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Since I came back to Juneau on Wednesday, my life has fallen quickly back into its old routine ... minus, quite notably, the biking. I'm not sure when I'll be able to ride, or even really walk, again. But despite a building reserve of pent-up energy, I'm not in any mood to rush it. I'm willing to set aside the time it takes to heal. Meanwhile, though, the late winter is passing me by.
Geoff has not been able to shake his cold, but has been feeling similarly pent up by biological forces beyond his control. So today he announced he was going to the Mendenhall Campground to ski "for an hour, tops." And as I looked out at the seductive sunshine hovering over 10-degree temperatures with fierce winds, I asked if I could go with him.
I wrapped my useless foot up in three socks and a down bootie and planned to crutch over to a nice sunny spot and wait for Geoff until my left foot (the one with the feeling, and therefore the indicator) became cold. But as I approached the shoreline of the frozen lake, the relief of hard effort and a well-packed trail beckoned me forward.
I tested the trail to make sure I wasn't leaving deep postholes, but the claws on the crutches didn't dig in any deeper than my footprint. I so badly wanted to go for a little walk, even if only a mile or so, that I weighed the ridiculousness of hobbling down a snowy trail on crutches with the likelihood that a skier might stop and scold me. It was still worth it. I tentatively ventured forward while planning my defense: "Don't the injured deserve sunshine, too?"
And to my relief, everyone I encountered treated me like a normal person. "That was me last winter," one woman told me as she skated by. "I thought I was going to go bonkers." Juneau skiers are the best.
I returned to the car to meet Geoff an hour later, my biceps and abdomen burning and my face dripping sweat. Both feet were nice and warm. It felt great to get out.
I know I've mentioned this before, but I wanted to take a minute to formally thank everyone who helped me with my stunted race effort.
• Greg and Pete at Speedway Cycles. As I write this, Pete recently arrived in McGrath in fifth place and the first-place skier. Honestly, Pete, after seeing you chop along that first day, I am extremely impressed. Way to persevere through tough conditions. Enjoy the well-earned rest, whether you go on to Nome or not.
• Eric at Epic Designs. The day we returned from Juneau, Geoff and I placed a brand new order for summer frame bags (It's about time my Monkey had her own seat and bikepacking gear.) Eric's stuff is so in demand that he's backordered about six weeks now, and the dude really does sew all day long when he's not skiing a sub three-hour 50K in the Tour of Anchorage (Congratulations, Eric! 2:55 is awesome!), so I recommend ordering soon.
• Ultrarob, who held a fundraiser for my race even though it turned out to be a short one. Ultrarob's store still offers deals on a great assortment of cycling and outdoor gear. Check it out.
• Fellow Yentna drop-outs, Italian cyclist Riccardo Ghirardi and Spanish cyclist Isabel Lopez. Even though the communication was limited, your friendship through those hard hours was priceless.
• Everyone who bought my book. I'm pretty bummed I didn't come out of this year's event with more stories to tell, but there will be time enough for that soon. (This book's still pretty OK, though, so you should buy it :-)
• Those who made unsolicited donations through my blog, which was a very nice surprise.
• And to family, friends, and the people who read this blog. I really feel like I belong to a great community of like-minded friends worldwide.
11 comments:
The visual of you hobbling along with your crutches is great. Sort of symbolic. You're awesome. Here's hoping for a quick and positive recovery.ReplyDelete
I was stuck on crutches this year too. I'm on the back side of my injury though. Have fun with those bad boys while you've got them. Hopefully you won't need them as long as I did. Great effort in the race. Hope your recovery is quick.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 9, 2009 at 8:06 AM
Glad you got out and got some fresh air and sunshine - just be careful not to overdo - yes, the injured do deserve sunshine too. You are awesome. Hope to see you soon.ReplyDelete
Here is a link for Geoff about exercising with a cold. I am sorry I don't know of an article for someone with Frostbite.
First tentative steps back. Just think where you will be in a month.ReplyDelete
My doctor (who is an avid endurance athlete) encourages me to do a little low intensity exercise (easy running for me) if I have a minor cold or injury, he says the increased blood circulation and reduced stress (for those of us addicted to exercise) has to be good for healing. I can't imagine you're doing any harm to your foot. Plus everyone needs sunshine. Hope you get back out there in full force soon.ReplyDelete
I just want to thank you for all the inspiration you have provided for the rest of us.
Take care of that foot and let it heal.
Think of next year and GDR!! I knew you had plans...
Heal up quick.ReplyDelete
Your fun adventures are far from over.
- AnonymousMarch 10, 2009 at 11:26 AM
It makes me sad that a person can't go for a walk (er, crutch) without being afraid of being "scolded". People need to share the outdoors, it's for everyone. Best of luck to you during your recovery!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 10, 2009 at 4:55 PM
You made good choices, and survived. It's always easy to doubt, somewhat easier to be ignorant, but better by far to be honest. You're honest about what happened, the choice you made and where you ended up. Better to be able to ride the next race than be hobbled for possibly years to come. Your blog is a JOY to read. And fun too.ReplyDelete
Hi Jill, just finished the book, great stuff. Thanks for putting your experiences to words, great learning more about you. I'm going to give it to my wife for inspiration.ReplyDelete


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We just got our first glimpse at the first new high-definition Zelda game, and it looks truly insane. Zelda is going open-world.
The 3 Best And 3 Worst Korok Challenges In Tears Of The Kingdom
Series producer Eiji Aonuma announced the game during the Nintendo Digital Presentation this morning, promising that this Zelda will feel totally different thanks to their open-world structure. It looks like a cross between Wind Waker and Skyrim.
The game is scheduled for 2015. Video here:

subset: commoncrawl


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Anti-Israel Conference permitted at Columbia to plot "Israel Apartheid Week 2012 "
October 16, 2011 This was a 3 day conference ( October 14-16)
The 1st National Students for "Justice" in "Palestine" (SJP) Conference
( Update 2018) The 2011 link is now "private" – so the flyer is now a dead link. Had to replace it
From the Jewish Forward: Pro-Palestinian Student Activists Plan Push College Chapters Hope To Unite and Strengthen Protest of Israel
" SJP demonizes and delegitimizes Israel as an "apartheid", "colonialist", "oppressor" state and openly advocates and practices boycotts, divestments, sanctions (BDS) against Israel, creating an openly hostile environment for Israel supporters.
Organizers said they expected 300 attendees, all of them members or recent alumni of pro-Palestinian campus groups, and many of them members of campus groups that use the SJP name.
Since the founding of the first SJP at the University of California, Berkeley in 2001, the number of SJP groups has grown to over 75, according to the ADL.
Not all conference attendees will be members of groups that call themselves Students for Justice in Palestine. The Brandeis chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, an activist organization harshly critical of Israel, is sending a Brandeis junior named Morgan Conley as a representative.
"JVP definitely shares the same beliefs and goals that SJP has, so I think representing Brandeis JVP at the conference is an act of solidarity with SJP's cause," Conley said. "I think it's definitely a really good way to start networking between the two groups.
Salahi said that Palestinians and Jews make up the largest national and religious groups on the conference's steering committee. "
The Anti-Israel Conference, unopposed, was held ON campus at Columbia University.
Of course, the conference isn't the first time these students were fed such a heavy dose of racism.
("Conference organizers wore easily-distinguishable red shirts featuring the organization's name on the back and an intricate design of a keffiyeh and a dove on the front")
But, we were pleased to see a counter-protest outside the campus gate.
This was on the third and final day of the Students for Justice in Palestine "teach-in".
"Some protesters came independently, alerted by e-mails or social media. Others were members of groups such as Americans for a Safe Israel, Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam, Amcha-Coalition for Jewish Concerns, National Council on Jewish Affairs, and Liberals for Israel. " **
A peaceful counter protest meant to expose the lies that will be taught during Israel Apartheid Week 2012.
Theunfettered hatred for Jews and Israel that is encouraged on our college campuses throughout North America by the conference.
Like the street theatre antics below, it must all be challenged.
"Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Chicago simulated an Israeli checkpoint"
In support of the SJP Conference, I found this blog post that tried to debunk the assertions of anti-Zionism at the 'teach-in. The writer presents a smug critique of an article written by JanSuzanne Krasner,
He says,
"… neither Krasner or NCJA provide any evidence as to how this conference intimidates pro-Israel Jewish students. The conference is not anti-Israel and, thus, it is not an anti-pro-Israel-Jewish-student conference…"
Fortunately, the video I made outside the conference (scroll down) quickly exposed his lies. Many of the students speaking to us were clearly anti-Zionists. BTW- the kids in the red t-shirts were the planners of the conference not just participants…
(Found info and pictures of conference at a blog called "16 minutes to Palestine" )
"Attendees and organizers, in red shirts, listen attentively during the SJP Conference's opening"
I was impressed by how graciously our side reached out and genuinely listened to these kids, even though it must have been difficult to let them drone on spewing school-sanctioned propaganda, but they did. They listened.
This anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agitprop is all meant to provoke and we did have a few moments on our side when emotions flared, but that was it. Always a brief moment and then we would recover.
On camera I caught one particular student who was determined to correct our LIES. ( the girl in burgundy) She was listened to with the most courteous of objections. She calmly left and even returned to continue her assault on the truth and still she was treated with respect. However, at the end, she is one of those leading the hateful genocidal chants "From The River to the Sea" and "Israel is a terrorist State". "Fair and Balanced" was not on the SJP Conference Agenda….
Observing the counter-protest was CAIR-NY Civil Rights Manager, Cyrus McGoldrick. He happens to be a convert to Islam; grew up Roman Catholic. After taking a few pictures, he just stood and watched. I spoke to him briefly. He puts on quite a friendly face and he's a Hip Hop / Poet, not just the CAIR- NY mucky-muck. During our chat he reminded me that he, too, is an American and mentioned he was very uncomfortable with what some of our signs said.
What is it with these Muslim kids and HIP HOP? It's so aggressive but perhaps that's all we need to know. It appeals to these disaffected youths because it is angry 'music' for angry kids.
"Revolutionary hip hop artist and activist Immortal Technique blesses us with a new free mixtape filled with amazing features like Cornel West, Dead Prez, Styles P, Vinnie Paz, Joell Ortiz and top notch producers like the legendary J. Dilla and DJ Green Lantern. Support independent hip hop artist who support the people."
I've come nose to nose, literally, with one particularly violent 'fakestinian' female, Nancy. She's so obsessed with Hip Hop that she even manages Hip Hop 'artists' like IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE (when she isn't on the streets spewing her venom against those….ZIONISTS!)
Nancy "The Brit". She's a monster of aggression towards the opposition when we photograph their rallies. Always wheres a kuffiya on her lovely face. Points and yells, "ZIONIST" while she assaults and blocks cameras on a public street. (Kind of silly really, but it's her favorite past-time)
And the police just watch. Sometimes not even capable of hiding their scowls towards our Pro-Israel side . After all, they've just heard the buzz word "zionist" and "fascist". Guess all that CAIR Sensitivity Training is finally paying off (sarc intended)
This is Nancy. Nancy Mansour. She's British. Uses the handle Harrabic Tubman and runs an vile anti-Israel organization " Existence is Resistance" and she Hates Jews.
Nancy "Harrabic Tubman" is also an active participant in the Apartheid Planning Conference, hosting a Hip Hop Concert evening (of course)
These are some of the disrespectful, anti-Jewish antics of Nancy, nurtured and bred in such training sessions on our college campuses.
Nancy's anti-Semitic vandalism above…. A display she created in the mid-town Garment District.
Lots of Street Theatre when Fakestinians are around so #OWS was on the agenda. The SJP kids went down to the Occupation on Sunday the 16th, after the conference, to show their support for the "occupation". Probably arranged by Cyrus since he and CAIR are encouraging a Muslim presence at Zuccotti which continues at #OWS. (mostly on Fridays and Saturday)
"One SJP Conference organizer waits for the rest of the SJP contingency on its way to the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City."
Found this video of Cyrus at the OCW Jummah Prayers Show (on the 21st) Cyrus starts the video and speaks til about 2:25 (he returns at 9:54) It is a very 'pretty ' video of "Jummah Day". Produced with pretty, pretty music. Lulling us into a peaceful state as we listen to the gentle, peaceful words. Just listen… listen…listen to the music….. These kids are never going to stray from the 'party-line'
More pictures in the Slide Show of our counter- protest:
I took these pictures right after the arrest, I didn't actually see what happened but, Fern Sidman apparently did. Here is a quote from her article that's linked at the bottom of this post:
"Julian Rappaport, one of the demonstrators engaging with passers-by at the university's gate, contended that the anti-Israel conference inside was not an expression of free speech, but "to give only one, incorrect side of the picture.Columbia has the responsibility to be more critical of what's going on."
During a heated confrontation with an SJP member, who called for "the complete obliteration of the racist Zionist entity," Mr. Rappaport was arrested by police for allegedly kicking the student and was charged with disorderly conduct. He was released soon thereafter and returned to the demonstration."
The young man who made that offensive statement, calling for the " obliteration of the Zionist entity", is in the picture right after the handcuffs. He's in shorts and is talking to the officer.
Next, the article from Fern Sidman reporting on our Counter Protest here
Am Yisrael Chai!


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49% off the ShopHQ Price+ S&H: + FREE Standard S&H
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You'll catch the eye of everyone around you when you wear this lovely pendant! A striking red spinel dances in its setting that's situated in the middle of several platinum plated hearts, one of which sparkles with white zircon accents. The spinel will shimmy and shine as the pendant hangs from its 18" cable link chain. This sweet accessory would make a great gift for a loved one - or for yourself!
Please Note: Pendant can be removed from the chain.
All weights pertaining to gemstones, including diamonds, are minimum weights. Additionally, please note that many gemstones are treated to enhance their beauty. View Gemstone Enhancements and Special Care Requirements for important information.
Platinum Plating:
Platinum can be used as a finish coating over sterling silver or copper alloys. Its bright, pure luster enhances the brilliance of gemstones and does not discolor or oxidize. Platinum plating is also characterized by its good resistance to surface abrasion, making jewelry pieces more durable against everyday and long-term wear. Over time, platinum plating will wear off and therefore will require re-plating.
To care for your plated jewelry items:
The great imposter of gemstone history, many famous rubies have been found to actually be spinels. Perhaps the most famous of which is the Black Prince's Ruby. Once worn by Henry V on his battle helmet, this 170.00ct red spinel is now set in the British Imperial State Crown. Another famous misidentification is the Timur Ruby, a 352.00ct red spinel now owned by Queen Elizabeth. This particular stone is engraved with the names of the Mughal emperors who previously owned it.
History is unclear whether these mistaken identities were merely accidents or clever substitutions of rubies for the less valuable spinels by dishonest jewelers. In Burma, spinel was recognized as a separate gem species in 1587, but the masquerade lasted for hundreds of years after that in most other countries.
Spinel carries a considerable amount of worth not only based on its history, but due to its brilliance and wide range of spectacular colors. When interpreted by the Greek, the word "spinel" means "spark" in reference to its beautiful sparkle. While a rich red is the most common color, spinel can be found in shades of pink, purple, green, brown or black. An exceptional color from Burma is a vivid hot pink with an orange undertone. Spinel can also come in a beautiful blue hue, sometimes called cobalt spinel, but this color is quite rare.
The main obstacle holding back greater recognition for spinel is rarity. Fine spinels are now more rare than the rubies they used to imitate. Strangely, however, they are also more affordable, since too rare can be a drawback because such few people have the opportunity to grow to love them. The most beautiful colors of the stone are mined in Myanmar (formerly Burma), but spinels are also found in Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Russia. They have a hardness of 7.5-8.0 on the Mohs Scale and are traditionally given as a 22nd wedding anniversary gift.


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World Bulletin/News Desk
Two Americans suffered light injuries when a U.S. consulate vehicle came under attack in Afghanistan's western province of Herat on Wednesday morning, the U.S. embassy said.
The embassy statement gave scant details of the attack but an Afghan official in Herat said a rocket-propelled grenade had been fired at the vehicle.
"Two men attacked a foreign vehicle with a RPG and then ran away," provincial district chief Haji Bashir Ahmad told Reuters by telephone.
The U.S. embassy statement said both of the injured were taken for treatment at a Spanish-run hospital in Herat.
Hours earlier, President Barack Obama announced plans to reduce the number of American troops in Afghanistan from 32,000 to 9,800 by the beginning of next year, and gradually reduce the force to a smaller embassy presence by the end of 2016.
Last Friday, Afghan security forces in Herat killed at least three gunmen and bombers following an attack on the Indian consulate in Afghanistan's third largest city and main gateway to Iran.Güncelleme Tarihi: 28 Mayıs 2014, 11:30


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VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has overhauled the laws that govern the Vatican City State, criminalizing leaks of Vatican information and specifically listing sexual violence, prostitution and possession of child pornography as crimes against children.
The legislation approved Thursday covers people who live and work in Vatican City and is different from the canon law which covers the universal Catholic Church.
The bulk of the Vatican's legal code is based on the 1889 Italian code.
Many of the provisions were necessary to bring the Vatican's legal system up to date after the Holy See signed international treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Others were necessary to comply with international norms to fight money-laundering, part of the Vatican's push toward financial transparency.


