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Talk about dedication. After my Off the Cuff debut last week, I jetted off to sunnier climes for a swift holiday.
But I made sure I was back in time to pen this week's masterpiece with my predecessor Jamie Diffley still on his Canadian jolly.
For me, it was the first time I had enjoyed a foreign break for about two years.
I packed my rubber ring, flip-flops and bat-and-ball set and headed for the Spanish city of Barcelona.
While memories of my last overseas holiday are a little sketchy, I like to think I have distanced myself from the Brit-abroad stereotype whenever I've been away.
And I set out this time with that in mind. When in Rome and all that.
So, I ate their food, drank their beer and tried to order it in their language - very cultured I thought.
Now, I had to move on to getting a suntan like the locals. So, I hit the beach, creamed myself up and lined up next to the mad-dogs in the midday sun.
Having just polished off a giant plate of Spanish omelette, it was no surprise that I drifted off into peaceful dreamland.
Some four hours later, I was woken by an Oriental woman offering me a massage on my lounger (for information, I declined).
She asked me in Spanish so I must already be as bronzed as the locals I thought to myself.
But sadly, that couldn't have been further from the truth. Instead, as I had been covering my ice-white torso in factor 15, I hadn't taken into account my snore-and-roll tendencies.
Now fully awake, I squealed out in agony as I tried to pull my T-shirt over my shoulders to go and get a drink.
Unbeknown to me I had rolled over in my sleep, exposing a huge surface area of milk-bottle white flesh, ready to be scorched. And it was scorched - it still is now. As I queued at the bar, waiting to get that drink, I caught a glimpse of myself in a silver napkin holder.
What was looking back at me was not a pretty sight - bright red face, bright red legs and only a football shirt to cover my extra-bright red back.
This led me to think that maybe we can't shake the Brit abroad label, maybe it's in our DNA.
All I needed now was a knotted handkerchief on my head and some union jack boxers.
But before I could order my all-day breakfast and pint of Carling Black Label, sunstroke set in.
It was a weird and wonderful experience. The room was spinning and bright colours appeared before my eyes.
Maybe the Beatles had sunstroke when they wrote Sgt Peppers I thought. Maybe not.
The only thing that could snap me out of it was going to be a dip in the sea.
So I plunged myself into the Med and took a mouthful of salt-water while I was at it. Suddenly my head was clear again and I was more worried about the litter (I hope it was litter) floating along beside me.
It's fair to say, the rest of my trip was spent either indoors or behind three to four coats of factor 30. But I managed to stick to the local beer.


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Please join Jedi Jiu-Jitsu and Southside Judo for our 1st annual Christmas Party and Potluck! Yoda Claus may make an appearance for the children, and there will be lots of fun, food, and camaraderie to be had.
We will have a sign up sheet starting at the middle of November and hope to see everyone there. The party will be held at our location and we look forward to seeing everyone!

subset: commoncrawl


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SNI Financial has been retained by a publicly traded, global media company in downtown Dallas that's looking for a Staff Accountant as a result of growth. This isn't the typical repetitive month-end close job; this role will wear many hats, with exposure to analysis, process improvements, senior leadership (including CFO's) in the field and more. Our client offers incredible benefits, good work/life balance, generous PTO, a strong 401K, caters lunch during close, a casual dress code, Friday's off during the summer and a competitive compensation package.
For more detail or immediate consideration, please send your resume directly to Kody Roach at firstname.lastname@example.com


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Conveyor belts


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ETS2 mods | Euro Truck Simulator 2 | Truck mods » Other mods ETS 2 » Realistic Building Lights v2.1 [1.27.X]
Realistic Building Lights v2.1 [1.27.X]
Author: test | 25-03-2017, 18:37 | Views: 1 330 | Comments: 0
Description about Realistic Building Lights v2.1 [1.27.X]
This mod reduces the brightness and the number of windows that are lit on buildings at night to produce a more realistic effect.
Works with maps.
Compatibility latest version: 1.27
If you are using Frosty Winter Mod or Tropical Environment this mod must be placed below them in Mod Manager.
Changes in v2.1
Updated for 1.27
Screenshots Mod
Add comment to this mod
Did u tried this mod? We offer you to share your feedback from what you tested! Your review will be useful to viewers who are just about to download and to try this new mod.


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PR.com Presents its Most Candid and In-depth Interview Yet, In a No Holds Barred Conversation with My Fair Bradys Adrianne Curry and Christopher Knight
PR.coms Senior Editor, Allison Kugel, hosts a three way uncensored conversation with Christopher Knight of Brady Bunch fame and Adrianne Curry from Americas Next Top Model, currently both of VH1s hit reality show My Fair Brady.
New York, NY, December 12, 2005 --(
)-- PR.com is fast becoming known for its in-depth and conversational interviews where celebrities reveal more then they have with any other publication; online or newsstand. This latest interview with My Fair Brady's
Christopher Knight
Adrianne Curry
is certainly no exception! Filled with personal information never before documented in the press, and unforgettable sound bytes, this interview is a must read!
Just a few memorable sound bytes from the interview, entitled "
My Fair Brady's Adrianne Curry & Christopher Knight: The Raw and Uncensored PR.com Interview
"I think it's terribly irresponsible, but not unexpected from the Scientologists... I think it's easier for the Scientologists with their special brew of subtle manipulation and mind control to be supplying a lot of what ADD sufferers might need... I certainly don't think of Tom Cruise and John Travolta as stupid people. But I don't understand how anybody who is two notches above idiot can really buy in [to Scientology] as deeply as they have." – Christopher Knight on Scientology as it relates to his ADD
"And unfortunately as a result, this is my world being polarized. [Florence Henderson] doesn't want to have anything to do with Adrianne and has lost respect for me... She is not respectful of my choice." – Florence Henderson does not respect Christopher's choice to be with Adrianne
"We were told throughout the taping of the show that the winner would have a huge cosmetics deal with Revlon... What ended up happening was, I found out later on when I was waiting around for this deal that never showed up… I was told that it was just convention work... The show did get my foot in the door, but it didn't work out the way that I thought it would. We were told something quite different than what happened and it's just a learning process." – Adrianne Curry on being misled about the deal with Revlon from "America's Next Top Model"
"There are no cameras in our bedroom; none on the walls. We'd shut the door and tell them to get out. We're definitely not making a Paris Hilton sex tape." – There are some things Adrianne Curry won't do on camera, during the filming of "My Fair Brady"
"People still think I'm 14 years old and I'm not. And I'm not Peter Brady, although Peter was a part of me. I am a new person. If I'm going to be recognized for the rest of my life anyway, I might as well benefit by jumping in…" – Christopher Knight's explanation for jumping on the reality show circuit
Shortly after VH-1 announced the news that they were picking up a second season of their hit reality series, My Fair Brady, I had a sit down conversation with the controversial couple themselves: America's Next Top Model, Adrianne Curry and the love of her life, fiancée and Brady Bunch alumni, Christopher Knight. This is the rawest and most candid interview that either of them has done to date. Between Adrianne and Chris, they pretty much took over and interviewed each other, with me refereeing of course. His fame was created on The Brady Bunch and her fame was created on the first season of America's Next Top Model. He's 49 and a show business veteran. She's 24 and a larger-than-life newcomer. Their courtship began on VH-1's The Surreal Life and continued with My Fair Brady, which culminated in a tearful marriage proposal in the first season's final episode. Now these two are gearing up for the second season of My Fair Brady and the cameras will be there as this May/December couple plan their nuptials.
To read interview, go to
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The White House has told two former staffers not to hand over White House-related documents to the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee. Instead, it told the committee to discuss the documents request directly with the White House.
The subpoenaed documents "include White House records that remain legally protected from disclosure under longstanding constitutional principles, because they implicate significant Executive Branch confidentiality interests and executive privilege," White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a June 4 letter to the committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).
Nadler disagreed, saying in a June 4 statement that the documents "left the White House months ago" and "are no longer covered by executive privilege, if they ever were."
The documents pertain to matters investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller, who, in March, concluded a 22-month probe into Russian interference with the 2016 elections, as well as whether the Trump campaign colluded with said interference. He established the meddling took place, but didn't establish that collusion occurred.
Attorney General William Barr determined the investigation didn't establish grounds for charging Trump with obstructing the probe either.
