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i enjoyed that andrea
My mom is awesome. There, I've said it. My mom is really one of the best moms that anyone could ever hope for. She's always there to talk, she's fun to have around, and my whole family is really good about helping each other out. I'm stuck in the office today, on Mother's Day, but I was thinking about all of the things that Mom has done for me over the years as I plugged away at the computer today.
About two hours ago, I was working on some boring xml files, when a baby bird flew into my window. He didn't hit it very hard, and tried to change direction just beforer running into it, so it wasn't one of those awful collisions in which you just know that the bird is dead. It was still noisy enough to scare the bejesus out of me and make me spill hot coffee down my front and across my desk.
As I sponged off with some Microsoft-issue paper towels, I watched the baby bird sit on the ground and shake his head a few times, trying to get his bearings. He was really quite small and cute, and he looked utterly alone. It was probably one of his first flight attempts, and he clearly hadn't gotten the "Don't fly towards those big shiny surfaces" memo.
Only a few seconds later, his mother found him. She hopped over, gave him quick once-over, and nudged him a bit.
I know birds don't have particularly expressive faces, but you could almost read the relief in this little guy's body language. She took a couple of hops away from him and looked back. He hopped unsteadily after her.
A few seconds later, he opened his maw and started begging.
His mother began gathering seeds and bugs from the ground to drop into his demanding gullet. She seemed to have an air of patient parenting about her, although I know that her behavior is more instinct and less about tolerating lazy offspring. This "baby" is probably getting to the point where he can peck his own food off of the ground. He's learning to fly, afterall. All his feathers are grown in, and with the exception of the window incident, he looks as though he's about ready to start taking care of himself.
I started to wonder if maybe this baby bird, who I'm calling Larry, is possibly a great big teenager who's refusing to learn to live on his own. Maybe Larry technically CAN fly and get his own food, but he'd rather mom do all the work for him. Clearly, I have issues with anthropomorphism (I think I used the term correctly this time), because I was really beggining to ponder taking Larry's mom aside and saying, "You know what? I think Larry can handle this on his own. Also, did you noticed that Larry is getting a little pudgy? Just a thought."
And then I remembered a time that I like to call The Worst 6 Months of My Life.
For some reason, my sophomore year in college sucked. It's a long story involving a crazy roommate, an overly-sensitive Dorm Committee, a vindictive Campus Housing Office, and something that was referred to as "dorm dynamics". The long and short of it is that, in the spring of 1997, I sort of lost it. The drama of a bad living situation that refused to get better really wore me down.
I became depressed. I couldn't stop sleeping - I would literally wake up, eat breakfast, and go back to sleep for another 23 hours. I got very strange infections under my cuticles so that my fingertips were swollen and red and painful. Then I lost my appetite altogether. To top it all off, my grandfather was very ill and I was thousands of miles away. I remember calling my mom and not really being able to say anything at all.
Mom could tell that I was cracking. She flew me back to the West Coast to visit my grandfather. Then, she and I went on a road trip around the rainforests of Washington State. We circled the Olympic Peninsula, staying in small rustic lodges, going for long hikes wearing bright yellow rain slickers, and eating fresh seafood by roaring fireplaces. It was the best time I'd had in ages, a very therapeutic experience, and still a highlight of my life. My mom picked me up out of my slump, reminded me that there were people who cared deeply about me, and took care of me when I most desperately needed her help (it should be noted that my mom, who is a nurse by trade, was also the only person to correctly diagnose my case of appendicitis - the doctors had it pegged as all kinds of other things).
Even though I was technically old enough to take care of myself, it was good to have my mom there, being a mom. I was 19 years old, but I felt like a 9-year old. I was helpless at that point, emotionally drained and physically ailing. I don't know how things would have gone if my mom hadn't sensed the desperation and pain in my voice. I might have dropped out of college.
Basically, I had run into a big glass window. And I might have sat there on the ground with no idea how to go on if my mom hadn't hopped over and nudged me, taken me under her wing, and reminded me just how much she loved me.
I returned to college after a couple of weeks, feeling refreshed and ready to make the best out of a lousy situation.
Today, when I was watching Larry the Baby Bird hop around as his mother patiently fed him, I was a little concerned that he wasn't maturing fast enough. But now I realize that Larry's mom was just helping him up after he fell.
Chances are that she had seen him crash into the window, and fretted a bit over her teenager. Then she swooped down, gave him a little nudge, and fed him until he remembered how to feed himself.
About an later, Larry started pecking at the ground on his own. Maybe his mother's patience ran out, or maybe he just remembered how to take care of himself. But thank goodness his mom was there. I'm sure that Larry is, in his own way, really thankful that he has such an attentive and caring mom.
Just as I am thankful.
(Photo by Fabrizio Salvetti)
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I would love to hear more about the "dorm dynamics" in the future. =)
Since we're sharing our private memories of our mothers, here's one that comes to mind:
My mom hated television. When I was a kid, she would leave me in front of the Onkyo record player and make me listen to music instead. God I hated her for that. While kids at school were talking about the latest cartoons and puppet shows, I'm sitting there humming Gershwin and Mozart. That got me beat up a lot, by the way.
Thinking back, I think I owe a lot of my people skills to my mom. As a kid who didn't watch any TV, I was forced to relate to my classmates in a whole different way. We didn't have prefab conversations about what was on TV last night. Instead, I was forced to come up with new ideas to engage people, to find out what they are interested in, and to become a good listener capable of digging out nuggets of interest in the most boring of conversations.
Thanks. That took so many revisions before I finally got it to a readable length! The dorm dynamics were much elaborated upon until I realized just how boring they were. :)
Will - My boyfriend, although allowed to watch TV, was forced to play the piano (I played as a kid for something like a month before quitting). I think he sort of resented it, but the result is that now, I can hear any clip of classical music and he can identify it. As someone who is only coming to appreciate classical works, this is a blessing, because I can immediately find what I like and buy it on iTunes.


