro Prefiltration Kit and will continue to filter out the unwanted sediment that could easily harm your plants.
Now that you have some products to help maintain your garden, how about a couple tips to further help you maintain your garden? First, it is best to water in the morning when temperature and wind speed is at the lowest. This reduces loss of water from evaporation and the possibility of disease. Secondly, don't walk on wet soil. The footprints you leave are evidence of compression — packing the soil particles tightly and squeezing out important oxygen. This is not good for a garden. Try putting stepping stones or walkways in the garden for both easy access and to keep your shoes clean and dry. Remember, the best gardens are the ones that are shown the most care, so get out there and show your garden some love!


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Come help CBF plant more than 1,000 trees and shrubs along Israel Creek on a beef cattle farm in Frederick County. The farmer recently installed additional fencing to widen a grass buffer along the stream and volunteers will restore this area to a forested stream buffer. Approximately 5,000 feet of stream banks will be planted resulting is five acres of new riparian buffer. Israel Creek is in the Monocacy River watershed, which flows to the Potomac River then to the Chesapeake Bay.
This is phase 2 of the planting—six acres were planted in the fall of 2016.
The farm is a regenerative grass-based farm, where cattle are rotationally grazed on pastures which help sequester carbon in the soil, helping to remediate climate change.
This project is part of CBF's partnership with WGL Energy and Sterling Planet to sequester carbon through restoring forested stream buffers. The Frederick County Soil Conservation District provided technical assistance on the stream crossings and water troughs for the cows. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation provided funding for the stream fencing and part of the water troughs. WGL Energy and Sterling Planet provided funding for the plant material.
Registration closes 10/27.


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The New York Jets have been written off by many pundits after a 3-5 start, but safety LaRon Landry isn't ready to channel Mike Shanahan just yet.
"We still can be in the playoff run," Landry said Monday, via the New York Daily News. "S---, if we don't get into the playoffs, man, it's a boring-ass season. F--- that."
Landry's profane thoughts should be how the entire Jets roster feels. The Jets have dug themselves a hole, but the AFC wild-card race is wide open. Let's not forget 2009, when the 7-7 Jets were left for dead after Week 15. That team ended up in the AFC Championship Game.
With his team on its bye last week, Jets coach Rex Ryan gave his players seven days off. On Monday, Ryan acknowledged the Jets weren't "sniffing the playoffs" right now, but that the team would continue to fight.
Landry traveled home to Virginia during his time away, visiting with Gucci, his pet monkey.
"It was good seeing him again," Landry said.
Nothing boring about that.
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @danhanzus.


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|Clinton, Tenn.
|High School:
|Anderson County
AT TECH IN 2010 (Freshman): Price recorded an undefeated 2-0 record during his freshman campaign at Tech, including a phenomenal outing at the OVC Tournament where he pitched six innings against Murray state, allowing only three hits, two walks and one earned run, striking out three in the 15-6 win. On the season, Price made four starts and finish with an ERA of 5.40 in 40 innings pitched, with 32 strikeouts to his credit.
At Anderson County HS: Nick lettered in varsity baseball all four years, and was selected to the Tennessee Baseball Coaches Association team after his junior and senior years…had a 10-1 record with a 1.17 ERA during his senior season and was named District 4-AA Co-Pitcher of the Year…was also an all-district and all-region selection and named to the Tennessee baseball report all-region team…went 8-3 as a junior with a 3.08 ERA…struck out 60 batters in 50 innings pitched, and walked just 25…allowed 41 hits and recorded one save…led his team to three consecutive district championships, and also won regional and sectional championships in 2006 and 2008…finished third in state in 2006…was a member of National Honor Society.
Personal: Full name is Nicholas Kurt Price…son of Tony and Jane Price…born March 23, 1991 in Knoxville, Tenn…majoring in pre-pharmacy.


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A sari is a female garment, a strip of unstitched cloth, ranging from four to nine meters in length that is draped over the body in various styles.
There are various traditional style of Saree like Sambalpuri Saree from East, Kanchipuram from south, Paithani from West and Banarasi from North.
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Almost three quarters of parents in Sussex and the south east say they feel stressed getting back into the school run routine, a recent study shows.
In a poll of more than 2,000 parents, commissioned by biscuit brand belVita, researchers found the average mum and dad spend almost two hours a day feeling stressed, with mornings in particular proving a minefield for parents.
Around 75 per cent of the parents surveryed agreed to feeling stressed while getting back into the school routine after the holidays, while nearly a third (33 per cent) said the school run is amongst the most stressful things about parenthood.
Nearly a third (31 per cent) said they often forget to pack an important school item and a fifth (20 per cent) drop the children off late for school.
