text:
Private Student Loans
Private student loans — sometimes known as alternative loans — are options for financing college costs that can bridge the financial gap between college costs and traditional funding sources, such as federal loans, grants and scholarships.
Private student loans are usually unsecured, which means approval is based on a financial institution's assessment of the borrower's ability to repay.
Borrowing a private student loan is a serious financial commitment. They have higher interest rates and most charge fees making them more expensive than federal loan options. Be sure to exhaust all federal loan eligibility before borrowing a private student loan, including the Federal PLUS Loan. Learn about the Federal PLUS Loan.
If a private student loan is needed, student borrowers will secure better terms and pricing by adding a credit worthy co-signer to their application. Always check the interest rate, fees, interest capitalization policy, repayment period, prepayment penalties and other terms and conditions of the loan before you sign a promissory note.
Interest rates, loan limits, interest capitalization policy, repayment options and prepayment penalties can vary – sometimes considerably – depending on the financial institution underwriting the loan.
It's important to understand all the terms associated with a loan before you choose one.
Learn more about smart borrowing.
Compare private loans with HESC's Private Loan Comparison Tool.


text:
Affleck's political thriller "Argo," about a CIA plot to rescue Americans trapped in Iran in 1979-80, won for best dramatic film and director for Affleck.
It was a bit of vindication, perhaps, for the filmmaker, who was surprisingly absent last week when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its Oscar nominations for director.
Since the Oscar snub Thursday, Affleck has not only won a Golden Globe but he also received a Critics' Choice Movie Award for directing as well.
"Les Miz" was the most honored film of the ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel's International Ballroom and telecast live on NBC.
Besides best musical or comedy, it won lead actor for Hugh Jackman, who admitted in his acceptance speech that at one point he almost quit the project after a grueling rehearsal.
And Anne Hathaway sang her way to a supporting actress win as the tragic Fantine.
With her pixie haircut and tasteful white gown, Hathaway was reminiscent of a young Audrey Hepburn.
"Thank you for this lovely blunt object," Hathaway told the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. "I'll forever use it as a weapon against self-doubt."
The wins for "Les Miz" and "Argo" as well as the two Golden Globes for "Django Unchained" help give those films momentum leading to the Oscars on Feb. 24.
But those honors do little to bring clarity to a topsy-turvy awards season that has seen plenty of outstanding movies to choose from — but few clear-cut front-runners.
For example, Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" went into the evening with seven Golden Globes nominations — more than any other film.
Former President Bill Clinton even appeared to a standing ovation and thunderous applause to introduce the clip for the historical epic. But instead of "Lincoln" by a landslide, the film about the 16th president's struggle to end the Civil War and slavery won only one honor: lead actor in a drama for Daniel Day-Lewis.
One of the most stunning moments came courtesy Jodie Foster, who took to the stage to give a … retirement speech? A coming-out speech? It was hard to tell.
She was receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement when she ramped up to confess that she was … single.
And while she seemed to take pains to sidestep addressing her sexual orientation she did thank her ex-partner and co-parent of her two boys, Cydney Bernard.
Her speech was also a rant in favor of privacy that brought many people to its feet. Foster noted that she has lived virtually her entire life in the public eye yet wanted to keep some things private.
"I have given everything up there from the time I was 3 years old," she said. "That is reality enough."
Even backstage, talking face-to-face with the media, she was cryptic about what, exactly, she was trying to say with her speech.
In other film awards, Jessica Chastain won lead actress in a drama for her role as a CIA operative who helps track down Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty."
Jennifer Lawrence won lead actress in a comedy or musical for "Silver Linings Playbook" for her performance as a widow in the quirky romantic comedy.
"I beat Meryl!" Lawrence joked as she accepted the trophy. (Meryl Streep was nominated in the same category, for "Hope Springs.")
Among Lawrence's thank-yous: "Thank you, Harvey Weinstein, for killing whoever you had to kill to get me up here."
Christoph Waltz won for supporting actor for playing a bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained."
The maverick filmmaker was a surprise screenplay winner for the controversial spaghetti Western set during the slavery era, beating out such favorites as the writers of "Zero Dark Thirty," "Lincoln," "Argo," and "Silver Linings Playbook."
"Wow, I wasn't expecting this," said an effusive Tarantino. "I'm happy to be surprised."
Austria's "Amour" won foreign language film, and "Brave" won for animated film.
Mychael Danna won for writing the score for Ang Lee's "Life of Pi."
Original song went to pop singer Adele and Paul Epworth for "Skyfall," the title tune for the latest James Bond installment.
On the TV side, the Golden Globes honored Showtime's "Homeland" and HBO's "Game Change" and "Girls" with multiple trophies.
"Homeland," the political thriller that counts President Obama as one of its biggest fans, won its second consecutive award for drama series. Claire Danes won her second-in-a-row Globe for lead dramatic actress in the series. Her co-star Damian Lewis took lead actor.
"Game Change," the drama about then-Gov. Sarah Palin's run for the vice presidency in 2008, also performed well.
It snapped up three awards: miniseries or TV movie, supporting actor for Ed Harris, and lead actress for Julianne Moore for her uncanny channeling of Palin.
"Girls" won best comedy series while its young star and creator, Lena Dunham, won for lead actress. Don Cheadle won lead actor in a comedy series for Showtime's "House of Lies."
Kevin Costner won lead actor in a miniseries or TV movie for History Channel's "Hatfields & McCoys."
Maggie Smith won for supporting actress in a TV series, miniseries or movie for playing the acerbic dowager in PBS' "Downton Abbey."
After a controversial three-year stint as host, Ricky Gervais turned over the emcee duties to Globe nominees Amy Poehler ("Parks & Recreation") and Tina Fey ("30 Rock").
The pair were only slightly less irreverent, skewering Hollywood by poking fun of pill-popping Hollywood and "rat-faced" TV types and joking about the controversy surrounding Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty."
Cracked Poehler: "When it comes to torture, I trust the woman who spent three years married to James Cameron."
-Los Angeles Times

