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Recently, I find myself incredibly drawn to green things. I was never a sucker for green, in fact, I HATED the color green.
When my Orientation Group Leader for our Freshmen Orientation Camp back in university called me up a few nights before camp and told me to wear a green t-shirt because our group's team color was green, my face turned green too. I had not a single thread of green in my wardrobe and had to borrow a green tank top from my sister.
So, I have no idea why anything green attracts me so much lately. I've been buying green tops, green bottoms, green bags, green eyeshadows, green eyeliners… I think I'm going through a green-phase. I hope it doesn't turn awry soon, meaning I suddenly dislike green again overnight.
In my previous post, I did a review on the Pupa Multiplay Triple Purpose Eye Pencil 02, a unique malachite green eyeliner. Please go get impressed with it. Lol.
One of the green things acquired in my green phase is the L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadow in Emerald Lame. There were only 2 colors available when I was at the 30% BHG sale. The other was purple.
Also, even though it clearly spells as Infaillible on the packaging, it is spelt as Infallible everywhere else. Why? Just use Google Translate 'la couleur infaillible' and you'll get 'Color infallible'! The former is recognized as French. So, there. =)
Green is Gorgeous
Asking a green-crazy me to make a choice between a purple and green is akin to asking a spider to make a choice between eating a flower and a big juicy beetle.
The green was the choice to make, more so because the color captivated my heart the moment I swatched it! I was like swatch >> WOAH! >> take a new one >> throw it into my shopping bag.
By the way, I got the last one. Whew!
L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadow in Emerald Lame is a black-based green peppered with a uniform distribution of gold shimmer.
Pack on the color for a truly intense to achieve a metallic finish, or tone it down to just a smooth finish with gentle sparkle.
It does not scream 'METAL CITY!!!' like the L'Oreal Hip Eyeshadows (the silver in Platinum is the in-your-face kind of metallic finish) and is suitable for both day and night looks.
In certain lighting and from various angles, 022 Emerald Lame can look green, brown, and bronze.
It seems like different colors are released in different countries. L'Oréal Australia has 9 colors on their website, L'Oréal Paris features 13, L'Oréal India and China have no mention of it. And I only saw 2 colors at BHG Singapore.
Great Texture and Pigmentation
Despite being bathed in glitter, the L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadow feels velvety smooth when applied. No scratchy or grainy bits rubbing on the lids; you wouldn't even think it has glitter bits if you applied it with your eyes closed.
It is the makeup love child of powder eyeshadow and loose pigments. It has the intensity of loose eyeshadow pigments when applied wet, and is in the form of a pressed powder eyeshadow. How marvelous!
It lasts a long time on the lids, and fallout is almost zero even though it looks like a potential fallout menace what with all that glitter. I guess that's why they named it 'Infallible'?
Easily Apply With Finger
The MAC 239 Eye Shader Brush (goat hair) doesn't work quite as well as the Loew Cornell Maxine's Mop 3/8" brush (synthetic). The best tool, however, is your finger. It picks up the most color and glides on the lids most effectively.
It works like a cream product too, so using your finger works the best, as with the Canmake Cream Blush in Sweet Apricot!
I get so much product with a gentle swipe I foresee myself using this a lot on days when I need to get color fast on the lids.
Plastic Stopper To Keep Eyeshadow In Place
Each cute lil' plastic jar comes with a black stopper that says 'Conserver. Keep me'. It serves to prevent any loose product from getting all over the cap and everywhere when you open it.
You can use it to re-compress the powder if you accidentally make a dent in the powder.
I love this little stopper. It makes me feel safe knowing that I will not be greeted with the undesirable mess that loose pigments always provide.
No Depotting
One thing I probably cannot do with this eyeshadow is depotting it and transfering it to my customizable makeup Z-palette.
I'm not exactly complaining though, since it looks so pretty by itself and I have no problems identifying the color of each jar even if I have more than one in the future. The printed labels are colored according to the color in the jar.
I guess I could depot it if I really wanted to, like scrape some out and press it again in an empty eyeshadow pan. But I'd like to leave it like that.
The L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadows have been compared and claimed to be dupes of Giorgio Armani Eyes To Kill Intense Eyeshadows. The latter are obviously more expensive and come in glass jars. The L'Oreal ones are also cheaper alternatives to Chanel Illusion d'Ombres.
I wish we could have easy access to more colors of the L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadow in Singapore. I really LOVE it!
This is the actual finish/color of the L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadow Emerald Lame, not so bling-y. The first picture of this post shows a slightly bling-er version with the addition of some Kate Jewel GD-1. 😀
Bun Bun rates the L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadow in 022 Emerald Lame:
Are you in any color phase now? Or any kind of phase, for that matter? Like a lipstick phase, or a Cheezels phase, or a Kickboxing phase?


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Dig In! Standards-Based Nutrition Education from the Ground Up
Explore a world of possibilities in the garden and on your plate using ten inquiry-based lessons that engage 5th and 6th graders in growing, harvesting, tasting, and learning about fruits and vegetables.
The Great Garden Detective Adventure: A Standards-Based Gardening Nutrition Curriculum for Grades 3 and 4
This eleven-lesson curriculum for 3rd and 4th grades includes bulletin board materials, veggie dice, fruit and vegetable flash cards, and ten issues of Garden Detective News for parents/caregivers.
Grow It, Try It, Like It! Fun with Fruits and Vegetables at Family Child Care
This resource is designed to help Child and Adult Care Food Program operators provide garden-based nutrition education for children ages 3 through 5 years in family child care settings.
Grow It, Try It, Like It! Nutrition Education Kit Featuring MyPlate
Grow It, Try It, Like It! Nutrition Education Kit featuring MyPlate is a garden-themed nutrition education kit for child care center staff that introduces children to: three fruits - peaches, strawberries, and cantaloupe, and three vegetables - spinach, sweet potatoes, and crookneck squash.

subset: commoncrawl


text: After years of cajoling their users into sharing every thought, emotion and selfie, online firms are seeing that providing more private online spaces might also be profitable.Some recent developments suggest companies are starting to understand that their users don't want to indiscriminately share all of their thoughts and activities online. While they are still sharing plenty, they are also taking advantage of opportunities to mask their identities or share more selectively.Netflix, for example, is testing a private viewing mode that allows its users to keep titles from appearing in their activity log, or from being shared with friends on Facebook if they've turned on that feature. The change would let you binge on "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and not worry about your friends judging you for it.Google, meanwhile, said this month it will no longer require people to use their real name on Google+, reversing a longstanding policy. The company said it recognized that requiring real names had caused "unnecessarily difficult experiences" for some users. It didn't elaborate, but many have been irked at having their posts on YouTube tied to their real names on Google+.Facebook, too, is accommodating a desire to share more selectively. At the company's F8 conference this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said some users have grown scared of pressing "the blue button" that logs them into apps using their Facebook profile. People are anxious about what data the app will be able to access, he said, and about spamming friends to tell them they've installed it. The blue button will soon provide the option to log in anonymously, or select which data an app can see.They're disparate examples that point to a common theme: Online companies are allowing users to maintain a bit more privacy when they engage with their services. People still want to share online, but they're thinking more about the consequences, and about how and where they do it."Companies have realized there's some privacy boundaries to what people want to share," said Justin Brookman, director of consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.Comments from Zuckerberg reflect the shifting tide. In an onstage interview in 2010, Zuckerberg suggested people were happy to share widely. "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people," he said at the time.Contrast that with Facebook's recent earnings call, when the 30-year-old chief sang a different tune. "One of the things we focus on the most is creating private spaces for people to share things and have interactions they couldn't have had elsewhere," Zuckerberg said. "There's just a lot more [that] people want to express, and they need the tools to express with smaller groups of people."There are even apps now devoted entirely to anonymity. Since last year, services like Secret, Whisper and Yik Yak have sprung up. They allow people to publish posts as they would on Facebook, but without their names attached.Many find the anonymity appealing. "In one day, everyone at our school had downloaded Yik Yak," said one teenager who preferred his name not be used. He added, though, that the app has been banned from his school, mainly because of cyberbullying.Among younger people, "part of it is avoiding the parents, but there's a larger recognition that what you post online could haunt you forever," Brookman said.Clearly, whether it's on Secret or Google+, some people want a way to disassociate their identities from what they post.Even Twitter, which likes to call itself the Internet's town hall, has been improving its direct messaging function, which lets people exchange messages privately.And Facebook has linked up with Secret, in an odd pairing of public and private. The startup recently announced an integration with Facebook, to let users weave more posts from friends into their stream on Secret. Secret says the connections are made anonymously, and that it doesn't store people's real names.Still, at the end of the day, Facebook and Google are businesses that provide free services monetized through data."The upshot for them is, they learn new things about how people use these privacy tools," said Fatemeh Khatibloo, an industry analyst at Forrester who studies digital privacy.And depending on how people use them, that could help the companies provide better targeted ads. So, have a secret to tell? Facebook wants to help.