Democrats, however, vowed to continue the investigation through House committees they gained control of in the 2018 midterm elections.
As part of those inquiries, Nadler subpoenaed the documents from Hope Hicks, former White House communications director, and Annie Donaldson, former chief of staff to former White House counsel Donald McGahn.
But "Ms. Talley and Ms. Hicks do not have the legal right to disclose the White House records to third parties," Cipollone said. "I would ask that the Committee direct any request for such records to the White House, the appropriate legal custodian."
Cipollone said such requests should wait after the committee concludes its talks with the Justice Department, which has "indicated a willingness to discuss a process" to "accommodate the Committee's requests."
Since the Justice Department may agree to give the committee what it needs, "Acting Chief of Staff to the President Mick Mulvaney has directed Ms. Talley and Ms. Hicks not to produce documents in response to the Committee's May 21 subpoenas that relate in any way to the White House," Cipollone said, adding the Justice Department "is aware of and concurs with this legal position."
Nadler said that "Hicks has agreed to turn over some documents to the Committee related to her time working for the Trump Campaign."
"I thank her for that show of good faith," he said.
Many Subpoenas
Nadler previously subpoenaed Mueller probe-related documents from McGahn, too, but the White House directed McGahn on May 7 to not comply, also citing confidentiality interests and executive privilege.
Executive privilege is a right claimed by presidents to withhold information about internal executive branch deliberations from other branches of government.
Democrats have also tried to use the House's oversight power to get to Trump's tax filings.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on May 6 denied a request by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) for Trump's tax returns.
Trump, his three oldest children, and the Trump Organization have sued Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. to try to block them from responding to congressional subpoenas issued by Democrats that seek financial records not only of his sprawling real estate business, but of his family's personal expenditures.
The subpoenas were upheld by a district court and Trump appealed to the circuit court.
Reuters contributed to this report.


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2019 eurobrass Prayer Blog
After our wonderful 40th anniversary celebration in 2018 we are looking forward to a more "normal" concert tour this summer. We´d be honored and thankful to have you join us in prayer as we head out. To keep up with current prayer requests, photos, and answers to prayer, join our facebook group
"eurobrass 2019 prayer blog / gebetsblog."
Or if you´d prefer, we´d be happy to send you updates by email. Just send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com and ask to be added to our 2019 prayer blog email list.Thanks very much for your prayers!
Copyright: eurobrass e.V.


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Camp Able and related Leisure Services Programs
Oct 21, 2019
Oct 24, 2019 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Experience a sample Yoga Class while celebrating World Polio Day. An instructor from Canton Leisure Services will be at The Summit on the Park to lead you in a sample Yoga Class. Attendees are asked to make a suggested $20 donation by purchasing tickets at the main reception desk at Summit on the Park. All money will go to the Canton Rotary Club to be used in the fight against polio - yes, the fight against polio is still going on. We are very close to eradicating it!
In 1988, when Rotary and its partners founded the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, this paralyzing disease affected 350,000 children. Our collaboration with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and later the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, local health workers, and national governments has helped reduce the number to just 18 cases of wild polio virus this year.
Rotary Membership
Oct 28, 2019
Nov 02, 2019 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Russ Jones will speak on Navigating the RI Website
Nov 04, 2019
Nov 11, 2019
Nov 14, 2019 - Nov 16, 2019
Nov 16, 2019 10:00 AM – 8:00 PM
Nov 25, 2019
Feb 08, 2020 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Gut Health and the Immune System
Feb 10, 2020
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Search for flights on more than 400 airlines
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Prices found within past 7 days. Prices and availability subject to change. Additional terms may apply.
|Origin Airport IATA Code
|Destination Airport IATA Code
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|2,574 km
Before you call airlines looking for flights from Washington, DC, you should check with Orbitz.com. The two major airports in DC are Washington Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Alaska Airlines, US Airways, and Frontier Airlines handle domestic flights from Ronald Reagan, while Virgin America, ExpressJet Airlines, and Colgan Air operate out of Washington Dulles. Ronald Reagan is only three miles from the downtown area, and Washington Dulles is 26 miles from downtown.
The five parking lots at Ronald Reagan offer daily and hourly parking rates, and the airport charges $20 per day for parking in the long-term lots. The economy lot only charges $12 per day, but this lot is open and uncovered. Washington Dulles has two long-term parking lots that charge $17 per day and one economy lot that charges $10 per day. For $30, you can use valet parking.
The Metrorail and Metrobus make at least one stop at each airport every day. The stops are clearly marked around the city, and you can find maps that help you find the correct line. Taxis are not as low cost as the public transportation options because the drivers charge a pickup fee, baggage fee, fee per mile, and a fee for any time that the driver must wait.
Both airports offer a range of dining options. Washington Dulles is home to Dulles to Go, Five Guys, Subway, and Wendy's, while Ronald Reagan has Dunkin' Donuts, Euro Cafe, and Jerry's Subs & Pizza. Once you have something to eat, you can browse through the sales at some of the shops surrounding the restaurants. If you want to enjoy your vacation, use Orbitz.com to look for flights from Washington DC.
Orbitz.com makes it easy to find flights to Aspen. The website searches different flight combinations to find tickets at bargain prices. The Aspen-Pitkin County Airport is located in Pitkin County, three miles northwest of downtown Aspen. Two airlines service the airport: American Eagle, providing flights to Aspen from Dallas and Los Angeles, and United Express, providing flights to Aspen from Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
You can take the bus from the airport to Aspen for free. The bus stop is located directly across from the terminal, on Highway 82. Buses run every 30 minutes, from 6:01 a.m. until 5:01 p.m., every 15 minutes from 5:01 p.m. until 1:01 a.m., and every hour after that. Taxi and limo services are also available. If you'd like your own transportation, you can use the Orbitz.com website to reserve a rental car.
Aspen's climate is one of the main reasons people flock to the area. During the winter months, the temperature ranges from 7°F to 39°F. It's cold, and there's a lot of snow, making it perfect for skiing. During the summer, the low temperatures average in the 40s, and high temperatures average in the 70s. While there's the occasional shower in the summer, the fall is usually filled with dry, sunny days.
If you want breathtaking views, there are a few great spots in Aspen, such as Maroon Bells, Independence Pass and Maroon Lake Scenic Trail. If you want to ski, head to Aspen Highlands or Aspen Mountain. The area also offers excellent hiking trails, including Rio Grande Trail, Crater Lake Trail and Grottos Trail. Orbitz.com does more than find flights to Aspen; the website has all the tools you need to plan your entire vacation
Explore Aspen Snowmass with Orbitz's Travel Guides to find the best flights, cars, vacation packages and more!
Fare, taxes & fees: Fares include all taxes and fees, except baggage fees. Rates shown reflect fares found by other Orbitz users over the past 7 days. Due to rapidly changing airline prices & seat availability, these fares may no longer be available.
Refunds/changes/cancellations: Itinerary changes, if permitted for the fare, will have a $30 service fee charged by Orbitz. Additional airline charges may apply.
Other conditions: Schedules, fares and rules are subject to change without notice. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights/dates or in all markets. Lower fares may be available. Fares will not be honored retroactively or in exchange for any wholly/partially unused ticket. Tickets are non-transferable and non-refundable. Fare rules are provided for the selected itinerary before booking.
^Savings based on all package bookings with Flight + Hotel made on Orbitz.com from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018 as compared to the price of the same components booked separately. Savings will vary based on origin/destination, length of trip, stay dates and selected travel supplier(s). Savings not available on all packages.


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Bondi Beach 380
In 1809 the road builder William Roberts received a grant of land in the area. In 1851 Edward Smith Hall and Francis O'Brien purchased 200 acres (0. 8 km2) of the Bondi area that included most of the beach frontage, which was named "The Bondi Estate. " Hall was O'Brien's father-in-law. Between 1855 and 1877 O'Brien purchased his father-in-law's share of the land, renamed the land the "O'Brien Estate," and made the beach and the surrounding land available to the public as a picnic ground and amusement resort. As the beach became increasingly popular, O'Brien threatened to stop public beach access. However, the Municipal Council believed that the Government needed to intervene to make the beach a public reserve. On 9 June 1882, the Bondi Beach became a public beach. [citation needed] The first tramway to the beach was established in 1884. The Waverley Council was responsible for building the first surf bathing sheds on the beach in 1903. By 1929 an estimated 60,000 people were visiting the beach on a summer weekend day. The opening of the pavilion in the same year attracted a huge crowd of 200,000.