Dr Linda Papadopoulos, who has been working with belVita to give advice to parents, said: "The stress and challenges of parenting can feel overwhelming - especially when we feel under pressure to get a lot done in a short space of time- morning can be especially challenging and it's key to develop a positive, convenient routine in the morning as it sets the rhythm for the day.
"When it's 'back to school time', trying to get everything done and leaving the house on time is at its most pressurised so developing strategies that you give you and your family a sense of control is really important.
"Parents don't need to panic! There are ways we can relieve the morning madness, simple strategies like connecting with kids in the morning so they're more co-operative or preparing things from the night before can make a big difference to the morning mood of a family unit. Small changes and combining some short term quick wins and convenient cheats will pay off in the long term."
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Are You Working Out Hard Enough?
Are you making your workouts effective or are you just going through the motions? Don't worry, you're not the only one wondering this. Time is valuable for everyone, so it's important that you actually benefit from the time you're putting in at the gym and making every workout an effective and productive one.
Here are 7 signs to look for on your next workout to make sure you're working out your hardest.
1. Keeping that heart rate up. Your heart rate should be within 65%-85% of its maximum during most of your workout. If it's not between that range, then you're probably not getting all you can from your workout.
2. You look worked, tired, and sweaty after. Sweat is a good indicator, but there's a lot of factors like the humidity and temperature of your environment that can affect how much you're sweating, so it's hard to say for every person. If you look the same before and after your workout, with put together hair and a fresh face, then you probably didn't work hard enough.
3. Using mental energy. You should be focused on your workout and have to concentrate on what you're doing. Pay close attention to improving your form and find ways to push yourself. If your mind is able to wander and think about other things not relevant to your workout, then you're most likely using minimal mental energy.
4. You feel a physical challenge. The last couple reps of any set should be a struggle. A teeth gritted, sweat dripping, muscle burning struggle. If you don't feel the burn or feel challenged, then you're probably lifting weights that are too light.
5. You dread part of your workout. If there's not parts of your workout that are difficult enough or hard enough to push you, then you're probably breezing by. There should be pieces of the workout that you just wish you didn't have to do. Those parts you dread are the parts that will affect your results the most and will overall make you stronger. So just keep in mind, if there's not one part of your workout that you absolutely dread, then it's too easy.
6. You can see results. If you can see the changes you're looking for, then you're doing it right. However, if you're eating healthy and not seeing the changes you want, then it's no question you need to step it up!
7. How well you can talk and communicate. If you feel like you can sing during your workout, you're exerting a low level of energy. And if you can't answer, even in a grunt, then you're exerting a high level of energy.
Be sure to look out for these signs on your next workout to make the most out of what you put in!
WARNING: This post is not intended to replace the advice of a medical professional. The above information should not be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or medical condition. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your diet, sleep methods, daily activity, or fitness routine. iFit assumes no responsibility for any personal injury or damage sustained by any recommendations, opinions, or advice given in this article.
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1986 Women's Outdoor Track and Field team
The 1986 outdoor track and field team also captured the NCAA Division III championship to make UMass Boston the first school to win both the indoor and outdoor championships during the same athletic season. The competition saw nine All-American performances and three event champions. Members of the squad include: Patsy Booker, Delores Booth, Darrelle Boyd, Ann Brissett, Debbie D'Entremont, Murtonda Durant, Genesia Eddins, Jackie James, Sabrina Powell, Jan Procaccini, Kelly Rainey, Maureen Roche, Georgia Traficante, Diane Weeder, Michele Williams and Rosalind Williams, Head Coach Sherman Hart and Assistant Coach Jeff Hennessey.


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Study looks at green tea for colon cancer prevention
The Denver Post
Oct. 03--HALLE, Germany -- Drinking green tea is generally recognised as heathful, though scientific studies on this have been few. A new trial aims to determine whether green tea can prevent colon cancer -- the biggest such trial in the world to date, according to Thomas Seufferlein, director of the Department of Internal Medicine at Halle University Hospital in Germany and co-head of the research team.
The study will investigate the effect of green tea on the formation of colon polyps, sometimes seen as precancerous. German Cancer Aid, a non-profit organisation that receives no public funds, is paying the entire 2.1-million-euro (2.8 million dollars) cost of the project with donations. "In the interests of the people concerned, we need to exhaust all possibilities for cancer prevention. This includes naturopathic therapies," said German Cancer Aid spokeswoman Christiana Tschoepe.
The trial, comprising 3,000 participants, has just got under way. "They were recruited for a three-year trial, but since it's staggered, the last ones won't be finished until six years after the trial starts," Seufferlein said. Selected from 30 large medical practices and clinics throughout Germany, the participants have all had colon polyps removed and are seen as having a heightened risk of colon cancer. Researchers also want to learn whether green tea can help prevent a recurrence of the polyps.