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One of my sales managers used to say that the best type of competitor is one that is dumb, fat, and happy. Is your business dumb, fat, and happy? If so, by definition, you probably don't know it, which makes you a sitting duck for hungry competitors. Here are 10 things that may be going wrong that you aren't aware of -- things that will cause your business to unravel.
1. Unmotivated Sales Department. How many hours are your sales reps putting in? How many cold calls are they making every day? Do you really know? Business owners sometimes assume sales reps have the same intensity and work ethic they do. Not always true. This is why it is vital to set clear expectations and monitor activity.
2. Unarmed Sales Department. Even when sales reps share your intensity and work ethic, they will still fail unless you give them the critical tools: high-quality products and services, training and mentoring, effective collateral, customer service support, the ability to follow through on commitments, and a fair and motivating compensation plan.
3. Outdated, Counterproductive Online Marketing. If your search engine optimization (SEO) program hasn't been updated in the last 3 to 6 months, it could be doing more harm than good. Those pop-up subscription windows on your blog could be driving away readers instead of attracting them. Internet marketing best practices change rapidly; dumb, fat, and happy companies fail to keep up.
4. No Customer-Retention Strategy. Another common marketing problem is putting all the focus on customer acquisition and forgetting about customer retention. This blunder not only hurts revenues, it also causes the cost structure to crumble: Retaining a customer, in terms of sales and marketing effort, is far less expensive than acquiring a new one.
5. Slow Collections. Many businesses are lackadaisical in enforcing their payment terms. Not only do they allow customers an extra 60 or 90 or 120 days to pay, they also fail to assess late payment penalties, fail to take steps to ensure future orders are paid on time, and fail to raise prices to compensate for late payments. When all of this happens, cash flow takes a beating. In time, there won't be enough cash on hand to make payroll, let alone expand.
More AllBusiness:
The Top 25 Home-Based Business Ideas
10 Websites Where You Should Have Your Company Profile Listed
25 Frequently Asked Questions on Starting a Business
The 10 Most Creative New Business Ideas Out There
6. Poor Credit Screening. If you are so happy to get a new customer that you fail to assess its creditworthiness, your initial intoxication will produce a horrible hangover. One way firms run into collection problems is by extending credit to customers that don't qualify for it in the first place. Don't set your business up for failure.
7. Vague Vision. Does every member of your staff clearly understand your company's vision, values, and priorities? If so, congratulations, because in most cases, every member of the staff and every department has its own interpretation -- and many times these interpretations are in direct conflict, undermining morale and results. Effective internal communication must be handled with care.
8. Lousy Training. On-the-job training has its advantages, but it shouldn't be the only training method and it shouldn't happen haphazardly. Are you sure the people who are training new hires are passing along your company's vision, values, and priorities? What are you doing for long-term employees to keep their skills up-to-date and prepare them for new challenges and roles? Firms that neglect training put the "dumb" in dumb, fat, and happy.
9. Risk Aversion. Many businesses are so reluctant to take chances that they slam the door on opportunity when it is sitting right in front of them. They fail to recognize those times when taking risks is actually the most pragmatic course of action. For instance, in recent years many small bookstores were devoured by discount chains and then by the Internet. And yet small bookstores that embraced the Internet and developed new marketing channels are still going strong. Which way will your company go?
10. Dabbling. Failure to fully commit is one of the surest ways to fail. Companies think they're being innovative risk-takers when they jump into social media marketing for a few months, dash off a new mission statement, or play around with a new bonus program. But the devil is in the details, the follow-through, and sustaining emphasis through tactical ups and downs. Companies that bail at the first sign of trouble are destined to sink.
Read all of Brad Shorr's articles on AllBusiness.com.
Related Articles on AllBusiness:
Why We're Living in a Technology Renaissance, and How It Can Help Small Businesses
3 Critical Communication Tools for the Modern Business (That You Don't Know About Yet!)
A 3-Step Business Checkup to Start the New Year
13 Business Tasks You Should Devote an Entire Day To
For more great small business articles such as The Top 25 Home-Based Business Ideas and Keeping Your Business Ideas Confidential, visit AllBusiness.com and AllBusiness Experts. For local business information on 15 million businesses, be sure to check out InBusiness.com.


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Our research applies chemical approaches and protein engineering to study and manipulate protein functions. We are interested in exploring the ev...
登録リンク ⇒ #2 OISTxASJ Future of Energy & Climate Seminar Series
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The seminar aims to initiate interactions between international and Japanese researchers and students in the field of Ecology and Evolution. The 9th e...
Micro/Bio/Nanofluidics (Shen) Unit would like to invite you to the virtual seminar by Prof. Giovanniantonio Natale on June 2 (Thursday).
Screening of Cosmos episode 4: Heaven and Hell
Mr. Benedikt Schneider
Physics Department, Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics,
Ludwig Maximilian University Munich
QG visitor seminar.
Speaker: Sravan Kumar, Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Title: "Probing quantum gravity and non-locality through R^2-like inf...
Cryptography has been used for centuries by parties wishing to communicate securely. While it is historically associated with encryption (to...


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Egoism and inordinate self-love.
I think we always need to return to that interior 'cell of self-knowledge' as we approach Lent, and to examine ourselves more closely, because frequently we are so distracted by everyday life, television, entertainment, the Internet in all of its manifestations, that our understanding of what we are can be obscured. Unfortunately this obscurity can be attributed to our lack of a sense of sin, and oftentimes our acceptance or tolerance of habitual sin - venial or mortal - to such an extent that we no longer understand ourselves, much less understand the meaning and purpose of life. I'm spot reading Garrigou-Lagrange these days - not a good way to study, but helpful in making a good examination of conscience before Lent. I want to share this:
The principal defect of the will: Self-love.
"Since original sin, we are born without sanctifying grace and charity, with our wills turned away from God, the supernatural last end, and weak for the accomplishment of our duties even in the natural order.(3)
Without falling into the exaggeration of the first Protestants and the Jansenists, we must say that we are born with a will inclined to egoism, to inordinate self-love. This is called the wound of malice; (4) it often manifests itself by a gross egoism, against which one should guard, an egoism that mingles in all man's acts. It follows that the will, which has become weak by reason of its lack of docility to God, no longer has absolute power over the sensible faculties, but only a sort of moral power or persuasion to lead them to subject themselves.(5) Doubtless after baptism, which regenerated us by giving us sanctifying grace and charity, this wound, like the others, is in the process of healing; but it also reopens by reason of our personal sins.
The principal defect of the will is the lack of rectitude, called self-love or inordinate love of self, which forgets the love due to God and that which we should have for our neighbor. Self-love or egoism is manifestly the source of all sins.(6) From it are born "the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life." (7) The sensible appetites, which are no longer firmly led, incline man to thoughtlessness, feverish eagerness, fruitless agitation, selfish search for all that pleases, flight from all that is painful, nonchalance, discouragement, in which he sees that his will has lost its strength, and to all sorts of bad examples. (8)
It is clear that self-will, which is defined as that which is not conformed to the will of God, is the source of every sin. Self-will is extremely dangerous because it can corrupt everything; even what is best in one may become evil when self-will enters in, for it takes itself as its end, instead of subordinating itself to God. If the Lord perceives this will in a fast or a sacrifice, He rejects them because He sees therein a divine work accomplished through pride in order to gain approbation. Now, self-will is born of self-love or egoism; it is strong self-love that has become imperious." - THE PRINCIPAL DEFECT OF THE WILL: SELF-LOVE (Three Ages of the Interior Life, PART 2 - The Purification of the Soul in Beginners)
We should pray as follows: "My God, make me know the obstacles which I more or less consciously place to the working of grace in my soul. Show these obstacles to me at the moment when I am about to place them. Give me the strength to remove them, and, if I am negligent in doing so, do Thou deign to remove them, though I should suffer greatly. I wish only Thee, Lord, who alone art necessary. Grant that my life here on earth may be like eternal life begun." - Garrigou-Lagrange
Art: The Soul in Mortal Sin - T. Nelson


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Farmland protection catching on in N.C.
Haywood County is the latest to adopt protection plan
With North Carolina's population growing rapidly, counties are taking steps to make sure they balance development with protecting natural resources and farmland.
Two-thirds of North Carolina's counties have established Voluntary Agricultural Districts, a planning tool that provides recognition of farming in communities.
And in November, Haywood County became the latest county to approve a farmland protection plan, joining Alamance, Buncombe, Cabarrus and Polk. Plans for protecting farmland are also in the works in 19 additional counties.
"Counties are recognizing that working lands are very important to our state's economy and environment," said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. "Farmland provides stability for local governments. New schools, roads, and fire and police protection go hand-in-hand with new development, whereas privately owned and managed farmland requires very few public services. Surveys have shown that for every dollar in taxes received from working lands, local governments spend only 34 cents in services. That's a net gain for the county tax base."
A look at the state's Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund provides ample evidence of interest in farmland protection by local governments and conservation groups. Last year, the trust fund received more than 90 applications requesting $29 million for a variety of farmland protection efforts, even though only $7.6 million was available. After evaluating the applications, the trust fund awarded grants for 41 projects across the state.
"The trust fund couldn't fill every request, but we were able to boost efforts to protect some of North Carolina's most valuable resources and sustain its leading industry," Troxler said.
The General Assembly's appropriation to the trust fund for 2009 is smaller, $4 million, but interest is still high. As of the Dec. 5 application deadline, the trust fund had received nearly 70 requests for $15.5 million in grant assistance.