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November 4th, 2007
Copy the line below to link to this article from your blog or forum:
Spoiler warning! As with all reviews at theWAREHOUSE, this article tells more or less the entire plot of the movie along with my editorial thoughts. So consider yourself wizzarned. That's either like a hip-hop warning or a wizard's warning, depending on your current flavor of pop culture.
Charlton Heston, heavily loaded with a few pistols and a submachine gun, drives through the abandoned city. His abandoned city. Soft jazz rolls through an 8-track player in the car. Occasionally he takes pot shots at shadowy figures in windows, but other than that he's totally alone. He is the Omega Man - the last survivor.
The Omega Man is getting a lot of backtrack buzz lately because of Will Smith's movie I Am Legend. See, the Fresh Prince's movie is an adaptation of an old book. Heston's 1971 classic SF-survival thriller is the earlier (and likely better) adaptation of this same 1954 novel. There's been another movie also, making the Smith's movie the third adaptation. But I don't want to talk about Will Smith or his upcoming sure-to-be blockbuster.
Charlton Heston constantly talks to himself, eventually soothing his melencholy and joke-filled afternoon by watching a documentary about Woodstock via a gas-powered movie projector in an abandoned theater. He mouths the words to the entire movie - he's seen it so many times. As he realizes the sun's going down, he shows a rare moment of panic. He begins to show signs of his madness - imagining phones ringing (desperate for human contact) - and withdraws back to his stronghold on squealing tires. "They'll be waking up soon!"
Upon reaching his hideout, however, he's ambushed surprisingly ineptly by a group of mutants dressed in dark robes. A few manage to get into his compound by running through the door while his car gets through. They're quickly and almost casually dispatched.
Kill Count: 3
Heston has grown quite proficient in his existence. He inhabits a large mansion, surrounded with razor wire, filled with technological wonders and survival gear. The archaic cult members outside burn books and paintings while their leader Matthias waxes poetic about how to kill him.
Despite his predicament, Heston wanders around talking to himself and a bust of Caesar and drinking hard liquor. Not a bad existence. Allow me to quote from Easy Rider: "You do your own thing in your own time, man."
Upon realizing that the statue of Caesar hasn't taken his turn in their perpetual chess game, Heston remarks "Balls. You know, you used to be a nice guy once."
Flashbacks tell the story of how the world became the way it is, but it doesn't much matter. Suffice to say that Mutually Assured Destruction happened by way of biological warfare - the current disease around which the plot is centered. Heston is alive because he tried his own experimental serum on himself - he was a military scientist and is now a mercenary. He had been in a helicopter flying the only test batch of cure to the spreading disease out on an important mission when both he and the pilot began to succumb to the disease. Surviving the crash, Heston injects himself and becomes permanently immune but destroys the serum. Apparently while he was healing the world population died? Wikipedia says the world population in the late 70s when the movie takes place was a bit over the 4 billion mark.
Deaths: 4,000,000,003
Normally I wouldn't do something like include the deaths of people that happened outside of the timeline of the movie, but I think it'll help underscore the postapocalyptic feel. Yeah, that's it. I just like seeing a big kill count.
A few sentences ago I said he was a mercenary. He is, but his employer is himself. See, he vacillates rapidly between a driven professionalism and a 70s playboy swagger. He has no particular goal other than his own survival, but diligently maps out the mutants' activities, trying to pinpoint their stronghold to try and wipe them out...likely to simply make his own existence easier.
He's been doing regular sweeps over new parts of the city, searching for supplies and for the main "nest" or "hive" of the diseased. He's trying to both survive and wipe out his attackers (who can't function in daylight).
The colors of the settings and the framing of the cinematography are a visual delight. The 70s charm and fashion fill the screen from side to side and even the postapocalyptic landscape of a dead city can't escape the occasional brightly paisleyed bikini or ultra yellow-and-pink pantsuit.
Since the movie is mostly one man with barely a mission, the first half is wonderfully cynical and self-centered. Just watching Heston wander around, master of his own domain despite the fact that he's the only man left in a dead world, should rank high on your True Example of Manliness list. His slow descent into madness is marked by the polarization of joking laziness and militaristic discipline - or is that precisely how he maintains his sanity?
He sees a human woman in a roomful of mannequins and chases her, but she flees and manages to elude him. He wonders if he really saw her at all.
Eventually the mutants manage to subdue him by way of a simple trap in a store basement. Matthias has Heston beaten (off camera - the entire film lacks much violence at all and garnered a PG rating) and pontificates eloquently to him about how wrong and evil Heston's old-society ways are.
The mutants are stubbornly proud of their shameful marks of sickness and disease. They are ashamed of them, yet turn them into justifications for their society and their actions to "bury what was dead, to burn what was evil, to destroy what was dangerous."
After being run through a mock trial, Heston is paraded out in a dunce cap, mocked...and tied to a huge pyre in the middle of a dark sports stadium. Is this the end for the Omega Man? Of course he won't be killed because the movie's only half over!
Suddenly the lights in the stadium they're in turn on, scattering the mutants. A man comes out to rescue Heston - they flee and he finds himself in the company of the Foxy Brown he found earlier and a wacky dude named Dutch. The woman's name is Lisa, but that's so boring that I will continue to refer to her as Foxy. Dutch, however, is an excellent name. Unfortunately he doesn't do much.
Various explosives are used, and the mutants seem to burst into flames pretty well. Maybe heavy robes, medieval weaponry and being sickly and weak weren't the best characteristics for Matthias to latch on to when setting up his army. Let's call it a dozen deaths? Deaths: 4,000,000,015
They manage to make their daring escape from the stadium and a seemingly endless supply of mutants...generally by just driving past most of them.
Foxy Brown takes Heston to the group's hideout, far from the city. It's mainly filled with children - a dozen of children, not infected by the plague - yet! Remember, he hasn't seen another human for two or three years. "I didn't know there were any left."
They want Heston, and know a lot about him because they want him to help with investigating and curing the disease. Specifically there's a kid who's "on the verge of turning" which motivates Heston to help them. OH NOES it just got sentimental.
In my opinion, this all is where the film takes an unfortunate turn. The whole thing gets a little too sentimental and touchy feely. I have to say that I love Heston being a self-centered self-supported survivor. I love the fashion of the movie. I think Heston's ludicrous methods and lifestyle and madness-sanity are a delight. Apparently I love the 70s. And then it gets all sappy. Where are the Ewoks?
Right now they're back in Heston's place. Matthias is outside taunting them while they drink brandy. Here's a thought. Heston has a ridiculously high powered sniper rifle with night vision. BAM...movie over? But noooo.
While macking it with Foxy Brown he neglects the gas in the generator, allowing the house to fall into darkness. Good job. You've been a master of your own domain for years, but as soon as you meet any humans, you totally screw up keeping up your defenses. Great.
While Heston fills up the generator, Foxy waits. While Foxy waits, one of the mutants sneaks inside.
Heston ends up coming back just in time to blow him away.
Deaths: 4,000,000,016
They resume their courtship and do it under the watchful gaze of Caesar. Bow-chikka bow wow
Then they start raiding general stores, hospitals and medical houses for the supplies to extract some 100% pure Hestonjuice.
Anyway, they go about collecting Heston's blood (which is infused with the cure) in an attempt to breed a generic source of cure. Surprisingly the cure works on the kid who was mostly "turned" and everybody's wicked happy. There's hope! And hope floats. Or does it?
"Either kill 'em or cure 'em dammit!" poses the cured child once he realizes that Heston has completely written off the mutants as being past trying to save. Now that a "cure" exists, the child wonders if it might cure those as far developed as Matthias and "The Family" - whereas Charlton Heston simply wants to leave and give the serum to the as-of-yet unturned kids.
The kid, in the meantime, ditches Heston and goes to meet the mutants to see if they would accept his offering of his own blood as a cure. D'oh. So of course they have to go to save him. Damn kids ruin everything in these movies! Stoic loners just can't stay stoic loners! It happened to Mad Max...it happened to this guy! (Robert Neville is his name by the way - Charleton Heston's character)
The Family marches on Heston's mansion, enraged by the blood-bomb child. Meanwhile Foxy Brown has turned into one of them pretty darn quickly. Apparently this is all just supposed to set up Heston for his big "oh crap do I kill them all and run away" moment, which he probably should've done.