Along with bitter-tasting substances and caffeine, green tea contains the plant hormone epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG). "Various research has shown that EGCG inhibits the formation of tumours of the prostate, breast and uterus," Seufferlein said. For simplicity's sake, the trial uses green tea in capsule form; the dosage is two capsules daily.
"That's the equivalent of about five to ten cups of tea, depending on the method of preparation," noted Julia Stingl, a clinical pharmacologist at Germany's Ulm University and the other co-head of the research team. The capsules contain an extract with all of green tea's active components except caffeine, which has been removed.
One group of participants receives capsules containing green tea extract, the other takes placebo capsules. Neither the participants nor the researchers know which group is which.
"This makes an objective assessment possible," Stingl said. The trial participants are given a blood test every four months to check their liver and blood values. They are also asked whether they have drunk any green tea or taken medications. After three years, each participant has a colonoscopy to see whether, or how many, new polyps have formed.
The co-heads of the research team concede that even if green tea is found to inhibit the formation of colon polyps, it is rather unlikely that Europeans will drink up to ten cups of it daily. Capsules with green tea extract are already commercially available, however.
"Should its effectiveness be scientifically proven, the extract could be taken affordably in capsule form as a dietary supplement," Stingl pointed out.
(c)2011 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany)
Visit Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) at www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html
Distributed by MCT Information Services


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Proposal and Call for Papers: Enacting Nature: Ecocritical Perspectives on Indigenous Performance
To be edited by Prof. Dr. Birgit Däwes and Prof. Dr. Marc Maufort
"Dramaturgies," P.I.E.-Peter Lang (Brussels)
Ever since the mid-1990s, ecocriticism—or "the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment," in Cheryll Glotfelty's famous definition—has become an increasingly popular methodological paradigm for literary studies. In Native American and First Nations Studies, however, the coordinates for a fruitful critical investment in environmentalist issues are still being mapped. Common stereotypes, such as the wilderness topos, the "ecological Indian," or the keeper of a planetary spirituality, have proven tenacious and difficult to overcome. Joni Adamson additionally reminds us that ecocritics often overlook the "connections between social injustices and environmental degradation" (20) and accordingly pleads for both "a more inclusive environmentalism and a more multicultural ecocriticism" (xix). Similarly, Donelle Dreese examines the particular connection between landscape and configurations of the self in contemporary Native American poetry and prose; and in their study on Postcolonial Ecocriticism (2010), Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin call attention to further forms of ecological imperialism (such as biocolonization or environmental racism). Representations of nature and patterns of political power, in short, are inseparably intertwined. For the field of indigenous theater and drama, however (a genre that has itself been widely overlooked), these questions have not yet been systematically addressed.
This volume seeks to explore the relationship between indigenous drama and the "environment" in the widest sense—as place, land, nature, wilderness, social space, "thirdspace" (in both Soja's or Bhabha's senses), and "alterNative" space. Our notion of ecocriticism is not limited to environmentalism as a form of creative advocacy, but it acknowledges, in its basic assumption, Robert M. Nelson's insight that "cultural identities, like individual identities, emerge not from class struggle but rather from the land" (7). We therefore invite more general perspectives on performative representations of place, space, and nature. We are particularly interested in the ways that plays and performances envision space (and especially the relationships between humans and spaces), but also in the concrete engagements with the space of the stage. From the highly experimental approach to uranium mining in Marie Clements's Burning Vision to the ritual preparation of a dancing circle in James Luna's Emendatio, from the planetary, cosmopolitan vision of Tomson Highway's Rose to the metaphorical landscapes of Diane Glancy's plays, and from Jack Davis's and Wesley Enoch's dramatizations of Australian Aboriginal Dreamings to Hone Kouka's and Briar Grace-Smith's celebrations of the spiritual bond between Maori people and the land, the spectrum of "staging nature" is as wide as it is powerful. The corpus of the volume would deal primarily with Indigenous works from North America, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands (Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii), thus offering a broad comparative perspective on the multiple variants of Indigenous writing for the stage.
We invite contributions of roughly 6,000 words (prepared according to the latest version of the MLA stylesheet), to be submitted by December 1, 2012. Questions/topics to be addressed include, but are not limited, to the following:
- the multiple and transversal interconnections between identity, place, and space
- the particular use of the land and landscapes as defining factors of identity
- the significance of spaces and places for particular indigenous dramaturgies
- land and landscape as active "characters" or crucial elements in the development of dramatic plot rather than passive decorum
- the intersections between local and global, tribal and transnational trajectories in indigenous theater and drama
- the conceptualization of new methodologies through ecocritical perspectives and, in turn, the potential of indigenous (re)writings and (re)stagings of place for an expansion of ecocriticism as practice
- studies of how individual playwrights address ecocritical issues.