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/* socket.c --- wrappers for Windows socket function
Copyright (C) 2008-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. */
/* Written by Paolo Bonzini */
#include <config.h>
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
/* Get winsock2.h. */
#include <sys/socket.h>
/* Get set_winsock_errno, FD_TO_SOCKET etc. */
#include "w32sock.h"
#include "sockets.h"
rpl_socket (int domain, int type, int protocol)
SOCKET fh;
gl_sockets_startup (SOCKETS_1_1);
/* We have to use WSASocket() to create non-overlapped IO sockets.
Overlapped IO sockets cannot be used with read/write. */
fh = WSASocket (domain, type, protocol, NULL, 0, 0);
if (fh == INVALID_SOCKET)
set_winsock_errno ();
return -1;
return SOCKET_TO_FD (fh);


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The U.S. government will lead an ambitious effort to develop technologies to recycle lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, cellphones and other sources to ensure a reliable and affordable supply of metals crucial to battery production in anticipation of soaring global demand and potential shortages, Department of Energy officials said Friday.
Calling the effort a national security issue, the agency announced a $15 million, three-year research and development project housed at the Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont.
The collaboration between Argonne, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and several universities also is an attempt to catch up with China and other countries that manufacture and recycle the vast majority of lithium-ion batteries, including those shipped back from the U.S., officials said.
U.S. dependence on other countries for metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, as well as finished batteries, "undermines our national security" because the source countries are not always close allies, said Daniel R. Simmons, assistant secretary of the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Lithium salts primarily are extracted in a few South American and African countries, as well as Australia, and cobalt largely is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, experts said. The U.S. has a strained trading relationship with China, which produces a large share of the batteries and has been aggressively recycling them to recover metals it otherwise would have to import.
But the demand for lithium-ion batteries also is driving the effort. With U.S. automakers set to expand production of electric vehicles over the next 10 years, and batteries from existing electric vehicles nearing the end of their useful lives, it's time to figure out how to recycle them in the U.S, said Jeff Spangenberger, director of the new recycling center, called the ReCell Center.
The center will focus on developing a process to allow recovered material to be put directly back into new batteries without having to break it down into their core components.
"We've done a lot of analysis ... and if we don't recycle, we will run out of materials," Spangenberger said. "(And) if we had a steady supply from recycled materials, we would reduce the risk."
But recycling raw materials won't do the U.S. much good if it doesn't also make the batteries and finished products here, experts said.
"There is no sense to recycle in the U.S. and not be able to use (the material) in the U.S. ... Otherwise you have to sell to China because that's where they make the batteries," said Hans Eric Melin, a consultant at London-based Circular Energy Storage who researches the lithium-ion battery industry. He also said it's important to figure out how to collect enough batteries for recycling in the first place.
"To be able to get the batteries and keep them in the U.S. is really, really important," he said.
Melin said recycling also will become increasingly important as more companies use lithium-ion batteries in products. Big companies might be able to source enough raw materials, he said, but second-tier companies may have to rely on recycled material.
In 2018, about 100,000 metric tons of lithium-ion batteries were recycled globally, Melin said, adding that about 14,000 metric tons of cobalt was recovered from the batteries, or about one-fifth of the market for the metal.
Spangenberger said the government wants to eliminate the risk for U.S. companies to spur domestic battery production, other industries and jobs.
"By end of this, we should be able show industry it's doable, (then) let's scale up and get commercialized," he said.
James Greenberger, executive director of NAATBatt, a consortium of companies promoting U.S. advanced-battery manufacturing, said it's important that recycling is affordable enough that manufacturers of cars and other products won't have to pass the costs on to customers.
"Everybody's waiting for a technological solution," said Greenberger. "But I think we can absolutely catch up."
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Featured in the latest episode of MOYERS & COMPANY!!
Won Best Documentary Short, Audience Award at The Asheville Cinema Festival!
Chosen by Bill Moyers for his list of "Ten Documentaries on Champions of Social Justice"! Check out the list.
"An exceptional film. Superb in situating the Court case in a historical context."
- American Bar Association Silver Gavel Awards
"A story that is beautifully rendered. While the eventual Supreme Court victory plays out in a taut dramatic presentation, the documentary is just as significant for its resonance in the contemporary moment."
- Huffington Post
"Beautifully researched"
- the Peabody Awards
"A remarkable story of how one citizen's courage and idealism profoundly affected a nation's future, this is highly recommended."
- Video Librarian, May/June 2011
"A superb new documentary. This is one... that you won't want to miss, and that you'll want your kids to see!"
- Dave Niose, President, American Humanist Association
"Why religion isn't taught in our public schools."
- Roger Ebert
"The meaning of religious establishment snaps firmly into focus with this excellent documentary on the First Amendment. Told through the eyes of this courageous family, this engaging film reveals the great difficulty—and ultimate satisfaction—of challenging society's mores and settled law. Highly recommended."
- Bruce Dierenfield, Professor of History, Canisius College
"An enlightening, compelling film that tells the important story of how one courageous woman stood up for the separation of church and state against all odds. It will be of great use in classes ranging from law and legal studies through religious studies and American history."
- Avi Soifer, Dean, Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai'i
" The Lord is not on Trial Here Today' (tells) a little-known story of a woman, a court case, and a movement that changed American society forever and for the better."
-Anthropology Review Database
Check out Dan McCollum's book "The Lord Was Not On Trial"


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Here is a lovely Green Petal Cake to help you get ready for St. Patrick's Day!
The petal cake decorating technique is easy to do and so very pretty.
My Key Lime Cake recipe was perfect for this green cake...AND it's so delicious!
which I used between the layers and for the crumb coat.
Next, I divided the remaining frosting into three bowls
and colored two of them darker shades of green.
You can also make simple circles on top, which I did on my Rainbow Petal Cake.
Another fun green cake...
Key Lime Shamrock Cake
I share my recipes & tutorials at these fun link parties.
This post was featured!