While they are let into his penthouse by Foxy Brown, Heston sneaks into the mutant compound. The old switcheroo! He sees that they've already killed the kid, but it was off camera and nothing particularly spectacular.
Deaths: 4,000,000,017
On his way back to the compound he uses a satchel charge to blow up a car behind which are hiding a few of the Family.
Deaths: 4,000,000,020
Fortunately for Heston, they're all really really scared of the loud noise of his gun, so any time he fires it they all cower. And they're all anti-technology so they all only attack him with weak arrows, or by throwing rocks. Heston, however, has explosives and sniper rifles.
He finally returns home to see Foxy turned, and Matthias in his house with a ton of mutants. He's captured again. D'oh.
He has to watch them smash his entire apartment, which is awful because damn that was a swanky pad! Seriously!
They try to move him - always having to make an example of him, Matthias never just orders him killed - but he escapes and grabs a gun, fleeing with the mostly-turned Foxy Brown and a bottle of the cure.
"Escapes" being the operative word. Or...non-operative word. At ground level, Foxy turns around and starts to return to Matthias, responding to his summons. Heston stops to call her back, and Matthias hurls a spear.
D'oh. That can't be good.
As Robert-Heston's lifeblood ebbs out into the fountain and the sun rises, the scene growns darker and darker, his body fatally pierced.
The children find him in the morning, barely alive. He hands them the serum and makes sure that the nearly dead and nearly turned Foxy Brown is taken care of. Dutch understands that he's now the leader of the whole operation. "Well let's move kids; we've got a long way to go."
The van with the children, full of hope and promise, rolls off into the horizon as Charlton Heston dies in the fountain.
The Omega Man perishes. He was the last man...but the first step towards a new society. The obvious Christ figure cast by the Neville character resonates not in the hokey death of the spear that punctured his side or that he died with his arms spread out, but that his shed blood provided for the redemption of the human race.
Deaths: 4,000,000,021...ish. Probably several more bit it during the battles but they were pretty ham-handedly thrown together in the wonderful 70s mindset of setting off a colorful explosive charge in the middle of the framed shot and having five guys leap out of the way. Some may have been right next to it, some may have been ten feet away.
I feel that Omega Man was pretty darn fantastic, with the qualifier that I mean that the Omega Man himself was fantastic. I was so very ready to accept that Charlton Heston's character was cynical beyond redemption, a self-centered survivalist beyond compassion, that it was a downright shock when the second act came along and he started babysitting the brood. I very nearly came to expect them to sit in a circle singing Kumbaya. Not that I was hoping this would turn into some silly Deathwish style movie with nothing going on but Heston killing the Family; I'm just saying that the involvement of the children and the woman was pretty sappy. Heston played Neville's cocksure swagger with such apropos 70s flair that I will definitely be rewatching the first half of this movie again.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to see if I can get a bust of Caesar on ebay. And perhaps a paisley jumpsuit.
A note for next Halloween, having one person dress up as Neville and one person dress up as a member of the Family would be a pretty great pairs costume.
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How can I reduce leg edema from the knees down on both legs?
Elevation. Keeping your legs elevated generally reduces swelling; diuretics can be used also but something that should be prescribed after a full evaluation.
Many possibilities. Some causes of swelling of the legs can include systemic problems such as hypertension, and problems with the kidneys and localized issues such as arthritis, infection, lymphatic obstruction, blood clots, varicose veins, trauma (fracture, sprain, tendonitis) and side effects to medication. Have it evaluated by a professional and get the appropriate treatment.
Related Questions
I have uncontrolled hypertension hypothyroidism, discoloration both legs & now edema in right leg knee to foot. What kind of doc should I see first?
An internist! Sounds like a job for your friendly neighborhood internist, in my humble opinion.. Read more...
Physician. Family practice physician will help you sort through these problems, do appropriate workups, and refer you to the proper specialists if necessary. Read more...


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This publication was created for the Center on Instruction by the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University. The Center on Instruction is operated by RMC Research Corporation in partnership with the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University; Horizon Research, Inc.; RG Research Group; the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics at the University of Houston; and the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The contents of this document were developed under cooperative agreement S283B050034 with the U.S. Department of Education. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Editorial, design, and production services provided by RMC Research Corporation. Preferred citation: Torgesen, J., Houston D., Rissman, L., & Kosanovich, K. (2007). Teaching all students to read in elementary school: A guide for principals. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction.
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INTRODUCTIONIf your goal is to improve the overall quality of reading instruction in your school, this guide can help you identify the most critical changes that must be made. It describes the types of instruction and leadership activities necessary to help all children become proficient readers in elementary school. It does not contain all the information needed, but refers you to additional readings in specific areas to enrich your knowledge. Think of it as a quick start guide for a school-level instructional leader. It can point you in the right direction, but it can only provide a taste of the knowledge needed to be a successful literacy leader in your school. We encourage you to become familiar with the ideas in the guide, and then embark on a program of systematic study to fully prepare for this challenging and rewarding task. This guide is based on scientific research on reading and reading instruction, as well as on studies of successful schools and interviews with successful principals. The most important goal of reading instruction in elementary school is to help students acquire the skills and knowledge they need to read grade-level text fluently and with good comprehension. Reading comprehension is a very complex skill. Its most essential elements involve: skill in reading text accurately and fluently; sufficient background knowledge and vocabulary to make sense of the content; skill in using reading strategies that improve understanding or repair it when it breaks down; ability to think and reason about the information and concepts in the text; and motivation to understand and learn from text. In other words, reading proficiency at the end of elementary school requires that students be able to identify the words on the page accurately and fluently; that they have enough knowledge and thinking ability to understand the words, sentences, and paragraphs; and that they be motivated and engaged enough to use their knowledge and thinking ability to understand and learn from the text. We want to emphasize that motivation to understand and learn from text is a critical component of reading comprehension. It takes real effort to understand
the many textbooks and other forms of complex written materials students begin to encounter as they move through elementary school and into middle and high school. Unless students are appropriately engaged, they often do not fully apply the skills they have, nor will they be motivated to acquire additional skills and knowledge.
Consistently implemented, high quality initial classroom instruction and follow-up small-group instruction that is well-differentiated according to student needs. Teachers at all grades must be prepared to provide strong initial instruction in critical skills and knowledge to their classroom as a whole. At every grade, specific skills must be taught and specific knowledge acquired to meet grade-level standards in reading. Teachers must be able to support student growth in critical areas through skillful, systematic, and explicit instruction at the whole classroom level; they must also be able to work effectively with small groups of students who have different instructional needs. Small-group instruction is necessary because students in most classes vary widely in their instructional needs, and their diverse needs are best met when instruction is at the right level and focused on areas of most critical need. Appropriately differentiated instruction involves even deeper teaching skills than whole-classroom instruction, because it requires teachers to diagnose individual needs and make appropriate adjustments to their instructional focus and instructional routines. Use of student performance data to guide instruction and allocate instructional resources. Data on student performance in reading from both formal and informal assessments have two important uses in elementary schools. First, data provide valuable information to help teachers adapt instruction for individual students. Valid and reliable assessments of reading progress provide key information that allows teachers to target their instruction for individual students, and it also allows them to determine when further adjustments need to be made because of a lack of student progress. Second, reliable data on student progress are useful for principals in making important school-level decisions about instruction and allocation of resources, such as decisions about: a) scheduling classes, b) assigning students to classes, c) planning professional development and support for each grade level as well as
individual teachers, and d) allocating resources to support extra instruction for students who need it. 3.
Resources to provide interventions for struggling readers. Even when teachers are providing excellent initial instruction and effective small-group differentiated instruction, some students instructional needs will still not be met. In many elementary schools, the diversity of talent and preparation for learning to read is so great that some students will require four or five times the amount of instruction an average student requires. Some students needs are simply too great to expect the individual teacher, by herself, to meet them. Research has shown that we must provide reading instruction for diverse groups of students along a continuum of intensity: some students can maintain adequate progress through whole-class instruction; others need extra assistance through differentiated support by the classroom teacher; and still others may require substantial additional instruction from reading intervention specialists. The principal must identify a variety of additional instructional resources to meet the needs of these students.