- Comparative studies of how playwrights from different world regions address these concerns.
Interested contributors are invited to send us an abstract of 250 words and a brief biographical sketch by March 1, 2012:
Please do not hesitate to contact the editors, should you have any further questions regarding possible topics.
via International: Enacting Nature – Ecocritical Perspectives On Indigenous Performance – Call For Papers., Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources – http://www.indigenousissues.com.


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TELL CITY - The Hoosier National Forest invites Perry Countians and others to turn their old Christmas trees into fish habitat in area lakes and ponds.
When submerged, recycled Christmas trees offer habitat to enhance feeding and cover for a variety of fish species, including largemouth bass, blue-gill and other sunfish species. Once submerged, the trees serve as media for the growth of algae. This attracts insects and other invertebrates, which provide food for small fish.
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Click the question mark below to see where your account ID appears on your mailing label.
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text: "It's time to be gentle guys," intoned Marla Spivak as the 7 members of my group from the class of 30 filed into the darkened lab room. We were about to learn how to graft one-day old larvae under the watchful eyes of Marla and Judy Wu, a PhD candidate studying the effects of neonicotinoids. This was July 7, 2012 the morning of day two of the two-and-a-half day Queen Rearing Short Course … [Read more...]


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In the old days Hollywood didn't worry about accuracy when it made movies about its own. Film biographies of Buster Keaton and Lon Chaney misrepresented entire careers, inventing characters and ignoring others. Of course, the films were meant to be judged in terms of their overall spirit, while providing great roles for actors like Donald O'Connor and James Cagney. A movie about real moviemoviemaking could be pretty boring; an exception may be the reasonably accurate and entertaining My Week with Marilyn. Some cult horror fans were put off by Tim Burton's 1995 Ed Wood because it fabricated a great deal about Wood and Lugosi, turning the "worst director in film history" into an oddball comic role for Johnny Depp. Defenders would say the movie is a twisted, affectionate comedy about talentless but optimistic filmmakers everywhere.
Last Oscar season we were given Hitchcock, a clever, fast-paced and frequently witty telling of the filming of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. It can boast a terrific cast and great production values. It's only attracted some criticism for, well, behaving like a Hollywood biography. Although everyone in the world now deems himself a movie expert, those that have really studied old pictures like Psycho remain a tiny minority. But many more have heard the gossip and rumors about ol' Hitch being obsessed with some of his leading ladies. HBO not long ago screened another Hitchcock quasi-bio, about his treatment of Tippi Hedren during The Birds and Marnie. Most film fans, however, seem not to be bothered about Hitchcock's "interesting" distortion of the legendary film director..
Director Sacha Gervasi's movie illuminates a secret side to Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins), a film director with very original frustrations. As 1959 rolls around Hitch has found plenty of success yet is unhappy that his industry still hasn't acknowledged him as a real film artist. He's expected to keep making thrillers with a slightly comic edge. Looking for new film material, Hitch's wife and longtime quiet collaborator Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) is lobbying for a thriller novel by her friend Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) when the director stumbles onto Robert Bloch's horror novel Psycho, based on the serial killer Ed Gein. "What if somebody really good makes a horror film?" muses Hitchcock, and he's soon working on a deal with his agent Lew Wasserman (Michael Stuhlbarg). actress Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) is hired for the film, along with Vera Miles (Jessica Biel), who Hitch feels was disloyal to him. Alma identifies young star Anthony Perkins (James D'Arcy) as an excellent choice for Norman Bates, the Ed Gein character.
But the director encounters a number of problems. Because no studio will fund the film, Hitchcock decides to bankroll it himself and release through Paramount, where he owes a picture. Hitch falls back into his obsessive behavior pattern with Janet Leigh, much to Alma's chagrin. She in turn helps Whitfield adapt his book, even though the writer gives hints of being romantically interested in her. Hitch now feels betrayed Alma as well. He fantasizes, or dreams, about actually talking to Ed Gein, whose beyond-the-pale atrocities now seem related to the director's morbid sense of humor.
