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Why the Irish Support Palestine
Once upon a time, Ireland was a huge supporter of Jewish aspirations in the Promised Land. What happened?
As the world scrambled to respond to Israel's deadly May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, the first reaction came from an unlikely source: Ireland. On the morning of June 5, the MV Rachel Corrie, which had set sail from the east coast of Ireland in an attempt to breach the Gaza blockade, was intercepted by Israeli forces. The vessel's Irish passengers included Mairead Maguire, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her work to bring peace to Northern Ireland.
The ill-tempered diplomatic spat between the Irish and Israeli governments that accompanied the Rachel Corrie's journey to Gaza is just the latest episode in the countries' long history of antagonistic relations. Tensions recently escalated again with the Irish expulsion of an Israeli diplomat amid Irish anger over Israel's alleged use of eight forged Irish passports in the recent murder of a Hamas official in Dubai.
The Palestinian issue has long occupied a place in the Irish consciousness far greater than geographic, economic, or political considerations appear to merit. Perceived parallels with the Irish national experience, however, have inspired an emotional connection with Palestine that has inspired Irish activism in the region up to the present day.
At first, in the 1920s and 1930s, Irish sympathies lay squarely with the Zionists and drew heavily on the presumed parallels between historic Irish and Jewish suffering, as well as the shared traumatic experience of large-scale migration in the 19th century.
Drawing a parallel with their own history of occupation, the Irish also championed the Zionist struggle for self-determination against the British. A correspondent to The Bell, a leading Irish magazine, raged over current events in Mandate Palestine in March 1945: "Never let it be forgotten that the Irish people ... have experienced all that the Jewish people in Palestine are suffering from the trained 'thugs' 'gunning tarzans' and British 'terrorists' that the Mandatory power have imposed upon the country."
But Irish nationalist perceptions toward Israel soon shifted. The country's own anti-British rebellion led to a traumatic civil war that left six northern counties of the island under the British crown. Once the Zionist movement accepted the partition of Palestine, the Irish began to draw unflattering parallels between Israeli policies and their own divided existence. To many, the Jewish state now looked less like a besieged religious-national community struggling valiantly for its natural rights and more like a colony illegitimately established by British force of arms and intent on imposing itself on an indigenous population.
The renowned Irish novelist Sean O'Faolain, writing in November 1947 as the United Nations debated a partition plan for Mandate Palestine, expressed this sentiment when he rejected the comparison between the Irish and Zionist struggles: "if we could imagine that Ireland was being transformed by Britain into a national home for the Jews, I can hardly doubt which side you would be found."
Not even the successful Zionist military struggle against the British in the late 1940s did much to alter the view that Israel was "a little loyal Jewish Ulster," in the words of Sir Ronald Storrs, the first British governor of Jerusalem. Like Ulster, the northern province of Ireland under British control that was seen as a bulwark against Irish nationalism, Israel appeared designed to hold back the tide of Arab nationalism.
The "Vatican factor," as the writer and politician Conor Cruise O'Brien liked to call the Catholic Church's influence over Irish social and political life, also affected Irish perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In October 1948, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical, In Multiplicibus Curis, endorsing an "international character" to Jerusalem and its vicinity. From that time, the Irish government adopted the Vatican's concern for the status of Jerusalem's holy places and mirrored its call for international supervision of the city.What to do about Palestine was the subject of regular discussions between high-ranking Irish and Vatican officials. Over dinner in Dublin in 1961, Con Cremin, a senior official in the Irish foreign ministry, advised his dinner guest, Israel's ambassador to Britain, Arthur Lourie, that the issue of the holy places "was a relevant factor" affecting Ireland's ties to Israel. "t is a mistake to write off the Vatican position," Cremin continued, "by reference to what might to the normal person seem to be realism."
As a result, Ireland only extended de jure recognition to Israel in 1963, 15 years after its declaration of independence. By the late 1960s, Ireland was increasingly preoccupied with the fate of the Palestinian Arab refugees, whose numbers had swelled following the Six Day War in June 1967. Speaking in 1969 in the Dail, the lower house of the Irish parliament, Irish Foreign Minister Frank Aiken described the settlement of this problem as the "main and most pressing objective" of Ireland's Middle East policy. By the time Aiken left office later that year, Irish policy was set in stone: There could be no peace without the repatriation of the maximum possible number of Palestinian refugees and full compensation, not merely resettlement, for the remainder.
After Ireland joined the European Union in 1973, successive governments in Dublin have taken the lead in championing the Palestinian cause within Europe. In February 1980, Ireland was the first EU member to call for the establishment of a Palestinian state. It was also the last to allow Israel to open a residential embassy, in December 1993.
Israel has responded to this cold shoulder with anger and bewilderment. Speaking on Irish radio in 1980, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin described Irish policy as tantamount to acceptance of the PLO's "right to destroy the Jewish state."
Clashes between Irish U.N. peacekeeping troops in Lebanon and the Israeli army and its proxy Christian militias between 1978 and 2000 made relations worse. Forty-five Irish soldiers died while serving the United Nations in Lebanon, and the Irish government blamed Israel directly or indirectly for at least 15 of those deaths, including the April 1980 kidnapping and execution of privates Thomas Barrett and Derek Smallhorne by the South Lebanon Army, a Christian militia allied with Israel. One Irish politician evoked the general anger when he admitted that he had lost much of his previous sympathy when Israel "commenced to use our volunteer soldiers as target practice."
Throughout the Oslo Accords era and the post-Oslo era, Irish governments continued to provide the Palestinian cause with valuable, if not unlimited, support. Speaking before the Foreign Policy Association in New York City in September 2000, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern explained that the "moral dimension" of international affairs was the "first and foremost" reason for Irish involvement. As citizens of a small, neutral country on the margins of Europe, the Irish public's primary interest in foreign affairs relates to international law, human rights, anti-imperialism, and a proud history of engagement with the United Nations. This worldview, combined with a healthy appetite for the freedom-fighter slogans and anti-colonial language that left previous generations weak at the knees, explains the ongoing attachment to the Palestinian "underdogs."
The Irish fixation with Palestine continued even after the optimism of the Oslo era was long past. In June 2003, Brian Cowen, then Ireland's foreign minister, visited Yasir Arafat during the height of the Second Intifada -- and even after Israel refused to host foreign dignitaries who met the Palestinian leader while visiting the region. Cowen's visit came at a time when terror was at an all-time high and when the U.S. government, a majority of Israelis, and significant sectors of the Palestinian population had lost faith in Arafat's capacity to lead the Palestinians to statehood. But Cowen spoke for many in Ireland when he described Arafat as "the symbol of the hope of self-determination of the Palestinian people" and praised him for his "outstanding work ... tenacity, and persistence."Irish NGOs continue to work actively to translate public support for Palestinian rights into action. Ireland can claim one of the most organized and effective chapters of the international Palestine Solidarity Campaign. In 2004, it submitted a petition to the government signed by 12,000 members of the public and 52 members of parliament, members of the European Parliament, senators, and independent politicians calling for a boycott of Israel. Since then, it has undertaken a number of high-profile campaigns to isolate and delegitimize Israel, including an attempt to get Aer Lingus, an airline partially owned by the government, to cancel flights to the Holy Land. It has been ably supported by the Irish Anti-War Movement, an umbrella body for activist groups that organized a rowdy picket at the Israeli Embassy in Dublin during the flotilla crisis.
The Irish government, which is committed to following Europe's agreed-upon Palestine policy and keen on expanding trade and research and development links with Israel's high-tech sector, will never break ranks with its EU partners and endorse an economic, academic, or cultural boycott of Israel. But there is almost total unanimity across all political parties that Israel is to blame for the ongoing failure to find peace. Not even the partisan political climate that has existed since the economic meltdown of 2008 has dented consensus on this point.
Israel's appointment of Lord David Trimble, a former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, as one of the foreign observers into the flotilla affair has little chance of shifting public opinion on this issue. Despite earning the admiration of many in the Irish nationalist community for his role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, he comes from a Unionist tradition, which calls for Northern Ireland to retain its political ties to Great Britain, which has always been viewed as pro-Israeli.
Many Unionists identify with Israel as an isolated community, surrounded by hostile forces and lacking international support. Their pro-Israeli sentiments also are a reaction to Irish Republican support for the Palestinian cause. In the 1980s, a mural in a nationalist area of Belfast depicted armed Irish Republican Army (IRA) and PLO members under the slogan: "IRA-PLO one struggle." Despite peace, these cleavages still run deep: In response to the Second Intifada, northern Protestant areas flew the Israeli flag, and Catholic areas raised the Palestinian national colors.