subset: commoncrawl


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Often, plastic enters my life in the weirdest of places. Like the dentist.
I go to great lengths to avoid the stuff in my daily life. I take my own bags for grocery and non-food shopping. I choose products not packaged in plastic. I request "no plastic in shipping" when ordering online. I carry my own eating utensils, cup, glass straw and take-out/leftover containers.
Yet, at times, I am caught off guard. Like at the dentist.
I'm sitting in the chair, trying to talk with my mouth wide open, while their fingers are in it, inevitably drooling on myself. Why do they always ask you questions and then expect an answer when it's impossible to do so? Anyway, the last thing on my mind is plastic.
All I am thinking about is:
When am I going to get out of here?
How messed up will my hair be when I do?
I don't know why, but I always leave the dentist with bed head. It's horrifying. Even more horrifying is what happens at the end of my appointment.
We schedule my next appointment while I try to salvage my hair and then I turn around to the bag.
Yeah, the bag. You know, that plastic bag containing a plastic toothbrush, plastic tube of sample-sized toothpaste and plastic sample-sized floss? It happens every time.
And I take it! That's the horrifying part.
WTH? I'm such a creature of habit that it feels wrong not to. She's standing there, arm extended, handing it to me. I have to take it.
That's how I used to feel. Eventually I got over that nasty habit, like many others and started requesting no bag. I do it with everything else, why not this?
Then I started politely declining the toothbrush and toothpaste. I have no less than a dozen toothbrushes under my kitchen sink that I use for cleaning. None of them have even been opened. I don't think I need another toothbrush. When traveling I take my own Tom's of Maine toothpaste, so I don't really need the sample of something I'm never going to use anyway.
I do still take the floss. I never have to buy the stuff, I just get it from my dentist. Yes, it is plastic, but had I purchased it it would also be plastic, packaged in plastic. See how I just justified that decision with myself?
Then one day I turned around and she was standing there, smiling, arm extended, handing me a PAPER bag! Holy cow! I did a double take.
And I took it! Damn.
I commented on the switch and she replied they were trying to be more environmentally friendly. Hurray! I'm not saying they made the change because of me. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But they did make the change.


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MADRID (MarketWatch) -- European stock markets moved lower on Wednesday, catching up to a late-session selloff in the U.S. the prior day as fiscal cliff worries pressed on sentiment. U.S. stock futures were trading higher. The Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, -0.40% fell 0.2% to 269.96, led by banks and oil stocks, with the telecoms sector pushing higher. Vivendi SA VIV, -0.58% rose over 3% after the media and telecommunications group lifted its full-year earnings guidance. The French CAC 40 index PX1, -0.87% fell 0.3% to 3,419.18, while the German DAX 30 index DAX, -0.47% edged down 0.2% to 7,155.28 and the FTSE 100 index UKX, -1.05% fell 0.4% to 5,759.54.
Europe stocks track late-session U.S. selloff
Quote References
-75.79 -1.05%


text:
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text:
Welcome from the Department Chair
The faculty and staff of the coordinated programs in Nutrition and Dietetics would like to thank you for considering Loma Linda University as you pursue your educational goals in nutrition and dietetics.
We also offer a Master's Degree in Nutrition Care Management. This degree program is for established registered dietitians entering leadership positions in the profession.
Nutrition and Dietetics faculty are Christian educators whose professional expertise is utilized in all programs. Each faculty member is an experienced nutrition and dietetics professional who is committed to graduating individuals who are well prepared to enter the field of nutrition and dietetics. Faculty members are involved in many professional activities outside the department that contribute to the development of the profession or assist in international food and nutrition issues.
Exploring the World of Nutrition and Dietetics
The nutrition and dietetics programs prepares competent, entry-level dietitians to meet the needs of Seventh-day Adventist healthcare and educational facilities, as well as community based needs locally, nationally, and internationally. Alumni members currently serve across North America, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Africa. Several professional service opportunities are available, both nationally and internationally, after graduating from Loma Linda University. Come join our world.
Program Accreditation Information
Our programs are currently granted continuing accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics, ACEND, 120 Riverside Plaza, Suite 2190, Chicago Il, 60606-6995 800-877-1600 ext 5400. https://www.eatrightpro.org/acend/accredited-programs/coordinated-programs-in-dietetics.