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|I'm not sure which I like more -- the Legend of Sleepy Hollow stamp or Mr Zip.
Damn, he's cute!
|I just love these little messages on the sheets of stamps
(but I digress).
I love my series of typewriter envelopes (if I do say so myself).
And of course orange is a Halloween color -- this one heading off to
The Netherlands.
I whipped up a couple of Day of The Dead Envelopes -- very big in SF.
(And of course, in Mexico)
I just love to get mail from Tallie.
This one took a while in transit. I guess the USPS got a little confused by all the writing.
But, it got here.
I just get the best mail -- thank you, everyone! Keep it coming.
Double treats from GinaVisione -- grazia.
Love the orange envelope and the keyboard on there.
And a Mail Art Kit submission -- yes!
|Halloween Skull...well...at least I think it is....
Happy Halloween everyone.
|And, I leave you with lunch (miso ramen). You should eat well before going off and eating all that Halloween candy that you know you are going to eat.
Did you get any Halloween mail?
Send Good Mail--Get Good Mail


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NELSON, EDWIN G., bookseller and stationer, author, and composer of patriotic songs; b. c. 1848 in Saint John, N.B., son of Valentine H. Nelson and Margaret Rodger (Roger); m. Isabel K. Armstrong, and they had two sons and two daughters; d. 19 Jan. 1904 in Montreal and was buried in Fernhill Cemetery, Saint John.
Edwin G. Nelson's father was a poet and bookseller in Saint John, and it was there that Edwin began work as a young boy and developed his interest in literature; he was also employed by booksellers Thomas H. Hall and William K. Crawford. Using on occasion the pen-name Edwin St. John or E.S.J., he began to write short articles, stories, and poems for local publications, including works for Stewart's Literary Quarterly Magazine [see George Stewart]. During the 1870s Nelson moved to Prince Edward Island and established himself as an importer and repairer of sewing machines, acting as agent for Wanzer sewing machines [see Richard Mott Wanzer*]. He continued to write for his own interest and for newspapers on the Island and in Saint John.
Shortly after the fire of 1877 in Saint John he returned there and set up as a bookseller and stationer on King Street. He subsequently moved to the corner of Charlotte and King streets and maintained this place of business until his death in 1904. The firm of E. G. Nelson and Company became a central meeting-place for those in the city interested in literary works. "His shop was a favorite place of resort for reading men," commented the author of his obituary in the St. John Daily Sun, "as he was probably a better authority on books and authors than any other book dealer in this part of Canada." It was also the resort of those imbued with the spirit of Canadian patriotism and British imperialism. "He would not keep or sell certain publications which he found offensively anti-British," the same writer noted. "He always gave the preference, so far as he could influence trade, to British books over those from the United States, and exerted a large and continuous influence in eliminating from Sunday school libraries literature which exalted United States institutions and patriots and was unfriendly or offensive to loyal British sentiment." In November 1888 Nelson was one of the founders of the Saint John branch of the Imperial Federation League in Canada, serving as its secretary, and he also sat on the executive of the national organization. When this body affiliated with the British Empire League in 1896, he became secretary of the New Brunswick branch. Much of his time was spent in working for imperial federation and in writing articles on the movement.
Nelson also wrote several patriotic songs which became well known throughout the country. One of the most popular was "My own Canadian home." This poem had musical settings by Thomas Morley and E. Cadwallader, but it was the setting by Saint John musician Morley McLaughlin, published in 1890, which gained widespread popularity. Reprinted on several occasions, this version reportedly sold over 1.5 million copies by 1896 and was much used in schools and by military bands in Canada and abroad. In 1967 it was adopted as the official song of the city of Saint John. "Raise the flag!", with words and music by Nelson, was written for George Taylor Denison* of Toronto. The poem was used as the title for a book of patriotic verse compiled by Denison which featured works by many Canadian writers, including Nelson. Both compositions were published in several song collections for Canadian schools, such as those compiled by Alexander Thom Cringan* in Ontario. Other pieces by Nelson include "Up with the Union Jack" and "Canada, land of the free." Nelson's patriotic verses with simple musical settings express his preoccupation with the promotion of loyalty to country and empire:
Raise the Flag! Who dare assail it,
Guarded by the Empire's might?
Raise the Flag of our Dominion
Stand for Country, God, and Right!
[Edwin G. Nelson has often been listed in bibliographies as the compiler of "Raise the flag" and other patriotic Canadian songs and poems (Toronto, 1891). The correspondence between him and George Taylor Denison in NA, MG 29, E29 makes it clear, however, that Denison compiled the collection.
In addition to the sources cited below, the biography is based on material obtained by the author at a Nelson family auction, including a scrapbook kept by Nelson, and letters from Denison, Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley*, and others, as well as the author's personal collection of newspaper clippings (many undated), and an interview with Edith Armstrong Nelson Davis of Saint John, N.B., a daughter of the subject. n.f.v.]
Fernhill Cemetery (Saint John), Burial records and tombstone inscriptions. PANB, RS71, 1904, E. G. Nelson; RS315, A1, 13, no.368. Saint John Regional Library, Vert. files, "My own Canadian home"; E. G. Nelson. St. John Daily Sun, 21 Jan. 1904: 8. H. A. Cody, '"My own Canadian home,"' Maclean's (Toronto), 26 (May–October 1913), no.4: 52–56. Encyclopedia of music in Canada (Kallmann et al.). Vital statistics from N.B. newspapers, 1837–38 (Johnson).
© 1994–2023 University of Toronto/Université Laval
Cite This Article
Nancy F. Vogan, "NELSON, EDWIN G," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed September 29, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/nelson_edwin_g_13E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
|Author of Article:
|Nancy F. Vogan
|Title of Article:
|Publication Name:
|Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13
|University of Toronto/Université Laval
|Year of publication:
|Year of revision:
|Access Date:
|September 29, 2023


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Amanda Bynes's Twitter account is fascinating. Riveting, even. It's perhaps the most curious case study of self-obsession and self-publicizing on the Internet. A bizarre, kind-of-spellbinding video Bynes posted on her account yesterday is just the tip of the iceberg. Its title: "I'm Sucking On A Sour Patch Kid Listening To Music Getting Ready For Tonight :D."
The video is just as it sounds. Bynes's lips are puckered as if she is, in fact, sucking on a sour candy, and she squints her eyes as she poses her head in various angles. Club music thumps in the background. It is filmed on her iPhone using a mirror. There is 18 seconds of black in the middle of the clip.
The reaction to the clip is a mix of alarm and astonishment. "By this point, we're thinking Amanda Bynes is either A) amazing at getting her name plugged everywhere and should therefore become the head of her own PR firm; B) is in desperate need of serious professional help; or C) is the best ambiguous performance artist since Tilda Swinton and her box," says The Huffington Post.
In its post headlined "Amanda Bynes Either Needs Help, or Is Trolling Us All," Complex gets more to the point. "It's become a question as riveting and confusing as the meaning of life itself: What the hell happened to Amanda Bynes?" writes Tanya Ghahremani. "Does [she] need serious help, or is this some intricate, faux breakdown, Joaquin Phoenix-style?"
Apparently offended by Complex's ruminating, Bynes responded this afternoon with this 200-word rant, begun on her Twitter count and spilled over to the site TwitPlus. Here it is in full:
@ComplexMag Stop acting like I'm doing something wrong. I'm obsessed with myself on twitter. Also, my video last night was perfection. I'm so sick of the articles u write about me. I want every fake article deleted. Ur dick whipped by my ugly ex @ducidni who's looks and talent have always been questionable to me, him being the ugly duckling that he is and all. U quote him non stop, then take professional shots of him for ur covers, his best photos aren't shit compared to mine at my best. The photo u chose of Aubrey for her cover is awful. You make people look bad, stop acting like you know anything about what men like. I don't stop getting follwed or hit on every place I go. I'm not trying to sing, but if I did (I got offered an Interscope record deal right after I filmed Hairspray which you might know if you sat down and did a normal interview. I still might take them up on their offer) get the facts as opposed to talking shit. My music is going to be sicker then whatever the fuck kind of music Scott tries to do. Stop writing articles without speaking to me first.
Some crucial explanations: The @ducidni referred to here is rapper Kid Cudi, who dated Bynes in 2010. Cudi's real name is Scott Mescudi, presumably the Scott she's referring to when she says, "My music is going to be sicker then [sic] whatever the fuck kind of music Scott tries to do." The Aubrey whose "cover is awful" is Parks and Recreation actress/MTV Movie Awards stage-crasher Aubrey Plaza, Complex's current cover star. Judge for yourself if her cover is awful here.
So, trolling? Performance art? A meltdown? Judge for yourself on that, too.