Up to the present day, Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, which has elected representatives in the Irish and British parliaments and shares power in Northern Ireland, has continued to be a virulent critic of Israel. In 2006, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, the party's international affairs and human rights spokesperson in the Dublin parliament, described Israel as "one of the most abhorrent and despicable regimes on the planet." This May, he was one of three Irish politicians prevented by authorities from leaving Cyprus to join the Gaza-bound flotilla.
The Irish tendency to view the outside world in terms of local obsessions is still with us. The powerful political narrative connecting Ireland to Israel and Palestine continues to inspire its people, and their government, to action. And in the eyes of many Irish, the "little Jewish Ulster" still sits at the heart of the many problems plaguing the Middle East.


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The biggest cuts come in funding called Impact Aid, which is a 63-year old program designed to compensate local districts that include federal land not subject to the property taxes that most school systems in the United States use for funding.
Impact Aid came to more than $13 million in the districts located in Fort Washakie, Ethete and Arapahoe in 2010, according to a report prepared for Wyoming legislators by Michelle Hoffman, superintendent of schools in District 14 in Ethete. The payout has risen slightly each year since then until the sequestration struck this year. In the present and next fiscal years, the three districts stand to lose more than $4 million of that funding, according to superintendents on the reservation.
Impact Aid is not unique to reservations. The Laramie County schools receive Impact Aid for every student they enroll who lives on the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. Districts in Campbell, Uinta and Sweetwater counties also receive Impact Aid. In addition to children living on Indian lands, the law provides aid to districts serving children on "military bases, low-rent housing properties, and other federal properties, or who have parents in the uniformed services or employed on eligible federal properties," according to a U.S. Department of Education website.
But these non-reservation districts — and also Fremont District 6 based in Pavillion, which is on the reservation — together received less than $1 million in Impact Aid in 2010, according to Hoffman's report. And some of these districts, such as those in Cheyenne and Gillette, have large budgets and huge property tax bases. A cut to Impact Aid peels a thin sliver off a tiny slice of the district's budget pie.
Not so on the reservation. In this fiscal year (FY 2013, which corresponds to the 2012-13 school year) Hoffman's district has seen Impact Aid funding decline by $1.7 million to just under $4 million. That is an 11 percent cut in a total district budget of $15 million a year.
Because the reservation districts enroll predominantly students who live on the reservation's trust land, which yields no local property tax income, they have no way to raise local money within the reservation. "We are at the mercy of the federal government," said one school official.
Like those elsewhere in Wyoming, the reservation districts receive state funding for teachers, transportation, food service and other core expenses, but they rely on federal Impact Aid — long ago called "payment in lieu of taxes"— to pay for services that are not covered under state funding. And as low-income districts with more than their share of social problems, they invest the money in programs that serve their students' special needs.
What Impact Aid buys
"We have two counselors per building," said Hoffman. That comes to six counselors in the district, two each in the elementary school, the middle school and the high school.
"That's not funded through the state," she said. "The state would like us to have 1.3 counselors in the district. Because of the issues some of our students face, we need to have two. And they are busy all the time."
The students face issues that come with any low-income district, Hoffman said: "Poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse. We have two full-time nurses in our district, which the state model does not cover. We pay for that through Impact Aid."
Last week, Hoffman and other education leaders from the reservation spent four days in Washington D.C. to visit with Sen. John Barrasso and Rep. Cynthia Lummis, among other lawmakers, and to argue for the restoration of Impact Aid. Among Hoffman's specific requests was the maintenance of funding for nurses, who often spot health problems that families and teachers miss.
"Like I told Sen. Barrasso when I met with him, I have middle school students losing their teeth," Hoffman said.
Hoffman's district, and many similar districts around the country, saw trouble coming in 2011 when Congress passed the Budget Control Act. That law set sequestration — across-the-board 10-percent budget cuts to discretionary federal spending — as the penalty for failing to agree on a $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in budget cuts. The reservation districts, following the lead of the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS), looked for ways to save money. Hoffman figured on a loss of $1.5 million or more in Impact Aid.
"We made these cuts by changing our insurance provider [a savings of $1 million] and by not replacing five teachers, one cook and one custodian," Hoffman said. "In addition, we have delayed updates to technology and bus purchases and cut some line item budgets up to 5 percent."
NAFIS, the organization that forecasts Impact Aid, usually with uncanny accuracy, sees more cuts next year, Hoffman said. And eventually the reductions will be harder to make without cutting programs that serve students directly. In 2013-14, the district is budgeting for an additional cut of nearly $570,000 in Impact Aid, in line with estimates by NAFIS.
"As of now, I have about 13 positions of people who are retiring or moving or just not coming back.," Hoffman said. "We're taking a real hard look at not replacing them. Eighty-two percent of the budget is wages and benefits. You can't cut it by cutting stuff. You don't buy enough stuff to make up more than $2 million in cuts in two years."
The District 14 School Board will ultimately make these decisions, relying heavily on the recommendations of Hoffman and the district's business manager. But whatever happens, Ethete's schools will not be alone, nor will they be in the worst shape among similar schools around the nation.
NAFIS estimates that 1,400 school districts — roughly one in 10 nationwide — will be affected by cuts in Impact Aid this year. In a survey of 400 school districts, NAFIS found that 36 percent of the 334 districts that responded had planned for sequestration in the current fiscal year.
"Those who have budgeted for the sequester are choosing to put off school-building maintenance and are eliminating both non-instructional and instructional staff," NAFIS executive director John B. Forkenbrock stated in a press release. "Many of these buildings are already in disrepair; and these decisions are now putting students at risk — a risk that can be tied directly to Congress' failure to act. And federally impacted schools, our military and Native American children, will continue to face the effects of impending cuts in coming years unless sequestration is avoided."
Current-year funding
Unlike all other federal education programs, which are "forward funded" and which the Department of Education (DOE) says will not be cut until the next federal fiscal year begins Sept. 1, Impact Aid is funded in the current year. So the budget reduction beginning on March 1 cut aid for six months during this federal fiscal year.
To make planning even more difficult, the Impact Aid for a particular fiscal year is paid out over several years. The districts receive one initial payment that represents the bulk of that year's aid, but smaller amounts are paid out incrementally in later years. At the same time, additional payments from prior years arrive as well, even if the exact amounts are often a surprise.
The funding is drawn out over several years because verifying the complicated applications submitted by school districts takes time, said Dan Hudson, the retired business manager of Hoffman's district. Aid is granted on a per-student basis and, often, individual claims about where students live or how they qualify must be verified. The payment starts out with a substantial lump sum. Later payments are likely, but by no means guaranteed, Hudson said.
In Fort Washakie, Assistant Superintendent for Finance Nina Garland said District 21 received a $200,000 adjustment from last year, as well as payments this year from Impact Aid awarded 2008 and 2009.
"It wasn't much, maybe $1,600 dollars total," she said. But it was something. And it showed that those two years were still open.
Windfalls and preparation
Fort Washakie, a district smaller than Ethete with about 500 students, also prepared for cuts this year. The district cut two jobs by transferring its local nonprofit radio station to Wyoming Public Radio. KFTW officially became KUWW last month, although the district had been working on the deal since last July, well before sequestration was a certainty.
Another one-time revenue source helped the district bridge the funding gap left by more than $1 million in Impact Aid cuts. The local high school converted from a charter to a public school. In the past, the district paid tuition to the charter school for every student who attended. The state reimbursed the district for tuition the following year.
This year the high school is part of the district, so no tuition bills will come due. But the district will receive about $1 million in reimbursement from the state for last year's tuition payments, Garland said.
Finally, the district is profiting from growing enrollment. Fort Washakie has been committed to small class sizes for many years. And as the enrollment grew this past year, so did per-student aid from the state and the number of students who qualified the district for Impact Aid.
"We added enrollment and didn't increase staff," Garland said.
Reading and classroom aides
Richard McClements, superintendent of schools in District 21, said Impact Aid pays for the extra attention and services that the state does not provide, especially more teachers and caregivers in the classroom.
"Among the many things that Impact Aid does for us as a district serving Native American children," McClements said, "it is our reading program that is the big difference maker. We also have very small class sizes. Wyoming has a class size of 16 students for K through 3, but our average is 13.9. On top of that, every classroom teacher in Kindergarten through third grade has a full-time classroom aide. Full time. There are very few districts throughout Wyoming — if any — who can say that."
Fort Washakie also pays salaries to a group of seven grandparents to work 29-hour weeks in the schools. "They are there to love and mother the children," McClements said. "And to work with some of the more difficult children."