Despite probably being too involved in film history for maximum general appeal, Hitchcock is undeniably entertaining. The film recounts a lot of trivia about the making of Psycho, and manages to make a lot of it interesting and funny. Anthony Hopkins' makeup gives him the distinctive director's general likeness, but his superb acting is what sells the illusion. Hopkins is a better Alfred than he was Richard Nixon, and he was remarkable as Nixon. We know Hitchcock through the playfully droll TV persona he projected in his movie advertising, always kidding about murders and mutilations. Hitchcock behaves as if Hitchcock were like that in real life. He's a spoiled, petulant man kept in balance by the more rational Alma. Many scenes capture Hitchcock's sense of ironic wit. When Lou Wasserman complains that Paramount head Barney Balaban's parents were insignificant grocers, Hitch explains that he came from the exact same background. When writer Joe Stefano (Ralph Macchio) says he's out of sorts because of his shrink and his mother, Hitch's face lights up -- he's found his man.
Helen Mirren's Alma is a refreshingly bright character. She's a professional's professional that (the movie asserts) should be considered the co-auteur of her husband's films -- she even rewrites all the scripts, (Joseph Stefano's heirs have taken grave exception to this impression). Mirren is still sexy as hell, which helps with the scenes of romantic temptation. We doubt that Ms. Reville was quite as vivacious as presented here, but Alma must have had a lively sense of humor to get along with her husband. I'd easily believe that a lot of patience was also useful.
Around the periphery are some great character turns. Scarlett Johansson is picture perfect as the sensible, practical Janet Leigh. James D'Arcy is extremely convincing as Anthony Perkins, especially considering how little screen time he's given.
The problem is that Hitchcock is the one director that fans know best, or think they know best. Exposé books about The Master of Suspense scour his psyche for evidence of dark and twisted motives, complexes, manias. Defenders dismiss all that as hooey and exaggeration, But the jury is still out -- in terms of opinions expressed in print, Hitchcock's collaborators and employees seems divided into equal camps of Alfred lovers and Alfred loathers. Hitchcock plays a cagey game with his. It goes all out with the "Alf is a closet psycho" theory, while simultaneously painting his obsessions as cute, quaint.
Hitchcock has two kinds of questionable content. The first are simple misstatement of facts, much of which can probably be chalked up to legal restraints. Note if you will that no mention is made of Universal, MCA (even though Wasserman was heavily involved with both) or Hitchcock-trademarked icons, like his famous profile sketch-doodle, which is probably copyrighted. Hitchcock's daughter Patricia is not mentioned in the film and, even though she played a sizeable role in the movie Psycho. The movie makes it seem as if Psycho were filmed at Paramount, to the point of using matte painting of the Bates' house exterior set. As the millions of folk that have taken the Universal Studio Tour well know, the film was shot at Universal City. The movie tells us that the Hitchcocks mortgaged everything to make Psycho. If Hitchcock authority Stephen Rebello says so, I'm not the one to argue, but it seems hard to believe that a man with a huge studio salary, profit participation in a string of big film hits, a hit TV series and a popular magazine franchise is in danger of losing his house. The man staked his career and livelihood with every new picture he made for 35 years. Is Fois gras from Maxim's that expensive?
The second kind of content makes fans edgy because it re-characterizes the beloved and revered Hitchcock as less of an artist, and more of an unbalanced pervert. At first a few small things seem "off", and then the show begins to invent themes and personality traits wholesale. Hitch reportedly said shooting films was the boring part of the process. Actors said that his sets were businesslike, and that he expected his actors to perform without his constant emotional assistance. In this account Hitchcock practically goes out of control on the Psycho set. He verbally assaults Janet Leigh to get a reaction for a driving scene, shocking some of the crew. Unhappy with Leigh's tepid response in the shower scene, he takes the butcher knife in hand to personally mime Norman's attack. Stabbing at her, Alfred looks certifiably insane. Well, it's dramatic, isn't it?
Hitch harasses poor Alma and mildly humiliates her when in the company of attractive women. This is credible, as many people have recounted stories of Hitch's sometimes offensive manners. When bored at work, Hitch peeks through the blinds at the babes walking between offices. But the film also presents him as a pervert voyeur, using a peephole into his actress's dressing room. Is there any evidence for this? The movie's game is to equate the director's psychology with that of his deranged anti-hero Norman Bates.
For the film's most creative/questionable touch, the screenwriter gives Hitch a recurring fantasy in which he communes with old Ed Gein, the abominably creepy serial killer. Hitch watches Gein dispose of bodies up on his remote Wisconsin farm. Whether this is meant to represent Hitch's actual dreams (he does wake up from one) or is just a thematic affectation, it seems an opportunistic mistake. Hitchcock was undeniably complex, but we're not ready to concede that he was some kind of monster. The director's admirers recognize the man's morbidity as a show, a part of his carefully cultivated public persona. Yes, Hitch loved dirty humor and reportedly loved to play extravagantly cruel jokes on people... but so what? To the casual viewer, Hitchcock makes the director out to be a very disturbed man. He didn't just make good movies, he was a consummate cinema artist ... a fact that really doesn't come through.