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subset: commoncrawl


text:
The "woman child" is having a real moment. She's an increasingly prominent and powerful breed of pop-culture female who seems to be aging backwards. She's a counterpart to the "man-child" stars of Judd Apatow movies; she would rather rally girlfriends to see The Hunger Games than the more peer-group-appropriate What to Expect When You're Expecting. The women-children love the new television shows with "girl" and their style gurus are celebrities who often dress younger than their years: Zooey Deschanel, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj. From sporting sparkly nail polish to religiously reading every bestselling young adult novel, these women seem to be reliving their teenage years with real gusto.
Social networking has made it easier for a "woman-child" to find company in her love of Hello Kitty and polka-dot dresses with bows, particularly if she's feeling lonely as a single girl. She doesn't have to go into a Tower Records (if they still existed) to buy a Taylor Swift album. She can just download it and blog about her favorite songs on HelloGiggles, a new popular website devoted to all things tween.
A "woman-child" is the type to prioritize her female friendships as if she were in a high school clique by posting pictures of her girls' birthday dinners or boozy vacations on Facebook while her peers post wedding and baby pictures with similar zeal. She truly believes that women are in it together and is all about helping her friends start businesses, meet guys and pick out a cute outfit for a big event. Competiveness among females in the workplace is perceived as totally 80s. "Women-children" are increasingly looking back to create a new common ground and it's a warm fuzzy ground.
The woman-child will likely get married later than the increasing national average. Advances in fertility treatments like egg freezing have also added to their confidence that they can reproduce older and potentially prolong their own girlhood.
Maybe "women-children" are afraid of becoming grown-ups in an increasingly scary world of layoffs, rich Republicans and insane weather patterns. Or maybe they have better survival skills. "Women-children" certainly seem to be enjoying themselves more than their peers who struggle with the motherhood/career conundrum. The trend has crept into my peer group, too. It's as if some of the women around me still want to be girls because girls just want to have fun. Girls certainly don't obsess over a feminist article in The Atlantic or the dearth of female directors in Hollywood.
Popular culture is full of examples to support my observation. Over the past two years, Mary Jane-style shoes by Prada, Marc Jacobs, Christian Louboutin and Dolce & Gabbana have been selling like crazy. New Girl star Zooey Deschanel is a national media superstar, constantly being photographed wearing bows and headbands. Her style has even been mocked in a Saturday Night Live sketch about "being quirky." Teenage blogging sensation Tavi Gevinson got her own online magazine, Rookie. It's supposed to be for teenagers but it's attracting an older demographic and contributors, include the defunct Jane magazine founder Jane Pratt.
The raunchy standup comic Sarah Silverman, 41 without any kids, almost always wears sneakers, jeans and hoodies. She wrote a bestselling book about being a bedwetter throughout high school.
Even serious women journalists are becoming "women-children." Kim France spent a decade editing the Condé Nast shopping magazine Lucky. Last year, at the age of 47, she left her job and started a blog, Girls of a Certain Age, geared at women in their 40s who, as her website claims, "don't mind calling themselves feminists," and "look at pictures of their moms at their age and somehow don't feel as grown up."
In a New York Times article, France said her target demo was "somebody who is obviously a grown-up but you've got some feelers still in your youth" and who never dropped their "youthful enthusiasms" like Led Zeppelin or leopard-print coats. She also joked that another project she wanted to work on was a Tumblr to be called I Preferred the 90s, "which I may still, because it sort of was the last time before things started being super adult. And I liked that time." In those days she was an editor at the teen magazine Sassy.
Girlie nail art is suddenly huge, even with my seriously career-focused friends, like an actress pal who requested anonymity to protect her privacy. She recently hosted a girls' dinner party at her home near Hollywood. At one point during the evening, she gave her guests a tour and showed off the extensive collection of bright, patterned nail stickers she keeps in her bathroom. The audience — a group of accomplished showbiz types — was rapt. I felt a little left out, having no interest in ever using those nail stickers.
Listening to my actress pal's guests bond about nail art, I wondered if I was missing out on the female bonding because I was raised in a dungeon or skipped sorority rush.
According to an April 2011 story by veteran New York Times fashion reporter Ruth La Ferla, I'm in the minority these days when it comes to nail polish. Her article said department store nail polish brands saw a 67 percent jump, which helped contribute to $710 million in total sales. "Muddied orange, toxic green and shrieking mauve, rare in the marketplace six months ago, are crowding the shelves of department and drugstores, snapped up by consumers intent on releasing their inner Nicki Minaj," wrote La Ferla. "Women's enthusiasm for brazen tints, three-dimensional effects and quirky patterns (think python, cobweb or cheetah spots) has propelled nail polish into the fastest-growing segment of the beauty trade, surpassing even lipstick as a recession-proof cosmetic enhancer." The fashion designer Thakoon also released a limited edition line of neon colors for the brand Nars, inspired by his spring 2012 line. It has been wildly popular.
Since celebrities are usually the engines of pop culture trends, I took a deeper look at the poster girls for the girlie craze. Minaj already had her own nail polish line with OPI when she became a bona fide rock star with her chart-topping album Pink Friday in the fall of 2010. In the same month, MAC cosmetics made her a spokeswoman and launched a Pink Friday lipstick, selling all 3,000 in stock in 15 minutes in addition to an impressive 27,000 over the next three weeks.
"She was fun and cute," the president of MAC cosmetics, John Demsey, told The Times in an article a few months later. "She's funny, loves makeup and has a mashup style between Vivienne Westwood and a Harajuku girl." Neither was ever a fashion icon for me. I'm more inspired by Talitha Getty lounging in a caftan on a Marrakesh rooftop. I consider brushing my hair making a major effort on the appearance front.
That same article, by Laura M. Holson, talked about how Minaj was the "It Girl" that season and had made a big splash sitting front row at the New York Fashion Week shows in wacky outfits, like the neon puffball tunic she showed up wearing to the relatively staid Carolina Herrera Spring 2012 show in September. "She could even claim Halloween last fall, judging from the scores of tutorials on YouTube for fans seeking her fluorescent look and ice-cream swirl tresses," wrote Holson.
This was seismic stuff. When I graduated from college in 1999 and started working as an assistant at the Observer, it was fashionable to try to emulate the look of the Park Avenue Princesses like Aerin Lauder, who almost always wore sophisticated, muted tones. Narciso Rodriguez, who designed Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's simple white slip of a wedding dress in 1999, was the darling of the fashion world. Gwyneth Paltrow had just single-handedly brought pink back into vogue by wearing an elegant Ralph Lauren gown when she won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. I was out of it then, too, but in a different way. I thought Banana Republic was a great place to shop.
These days, the fashion icons are dressing increasingly younger than their years. Minaj is hardly the only pop star getting in on the girlie action. Madonna, 53, is currently on tour dressed as a cheerleader and Katy Perry has emerged as the reigning Girlie Queen, complete with her own 3D biographical movie. In 2010, Perry's self esteem album Teenage Dream reached the Top 5 of the pop singles charts in at least 20 countries. Her breakout song is about kissing a "girl," and she often performs with blue hair while sucking on massive lollipops. The video for her song "Last Friday Night" features her dressed up as a dorky teenager the day after a massive party, and the video for "California Gurls" is set in Candy Land.
In a June 2011 cover story for Rolling Stone, my friend Vanessa Grigoriadis (not a girlie girl; she tends to sport a blazer, jeans and designer shoes when she's working) described Perry's look as "a little bit burlesque and a little bit Japanese teenager." At one point during their interview, Perry wore enormous fluffy slippers from Japan with cat faces on the front and said, "I love things that have a face on them but are also useful, like a toothpick holder." Perry also said she did cartwheels and splits in the office of her longtime manager when they first met. "How else was I going to get him to listen to me?" she asked.
What ever happened to a firm handshake and good eye contact?
I recently met Perry at a friend's pool party in Los Angeles. Even though she's a huge celebrity, I almost didn't recognize her. Her hair was black and she was wearing a white tank top, dangly purple earrings and a long blue skirt — until she stripped down to a black and white bikini to jump in the pool. (The perfectness of her body intimidated the majority of the other women at the party enough to keep their clothes on). When someone offered Perry an ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles while she was swimming, Perry demurred.
"It's ironic, but I don't like sweets," she said.
That's when I realized she was a marketing genius instead of a "woman-child." She's riding the trend right to the bank.
Sure, pop culture has always romanticized youth, but I'm increasingly seeing my own peers try to reclaim their girlhood for reasons that have nothing to do with appearing wrinkle-free. It goes way beyond nail art, too. Over the past year, I've been invited to a bunch of "game nights" organized by serious career women. Instead of being like the sophisticated dinner parties I presumed grown-ups had when I was in college, some combination of cupcake, candy and pizza are almost always served — the standard menu for a toddler birthday party. Connect Four, Boggle or Mafia get played with the sort of focus I once gave to them on rainy days at camp. Guys at these parties often complain that they can't actually talk to any women with all the games going on, which is ironic because I think these game nights are often thrown to try to match up singles.
Perhaps this reversion to girlhood, particularly by single women, has something to do with the rising average age of brides. In a December 2011 analysis, the Pew Research Center said only 51 percent of adults are married in the U.S., a record low. The average age for women to get married was 26, and for men, the average age was 29, both record highs.
I blame the recession in part for the obsession with overextended adolescence. In the past few years, recent college graduates have been moving back home with their parents in record numbers, heading right back into their childhood bedrooms. They can't get the jobs they want to kick off grown-up careers, so they waitress, nanny or tutor for longer than expected. Instead of moping around about not having any cash to go shopping for a real Cartier love bracelet, or someone to buy it for them, they can just slip on a stack of rubber bracelets from high school, still sitting in a drawer.
And it's not just young women who move back home. Women with big jobs are also more panicked about holding on to them in the current economic climate, prioritizing their careers over becoming wives and mothers. Wearing a dress with a pink bow is a lot more fun than worrying about a pink slip.
It certainly seems to me — writing this from the safe distance of imminent motherhood — that it's never been easier, more fun or more acceptable to remain locked in the warm, comfy embrace of childhood. It sure beats figuring out how to afford a nanny.
The above passage is an excerpt from Girls writer Deborah's Schoeneman's Kindle Single, "Woman-Child." (Singles are Amazon's series of longform essays and articles offering in-depth explorations of a variety of topics.) If you've got a Kindle, you should buy "Woman-Child" and give it a full read.
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10 Day Weather Forecast for Kansas City:
10 Day Weather Forecast for Paris, France:
On average -- 20 degree cooler temperatures for the next 10 days. I think YES!
Sounds heavenly to me!ReplyDelete
Look at that lovely weather you're going to have! So excited for you!! Cannot wait to hear all about it:)ReplyDelete
Be sure to take a lightweight jacket you can wear in the rain. You'll probably get some rain. Paris is really great in the rain. :-)ReplyDelete
Oh, my goodness, you are going to have so much fun! What a great trip to have, and it'll be great to get away from it all, I'm sure! I can't wait to see your fabulous pictures and read all your envy-inducing stories! Have fun!! :)ReplyDelete
I'm suffering through this heat dome shit right along with you. It was a hundred degrees today, and we did absolutely nothing but sit in the air conditioning. Hey, you go and ENJOY that cool weather!ReplyDelete
No fair! No fair! No fair!
But enjoy! :)
Have fun! Share some french pictures if you can! :PReplyDelete
Haha it's so strange seeing someone excited about the temperature being cooler on their holiday! I wonder if that sunny weather will extend north a bit...it's feeling a bit chilly here today!ReplyDelete


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Stoner rock legend John Garcia (Vista Chino / Kyuss ) has just announced another legendary musician to be working with him on Garcia's upcoming solo record: Guitarist Robby Krieger of THE DOORS!
"To have Robby Krieger from The Doors play on my first ever solo record was surreal. Not only was it surreal, but to be the first artist ever to record in his brand new studio Horse Latitudes in Los Angeles made it even more special. I am honored, and humbled by his professionalism and talent and will never forget that experience for the rest of my life……it truly made the song "Her Bullets Energy" better, not to mention the entire record." comments John Garcia.
The hotly anticipated solo album by John Garcia coming out at the end of July on Napalm Records!


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**With approved credit. Terms may vary. Monthly payments are only estimates derived from the vehicle price with a 72 month term, 9% interest and 20% down payment.