The extra adults in the classrooms enable teachers to focus on students who need the most help, as well as to create smaller subgroups for exercises and activities.
What to cut
In the next week or so, all of the district superintendents on the reservation will be meeting with their boards to decide on budget cuts. Fort Washakie expects big cuts next year and cannot count on the one-time cost and revenue fixes that saved more than $1 million this year. McClements and Garland are budgeting for another $1 million cut in the initial payment for Impact Aid to about $3 million. The district budget is slightly over $13.2 million now.
Unlike Hoffman, McClements is holding his possible funding cuts close to his vest. The board, not the press, should hear recommendations from him first. This was also the stance taken in District 38, where Superintendent Jonathan Braack declined to talk in specific terms until an official board meeting next week.
But McClements indicated that he wants to find money to save the big line items that keep the classes small and interactive.
When the group of school officials went to Washington to meet lawmakers last week, McClements sent along a document outlining the costs and merits of these programs. The certified classroom aides, one per classroom in K through 3 and 0.5 per classroom in higher grades, cost $750,000. A preschool program to increase the literacy of incoming kindergartners costs $150,000. The grandparents cost $120,000. The state pays for 1.33 reading coaches and the district spends $64,000 to bring the service up to two full-time coaches. None of this is paid for by Wyoming. All of it comes from Impact Aid. None of it could be easily sacrificed if the district wants to offer the same education it provided to students this year.
In addition, all of the districts on the reservation offer free breakfast and lunch to every student, not just those who qualify for subsidized meals. The extra money comes from Impact Aid.
"It's surprising," McClements said, "how many children come to school hungry, especially on Monday."
The calculus is similar in Fort Washakie and Ethete. And each of the districts has a backup plan that they would implement almost as reluctantly as they would cut classroom staff. Dating back to the years when districts built their own school buildings, both Ethete and Fort Washakie have been saving to build new schools. Each district has cash reserves — they are reluctant to say exactly how much — that they want to spend on enhancements to the buildings the state would pay for.
In Ethete, for example, a new elementary school would come without a kitchen. To avoid trucking meals from the high school kitchen to an elementary school some distance away, the district would pay for the kitchen. Both districts want larger classrooms than the state would pay for. And they want to allocate their reserves for that, not to pay for school lunches or classroom programs.
Hudson, the former business manager who said it was "his job" to find the surpluses to pay for a new school building, said the districts could probably get along for a while. But they would eventually run out of money if the discretionary spending caps or sequestration continued, as the Budget Control Act specifies, until 2021.
The solution, he contends, is to find a way to restore funding to the districts.
"I can tell you what I just got through telling those people in Washington," Hudson said. "When you get into sequestration, especially with Impact Aid, this is not just cutting 5 percent of your budget. What you are doing is you are cutting 5 percent of your people. You are cutting teachers, aides, staff, and cooks. It isn't just 5 percent. It is real people who are losing their jobs. It is real kids who are not getting the education they are entitled to. That's the people who end up paying the ultimate price for it. It isn't the U.S. taxpayer."
— Ron Feemster covers the Wind River Indian Reservation for WyoFile in addition to his duties as a general reporter. Feemster was a Visiting Professor of Journalism at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media in Bangalore, India, and previously taught journalism at Northwest College in Powell. He has reported for The New York Times, Associated Press, Newsday, NPR and others. Contact Ron at firstname.lastname@example.com.
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Matthew Jacobs
Member since Feb 18, 2010
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Using Contextual SMS Short Code Messages With TextMarks And ColdFusion
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Call it a hunch.
Julia Bluhm, an eighth grader from Waterville Junior High, had a sneaking suspicion that not all young women were beautiful, thin and fit.
Yet, as Bluhm flipped through the pages of last May's Seventeen magazine, there they were, in glorious color, one perfect teen after another.
Of course, it wasn't just May's issue. And it wasn't just Seventeen magazine. These smiling stick-figures in minimalist fashions were everywhere, she discovered, seemingly taunting her.
"All fake," Bluhm concluded.
Riding a mantra of "if you don't like something, change it," Bluhm and her Waterville Junior High partner Izzy Labbe set out on a campaign to shake up the good folks who, for starters, publish Seventeen. The magazine's current circulation is 20 million worldwide.
"When girls read magazines like Seventeen, they shouldn't have to be subjected to Photoshopped images and subliminal messages about the way they are supposed to look," Labbe said.
"Girls deserve better, and they deserve to know what they are truthfully seeing," Bluhm added.
Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge (SPARK) is a global coalition and activist movement determined to end sexualization of women in media. At its core, SPARK is a team of 30 girls and young women ages 13 to 22, scattered across the United States. Bluhm is a blogger for SPARK and its local Maine partner, Hardy Girls Healthy Women.
Fueled by Bluhm's heightened awareness of exploitation, Labbe used her MLTI-issued MacBook computer to create a documentary that captured the reactions and opinions of fellow junior high teens toward the images found in Seventeen. While polling dozens of classmates on camera, Bluhm and Labbe were finding a common thread – the barrage of ultra-skinny teen beauties in the publication were making girls feel inadequate about themselves.
"No girl is that symmetrical," noted one student. "These images set an unrealistic bar for girls, and all they do is create low self-esteem."
Labbe put the finishing touches on her 15-minute documentary and then put a stake in the ground. They circulated the video and pointed viewers to an online petition that Bluhm had created earlier, with SPARK's guidance. The goal of the petition was to lobby Seventeen to "change the rules" by printing at least one feature each month using unaltered photos.
The petition quickly went viral and attracted more than 85,000 signatures. In one unified voice, teen girls had spoken.
And then that voice grew louder. Bluhm, her mom, and SPARK Director Dana Edell led a teen team to New York City, where they staged a mock photo shoot of "real girls" to protest Seventeen's practices. The shoot was in front of the Hearst Corporation's headquarters on West 57th Street, where Seventeen is published.
And then that voice grew even louder. The story was picked up by ABC's Nightly News, then by "Good Morning, America."
"We want to show Seventeen we love our bodies just the way they are," Bluhm told the GMA cameras. "We don't need Photoshop to 'fix' us."
In a letter to readers in the magazine's August issue, Seventeen editor Ann Shocket pledged to "always feature real girls and models who are healthy." The magazine will continue to airbrush away its models' flyaway hairs and clothing folds, she went on, but it will start posting before-and-after pictures from its photo shoots on its Tumblr account.
Even the publishers of Teen Vogue, with its parent publication considered by many the benchmark for fashion magazines, have taken notice. Quoted as saying ultra-young and ultra-skinny models were now "out of style," Teen Vogue committed to ban the use of underage models or those with eating disorders on its pages.
Bluhm and Labbe had won and had achieved rock-star status in the process. Not bad for a couple of 14-year-old "real" kids from Maine with a computer and an ideal.
"Young people like Julia and Izzy are not waiting to become tomorrow's leaders. They are leaders today," said Charlie Hartman, MLTI Project Manager for the Maine Department of Education.
"The MLTI MacBook computers have given them the tools to reach out to the world and make their voices heard in a way no one could have imagined a mere decade ago," Hartman added. "These are young women showing us that we should watch and follow them, because they are a powerful force."


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ESPN.com is unveiling its "Any Era" team this week which features 20 current players with the toughness to play in any period of NFL history. The team was assembled by votes from 20 Hall of Fame players (here's a full explanation of the project).
Coming in at No. 3 on the Any Era Team is Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. No surprise here. When you think toughness, the first current quarterback that comes to mind is Roethlisberger.
He just doesn't play with pain. It seems like he plays better in pain. It even hurts recounting his injuries. In 2005, he fractured his right thumb and tore cartilage in his right knee. In 2008, he separated his right shoulder. In 2010, he broke his nose and fractured a bone in his right foot. This year, he sprained his left foot, fractured his right thumb again and suffered a high ankle sprain.
Trying to knock him out of the game is as tough as knocking him to the ground. Roethlisberger has made a career by shrugging off pass-rushers to extend the play and deliver a strike downfield. "Big Ben reminds me of Roman Gabriel, the old Rams quarterback," ESPN's John Clayton wrote. "Big, strong, fairly mobile."
Here are explanations from three Hall of Fame players on why Roethlisberger made the cut:
WARREN MOON: "If Ben Roethlisberger had to play in the era when they went both ways, he could do it. He is a big, classic style of football player. I like his toughness. He is one of the toughest quarterbacks in the league. Maybe not the most talented, but the toughest of all of them."
