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On June 26, 1740, at daybreak, a group consisting of Freed Africans, Native Americans and Spanish soldiers attacked the British Highland Rangers that occupied Fort Mose. General Oglethorpe's siege on St. Augustine having failed, British troops retreated back to Georgia.
In 1996, Thomas Jackson and other residents stood in ankle boots in the marshy area of what would be the Fort Mose Historic State Park to vote in members of the Fort Mose Historical Society.
On June 27, 2001, the society board members stood proudly on a 700-foot boardwalk, nearly completed as part of a plan to mark the first free black settlement in America.
The park is located on Saratoga Boulevard off U.S. 1, near the new City Gate.
About 25 people gathered at the park, taking a stroll along the boardwalk, which will be completed in mid-July. The day also marked the 261st anniversary of the Battle of Bloody Mose.
City commissioners, society board members and residents gathered to mark the anniversaries and the boardwalk ribbon-cutting ceremony.
''We are dedicating one more piece of the pie,'' said Steve Gard, with the Florida Park Service.
Fort Mose was built in the mid-18th century and occupied by black soldiers and their families. It is operated by the Florida Park Service with the Fort Mose Historical Society acting as the citizens support organization.
Last April, park officials built a parking and picnic area and added lime rock to the entrance roadway. Native plants and trees were also planted.
The boardwalk, located on the 26-acre site, was one more step in completing the illustration of the park's history. It will eventually include two interpretative kiosks that tell of Fort Mose. The boardwalk cost about $90,000 to build.
Also on the horizon are a visitor center and additional parking. However, more land is needed since only about six acres of the 26-acre site, predominately marshland, consists of dry ground. Negotiations to acquire nearby land are under way, said Paul Crawford with the Florida Park Service.
''We are trying to develop the site into a first class destination point for anyone who wants to study the history of African Americans,'' said Jackson, the Fort Mose Historical Society president.


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Re-thinking checks, balances
The concept can be tracked back to the Federalist Papers of 1788, in particular Federalist paper No. 51, by James Madison which was entitled "The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments." In that paper, the term 'Departments' referred to the executive, the legislative and the judicial authorities which, federally speaking, meant the Presidency, the Congress and the Supreme Court.
Deliberately, the president does not have authoritarian power, and the function of the Supreme Court is to interpret the law, not to make it.
Madison, emphasizing the importance of protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority, set out the need to have limitations and restraints on the powers of the 'Departments' and on those elected or appointed to those bodies.
As Madison said: " . If all men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
This is all well and good, but in the end government has to govern.
To do that, the freedom to express views and articulate deeply held political positions needs to be tempered with a recognition that compromise will be necessary in order to make progress. The former without the latter is no more than a license to prevaricate, to obstruct and to block, as we have seen in the elephantine gavotte in Congress over past months that led to the ridiculous 11th-hour deal-making over the Christmas holidays and New Year's Eve. If it had all happened in a minor banana republic it would have been laughable, but it took place in the world's foremost democratic republic.
Instead of mixing with each other socially while at the same time respecting each other's views, it appears that the current mood in Congress is one of hostility to the other side. Any indication of working together is open to an interpretation of fraternization with the enemy and the threat that big money will be found to unseat the incumbent at the next election and replace him or her with someone whose political loyalty can be totally relied upon. In a negative climate such as this, the current interpretation of the principle of checks and balances becomes a major liability.
In place of obsequiously succumbing to narrow vested interests such as the NRA and gun makers on the right and unions or extreme voices on the left, or pledges given to unelected persons such as Grover Norquist, is it not possible for there to be the formation of a mixed group of sensible Senators and Representatives to meet and set an example of cooperation. This does not mean an abject surrender of political views but simply a readiness to consider working together and in the pursuit of acceptable compromises so that government can function.
In a democratic society an elected representative represents not only those who voted for him or her, but also all the members of his or her constituency. Similarly, in making a functioning Congress, the members have a wider responsibility to the nation as a whole rather than just to those of a similar political ilk.
The Federalist Papers of 215 years ago had, and continue to have, much wisdom and we would do well to take their counsel. To that purpose, here is another excerpt from Madison:
" . Justice is the end (modern meaning - the objective) of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker is not secured against the violence of the stronger "
Derek Boothby lives in Manchester and is a former arms control specialist with the United Nations
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.

subset: commoncrawl


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|House Meets At:
|First Vote Predicted:
|Last Vote Predicted:
10:00 a.m.: Morning Hour
|1:30 – 2:30 p.m.
|4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Following votes, the House will debate bills listed for consideration under suspension of the Rules. Any recorded votes requested on these bills will be postponed until later in the week.