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The Knicks have lost 12 straight playoff games. They have not won a playoff game since the 2000-2001 season. They have not won a playoff series since their improbable run in 1999, led by Ewing, Houston and Spreewell. New York's long standing drought of playoff success has taken form into a metaphorical Berlin Wall for not only the Knicks, but their fans. With every disappointing loss after disappointing loss, the wall only gets bigger. We know the Knicks aren't going to win this series, but can we at least get a playoff win out of these Knicks? Will a single playoff win tear down the metaphorical Berlin Wall of playoff failure? Absolutely not. But a win tonight would instill a bit of sanity back into the fan base as well as the team itself. It is one thing for the Knicks to lose playoff series. They weren't better than Boston last year (although they got jobbed in game 1) and they're not better than Miami this year. But to get swept in both series is just damn embarrassing. Even the Dwight Howard-less Magic and the mediocre Philadelphia Sixers have found ways to get playoff wins so far this year. It is the Knicks turn. The past is the past. They've got to start taking serious hacks at this gigantic wall of failure, and that starts tonight at 7 PM at Madison Square Garden.
Here's what to watch for:
- Carmelo Anthony must be efficient tonight. We know he can score 30 points tonight, but the question is can he do it efficiently? It does the Knicks no good for Anthony to score 30 points on 26 shots, as he did in game 2. Anthony must score about 35-40 points in games where he takes 26 shots. Tonight, he cannot start playing "Melo-ball". Anthony must work to get others involved. He has had only 4 assists in the opening two games of this series, both Knick losses. Having said that, the Knicks also must work to get open and get involved in the offense, but Anthony still must look to distribute more. The Knicks need the Carmelo Anthony that recorded a triple double late in the season against Boston. They need a 35-12-10 performance from him tonight. With Amar'e Stoudemire out with a severed hand, Anthony must carry the offense in all aspects. He has to be a dominant, efficient scorer as well as a solid distributor tonight. If he makes it an iso-Melo game, the Knicks will lose. Badly.
- Mike Woodson cannot fall in love with iso-Melo. Now more than ever, the Knicks have to find a way to manufacture baskets. They need offensive contributions from every body tonight. Novak must get in on the action, JR Smith must play with some discipline and Landry Fields cannot be stuck in Charles Barkley-Space Jam mode tonight. New York must work some motion into the offense. They need to find a way to use back cuts and screens to open up spot up shots for Novak and Smith. They need to find a way to get Fields cutting to the basket. Carmelo Anthony needs to get the ball deep into the post. I'd like to see some screen and roll action between the point guards and Chandler. The Knicks have tried iso-ball in the first two games and it has failed. It's time for some motion in Mike Woodson's offense. Lets see if we get that tonight.
- The Knicks have to crash the boards hard tonight. Some people believe the Knicks have an advantage playing small ball against Miami. I have no idea why. I think the Knicks are totally at a disadvantage playing small. Tyson Chandler is going to be forced to guard Chris Bosh. Given Bosh's ability to consistently knock down mid-range jump shots, he will draw Chandler out of the paint. Without Amar'e Stoudemire, and yes I know he's a mediocre rebounder too, the Knicks have very little rebounding behind Chandler. I know Anthony is a solid rebounder, but he's not going to be in the paint often if he's on the perimeter guarding James. I have to think that Steve Novak will be playing significant minutes in this game. Without Iman Shumpert, I'm assuming that Landry Fields/JR Smith will be guarding Wade, which will leave Novak assigned to Joel Anthony or Udonis Haslem. Both guys can hurt you on the boards, so Novak really has to do a good job of keeping them off the glass. Jared Jeffries' knee still isn't close to 60% so expect to see some Jorts and maybe hot wife guy as well.
- New York has to hit some 3's tonight. Often times, the Knicks live and die by the 3 point ball. This series, they've died by it. They've hit just 12/36 from downtown in this series, a cool 33%. That isn't going to cut it against the Heat. Miami's defense is so aggressive that the Knicks have had opportunities to hit open 3's, they just haven't done it. If they're going to win their first playoff game since
19732001, they have to get hot from downtown.
- As shown above, thanks to Hoopdata.com, the Knicks missed 11 shots at the rim in game 2. That cannot happen tonight. I know the officiating has been more than questionable, but there cannot be any excuses made. When the Knicks get to the rim, they have to finish. No questions asked.
- Need I say more?