FLOYD LITTLE: "He performs in spite of the hurts and pains and always wants to be in the huddle regardless of his pain. That's the type of players we were -- we lined up whenever the opportunity presented itself, and he really could play in our era. He goes into the locker room, gets taped up, comes back and gets the team a win."
DWIGHT STEPHENSON: "Love him or hate him, Big Ben is one of the toughest, gutsiest players in all of the NFL. Last year he breaks his nose and it is sitting under his left eye socket. The trainer bends it back straight, throws some tape on it, he plays a couple of plays with a mask on, doesn't like the mask, rips it off and goes back in and plays."


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In the remote Kamchatka peninsula (map below), 200 km from Tigil, University of St. Petersburg archaeologists discovered a strange fossil. The authenticity of the find has been certified. According archaeologist Yuri Golubev, occurs that, in this case the discovery surprised scientists by its nature, at least – unusual, able to change history (or pre-history).
They were in perfect state of conservation, as if they were frozen in a short period of time. It was necessary control the area, because soon the curious began to appear in large numbers. Other scientists, americans geologists, defined the piece as an amazing and mysterious artifact.


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The following tutorial is based on a real project. This unique tutorial will take users through the real process of creating shaders with bespoke physical properties and applying textures based on real photo references. The subsequent stage will introduce users to the fascinating process of creating and matching the overall lighting closely to the original photo reference supplied by the client while using state-of-the- art techniques to achieve fast and convincing results.
The final step will navigate users through the intricacies of using the best post-production approaches to help enhance and finalize the 3d shot at the highest level.
Most post-production effects implemented in this tutorial are kept in layers with their respective masks to achieve the ultimate control over the final results.
Also available in this series:
- Achieving 3D Realism: Reception Area Render With 3D Studio Max & V-Ray, Part 1
- Achieving 3D Realism: Reception Area Render With 3D Studio Max & V-Ray, Part 2
- Achieving 3D Realism: Reception Area Render With 3D Studio Max & V-Ray, Part 3 Lighting And Rendering
- Achieving 3D Realism: Reception Area Render With 3D Studio Max & V-Ray, Part 4 Lighting And Rendering
- Achieving 3D Realism: Reception Area Render With 3D Studio Max & V-Ray: Post Production
- Achieving 3D Realism: Reception Area Render With 3D Studio Max & V-Ray: Final Post Production
This tutorial is part of a project I have finished recently.
While projects often start from the pre-production phase, this specific tutorial will focus mainly on production and post- production process.
The pre-production process is not being covered simply because the client had already supplied me with a photo reference and all the necessary information to achieve acceptable results.
The initial brief was to incorporate the client's bespoke design and lighting in a completely new office space. For that, at my request (plea), I was provided with a photo reference of one of their existing office design to be used as a reference.
The IES light pattern on the wall may not be coherent with the ceiling light model. However, it was specifically chosen to make the overall image more appealing and "sellable".
Had I not been given the photo-reference by the client, I would have had to go through the entire process of pre-production, which consists of: sourcing for striking photos (Flikr, books, Google, etc) and help the client choose (i.e. liaise) the best photo/s to be used as reference for lighting, cameras, colors, etc.
This vital pre-production stage often takes from one hour, to few days, depending on the project.
Please check my latest manual book entitled "3d realism practical and easy workflows" to see the entire in-depth process of pre-production, production and post-production.
1. Let's start by opening the file under the name of "Office close_Start.max".
It's worth mentioning that the camera and the render size had been chosen already during the pre-production process. After numerous trial and errors, the camera height was set to about 1.60/1.59 meters, which is about the standard eye level of most cameras. See fig1.0 and fig.1.1
However, some users or clients prefer a slightly lower or higher camera height depending on the effect intended.
2. The first thing to adjust is the "units setup" display function. This will prove crucial when creating real scale objects accurately, when measuring distances in the scene, entering bitmap values, etc.
To do so, simply go to the main toolbar and click on the "customize" tab, followed by choosing the "units setup" function from the dropdown list.
Its dialog box should appear. By default its "display unit scale" is set to "generic units".
Change it to metric and choose the "meters" unit type. I normally work between meters and millimeters depending on the size of the object I am creating and the numeric length I am entering or measuring. However, you can choose the metric unit you feel more comfortable working with.
It's worth noting that this action does not affect the scale of the geometry in any way, shape or form. It is only a guideline for metric display purposes.
See fig. 2.0 and fig.2.1
3. To ensure that objects merged/imported into this scene retain their original scale/size, we are going to open the "system unit setup" dialog.
Once opened, ensure that the "respect system units in files" function is enabled.
Please note that, the original "system unit scale" function should never be changed…unless there's an exceptional reason to do so. See fig. 3.0
4. Prior to begin working on the file, it is common practice to quickly measure objects in the scene, to check if most objects have the correct scale.
To do so, simply create a "tape" helper and begin measuring objects such as chair seats (0.4m), door height (2.2m), floor to ceiling height, etc. If these measurements are far off from the normal scale, then it is worth re-importing/merging or re-modeling certain object/s, or the entire scene.
Our eyes can easily detect scale discrepancies…therefore often perceived unrealistic.
These precautionary measures will prove vital when creating textures, making the scene look believable, etc. See fig. 4.0
5. Next, we are going to load the v-ray rendering engine.
A- Open the "render setup" dialog by pressing "f10" key.
B- In the "common" tab parameters, scroll down to the "assign renderer" rollout and click on its "production" toggle. The "choose renderer" dialog should pop up.
C- Choose the "V-ray Adv 1.50.SP5" from the list and press "ok" to close the dialog. The v-ray renderer should load up. The version of v-ray may differ if working in 3Ds Max 2010.
However, since we are not using any specific v-ray features, the final render results should be similar. See fig.5.0
The next phase is to begin applying the textures.
It's common practice to apply the basic shaders and textures in a "light free" environment in order to speed up the process towards finalizing the renders.
There are certain texture details such as chamfered edges (i.e. vrayedgestext) that can only be seen at rendering time. This specific phase of the process is to ensure that such effects are dealt with in an efficient and timely manner prior to begin test rendering the lights and GI (Global Illumination).
6. Also, set the "gamma and lut" values to about 2.2. The gamma often helps to balance the scene's contrast (bright & dark areas). Darker areas of the scene often take longer to render without the gamma enabled.
The value of 2.2 is normally ideal and recommended by most reputable companies.
To enable it, simply click on the "customize" main toolbar and choose the "preferences" option from the list. Its dialog should open.
In the "gamma and lut" parameters, enable it and set the gamma value to 2.2, along with the "input" and "output" values. See fig.6.0 and 6.1
Floor Material
7. The first material to start with is the floor material.
Prior to opening the material editor, I normally choose the "compact material editor" type. To do so, simply go to the main toolbar. Click and hold the material editor icon, and choose the "compact material editor" type.
Open the material editor (m). See fig. 7.0 and 7.1
8. It is common practice to open in 3Ds max the photo reference/s of each material to be worked on. This is to help match the texture and its physical properties more closely.
To do so, simply click on the "rendering" main toolbar and choose the "view image file" option from the dropdown list. Locate and open the file under the name of "photo reference small.jpeg".
See fig. 8.0 and 8.1
9. In the material editor, select an empty material slot and assign it to the floor object under the name of "Floors ". See fig.9.0
10. Next, we are going to change the current standard material to a v-ray type.
A- Click on the "standard" toggle to open the "material/map browser" dialog.
B- In the "material/map browser" dialog, open the "v-ray adv…" rollout.
C- Double click on the "vraymtl" shader from the list. The v-ray shader should load up. See fig 10.0 and 10.1
11. Next, we are going to locate and apply a floor texture to the surface. Please note that the floor texture had been supplied by the client.
For hyper-realistic results, reputable companies often take a "flat on" photo of the surface without direct shadows. The photos often encompass large areas of the relevant surface…as opposed to high-resolution photos of small areas. This technique will ensure that less tiling is needed and more realistic details are kept in the original photo (i.e. dust, subtle discrepancies, etc).
Click on the "diffuse" toggle and double click on the "bitmap" material to load the texture under the name of "woodfloorBig yellow.jpeg". See fig.11.0 and 11.1
12. Once the texture is loaded; in the "map: coordinates" rollout, sharp the texture by reducing its "blur" value to about 0.1. This action may increase the rendering of that texture slightly. However, it will improve the texture quality a notch…especially in areas closer to the camera.
At the moment the texture seems too big in comparison to the photo reference. To match its tiling size closer to the photo reference, we are going to first apply an "uvw map" modifier to the surface. See fig. 12.0
13. Next, set its "mapping" type to "box" and click on the "fit "button. The texture tile is looking much better now.
Finally, tweak with its U and V values in order to closely match it with the photo reference image. The values that worked well were U=8.0; V=3.0; W=1.0. However, you may try different values, if desired.