In a later section of this guide, we discuss leadership activities required to implement each of these elements in a school-level literacy plan. We introduce the elements here because they are the core areas of excellence found in almost all schools that have achieved success in teaching reading to diverse student populations. Successful principals employ a range of leadership styles and vary in their solutions to many specific problems, but the most successful schools consistently develop strong solutions in each of the three areas described above. Without effective initial classroom instruction and strongly differentiated instruction by classroom teachers, the need for intervention specialists may simply overwhelm school resources because too many students will not make expected yearly progress. Unless the school has a strong assessment plan and uses student data effectively in making decisions, instructional opportunities will be lost, and resources may not be allocated properly. Finally, unless strong, timely interventions are available to students who need them, significant numbers of students will continue to leave elementary school unprepared for the literacy demands of middle and high school.
The Changing Focus of Reading Instruction from Kindergarten to Late Elementary SchoolDr. Jeanne Chall, a leading reading researcher and educator for many years at Harvard University, coined a phrase that is widely quoted, but often misunderstood. She pointed out that, in grades K-2, students are learning to read, while in grades 3 and above, they are reading to learn. While reading does become an increasingly important tool for helping students expand their knowledge after grade three, learning to read hardly comes to an abrupt halt at the end of second or third grade. Our current understanding of reading growth indicates that students must continue to learn many new things, and acquire many additional skills, in order to maintain reading proficiency as they progress from early to late elementary school and beyond. It is a serious mistake to think that we can stop teaching reading after third grademany students continue to need explicit and systematic instruction in increasingly complex skills in order to move to higher levels of reading proficiency. Although reading instruction must be provided in all elementary grades, the focus of this instruction does change dramatically from the early to later grades. In the table below, we have identified the components of reading instruction most essential at each grade level from kindergarten through sixth grade. We offer this schematic only as an overall guidemovement through this instructional sequence might be a bit slower or a bit faster depending on the student population in any given school.Grade Kindergarten Targets of instruction and methods used for instruction Phonemic awarenessTeachers use explicit instructional techniques and systematic practice to help students acquire skill in identifying the sounds (phonemes) in spoken words PhonicsSystematic and explicit instruction is used to teach students the relationships between letters and the sounds they typically represent in words. Students also receive instruction and practice to help them learn how to use their knowledge of lettersound relationships to sound out unfamiliar words in text. Acquiring strong word analysis/phonemic decoding skills is one of the keys to becoming an accurate and independent reader by the end of first grade. Learning to recognize a small set of high frequency words by sight Teachers provide repeated exposures to words that occur very frequently in kindergarten texts so that students learn to read
Targets of instruction and methods used for instruction them at a single glance. This increases reading ease and fluency because these words do not have to be sounded out. VocabularyTeachers use a variety of techniques, from explicit instruction to incidental teaching, to expand students vocabulary, or knowledge of the meaning of words. Oral language comprehensionTeachers read stories and other kinds of text, and discuss their meaning with students to enhance the students ability to understand both narrative and expository text. At the same time, these activities can help deepen students interest in reading and their sense of reading as a meaningful activity.
First Grade
Phonics/word analysisFirst grade is a time for students to expand and deepen both the accuracy and fluency with which they can use a variety of strategies to identify unfamiliar words in text. Teachers will explicitly teach more complex phonics in first grade, and reading will move from decodable, supported texts, to texts with a much wider range of regular and irregular words. FluencyStudents expand the range of words they can recognize by sight as they do large amounts of reading, which contributes significantly to the growth of their text-reading fluency. Most words are learned after students have read them correctly multiple times. Teacher modeling of reading in phrases and with proper expression can also help build fluency. VocabularyTeachers use a variety of techniques, from explicit instruction to incidental teaching, to expand students vocabulary, or knowledge of the meaning of words. Teachers often read texts to students that are beyond their current independent reading ability in order to expose them to more challenging vocabulary than they encounter in text they can read on their own. This helps prepare students for the higher levels of vocabulary they will encounter as they move into second and third grade. Reading ComprehensionTeachers begin to teach specific comprehension strategies, such as the use of story structure, to help students increase their reading comprehension. They also create many opportunities for students to discuss the meaning of the text they are reading. Writing in response to reading and sharing and discussing student writing is also an important instructional technique for reading comprehension.
2nd Grade
Phonics/word analysisStudents are taught more complex letter patterns, simple morphological units, and work extensively with decoding strategies for multi-syllable words FluencyTeachers encourage extensive reading and use specific methods, such as timed readings, partner reading, and readers theater, to stimulate growth in fluency. VocabularyTeachers continue to provide direct vocabulary instruction as well as instruction to help students learn how to infer
Targets of instruction and methods used for instruction the meanings of words they encounter when they are reading. Reading ComprehensionTeachers model and explicitly teach reading comprehension strategies, and provide scaffolded support for their use during reading. They also create many opportunities for students to engage in high-level discussions of the meaning of both narrative and expository text. Writing continues to be used as an aid to building reading comprehension, and also as a way of monitoring the growth of students spelling knowledge.
3rd Grade
Word analysisTeachers continue to support the growth of students ability to identify unfamiliar words in text through morphemic analysis and other word-reading strategies. FluencyContinued growth in students ability to read grade-level text fluently occurs primarily as a result of large amounts of practice in reading meaningful text. VocabularyContinued explicit and strategic instruction as in second grade. Reading ComprehensionStudents continue to be taught and supported in the use of reading comprehension strategies, and continue to learn how to construct the meaning of text as they participate in carefully guided discussions, both with the teacher and among themselves. Writing in response to reading continues to be an important instructional technique in this area. Although the growth of conceptual knowledge is an important support for reading comprehension from the first day of kindergarten, it becomes increasingly important that students master complex content knowledge from science, history, social studies, etc. in order to maintain their ability to comprehend increasingly difficult expository text in these areas.
FluencyContinued growth in students ability to read grade-level text fluently occurs primarily as a result of large amounts of practice reading meaningful text. VocabularyThe growth of students knowledge of word meanings continues to be supported by robust vocabulary instruction that involves explicit instruction in definitions, many opportunities to access word meanings in varied contexts, and instruction in vocabulary-learning strategies that can be applied when students encounter unknown words in text. Reading ComprehensionTeachers continue to provide explicit instruction and modeling in the use of reading comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading. They also integrate reading and writing activities, both to stimulate reading comprehension and to monitor growth in students ability to understand increasingly complex text. They continue to discuss high-level questions about text meaning, and work to create engaging situations in which students are motivated to learn from
Targets of instruction and methods used for instruction text. Learning of important content (science, history, social studies, literature) is supported by a variety of effective methods for teaching, such as use of graphic organizers, routines for comparing and contrasting concepts, etc.
Although this table may be useful as an overview of the way the major components of reading instruction change across the grade levels in elementary school, it can be misunderstood in at least two important ways. First, it might give the impression that good reading instruction involves teaching a set of separate skills that somehow merge into successful reading over time. Actually, teachers must work carefully to link all of these different kinds of skills and knowledge together as they teach. For example, students may engage in oral language activities to stimulate the growth of phonemic awareness early in kindergarten, but eventually, the teacher must show them how to combine their emerging phonemic awareness with their emerging letter knowledge to encode and decode words in print. Similarly, while students are practicing decoding individual words, the teacher should make sure that students know the meaning of the words they are reading. Finally, as students are practicing reading text in the early grades to build accuracy and fluency, they should always be reminded, through questions and discussion, that their ultimate goal is to understand the meaning of what they are reading. The second danger with a table like this is that it may be applied too rigidly. For example, some students may continue to require explicit support for the development of phonemic awareness in first grade, and in other cases, they may require explicit support for the growth of fluency beyond third grade. The most important overall distinction in this table is between the focus of instruction in grades K-2 on knowledge and strategies that help students become accurate readers, and the shift away from this type of instruction in grades three and after for most students. The growth of reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension are important concerns from first grade through the end of elementary school. Once students have become relatively fluent in the basic skills required to read the words in text, reading instruction must focus powerfully on both maintaining fluency through extensive reading
experiences and increasing the knowledge and thinking skills required to comprehend complex text. Interventions for struggling readers must be available in all of these critical areas of reading growth. Particularly in K-2, powerful interventions must be available to ensure the growth of word-reading accuracy and fluency so that students can begin to engage in the broad reading that is so important for the development of vocabulary, conceptual knowledge, and reading comprehension. Students who do not become accurate and independent readers by the end of first or second grade tend to read much less than other students, and they miss out on many, many hours of valuable reading practice because reading remains so difficult for them. Many students may need more intensive instruction in vocabulary from the very beginning of school and extending through elementary school because they entered school with vocabularies half the size of the average student at their grade level. Even though students with small vocabularies may learn to read accurately, they will not be prepared for difficult tests of reading comprehension in third grade and later if they do not receive effective instruction to help them close the vocabulary gap with average students in their classes.