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Given the complexity, subtlety, history and character in Cajun and Creole cooking, Maine's lack of sit-down dinner options featuring this style of food perplexes me.
My husband Travis maintains that Cajun food is "poor people" food (in a good way), and that aesthetic might explain why a higher-end restaurant might offer an entree or two that are Louisiana-inspired. But why we must set our watches a bit earlier and head to the Bayou Kitchen before it closes each day at 2 p.m. if we want both a Cajun menu and table service?
And about that table service? If you are a server, it is easy to be nice when the circumstances are ideal. It is tougher when your shift is about to end after a nutso morning filled with cranky and entitled-acting customers. Imagine that, just when you see the end in sight, one last party slides onto the wait list. And not just one last party, a party that orders almost every item on the menu.
We were "that" party.
The Bayou Kitchen in Portland is popular on any given weekend, but make it a holiday like New Year's Eve, and the wait creeps to more than an hour. We were the last party added to the wait list, and during the wait, we lingered outside and peeked through the bright yellow-framed windows decorated with a dancing cartoon alligator.
Sheepishly, we apologized, but the server's reaction was fantastic. She was tired and sassy, but still very friendly. Even when we gave her our order.
As we added item after item, she sighed and offered a nervous giggle, anxious about handling this final, enormous list to the kitchen staff who were, no doubt, looking forward to the end of their long shift. As we attempted to sample as many options as possible, she actually ran out of paper on her pad.
We heard "You have got to be kidding!" from the kitchen, but it was a good-humored shriek, and we never once felt rushed or like an inconvenience.
And then the magic happened. Coffee (endless cup, $1.65) was poured, hot and strong, and we got to tasting.
While the Bayou Kitchen offers brunch, emphasis is placed on the "bayou," and most items are designed with a signature blend of Creole and Cajun flair. (The differences between Creole and Cajun are too lengthy to discuss here, but know that there was ample evidence of both on the menu.)
The Chicken Piquant ($7.50) is a soup made with bits of chicken simmered in olive oil and vinegar with onions, peppers, garlic and tomato. Served over rice, the result is both belly-warming and sweet, well-balanced and delicious.
For the uninitiated, the main difference between gumbo and jambalaya is that jambalaya is a rice-centered dish similar to a paella. (Interesting side fact, if it is to be believed: Jambalaya takes its etymology from the French "jambon," or ham, which was a traditional ingredient in jambalaya's earliest days.) Alternatively, gumbo is a roux-based stew, typically made with okra. (Another interesting side fact: Gumbo is derived from a Bantu word, "ki ngombo," meaning okra.)
People often equate jambalaya and gumbos with heat, and while the heat is present in the Bayou Kitchen's versions, it is a smooth, subtle and well-portioned heat wrapped in layer after layer of flavor.
Chicken and Sausage Gumbo ($8.50) is advertised as a "Louisiana country stew with peppers, onions, okra, chicken, and Andouille sausage in a home-style gravy over rice." Add crawfish (and you should, portions are not scanty) for $3. This gumbo was roux-brown, thick and rich with smokiness.
Classic Jambalaya ($8.25) is the Kitchen's rice specialty with chicken, Andouille sausage, onions, peppers, garlic, rice and the restaurant's own "Jamba Juice." Again, add crawfish for $3, and the heat from this paella-like dish was like Goldilocks' porridge — not too hot and not too cold; just right. (The veggie version costs $7.50 with onions, peppers, garlic, mushrooms, tomato, broccoli, rice and the same "Jamba Juice." Mmm.)
Both the gumbo and jambalaya are served with homemade cornbread or biscuit. (Side orders cost $2 and $1.75, respectively.) The biscuit is the thick and substantial type, and cornbread is offered in plain, jalapeno and blueberry varieties. This isn't the cakey cornbread though; it's crispy — as if toasted on the grill. Mmm, again.
Louisiana classics noted, the Bayou Kitchen is a brunch joint, and the menu is filled with egg and griddle options. My personal favorite is the Cajun Scramble ($9.75) with crawfish, Andouille sausage, sliced jalapenos and cheddar.
Aptly named, it is a plateful of eggs cooked as requested (I like mine cooked hard) with enough heat in the abundance of peppers to power a furnace. And if I needed even more heat, both Tabasco and local Maine-based Lost Woods hot sauce bottles graced the table.
The Tri-Sausage Scramble ($8.75) was the same scramble concept but made with Andouille, Polish, and Chorizo and cheddar. Add a side of bacon — three of the biggest, tastiest, crispiest, perfectly-cut pieces in town — for $2.50.
The best, though, is the Custom Pancake Shop. (Let me emphasize this again: custom pancake shop. I was in carb heaven.) Choose from ginger, coffee, pecan, blueberry, banana, chocolate chip or granola. A short stack costs $6.50; tall, $8.75.
We chose pecan, and I was initially apprehensive because of the large box of Gold Medal Complete Buttermilk Pancake Mix sitting on the counter bar. Pancake mix seemed like cheating, but whatever the base ingredients, the result is an enormous pancake of atypical consistency. Rather than light and spongy, these pancakes were light and biscuit-y. Almost like a shortbread, but a shortbread filled with toasted pecans. (Add $1.75 for the real Earth's Pride Organics maple syrup.) Now that I know what pancakes can taste like, I plan to return. It was a pancake epiphany.
From start to finish, the Bayou Kitchen was a warm and casual respite from the winter chill.
Service was a perfect blend of friendly and sassy, and the food prepared with an expert and subtle hand. Flavors were layered, and the menu showed an intelligent blend of options — each representing the Louisiana theme, but not catapulting it into caricature.
I will be back, earlier next time, to linger and savor.
Shonna Milliken Humphrey is a Maine freelance writer and author of the novel "Show Me Good Land."
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text:
Friday, June 29, 2012
friday senses....!
20 comments:
- Rebecca said...
I enjoy reading your blog and was happy to hear that you are coming up to the Canadian Rockies. I live in Canmore (20 mins east of Banff) and would be happy to answer any questions you have. There are so many good places to eat and so many amazing things to do. If you wish, email me at email@example.com and I'll see what I can do to help.
- June 29, 2012 at 6:28 AM
- whitneyingram said...
Ooooh, it looks like you just found a goldmine in Rebecca.
- June 29, 2012 at 8:21 AM
- Hayley said...
sooo we are totally tie-dying too! i have all the stuff and have just been trying to get my nerves up to do it.
gobbled up 4 grape tomatoes last week super hot from the sun and all to myself...bliss
- June 29, 2012 at 8:38 AM
- Angela said...
I know you already have someone who can help you trip plan, but if you get a chance, go to Jasper. . . we walked right out of our car and 10 minutes later we were standing on a glacier looking down cravasses. . . .I think you can explore as far as you want on it too. Pretty amazing!! Lake Louise is beautiful, but we had a really hard time finding camping and ended up at a campground next to the freeway (the road through the park is a freeway) and could hardly sleep for all the traffic!
- June 29, 2012 at 8:59 AM
- Elise said...
ooh! i'm still waiting on my tomatoes!
Here are my senses:
- June 29, 2012 at 10:00 AM
- Carey said...
Great post, I'm really liking your updates lately, perhaps since you had the survey, i like the variety.
- June 29, 2012 at 11:28 AM
- Laura said...
We honeymooned in Banff/Jasper but I'm afraid we rushed our trip a bit and didn't get to see nearly all the good stuff. I recommend the ink pots hike {Johnston Canyon} and the Banff Hot Springs and Moraine Lake. Wish we had spent more time there. We saw mountain goats by the side of the road! And glimpses of a big bear.
We also rafted down the Kicking Horse river on our way up from Idaho -- FUN!!
We haven't had enough heat to get many tomatoes this summer. Boo. you're taking it all. *wink* It's OK. But don't post too many incredible photos of yellow cherry tomatoes. I might gobble the screen.
Family bike ride? Do your kids ride along on their own bikes? Can't WAIT for that. Our 3er isn't quite ready. :) He still rides in the bike trailer.
Love all your pics and tidbits, as always. :) Cheers!
- June 29, 2012 at 3:00 PM
- Briana said...
We've lived in Midway for four years and we love it! You would love living here- it's right up your alley.
Love your blog!
- June 29, 2012 at 3:57 PM
- Emily said...
What camera do you use? Your photos are awesome....do you use a photo editing program?.....thanks :)
- June 29, 2012 at 5:47 PM
- Ally said...
i love your blog - i love how intimate it is, it feels like we can share into your life! i am inspired by everything you do... happy saturday!
- June 30, 2012 at 2:52 PM
- Rosa Rivero said...
I am so excited you are coming to our neck of the woods (literally). I live in Calgary so Banff and Lake Louise are common visits on weekends.
The mountains are awesome so you'll have no shortage of hiking trails.
To eat, I have two recommendations:
lunch @ Lake Louise: The Fairmont hotel in Lake Louise is a must visit and they have many eating spots. The cafe is not very good but my recommendation is the "Lakeview Lounge" inside the hotel. They have a ciabatta bun filled with grilled chicken, fig jam, apple slices, arugula and brie that it's to die for! and they accommodate many dietary restrictions
dinner @ Banff: We really enjoy Giorgio's trattoria. All their food is great but please try their dessert: it has coconut and condensed milk with a brownie bottom, it's so sweet that you need to share it with at least 2 people but totally worth it!
hope you enjoy your time here!
- July 1, 2012 at 3:43 PM
- sheena said...
@emily check out my new FAQ page:)
link on the sidebar
- July 1, 2012 at 9:38 PM
- David Franklin said...
Photos are stunning ! Even the whole post too :) Keep it up ! and please give us some more Easy Recipes also
- July 2, 2012 at 2:03 AM
- Rachelle said...
my sister's husband is from midway. their wedding reception was there and then they even lived there two different times. its beautiful!
they got so sick of how expensive homes were though. they eventually moved down in your neck of the woods because they couldn't afford a home there.
but if you can buy one, do it!
- July 2, 2012 at 12:07 PM
- lntu said...
Love your blog! Quick question - does using coconut oil change the flavor of your stir fry significantly? I've never thought of using it before!
- July 3, 2012 at 12:30 AM
- sheena said...
Not significantly. It's just a faint taste that some might not even notice. I think it compliments stir fry:)
- July 3, 2012 at 7:47 AM
- Anna said...
I am going to Lake Louise for my friends wedding in 10 days. I'll let you know how it goes!
- July 10, 2012 at 1:28 PM
- Unknown said...
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- December 10, 2012 at 10:49 AM
- Allison said...
Laser cleaning technology is a non-contact and environment-friendly method used for the cleaning of various industrial materials.
- April 23, 2023 at 12:14 AM
- CLAENING said...
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- May 16, 2023 at 1:38 AM