See fig. 13.0; 13.1 and 13.2
14. While the tiling size looks much closer to the photo reference, there's a visible texture seam in the foreground. To move it away from the camera, we are going back to the "map: coordinates", and move the "U offset" value to about 2.39. The seam is no longer visible to the camera now.
You may also want to move the "V offset" value to about 0.37 to match the position of the wooden planks closer to the photo reference. Please note that while these values worked well, you may also try different values to try different results.
Open the "render setup" dialog. In "common" parameters, change the "output size" width to about 500pixels, for quick test render results.
The "height" value should also change automatically. Test render the changes (Shift+Q). See fig.14.0 and 14.1
15. It is common practice to use the "color correction" procedural map on surfaces such as the floor. This is mainly due to the fact that floors often loose they original color when in direct contact with the lights and when reflections are enabled.
To apply the "color correction" procedural map, simply click on the "bitmap" toggle first.
In the "maps" rollout; under "standard", double click the "color correction" procedural map from the list. See fig.15.0
16. The "replace map" dialog should pop up. Choose to "keep old map a sub-map", and "ok" to close it. The "color correction" procedural map parameters should load up. See fig.16.0 and 16.1
17. Some of the main characteristics of a wooden floor are its slight reflectiveness and shine. We will be using the photo reference to emulate these physical properties.
A- Click on the "go to parent" button to return to the main v-ray parameters.
B-In the "reflection" group click and hold the "reflect" color swatch to bring up the "color selector" dialog. Black color equals to no reflection, and white equals to full reflection.
To enable a slight reflection on the surface, simply give it a greyish color by moving the arrow down a bit(R=96; G=96; B=96).
C- Looking at the photo reference, the glossy highlight of the wooden floor looks slightly diffused. To emulate that, first click on the "highlight glossiness" toggle to enable its numerical values.
Decrease its current value to about 0.55 to disperse its sharp glossy highlight. It's common practice to closely see these changes occurring in the material slot thumbnail.
D-To control the blurriness of the reflections first enable the "background" button in the material editor slot. Decrease the "refl. glossiness" value to about 0.75. Note in material editor slot how the "background" thumbnail is gradually becoming blurry. You may try different values, if desired.
E- Finally, increase the "subdivis" value to about 35. This value will increase the rendering time of this material. However, lower values will yield very grainy glossy results.
Test render to see the results (Shift+Q). See fig.17.0; 17.1 and 17.2
18. The floor seems a bit bright now. We will leave it like that for now, and tweak it further once the artificial lights had been added.
A-Next, we are going to add a slight bump to the floor. Go inside the diffuse toggle and copy its diffuse texture by right clicking and choosing "copy" from the pop up list.
B- Go back to the main v-ray parameters. Scroll down and open the "maps" rollout.
C-In the "bump" toggle, right click and "paste (copy)" the texture. See fig.18.0 and 18.1
19. Inside the "bump" toggle, increase the "blur" value to 1.0. This is to prevent the bump from becoming too sharp.
Next, replace the current texture map with a jpeg under the name of "woodfloorBig yellow_Bump".
Copying and pasting the texture diffuse values onto the bump values enables users to update the texture and the blurriness without having to tweak with the "offset" values. Test render the results. See fig. 19.0
20. The bump value seems too high in the test render. Change to about 3.0, and test render it again.
Glass Table
21. The next material to focus on is the glass table.
A- Select the object under the name of "table ", in the scene.
B- In the material editor, select a new slot and create a v-ray material as previously done.
C- In the "reflection" group increase its reflectivity by clicking on its "reflect" color swatch and changing its current color to light grey (R=96; G=96; B=96). One can later change these values if necessary.
D-To add a bit of shine to the glass decrease the "highlight glossiness" value to about 0.85. You may change this value if required. Note how the material is changing in the material editor slot. See fig. 21.0
22. To add a bit of transparency to the glass, in the "refraction" group, change the "refract" color swatch to white(R=250; B=250; G=250).
Next, change the "IOR" value to about 1.1 and enable the "affect shadows" function. This function allows shadows to be cast through the refraction (opacity). See fig.22.0
23. Assign this new material to the "table" object and enable the "background" button. Also, name this material: "glass table". It's good practice to name materials accordingly. See fig. 23.0
24. Test render the changes.
Most objects in the real world have chamfered edges. So it makes sense to also emulate such effects in cg.
A- While the glass material is still selected, scroll down to the "bump" function and click on its toggle to open the "material/map browser" dialog.
B- In the "material/map browser" dialog, under "maps"/"standard", scroll down and double click on "vrayedgestext" procedural map.
Its parameters should load up. See fig.24.0
25. To see a close up render result of this effect, first isolate (alt+q) the table object and press "z" to zoom extent the selected object.
Next, in the top viewport, rotate the view and zoom further in. Unlock the camera view in the "render setup" dialog, to automatically change the view to "orthographic".
In the material editor, change the "vrayedgestext params" thickness to world units type, and test render the results. See fig.25.0
26. The table edges are very apparent now. Try the "world unit" value of 0.03 and test render again.
In cases where one needs to use the standard bump material and this procedural map simultaneously, professionals often use the "mix" procedural map to mix both materials.
Finally, change the glass "diffuse" color to a dark green tone similar to the photo reference(R=1.0; G=1.0; B=0.0). See fig.26.0


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HPE/Aruba is said to be planning to acquire the intellectual property of failing startup Rasa Networks within the next 2 to 4 weeks, according to sources close to the matter.
The transaction could see between $5 million and $10 million change hands, the sources added, noting that it's not a full buyout of the company, but merely a deal for Rasa's IP and, potentially, one or two of the company's data scientists.
+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Don't buy into hybrid cloud headache hype, GE's cloud guru says + Meet a handheld server with a 13-terabyte SSD
HPE/Aruba described the story as "rumors and speculation," and declined to comment. Neither Rasa Networks nor the company's venture backers, Khosla Ventures, responded to inquiries before this story's time of publication.
Rasa is the brainchild of Partho Mishra, a Cisco veteran who founded the company in 2013. Mishra had been the head of Cisco's small cell efforts. Rasa's intellectual property is primarily focused on hardware and noise cancellation, the product of a pivot from making access points to analytics when it became clear the former business wasn't going to work out, sources said.
Rasa has been trying to get itself sold off for some time, but Ruckus and Cisco are said to have given the deal a pass. The idea behind HPE/Aruba's purported interest in the company's IP would be to help Aruba move towards a fully integrated cloud management platform for the network. The acquisition wouldn't get them there overnight, but the analytics piece would be bolstered by Rasa's technology, moving a little bit closer to a cloud-based network management framework that could handle both wired and wireless data at the same time.
Such a system would be a boon to Aruba's customers, and an important competitive differentiator in the industry, according to one source.
"That's kind of the big problem in the industry that people are trying to solve," the source said. "What customers end up having to do is use the software systems that come with the infrastructure product that they buy, and those just aren't designed for that kind of stuff."


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Many mainstream consumers may soon own and enjoy networked home audio products thanks to two innovative system-level DLNA platforms introduced here today by CSR plc CSR. These fully integrated solutions will enable manufacturers to quickly bring to market a range of affordable DLNA Certified® products with Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth® and Bluetooth Smart connectivity. The introduction of the new Sonata™ networked media processor in combination with CSR's extensive portfolio of wireless technologies makes it easy to create high quality, multi-room audio systems.
The complementary VibeHub™ and VibePlayer™ platforms work together to make it practical and easy to enjoy very high-quality, synchronised multi-room audio anywhere around the home, indoors and out, from local and cloud-based sources over an existing home Wi-Fi network. The VibePlayer platform offers a simple two-chip solution for building low-cost, portable, battery-powered wireless speakers and speaker docks that can be used either stand-alone or as part of a network. The VibeHub platform, based on the CSR Sonata processor, is used to create fully featured intelligent audio hubs for the home that can simultaneously pull content from digital media servers and Internet radio or other cloud services, as well as Bluetooth streaming media source devices, and intelligently route the audio to play on multiple VibeHub- and VibePlayer-based products located anywhere on the home network. The whole system can be controlled using an app on a smartphone, tablet or other smart mobile device.