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Angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday in a chaotic riot aimed at thwarting a peaceful transfer of power, forcing lawmakers to be rushed from the building and interrupting challenges to Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.
One person was shot and killed, three others died after suffering medical emergencies Wednesday. Then on Thursday, a U.S. Capitol Police officer died after he was injured during the riot.
Congress returned later Wednesday to resume their proceedings after the Capitol was cleared by law enforcement and confirmed Biden as the presidential election winner.
Here's what you need to know about Wednesday's chaos and the aftermath unfolding on Thursday.
What happened?
Pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol while lawmakers were trying to confirm the electoral college certifications, making Democrat Joe Biden the presidential election winner.
The mob took over the presiding officer's chair in the Senate, the offices of the House speaker and the Senate dais. They mocked its leaders, posing for photos in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one with his feet propped on a desk in her office, another sitting in the same seat Vice President Mike Pence had occupied only moments before during the proceedings to certify the Electoral College vote.
Photos: Trump supporters storm US capitol during Electoral College affirmation
Deaths, Injuries and Arrests
A day after he was injured during Wednesday's riot, an officer with the Capitol Police force died.
"Officer Brian D. Sicknick passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty," Capitol Police announced Thursday night. "Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol and was injured while physically engaging with protesters. He returned to his division office and collapsed."
WUSA reported Sicknick had suffered a stroke.
Sicknick had been on the force for 15 years.
As of Friday night, more than 90 people were arrested, according to the Associated Press, and 50 Capitol and Washington police officers have been injured, according to initial information released by MPD and Capitol Police. Those numbers are expected to rise.
RELATED: 52 arrested, 4 dead, 14 DC police officers injured amid pro-Trump riots at the U.S. Capitol
Authorities said a woman was shot during the riot as the mob tried to break through a barricaded door into the House Chamber where police were armed on the other side. She was hospitalized with a gunshot wound and later died.
The Capitol Police identified her as Ashli Babbitt. Family and her social media accounts say she was an Air Force veteran from San Diego and avid supporter of President Donald Trump and his efforts to stay in office.
District of Columbia police have identified the three people who had medical emergencies and died during the storming of the Capitol.
They are 55-year-old Kevin Greeson, of Athens, Alabama; 34-year-old Rosanne Boyland, of Kennesaw, Georgia; and 50-year-old Benjamin Phillips, of Ringtown, Pennsylvania.
Police Chief Robert Contee would not go into detail about the exact causes of their deaths and would not say if any of the three was actively involved in breaching the Capitol building on Wednesday.
Contee would only say that all three "were on the grounds of the Capitol when they experienced their medical emergencies."
Greeson's family says he had a heart attack. They described him as a supporter of President Donald Trump's but denied that he condoned violence.
The FBI is also asking for help identifying individuals who were "actively instigating violence in Washington, DC." The agency asks that anyone who witnessed unlawful violent actions to submit any information, photos, or videos here: http://fbi.gov/USCapitol.
Adam Johnson, a man seen smiling and waving at the camera while carrying the lectern of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the U.S. Capitol riot, was arrested.
Johnson, a 36-year-old man from Parrish, Florida, was jailed on a federal warrant Friday in Pinellas County, records show.
Johnson was charged with "one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; one count of theft of government property; and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds," according to a statement from Michael R. Sherwin of the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Sherwin released a statement Saturday on three of the individuals now in custody, who were charged in connection to the raid on the U.S. Capitol.
Jacob Anthony Chansley, otherwise known as "Jake Angeli," was charged with "knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds."
Chansley was taken into custody on Saturday. The statement detailed how on Jan. 6 during the raid, he was "dressed in horns, a bearskin headdress, red, white and blue face paint, shirtless, and tan pants."
35-year-old Derrick Evans of West Virginia was charged with "one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Grounds," and was taken into custody Friday.
Evans, who is a recently elected member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, was seen on Facebook live encouraging a crowd who were unlawfully entering the U.S. Capitol building. Evans was seen in video entering into the U.S. Capitol and saying "We're in, we're in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!"
Will rioters be charged?
The top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia says "all options are on the table" for charging members of the violent pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol — including sedition charges.
The United States Department of Justice said 13 individuals have been charged so far in federal court related to crimes committed at the U.S. Capitol as of Friday.
The Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen released a statement Thursday and said that the Department of Justice is "committed to ensuring that those responsible for this attack on our Government and the rule of law face the full consequences of their actions under the law."
He added that prosecutors have been working with investigators from the U.S. Capitol Police, FBI, ATF, Metropolitan Police Department and the public to gather the evidence, identify perpetrators, and charge federal crimes where warranted.
ABC reported Friday that a laptop was stolen from Pelosi's office during the rioting. The laptop was only used for presentations.
RELATED: 69 arrested, 4 dead, 14 DC police officers injured amid pro-Trump riots at the U.S. Capitol
FBI Director Christopher Wray also released a statement Thursday and said, "Make no mistake: With our partners, we will hold accountable those who participated in yesterday's siege of the Capitol."
Was there a bomb, IED?
Police said they recovered two pipe bombs during the chaos, one outside the Democratic National Committee and one outside the Republican National Committee and a cooler from a vehicle that had a long gun and Molotov cocktail on Capitol grounds.
Prosecutors allege an Alabama man had 11 Molotov cocktails in his truck.
RELATED: 2 pipe bombs and cooler of Molotov cocktails found near Capitol Building amid Capitol riot, DC Police Chief says
How was the mob cleared out?
Authorities eventually regained control of the Capitol as night fell.
Heavily armed officers brought in as reinforcements started using tear gas in a coordinated effort to get people moving toward the door, then combed the halls for stragglers, pushing the mob farther out onto the plaza and lawn, in clouds of tear gas, flash-bangs and percussion grenades.
Did President Trump tell protesters to go to the Capitol?
Trump on Wednesday during a noontime rally encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol to protest lawmakers' actions. He later appeared to justify the violent occupation of the Capitol by the mob, which forced its way inside, clashed with police and ransacked offices.
Trump even told his crowd at the Ellipse that he would go with them to the Capitol, but he didn't. Instead, he sent them off with incendiary rhetoric.
"If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," he said hours before the riot. "Let the weak ones get out," he went on. "This is a time for strength."
His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the crowd, "Let's have trial by combat."
RELATED: VERIFY: Fact-checking misinformation in Trump's speech prior to his supporters storming Capitol Hill
Did Twitter, Facebook ban Trump?
Twitter on Friday permanently suspended Trump from its platform, citing concerns that language he was using might incite more violence. As he attempted to try posting on other accounts, Twitter shut those down, too.
Facebook and Instagram silenced his social media accounts Thursday for the rest of his presidency. The move, which many called long overdue following Wednesday's deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
It remains unclear how the platforms will handle Trump once he leaves office and is no longer shielded from enforcement of most rules by his status as a world leader. And some critics saw the moves as cynical efforts by the companies to position themselves for a post-Trump future.
What did Joe Biden say?
President-elect Joe Biden called Wednesday for the restoration of "simple decency" as a mob incited by his predecessor stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Biden called on Trump to "go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege." Trump released a video on social media a short-time later, but Twitter deleted it and other tweets due to concerns it would only incite his supporters more.
Biden has not thrown his support behind calls for impeaching Trump.
What is the 25th Amendment and why are people discussing it in relation to the riot at the Capitol?
The text of the 25th Amendment makes it clear that there are two ways to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove a president from office: by the president's request or by the action of the vice president and the Cabinet.
After pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer joined other Democrats and at least one Republican in calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked and for Trump to be removed from office before Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Multiple reports indicate Vice President Mike Pence is opposed to using the 25th Amendment.
With that, House Democrats are expected to introduce articles of impeachment Monday with a House vote as soon as Wednesday. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republicans the Senate would not take it up until Jan. 19 unless all 100 senators agree to do it earlier, according to the Washington Post.
What did the Capitol Police do?
The United States Capitol Police on Thursday released a statement explaining some of the events that took place the day prior.
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police says the violent mob that stormed the building wielded metal pipes, chemical irritants and other weapons against law enforcement.
Steven Sund's statement said the rioting protesters "actively attacked" police officers and "were determined to enter into the Capitol Building by causing great damage.
Thursday morning, Sund defended his agency's response from criticism that officers did not stop the incursion. He says his agency "had a robust plan" for what he anticipated would be peaceful protests, but what occurred Wednesday was "criminal riotous behavior."
Hours later, it was announced that he would be resigning. Earlier in the day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wanted his resignation.
Pelosi also said Thursday that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, another key security official, had already submitted his resignation. He reports directly to Pelosi, while Sund answers to both House and Senate.
Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger resigned Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is set to become majority leader, previously said he planned to fire Stenger.
Lawmakers have mixed praise for the Capitol Police with harsh criticism for the outfit, which was overwhelmed by Wednesday's mob and unprepared for it.
Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump rioted at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the U.S Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower. And as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. The police turned them down both times, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter.
RELATED: Comparing police presence at US Capitol during pro-Trump riot to Black Lives Matter protests
How the world reacted
World leaders are condemning the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. They called for a peaceful transition of power, and some singled out Trump for harsh criticism.
They said political leaders need to urge their followers to refrain from violence and respect the rule of law.
What happens to Biden's inauguration at Capitol?
The insurrection is intensifying scrutiny over security at the inauguration ceremony, which already has been reshaped by the coronavirus pandemic and Trump's decision not to attend.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will take the oath of office from the Capitol's West Front, one of the locations where a mob overpowered police and stormed the building on Wednesday.
Plans for the Jan. 20 inauguration were already scaled back because of the coronavirus. But the brazen attack raises new questions about preparedness for the event that will welcome a new administration after a bitter election.
The congressional leaders responsible for coordinating the inauguration has insisted that events will move forward.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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One for the Ages: A Prescription That May Extend LifeBy MICHAEL MASON
Canto, left, a rhesus monkey, is aging fairly well at 25 on a calorie restriction diet. Owen, though only a year older than Canto, is frail and moves slowly. He eats a normal diet.
How depressing, how utterly unjust, to be the one in your social circle who is aging least gracefully.
In a laboratory at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, Matthias is learning about time's caprice the hard way. At 28, getting on for a rhesus monkey, Matthias is losing his hair, lugging a paunch and getting a face full of wrinkles.
Yet in the cage next to his, gleefully hooting at strangers, one of Matthias's lab mates, Rudy, is the picture of monkey vitality, although he is slightly older. Thin and feisty, Rudy stops grooming his smooth coat just long enough to pirouette toward a proffered piece of fruit.
Tempted with the same treat, Matthias rises wearily and extends a frail hand. "You can really see the difference," said Dr. Ricki Colman, an associate scientist at the center who cares for the animals.
What a visitor cannot see may be even more interesting. As a result of a simple lifestyle intervention, Rudy and primates like him seem poised to live very long, very vital lives.
This approach, called calorie restriction, involves eating about 30 percent fewer calories than normal while still getting adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Aside from direct genetic manipulation, calorie restriction is the only strategy known to extend life consistently in a variety of animal species.
How this drastic diet affects the body has been the subject of intense research. Recently, the effort has begun to bear fruit, producing a steady stream of studies indicating that the rate of aging is plastic, not fixed, and that it can be manipulated.
In the last year, calorie-restricted diets have been shown in various animals to affect molecular pathways likely to be involved in the progression of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's disease and cancer. Earlier this year, researchers studying dietary effects on humans went so far as to claim that calorie restriction may be more effective than exercise at preventing age-related diseases.
Monkeys like Rudy seem to be proving the thesis. Recent tests show that the animals on restricted diets, including Canto and Eeyore, two other rhesus monkeys at the primate research center, are in indisputably better health as they near old age than Matthias and other normally fed lab mates like Owen and Johann. The average lifespan for laboratory monkeys is 27.
The findings cast doubt on long-held scientific and cultural beliefs regarding the inevitability of the body's decline. They also suggest that other interventions, which include new drugs, may retard aging even if the diet itself should prove ineffective in humans. One leading candidate, a newly synthesized form of resveratrol — an antioxidant present in large amounts in red wine — is already being tested in patients. It may eventually be the first of a new class of anti-aging drugs. Extrapolating from recent animal findings, Dr. Richard A. Miller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, estimated that a pill mimicking the effects of calorie restriction might increase human life span to about 112 healthy years, with the occasional senior living until 140, though some experts view that projection as overly optimistic.
According to a report by the Rand Corporation, such a drug would be among the most cost-effective breakthroughs possible in medicine, providing Americans more healthy years at less expense (an estimated $8,800 a year) than new cancer vaccines or stroke treatments.
"The effects are global, so calorie restriction has the potential to help us identify anti-aging mechanisms throughout the body," said Richard Weindruch, a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin who directs research on the monkeys.
Many scientists regard the study of life extension, once just a reliable plotline in science fiction, as a national priority. The number of Americans 65 and older will double in the next 25 years to about 72 million, according to government census data. By then, seniors will account for nearly 20 percent of the population, up from just 12 percent in 2003.
Earlier this year, four prominent gerontologists, among them Dr. Miller, published a paper calling for the government to spend $3 billion annually in pursuit of a modest goal: delaying the onset of age-related diseases by seven years.
Doing so, the authors asserted, would lay the foundation for a healthier and wealthier country, a so-called longevity dividend.
"The demographic wave entering their 60s is enormous, and that is likely to greatly increase the prevalence of diseases like diabetes and heart disease," said Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and one of the paper's authors. "The simplest way to positively affect them all is to slow down aging."
Science, of course, is still a long way from doing anything of the sort. Aging is a complicated phenomenon, the intersection of an array of biological processes set in motion by genetics, lifestyle, even evolution itself.
Still, in laboratories around the world, scientists are becoming adept at breeding animal Methuselahs, extraordinarily long lived and healthy worms, fish, mice and flies.
In 1935, Dr. Clive McCay, a nutritionist at Cornell University, discovered that mice that were fed 30 percent fewer calories lived about 40 percent longer than their free-grazing laboratory mates. The dieting mice were also more physically active and far less prone to the diseases of advanced age.
Dr. McCay's experiment has been successfully duplicated in a variety of species. In almost every instance, the subjects on low-calorie diets have proven to be not just longer lived, but also more resistant to age-related ailments.
"In mice, calorie restriction doesn't just extend life span," said Leonard P. Guarente, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It mitigates many diseases of aging: cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease. The gain is just enormous."
For years, scientists financed by the National Institute on Aging have closely monitored rhesus monkeys on restricted and normal-calorie diets. At the University of Wisconsin, where 50 animals survive from the original group of 76, the differences are just now becoming apparent in the older animals.
Those on normal diets, like Matthias, are beginning to show signs of advancing age similar to those seen in humans. Three of them, for instance, have developed diabetes, and a fourth has died of the disease. Five have died of cancer.
But Rudy and his colleagues on low-calorie meal plans are faring better. None have diabetes, and only three have died of cancer. It is too early to know if they will outlive their lab mates, but the dieters here and at the other labs also have lower blood pressure and lower blood levels of certain dangerous fats, glucose and insulin.
"The preliminary indicators are that we're looking at a robust life extension in the restricted animals," Dr. Weindruch said.
Despite widespread scientific enthusiasm, the evidence that calorie restriction works in humans is indirect at best. The practice was popularized in diet books by Dr. Roy Walford, a legendary pathologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who spent much of the last 30 years of his life following a calorie-restricted regimen. He died of Lou Gehrig's disease in 2004 at 79.
Largely as a result of his advocacy, several thousand people are now on calorie-restricted diets in the United States, says Brian M. Delaney, president of the Calorie Restriction Society.
Mike Linksvayer, a 36-year-old chief technology officer at a San Francisco nonprofit group, embarked on just such a diet six years ago. On an average day, he eats an apple or some cereal for breakfast, followed by a small vegan dish at lunch. Dinner is whatever his wife has cooked, excluding bread, rice, sugar and whatever else Mr. Linksvayer deems unhealthy (this often includes the entrée). On weekends, he occasionally fasts.
Mr. Linksvayer, 6 feet tall and 135 pounds, estimated that he gets by on about 2,000 to 2,100 calories a day, a low number for men of his age and activity level, and his blood pressure is a remarkably low 112 over 63. He said he has never been in better health.
"I don't really get sick," he said. "Mostly I do the diet to be healthier, but if it helps me live longer, hey, I'll take that, too."
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have been tracking the health of small groups of calorie-restricted dieters. Earlier this year, they reported that the dieters had better-functioning hearts and fewer signs of inflammation, which is a precursor to clogged arteries, than similar subjects on regular diets.
In previous studies, people in calorie-restricted groups were shown to have lower levels of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, and triglycerides. They also showed higher levels of HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, virtually no arterial blockage and, like Mr. Linksvayer, remarkably low blood pressure.
"Calorie restriction has a powerful, protective effect against diseases associated with aging," said Dr. John O. Holloszy, a Washington University professor of medicine. "We don't know how long each individual will end up living, but they certainly have a longer life expectancy than average."
Researchers at Louisiana State University reported in April in The Journal of the American Medical Association that patients on an experimental low-calorie diet had lower insulin levels and body temperatures, both possible markers of longevity, and fewer signs of the chromosomal damage typically associated with aging.
These studies and others have led many scientists to believe they have stumbled onto a central determinant of natural life span. Animals on restricted diets seem particularly resistant to environmental stresses like oxidation and heat, perhaps even radiation. "It is a very deep, very important function," Dr. Miller said. Experts theorize that limited access to energy alarms the body, so to speak, activating a cascade of biochemical signals that tell each cell to direct energy away from reproductive functions, toward repair and maintenance. The calorie-restricted organism is stronger, according to this hypothesis, because individual cells are more efficiently repairing mutations, using energy, defending themselves and mopping up harmful byproducts like free radicals.
"The stressed cell is really pulling out all the stops" to preserve itself, said Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, a molecular biologist at the University of California, San Francisco. "This system could have evolved as a way of letting animals take a timeout from reproduction when times are harsh."
But many experts are unsettled by the prospect, however unlikely, of Americans adopting a draconian diet in hopes of living longer. Even the current epidemiological data, they note, do not consistently show that those who are thinnest live longest. After analyzing decades of national mortality statistics, federal researchers reported last year that exceptional thinness, a logical consequence of calorie restriction, was associated with an increased risk of death. This controversial study did not attempt to assess the number of calories the subjects had been consuming, or the quality of their diets, which may have had an effect on mortality rates.
Despite the initially promising results from studies of primates, some scientists doubt that calorie restriction can ever work effectively in humans. A mathematical model published last year by researchers at University of California, Los Angeles, and University of California, Irvine, predicted that the maximum life span gain from calorie restriction for humans would be just 7 percent. A more likely figure, the authors said, was 2 percent.
"Calorie restriction is doomed to fail, and will make people miserable in the process of attempting it," said Dr. Jay Phelan, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a co-author of the paper. "We do see benefits, but not an increase in life span."
Mice who must scratch for food for a couple of years would be analogous, in terms of natural selection, to humans who must survive 20-year famines, Dr. Phelan said. But nature seldom demands that humans endure such conditions.
Besides, he added, there is virtually no chance Americans will adopt such a severe menu plan in great numbers.
"Have you ever tried to go without food for a day?" Dr. Phelan asked. "I did it once, because I was curious about what the mice in my lab experienced, and I couldn't even function at the end of the day."
Even researchers who believe calorie restriction can extend life in humans concede that few Americans are likely to stick to such a restrained diet over a long period. The aging of the body is the aging of its cells, researchers like to say. While cell death is hardwired into every organism's DNA, much of the infirmity that comes with advancing years is from an accumulation of molecular insults that, experts contend, may to some degree be prevented, even reversed.
"The goal is not just to make people live longer," said Dr. David A. Sinclair, a molecular biologist at Harvard. "It's to see eventually that an 80-year-old feels like a 50-year-old does today."
In a series of studies, Dr. Kenyon, of the University of California, San Francisco, has created mutant roundworms that live six times longer than normal, largely because of a mutation in a single gene called daf-2. The gene encodes a receptor on the surface of cells similar to a receptor in humans that responds to two important hormones, insulin and the insulin-like growth factor 1 or IGF-1.
Insulin is necessary for the body to transport glucose into cells to fuel their operations. Dr. Kenyon and other researchers suggest that worm cells with mutated receptors may be "tricked" into sensing that nutrients are not available, even when they are. With its maintenance machinery thereby turned on high, each worm cell lives far longer — and so does the worm.
Many experts are now convinced that the energy-signaling pathways that employ insulin and IGF-1 are very involved in fixing an organism's life span. Some researchers have even described Type 2 diabetes, which is marked by insensitivity to the hormone insulin, as simply an accelerated form of aging.
In yeast, scientists have discovered a gene similar to daf-2 called SIR2, that also helps to coordinate the cell's defensive response once activated by calorie restriction or another external stressor. The genes encode proteins called sirtuins, which are found in both plants and animals.
A mammalian version of the SIR2 gene, called SIRT1, has been shown to regulate a number of processes necessary for long-term survival in calorie-restricted mice.
Scientists are now trying to develop synthetic compounds that affect the genes daf-2 and SIRT1.
Several candidate drugs designed to prevent age-related diseases, particularly diabetes, are on the drawing boards at biotech companies. Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, in Boston, already has begun testing a new drug in patients with Type 2 diabetes that acts on SIRT1 to improve the functioning of mitochondria, the cell's energy factories.
While an anti-aging pill may be the next big blockbuster, some ethicists believe that the all-out determination to extend life span is veined with arrogance. As appointments with death are postponed, says Dr. Leon R. Kass, former chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, human lives may become less engaging, less meaningful, even less beautiful.
"Mortality makes life matter," Dr. Kass recently wrote. "Immortality is a kind of oblivion — like death itself."
That man's time on this planet is limited, and rightfully so, is a cultural belief deeply held by many. But whether an increasing life span affords greater opportunity to find meaning or distracts from the pursuit, the prospect has become too great a temptation to ignore — least of all, for scientists.
"It's a just big waste of talent and wisdom to have people die in their 60s and 70s," said Dr. Sinclair of Harvard.
PHA-4 gene
Living Forever?
Immortal Youth?
Longevity Genes
Yoda the Ancient
Caloric Restriction
Reengineering the body?
Young cells and old people
New treatments for aging brains
Healthier, happier and longer life?
World's Oldest Supercentenarians
Caloric Restriction: humans vs nonhumans
Resveratrol and vertebrate lifespan (PDF)
Caloric restriction does not extend the lives of lean mice