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LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas |
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) – Groups supporting the right to abortion filed suit on Tuesday challenging an Arkansas law that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, seeking to block one of the nation's most restrictive abortion measures before it takes effect in July.
The Republican-controlled Arkansas legislature overrode Democratic Governor Mike Beebe's veto of the controversial measure in March. At the time, it was the most restrictive state abortion law in the nation.
Since then North Dakota lawmakers passed a law banning abortion as early as six weeks.
The Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act would ban most abortions at about 12 weeks of pregnancy, once a fetal heartbeat can be detected by a standard ultrasound.
It includes exemptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother and major fetal conditions. Doctors who violate the law risk having their licenses revoked by the state Medical Board.
Eleven states including Arkansas already ban abortions at 20 weeks or later, according to Kate Bernyk, spokesman for The Center for Reproductive Rights.
Eight states enforce the bans: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana, Alabama, Nebraska and North Carolina. Similar measures in Arizona, Georgia and Idaho have been blocked by the courts.
The Arkansas lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the national American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU's Arkansas chapter, asked for a temporary injunction against the law. It was filed on behalf of two Arkansas doctors who perform abortions.
"It's a clear violation of U.S. Court rulings, dating back 40 years,†said Rita Sklar, director of the ACLU of Arkansas.
Aaron Sadler, spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, said the state had been expecting the lawsuit.
"It is our responsibility to defend state law, and we will do so in this litigation,†Sadler said.
Planned Parenthood, which is the nation's largest abortion provider and operates clinics in Arkansas, fought the measure.
"This restrictive ban on safe and legal abortion puts the health and safety of Arkansas women and their families at risk,†said Jill June, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. "A woman may need an abortion for many different reasons, and she should be trusted to make her own personal private medical decisions.â€
Jerry Cox, president of Family Council of Arkansas, which opposes abortion, said he thinks the courts will allow the Arkansas measure to stand.
"If the state of Arkansas ends up spending public funds to defend a law that protects human life, that's an excellent use of our public dollars.â€
(Reporting by Suzi Parker; Editing by Greg McCune and Leslie Gevirtz)


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We Have a New Site!The old LINGUIST List website will soon be retired. Please visit us at linguistlist.org!
Conferences Area Index
|The LINGUIST List offers a variety of resources for linguistic conferences. All are FREE to conference organizers.
|Announce your conference or find conferences relevant to your interests through our Calls & Conferences facility.
|Coordinate abstract submission and reviews through our Easy Abstracts (EasyAbs) facility.
|View or submit information on summer schools or training courses relevant to linguistics.
|Click below to learn more!
LINGUIST List provides the primary Calls and Conferences registry for linguistics, with an annual posting of approximately 2000 announcements per year. Each call and conference submitted to LINGUIST List is sent out to our listserv subscribers for increased visibility.
Easy Abs is an abstract submission and review facility designed to help conference organizers and reviewers process abstracts online.
- Accept abstracts online in .pdf, .txt, .doc, and .odt formats
- Assign abstracts to multiple reviewers
- Rate and comment on abstracts using a secure login (designated reviewers only)
- Notify submitters of acceptance/rejection
- All this and more at our EasyAbs area


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Enabling Compiz Fusion On A Fedora 13 GNOME Desktop (NVIDIA GeForce 8100)
Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme
Follow me on Twitter
This tutorial shows how you can enable Compiz Fusion on a Fedora 13 GNOME desktop (the system must have a 3D-capable graphics card - I'm using an NVIDIA GeForce 8100 here). With Compiz Fusion you can use beautiful 3D effects like wobbly windows or a desktop cube on your desktop. I will use the free nouveau driver in this tutorial instead of the proprietary NVIDIA driver. nouveau is an accelerated Open Source driver for NVIDIA cards that comes with experimental 3D support on Fedora 13 - on my test system 3D support was working without any problems.
This document comes without warranty of any kind! I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!
1 Preliminary Note
I have tried this on a desktop system with an NVIDIA GeForce 8100 graphics card. It should work with any other NVIDIA graphics card as well.
2 Installing The nouveau Graphic Card Driver
The nouveau driver is part of the official Fedora 13 repository.
Open a terminal window (under Applications > System Tools > Terminal)...
... and type in
to become root.
Now you can install the free nouveau NVIDIA driver as follows:
yum install mesa-dri-drivers-experimental xorg-x11-drv-nouveau
Afterwards you need to log out and back in for the changes to take effect:
3 Installing Compiz Fusion
To install Compiz Fusion, open a terminal again (Applications > System Tools > Terminal) and become root:
Then install Compiz Fusion as follows:
yum install emerald-themes compiz-fusion-extras emerald compiz-fusion compiz-manager compiz-fusion-extras-gnome libcompizconfig compiz-fusion-gnome ccsm
4 Enabling Compiz Fusion
To enable Compiz Fusion, go to System > Preferences > Desktop Effects:
Select Compiz:
The new settings are now being tested. If everything seems to work ok, click on Keep settings (otherwise you won't be able to use Compiz Fusion):
Afterwards, you can enable Windows Wobble when Moved and Workspaces on a Cube, if you like, and click on Close to leave the Desktop Effects window:
Compiz Fusion should now be working.
To configure Compiz Fusion, open the CompizConfig Settings Manager (System > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager):
In the CompizConfig Settings Manager you can define the behaviour of Compiz Fusion:


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The Back Page [1]
News From:
The online group Edge.org started the year by asking scholars, writers and other people with time on their hands to dream up some new universal truths. You know, like Murphy's Law. We like the one from John Maddox, the longtime editor of Nature magazine, which our editors have shortened to this: "Reviewers who are best placed to understand an author's work are ... prolific sources of minor criticism, especially the identification of typos."
Universal. We'd like to offer out own little universal law of commercial shipping. Every discount is paid for in another way, but never in a way the accounting department cares about.


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Flemish Sauteed Brussels Sprouts | Spruitjes
The Holy Grail of Brussels sprouts is a perfectly sauteed specimen. Done poorly, they are stinky, squishy, and muddy in color. Generally, I don't even bother – preferring instead to roast Brussels sprouts with a bit of olive oil and herbs. Straightforward. Foolproof. Delicious. Long ago I vowed never to disgrace my sprouts by cooking them any other way. But this time of year there's not much room in the oven for roasted veggies – hefty turkeys, geese, and hams elbow out all semblances of health food. Little choice remains for Brussels sprout fanatics but to relegate our baby cabbages to the stove top. Seeking perfection overseas I began my search for the perfect sauteed Brussels sprout in the logical place – Belgium, whose capital city is the Brussels sprout's namesake. While several countries enjoy Brussels sprouts (including Italy and the United Kingdom), I figured Belgium would have the largest assortment of recipes to choose from. I was wrong. For starters, of the five Flemish restaurants I looked up in Brussels, none of them had Brussels sprouts on …Read More


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Minimum Wage Battle May Wound Republicans
President Barack Obama's push for a $9-an-hour minimum wage in his State of the Union address this week has already been rejected by Speaker John A. Boehner, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for Democrats.
As the president and his fellow Democrats look for popular wedge issues in their effort to hold on to the Senate and their long-shot bid to retake the House in 2014, the debate could prove a useful cudgel regardless of whether the policy becomes law.
The White House is clearly eager for the fight; the administration put out extensive documentation on the minimum wage proposal and contends that it will not harm job creation and will boost the take-home pay for nearly 15 million people.
And Obama reiterated the push to increase the minimum wage Wednesday in a post-State of the Union speech in North Carolina.
"I believe we reward effort and determination with wages that allow working families to raise their kids and get ahead," he said. "And that's part of the reason why I said last night that it's time for an increase in the minimum wage, because if you work full time, you shouldn't be in poverty."
Unions and senior Democrats predictably cheered, but Republicans and their allies panned it.
Boehner tried to kill the idea in its crib Wednesday morning.
The Ohio Republican's message was simple — a higher minimum wage would mean fewer jobs, hurting many of the people it aims to help.
"When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it. At a time when the American people are still asking the question, 'Where are the jobs?' why would we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?" he asked.
Boehner continued, "Listen, I've got 11 brothers and sisters on every rung of the economic ladder. I know about this issue as much as anybody in this town. And what happens when you take away the first couple rungs on the economic ladder, you make it harder for people to get on the ladder."
Boehner said many people are earning minimum wage because they have no skills, and if their jobs go away, it'll be harder for them to gain skills.
But Democrats and the White House quickly jumped on the comments.
"If the GOP is opposed to raising the minimum wage, what is their plan to ensure people who work full time don't live in poverty?" Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted.
"The simple fact is that millions of hardworking American families are being squeezed while they watch Republicans protect tax breaks for CEOs to get even richer," said Emily Bittner, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "In this country, we believe that anyone who works hard shouldn't also have to struggle to pay their rent, their utilities or their grocery bills — but tea party House Republicans and Speaker Boehner seem to care more about millionaires than hardworking families."
More broadsides like that one are likely.
Both sides have think tank studies purporting to show minimum wage increases help or hurt the economy; Republican aides showed a graphic correlating the last minimum wage increase with a spike in teen unemployment, and conservative groups and think tanks put out statements describing the policy as a recipe for disaster for workers.
But the issue comes down to fundamentally different views of how government should intervene in the economy — with Obama enacting new health care mandates on businesses and now pushing higher wages, and the GOP arguing that growth will come when the government gets out of the way.
It's one thing to make that argument in a talk at a conservative think tank, but it's another to use it to win over public opinion. Republicans believe that they can do that this time around with stats at their back and say they aren't sweating the issue; Democrats are equally sure that they'll have public opinion firmly on their side.
The last time the parties tangled over the minimum wage, it ended up as a staple of Democratic messaging heading into the party's 2006 takeover of Congress.
The fight to increase the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage was used by Democrats to bash Republicans as beholden to the wealthy — especially after then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., tied an increase to an estate tax cut and refused to decouple the issues.
Democrats, in turn, came out against any increases in congressional pay until the minimum wage went up.
Legislation setting the current $7.25-an-hour wage ended up on a compromise war funding bill signed by President George W. Bush the following year, after Democrats had taken over both chambers.
The issue died down nationally for several years — even though Obama proposed a $9.50-an-hour rate in his 2008 campaign. However, the issue has become a staple of fights in state capitals.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie recently vetoed an effort to raise that state's minimum wage to $8.50 an hour and tie future increases to inflation, according to news reports. Christie offered instead a $1 increase to $8.25 over three years. New Jersey Democrats are now looking to put a minimum wage increase on the ballot for voters this fall.
The New Jersey newspaper The Record reported the ballot measure has Republicans worried about spillover effects on other races and the potential for the business community to divert its resources to fighting the referendum.