H.Res. 491 – Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 3630 – "Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011" (Rep. Camp - Ways and Means/ Energy and Commerce) The Rules Committee has recommended a closed Rule that provides for 90 minutes of general debate equally divided between the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee on Ways and Means. The Rule allows no amendments and one motion to recommit, with or without instructions. It also waives all points of order against the legislation. Despite this bill being referred to over half of the standing committees of the House, and having seen no committee action, the Rules committee rejected all attempts to allow any amendments on the Floor. The Rules Committee even rejected a motion by Ms. Slaughter to provide for more general debate time. Members are urged to VOTE NO on H.Res. 491.
H.R. 3630 – "Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011" (Rep. Camp - Ways and Means/ Energy and Commerce) H.R. 3630 extends the current 2% Payroll Tax Cut for one year and addresses the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) for two years, providing a 1% update for both 2012 and 2013 and resulting in a scheduled 37% cut in 2014. It extends the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program until January, 2013, but lowers the maximum amount of time benefits are provided from 99 weeks currently to 59 weeks. It also includes permanent provisions allowing drug testing of applicants and would allow states to require a high school diploma or being enrolled in classes for a GED to be eligible for benefits.
The bill offsets the costs of these extensions by significantly increasing both the amount of Medicare premiums paid by high-income beneficiaries and the number of beneficiaries required to pay these higher premiums, and by cutting Medicare provider rates. The bill also prohibits immigrants without social security numbers from receiving the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit. It further offsets the bill by freezing federal employee pay for an additional year through 2013, and increases fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lenders. It also includes frequency Spectrum sales to help offset the cost of the bill, but with provisions related to net neutrality included in the language.
H.R. 3630 also makes large cuts to healthcare programs. It cuts over $21 billion from Affordable Care Act programs, which will increase the ranks of the uninsured by 170,000 Americans. The bill cuts $8 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund. In addition, the bill cuts over $21 billion from Medicare provider rates, over 50% of which fall solely on hospitals. And it cuts $31 billion in Medicare benefits by imposing harsher means-testing on beneficiaries.
The bill also includes completely unrelated provisions, including requiring a decision by the Administration on the Keystone XL pipeline and on regulations related to the Boiler MACT. The provisions in the bill relating to the Keystone XL pipeline are different from the bill passed by the House, in that it requires the Secretary of State to issue a Keystone approval within 60 days of enactment, unless the President publicly determines the project to not be in the national interest.
This bill is another example of the Republican Majority being more interested in politics than finding solutions. This bill has little chance of passing the Senate, and faces a Presidential veto threat. In the face of a middle class tax increase, and hundreds of thousands of Americans losing unemployment benefits during the Holiday Season, the Republicans continue to show that pursuing an ideological agenda is more important than helping Americans. The bill is also fiscally irresponsible, increasing the deficit by an estimated $25.3 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Members are urged to VOTE NO on H.R. 3630.
Bill Text for H.R. 3630:
HTML Version
PDF Version
HTML Version
PDF Version
Suspensions (7 bills)
1) H.R. 3421 - Fallen Heroes of 9/11 Act (Rep. Shuster - Financial Services)
2) H.R. 886 - United States Marshals Service 225th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act (Rep. Womack - Financial Services)
3) H.R. 313 - Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011 (Rep. Smith (TX) - Judiciary)
4) H.R. 1905 - Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 (Rep. Ros-Lehtinen - Foreign Affairs)
5) H.R. 2105 - Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Reform and Modernization Act of 2011(Rep. Ros-Lehtinen - Foreign Affairs)
6) H.Res. 306 - Urging the Republic of Turkey to Safeguard Its Christian Heritage and to Return Confiscated Church Properties (Rep. Royce - Foreign Affairs)
7) H.Res. 376 - Calling for the repatriation of POW/MIAs and abductees from the Korean War (Rep. Rangel - Foreign Affairs)
Postponed Suspension Votes (5 bills)
1) S. 384 - A bill to amend title 39, United States Code, to extend the authority of the United States Postal Service to issue a semipostal to raise funds for breast cancer research (Sen. Feinstein - Oversight and Government Reform)
2) H.R. 3246 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 15455 Manchester Road in Ballwin, Missouri, as the "Specialist Peter J. Navarro Post Office Building" (Rep. Akin - Oversight and Government Reform)
3) H.R. 2767 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 8 West Silver Street in Westfield, Massachusetts, as the "William T. Trant Post Office Building" (Rep. Olver - Oversight and Government Reform)
4) H.R. 2668 - A bill to designate the station of the United States Border Patrol located at 2136 South Naco Highway in Bisbee, Arizona, as the "Brian A. Terry Border Patrol Station'" (Rep. Issa - Transportation and Infrastructure)
5) H.R. 1264 - To designate the property between the United States Federal Courthouse and the Ed Jones Building located at 109 South Highland Avenue in Jackson, Tennessee, as the "M.D. Anderson Plaza" and to authorize the placement of a historical/identification marker on the grounds recognizing the achievements and philanthropy of M.D. Anderson, as amended (Rep. Fincher - Transportation and Infrastructure)
The GOP Leadership has announced the following schedule for Wednesday, December 14: The House will meet at 12:00 p.m. for legislative business. The House is expected to consider The Conference Report to H.R. 1540 – National Defense Authorization Act, FY2012 (Rep. McKeon – Armed Services) (Subject to a Rule). The House is also expected to consider bills listed for consideration under suspension of the Rules.