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This strawberry cupcake recipe is from The Joy of Vegan Baking. This was the first recipe I ever tried from this book and my first experience with vinegar too. I was surprised that it didn't taste anything like vinegar.
It was very sweet for me, so I would reduce the sugar quantity of sugar when I bake it the next time. Earlier I had this doubt if reducing or increasing the quantity of sugar in a recipe would affect the end product, but recently I got it clarified.
Day before yesterday I baked some blueberry muffins (using vinegar) from the same book and the sugar mentioned in the recipe was 3/4 to 1 cup and I chose to add 3/4 cup because of the experience with the strawberry cupcakes. The muffins came out very good and we were okay with sweetness.
For some, it may be very less but we were fine with it. I wanted to bake these muffins once again (I'll mention the reason when I post that recipe) and added some more sugar, little more than 3/4 cup but less than 1 cup.
Again the muffins turned out good. So I'm sure you can play with the sugar measurement in this strawberry cupcake recipe too because it's pretty similar to the blueberry muffins recipe.
Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes Recipe
|Prep Time
|Cook Time
|15 Mins
|45 Mins
|12-16 Cupcakes OR Two 9 Inch Layers
- 1 and 3/4 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour (I used Bleached)
- 3/4 to 1 cup Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 8oz (I used 14 strawberries) Frozen/Fresh Pureed OR Crushed Strawberries
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 cup Canola Oil
- 1 tablespoon White Distilled Vinegar
- Preheat the oven to 350F/180C for 15 minutes. Grease/line a muffin tin or grease a 9 inch loaf pan.
- In a large bowl combine together the flour, baking soda and sugar.
- In another bowl, mix the oil, vinegar and vanilla. I pureed the strawberries in a blender, because I was not sure if my son would like to bite of chunks of strawberry in the muffin. Add the pureed strawberry also to the oil mixture and stir to combine.
- Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir together but do not over stir.
- Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tins. I got exactly 12 muffins.
- Bake for about 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If baking a loaf bake it for 40-45 minutes and check for the doneness.
- Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. When cool, frost the cupcakes and top each with a whole strawberry.
- The original recipe had 1 cup of sugar, but I felt that it was very sweet for us. So I have made it as 3/4 to 1 cup.
- Also the time mentioned in the recipe for muffins was 30 minutes, but mine was done around 22 minutes itself. The time mentioned for the loaf was 1 hour, but I have reduced it to 40-45 minutes. I have tried a couple of recipes from this book, they all turn out good, but there is some difference in the time it bakes. Mine always bakes at least 8-10 minutes earlier than the time mentioned in the recipe. Maybe it's my oven! Anyway just watch out.
- The top of the cupcake was slightly crispy than soft. I think that's because of the sugar. Since we are not creaming the sugar in this recipe, I think the sugar tends to be in a semi-crystal state, forming a crust like a thing. But in the blueberry muffin recipe also I did not cream the sugar, but it did not have the crusty top. It was so good and light. I can't wait to post that recipe here.
- I used a food processor to puree the strawberries. It was a wide base 1 cup mini bowl. I didn't have to add water at all. If you use a blender I think adding little water would be necessary and I'm sure that it would not affect the result in any way.