text:
Hang out Noe & Pedro Ruiz every week and discover 3D printing at 3pm ET each Thursday! Get your 3D news, projects, design tutorials and more each week on Google+ Hangouts On Air. We'll also share what's on our build platforms at the moment, sneak peeks of future projects, and throughout all of it, we'll keep on printing. #3DThursday doesn't end with our hangout – watch and share each week's original project video on YouTube and tutorial on the Adafruit Learning System, as well as our #3DThursday blog coverage all day long. Subscribe to the Adafruit channel on YouTube and follow us on Google+ to catch future broadcasts.
We're warming up our printers, come hang out with us this week!
This Weeks Show:
3DThursday Posts- http://www.adafruit.com/blog/
Project Video – Adafruit 3D Printed Metal Chess Set
Project Tutorials – learn.adafruit.com
3D Designs
Download STLs
Learn more: https://www.adafruit.com/3dhangouts
Stories covered this week:
photon laser engraver
PiBoy Classic
DIY tumbler
Parametric Data Cable Maker
Gieger Counter
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don't forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you've made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we'll feature it here!


text:
Noting the wide popularity of smartphones and the apps that run on them, carmakers are moving to make their vehicles more connected and smarter.
Some drivers already are able to access a few of the apps they enjoy on their smartphones, such as Pandora or Yelp. Soon, automakers plan to tap cars' wireless connections, sensors and built-in computers to allow drivers to connect to an even wider variety of apps and to offer drivers and their passengers information such as precise, real-time traffic and weather alerts, along with improved safety features.
"I call the car the ultimate mobile device," said Thilo Koslowski, vice president of the automotive practice at Gartner, a technology research firm. "We're just at the beginning of seeing how that device platform will become important and significant in its own right."
This year, about half of all cars sold in the United States will include support for apps, either running them directly on their entertainment consoles or by allowing consumers to use those consoles to interact with apps on their smartphones, according to Juniper Research. By 2017, Juniper, a wireless industry research firm, believes that nearly all cars sold will be "app connected" in one of these two ways.
Smartphone toting consumers are already interacting with apps in their cars, using them to get directions, listen to music or send text messages. Carmakers and industry analysts increasingly assume that these consumers want to be able to more easily interact with those apps or similar ones while driving. And there are growing safety concerns about distracted drivers focusing on their relatively tiny smartphone screens instead of on the road ahead.
"Car companies are realizing that people are extremely wedded to their smartphones. They don't want to put them down," said Tom Mutchler, senior automotive engineer at Consumer Reports. "If a car company can provide the information you want on your dashboard screen … they're going to make buyers happy."
Consumers and car reviewers are already judging cars in part on their entertainment console systems and app options. Ford, for example, saw its ratings from J.D. Power and Consumer Reports fall in recent years thanks to numerous problems with its Sync system, which offers navigation, entertainment and, in some case, access to apps.
In a statement, Ford said it has worked to address the problems through software updates, and despite them, some 74 percent of new Ford owners say they would recommend the Sync system to friends.
Sync is "helping us attract new customers and sell cars and trucks," the company said in the statement.
Mark Hull, a product manager at LinkedIn, said that the technology built into the entertainment console of his new Lexus RX 450h was a key consideration in his decision to purchase the vehicle. The sport-utility vehicle allows access to smartphone apps such as Pandora and Facebook; offers real-time sports, weather and traffic information, and includes a built-in navigation system.
"I looked at other cars, but I've always liked Lexus' technology better than other brands," said Hull, a San Jose, Calif., resident.
Connected and smart cars could offer automakers other benefits besides brand loyalty and vehicle sales. Built-in wireless connections could allow them to offer add-on services, such as real-time parking information. And automakers could eventually harvest data collected from connected cars to do things like keep track of mechanical problems or to sell to data collectors.
"Automakers see this opportunity for connected car technology to net them some benefits in many different ways," said Mark Boyadjis, a senior analyst in research firm IHS's automotive group. "Automakers can learn a lot about consumers and a lot about their vehicles."
But automakers are still trying to figure out the best way to make cars smarter and more connected. In some cases, they are building wireless connections into their cars and offering apps that run directly on the vehicles' entertainment consoles. In other cases, they rely on the wireless connections and apps built into drivers' smartphones.
Both approaches have their shortcomings. Because consumers replace cars far less frequently than phones, built-in systems can quickly become obsolete. Meanwhile, systems that rely on drivers' phones can't connect to an Internet radio station or emergency services if drivers forget to bring them or forget to charge them.
Some analysts say future cars will likely offer a hybrid of the two approaches. "Our view is you have to do both," said Greg Ross, director of business development at GM's global connected consumer group. "I think you have to accommodate (devices that are) brought in. And I think there are benefits to having a car always connected."
Cars are becoming more like your phone as automakers add wireless connectivity and the ability to run or interact with mobile applications.
-Growing numbers: This year, about 50 percent of cars sold in the United States will have entertainment consoles that can either run apps themselves or control smartphone apps, according to Juniper Research. By 2017, nearly all cars sold in the U.S. will be capable to run or interact with apps.
-App central: Automakers including Ford are working with developers, allowing them to create apps that can interact with cars' built-in controls and touch screens and eventually tap into their sensors. Manufacturers are also working to standardize the "hooks" that developers can use to interact with cars.
-Making connections: Carmakers are starting to build wireless data modems into their vehicles. Tesla's Model S has a built-in 3G radio, and General Motors has said that it will include an LTE radio in all of its consumer vehicles starting next year.
-Talking cars: Carmakers and the government are exploring systems that would allow cars to talk to each other, letting them share information on their current locations and traffic and weather conditions.
(c)2013 San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)
Distributed by MCT Information Services
Source Article from http://phys.org/news283784488.html


text:
Wikiquote:Transwiki/Anecdotes about Diogenes preserved by Cicero
(Redirected from Transwiki:Anecdotes about Diogenes preserved by Cicero)
Template:Header Template:Move to wikiquote
- "It was, indeed, a common saying of Diogenes the Cynic that Harpalus,[n 1] who had the reputation in that age of being a successful robber, was a standing witness against the gods, because he lived for so long in that state of good fortune." — Cicero, De Natura Deorum, iii. 34.[1]
- "Diogenes was rougher, though of the same opinion; but in his character of a Cynic he expressed himself in a somewhat harsher manner; he ordered himself to be thrown anywhere without being buried. And when his friends replied, "What! to the birds and beasts?" "By no means," saith he; "place my staff near me, that I may drive them away." "How can you do that," they answer, "for you will not perceive them?" "How am I then injured by being torn by those animals, if I have no sensation?"" — Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 43.[2]
- "But Diogenes took a greater liberty, like a Cynic, when Alexander asked him if he wanted anything: "Just at present," said he, "I wish that you would stand a little out of the line between me and the sun," for Alexander was hindering him from sunning himself. And, indeed, this very man used to maintain how much he surpassed the Persian king in his manner of life and fortune; for that he himself was in want of nothing, while the other never had enough; and that he had no inclination for those pleasures of which the other could never get enough to satisfy himself; and that the other could never obtain his." — Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 32.[3]
Footnotes Edit
- ↑ Often identified with the pirate Scirpalus (Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 74) who captured Diogenes and sold him as a slave. On the other hand, Alexander the Great had a dishonest treasurer called Harpalus, who fled to Athens in 324 BCE, bringing with him an enormous sum to bribe the citizens and obtain the protection of the city. Cf. Plutarch, The Life of Phocion, 21-2; Life of Demosthenes, 25
Citations Edit
References Edit
- Brooks, Francis (1896), De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), Methuen
- Yonge, Charles Duke (1877), Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, Harper


text: Samsung's launch on Thursday of the the ultra-thin, ultra-light, and premium-design 9 Series laptop puts it head-to-head now with Apple's MacBook Air - and so begins the war of the sleek laptops.Announcements on Thursday of Apple's revamp of the MacBook Pro and Intel's Thunderbolt universal connection technology may have garnered most of the media's attention, but if what you're looking for is the sleekest, most portable (and fully-capable) notebook now, Samsung has just taken the lead.Series 9 notebooks have launched in South Korea, Samsung's home country, and are expected to begin selling in the U.S. and other countries in March. Since the MacBook Air isn't due for a refresh for another several months, the Samsung Series 9 may be your most portable, thinnest and lightest laptop option right now.In many respects, the Samsung 9 Series is much like the MacBook Air, with a premium design and high-end price. The 9 Series has an MSRP of $1,599 compared to the $1,299 to $1,599 price (depending on storage capacity) of the MacBook Air - not a whole lot of difference.For that price, the Samsung 9 Series gets you a slightly thinner and lighter notebook (0.64 inches thick versus the MacBook Air's 0.68 inches; 2.89 pounds versus 2.9 pounds), more memory (4GB versus 2GB), and aircraft-grade Duralumin material (twice as strong as aluminum). It boots Windows in under 20 seconds, has 160-degree viewing angles, and otherwise seems tailored for premium laptop users who care about both form and function.Because the specs and pricing are so close, deciding between the 9 Series and the MacBook Air may be a matter of OS preference, or, essentially, that age-old question: are you a Mac or a PC?"Stylish," "slim," and "powerful" are words that seemingly were reserved for Apple notebooks and products in general. With the 9 Series launch, Samsung signals its determination to challenge Apple and other competitors for that high-end mobile market, with an ambitious plan to boost sales of global laptops by 80 percent this year, according to a recent Bloomberg report.In other words, the thin laptop war and the era of MacBook Air rivals has officially begun - good news for laptop users all around.