"Our entry into networked home audio builds upon our experience and expertise as the leader today in wireless audio, enabling us to dramatically reduce the cost of having multiple networked speakers around the home," said Anthony Murray, Business Group SVP at CSR. "We are removing all the complexities of developing networked audio platforms by providing a full audio ecosystem that 'just works'. Wireless audio is our passion, and we want to deliver incredible audio quality for the consumer, regardless of whether they are streaming their content from Wi-Fi or Bluetooth sources."
According to Murray, the advancement that consumers will see is the seamless way they can introduce new audio devices into the home and the ease and flexibility with which they can send content to different speaker devices around the home. The audio will be synchronised and of very high quality, thanks to the aptX® codec technology CSR is using.
VibeHub and VibePlayer Platforms
The VibePlayer platform's low-power, cost-optimised design is ideal for creating affordable, portable, battery-powered wireless speakers, speaker docks and similar products. With the VibePlayer platform's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Bluetooth Smart capabilities, manufacturers can create products that can be used as traditional Bluetooth wireless speaker docks, but also as part of a home Wi-Fi network, with the ability to play audio sent to it from DLNA digital media servers and VibeHub-based products.
The fully featured VibeHub platform can be used to build wireless docking systems, intelligent audio hubs, networked audio amplifiers and a wide range of other intelligent DLNA Certified products. The platform's Bluetooth capabilities provide the important versatility of being able to stream audio from a wide assortment of mobile devices, making it easy for guests to play their favourite music over the home network when visiting without having to join the home Wi-Fi network.
The new CSR Sonata networked media processor has been developed to support the needs of powerful, feature rich, networked home audio platforms such as the VibeHub platform. Its flexible architecture enables playback and forwarding of audio from many sources, including Bluetooth streaming devices, DLNA servers, Internet cloud-based services and USB and line-in inputs. In addition to handling the distribution of various types of content around the home concurrently, the Sonata processor enables the playback of identical content among multiple rooms.
The Sonata SoC is designed around a high-performance ARM® Cortex™-A9 CPU and Neon™ media accelerator that is more than capable of supporting not only the advanced networked audio software CSR provides but also a variety of additional features OEMs and ODMs can add to enable differentiation and customisation. It integrates Wi-Fi and Bluetooth stacks together with UPnP® and DLNA middleware to fully meet the processing demands of modern multi-room HD multimedia content distribution. A diverse range of I/O capabilities, HD graphics, touchscreen control and integrated ADCs and DACs round out the Sonata offering.
CSR provides extensive audio development kits for both platforms that include a range of software libraries with well-defined, high-level APIs. These kits enable manufacturers to develop software to their unique specifications, adding features like third-party audio processing algorithms or extra Internet radio and cloud services, as well as creating a customised look and feel for complete product differentiation.
A private, invitation-only demonstration of the VibeHub and VibePlayer platforms is taking place during the International CES 2013 show in the Springhill Suites, January 8-11. Attendees wishing to view the private demonstration should contact CSR for an invitation.
Availability and Pricing
CSR is engaging now with OEM and ODM customers on their networked product developments. Volume production of the VibeHub and VibePlayer platforms is expected in mid 2013. Please contact CSR for pricing information.
All CSR's news at CES can be found on its online press kit: http://www.tradeshownews.com/events/2013-International-CES/CSR/
About CSR
CSR is a global provider of innovative silicon and software solutions for the location-aware, media-rich, cloud-connected world. Our platforms are optimised for the automotive navigation and infotainment, digital cameras and imaging, connected home infotainment and wireless audio markets. We provide solutions to complex problems in the audio-visual, connectivity and location technology domains across a broad range of markets, with a technology portfolio that includes GPS/GNSS systems, Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi®, FM, NFC, aptX® and CVC™ audio codecs, JPEG, MPEG, H.264 imaging, PDL printing, microcontrollers, DSPs and broadband receivers. CSR's technology solutions and market platforms enable its customers to deliver a superior user experience and are adopted by leaders in the auto, computer, home and mobile markets. More information can be found at www.csr.com. Keep up to date with CSR on our technical blog or CSR people blog, YouTube, Facebook or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/CSR_plc
This press release contains certain statements (including statements concerning plans and objectives of management for future operations or performance, or assumptions related thereto) that are not historical facts and constitute 'forward looking statements' within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 in relation to CSR's system-level DLNA platforms and related products and technology, and their performance characteristics in consumer electronic products, and other future events and their potential effects on CSR. These forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as 'will,' 'can deliver,' offers', 'allows', 'to enhance,' 'enables,' 'designed to' and other similar expressions regarding the performance characteristics of CSR's system-level DLNA platforms and related products and technology, and their performance characteristics in consumer electronics products, and their potential effects on CSR. Any future release of CSR's system-level DLNA platforms and related products and technology or consumer electronics products containing such technology, related products or modifications to such products' capability, functionality or features are subject to ongoing evaluation by CSR and its customers, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by CSR or its customers and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. Such forward-looking statements represent the current expectations and beliefs of management of CSR, and are based upon numerous assumptions regarding CSR's business strategies and the environment in which CSR will operate and therefore involve a number of known and unknown risks, contingencies, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of CSR, including, but not limited to, those detailed from time to time in CSR's periodic reports (whether under the caption Risk Factors or Forward Looking Statements or elsewhere), which are available at the SEC's web site http://www.sec.gov. Each forward looking statement speaks only as of the date hereof. CSR does not undertake to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward looking statements contained herein, otherwise than required by law.
Bluetooth® and the Bluetooth logos are trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and licensed to CSR.
Wi-Fi®, Wi-Fi Alliance®, WMM®, Wi-Fi Protected Access®, WPA®, WPA2®, Wi-Fi Protected Setup™ and Wi-Fi Multimedia™ are trademarks of the Wi-Fi Alliance.
Other products, services and names used in this document may have been trademarked by their respective owners.
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Evans Public Relations
+1 (650) 200-5891
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Rocket Communications
+44(0)845 370 7024
© 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.


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Japanese Garden
Japanese House
Elements of this five-room house were created in Japan and shipped to Pasadena around 1904 for a commercial garden. Acquired by Henry E. Huntington in 1911, the structure is composed of several Japanese woods, with paneled doors to the outside that can be left open or closed to allow inhabitants to enjoy the gardens around them. Inner walls can easily be moved to increase room size or privacy. During a 2011 renovation, original architectural features were discovered, such as the distinctive curves of the roof line and original plaster and wood finishes. Restored, today the structure is considered one of the best examples of early twentieth-century Japanese architecture in the United States.
Ceremonial Teahouse
The ceremonial teahouse, called Seifu-an (the Arbor of Pure Breeze), was built in Kyoto in the 1960s and donated to The Huntington by the Pasadena Buddhist Temple. In 2010, the teahouse made a return trip to Japan for restoration, overseen by Kyoto-based architect Yoshiaki Nakamura (whose father built the original structure). It was then shipped back to San Marino and painstakingly reassembled. The teahouse location within a traditionally landscaped tea garden atop a picturesque ridge provides a stunning setting for demonstrations of the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. (Unlike the tea shop in the Chinese Garden or the Rose Garden Tea Room, it does not serve refreshments.)
Bonsai Collection and Zen Court
In 1968, The Huntington expanded the Japanese Garden to include a bonsai collection and zen court, where displays are rotated throughout the year to highlight seasonal features. Since 1990, The Huntington has served as the Southern California site for the Golden State Bonsai Federation and trees in the collection now number in the hundreds.
In the Harry Hirao Suiseki Court, visitors are invited to touch the suiseki or viewing stones, an ancient Japanese art form, while the Zen Court provides an example of the contained landscapes that once evolved in the temple gardens of Japan. Patterns raked into gravel, rock formations, and shrubbery are used to symbolize water, space, movement, and other abstract ideas.
A Storied Past
The nine-acre Japanese Garden, completed in 1912, was inspired by widespread Western fascination with Asian culture. As was fashionable at the time, many wealthy Americans and Europeans added exotic gardens to their estates. The Japanese gardens exhibited at world's fairs and expositions in St. Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco helped to fuel the trend. Henry E. Huntington decided to build his own Japanese garden on his San Marino estate, and acquired many of the garden's plants and ornamental fixtures from a property in nearby Pasadena that had failed as a commercial venture. Purchased in its entirety by Huntington, the materials also included the Japanese House. The moon bridge, commissioned by Huntington, was built by Japanese craftsman Toichiro Kawai. By the advent of World War II, staffing shortages and the political climate caused the Japanese Garden to be neglected, with parts of it inaccessible to the public, and the Japanese House fell into disrepair. In the 1950s, members of the San Marino League helped support the refurbishment of the buildings and surrounding landscape.