text:
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text:
In an exclusive, wide ranging interview with Accuracy in Media, William McGowan, author of the new book on The New York Times entitled Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of The New York Times Means For America, said that "organizations like the Times and the Guardian become aiders and abettors of an organization [WikiLeaks] that is not operating in the best interests of the world, not operating in the best interests of the human rights activists whose names were mentioned, not operating in the interests of the Afghani and Iraqi civilians who cooperated with the U.S., and, essentially, is operating as an anti-American organization."
McGowan says that while he doesn't see Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks, as a terrorist, he does see him as "a cyber-warrior against the United States—I mean, he's gone on the record in several interviews, saying that his intention is to pull down the information infrastructure of the United States government, military and diplomatic wings. The guy is kind of a crazed, mad genius Doctor Evil type, a power-mad, grandiose narcissist. 'As to whether he's prosecutable,' said McGowan, 'that's a legal question that still needs to be answered.'"
Bill McGowan is a former editor at Washington Monthly. He has reported for Newsweek International, the BBC, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The New Republic, National Review, The Wall Street Journal and The Columbia Journalism Review. He's also the author of Coloring the News: How Political Correctness Has Corrupted American Journalism, for which he won a National Press Club Award. Bill McGowan is a Media Fellow at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center.
Besides WikiLeaks, we discussed the differences between the Times with Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger as the publisher, as compared to the Times with Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. in charge. McGowan finds troubling editorial and financial policies that have badly damaged this iconic newspaper under Arthur Sulzberger Junior. He argues that political correctness and a political agenda, particularly as it relates to the U.S.'s war with radical Islam, have severely set back this powerful institution. We discussed the Times' coverage leading up to the war in Iraq, and how it treats the issue of domestic acts of terrorism.
Below are excerpts from the interview. You can listen to the entire two-part interview or read the transcript here.
I had written Coloring the News, which was about political correctness in the news media in general, and I looked at—I'd say—the ten top news organizations in America for that book, and I saw a clear pattern that The New York Times was one of the most egregious offenders on that front. Plus, the Times had entered into a kind of spiral of institutional embarrassment and journalistic blundering, starting in 2003 with the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal, and moving through other varied, dubious journalistic and institutional embarrassments.
I'm coming at this not as much from a political point of view as I am from a professional point of view. I'm arguing for objectivity, professional neutral detachment, agnosticism, and fact-based journalism—as opposed to a politicized, ideological, and values-based journalism. So my political opinions really don't matter. What matters is the integrity of the analysis.
Most people would, I guess, describe his [A.M. Rosenthal's] leadership as the Golden Age of The New York Times, seeing The New York Times through such things as the Vietnam War, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the rise of counterculture, and, also, through a very, very endangering financial crisis that they weathered by creating a more diversified paper.
I think that American journalism, for a good part of the '90s and through the first decade of this century, has accented ethnic and racial diversity within the ranks of its own news personnel, and that personnel policy has carried over into a politicization of news reporting itself, where diversity is not necessarily just a way of widening the ethnic and racial composition of your news staff, but it is an ideological position on a lot of issues, like affirmative action, immigration, gay rights, racial compensation, and those kinds of things, so that diversity has been an obsession of the news media, I'd say, for the last twenty years, and the Times has really led that crusade. Arthur [Sulzberger], Jr. was very much at the forefront of instilling this pro-diversity ethos in publishers and editorial organizations, and other professional organizations throughout the news industry.
…the Times took a view of some of the Bush administration's efforts to fight the War on Terror on the domestic front, that these were deep violations of the soul of American freedom, that they ran counter to all traditions of civil liberties, and they particularly took an animus towards the PATRIOT Act, and the tools within the PATRIOT Act that the government was given to fight Islamic terrorism on our shores, and I make the point that it really became that the Times seemed to be more concerned with the so-called depredations of our own government than they really were with the depredations of the terrorists. They saw the threat more as a government that was overreaching and trying to steal away freedoms in the name of protecting America—they saw that as a bigger threat than what these dedicated Islamic fundamentalist militants were up to in the many, many plots, some successful and others not, that were carried out after 9/11.
I think somebody should do an analysis of the double standards, how much Obama has gotten away with that Bush was denounced and ridiculed for throughout his administrations. The Times is definitely giving Obama a "Get of Jail" pass in terms of a lot of the Bush programs Obama has actually redoubled on, in some ways. Obama has not followed through on his pledges to close Guantánamo; has not followed through on delivering the jailed terrorists to swift justice; has not followed through on a lot of efforts, both domestically and internationally, to wind down our confrontation with the Islamic world; and, on the immigration front, Obama's probably deported more criminals than Bush has, which the Times was always decrying. But they've cut him a tremendous amount of slack.
…journalism has been, traditionally, a liberal profession. Abe Rosenthal, the editor of the Times, famously said that, as executive editor, he needed to keep his right hand heavier on the tiller, because the newsroom, given its natural proclivities, would drift to the left. It's a kind of self-selecting thing. Reporters just tend to embrace liberal values—not all, but many, and that kind of sets an organizational tone, and a kind of intellectual orthodoxy within these organizations.
I'm not necessarily a big fan of the Tea Party—however, I completely defend its right to exist. I think, as a political analyst, I understand its wellsprings, I understand why it exists, but I don't necessarily think it's the right movement at this particular time. However, I will say that it is not a racist movement, and by characterizing it as that, the Times is reflecting more its own mentality than it is the Tea Party's.
When you look at what the Times has exposed itself to now, legally, by publicizing the WikiLeaks Cablegate materials—they've exposed themselves, as they did with the National Security Agency story and the SWIFT banking story, to possible prosecution under the Espionage Act for the publication of classified materials. So they might be in a pretty big pot of hot water right now, depending on what the Obama administration decides to do.
…the Times, for instance, published the Pentagon Papers only after they decided that there were no live military secrets, no current military secrets, within the Papers. That's the only reason they went with them. In this case, they're exposing, as I said, real-time diplomatic traffic that has a lot to do with the War on Terror, and they seem to think that it's more important for citizens, individual citizens, to know this rather than for the government to shroud this. My point would be, diplomacy serves democracy, but it's not necessarily a democratic process. It needs veils of secrecy in order to be effective. What the Times has done has ripped that veil apart, and it's exposed the inner workings of our diplomatic processes in a way that embarrasses us. It renders our diplomats' credibility and trust null.
The Times tends to highlight this idea of federal agents "entrapping" gullible or manipulable young Islamic radicals. They highlight the possibility, or the worry for, a backlash against Muslims—the worry within the Muslim community for this backlash. And they kind of ignore the whole question of loyalty—why an American citizen, or an American national, would embrace this kind of radical Islamic jihadi worldview. This kid out in Portland has said he had been planning this thing for four years, and he wanted to kill as many Americans as he possibly could. I don't think that that is a sign that the kid had very much loyalty to America, but they just dance around the subject of the religious motivation behind these attacks.
I think WMDs were an important reason we went into Iraq, but it wasn't the only reason—there were all sorts of other concerns. But that became the perception, that the Times' misreporting on WMDs—erroneous reporting on WMDS—was what put us into Iraq, and their reporting after that was a kind of effort to do penance—and to adopt very much of an anti-war posture, and to filter a lot of what they wrote about Iraq—not everything, but a lot of what they wrote—through a filter of the "Vietnam quagmire" script.
The Times has always had an ambivalent relationship to Judaism. Its owners are Jewish, but some have converted to Episcopalianism. Historically, they did not want to be seen as a "Jewish newspaper," and because of that, they minimized coverage of the Holocaust, for instance—there were very few stories about Hitler's genocide. I think someone wrote a book recently, saying there were only five or six small stories about one of the 20th century's biggest stories. The Times—even though it, for a while, was supportive of Israel—I think, has shifted somewhat, and reflects more of the European press's hostility to Israel, and its sympathy with the Palestinian cause.
[The Times] has cashflow issues. That's why they turned to this Mexican billionaire, Carlos Slim Helú, for a loan of, I think, somewhere upwards of around $200 million. The loan was structured on rates of interest that were almost usurious—I mean, it was like going to a check-cashing place to get this kind of money. They were paying huge amounts of interest on it. So it was an act of desperation.
The point I make in Gray Lady Down is, you can agree with Podhoretz or not in his politics, but this is a major figure in American letters, and certainly he deserves a little bit more respect than what he got in the pages of the Times Book Reviews. They really go out of their way to make conservative intellectuals appear faulty or crackpot.
I'm not a Times hater at all, and I do not wish them ill. I don't want to see them go under. I'm a reformer, not a revolutionary, and I guess I write out of a spirit of loyal opposition, because I've read the Times all my life, and I started my career writing for them—not as a reporter, but as a freelancer, and in prominent places in the paper. So I have a lot of sympathy for them, but, boy, they are really, really fouling their own nest in a way, over and over again, that has repercussions, and I don't think it's great for this country to lose a vital forum like the Times.
Roger Aronoff is a media analyst with Accuracy in Media, and is the writer/director of the award-winning documentary, "Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope."
He can be contacted at email@example.com.
Images added by Gulag Bound


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The next battlefield
So, online video is now free. With YouTube or Googlevideo, it costs you nothing to spread your idea… IF the idea spreads.
People aren't going to be in a great hurry to share "Ring around the collar commercials." But it's pretty clear that politics and religion are the next big thing. Like this one about the banana, or The Human Eye is NOT Irreducibly Complex!.
I think we're moments away from a deluge of advocacy shorts.