text: Anchors away in the Baju Mama Audrey 3/4 Sleeve Boatneck Nursing Top. Chic and sporty, this nursing top will put a spring in your step. Made in comfortable and stretchy modal fabric with flattering boat neck and 3/4 length sleeves. The side ruching hugs your curves, complimenting your changing body, ensuring this cute tee will be […]Read more


text:
The higher someone's Stack Overflow reputation, the more likely they are to have submitted a CV to Stack Overflow Careers:
This is not entirely surprising, of course: the more time someone has invested in Stack Overflow, the more likely they are to (a) know about Stack Overflow Careers, (b) be willing to invest $29, after all the hours they've already sunk, and (c) have the confidence that their CV is going to impress the kind of employers that are using the site.
Still, the participation rate in Stack Overflow Careers is pretty impressive, and it somewhat confirms the claim we're making to employers, which is that when you search for CVs on Stack Overflow, you are looking at some pretty gosh darn good programmers.
While I'm rattling on about statistics, here's a little bit of data about Stack Overflow traffic itself that you may not have seen.
We use Quantcast to measure our traffic. Currently, they're showing us as the 740th ranked site in the world (of all sites), with 6 million monthly unique visitors, 1.9 million from the US. And the growth is pretty steady, except for a couple of weeks at the end there which reflect the holiday season:
Comparing our traffic to our big competitor is difficult because they don't use Quantcast, so we have to rely on Alexa, which has a reputation for particularly terrible data, but here's what that looks like:
Are there any sites out there for programmers with more traffic than Stack Overflow? I haven't found any, using the available data… even msdn.microsoft.com has less, according to Quantcast, but I find that hard to believe.
In either case, having decided that Stack Overflow was the biggest programming site in the world, I thought, "hey, it should be easier for us to get ads." I asked our ad guy, Alex "DailyWTF" Papadimoulis, if Microsoft had bought any ads. They're about to launch Visual Studio 2010, which is probably going to have the biggest marketing campaign (in dollars) in the history of developer tools, and you'd think they'd want to spend something at the biggest programming site in the world. Here's what he wrote back:
"Microsoft is doing huge spends, but they're going through McCann for the VS2010 launch (IIRC). Agencies really don't like us. Now if we go to video units with fly-over… oh they'll start loving us!"
What he's referring to is the fact that we don't accept any kind of animated ads on Stack Overflow, because, well, they're evil, so we lose a lot of revenue from advertising agencies who are looking for the most aggressive possible ways to get in people's faces. Whatever. Don't care. We hate animated ads and I'm pretty sure our users do, too.


text:
FETTU Braille Exhibit
7 October 2009
As part of the "From Earth to the Universe" (FETTU) project, a NASA-funded tactile and Braille exhibit for the visually impaired community was launched in July 2009. FETTU panels for the visually impaired were produced featuring tactile displays as well as Braille versions of the caption material for a subset of the FETTU images with materials based on the book "Touch the Invisible Sky". The tactile exhibit is currently at the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired (Atlanta, Georgia), the Perkins School for the Blind (Boston, Massachusetts) and Columbia University (New York, New York) and will move on to additional locations this fall in Maryland, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico.
For a calendar of FETTU events, please visit http://www.fromearthtotheuniverse.org/table_events.php
For more information on the tactile display, visit http://www.fromearthtotheuniverse.org/tactile.php
Source: http://astronomy2009.us/blog/2009/10/06/fettu-braille-exhibit/
Search IYA2009 Updates
National Nodes: 148
Organisational Nodes: 40
Organisational Associates:33
National Websites: 111
Cornerstone Projects: 12
Special Task Groups: 11
Special Projects:16
Official Products:8
Media Partners:22


text:
Using a standard meeting template for all of your meetings can save you a lot of time and provide a much better documentation of your organization's decision-making.
Remember, you can create your own customized version of any PBworks template simply by tagging that page with the keyword "template". From then on, any user of your workspace will be able to use your page template.
10 AM, March 1, 2008, Main Conference Room


text:
Top plastic surgeon Elijah Creem is renowned for his skills in the operating room, and for his wild, no-expense-spared "industry parties," bringing in underage exotic dancers and models for nights of drugs, champagne, and uninhibited sex. That is, until Detective Alex Cross busts one of Creem's lavish soirees and ruins his fun. Now Creem is willing to do anything to avoid going to jail.
But Alex doesn't have time to dwell on that case. A beautiful woman has been found murdered in her car, a lock of her hair viciously ripped off. Then a second woman is found hanging from a sixth-floor window with a brutal scar slashed across her stomach. When a third mutilated body is discovered, rumors of three serial killers on the loose send Washington D.C. into an all-out frenzy.
Alex is under so much pressure to solve these three grim cases that he hasn't noticed that someone else investigating him-someone so obsessed and so twisted that they'll do anything-ANYTHING- to get the vengeance they require. Alex Cross, Run is James Patterson's most unrelenting story yet-a white-hot, sensational thrill ride with the most extreme and gripping characters Patterson has ever brought to life.
Amazon – Hardcover | Ebook | Audiobook
Apple – Audiobook | Ebook
Barnes & Noble – Hardcover | Ebook | Audiobook
Books-A-Million – Hardcover


text:
Articles by David Kidd
David G. Kidd, M. A. is a third year doctoral student at George Mason University in the Human Factors and Applied Cognition program. His main area of interest is studying the effects of driver distraction in high fidelity simulated environments and on-road testing. He is currently working a fellowship he received from Liberty Mutual, Inc. to study on-road driver distraction in an instrumented vehicle.
Listen Up: Do Voice Recognition Systems Help Drivers Focus on the Road
The availability of Sync and voice recognition technology in vehicles, although not perfect, enable drivers to interact with their mobile devices in a safer, less distracting manner. [Read More]


text:
Floating Platform Beds
- FROM $3,651.00 FROM $4,869.00Moduluxe Platform Bed with Panel Headboard
- FROM $4,167.00 FROM $5,557.00Moduluxe Platform Bed with Upholstered Headboard
- FROM $4,184.00 FROM $5,579.00Moduluxe Platform Bed with Clapboard Headboard
Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Floating Platform Beds
What people are saying about Haiku Designs...
Beautiful lamp
Just wanted to let you know how much we liked the shoji hanging lamp. In fact, we liked it so much we ordered an additional one. Thank you also for packing it so beautifully.
Sweet Dreams Comforter
I searched on various sites for silk blankets and found Haiku Designs. I ordered their "Sweet Dreams" Natural Silk Comforter in Queen size, made with Tussah silk, in Germany to "European Eco Standards." It has an organic cotton cover and the silk is made without synthetic dyes or chemicals. I liked that they had free shipping... the comforter arrived quickly, was packed well and super light. I was impressed by how thin and warm the blanket was and had a great night's sleep. It was the best sleep I've had in a long time and for an insomniac like me, that's like finding the holy grail.