Centennial Renovation
In 2011, a team of architects with backgrounds in historic renovation, plus horticulturists, landscape architects, engineers, and Japanese craftsmen undertook a year-long, large-scale restoration of the historic core of the garden. The project included repairs to the central pond system and water infrastructure, along with increasing pathway accessibility, and renovating the original faux bois (false wood) ornamental trellises.
Major support for the Japanese Garden restoration was made possible by the Mary B. Hunt bequest, the Michael Monroe and Deane Weinberg bequest, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, The Rose Hills Foundation, Frank and Toshie Mosher, and an anonymous foundation. Additional support was provided by Kay and Steve Onderdonk.


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Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Veined Leaf ~ Free Crochet Pattern
Here's a simple pattern for creating a pretty Veined Leaf. You can also follow along with a complete YouTube tutorial. That video can be found here: How to Crochet a Veined Leaf
Veined Leaf Pattern
chain 10 leaving 8" beg tail
Side 1: working in back loops of beginning chain, 3 dc in fourth st from hook, dc in next 3 sts, hdc in next st, sc in next st, sl st in last st, ch 1, sl st in ch just made (leaf point made)
Side 2: working down the other side of the beginning chain in the front loops, sl st in next st, sc in next st, hdc in next st, dc in next 3 sts, work 3 dc in next st, join with sl st to top of beg ch 3
Stem: chain 4, sl st in second st from hook and in next two sts. sl st to next dc, finish off weaving in all loose ends
22 comments:
- noelani said...
I've been struggling for a way to make a leaf that I really like and this is it! I love the way you end up with a neat chain around the outside on both sides, and the sharp point on the end. Thanks!
- September 23, 2011 at 2:11 PM
thanks for this pattern [as well as your zinnia & scarf]!!
just wanted to let you know that there's a glitch on the youtube video for this leaf pattern ... it stops at 1:58 so the last 4 mins. can't be watched. :(
- October 11, 2011 at 1:01 PM
- Jenn said...
Thanks, I'll check into that video. :D
- October 15, 2011 at 11:18 AM
- Gearhart Gang said...
Thank you for the pattern, can you believe I actually used it as an "ear" for my reindeer. :) I'll be sure to post back to your pattern on FB!
- October 25, 2011 at 2:19 PM
- cathyspeakslewis said...
Thank you so much for this lovely little leaf. I will be making dozens of them!
- February 5, 2012 at 2:48 PM
Thank you so much! Great pattern & super easy to follow. First time trying a crochet leaf & it was a success!
- May 10, 2012 at 10:33 PM
... :O I can now finally finish the Oddish I have been working on for years! I've NEVER been able to find a leaf pattern that I liked. >_< But this is so cute! ♥ Brilliance!
- June 2, 2012 at 4:12 PM
- Lee Ann said...
This looks like a terrific leaf pattern. Thank you very much! :)
Lee Ann H
Crochet...Gotta Love It! Blog
Crochet...Gotta Love It! Website (crochet names and rosary patterns)
- July 29, 2012 at 2:21 PM
- Angela Skees said...
Thanks for the pattern! Was perfect (without the stem) for the Spock ears I needed for my project.
- October 16, 2012 at 1:13 PM
I have been searching for a leaf pattern for my rememberance poppy's and I have found it. many thanks for the pattern :)
- November 1, 2012 at 5:38 AM
Thanks so much for the pattern. Wish it had come up first when I searched :-D ! Now I can finish the roses for granddaughters slipper.
- November 11, 2012 at 1:53 PM
- cynh said...
I love the look of this leaf! However, I am having problems with the end of row 1. I do the ch 1 and then I am suppose to slip stitch in the ch1. When I do that I can not seem to pull it thru the chain left on my hook help???
- March 19, 2013 at 3:42 PM
- Jenn said...
Hi cynh, Maybe you could try making your ch a little looser. Also, go through the back loop of the chain. Another thing you could try is switching to a smaller hook just for the sl st.
Hope this helps,
- March 23, 2013 at 5:26 PM
- Michelle (The Beartwinsmom) said...
What size crochet hook do you use for this?
- March 25, 2013 at 5:47 PM
- Jenn said...
Hi Michelle, The most important thing is to use a hook that is appropriate for the weight yarn you have chosen. If you are working with worsted weight, an H or I would work well. If you are using a sport or DK, go a little smaller like a G.
Jenn :D
- April 3, 2013 at 4:09 PM
- Anne Hamilton said...
How generous of you to share the pattern for this beautiful leaf. How pretty they would be also in fall colors, adorning a little hat for an autumn baby!
- June 17, 2014 at 6:09 AM
- Unknown said...
- January 22, 2015 at 11:41 AM
- lorna j. osborne said...
Thank you for this darling pattern, and such correct instructions! I have a pumpkin candy holder that I made, and was searching for a leaf that was as easy as it was cute! I love this pattern!!
- September 3, 2016 at 4:20 PM
- lorna j. osborne said...
I love this leaf!! Adoreable and super simple. Is perfect on my pumpkin candy containers im crocheting, thank you!!
- September 3, 2016 at 5:51 PM
- Unknown said...
No me es posible entender ppt o pb ?!😘😘
- July 11, 2018 at 12:45 AM
- Unknown said...
Se me dificulta las abreviaturas no las comprendo.muchas gracias
- July 11, 2018 at 12:48 AM
- Jenn said...
Here's a wonderful website for help with abbreviations and reading patterns:
Also, here is a Crochet Terms Chart with conversions to Spanish:
Hope this is helpful,
Jenn :D
- September 21, 2018 at 8:45 AM


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Educational Rot
ACRU Staff
March 14, 2013
This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published March 13, 2013 on Townhall.com.
American education is in a sorry state of affairs, and there's enough blame for all participants to have their fair share. They include students who are hostile and alien to the education process, uninterested parents, teachers and administrators who either are incompetent or have been beaten down by the system, and politicians who've become handmaidens for teachers unions. There's another education issue that's neither flattering nor comfortable to confront and talk about. That's the low academic preparation of many teachers. That's an issue that must be confronted and dealt with if we're to improve the quality of education. Let's look at it.
Schools of education, whether graduate or undergraduate, tend to represent the academic slums of most college campuses. They tend to be home to students who have the lowest academic achievement test scores when they enter college, such as SAT scores. They have the lowest scores when they graduate and choose to take postgraduate admissions tests — such as the GRE, the MCAT and the LSAT.
The California Basic Educational Skills Test, or CBEST, is mandatory for teacher certification in California. It's a joke. Here's a multiple-choice question on its practice math test: "Rob uses 1 box of cat food every 5 days to feed his cats. Approximately how many boxes of cat food does he use per month? A. 2 boxes, B. 4 boxes, C. 5 boxes, D. 6 boxes, E. 7 boxes." Here's another: "Which of the following is the most appropriate unit for expressing the weight of a pencil? A. pounds, B. ounces, C. quarts, D. pints, E. tons." I'd venture to predict that the average reader's sixth-grader could answer each question. Here's a question that is a bit more challenging; call your eighth-grader: "Solve for y: y – 2 + 3y = 10, A. 2, B. 3, C. 4, D. 5, E. 6."
Some years ago, the Association of Mexican American Educators, the California Association for Asian-Pacific Bilingual Education and the Oakland Alliance of Black Educators brought suit against the state of California and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, charging that the CBEST was racially discriminatory. Plaintiff "evidence" was the fact that the first-time passing rate for whites was 80 percent, about 50 percent for Mexican-Americans, Filipinos and Southeast Asians, and 46 percent for blacks. In 2000, in a stroke of rare common sense, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found CBEST not to be racially discriminatory.
Poor teacher preparation is not a problem restricted to California. In Massachusetts, only 27 percent of new teachers could pass the math test needed to be certified as a teacher. A 2011 investigation by Atlanta's Channel 2 Action News found that more than 700 Georgia teachers repeatedly failed at least one portion of the certification test they are required to pass before receiving a teaching certificate. Nearly 60 teachers failed the test more than 10 times, and one teacher failed the test 18 times. They also found that there were 297 teachers on the Atlanta school system's payroll even though they had failed the state certification test five times or more.
Textbooks used in schools of education might explain some teacher ineptitude. A passage in Marilyn Burns' text About Teaching Mathematics reads, "There is no place for requiring students to practice tedious calculations that are more efficiently and accurately done by using calculators." New Designs for Teaching and Learning, by Dennis Adams and Mary Hamm, says, "Content knowledge is not seen to be as important as possessing teaching skills and knowledge about the students being taught." Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar's text Methods that Matter reads, "Students can no longer be viewed as cognitive living rooms into which the furniture of knowledge is moved in and arranged by teachers, and teachers cannot invariably act as subject-matter experts." The authors explain, "The main use of standardized tests in America is to justify the distribution of certain goodies to certain people."