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Southern Caribbean Cruise - April 2011
Southern Caribbean Cruise on the Celebrity Summit, April, 2011. We visited St. Croix USVI, St. Kitts BVI, Dominica, Grenada, and Tobago. Our guide in Tobago for the bird photography was the excellent Peter Cox. He can be found at http://www.tobagonaturetours.comRead More
All Images © Copyright, Steve Rucci. Unauthorized use or duplication is prohibited without prior written permission. All rights reserved. For usage information, please E-mail: email@example.com
- No Comments


text:
by William F. Jasper
as published by the New American
It happens every summer, and this year is no different; thousands of wildfires ravage millions of acres in the arid Western states, destroying homes and huge swaths of forest and wildlife habitat — and taking lives. With the fire season far from over, federal firefighting efforts already topped $1 billion by August 21, and the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies are running out of money. Forty-nine "uncontained large fires" are raging across the Western states and an additional 222 new "moderate" fires are in various stages of either growing or being brought under control, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Forest Service's Active Fire Mapping website for August 23, 2013.
5,469 Square Miles Incinerated ... So Far
Robin Broyles of the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), located in Boise, Idaho, told The New American that, as of August 23, a total of 32,732 wildfires have burned some 3.5 million acres so far this year. That translates into 5,469 square miles of woodland and grassland that have been incinerated, an area about the size of the entire state of Connecticut (5,543 sq. mi.). According to the NIFC, over the past 10 years the average area burned annually is 5.6 million acres. Whether or not the 2013 fire season ends up above or below that average will depend a lot on the weather over the next month or so. Either way, this year's fire season has been especially deadly, with 19 members of an elite Hotshot firefighter crew dying in July in the Yarnell Hill wildfire in Arizona.
In northern California, the fast-burning Rim Fire, now covering 165 square miles, has spread into Yosemite National Park and threatens some of America's most iconic landscapes. Meanwhile the huge Beaver Creek Fire is reducing some of Idaho's most scenic wild lands in the Sun Valley area to ashes. The Beaver Creek blaze had already burned 111,163 acres by August 23, according to NIFC's Broyles, while the still-burning Elk Complex Fire, also in Idaho, has already consumed 131,258 acres.
Wildfires occur naturally and have always been a part of the seasonal cycle in the West, but the size and intensity of the fires have dramatically increased in recent years due, in large measure, to the gross mismanagement of the national forests by the U.S. Forest Service and the incessant lawsuits of radical environmentalists that have thwarted all reasonable attempts at proper forest management.
As The New American has reported many times over the past three decades, the unconscionable destruction of our vast forests, watersheds, and wildlife habitat is the inevitable result of policies and practices imposed by federal politicians and bureaucrats, in tandem with the obstructionist programs of extreme environmental activists.
On July 10, 1999, this writer attended and reported on a congressional hearing of the House Resource Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health chaired by the late Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho). The hearing was held in the logging town of John Day, Oregon, in the heart of the Malheur National Forest, which had been effectively shut down and closed to logging by the U.S. Forest Service. Hundreds of millions of board feet of dead and dying timber and huge sections of blow-down timber were being left to rot and create massive bug infestations and fire hazards, while the local mills were starving for logs and Americans were being forced to import lumber and wood products from Canada.
Rep. Chenoweth fought heroically to reverse the many destructive federal policies that are destroying the health of our national forests, but with little success against the huge, well-funded Green Lobby that would rather see the forests burn down than have human beings obtain any benefit from them.
In our 1999 article on the Chenoweth hearing in Oregon, I wrote: "The federal eco-saviors ... have created ecological disasters of near-apocalyptic proportions. Tens of millions of acres of once-beautiful forestland have been transformed into charred moonscapes and dying, bug infested, overgrown tinderboxes set to explode into blazing infernos."
Tragically, since those words were written, the Fedgov-induced infernos have incinerated tens of millions acres more of what were once beautiful and productive forestland. The greater tragedy is that this massive destructive loss needn't have happened — and need not continue to occur year after year.
In the 1999 article mentioned above, I cited a number of experts and studies that predicted that we would see a continuing escalation of incidence of unnatural supernova fires, unless we began to address the enormous buildup of brush and dead/dying timber that is choking our forests. We pointed to a detailed 1999 report issued by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) entitledCatastrophic Wildfire Threats, that said "39 million acres on national forests in the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic wildfire" due to unnatural and excessive tree density, massive buildup of undergrowth, disease and insect infestation.
In a 2003 article, "Fueling the Wildfires," The New American reported that among the many federal policies that are putting our forests at grave risk are:
• The banning of insecticides and fungicides has allowed disease and bark beetles to kill once-healthy trees, making them more susceptible to forest fires....
• Policies and bureaucratic red tape prevent the timely removal of blow-down timber and trees that are dead or dying from insects and disease....
• The Clinton-era cutbacks in the fire preparedness budget of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) dangerously weakened the agency's firefighting capacity....
• As our national forests were degenerating into firetraps, the Interior Department was setting aside nearly a dozen new national monuments, acquiring millions of additional federal acres in the process....
• The creation of roadless areas eliminates preexisting firebreaks and impedes getting fire trucks and other equipment to the fires....
• The irresponsible use of controlled burns by federal bureaucrats notorious for torching huge expanses of forestland is a prescription for more calamity. Used properly, controlled burning is a legitimate forestry management tool. But fedgov managers seem to be incapable of exercising common sense or heeding the warning of meteorologists when told the conditions are wrong for burning.
Earlier this year, on February 26, 2013, the House Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation held a hearing presided over by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) that turns out to have been very relevant to the current burning issue of our national forest management. The subcommittee heard from a number of witnesses who testified concerning the superiority of state-managed forest lands versus the federally managed forests.
Rep. Hastings noted that the much smaller forests managed by Washington State "generate an average of $168 million annually, support construction of public elementary, middle school and high schools statewide, facilities at the state's universities, and other state facilities and institutions. In comparison, the U.S. Forest Service is responsible for managing over 9 million acres of forest land contained within seven different national forests in the State of Washington, yet harvests just 2 percent of the new growth, yielding a four-year average of only $589,000 in revenue."
Chairman Hastings noted further:
Rather than offering all-too-familiar rhetoric of how complying with one federal law or another "costs too much," it's time for the federal government to adjust how it does business, and honor its own statutory responsibilities to manage the forests, including allowing sufficient timber harvests, that benefit forested counties and their schools, as well as improve declining forest health and reduce the threat and soaring costs of catastrophic wildfire.
Absentee Landlord Jeopardizing 600 Million Acres
"Over the last few decades we've seen our National Forest System fall into complete neglect—what was once a valuable asset that deteriorated into a growing liability. I believe our forests and public lands are long overdue for a paradigm shift," Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) told the hearing. "It's time for the federal government to cease being the absentee landlord of over 600 million acres of land in this country that it controls and start leveraging those lands in a way that benefits rather than burdens the taxpayers and communities who are forced to play host to the federal estate."
Not content with the 600 million acres it is already mismanaging, the Obama administration last November unconstitutionally claimed the authority to add 9.2 million acres to the federal plantation, allegedly to protected Northern Spotted Owl habitats in California, Oregon, and Washington.
Rep. Hastings pointed out that the federal Northwest Forest Plan for California, Oregon, and Washington, launched by the Clinton administration, has been a colossal failure. "To put it simply, the Northwest Forest Plan has failed," said Hastings, at a May 2012 hearing. "It has failed the health of national forests," he continued. "It has failed the economic well-being of rural counties and schools, has cost tens of thousands of Northwest timber-related jobs and the closure of hundreds of mills and affected wood-products industries. And, it has failed to recover the Spotted Owl."
Moreover, stated Hastings:
Nationwide, federal agencies are not managing the land they are required to manage. Amidst our nation's current $15.7 trillion debt, the Interior Department's and Forest Service's own estimates reveal $22 billion in maintenance backlogs for lands managed by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Worse, since the Northwest Forest Plan, an average of 355,000 acres per year of Northwest national forests has been destroyed by wildfire. Yet, agencies continue to request and spend more money to contain wildfires and acquire even more land.
In A Burning Issue: A Case for Abolishing the U.S. Forest Service (Rowman & Littlefield publishers, 2000), author Robert H. Nelson presents a scorching indictment of the U.S. Forest Service and federal forest malpractice. Decades of mismanagement have shown that the vast and varied forestlands of the West cannot be properly managed by the federal government, and should not be held captive by Beltway politicians and their gold-plated lobbyists masquerading as environmentalists. Nelson's proposal for abolishing the U.S. Forest Service should be acted on — while there are still national forests that have not been converted into cinders. The states, counties, and private landowners will do a much better job of managing and protecting the forests.