Ensuring teachers have excellent, ongoing, professional development. There is now considerable research showing that good professional development for teachers can have a strong impact on student performance. Further, the characteristics of effective professional development are well known. Strong professional development goes beyond single session workshops to repeated exposures in which new teaching behaviors are learned over time in the classroom. Principals can be instrumental in supporting two kinds of professional development for their teachers.a. The first type focuses on general principles, or techniques of effective teaching. Examples might include ways of increasing student engagement during lessons, methods for leading effective classroom discussions of text, or ways of effectively correcting student wordreading errors during shared reading activities. Teachers can receive this type of professional development through workshop series, literacy study groups, or coaching. The most effective professional development always involves follow-up in the classroom to ensure that teachers understand new instructional approaches well enough to apply them in their classrooms.11
b. The second type of professional development that can lead directly to improved classroom teaching is often referred to as program-specific professional development. One way to improve the consistency with which high quality instruction occurs in all classrooms is to provide teachers with a published core reading program that contains systematic lessons to support the growth of critical reading skills, along with practice and teacher support activities aligned with the instruction. Too often, teachers are provided these complex core reading programs and are not given enough training to help them effectively use the materials to guide their instruction. Effective training in the use of core reading programs to guide instruction involves several days of initial training that should provide a sound basic understanding of the elements of the program, plus follow-up visits to the classroom to answer questions and perhaps model some of the instructional routines in the program. In the words of one successful principal:
Training our teachers in the use of the core program materials is one of the most important things we do to affect classroom instruction. Whenever we have a new teacher, I make sure they receive the initial training, and our coach provides followup during the year to answer questions and model lessons. Sometimes, we have also asked the publisher to come back for additional training during the year.This kind of training ensures maximum return on the money originally invested in core reading program materials. Many successful principals also attend training in the use of the core reading program so that they are better able to identify additional training and support needs among their teachers. 2. Ensuring teachers have adequate materials to support high quality instruction. Classroom teachers and students need access to a variety of materials as they are teaching and learning to read. Another direct way that principals can support improved literacy outcomes in their schools is to do all they can to ensure that teachers and students have access to the materials they need for effective instruction and learning. Three of the most important categories of materials are:
a. Interesting books written at different levels of difficulty. One key to the development of both basic and more complex reading skills is large amounts of engaged reading practice. In the early grades, supplying classroom libraries with multiple copies of interesting childrens books is the most direct way of providing access to a wide range of reading material. Second-grade classrooms, for example, should contain books on a variety of topics that range in difficulty from considerably above grade level to below grade level, in order to meet the needs of all students in the classroom. One successful principal noted: Our students love the books in their classroom librariesit has had a big effect on how much reading they do during the school day. They can easily take them home, and when more than one student reads the same book they have some great discussions about what they liked! b. Supplemental materials and technology. If teachers need help or guidance to deliver more powerful instruction in vocabulary, reading comprehension, or phonics, they may request supplemental instructional materials. Sometimes these are books that contain instructional strategies, and sometimes they are focused curricula with lesson plans, explicit instructional routines, a scope and sequence, and practice materials. Particularly for inexperienced teachers, high quality, research-based supplemental materials can often help them provide instruction more effectively than they could if they were left to develop their own lesson materials. Computer-based instructional materials can also provide an effective supplement to teacher-led instruction, but these materials must be carefully studied to be sure they provide instruction and practice that is consistent with the overall reading instruction in the classroom. They should not be used as a substitute for direct instruction by the teacher. One place to examine reviews of the instructional elements and research support for supplemental materials and computer software is the FCRR Reports section of the website for the Florida Center for Reading Research (www.fcrr.org). c. Core, or comprehensive, reading programs. This type of published program can be a strong source of support for explicit, systematic, and
well planned reading instruction in elementary school. Such programs are particularly helpful to new or inexperienced teachers, but they can also provide useful support for experienced teachers. A high quality core reading program that is consistently supported by the school leadership can be a valuable tool to increase the consistency and integration of reading instruction across classrooms within grade levels. With proper pacing and implementation, a core program can also help to ensure that the instruction provided at one grade adequately prepares students for the instruction provided at the next grade level. As long as teachers are well trained in their use, these types of programs are particularly helpful in maintaining instructional consistency in schools that have relatively high teacher turnover from year to year. Before adopting such a program for use throughout a school, it should be carefully reviewed to ensure that its scope and sequence, as well as the instructional routines it provides, are consistent with findings from current research on reading instruction for young children. There are currently two sets of guidelines that have been widely used to determine the extent to which core reading programs implement instruction consistent with scientific research on reading for students in grades K-3. One is A Consumers Guide To Evaluating A Core Reading Program Grades K-3: A Critical Elements Analysis developed by reading researchers Deborah Simmons and Ed Kameenui and available at: http://reading.uoregon.edu/curricula/con_guide.php. The second, Guidelines for Reviewing a Reading Program, was developed by the Florida Center for Reading Research and is available at: http://www.fcrr.org/FCRRReports/guides/grrp.pdf. The Center on Instruction has also developed a two-day sequence of professional development to support the use of the FCRR guidelines; these materials will be available Winter 2007 on the COI website (www.centeroninstruction.org/). 3. Monitoring classroom instruction through principal walk-throughs. There is an old adage that effective principals like to quote, If you expect it, then you need to inspect it. This brings us to the subject of principal or administrative classroom walk-throughs. Successful principals, along with assistant principals or other leaders, visit all classrooms regularly. They
have usually discussed beforehand with the teachers the kinds of things they expect to see in these classroom visits, and teachers have received professional development in these areas as well. We recommend that principals focus primarily on three questions about classroom instruction when they visit classrooms in elementary school: a. Are teachers providing explicit, well organized, and engaging wholegroup instruction? b. Is small-group instruction differentiated appropriately by student need? c. While the teacher is teaching a small group of students, are the other students involved in independent learning activities that are appropriate and engaging? Two successful principals commented on their use of classroom walk-throughs:
At the beginning the teachers seemed a little worried about getting caught, but now its become just such a part of the culture that its become part of who they are as a teacher and what they do in the classroom. I learn about the level of instruction that a teacher is delivering, and I learn whether my teachers are changing, and transitioning to centersI learn what is actually going on in the classroom, and the teachers are now asking me for feedback.Guidelines for conducting principal walk-throughs for reading in grades K-3 will be available Winter 2007 from the Center on Instruction website, along with professional development materials to support their use.