|The Daily Quote
"'The fact that the president doesn't like [the Keystone pipeline] makes me like it even more,'" Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio) said of the GOP leadership proposal as he left Thursday morning's closed-door meeting."
- The Washington Post, 12/8/11
"House Speaker John Boehner's path to delivering the payroll tax cut to President Barack Obama involves a lot of political bluster, a pile of legislative sweeteners and a dash of hope. The political message to his colleagues is, bluntly, don't screw this up…'The big prize is 2012, 'Boehner said…"


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Welcome to the sixth drabble thread in Remus's Reflections. This is the place you post drabbles about the topic posted. The topic is something both important and significant to the world around us and to the Harry Potter-verse.
Please keep drabbles under a PG-13 rating and remember that everyone doesn't have the same views, so be respectful.
Also, remember that DH spoilers must be preceded by a clear warning. If you have questions about what may be a spoiler and what may not then drop me a PM (or MithrilQuill) and we will help you.
When posting a drabble use this form:
If you wish to respond to another drabble in this thread use this form:Name:
Warnings: (DH Spoilers, for example)
Word count:
This thread's topic is: Disabilities.Name:
Drabble youre responding to: (title and original author)
Why? (what inspired you to respond to it, what did you like most about it, etc)
Thank you, babekitty_92, for the topic idea.
Happy drabbling!


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Giving up more than chocolate for Lent
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when Christians focus on Jesus' sacrifice through prayer, fasting, and giving. World Vision's Katie Swift reflects on taking a "Life Audit" -- part of our Live Life campaign for youth and college students around the world.
* * *
I've always joined the hordes of people who give up sweets for "religious reasons," but in reality, it was just another excuse to diet. For many of us, fasting for Lent just gives us a second chance to pursue our New Year's Resolution. Almost every year, the Girl Scouts and their Thin Mints tempt me out of my fast somewhere around week 4, and I end up wondering why God would care if I gave up chocolate anyway.
Fasting from chocolate doesn't make me a better person, and it doesn't bring me closer to God.
This year, I'm doing something different. I'm part of a team that created Live Life, a Lenten campaign created by World Vision for youth, students, and young adults around the world, with more than 76 countries participating. We will focus on what Jesus meant when he said he came so that we may "have life and have it to the full" (John 10:10) through six weekly challenges.
Today, Live Life launches by challenging young people to take a Life Audit -- an examination of how we are already living our lives and defining fullness of life.
Even though I was part of creating Live Life, I hadn't fully thought of what living life in all its fullness means in my own context. When I finally sat down to take the Life Audit for myself, I got uncomfortable. I found it incredibly difficult to think through the idea of life in all its fullness.
I think it was so difficult because it required me to come to terms with the fact that I'm not living my life to the fullest.
The audit helped me realize I've been more negative than usual -- the cloudy, rainy winter weather gets me down; I come home a lot of days tired and generally unsettled; and I'm quick to complain and slow to be grateful.
So this year, I am fasting from negativity. It takes six weeks to form a new habit, so the six weeks of Lent is the perfect time to take on this challenge. I'm challenging myself to take time each day to write down the things I am thankful for and the places in that day where I found joy.
When I've done this in the past, I've always been surprised by how it has drawn me closer to God and how it has increased my happiness and gratitude, allowing me to see more and more of God's blessings in my life. Studies show that people who have more gratitude are more satisfied with their lives; are physically healthier; are less envious; are more generous to others; and are more connected to the natural world.
A little gratitude is exactly what my life needs right now.
What will you do this Lent? Are you planning on giving something up? Or adding a new, healthy habit? We would love for you to join us as we explore what it means to truly Live Life.