To give Hitchcock a human-interest storyline, the screenwriter has invented a thread of marital discord in the House of Hitchcock. This 'will Alma be unfaithful' subplot brings in a lothario screenwriter who cozies up to a director's wife -- a 60 year-old woman -- as a ploy to sell a script. Having been in the business for thirty-five years, I think Alma would see Whitfield's game coming from a long way off. But that's not the point, exactly. Is there any evidence that Alma Reville was ever anything less than 100% devoted to her Alfred? Is it fair to portray her as a potentially wandering wife, just to juice up a movie? Alma doesn't deserve that.
Anybody can do this kind of inventing, even blockheaded movie reviewers. Knowledgeable fans are aware that the villain in Hitchcock's I Confess is a foreigner who abuses his meek and subservient wife, also an immigrant. He attacks her when he thinks she's turning him in. And guess what this poor woman's name is? Alma. It would not be difficult to write a 'version' of the Hitchcocks in which the director secretly abuses a masochistic Alma Reville, mentally torturing her when his movies don't do well, projecting his vices onto her and accusing her of all kinds of terrible crimes? Not enough? Make Alma's a sick-o as well, encouraging Hitch to press his unwanted advances on his leading ladies.
This is of course total BS. It's kind of interesting that Hitchcock does the exact opposite of old Hollywood musical biographies once did. They had to tone down and whitewash the bios of pop songwriters and composers, removing unsavory problems and sexual orientations.
Questionable judgment aside, Hitchcock is a peppy show with interesting characters and a satisfying story arc. It even invents an anachronistic "gotcha!" moment for Hitch, when he stands in the lobby outside the first-engagement New York showing of Psycho, savagely air-conducting Bernard Herrmann's musical knife-slashes as the audience inside bursts forth with screams, followed by nervous laughter. The interpretive dance bit seems too demonstrative for A.H., and too athletic as well. Hitchcock sometimes flashed broad smiles unseen on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and he could also break out with a jolly laugh, as heard from time to time on the Francois Truffaut interview tapes. But dance around like Robin Williams? In reality, I'm not sure that Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock were anywhere near the New York opening of Psycho.
I recommend Hitchcock anyway, to enjoy its humor while pondering its mingling of fact and outright fantasy. Did I mention Toni Collette as Hitch's secretary, or Kurtwood Smith as the perpetually irate Production Code censor? They're perfectly cast. But I also must confess that I'm a little sad that 50 years from now, the amusing fantasies depicted in this movie may be accepted as the way things were. 1
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's Blu-ray of Hitchcock looks great. The transfer and sound are immaculate. Danny Elfman's score doesn't stand out and is completely overshadowed as soon as a hint of Bernard Herrmann's music appears. The screenplay does put across a number of fascinating details about Psycho, such as the fact that composer Herrmann scored the shower scene with those slashing violins over Hitchcock's protests.
Director Gervasi and author Rebello spend most of their commentary track expressing their happiness with the picture and its dream cast of actors. EPK-style featurettes cover various aspects of the show - the music score, the back story of Hitch and Alma, etc..
Fox's deluxe package comes with a separate DVD disc and instructions for downloading a digital copy or connecting with the spirit world in the "cloud".
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Hitchcock Blu-ray rates:
1. Other howlers and growlers: Winchester 73 is recognized as a great movie, no matter what the film's Lew Wasserman says. Also, Alma Reville walks onto the Bates House set to discover that the crew has been unable to film Hitch's shot of Arbogast being killed on the stairs. She takes a look at the script and says, "We'll do it with a process screen". That would require re-setting up on a process stage, which needs to be booked, planned, set up and tested in advance. Heck, Hitchcock's films were so meticulously pre-planned that his cameraman and assistants probably could do a shot like that on their own... and actor Martin Balsam would surely have been ready to perform it a week in advance as well.
Reviews on the Savant main site have additional credits information and are often updated and annotated with footnotes, reader input and graphics.
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Honouring Condescending Scepticism
The Syrian poet Adonis, born near the coastal town of Latakia in 1930, has received this year's Goethe Prize at a ceremony in Frankfurt, a German literary award of high prestige. The award ceremony went ahead in spite of protests in the Arab world over statements he's been making about the situation in his homeland. There's a flood of awards for Arab writers this year which can only be explained by the democratic awakening in the Arab world.
As well as Adonis's Goethe Prize, there's the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize in Osnabrück for Tahar Ben Jalloun in September, the Peace Prize of the German book trade for Boualem Sansal in October, and the PEN Club's Hermann Kesten Prize for the Egyptian publisher Mohammed Hashim. The only one that's missing is the Nobel Prize, and Adonis is a hot tip for that. As a poet and a pioneer of the modernism in the Arab world he's certainly earned it – but is 2011 the best time for it?