text:
|Elzen, Patti
|Baxter, James
|Eischen, Frank
|Wilson, William
Submitted to: Apidologie
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/6/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A
Interpretive Summary: A new pest, the small hive beetle, has recently been discovered attacking honey bee hives in the Western Hemisphere. We estimate that at least 1,000 hives in Florida have been destroyed by this pest, with more devastation likely. In studies in Florida and Georgia, we found that the insecticide, coumaphos, when stapled under cardboard onto the hive bottom board, was very effective in trapping and killing adult and immature forms of the beetle. In studying the biology of the small hive beetle, we found that adults completely consumed bee eggs, even in the presence of honey and pollen. We additionally found that adult beetles were attracted to the odors of hive products (honey and pollen) plus adult bees. These results are important to commercial beekeepers in order to protect their hives with control measures described above and to provide information on the behavior of beetles that may be used in devising further control strategies.
Technical Abstract: The small hive beetle, Aethina tumida Murray, is a new nitidulid pest attacking honey bee colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Adult A. tumida were officially recorded in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina in 1998. We initiated field and laboratory studies to investigate the control and biology of this new pest. Field tests showed that up to 90.2% control of beetles on the hive bottom using 10% coumaphos impregnate in plastic and stapled under cardboard. The coumaphos-baited traps also effectively killed up to 94.2% of wandering larvae. In a laboratory test investigating beetle feeding on brood, adults were found to apparently consume all bee eggs provided within 24 hours, even though an excess of honey and pollen were provided. In field trials of attractancy of hive odors to flying adult beetles, the combined odors of hive products plus adult bees were found to be the most attractive; hive products alone and adult bees alone were not significantly attractive. Further research on biological control and aggregation pheromones is proposed.


text:
From Conservapedia
Clothing, in the broadest sense, refers to materials that cover the body which provide warmth, shelter, hygiene, and/or modesty. Clothing can be made of any number of materials, including plant fibers (such as cotton), animal hides or fibers (such as wool or fur), and artificial textiles (such as polyester or spandex). The vast variety of clothing speaks to the diversity of human cultures and behavior, with different modes of clothing being reserved for work, certain socioeconomic classes, and children.


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HATTIESBURG – Two faculty members at the Forrest County Center of Pearl River Community Colleges have been elected officers in statewide associations.Dr. Benny Hornsby of Hattiesburg is president-elect of the Mississippi Professional Educators for 2011-12, and Doug Donohue of Oak Grove has been elected to a two-year term as vice president of the Mississippi Faculty Association for Community and Junior Colleges.Hornsby is chair of the social studies department at PRCC Forrest County Center. He will be president of MPE for 2012-13.Donohue is a mathematics instructor at the Forrest County Center. After serving as vice president, he will serve a two-year term as president of the state association.Founded in 1979, the Mississippi Professional Educators serves more than 10,200 teachers, administrators and support personnel. MPE serves members in pre_K through graduate education in both public and private institutions with the purpose of promoting better education for the children of Mississippi.The Mississippi Faculty Association for Community and Junior Colleges is an advocate for the interest and welfare of community and junior college faculty and employees who work in direct support of instruction. Dr. Kyle Hill, director of bands at PRCC, is completing a two-year term as president.
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The U.S. government sued Wells Fargo over claims that the bank made reckless home mortgage loans for a decade.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan's Southern District of New York, the government accused Wells Fargo (WFC) of "reckless underwriting" and fraudulently approving thousands of home loans that caused large-scale losses for the government.
The Federal Housing Administration paid out millions of dollars in insurance claims on defaulted loans that were falsely certified by Wells Fargo, according to the complaint.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Wells Fargo's "intentional concealment" of bad loan information on some 6,320 risky loans caused the federal government to pay out $190 million on claims for defaulted home mortgages. The loans were made between 2002 and 2010.
Related: Amex to refund $85 million
The lawsuit suggests that Wells Fargo rewarded employees for getting large numbers of loans approved, which contributed to the fraud.
"Quality repeatedly took a back seat to quantity," Bharara said in a statement.
The complaint said the "extremely poor quality of Wells Fargo's loans was a function of management's nearly singular focus on increasing the volume of FHA originations -- and the bank's profits -- rather than on the quality of the loans." The bank made the violations worse by "hiring temporary staff to churn out" those loans.
In a statement, Wells Fargo denied the allegations. "The bank will present facts to vigorously defend itself against this action," it said.
The government is seeking unspecified damages and civil penalties.
Related: Discover to refund $200 million for deceptive marketing
The case is a joint effort by the U.S. Attorney's Office, as well as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and HUD's Office of Inspector General.
The group has filed other civil fraud lawsuits claiming reckless mortgage lending against four other banks, most of whom have settled. Three of the cases were settled.
In February, Citigroup (C) agreed to pay $158 million to settle charges that its mortgage unit defrauded the FHA.
In May, Deutsche Bank (DB) also agreed to pay $202 million to settle civil claims that its mortgage unit lied to qualify thousands of risky mortgages for the same FHA insurance program.