text:
You can put additional content (e.g. documentation, resources, etc.) in your site. See Creating Content for more information on this. If you want to change the menus, breadcrumbs, links or logos on your pages you need to add and configure a site descriptor. If you like, you also can let Maven generate some reports for you, based on the contents of your POM.
- Generating a Site
- Deploying a Site
- Staging a Site
- Running a Site
- Rebuilding a Published (Released) Site
Generating a Site
To generate the project's site and reports, execute:
mvn site
By default, the resulting site will be in the
target/site/ directory.
Note: If you have a multi module project, then the links between the parent and child modules will not work when you use
mvn site or
mvn site:site. If you want to use those links, you should use
mvn site:stage instead. You can read more about that goal further down on this page in the section called 'Staging a Site'.
Note: For performance reasons, Maven compares the timestamps of generated files and corresponding source documents, and only regenerates documents that have changed since the last build. However, this only applies to documentation source documents (apt, xdoc,...). If you change anything in your
site.xml, any relevant sections in your pom, or any relevant properties or resource files, you should generate the site from scratch to make sure all references and links are correct.
Deploying a Site
To be able to deploy the site, you must first specify where the site will be deployed. This is set in the
<distributionManagement> element of the POM as shown below.
<project> ... <distributionManagement> <site> <id>www.yourcompany.com</id> <url>scp://www.yourcompany.com/www/docs/project/</url> </site> </distributionManagement> ... </project>
<id> element identifies the repository, so that you can attach credentials to it in your
settings.xml file using the
<servers> element as you would for any other repository.
<url> gives the location to deploy to. In the example above we copy to the host
www.mycompany.com using the path
/www/docs/project/ over the
scp protocol. You can read more about which protocols are supported on this page. If subprojects inherit the site URL from a parent POM, they will automatically append their
<artifactId> to form their effective deployment location.
Now you can execute the
site:deploy goal from your project directory.
Note: A site must be generated first before executing
mvn site:deploy
If you want to generate the site and deploy it in one go, you can utilize the
site-deploy phase of the site lifecycle. To do this, just execute:
mvn site-deploy
Staging a Site
Note: This goal is available in version 2.0-beta-5 or later of the Site Plugin.
To review/test the generated web site before an official deploy, you can stage the site in a specific directory. It will use the
<distributionManagement> element or the project hierarchy to link the project and its modules.
Just execute the
site:stage goal from your project
mvn site:stage
Note: Since version 2.3, a site must be generated first before executing
By default, the site will be staged in a directory
target/staging/. A different staging location can be chosen with the
stagingDirectory parameter as shown below:
mvn site:stage -DstagingDirectory=C:\fullsite
stagingDirectory cannot be dynamic, i.e.
To stage a site and to deploy it, just execute the
site:stage-deploy goal from your project with the required parameters. The
site:stage-deploy goal will use the value of
distributionManagement.site.id as default id to lookup the server section in your
settings.xml; unless this is not defined, then the String
stagingSite will be used as id. So if you need to add your username or password separately for stage-deploy in
settings.xml, you should use
<id>stagingSite</id> for that
<server> section. See the Guide to Deployment and Security Settings for more information on this.
By default, the site will be stage-deployed to
$distributionManagement.site.url/staging/. A different location can be chosen with the
stagingSiteURL parameter as shown below:
mvn site:stage-deploy -DstagingSiteURL=scp://www.mycompany.com/www/project/
Note: Since version 2.3, a site must be generated first before executing
Note: Due to a bug in Wagon, the password is not always picked up when you run the
site:stage-deploy goal. The bug has been fixed, but the version of Wagon that is used by the Site Plugin is determined by the version of Maven you use. The current 2.0.x releases of Maven use a version where this bug is still present.
Running a Site
The Site Plugin can also be used to start up the site in Jetty. To do this, execute:
mvn site:run
The server will, by default, be started on
http://localhost:8080/. See http://jetty.mortbay.org/ for more information about the Jetty server.
Note: Running a site only works for single-module sites. To preview a multi-module site one should use
Rebuilding a Published (Released) Site
In general, site documentation is published as part of a release. This means that changes to the documentation depend on a new release before being visible or you must accept that the documentation refers to a snapshot version instead of the latest release version. To solve that problem, you first of all need to configure your project for reproducibility by setting the
project.build.outputTimestamp model property. Then branch off from the SCM tag you want to modify, perform the changes, commit them and then rebuild, finally publish updated site. The underlying Maven Doxia Sitetools will automatically inject that property as
publishDate Velocity context property into the site and the skin won't render a newer (current) date, but use this one. Checkout the
publishDate IT for configuration details.


text:
Van ready to depart for SIGCOMM (Tone Mapped HDR photo)
Practicing the pitch in a hotel room.
Neda practicing.
David practicing.
Critical review.
Masayoshi practicing.
Brandon pitching.
Testing the demo setup in the hotel room.
Glen practicing.
Bob practicing.
Moving the equipment in position.
Ready to set up.
Setting up in the demo room.
Maybe a little too invovative...
The demo ready.
Quote from an attendee "I wanted to look at your demo, but I couldn't get through".
David explaining the demo.
Glen explaining the demo.
Nick at the demo.
The OpenFlow demo crew.
The NetFPGA demo crew.
The entire Stanford team.
We love him :-)
On the dinner cruise.
This could definitely be an album cover.
Guru and Glen for President...
After party with Anja's team.
The demo setup from behind.
Packing the van at 5am for the 830 mile trip back to Stanford.
The van in Portland.
The van in Shasta.
Adam, David, Brandon and Guido unpacking at Gates. We are done!


text:
Nidec Motor Corporation creates energy-efficient motors that power industry applications across the world. Our U.S. MOTORS® brand features a full line of high efficiency motors – large and small – which serve industrial, residential and commercial markets in industry applications ranging from water treatment, mining, oil and gas, and power generation to pool and spa motors, air conditioning condensers, rooftop cooling towers, and commercial refrigeration.
Nidec Motor Corporation is on the forefront of industry energy efficiency efforts. We have participated in energy efficiency policy development as it relates to electric motors. The U.S. MOTORS brand NEMA Premium® † line of high performance commercial and industrial motors is designed and built for direct replacement of older existing motors still in use. This line helps industry applications reduce energy consumption and comply with recent energy efficiency regulations.
NEMA Premium U.S. MOTORS brand motors feature upgraded open dripproof and totally enclosed motors that meet or exceed legislative requirements. From motors designed for commercial and residential heating, air conditioning, and pool and spa applications to motors supporting large industrial processes, our products exceed industry and government efficiency standards – making it possible for you to reduce your energy use and save money.


text:
You may not like Chinese philanthropist and environmentalist Chen Guangbiao, I like him. He has been selling canned fresh air to fight pollution.
Chen said, "Every day we are inhaling the exhaust fumes of cars, and now we have pollution-free air to sell – a benefit to everyone's health and longevity."
Canned fresh air is selling well in China. Chen believes a sale of more than a hundred million in the first year should not be a problem. He actually wanted to make a point that China's air was turning so bad that the idea of bottled fresh air is no longer a luxury.
Beijing's air pollution reached danger levels. Shanghai, Guangzhou and some other Chinese cities are also dangerously polluted.
China is the most polluted country in the world. Estimated 2011 CO2 Emissions in metric tonnes in:
1. China 8.7 billion
2. USA 5.42 billion
3. India 1.97 billion
4. Russia 1.83 billion
5. Japan 1.24 billion
6. Germany 810 million
7. South Korea 610 million
8. Canada 560 million
9. Indonesia 490 million
10. United Kingdom 470 million
Time has come to sell canned fresh air in other polluted countries.


text:
On the night in 1975 that Merle W. Unger Jr. killed Hagerstown police officer Donald Kline, a black cat named Midnight gave away his hiding spot in a local basement.
It was one of many attempts Unger would make to elude police and life in prison.
On other occasions, according to court documents, he commandeered a dump truck to break out of prison and hacked through a fence with wire cutters before leading police on a high-speed chase. An account recorded by his hometown historical society claims he even broke out of jail to play bingo — and then broke back in.
Unger's most productive attempt at freedom came through an appeal in Maryland's courts. It just didn't bring about his own freedom.
Unger, now 64, filed the appeal that has led to the release of 13 convicted murderers in Baltimore — and could affect 200 more cases statewide.
Unger, too, won the right to possible release, based on the court's ruling that jury instructions in his case, like those in many others, led to unfair trials.
But while others have gone free, Unger was retried and convicted again in June. He is being held at the North Branch Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison in Cumberland, while awaiting sentencing in October.
Washington County Deputy State's Attorney Joseph S. Michael, who led the prosecution effort in Unger's case, said the new conviction is critical because it shows that the high court's ruling is not an automatic path to freedom.
"We faced the challenges that 37 years bring to any murder trial: deceased and unavailable witnesses; destroyed or missing physical evidence; and the frailty of human memory and perception," Michael said in a statement. "It is our hope that we have given heart to other prosecutors who will have to travel the hard road of retrying tragic homicides long since closed."
About half the prisoners eligible for a new trial are in Baltimore, where prosecutors are preparing to release seven more this month. The inmates agreed to plead guilty to new charges in their cases in exchange for lesser sentences and supervised probation.
Prosecutors in Baltimore and elsewhere say they plan to fight the release of some inmates affected by the Court of Appeals decision.
In Washington County, prosecutors maintained an active file on Unger because of his prison escapes and multiple appeals. The infamous case is detailed in hundreds of pages of court documents and old newspaper clippings, including articles from The Baltimore Sun and The Herald Mail in Hagerstown.
Unger faced a string of arson, burglary and armed robbery charges in central Pennsylvania going back to 1967, when he was 17 years old. He had become something of a folk hero around his hometown of Shade Gap, Pa., near Chambersburg. One radio station printed T-shirts with "Merle Unger Fan Club" around an image of a bird with wings outspread. Area residents recalled "Run, Merle, Run" jerseys in circulation.
Ann Hull, director of the Franklin County Historical Society, works out of the former Chambersburg jail from which Unger once escaped.
Hull said he was so brazen that he was said to have sneaked out through a side door, hopped the wall and headed down the block to play bingo at a Catholic church. "Then he'd come back in after bingo was over," she said.
The escapade went undetected, according to the society's archives, until he ran into a deputy sheriff who happened to be playing the game.
"He was just a character when he was here," Hull said. "After he killed that policeman he became a felon and the attitude around here changed toward him."
The killing took place on Dec. 13, 1975, after Unger had escaped a Pennsylvania prison. Court documents show that he wore a ski mask and a dark jacket when he entered Kim's Korner store about 9 p.m. Three women were inside, along with Kline, who was off-duty. Unger pointed a gun at the store owner and demanded that he empty the cash register and his pockets.
Kline waited until Unger was leaving, then shouted, "Halt, police officer!" court records show.
Kline followed Unger into the street and the two men fought. Witnesses said they heard gunshots, and Kline staggered out of the alley and dropped his gun. Unger ran away.
According to The Herald-Mail, Unger holed up in the basement of a nearby home. The residents said their cat "was acting funny for quite a while, running back and forth in the room and jumping up in the kitchen window to look out."
They heard noises, too, and alerted police, who found blood outside the cellar and Unger inside. He was unconscious from a gunshot wound, court documents say, and had nearly $2,000 in cash, checks and money orders.
Before his trial, he and another prisoner escaped by cutting a hole in their cell. Unger took off for Orlando, Fla., where he was arrested for stealing two loaded pistols from the Trailways Lounge and extradited.
Unger was found guilty in November 1976 of first-degree murder.
In 1981, Unger escaped again. He and two other inmates used a makeshift knife to overpower a maintenance worker at the Patuxent Institution. The Sun reported that they stole the keys to a dump truck, apparently were let out by a guard who mistook them for staff, and drove away.
Unger fled to Clearwater, Fla., where he was picked up again for assault and armed burglary and sentenced to 30 years. He was imprisoned in Florida in 1990 when he escaped again. He was caught eight days later in Strasburg, Va.
Unger eventually returned to a Maryland prison to pursue a series of appeals. He left behind a wife, Vicki, whom he had married in 1988 after she paid $5 for his address through a prisoners correspondence club, his attorney told The Sun in 1990. They had two children together.
Neither Vicki Unger nor their children could be reached for comment.
In 2007, a Washington County judge heard his appeal. A circuit judge granted a new trial the next year, but prosecutors challenged that decision. It took another five years for the state's top court to issue its ruling.
Prisoners released in other cases affected by the ruling had less chaotic records than Unger's, a factor that Baltimore prosecutors say they weigh heavily when deciding who they might let go.
For example, Jerome Washington, convicted of first-degree murder in 1976 and incarcerated since 1977, had not broken prison rules since 1984, according to documents prepared ahead of his release. Washington was on work release in 1993 when a change in state policy called inmates with life sentences back to prison.
When Unger is sentenced again in October, dozens of retired and active Hagerstown officers are expected to line the courtroom in a show of support for Kline. The state's attorney's office will once again seek a life sentence.
"This case has been incredibly important to a lot of people in Hagerstown," said Michael, the prosecutor. "I never want to lose sight of the tragic loss of Officer Kline's life in the line of duty — and the many, many victims and survivors of tragedy that this could affect."
Baltimore Sun research librarian Paul M. McCardell contributed to this article.