Caught between God and technology
Adonis is an iconoclast and a (literary) revolutionary of the old school. To that extent Joachim Sartorius was right when he said in his speech honouring the prize-winner that Adonis had helped to prepare the Arab spring "under the skin, so to speak." Adonis turns tradition – and not least religious tradition – into poetic material for a spirit of awakening inspired by Nietzsche and Heidegger. It was this spirit which was in evidence in his address in Frankfurt, when he deplored the way in which the Arab mentality was caught between dependency on God and dependency on technology.
A way out of this disastrous dilemma is not in prospect – unless, perhaps, in the form of poetry. A year ago, that might have been an acceptable way of interpreting the state of affairs in the Arab world. Now it seems a bit out of date. Hasn't anything changed in the course of the last year?
If one reads what Adonis has had to say about the Arab revolutions and, specifically, about the bloody events in his homeland Syria, he seems to be strangely undecided.
In a first article in May, Adonis, the internationally best known intellectual of his country, called on the regime to scrap Article 8 of the Syrian constitution, which speaks of the leading role of the pseudo-Socialist Baath party. He deplored the harm which one-party-rule had brought with it, especially the brutal, ideologically motivated suppression of ethnic and religious diversity – a diversity which was now re-emerging, even if in the form of a bleeding wound which would not heal. Adonis refers specifically to the towns of Deraa and Banyas ("these sources of twin rivers of tears"), which were at the centre of the unrest at the time.
What the Syrian opposition found upsetting was that, in this and other articles, Adonis seemed to believe in the possibility of reform coming from above, at the instigation of President Assad (whom he wrongly called "elected"). But real reform and a genuine election of the president would unavoidably lead to the self-destruction of the regime. After 2,000 demonstrators have been killed, no-one can seriously believe that this will happen.
Adonis's statements on the issues are thus appropriately self-contradictory. On 5th August he said in a long interview with the Kuwaiti paper Al Ray, "I believe that the president is capable of reform." But in the same paragraph he adds, "The least the president can do is resign."
In dubio contra reo
In view of this indecisiveness, the Syrian opposition feels rightly that it has been left in the lurch. "I live in the yearning in the fire of the revolution in the magic of its creative poison / my land is this spark this flash in the darkness of the time to come," he wrote exactly forty years ago in "This is my name," one of his most famous poems. Now, half a lifetime later, the time has come, and the revolution is scattering its sparks and flashes. But Adonis doesn't quite trust it. In the same interview he says that one can't really speak of a real revolution because the protesters don't have a clear programme for the future.
Adonis has a point there: exactly who the protesters are and what they want beyond the lowest common denominator – the fall of the regime – is a good deal less clear in Syria than it is in the other states undergoing uprisings. One reason for this lack of clarity is clear: the Assad regime is responding to the protests with shameless brutality and is thus preventing the opposition from organising itself by every means in its power.
At the same time, the exiled opposition is too heterogeneous and has no influence on what is going on in Syria itself. Intervention from outside, as in Libya (which would itself look like Syria, if it had been left to itself) has been rejected by everyone. The propaganda strategy of the regime, which is mainly to discredit the opposition for being controlled from abroad, and for being violent and radical Islamists, seems to be working, in that, unlike in Egypt, the protests do not seem to have reached all classes of society and all religious groups.
The Syrian Christians are very evidently holding back in their support. They are worried, either by the possibility that radical Muslims will take power (which is what Adonis warns of), or that the country could collapse into Iraqi conditions, with religious persecution and repeated attacks under a civilian, but largely powerless, government.
To this extent, Adonis's reservations are shared, not only by many Syrian Christians, but also by many sceptics in the West. Some of the points which Adonis raises would probably meet with the agreement of members of the protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt, and are certainly justified. Among them are his call for a strict division of state and religion, as well as for truly equal rights for men and women. That was also, for example, one of the demands of the Egyptian writer Mansura Eseddin in an article she wrote for the Swiss newspaper, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Another was the end of discrimination against religious minorities.
But the decisive difference between Adonis and the secular circles in North Africa who are campaigning for emancipation is not a matter of content, but of extremely inappropriate timing. Adonis is publicizing his reservations about the protesters just as they are being shot and intimidated, before they can really express what it is they really want. And it seems strange not to start one's demands for an improvement in the situation with an insistence of the removal of the most obvious and significant evil, and that's the dictatorship.
Instead, Adonis makes conditions for that improvement, telling them that those who are suffering oppression that they have to adopt the right attitude, which, for him, means a Western and secular approach.