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New York, terror trial capital of the US
New York's federal courts have seen many major terrorist trials since the early 1990s, several involving Al Qaeda-linked operatives.
1993-94: Trial in first World Trade Center bombing.
On Feb. 26, 1993, an explosive-packed Ryder truck was driven into the garage of the World Trade Center in New York, killing 6 people and injuring more than 1,000. After a six month trial with 204 witnesses and 1,000 pieces of evidence, all four defendants were convicted. Each receives a 240-year prison sentence without the possibility of parole.
1994-95: "Day of Terror" trial.
Twelve defendants, including "Blind Cleric" Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, were tried for a terror plot thwarted by the FBI in June 1993. Followers of Sheikh Rahman planned to bomb prominent sites in New York City, including the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln & Holland Tunnels, the United Nations, and the New York FBI office. Ten defendants were convicted and sentenced to 25 to 85 years in prison. Two pleaded guilty and received life sentences.
1995-96: "Manila Air" plot.
Ramzi Yousef, nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was one of three defendants tried in Manhattan Federal Court in a plot to plant a bomb in a dozen US commercial jetliners timed to go off when they were over the Pacific. Mr. Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Amin Shah were all convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, with Yousef sentenced to life in prison plus 240 years.
1997: Trial of Ramzi Yousef for his role as mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
1998: East Africa American embassy bombings.
US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed, killing 224 people and injuring more than 4,000. Osama bin Laden and 22 others were indicted for their role in the attacks; four were caught and convicted. Another suspect, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national, is scheduled to be tried in September 2010.
2002: Millennium bombing plot.
Algerian nationals Mokhtar Haouari, Abdel Ghani Meskini, and Ahmed Ressam were charged in a conspiracy to bomb the Los Angeles airport during the millennium celebrations. Tried in a New York federal court, Mr. Haouari was convicted of conspiring to supply material support to Mr. Ressam's plan to enter the US from Canada and set off a bomb at the L.A. airport. He was sentenced to 24 years. Meskini entered a plea agreement with the Justice department to testify against other suspects in exchange for a lighter sentence. Mr. Ressam testified against Haouari, and was sentenced in 2005 by a Los Angeles court to 22 years in prison.
2004-06: New York subway bomb plot.
James Elshafay and Shahawar Matin Siraj, both US citizens, were arrested for plotting to bomb a subway station near Madison Square Garden in New York City before the Republican National Convention. Mr. Siraj was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Mr. Elshafay pleaded guilty and received a five-year sentence for testifying against his co-conspirator.
2007-ongoing: JFK Airport bomb plot.
Four men were arrested in June 2007 over a plot to bomb fuel lines connected to the JFK airport in New York. Abdel Nur and Abdul Kadir of Guyana, cleric Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, and Guyana-born US citizen Russell Defreitas allegedly planned to use bombs in order to ignite millions of gallons of jet fuel at the airport. The plot reportedly never went beyond the planning stages. Mr. Defreitas was arrested in Brooklyn. The other three were detained in Trinidad and extradited in June 2008. The men pleaded not guilty to the charges and are awaiting trial.
2009: Oregon terrorist training camp
Lebanese-born Swedish citizen Oussama Kassir was arrested in Prague in 2005 on a warrant filed by US prosecutors for plotting to set up a jihadist training camp in Oregon and operating websites with instructions on how to make bombs. In May 2009, he was found guilty in a New York court of 11 charges, including providing material support to Al Qaeda and distributing information on explosives and weapons of mass destruction, and later sentenced to life in prison.
2009-ongoing: New York synagogue bomb plot
Four men were arrested in the Bronx in May 20, 2009 after allegedly plotting to detonate bombs near a synagogue, and to shoot Stinger surface-to-air missiles at Air National Guard aircraft at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, N.Y. Fake bombs and missiles were provided by a government informant. On June 2, 2009, James Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen were charged in an eight-count indictment, and are awaiting trial.
2010: Denver/NYC bomb plot
Denver resident Najibullah Zazi was arrested on September 20, 2009, on suspicion of associating with Al Qaeda and planning to carry out a terrorist attack in New York. Subsequently, his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, and his imam Ahmad Wais Afzali were also arrested. Najibullah Zazi is currently in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting trial.
2010: Fourth suspect in East Africa American embassy bombings
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national, is scheduled to be tried in September 2010 for his alleged role in the US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. US Attorney General Eric Holder has issued a letter directing the US attorney's office not to seek the death penalty. Indicted on 286 charges, including conspiring with Al Qaeda, he was captured in Pakistan and detained at Guantánamo Bay. He was transferred in June 2009 to New York to stand trial.
Sources: Anti-Defamation League, FBI.gov, Findlaw.gov, 9-11commission.gov, Middle East Quarterly, Department of Justice, news and wire reports.