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Ali Ghodsi is one of the 10 coolest data science and machine learning CEOs
CS Adjunct Prof. Ali Ghodsi is on Solutions Review's list of "The 10 Coolest Data Science and Machine Learning CEOs." Ghodsi is the CEO and co-founder of Databricks, and responsible for the growth and international expansion of the company. He previously served as the VP of Engineering and Product Management before taking the role of CEO in January 2016. Ghodsi is on the board of the RiseLab and was one of the creators of the open source project Apache Spark.


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CBS said Friday it is investigating personal misconduct claims after the company's chief executive, Les Moonves, was the subject of a New Yorker story detailing sexual misconduct allegations.
The media company said it takes all allegations of personal misconduct seriously. It said the independent directors are "investigating claims that violate the company's clear policies in that regard."
CBS Corp.'s stock fell 6 percent — its worst one-day loss in nearly seven years — as the reports of the misconduct allegations began to circulate around noon Friday, triggering investor concerns Moonves might be forced to step down. The CBS chief has been a towering figure in television for decades, credited with turning around a network that had been mired for years at the bottom ratings.
The company did not mention Moonves by name but said it issued the statement in response to the New Yorker article, which was published on the magazine's website late Friday. It was written by Ronan Farrow, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning story for the same magazine uncovering many of the allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein
The article says six women who had professional dealings with Moonves say he sexually harassed them between the 1980s and late 2000s. Four of the women described forcible touching or kissing during business meetings, it says, while two said that Moonves physically intimidated them or threatened to derail their careers.
Moonves acknowledged in a statement that there were times decades ago when he may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. But he says, "Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely."
He said that he never misused his position to harm or hinder anyone's career.
The New Yorker article also said a culture of misconduct extended from Moonves to other parts of the corporation, including CBS News. It said men in that division who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted, even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints.
CBS said that once the investigation by independent members of its board is completed, the full corporate board will review the findings and "take appropriate action."
It took issue in a statement, however, with the New Yorker article for not accurately representing "a larger organization that does its best to treat its tens of thousands of employees with dignity and respect."
Mooves is the latest media giant to become embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations since the downfall of Weinstein in October triggered the #metoo social media movement.
In November, CBS fired veteran news host Charlie Rose over allegations he had groped women, walked naked in front of them and made lewd phone calls. Rose has apologized for his behavior but questioned the accuracy of some of the claims.
In December, Moonves joined a meeting of chief executives of nearly every major Hollywood studio, TV network and record label to establish a commission to comb sexual misconduct in the industry. They agreed to fund the Commission On Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, and chose Anita Hill to chair it.
The allegations come as CBS is in the middle of a legal battle with its controlling shareholder, National Amusements, which has been pushing for a merger with Viacom, also controlled by National Amusements.
CBS and Viacom were once part of the same company, known as Viacom, but were split in 2005 into separate entities, both controlled by Sumner Redstone. His daughter, Shari Redstone, has been pushing to reunite the companies under one corporate umbrella. Moonves has been opposed to the deal.
CBS said its current "management team has the full support of the independent board members" in the ongoing litigation involving National Amusement. The legal case is being played out in Delaware court.
National Amusement jumped into the controversy with a statement denying what it called "the malicious insinuation that Ms. Redstone is somehow behind the allegations of inappropriate personal behavior by Mr. Moonves or today's reports."
"Ms. Redstone hopes that the investigation of these allegations is thorough, open and transparent," the company said.
Moonves, one of the most powerful executives in media, has led CBS for two decades, including the 12 years since it split from Viacom.
He revived the company, which operates the CBS network, Showtime and other entities, with hit shows like "NCIS" and "The Big Bang Theory."
Moonves also introduced separate streaming CBS and Showtime services as more people "cut the cord" and watch TV online. The network consistently tops in prime-time ratings.
While CBS's stock took a hit, Viacom's rose sharply as investors anticipated that a combination of CBS and Viacom could become more likely should Moonves be forced out. Viacom closed up 4.6 percent.
Moonves was the No. 2 highest paid CEO of a major public company in 2017, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm. He made $68.4 million last year, behind only chip maker Broadcom's CEO.
Before joining CBS, he was president of Warner Bros. Television, where he oversaw the development of hit TV shows "Friends" and "ER."
Moonves, who is married to TV personality and CBS producer Julie Chen, was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2013. He also won the Milestone Award from the Producers Guild of America that year.


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#ChadGetsTheAxe Coming Out September 1st
June Title for Arrow Streaming
Crashin' in Roswell NM: Road Trippin' with Jennifer Weigel
American Horror Story Season 12, Delicate
The Last Drive-In Season 5 Premiering April 21st Exclusively on Shudder!
Shudder March 2023 Release Schedule
The Last Drive-In: Joe Bob's Vicious Vegas Valentine Special Live Watch Party February 10th!
Shutter Island (2010): Review
Wheel of Time, Daughter of The Night
Elevator Game, a Film Review
My Best Friend's Exorcism, a Film Review
American Horror Story Delicate, Rockabye
Into the Odd Remastered: an Ethereal Steampunk TTRPG
Disco Elysium – A Reflection
Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gen Con Review
Horrified Again! American Monsters Edition Review
Jedi Survivor: Cal Kestis Diary – Episode 1 Yacht Hunting
Old Gods of Appalachia Season Two
Haunted Places Podcast
Nightlight Podcast
Unwell, a Midwestern Gothic Mystery, Season four
Unwell, a Midwestern Gothic Mystery, Season three
The Replacement (2010), a Book Review
The Roots Grow Into The Earth
Strange Eons Review: Cornfields and Eldritch Gods
Walking Practice – A Book Review
Fairy Tales From the Underworld Part I: A Bedtime Story (Beauty Meets the Beast) by L.C. Moon – A Dark Romance Review
Creepy Comics Collages by Jennifer Weigel, Part 5
Creepy Comics Collages by Jennifer Weigel, Part 4
Creepy Comics Collages by Jennifer Weigel, Part 3
Creepy Comics Collages by Jennifer Weigel, Part 2
Creepy Comics Collages by Jennifer Weigel, Part 1
Into the Deep Woods 1, an October AI journey with Jennifer Weigel
Nightmarish Nature: Cannibalism
Revisitations: The Devil Went Down to Georgia
Cravings Part 2, story by Jennifer Weigel
Cravings, a Pregnancy Horror Story by Jennifer Weigel
Nightmarish Nature: Worrisome Wasps
Nightmarish Nature: Freaky Fungus
Nightmarish Nature 2: Perilous Parenting
LTD Dream Subscription Service now available
LTD: Hookman Insurance Couple Encounters Ghost
LTD: Revisiting Broken Doll Head, Interview 2
LTD: Broken Doll Valentine's Day Uprising
LTD Tripped Out Motivational Posters
An interview with creator of Kaidankai, Linda Gould
A Haunted MTL exclusive interview with Andy Thierfelder, creator of Tapes From Beyond
Interview: 'Sink' Writer John Lees
Interview: Cross-Stitch Artist Miriam Owens
Interview: Poe Performer Campbell Harmon
Buffy S1E5: After slaying a vampire, Buffy and Giles find a ring that they link with a prophecy of the Anointed One, who can free the...