With but a few exceptions, schools of education represent the academic slums of most any college. American education could benefit from slum removal, eliminating schools of education.


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When Sally Forth first appeared on the comics pages, not many newspaper readers suspected its creator was a man (and they certainly never suspected creator Greg Howard was a lawyer-turned-cartoonist).
Over the years, Sally Forth has made a consistent impressive growth in popularity. Why? Because it's every working mother's story! And because, as one reader wrote to her newspaper, it's about "a nuclear family whose trials and tribulations my husband and I repeatedly could relate to. We enjoyed sharing many strips with our children since we felt the strips depicted values we hope to instill in them." The National Women's Political Caucus presented Howard with its "Good Guy" Award for his "sensitive and humorous portrayal of the conflicts and victories that touch the lives of working women." As one newspaper editor said, "It's one of our top strips in every age bracket. It's amazing. Our readers have a real personal attachment to Sally."
Cartoonist Greg Howard created Sally Forth in 1982 and wrote and drew the strip for nearly 10 years until professional cartoonist, Craig Macintosh began drawing. Howard continued writing the strip until 1999, when he decided to pursue other creative interests. The talented Francesco Marciuliano now writes the popular strip with artist Jim Keefe.
Today, Sally Forth appears in nearly 700 newspapers some as far away as Iceland! In 1999, the comic strip gained nearly 80 new newspaper clients, and its popularity continues to rise.
Sally juggles the daily challenges of excelling at her middle-management career, keeping her marriage intact, and finding enough quality time to raise her child. She only suffers an occasional twinge of guilt that she's not quite the mother and wife her traditional upbringing tells her she ought to be. But somehow, through it all, she manages to keep her sanity and her sense of humor!
Ted is sensitive and supportive. Like many husbands, he's an inveterate control freak with the TV-remote, a trait indicative, perhaps, of his continuing struggle to figure out his role in this modern world of the two-career family! While he keeps his wife and daughter in shape with the perfect blend of dry, witty barbs and loving, good-natured humor, he keeps himself balanced with his basketball in hand.
A very precocious 10-year-old, Hilary is just old enough to goad her parents, and smart enough not to suffer any dire repercussions from her smart-aleck remarks. She plays soccer, softball and the piano (under duress). Like many kids, she might have a blue carpet underneath all the stuff in her room.
Sally's secretary and her salvation at the office organization game. Marcie also manages to make Sally a bit envious at times by reminding her of what it was like to be single.
Like Sally, Alice is a middle manager, and although she works for a different boss, she and Sally have many common areas for commiseration. Alice is divorced and the mother of two boys.
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Giving secret documents to "everybody on the planet" is aiding the enemy. You have to remember that to the NSA, "everybody on the planet" *IS* the enemy.
Marc Andreessen Thinks Snowden, Administration Are To Blame For Backlash Against US Tech Industry
from the but-not-the-NSA,-for-some-reason dept
Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist, has weighed in on the Snowden leaks, putting forth what even he terms to be an "unpopular" view. On CNBC's Squawk Box, he lead with this statement:
Obviously, he's a traitor. Like, if you look up in the encyclopedia, traitor, there's a picture of Edward Snowden. He's a textbook traitor. I'm in the distinct minority out here. I think most people in Silicon Valley would pick the other designation.
Being a traitor and committing treason falls under a very distinct definition. In Andreessen's dictionary (the one with Snowden's picture), this definition runs as follows:
Because he stole national security secrets and gave them to everybody on the planet.
Whereas the Constitution clearly defines treason as this:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Giving documents to "everybody on the planet" is not specifically "aiding or comforting" enemies of the United States. While it may have given some of them guidance on how to avoid surveillance, there's been no evidence presented that the leaks have done any specific harm to the US. There's been a lot of handwringing about the implications of the leaks, but the most specific claims released to date by the US government deal with Defense Dept. docs supposedly in Snowden's possession which, even if they exist (the NSA still doesn't know what Snowden took), haven't been released to anybody.
But Andreessen's most spectacular statement is also his most self-serving. He decries the damage done to US tech companies by the leaks, but rather than hold the NSA responsible, he shoots the messenger — and wings the President.
[A]merican technology companies get a huge amount of revenue from outside the US. In fact, some of these companies get up to 70% of revenue outside the US and there's a big open question right now, how successful our companies will be when they go to sell products overseas. And there are a lot of foreign countries that are very envious of Silicon Valley and America's domination of tech and wish they could implement protection policies and will use this whole affair as a reason to do that…
The administration is just letting — they're letting the American tech industry out to dry. I haven't met anybody who feels like the White House has a plan, It's just happening.
Andreessen's responses don't find anything necessarily wrong with the NSA's actions. The problem, as he sees it, lies with the "traitor" who exposed the NSA's subversion of tech company hardware and software. The administration is also partly to blame for not having done enough to shelter the tech world from the fallout of the NSA leaks. Andreessen also (via Twitter) blames both Americans for misunderstanding the NSA's programs and the media for misrepresenting the 702 program, implying that tech companies were working with the NSA to collect American communications.
But as far as he can see it, the agency itself is nearly blameless. He's "not surprised" the agency was spying. After all, it has thousands of employees and billions in funding (actual budget numbers exposed by another leak). What else were we Americans to believe it was doing with all that manpower and money?
Well, I'm fairly sure we weren't expecting to find it was grabbing bulk metadata on Americans' phone calls or sweeping up tons of "incidental" communications via its many surveillance programs. We weren't expecting it to have partnered with other nations to help them surveil their own citizens. And we certainly weren't expecting it to hand off unminimized data to other nations' intelligence agencies.
This is a very close-minded and self-centered view of the situation. That tech companies were damaged is unfortunate, but the blame lies with the agency that aims to "collect it all," rather than the person who exposed the egregious excesses done in the name of "security." And if the administration is to blame for anything, it's for not reining the NSA in over the years, rather than for not sheltering the industry from fallout.
Filed Under: ed snowden, marc andreessen, nsa, surveillance, traitor


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I have an openlayers map which generates points from an array as vector features, with popups for these features, which works fine. Since I have so many points on this map, I have started working with cluster strategy. I can get the popups working fine on the points using the cluster strategy, but only the nonclustered points. I can get the popup to show the info for the first point of the cluster, but what I want to be able to do is have the popup display the info for each feature in the cluster, possibly with pagination or arrows that will allow the user to go through each.
I have seen olwidget and i like the way it handles popups, but I can't seem to find any example of how to get it working with an existing map/layer, if possible. Is there a solution? I would prefer to use olwidget because i like the fact that the popups are styled with css


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From Boston and Points North via Ferry!
Book a Ferry from Boston direct to Provincetown! See details here: PTownFerry Details
From Boston and Points North
Start on Rte 3 heading south.
Follow Rte 3 to and over the Sagamore bridge.
You are now on Rte 6 Eastbound.
Follow Rte 6 to the Orleans rotary (after exit 12).
Go halfway around rotary and continue on Rte 6 East.
Continue through towns of Eastham, Wellfleet, and Truro to Provincetown.
Continue past all three exits in Provincetown
(Snail Rd, Conwell Rd, And Shankpainter Rd).
Continue on Rte 6.
Go past the exit for Herring Cove Beach (stay to the left).
When you reach the Pilgrim Park rotary,
we are located on the far side of the rotary.
The Provincetown Inn is approximately 1 1/4 hours from
the Sagamore bridge and 28 miles from the Orleans rotary.
From Western Massachusetts and Points West
Follow the Mass Turnpike to exit 11A (495 South – Milford / Cape Cod).
Rte 495 will turn into Rte 25 in Wareham.
Continue on Rte 25 to the Bourne bridge.
Once over the bridge, go 3/4 of the way around the rotary
and take exit for Rte 6 East (Hyannis / Provincetown).
Travel along the Bourne Scenic Highway (Cape Cod Canal on your left side)
until you reach a traffic light.
Turn right at the light and follow sign for Rte 6 Eastbound.
(If you cross under the Sagamore Bridge, you have gone too far.)
Once on Rte 6 East, follow directions above from Rte 6 Eastbound.
From Providence, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York
Follow Rte I-95 North until Providence.
Take exit for Rte I-195 (Cape Cod).
Follow Rte I-195 to exit 22A (Rte 25).
Stay on Rte 25 to and over the Bourne bridge.
Follow the directions above from the Bourne bridge.