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City offices for the growing City of Lewiston were first established in a building called "Central Block" which was constructed in 1857 and located on the corner of Lisbon Street and Main Street. A fire at that location in 1870 (photo to the right)caused the offices to have to relocate, and prompted the construction of the first official City Hall at Pine and Park Streets.
Construction of the original Lewiston City Hall began in July 1871, and it was dedicated in December 1872. It was built at cost of $200,000 at time when bricks were selling for 1 cent each. The plans were drawn up by a Mr. Meacham of Boston. It was made of brick with granite trim in a Gothic style with a mansard roof. It had an "L" shaped wing, and was 165 feet on Park St., 180 feet on Pine St. and 40 feet on Lisbon St and was 200' at its highest point.
Lewiston City Hall
1872 - 1890
The original City Hall had 80 rooms with the police department and prison in the basement and the library and post office on the first floor among other rooms. The main meeting hall could hold 2,272 people.
On January 7, 1890 this original City Hall was hosting a Poultry Show and at app. 5:30 p.m. a fire started behind an elevator wall, and for the next 12 hours it burned out of control. Firefighters were stymied by the intensity of the blaze, as well as the buildings height and the instability of the tower as it burned.
The building was a total loss. Thousands of difficult to replace Library books were lost, but were insured in the amount of $6,000. The actual building itself was uninsured.
A new albeit somewhat smaller City Hall was soon constructed at a cost of $180,298.40 (including demolition of the remains of the original City Hall.
The corner-stone was laid October 1, 1890. The building was dedicated May 19, 1892, by the G. A. R.
The interior of large hall is 167 x 86 feet and 37 feet high. The floor had a seating capacity of 1800 and the galleries 672.
The building is 160 feet on Park street and 90 feet on Pine. The height from sidewalk to cornice, 60 feet. The height of spire 185 feet. The vane is 17 feet long.
The interior has undergone many renovations over time, and this building still presently serves as the Lewiston City Hall.
This present City Hall was added to the National Historic Register in 1976.


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"Resurrection Of The Daleks" (season 21, episodes 11-14. Originally aired Feb. 8-15, 1984)
On most TV dramas nowadays, the head writer and the executive producer are usually the same person—which makes a lot of sense, because that way there's one unifying vision of where the show is headed. It's been true of Doctor Who since the 2005 relaunch, with Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffatt in turn holding the reins, but that wasn't how it worked during the 1963-1989 era, which instead divided the job between a producer in overall charge of the series and a script editor who oversaw just the writing. The producer was the boss and guided the show on a broad scale, but script editors had day-to-day, hands-on control of the stories, arguably making them more important in creating the tone and personality of the series in any given period—and also more important than the actor playing the Doctor, who might have been the public face of the series but didn't actually tell the stories.
And so it's also often been true that when the script editor wrote a Doctor Who script himself, as opposed to reworking some other writer's earlier draft, that story captured the pure spirit of that period of the show better than the others of its season. It's certainly true of the current series, with both Davies and Moffatt handling the season finales and other crucial episodes themselves, and it was true in 1970s Doctor Who with shows like Robert Holmes' "The Deadly Assassin" and Douglas Adams' "City Of Death," among the best the series ever did.
And then there's "Resurrection Of The Daleks," another script-editor's script, which holds down the middle of Peter Davison's final season as the Fifth Doctor. To be sure, it's a pretty pure crystallization of what Eric Saward and his boss, John Nathan-Turner, were going for in season 21—the gritty and dark atmosphere, the attempt at complex plotting, the choice to forgo a heroic conception of the Doctor in favor of a fallible and even weak protagonist, and the wholehearted embrace of the show's long history as a living part of the series. But it's also a painfully clear example of how Saward and JNT consistently screwed up the potential of any of those elements to create great TV storytelling, and indeed often failed to demonstrate basic competence at anything beyond cheap spectacle. "Gritty and dark" too often meant merely that the characters were bitter and unpleasant, "complex plotting" that there were too many characters and subplots and no real idea of where any of them were going, a fallible hero often was merely a passive and kind of boring one, and embracing history meant merely rehashing iconic moments from older episodes without any particular understanding of how they worked or why they were so well remembered in the first place.
That's a harsh assessment, but I have a kinder opinion of "Resurrection Of The Daleks" than Saward himself does: He once called it "the worst Doctor Who story ever written." To my mind, it's not even the second-worst of its season, considering that it shared the year with "Warriors Of The Deep" and "The Twin Dilemma," two terrible stories that each did real damage to the viability of Doctor Who as an ongoing series. The flaws here are not so mortal, not that it makes it any easier to watch.
At its heart, "Resurrection Of The Daleks" is trying to recapture the success of Saward's action-packed and nostalgia-laden season 19 hit "Earthshock," with the Daleks taking over from the Cybermen as the old villains coming back for more. It's a direct sequel to the previous Dalek story, "Destiny Of The Daleks," and if it had concentrated on that it might have worked. The war between the Daleks and Movellans from the previous story is over, and shockingly, the Daleks have lost, thanks to a genetically engineered virus they have no defense against. So they go to find their brilliant but megalomaniacal creator, Davros, and rescue him from the space-station prison he was locked away in after the events of "Destiny." Once awakened, he agrees to find a cure, but secretly begins plotting to install himself as the new leader of the Daleks, even as the Daleks themselves distrust and dislike him, and secretly plan to discard him as soon as he's no longer useful. A Dalek civil war is brewing. So far, so good: Throw the Doctor into that volatile mix and task him with protecting the innocent people caught in the crossfire, and this could have been a hell of a story.
One thing I like about this part of "Resurrection" is that it tackles head-on the inherent conflict between the Daleks and their creator which "Destiny" had missed, returning the Daleks to relevance as a driving force of the narrative and characters in and of themselves, rather than mere robots who are happy to be extensions of Davros' will. Here, Saward gets them right—they're brash, aggressive, and irredeemably hostile, but also sneaky, conniving, and prepared to backstab their allies whenever it suits them. They may look like robots on the outside, but they're most certainly not just robots—and no Dalek appearance in the classic era of Doctor Who does a better job of showcasing that at the true core of a Dalek there is a twisted little horror piloting it, the tentacled and implacably violent heart of the Doctor's greatest enemies.
But there's too much other junk getting in the way. The Daleks seem to have three or four plots going on simultaneously, none of which are related to each other. Desperately trying to cure a deadly plague that threatens to wipe out your species would be ambitious enough for most people, but they're also trying to conquer the Earth by installing loyal clones in key positions in human society, and to turn the Doctor into a weapon against the Time Lords by creating a duplicate who will be programmed to kill the High Council on Gallifrey. And those are all good goals, really, and strong enough to carry a story on their own, but taken together all at once, none get enough screen time to be developed into anything compelling. That third scheme in particular seems like a wasted opportunity: It could have been a lot of fun to see Peter Davison playing a dual role as an evil Dalek-controlled assassin, but the idea is dropped almost immediately after it's presented.
And then there's the Daleks' time corridor between 1984 and the future. (Which is how the Doctor gets swept into the story: The TARDIS was caught in it at the end of the previous serial, "Frontios," which is why that scene starts so abruptly here.) What do they need this for? If their primary purpose is to rescue Davros, he's already in the future where they are. Instead, time travel seems to be just a checkbox ticked off on a list of things the Daleks had done in previous stories—the kind of needless continuity fetishism early-1980s Doctor Who relied on constantly. Daleks time-travel in "The Chase" and "Day Of The Daleks," so they do it here. They mind-control humans in "Dalek Invasion Of Earth," so they do it here. "Resurrection Of The Daleks" spends so much time stealing from past stories that it doesn't bother to create a coherent story of its own. Not that it's all about only ripping off old Dalek stories, either: Stien, the untrustworthy, stuttering cowardly traitor who works for the enemy but redeems himself at the cost of his own life, is a pale imitation of Fewsham in the Ice Warrior serial "The Seeds Of Death."
And even if there weren't already too many Dalek schemes in play, there's a frustrating amount of time wasted on totally extraneous subplots that go nowhere. Although a couple of people fall dead of some kind of wasting disease, implying that humans are also susceptible to the Dalek plague, nothing ever happens with that idea. The Doctor's companions Tegan and Turlough spend the majority of their time on their own, with no particular goals or plans that advance the story. On the contrary, a lot of scenes seem designed to do nothing but eat up screen time, like when Turlough decides to get off the prison station and return to 1984 via the time corridor on the Dalek ship, then gets partway there, changes his mind, and goes back. Tegan wastes an entire scene setting up the old cliched "put an object under the blankets to make it look like you're sleeping in your bed" routine, only to give up on it before her captors even come into the room. Guest star Rula Lenska (a fairly big star in Europe but most well known in America from her mid-1970s coffee commercials) has no interaction with the Doctor at all, and dies pointlessly in an agonizingly overstretched series of scenes in which she tries to get the station's self-destruct mechanism to work, and fails. Sure, that sets up Stien to finish the job later and redeem himself, but you could have taken Lesnka out of the story completely and lost nothing. And while Davros slowly building his own army of hypnotized humans and Daleks does constitute a plot advancement, it mires down in scene after scene where all he does is convert new soldiers—the numbers of his minions increase, but he never does anything with them. It feels almost as if Saward had no idea where he wanted the story to go or how to prod events in that direction even if he did. It's telling, I think, that Davros schemes to take over as ruler of the Daleks yet never has a scene with his chief rival, the black Supreme Dalek.
Davros' one scene with the Doctor highlights another huge flaw in Saward's approach in general, namely that he apparently saw his lead character as weak, ineffectual and somewhat contemptible just because he wasn't eager to kill people. The characters Saward seemed to favor instead were the ones like Lenska's unrelentingly bitchy and hostile prison-doctor, or the supposedly antiheroic Lytton, a mercenary and killer with no redeeming qualities who Saward loved enough to bring back the following year and pass off as a misunderstood hero despite never doing anything that wasn't for his own personal gain. Here, after agonizing over whether or not he should kill Davros and thus prevent any cure for the Dalek plague, the Doctor loses his nerve—for which Davros mocks him mercilessly, saying, "Action requires courage. Something you lack." The Doctor has no response—and then Davros locks him out of the room, essentially winning the argument. It's a sad attempt to recapitulate another famous older Doctor Who scene—the Doctor's moral waffling in "Genesis Of The Daleks" over whether he had the right to commit genocide against the Daleks if it would prevent their own future acts of war—that fails to recognize that the whole point of the earlier hesitation was the Doctor's essential decency, not weakness, because only psychopaths like Davros have no qualms about murdering people.
In the end, Saward himself provides the most succinct description of what's wrong with his era in the lines he writes for Tegan at the end of this story, when she tells the Doctor she's not coming back with him on board the TARDIS this time because she's sick of the constant death and violence: "It's stopped being fun, Doctor," she cries, and runs off in tears. The Doctor is chastened and humbled by this, and tells Turlough that "it seems I must mend my ways." It's hard not to see this as a self-critique of the series itself, but if it was, it was inadvertent. Doctor Who would only get grimmer, more violent, and less fun for the remainder of the time Saward was in charge of the scripts, and his view of the Doctor as a fundamentally flawed and ineffectual character only grew more entrenched with the debut of the arrogant and inept Sixth Doctor at the end of this season. That approach continued for the next two years, before the spectacular flameout of season 23's "Trial of a Time Lord" that wound up causing a behind-the-scene body count more devastating than anything Saward ever came up with on screen.
Stray observations
• To be fair to Saward, some of the problems here aren't script-related. Some of the acting is simply awful, especially Rodney Bewes as Stien, as bland as a roll of beige wallpaper. And director Matthew Robinson makes an odd decision to show Davros too early, in the background but clearly visible when the prison techicians are trying to shut off his life-support unit before the Daleks can rescue him, thus spoiling Saward's carefully set-up scripted revelation of who this mysterious unnamed prisoner everyone's been talking about for 30 minutes could possibly be.
• Lytton's Dalek helmet: Is it unbearably lame, or weirdly awesome? I can't decide.
• Which actor gives the worst "I've just been shot" performance? Is it Rodney Bewes, who grimaces in pain, then drops out of character so he can look behind him and find a wall to lean against, then goes back to grimacing in pain? Or is it Del Henney as Col. Archer, flailing like an electrocuted disco dancer?
• Upcoming schedule:
June 24: "The Ribos Operation"
July 8: "Revelation Of The Daleks"
July 22: "Black Orchid"
Aug. 5: "Remembrance Of The Daleks"
Aug. 19: "Ghost Light"
Sept. 2: "The Seeds Of Doom"
Sept. 16: "The Romans"