This condescending scepticism is not just typical of Adonis and other arrogant Arab intellectuals who find it appropriate to make maximalist demands of the protesters, it's also found widely in Europe – for quite a long time at the start of the Arab Spring it was the basis for official Western policy. Such an attitude is lacking in imagination, as well as in a feeling for what it possible. It doesn't allow for any development, precisely because a developing situation cannot have all its positions cut and dried.
And it overlooks entirely that no position, even the most emancipated, can be free from blind spots and vague areas. The protesters, whatever their position, have at least this advantage over their hard-bitten critics: at least they believe in a future, in the possibility that the situation could be improved – even if it's only because they have no other choice.
Adonis is not a supporter of the Syrian regime or of any other dictatorship. But he, like many other writers who have been surprised by developments, seems to have lost his faith in the future. And that is something one can even understand when one bears in mind how many failed utopias, ideologies and hopes he has experienced in the course of his eighty years.
But it's unfortunate nevertheless, not least because we need the voice of the outsider, the poet, the observer, the sceptic, looking at things from a distance. That was Adonis's voice (as it was also, in an entirely different context, that of Peter Handke here in Germany).
There's nothing to criticize in this role, this distance or this scepticism; what can be criticized is the fact that Adonis insists on these characteristics even as the unarmed demonstrators are being shot in the head and the dead cannot be properly buried, as people are tortured and the propaganda continues to sneer – all for a regime which couldn't break the pact with the devil it has signed, even it – against all expectations – should want to.
Stefan Weidner
© Qantara.de 2011
Stefan Weidner is Adonis's German translator. His most recent book is "Adonis. Verwandlungen eines Liebenden. Ausgewählte Gedichte." ("Adonis: the Metamorphosis of a Lover. Selected Poems"), published by S. Fischer.
Translated from the German by Michael Lawton
Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de


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News Article
Anime Boston announces the Black Orchid Ball
Anime Boston is pleased to announce the return of its Formal Ballroom event! Join us on Friday, May 22nd for a sophisticated evening of glamor at Anime Boston's Black Orchid Ball. For information on tickets and dress code requirements please visit our Formal Ball Information Page.


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So the 82nd Academy Awards are scheduled for Sunday and even with the new extended list of nominees for Best Picture, Dan and I are a little behind. (We've got a pretty sweet setup in our basement for movie-viewing + we have a moral aversion to spending $25 for 2 hrs. of entertainment = we wait for Netflix to send DVDs to our mailbox.)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the following movies, nominated for Best Picture:
- Avatar (We saw it in 3-D and enjoyed it; Driscoll says it's demonic.)
- District 9 (In my opinion, over-hyped, kinda disappointing.)
- An Education
- The Hurt Locker (In our Netflix queue)
- Inglorious Basterds (In our Netflix queue)
- The Blind Side (In our Netflix queue)
- Precious
- A Serious Man
- Up (I cried during this movie. I bet y'all know which part!)
- Up in the Air
Feel free to make a case for your pick for Best Picture, rant about your least favorite of the ten, review all the ones you've seen, or share your thoughts on Driscoll's controversial remarks.
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DailyDirt: Air Hockey Robots
from the urls-we-dig-up deptThere is a decreasing number of games that humans can play against computers and still win. Most of us would lose at chess. If Ken Jennings can't win Jeopardy! against a computer, the rest of us likely have limited chances. People probably shouldn't play poker with real money against AI. But we can still have some fun playing, right? Robots can't beat us at games like tennis and soccer (yet), but they're getting pretty good at air hockey, so we better watch out....
- Japanese researchers have created a formidable air hockey robot that can adjust its strategy after observing its human opponents. By creating a bot that adapts to its opponents, it makes the game more entertaining for humans. [url]
- In 2008, Nuvation built an air hockey robot in less than 10 weeks. The bot is only good at defense (really really good), so it doesn't try to win as much as it just never loses (and humans give up). [url]
- The Air Hockeybot 1000 at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh is a permanent robotics exhibition featuring the Nuvation robot. Anyone can play against this bot, but it's hard to beat a 32-bit computer (the 8-bit version is an easier opponent). [url]
Filed Under: ai, air hockey, air hockeybot 1000, algorithm, artificial intelligence, game algorithms, games, robots
Companies: freescale, nuvation


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Documents and information for downloading
A Prayer for St Andrews Day
The Action of Church Together in Scotland has written a Prayer for Scotland on St Andrew's Day. It can be downloaded by clicking here.
Ecumenical Calendar of Commemorations
This interesting booklet has been prepared by ACTS Church Life Network. This gives information on the various prominent Scottish Christians over the centuries. It can be downloaded by clicking here.