We'll be reading Scripture; hearing stories of youth from around the world who are making differences in their communities; and responding to weekly challenges on fasting, prayer, giving, thankfulness, and service. We hope you'll join!


text:
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text:
> Oh, so all students are he. I see.
Don't blame me, it's the language. I try to avoid unnecessary uses of he/him, and sometimes "they" works, even if its ungrammatical, but I can't stand "s/he", or randomly choosing "he" or "she" - it's too hard keeping track of whether I'm maintaining a 1:1 ratio. If a short synonym for "he or she" starts getting used, I'll be happy to jump on the bandwagon.


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The 3 assets of any social network – a valuation model.
Having had the fortune of having Danah Boyd spend two full days in Sweden a few years back, sharing her extensive knowledge on Social Network history and usage with me and som colleagues, attending and following Jyri Engestrom's talks about his social objects theory, of which I'm a big fan, and meeting with Cameron Marlow while at Yahoo, I've gradually started to develop some simple models of my own on how to evaluate and categorize different social networks.
One of the models I use when looking at social networks and trying to figure out if one social network has more or less potential value than another, and where that value lies (as in "what could/should you monetize?"), is what I call the "3 assets model".
In my opinion, ALL social networks have these three distinct assets, from Match.com to MySpace, Flickr, Facebook , LinkedIn and Twitter. The value of (potential to monetize) the different assets differ greatly between them though.
Communication – Who has the most valuable communication asset?
That's easy, dating is really the only type of social network that manages to monetize the communication asset, examples are Match.com. People pay to communicate on these sites. This makes perfect sense since, per definition, Match.com enables communication between two people who have no other means of communicating with each other. As a couple grow more confident with each other, they exchange contact details for other free or cheaper communication channels and churn off the service.
Monetizing the communications asset directly using ads just doesn't work that well IMO. Random communication does not reveal intention very well, so the value will always be low. Even if you're not working with intention based advertising, but more brand/awareness advertising, that type of advertising needs to be fairly interruptive to be valuable to buyers, which works fine for one-way services like TV, Radio etc where content can be paused during interruption, but does not rhyme well with communication and productivity tools.
There MAY be another, rather unexpected way (for me at least) to monetize the communications asset of a social network, and that is if the communication is COMPLETELY public, i.e. very much on the opposite end of the specturm from the dating site's communication which is totally private. I'm ofcourse thinking of Twitter search. Once enough people communicate publicallly about random and temporarily popular topics, all of a sudden the sum of that creates a value for people who search through the communicaton to see what is happening on a certain topic in absolute real time, days before Google's indexing bots find it. Search DOES reveal intention, so it could work. It remains to be seen if and how monetizable these intentions are though. I expect there to be few purchase intention searches, and lots of breaking news topic/live event searches.
Information - Who has the most valuable information asset?
In my mind, Business and professional networks like LinkedIn have the most valuable static information asset of the social networks because they are so structured on things like area of work, position (which translates to income) etc, that is is actually useful as targeting information for other sites when showing their ads, something LinkedIn is trying with NY Times. The structured information asset is also valuable to recruiters etc. I don't know HOW valuable it will turn out to be, but it seems like the most valuable asset of the business networks to me. The communication between people on these sites is hard to monetize. XING is trying this though, with it's premium package where you can pay to contact non-connections. But unlike a dating site, where both ppl want to be contacted by strangers, this is not true for LinkedIn and Xing, where I think the whole point is that your network works as a human filter to unsolicited messages from sales guys Nor do I think the social graph is highly monetizable as it only contains a small vertical segment of my real life connections (i.e professional connections) which doesn't greatly reflect who influences my purchase decisions for different products etc.
Relations – Who has the most valuable relations asset?
I definitely think Facebook's greatest asset is it's extensive social graph of REAL people, using their REAL identities. Unlike most of the earlier social networks where people used fake identities, that they later grow out of, Facebook is not really targeted at a specific age segment, stage of life or interest/vertical. You will be yourself your entire life, so you will not grow out of your Facebook identity. The social graph is general and represents my real life connections very well, meaning that it reflects who influences my purchase decisions in almost all different areas. Mark Zuckerberg clearly realizes this and Facebook Beacon was an unfortunate, but IMHO brilliant attempt at monetizing this social graph of influence by offering e-retailers like Amazon.com the chance spread purchase information from a user across his social graph to people who that person influences.
It should be said that Twitters social graph asset may also be valuable as it is clearly people who influence me. But I would say there is a lot more noise in this graph and a big mix between close friends and professional publishers/bloggers etc.