Almost all the information in that document also applies to the later elementary grades, so the present guide will cover only the most important general concepts about data-based decision-making in an elementary school. What kind of reading assessments do you need? The answer to this question, of course, depends on what you need to know. The kinds of information needed to plan effective instruction for all students fall into two broad categories: 1. Information needed to help with overall planning and resource allocation, such as: a. What proportion of students are able to meet grade-level standards at the end of each grade? If the proportion is relatively low, this signals the need for strong, general improvements in all aspects of literacy instruction, including perhaps finding ways to devote more time to reading instruction during the school day. In some schools, most students will be able to make adequate progress in reading with as little as an hour a day of formal reading instruction, while other schools may need to devote as much as three hours a day to achieve the same level of progress. Information about student performance at the end of the year can also assist with planning to meet needs for reading interventions in the following year. One principal described identifying the children in need as his first step when he created his schedule and hired his support staff. For example, based on his schools data, he noted that 20 first-grade children were at risk for reading difficulty. As principal, this meant that he needed to hire enough support staff to teach those 20 children and schedule the reading blocks and intervention times in such a way that the support teachers could see the children in small groups. For this principal, hiring enough highly qualified reading intervention teachers was one of the most critical pieces of his successful intervention program. He determined his intervention needs budget first, and then worked to identify the funds within his budget to meet those needs. As he stated, Budget allocation reflects needs of students. b. Are there any particular reading skills or standards on which students are having special difficulties? This type of information can be helpful in
planning a school-level professional development focus, or it can identify areas in which supplemental materials or technology support might be useful. 2. Information needed to guide instruction for individual students, such as: a. At the beginning of the year, which students are at special risk of not being able to meet grade-level standards by the end of the year? This information is useful for alerting teachers to students who may need special support in the classroom, and for scheduling and assigning students to intervention groups. Of course, some decisions must be made well before the school year begins, and data from the previous years performance (item 1, above) can be used to identify the need for extra intervention resources that must be included in the school budget for the coming year. b. Which students are making adequate progress, and which may need additional, or improved instructional support? This information is essential to making important instructional adjustments or mid-course corrections for individual students, such as increasing instructional time, reducing instructional group size, or shifting instructional approach, to increase the rate of learning for individual students who might otherwise continue to make inadequate progress during the year. c. What are the individual reading strengths and weaknesses of students? For struggling readers in particular, it is important to understand which aspects of reading may require special instruction and support.
literacy standards. This type of test provides useful information about the proportion of students able to meet grade-level standards in reading, and, depending on the test, might also provide information about student performance on specific standards. We would also recommend that principals work with their teachers to identify useful end-of-year reading outcome measures for K-2 as well, since it is also important to assess how well instruction in each of those grades is preparing students for the learning challenges in the next grade. For example, if too many students leave second grade reading substantially below grade level, it will be very difficult for third grade teachers to teach students all they need to know to be successful on the reading standards test at the end of third grade. 2. Formal or informal screening measures. It is essential to have a reliable screening system at the beginning of the year to determine which students are in need of more intensive interventions and which may be expected to continue to make good progress without additional support in reading. Part of this screening information can be obtained from the prior years outcome test, but many students will require additional assessment to plan appropriate instruction. 3. Formal or informal progress monitoring assessments. These assessments help determine whether students are making adequate progress in reading during the year. For students in intervention classes, the need for progress monitoring is particularly strong. Their progress in acquiring the skills and knowledge that are the focus of their interventions (i.e., reading accuracy, reading fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension) needs to be regularly assessed to determine if the intervention they are receiving is working effectively to improve their reading skills. Many published intervention or supplemental reading programs provide periodic assessments that help to determine whether students are making adequate progress in the program. The National Center on Student Progress Monitoring reviews specific tests that can be used for progress monitoring in reading and publishes articles that discuss how this type of assessment can be used to support improved student performance. These materials are available free of charge at: http://www.studentprogress.org/default.asp. 4. Formal or informal diagnostic tests. Most often, enough information is available from the previous years outcome test and the screening system
used at the beginning of the year to get started in instruction. Once started in instruction, skilled intervention teachers can usually diagnose a students instructional needs through a variety of informal procedures, such as observing their responses to specific tasks, examining work products, or asking questions about their understanding or strategies. However, in some cases, students may have special difficulties that interfere with their response to instruction and may require formal diagnostic assessment. A general rule of thumb is that formal, timeconsuming diagnostic assessments should be given only when there is a need for specific information to guide instruction that cannot be obtained in some other, more efficient way. Lengthy diagnostic assessments should never be given to large groups of students as the first step in gathering information to guide instruction.
Decision-making meetingsA universal feature of schools that are using data successfully to inform instruction is a regular pattern of meetings that bring leaders and teachers together to evaluate data and make decisions. Whether these are annual meetings to evaluate the results from the end-of-year outcome assessments and make budget and planning decisions for the next year, or whether they are weekly or monthly meetings to evaluate individual student progress, they all have a similar structure. Critical elements are:
1. Attendance of all who are necessary to help make and follow up on decisions. The principal may not be able to attend all of the data meetings held in the school, but some sort of regular attendance and participation in these meetings by the principal will greatly increase the meetings effectiveness. The principal should regularly consider which meetings most require strong school-level leadership to be successful. 2. Systematic method for reviewing data. Teachers should know ahead of time what types of data will be reviewed. It is helpful to have standard forms or formats for all teachers to use, so that data are considered in a consistent fashion. 3. Recording decisions, and designating responsibility for follow-up. As one strong principal pointed out, You can have great data and make smart decisions, but if there is no follow-up, the meetings are essentially a waste of time.As a final note, interviews with and observations of successful principals continually underline the fact that the principals attitude toward data and his or her consistent use of data in evaluating instructional progress and instructional needs sets the tone for the whole school. Effective principals are knowledgeable about student data, and actively use it to guide instructional decisions at many different levels.
peers, they must actually grow in reading ability faster than average students in their classroom. In other words, these students must not only achieve expected yearly growth, but they must also make significant catch-up growth if they are to meet grade-level standards in reading. Many research studies have shown that it is possible to achieve this type of acceleration in reading growth for struggling readers in elementary school, but to achieve it consistently requires an effective school-level system. The principal plays a key role in implementing this system because school-level resources must be combined with school-level planning and decision-making in order to create an intervention system that allocates time, materials, and instructors for students according to their individual needs. The planning and resource challenges can be daunting when a school has many students who require intensive instructional support in order to make adequate progress in learning to read. We have identified four critical aspects of a school-level intervention plan that typically require strong involvement from the principal in order to be successful. The principal should:
1. Develop a school schedule that allows sufficient time for interventions. The key idea in scheduling interventions is that a specific time in the childs day should be set aside for the intervention, and enough time should be devoted to the intervention to effectively accelerate his or her learning. In general, the amount of time in which students receive interventions should be proportional to the extent they are behind in reading. Students who are seriously behind in reading should receive substantially more time in intervention than those who are moderately behind. Interventions that are scheduled haphazardly, whenever time or a teacher is available, typically are not effective with students who have serious reading difficulties. These children require consistent, high quality instruction for enough time each day to allow them to close the reading gap with their peers. Other than instructional quality, the two dimensions of interventions most related to rate of reading growth are time spent in instruction and the size of the instructional group. The schedule is the part of the system that provides sufficient time for the intervention to work. Some students may require as much as 60 to 90 minutes a day of extra instruction in reading in order to maintain adequate progress toward grade-level reading standards at the end of the year. One successful principal reported:
We really started making headway with our interventions when we set aside enough time outside the reading block to provide a double dose of instruction for our most at-risk students. It just takes time to provide these students what they need.Principals sometimes ask, If we devote substantial amounts of time to reading intervention for our most struggling readers, what gets left out of their day? It is impossible to answer this question in the abstract, because it depends on so many local circumstances. However, a useful way of thinking about this question is provided in a statement from one of the references at the end of this document. As part of their description of efforts to have 90% of their students reading at grade level by the end of third grade, officials of the Kennewick, Washington school district said, It matters little what else they learn in elementary school if they do not learn to read at grade level(Fielding et al., 2007, p. 48). While it is true that we want students to learn many things from their experiences in elementary school, there can be little doubt that learning to read well is fundamental to future educational attainment. Learning in all the content areas in middle and high school depends critically on students ability to read and comprehend printed material, whether it appears in their textbook, on computers, or in magazines. Since students ability to comprehend text depends in part on what they already know about the subject of their reading, it is clear that we cannot neglect the growth of knowledge and vocabulary for students who struggle in learning to read. One way to accommodate the need for both more reading instruction and growth of knowledge in science, social studies, and history is to include more interesting expository text in the reading lessons we provide to students in the early elementary grades. 2. Provide sufficient personnel to deliver the interventions in small groups. As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the instructional group, the more intensive the instruction. One of the principals greatest challenges is finding enough teachers so that intervention groups can be small enough (1 to 4 students) to be effective. Principals approach this challenge in a variety of ways. Some reduce central office staff to find money to hire one or two more paraprofessionals. Others train their special area teachers
(art, music, physical education) to lead one or two intervention groups a day. Others allocate almost all of their Title 1 funds to paying the salaries of intervention specialists.