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Today at 5pm PT (8pm PT), I'll be joining Ed Bott, Mary Jo Foley, Kip Kniskern, Marques Lyons, Ryan and Travis Lowdermilk, Rafael Rivera, Paul Thurrott, Tom Warren, Long Zheng, and many others to celebrate Microsoft's first BUILD Conference and the launch of the Windows 8 Developer Preview. If you can't join us at Bar Louie Tavern & Grill in Anaheim, CA for the party, please join us virtually, courtesy of the Windows Phone Dev Podcast. See you there!
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235 North Northwest Highway
Palatine, IL 60067
Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons
202 S Greenleaf St # A
Gurnee, IL, 60031-3399
Smiles of Gurnee Dental Cares
6695 Grand Ave
Gurnee, IL, 60031
Ullmann, Chris D.D.S.
6121 Washington St # 202
Gurnee, IL, 60031-5306
Kaplan, Gary C D.D.S.
34491 N Old Walnut Cir # F
Gurnee, IL, 60031-4270
Maybe you've thought about cosmetic dentistry, but felt it was a little vain to consider it. Or the appearance of your teeth never bothered you much, because your dental health is pretty good.
Well, like it or not, "cosmetic" is more than skin deep. Most people form biases about others based on appearance. And, one of the critical factors in such judgments, is the teeth.
Because new cosmetic dental techniques give your dentist the means to fine-tune virtually anyone's teeth, most people need not go without the advantage of a white bright smile. Consider the options.
Teeth bleaching is a simple, inexpensive way to lighten stains and discoloration on certain teeth, front teeth are the more obvious candidates, without altering the natural structure of enamel. If you've had a root canal procedure, there may be some darkening. Some people suffer staining from medications, like tetracycline. And teeth naturally change as we age, or if we indulge in too much coffee, tea or smoking.
In any case, whiter teeth can be achieved with external or internal bleaching. The most common treatment involves cleaning the teeth thoroughly, applying a bleaching solution, and then curing it with a gentle heat source. The procedure takes just 30 to 45 minutes. After three to five sessions, you, and everyone else, will really notice the difference.
Cosmetic corrections for gaps, misshapen or chipped teeth are achieved with tooth bonding. New dental bonding materials can work wonders using a little art, and lots of science. Your cosmetic dentist can literally sculpt tooth form, or replace a gold crown with natural-colored restorations. The result is stronger than ever and makes a dramatic impact on your appearance.
Dental veneers are an option too, for teeth that need lengthening or reshaping. Veneers cover the front of a tooth entirely and work especially well where there is less stress on the teeth involved. Veneers are a durable, beautiful solution to dental imperfections.
Maybe the reason we find an eight-year-old's gapped teeth smile so adorable is...we know it's not permanent. Soon the grown-up teeth will be poking through, clean and new. All part of the mouth's natural evolution.
It's not often that nature gives us a second chance, but when it comes to teeth it does just that. For many children it can be a wake-up call to start taking dental hygiene seriously. As the old saying goes, "God gives you two sets of teeth, but you have to buy the third."
It may be time though to change that outdated piece of wisdom to: "Teeth are like friends...ignore them and their needs and they'll go away. Be kind to them and they'll stick with you forever."
That's why regular hygiene appointments and a gum disease examination are so important. Barring injury, there's simply no reason why most of us should be missing teeth as we grow older. Call it a "10,000 smile checkup," insuring all your parts are in good working order.
Once your cosmetic dentist knows that your teeth are healthy and the gums are sound, he or she can do a little restorative dentistry to evolve your smile to an even higher level. Things like dental bonding to close the gaps…or invisible dental crowns or veneers for front teeth…even teeth bleaching for a truly dazzling and beautiful smile.
Give your cosmetic dentistry professional a call. He or she can help you see to it that your mouth does the job it was intended to for a lifetime. And look drop-dead sensational at the same time!


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This fun little post talks about how the economics of pinball changed as it became more and then less popular.
In 1986, Williams High Speed changed the economics of pinball forever. Pinball developers began to see how they could take advantage of programmable software to monitor, incentivize, and ultimately exploit the players. They had two instruments at their disposal: the score required for a free game, and the match probability. All pinball machines offer a replay to a player who beats some specified score. Pre-1986, the replay score was hard wired into the game unless the operator manually re-programmed the software. High Speed changed all that. It was pre-loaded with an algorithm that adjusted the replay score according to the distribution of scores on the specified machine over a specific time interval.


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©2010 by Alice Walker
I do not believe in war at all; although I am as capable of anger as anyone. To me war is something to be outgrown, recognized as immature, wasteful and so destructive to life that human beings should shun it as they shun swine flu, or HIV/AIDS or as they once shunned Bubonic Plague. If our species survives, and it may well not, it will be because we learn not to fight to kill each other, though some of us may continue to fight as an expression of our not yet controllable nature.
It is painful to feel the war machine continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan and in all the other parts of the globe not covered by our media. It isn't that I thought one man, a new president, could stop it overnight or in one year—it has been acceptable behavior for millennia—but it was my hope that there would be, out of Washington, an entirely new and different approach to what is essentially the failure of human beings to listen to each other; to teach and guide and share with one another. To see the best, even in "the enemy." And where no "best" is discernable, to understand how what might have been good has become horribly twisted or destroyed. To think of small children who have no alternative, often, to growing up imprisoned in poisonous ideologies; there they stand in our missile sights, "terrorists" who never really had a chance.
Is there no way to reach our enemies other than by killing them? Do we "win" in this way? I cannot believe it. Rather I believe killing other human beings is not about winning, but about failure. Winning would be to begin to train our military to do what it also does wonderfully well: look after the inhabitants of the planet. It has been such a relief to see our soldiers stepping in to help earthquake victims in Haiti and elsewhere; to see their self-assurance and can-do spirit as they tackle the problems of crumbled buildings, trapped children, pain-crazed persons who, having lost homes and possessions, have nowhere to go. This is when I have felt most proud of our military. And it has been easy to see that this is where our soldiers have felt most proud of themselves.
There is much anger at our president from the community of pacifists and anti-war activists to which I belong. There is so much disappointment and rage. I share some of this; what I mostly feel, however, is not anger or rage, but grief. Eisenhower was right to warn us about the burgeoning power of the Military Industrial Complex, as he termed it. That it was quite capable of taking over the country, and the president with it. That we are in the hands of a war machine that doesn't really care who is elected to run the country; its aim is plunder, destruction, conquest and exploitation. Taking whatever its creators want by force. All in the name of "defense." Looking in our own families, we can see how we are connected to this machine: the jobs, the pensions, the chance to learn a trade or go to school. Many people fear that if the military stopped its machinations around the globe, millions of people would have no place, and no work.
And that is why what we must insist on, I believe, is transformation of the military. Though what use can be found for our obsolete missiles and weapons of mass destruction I cannot, myself, imagine. But my faith is that someone can imagine this; that we can make something useful out of things like old fighter planes and bomb casings. The way the earth is shaking so many of us out of bed in the middle of the night with no shelter left to our names, perhaps we should put our architects and builders to the task of designing and creating housing out of them. Humans are very clever, as we know. No more clever humans exist—along with some who are abysmally not clever—than in the United States.
In these times, it is easy to see why war is obsolete. Nature has taken it on herself to show us how destructive unanticipated and uncontrollable violence is. And that nothing humans can ever do on the battlefield is a match for her power. After an earthquake, especially after earthquakes like the recent ones in Haiti and Chile, how can humanity permit our governments to cause similar devastation, with our money, deliberately?
Recently, I was in Cairo, attempting to cross into Gaza with the courageous women of CODE PINK. This organization had worked for nearly a year to collect about $2 million worth of aid for the people of Gaza. They had also invited 1,400 people from around the world to join in a freedom march inside Gaza, in protest of the imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians, in Gaza, by the Israeli government. The Egyptian government, apparently under the control of Israel and the United States, refused to permit us entry. Perhaps its leader feared losing the large amount of aid the United States gives Egypt every year.
At the end of some of the more virulent blasts against Obama, there is the threat of punishment: Wait until the next election! Can we learn to disagree with someone without instantly attempting to punish them? What is this but a stirring up of one's inner war? War without a military, but violence just the same. And whom do we have in mind as a replacement? With our luck, we will find ourselves stuck with another Bush—or worse—though our dream might be Dennis Kucinich, whose belief that the United States should have a Department of Peace is one with which most of us resonate. Anger makes us lose our ability to think clearly, to strategize, to plan. It is useless at this point in humanity's distress. We are headed over a cliff of our own making; blaming anyone without at the same time blaming ourselves is a waste of the time we could at least spend dancing.
Can we learn to care about our leaders in ways that support their ability to move forward as we would wish them to? Is our only mode of behavior instant rage and blame if someone cannot deconstruct in one year what has taken 500 years to build? Can we sit with ourselves and the truth of our crisis as humans long enough to see where we ourselves must lead and change?
Before traveling to Cairo, I spent a few days in Dharamsala calling on the spiritual and political leaders of Tibet in Exile. These are people who obviously know a thing or two about life, about conflict, about inner discipline and care of the personal and the planetary soul. At a dinner with the political head of Tibet in Exile, Professor Samdong Rinpoche, along with six cabinet ministers, we found ourselves talking about what it feels like to be up against opponents who might be a billion times larger than you. Which is pretty much the case of China vs. Tibet. Talking together, we soon realized that everyone in the room was working hard for the same things: feeding and clothing and teaching and healing our people and our communities. Finally, in the face of all attempts to stop us from doing what we feel we must, someone raised a glass to toast "our friends the enemy." In Buddhist thought, one's enemy is likely to teach what we otherwise would not learn: Our enemies are so helpful in strengthening us in ways we might never have imagined, and are so likely to be a primary reason for our growth, that it is wise to recognize him or her as a friend. This is a teaching I have found profoundly useful in my own life; so much so I rarely am capable of seeing anyone as an enemy, but rather as someone who is heartbreakingly confused. I first heard "my friends the enemy" used by the Dalai Lama when he was speaking about the Chinese government. He shares this concept with Burmese spiritual warrior Aung San Suu Kyi who speaks of the possibility of becoming friends, literally, with the dictators who have held her imprisoned for years.