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The secret terrorist organization that came within a heartbeat of installing its agent as President of the United States in Executive Actions is back with a new (and more deadly) plot to destabilize the U.S. government. The mugging and murder of a female White House staffer leads Secret Service agent Scott Roarke to the elusive and mysterious assassin who manages to always stay one step ahead of him. But as the plot unfolds, new clues about the assassin's past come to light, and they just may give him the tools he needs to catch his quarry.
©2012 Gary Grossman (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
"Good Yarn"
Did what I needed an espionage novel to do, twist and turn right to the end. 2nd I have read by this author- will be reading his others
"Far too complicated"
The lack of pauses between scenes was confusing; the characters world-wide were difficult to follow; the four-letter words offputting; the reader! Don't get me started - he sounded just like the man who does trailers for Hollywood action movies. Maybe this book is aimed at male readers more than female, but the details of guns, knives and throat cutting was very offputting and I abandoned it at Chapter 6.
"Things happen in threes"
Great series and it never missed a beat, the characters get bigger and bolder with every book. The author never stops leaking new information about all the characters and he invites you to look into the characters thoughts and figure out what to do next
"I love this series!"
The novels in this series start a bit slowly and they are long, but they are more than worth the time. Executive Treason in Book 2 in the 3 novel Executive series. Executive Command is up next in the series, but I plan to listen to at least one other book first.
The Executive series could be considered suspense thrillers or espionage thrillers, but I now believe they are best characterized is political thrillers. The novels deal with the position of president in the US in a dangerous and unpredictable world where major issues are sure to occur. The issue of order of replacement is faced head on in real world crisis situations. The possibility of foreign governments meddling in US elections is another topic explored in depth. The subject matter and the way the author handles it is fascinating. And there are periods of very intense suspense. The primary characters are very well developed.
Narration has been criticized in some reviews. From my perspective John McLain does a superb job.
"Great performance by John McLain"
Another great performance by JohnMcLain, he is the reason I selected this book. Book was a little long and hard to keep up with.
"A book I had a hard time picking up."
A little less detail, a little fewer characters and a different reader.
At least from this reader! I am about 15 hrs into the book and I could not even tell you what it is about. This book is a cure for insomnia!
The reader was ok in character but the narration drives crazy. He needs to get away from short, choppy, monotone sentences all with the exact same inflection on the last word.
This story takes place on a lot of fronts with a lot of characters read by a monotone reader. I do not expect to finish it but I am the type that always wants to see what is around the next corner so we will see.
"Wow, another good one!"
I loved Gary Grossman's first in this series, but this second one is even better. The story was good, the characters are wonderful, lots of cliff hangers and who dunnits.........and I love the narration that John McLain is providing. An easy "to listen to", page burner..........just starting the third in the series and I'm already hooked. Great series, hoping it won't end at third book. Thank you Gary and John! Aloha
"Another winner!!"
Complex and action packed from beginning to end. Very well thought out story and characters that are drawn so well that you are really rooting for them or against them. Lots of breath holding suspense too.
"good story - delivery lackin"
good story - about average of my audio books
the ryhthm of his delivery in the narrative part is off putting
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Gay Days, which for years has organized circuit-party- like festivities during the week-long "Gay Day" in Orlando — covering DisneyWorld, the Universal Parks and more — is expanding west for what they are calling their first "bi-coastal" celebration.
Only the new city isn't really on the coast, or anywhere near it. Their bad.
Still, Gay Days Las Vegas does bring the signature event style to the Pacific time zone.
From Sept. 4–10 this year, the Tropicana Casino in Vegas will be host to the Pride party, which will include a travel-retail expo (free and open to the public), daily pool parties and other events around town (pictured).
That follows the annual Orlando blow-out, which takes place as always the first weekend in June. You can book reservations and learn more about both at GayDays.com.
Asian markets are organizing to embrace their LGBT travelers more openly.
Following a symposium late last year in New Delhi, sponsored by San Francisco-based Community Marketing, countries across the region discussed reaching out to gay travelers. The New York office of the Thailand tourism bureau even announced a pilot campaign, scheduled to launch during the first quarter of 2012, called "Go Thai, Be Free," targeting LGBT travelers on the East Coast of the U.S.
Olivia, the lesbian-focused travel company, will celebrate its upcoming 40th anniversary with two special cruises — the largest lesbian cruises yet to set sail.
The cruises — departing from Fort Lauderdale on Jan. 27 and again on Feb. 3 on Holland America's Nieuw Amsterdam liner, for a tour of the Caribbean, including Aruba, the Bahamas and Curacao — will hold 2,100 guests. To book a room or for further information, visit Olivia.com.
— Arnold Wayne Jones