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When Michigan legislators debated the state's first proposed charter school law in 1993, critics charged that these new, relatively independent schools would be elitist, or even racist. "At risk" children, the critics said, would be left for the other public schools to handle. Advocates, on the other hand, argued that charter schools would be inclusive, and would provide a haven for students who were "falling through the cracks" in poorly performing public schools. A verdict on which view is closer to the truth is now beginning to take shape.
Under the law, any individual or organization can organize a charter school in Michigan but each school must ultimately be authorized by a local school board, an intermediate school district, a community college or a public university. The school then operates as an independent, nonprofit entity responsible to the body that authorized it. Freed of bureaucracy and the many strictures that regular public schools must endure, a charter school has considerable room for innovation but its admissions policies must be nondiscriminatory. If space cannot accommodate all students who wish to attend, students must be chosen by a random selection process.
A charter school is by definition a "school of choice" and automatically receives the state's "foundation grant" (approximately $5,500) for each pupil in attendance. Parents do not have to secure the approval of their home school district first to enroll a child in a charter school, wherever it may be located.
More than 10,000 students enrolled last fall at the 75 operational charter schools in Michigan. Forty of the schools are located in the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Lansing, Flint, Grand Rapids, and Saginaw, where the need for improvements and parental options has been great. Many of these schools have almost complete minority representation. Many schools have waiting lists and have had to use a lottery to select students from the huge response.
Central Michigan University has sponsored over 60 percent of the charter schools in the state. As of mid-1996, more than half-53.5 percent-of the students enrolled in those CMU-sponsored schools were African-American, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian students. Caucasians made up 46.5 percent of the student population. Though these numbers reflect the composition of all Michigan charter schools almost precisely, they are much different from those for the state's public schools as a whole, which are 78 percent white and 17 percent African-American. Early indications are that an unexpectedly large number of students with disabilities are enrolled as well.
These facts are in line with what's happening across the country. The Hudson Institute's Education Excellence Network found that nationwide 63 percent of students attending charter schools in 25 states and the District of Columbia are minority group members. Fifty-five percent of the students were considered poor, while 19 percent have limited English abilities and 19 percent have disabilities.
Every charter school in Michigan is a fascinating story of perseverance and innovation. Livingston Developmental Academy in Howell and Macomb Academy in Clinton Township have missions to assist special and at risk students. Two schools in the Upper Peninsula-Bahweting in Sault St. Marie and Nah Tah Wahsh in Wilson-offer a Native American culture in the classroom. Sierra Leone in Detroit and Sankofa Shule of Lansing offer an African-American emphasis. Walter French Academy in Lansing typifies many of the schools in its successful implementation of high standards that produce visibly courteous and studious pupils.
The biggest barriers in starting a charter school include a lack of start-up funds and difficulties in securing and financing physical facilities. But those barriers are being overcome by dedicated parents and educational entrepreneurs who believe strongly in their missions. The most frequently cited reasons for chartering a school are "better teaching and learning for all kids," "running a school according to certain principles and philosophy," and "exploring innovative ways of running a school."
One of the earliest advocates of the charter school idea was the Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The law is now doing precisely what the Center urged years ago: "It is vitally necessary to free up the supply side of education, both to enhance competition and to create new opportunities for children in their respective neighborhoods." Signs are abundant that the general success of Michigan's charter schools is already goading other schools to find ways to improve.
Only three years have passed since Michigan enacted its first charter school law. The citizens of the state should be pleased to know that the schools created to date are serving a growing student body and serving them well. The fears of opponents have been proven to be unfounded by the real-life results.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government. Through our research and education programs, we challenge government overreach and advocate for a free-market approach to public policy that frees people to realize their potential and dreams.
Please consider contributing to our work to advance a freer and more prosperous state.


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6 shampoo myths: revealed
There are a lot of tips when it comes to shampooing hair, but not all are born equal. In fact, a lot of them are, well, a bit rubbish. Here we debunk the most common shampoo myths so you can care for your hair without them getting in your way…
Daily washing damages hair.
'If you shampoo hair every day, you'll damage it.' Lots of people think that daily washing can damage and dry out your hair. Actually, as long as you use a caring product, like our Nourishing Oil Care Shampoo, how much you wash your hair is completely down to you and your hair needs. So just go with the flow
Rinse and repeat.
'Lather, rinse, repeat.' The instructions for shampooing are basically iconic… but not necessarily right. Repeating the shampooing step might be useful if you've been hitting the hairspray hard, but for daily shampooing it's not necessary
Shampoo stops working.
'Hair gets used to a shampoo.' If you think your shampoo has stopped working, it's probably more to do with the condition of your hair. Keep an eye out – it might have become dry or damaged, so make some adjustments depending on which shampoo is best for its new state. If it is damaged, for example, try our Intensive Repair Shampoo
Don't change shampoo with the seasons.
'You don't need to change your shampoo with the seasons.' Just like our skin, the condition of our hair can vary depending on the weather. In colder months, there's low humidity, which can leave your hair feeling dry and prone to static. So in winter, swap your usual product for a moisturising shampoo that'll help prevent dryness
Be rough.
'You really have to be rough to get the lather going.' Remember, your hair is delicate when it's wet, so be gentle. Massaging your shampoo in with soft, circular movements will give you a few minutes of bliss
Use cold water.
'Rinsing out shampoo with cold water makes hair shinier.' Simply not true. Shiny hair is more about how smooth (and therefore reflective) the hair's surface is, and cold water doesn't make it any smoother. In future, enlist a shampoo that adds shine instead of a freezing few seconds under the faucet