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celebrating 16 years - your digital agency of choice
KRAZYBOYZ digital is a solutions company which offers a host of services and products to suit any digital marketing need.
Our clients draw from our in-house experience or from managed services obtained from one of our industry specialists.
We have extensive experience in the management, design and technical execution of digital business, marketing and communication plans.
With a solid track record spanning more than 16 years in the industry, a level 4 BEE rating and a growing and diverse list of clients, we have the experience and expertise to deliver top quality work every time.
Managing Director
National Operations Director
André started his career with a degree in Materials Engineering at the University of Cape Town, and worked at the CSIR for 1 year, before moving on to work at Eskom Technology and Research division for a period of five years.
At about that time the Internet was becoming a commercial reality in South Africa and he started working for a company distributing Internet Africa starter kits and services and his responsibilities included setting up and running the Johannesburg branch. He then saw the potential of the Internet and started a company called The CyberShoppe whose initial focus was the distribution of "Inside the Internet" software and which expanded to include website design, Intranet design and Internet consulting services.
At the beginning of 1998 the website design and Intranet design division of The CyberShoppe merged with Krazy Boyz Playtime to form KRAZYBOYZ digital.
Gustave has been involved in the Internet since its commercial inception in South Africa. Initially (August 1995 to December 1996) he was the Marketing Manager for a company involved in distribution and resale of Internet software for UUNet. Managing the distribution and resale of Internet software gave him a sound technical understanding of the Internet and led to the authoring of two Internet training manuals.
His involvement in the Internet progressed to a partnership in The CyberShoppe that involved the distribution and resale of a wide range of "Inside the Internet" software and expanding to include Internet website and Intranet development and Internet Consulting Services.
In 1998 the The CyberShoppe merged with Krazy Boyz Playtime to form KRAZYBOYZ digital.
Gustave's main focus is the development and management of innovative digital business and marketing strategies for KRAZYBOYZ Clients.
All KRAZBOYZ digital's services span across the digital platforms to ensure that we are able to provide a strategic edge with our clients' needs and goals in mind. We believe that we are not just a service provider to our clients, but a strategic partner.
We offer self-service as well as managed service solutions leaving the client free to select whether they wish to manage and maintain their own web sites or prefer us to provide this service.
Our aim is to assist in finding the right solution providing robust flexible developments which are scalable; focusing not only on short-term goals but medium and long-term goals as well.
Website, intranet and extranet design and developments have always been one of KRAZYBOYZ digital traditional key strengths.
As we've moved beyond mere desktop solutions to include mobile solutions, ecommerce and Blogs; we developed ANTISTATIC; our own module based Content Management System. This enables us to provide solutions faster and more cost effective - moving beyond component libraries providing integrated digital solutions and rapid deployment.
For those clients who need custom web applications we develop from the ground up in order to take full advantage of new technologies and provide highly tailored flexible and feature-rich solutions.Our developments are unencumbered by the sometimes severe design and functional limitations that off-the-shelf solutions tend to suffer from. Over the years KRAZYBOYZ digital has developed a number of e-commerce developments.
Our latest ecommerce sites use either Open Cart or Magento Shopping Solutions which provides a sturdy backbone and on-going support. Our mobile developments which include mobi sites and applications developments can be rolled out across operating systems - ensuring effective interaction and communication with only the touch of a button.
Social Media has moved from a presence to an encompassing inbound marketing channel. It is of the utmost importance that you have a partner that can not only provide you with the followers but can also work with you to ensure that these users are turned into promoters of your brand.
KRAZYBOYZ provides the service of social media integration including: campaign development, strategy, execution and management. KRAZYBOYZ digital will harness the power of word-of-mouth and through the use of social media will create viral campaigns that will spread your brand.
Our social media campaigns are built using custom-made, insightful, digital content that will appeal your target audience and engage them with your brand.
KRAZYBOYZ digital has always been a firm believer that it is of the utmost importance to communicate regularly. As part of this we have setup state of the art mobile and email messaging systems which provide you clear, cost effective solutions.
Does it not go without saying that your competitive edge is provided by making the right move at the right time? At KRAZYBOYZ we understand timing is everything and together with some firm goals we are able to provide you with a digital solution to suit your company's goals not only today but also in the future.
With our understanding of the complete digital marketing sphere we are able to adapt your web site to allow additions as you need them ensuring scalability, while at the same time keeping you up to date on the latest trends and how it could shape your business.
It is not only what we do but how we do it for you.
KRAZYBOYZ digital believe in making things easier for our clients – as that we have developed a couple of solutions which can easily be rolled out for any client's need.
These solutions cater for:
• Document Management
• Media Libraries
• Survey
• Competitions
• Events Management
• Facebook Application
• Mailers
Separate strategies and campaigns for online and traditional media do not work, what is needed is an integrated approach to the brand.
KRAZYBOYZ digital will review your brand and integrate your branding effectively to provide a consistent message and look throughout your online and above-the-line communication mediums.
The marketing and communication campaigns that we execute are generally not just single channel campaigns, but campaigns that focus on comprehensively integrating and synergising real world advertising (TV, radio and print) with multiple digital channels (Web, email and SMS) and online marketing tactics (SEO, keyword acquisition, website optimisation, keywords, copy, image tags and code), viral campaigns, and advertorial campaigns. With key partners specialising in media buying and placement we are able to provide you with a digital solution which will effectively place your brand.
KRAZYBOYZ employs a successful planning framework when developing digital marketing and communication strategies and plans. This includes defining tactical objectives, strategic goals, business requirements and technical requirements, and then deploying campaigns and measuring results.
At KRAZYBOYZ we know that your corporate identity is so much more than just a logo. It is the values your brand represents and how your customers feel, it's your legacy.
So whether you are rebranding or just starting out; feel free to give us a shout.
KRAZYBOYZ digital is an extensively design and development orientated company and our work is always technically advanced and soundly produced, ensuring a high quality product every time.
strategy, project management & web site development
web site design & development, facebook development, advertising banner development & blog development
website design and development
website development
website, blog, shop & mailer development
website design & development
website design & development
website, mobile design & development
website design & development, corporate identity
website design & development
website development
website, microsite, blog & facebook development
website development & strategy
So you know what we do, and you've seen our work but what is happening in KRAZYBOYZ?
A company that offers a range of services and solutions should have lots to say. So if you are interested in what we are working on, and what has been launched have a look at our articles which we update only when something truly noteworthy happening.
Want to be kept informed? Well go ahead and sign up to our newsletter.
We are proud to launch the latest development from our stable – Aramex South Africa.
Aramex is a leading global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions. They believe people are important asset and encourage creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Berco Express was acquired by Aramex in December 2011 and KRAZYBOYZ was appointed to assist with the rebranding and enhancement of the web site. Working closely with the Aramex technical team and being briefed in detail regarding the company's International brand ethos and requirements. The site was successfully launched in July 2013.
So if you are in need of a partner that delivers, understand logistics as well as offers innovation and creativity you might want to contact KRAZYBOYZ digital for your web site development or brand repositioning.
To have a look at the Aramex web site go to: www.aramex.co.za
KRAZYBOYZ loves coming up with solutions for our clients, and that is exactly what we did for NoMU.
This premium brand came to KRAZYBOYZ with a limited budget but big plans. Wanting more for their budget they wanted to stir up their digital presence and enhance their offering on-line. They however lacked the budget to redevelop their complete web site. So what was the solution? A phased approach, which allow them to focus on the most important and leave the rest for later...
KRAZYBOYZ has over the last couple of months relaunched the NoMU mailer solution, NoMU blog and this month sees the launch of the NoMU shop.
What makes this so extraordinary? All of these live together on the NoMU web site happily although there is no shared backend environment.
If you are a highly talented individual and an expert in your field then you might just have what it takes to earn yourself an interview with KRAZYBOYZ.
Should you however be a person that is creative, focussed, able to work under stress, think out of the box, meet deadlines and multi-task over and above being pedantic; then you should really let us know.
Our current team has been working together for over ten years and are keen for some new blood; at KRAZYBOYZ we push the envelope to try something extraordinary.
KRAZYBOYZ is currently looking for a heavy-weight developer based in Cape Town. Programmer must be experienced with Django / Python / HTML / JQuery skills or at the very least an experienced PHP programmer who is willing to learn Django / Python.
If you think you have what it takes then please contact us for more information.
Van Reenen Street, Newlands,
Phone: +27 21 422-0669
Van Reenen Street, Newlands, Cape Town, 7700, South Africa


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I'm taking a class where I work with a partner to implement the link layer of the OSI model.
I've worked programmed with a partner once before and it went bad. Is the goal to divide the work up and decides who does what or should one person code and the other person reviews and switch roles after a while?
Any tips are much appreciated. Literally I know nothing about working with a partner to program so even if it's basic please tell me.


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Change a few words around and you have … us in the U.S.
No, Belarus Is Not Cut Off From The Internet, But New Restrictions Are Still Pretty Bad
from the could-be-worse-and-probably-will-be dept
There is a lot of excitement over news that Belarus has supposedly cut itself off from the rest of the Internet, with headlines like, "It is now illegal to access any foreign website in the Republic of Belarus". Given the continuing concern over human rights in that country, this story has a certain plausibility to it. But it's worth exploring what the law in question actually says, since the situation is rather more complex than such headlines imply.
Google Translate offers quite a clear translation of the new law (original in Russian), which has two main parts. The first concerns businesses:
Business entities engaged in activities on the sale of goods, works and services in the Republic of Belarus with the use of information networks, systems and resources with an Internet connection, you should pay attention: if these networks, systems or resources are not available on the territory of Belarus and (or) not registered in the prescribed manner to the subjects can be applied to an administrative penalty of a fine from 10 to 30 base units.
That seems to say that all online businesses must be either located in Belarus, or registered there, which might be a problem for Amazon, say. Presumably the company could get around this if it set up a subsidiary in Belarus, and then sold goods from the site amazon.by ? except for the slight problem that this domain has already been taken by a water company. However, Amazon might well decide that it is not worth the effort, and simply block all connections from Belarus.
One issue is what exactly "services" includes in the above section. If, as some have suggested, this means companies offering email, it might stop people using Gmail, unless Google also sets up an arm in the country ? wisely, Google has already registered its domain in Belarus, google.by. Clearly, much depends on how the law is interpreted (and IANAL).
As for non-commercial sites like Wikipedia, say, the paragraph doesn't seem to apply at all, since it only concerns businesses. However, they may well be caught by other parts of the law:
Administrative penalty of a fine (ranging from 5 to 15 basic units) may be imposed on officials of the centers for collective use of the web services (computer clubs, Internet cafes, home networking, and other places, which provide shared access users of Internet services to Internet) in violation of legislation on the identification of client devices and users to record and store information about them, as well as Internet services rendered.
It should also restrict user access to Internet services to the information gap for distribution in accordance with the laws (the information content of which is directed to carry out extremist activities, dissemination of pornographic materials, etc.). In case of violation of requirements to restrict access to this information also applies a penalty from 10 to 30 base units.
These sections deal with Internet cafes and even "home networks" ? connections shared among households. It requires users to be registered, the sites they visit recorded, and the usual censorship of pornographic and "extremist" materials. It's easy to imagine even sites like Wikipedia being branded as such (after all, it happened in the UK), and thus being on the blacklist.
So while it is by no means true that Belarus has made accessing all sites outside the country illegal, it has certainly made it risky, if not impossible, to buy stuff on external sites. Worse, it confirms that Internet users must be spied upon, and "forbidden" sites must be blocked; taken together, these new measures allow the government of Belarus to exert extremely tight control over Internet users in the country. Moreover, with these systems in place, severing Belarus from the Internet for real would be relatively easy, if its government decided to take that extreme step.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Filed Under: belarus, censorship, foreign websites, internet filtering, privacy


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2030 is only 8 years away, by making very modest assumptions about economic growth it is possible to project forward economic data to 2030.
Click the charts or button below to see more charts showing the world economy of today and how it could look in 2030.
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Find out how good a country could be if it upgraded it's GDP data.
The distribution of income in an economy matters and can be measured on a country by country basis by the Gini Coefficient. However Gini values are not all up-to-date.
World Economics has developed an Inequality Index which references the Gini Coefficient from various sources and creates an index for country comparison purposes.
The Index is on a scale of 0-100, a high value indicates a more egalitarian society - and a low value suggests a lot of the national income is in the hands of very few depending upon the unit of measurement.
Bolivia's data is highlighted in the table below, use the filter and sort order options to allow easy comparison with other countries.
Data source: World Economics, London