3. Identify appropriate instructional programs and materials to support effective interventions, and provide appropriate training to those who will implement the program. As with classroom instruction, intervention lessons can either be planned by the teacher using a variety of materials available at the school, or they can be provided in a published intervention program that includes lesson plans, instructional routines, and practice materials. Many of these programs are currently available, and provide a useful scaffold to help less experienced teachers provide powerful instruction. A good rule of thumb is that the less experienced the teacher, the more structured and scripted the intervention program should be. Even qualified paraprofessionals, or other teachers not specifically trained in reading, can provide effective interventions if they are trained and supported in the use of a research-based intervention program. Two sources of information to help identify research-based intervention programs are the What Works Clearing House (www.whatworks.ed.gov/), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, and the FCRR Reports section of the website at the Florida Center for Reading Research (www.fcrr.org). With regard to intervention programs, one successful principal offered this advice: I think the key thing here is weeding through it all and selecting just a few programs. Use a few programs very well, instead of a lot fairly well. That will go a great distance toward making your students and your staff successful. 4. Provide oversight, energy, and follow-up in managing the intervention system. Because interventions must be responsive to the needs of individual students, they require dynamic management at the school level. Principals can exercise leadership by using data meetings to ask about the progress of specific children, help problem-solve ways to increase the power of interventions when students are not making adequate progress, resolve scheduling issues as they arise, and identify new needs as they emerge. School leaders also need to be a source of encouragement and support, because providing interventions to students who struggle in
reading is very hard work. Seeing students progress is rewarding in itself, but support and celebration of accomplishments with school leaders provides an extra source of energy and motivation for teachers and students as well. For more details on an effective school-level intervention system we encourage you to consult another Center on Instruction document, A Principals Guide to Intensive Reading Interventions for Struggling Readers in Early Elementary School [K-3], available on the COI website, www.centeroninstruction.org.
essential content effectively, but also to explicitly teach students how to comprehend and learn from the texts used in the classroom. Research has identified a number of effective instructional strategies for improving reading comprehension. They include: 1. Instruction in a variety of strategies for improving and monitoring comprehension. Some of these strategies, such as actively relating background knowledge to the text being read, or rereading text when confusion arises, are useful across all subject areas. Others may be specific to the science or history text being used in the classroom. To support continued reading growth in the late elementary grades, classroom teachers must explicitly describe and model useful reading strategies, and then provide support so that students can learn to use them on their own.
2. Extended discussions of a texts meaning. These discussions are designed to help students discover and learn to use the kinds of thinking processes that good readers use when they actively read text for understanding. These discussions, which may initially be teacher-led, but may in time occur primarily among the students, require students to analyze and think about text more deeply than they might on their own. As they repeatedly engage in this type of thinking and analysis in high quality discussions, they gradually learn to do this type of thinking when reading by themselves. 3. Systematic and explicit instruction in essential vocabulary. Effective vocabulary instruction must go substantially beyond simple instructions to look words up in the dictionary. Although it does involve providing student-friendly definitions, effective vocabulary instruction also involves multiple, teacher-guided opportunities to identify the meaning of words in different contexts. Students should also be taught strategies for independently inferring the meaning of words when they encounter them in their reading. 4. Creating a learning environment in which students are motivated to understand and learn from the text. Students who are pursuing meaningful learning goals, developing a project they have helped to design, or working with other students in a cooperative learning group, tend to be more highly engaged in trying to understand what they are reading. Students
with high motivation to understand what they are reading are much more likely to learn and apply the strategic and analytic thinking skills required for good comprehension than those who are not interested in what they are reading.
teacher(s) during the rest of the day. Although struggling readers may require more intensive and explicit instruction to become active, strategic readers, they are more likely to generalize the strategies they are taught if some of the strategies they learn in their intervention classes are also taught and reinforced by their classroom teacher.
CONCLUDING COMMENTSThis has been a very brief overview of the major leadership tasks required to implement and sustain an effective reading program in an elementary school. It is grounded in research on reading and reading instruction, and also incorporates information from principals who have led successful reading programs in their schools. As brief as this guide is, the complexity of the effort it describes may seem daunting to principals who are new, or who are just beginning systematic work on this topic in their schools. Successful principals are also quick to acknowledge that creating a comprehensive reading program that addresses all the elements in this guide takes time. The best advice is to examine the current situation in your school in light of the information in this guide, identify the things you are already doing well, and begin developing a plan to systematically increase your effectiveness in areas that need additional attention. Although you may want to concentrate on only a few elements at a time, it is important to maintain a clear vision of the entire school-level system outlined in this guide, because it is the complete system, interacting in all its parts, which will eventually lead to the best outcomes for your students. As a final note, one experienced principal who provided feedback on an early draft of this guide noted that it had correctly described the essential technical and administrative elements required for a successful elementary school reading program, but had not sufficiently emphasized the interpersonal aspects of the principals work. In her words, It covers all that I believe will be a tremendous help to principals. However, the need for relationships and connectedness amongst administration and teachers in order to best meet the needs of students is also important; a partnership at the school level in which there is shared decision making to ensure buy-in of the instructional staff. With all the technical and research information it is important to note that a part of our goal is to instill in children a love for reading and learning. With the focus on data and accountability we must make a conscious effort not to overlook the human or affective side of learning. We wholeheartedly agree with this statement, and find it consistent with our understanding of both effective leadership and effective reading instruction.
Beck, I. L. (2006). Making sense of phonics: The hows and whys. New York: Guilford Press. Crawford, E. C., & Torgesen, J. K. (2006). Teaching all students to read: Practices from Reading First schools with strong intervention outcomes. Tallahassee, FL: Florida Center for Reading Research. Available at: www.fcrr.org Duke, N. K., & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd ed.) (pp. 205-242). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Fielding, L., Kerr, N., & Rosier, P. (2007). Annual growth for all students, catch-up growth for those who are behind. Kennewick, WA: The New Foundation Press. Kosanovich, M., Ladinsky, K., Nelson, L., & Torgesen, J. (2006). Differentiated reading instruction: Small group lesson structures for all students. Tallahassee, FL: Florida Center for Reading Research. Available at: www.fcrr.org Lehr, F., Osborn, J., Hiebert, E. H. (2004). A focus on vocabulary. Honolulu, HI: Pacific Regional Educational Laboratory. Available at: http://www.prel.org/programs/rel/vocabularyforum.asp Lehr, F. & Osborne, J. (2006). Focus on comprehension. Honolulu, HI: Pacific Regional Educational Laboratory. Available at: http://www.prel.org/programs/rel/comprehensionforum.asp Osborn, J., Lehr, F., & Hiebert, E. H. (2003). A Focus on Fluency. Honolulu, HI: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. Available at www.prel.org/programs/rel/rel.asp. Torgesen, J.K. (2006). A comprehensive K-3 reading assessment plan: Guidance for school leaders. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. Available at: www.centeroninstruction.org/ Torgesen, J.K. (2006). A principals guide to intensive reading interventions for struggling readers in early elementary school. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. Available at: www.centeroninstruction.org/
Torgesen, J. K., Houston, D. D., Rissman, L. M., Decker, S. M., Roberts, G., Vaughn, S., Wexler, J., Francis, D. J., & Rivera, M. O. (2007). Academic literacy instruction for adolescents: A guidance document from the Center on Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. Available at: www.centeroninstruction.org/


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Probing the Chemical Complexity of Interstellar Ices
Meteorites and comets are proposed to have delivered much of Earth's water, and probably large abundances of organic molecules, critical for the emergence of life. Theory and laboratory ice experiments both suggest that these organics originally formed in the icy mantles of interstellar dust grains. Direct observations of organics in ices are however not possible and current estimations, based on gas-phase observation of thermally sublimated ice suffer, from contamination by gas-phase reactions.
As an alternative to thermal sublimation, energetic particles such as photons, electrons, atoms, and cosmic-rays, can ablate some of the ice mantle, providing a reliable gas-phase fingerprint of the ice composition. To realize the use of such fingerprints as a quantitative tool to measure ice compositions, I will experimentally characterize the non-thermal sublimation efficiencies and pathways of three interstellar ice constituents - CO, CH3OH and CH3OCH3 - selected as templates of inorganic, simple organic, and complex organic ice components. The experiments will be used together with astrochemical theory to predict the gas-phase abundance patterns of these molecules in different interstellar environments, and these predictions will be tested against spatially resolved millimeter observations from the Submillimeter Array.
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