text: There's almost nothing more unimaginative or wince-inducing than euphemisms for sex. Some are too impersonal; some are too raunchy; but one is just plain wrong in every way. Yes, we're talking about "making love" (often transposed as "lovemaking", which is almost worse!) and although we hate it — and the Bad Company song that inevitably pops up in our heads when we hear the term — we don't really know why. Earlier this afternoon, Anna and a special Friend-Of-Jezebel got together to try to figure it all out. We aren't saying the two succeeded, but you can applaud or mock their efforts, after the jump.


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We live in a perilous world, a dangerous environment. Watch television news or read your daily newspaper and you are subjected to a daily diet of robberies, rapes, riots, murders, fires, earthquakes, floods and famines.
Do you find yourself becoming disturbed by what is happening around you? Do you feel helpless, unable to control these events? Do you even sometimes feel afraid?
In this course and corresponding booklet, L. Ron Hubbard dissects this phenomenon of the dangerous environment, providing methods that will not only help you overcome your fears, but allow you to help others. Applied on a broad scale, this information brings about an enormous calming influence and enables people to lead happier lives. Used on an individual scale—by you—it will enhance the lives of your family, friends and associates.
Ease of Study
This course is laid out in a step-by-step manner, with a sequence of reading assignments, essays and practical exercises.
Before you begin, you create your own personal account on the Volunteer Ministers website. Once logged in, the online program will guide you through each step of the course to full completion, with all course materials provided from within the Volunteer Ministers website.
Length of Course
3 to 4 hours. You may, however, do the course at your own pace. In other words, it is not timed. The course is our service to you, free of charge.
Booklet: Solutions for a Dangerous Environment
or The Scientology Handbook
Your course materials are also integrated within the online course. In other words, once logged on, you may read the materials from within the online course program as you do each step. We do, however, recommend that you download for free or purchase the booklet, to review and refer to when you are not logged into the course program.
Through the length of your course, you will receive supervision from your personal online course supervisor, who will help to ensure you understand and achieve the maximum benefit from the course materials. The end result is that you are fully able to apply the data contained therein. If you have any further questions, contact us here.
Each assignment you turn in will be graded by your course supervisor. In the event that any of your assignments need correction, your supervisor will send them back to you, with direction on what to review and correct.
Course Completion
Upon completion of The Solutions for a Dangerous Environment Course, you will receive a hardcopy certificate by mail.
The services of our online courses are always available to you. If at any time you need assistance with your course assignments, do not hesitate to contact your online course supervisor, whom you can reach using the 'Need help?' button in your online course program.
"I was amazed at the calming effect the information in this course had on me. I used to worry about the news and what I read in the paper. Learning what was in this course and applying the ways to lessen the threat, I have successfully brought calm to myself and my family. I use the information from the "Confront" section every day at work and people are absolutely amazed at my ability to handle my work load.
"This stuff is invaluable. I would recommend this information be widely distributed. It has made my life better as often as I have used it and I know it would do the same for others!" – D.T.
"It's amazing to me how much 'stuff' there is out there that tells people how they should feel. The news on television and print is full of 'scary,' sensationalizing stories that make people feel fear and sadness.
"I took the advice written in the booklet and haven't read a newspaper or watched the news on television for a week, and it's remarkable! Since I began this 'experiment,' I have been more joyful and actually have slept better and have not gotten depressed. Before I began, I would read two or three newspapers a day, and my TV channel basically stayed on network news all day. You could say I was a news junkie—I was depressed, lacked motivation and slept poorly.
"Now instead of reading the paper, I read something from Scientology or Dianetics, or something that edifies my spirit. As far as TV goes, I hardly turn it on during the day, and in the evening, I watch my favorite shows, without all the hype from any news outlet!
"I never realized how much all that bad news affected me, and now I feel energized and full of life!
"Thanks Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, the world needs your wisdom. I will learn more, so I can help people—you can count on me." – M.G.
Anxious about world conditions?
Do you find yourself becoming disturbed by what is happening around you? Do you feel helpless and unable to control these events? Do you even sometimes feel afraid?
A prime example is how channels inundate society with a flood of news on the latest war, mayhem and crime, no matter how distant.
By understanding why certain individuals pump as much threat and danger into the world as they can, you'll understand how to overcome your fears.
You will learn simple techniques you can use, both for yourself and your friends, to reduce the apparent threat of the world around you. Knowing this information, you can become happier and calmer, more active and improve your health, well-being and sanity.
Find out:
- Why some people are unable to achieve their dreams
- Who the "merchants of chaos" are and how they negatively affect your life
- Methods to handle feelings of being overwhelmed
- Why something that brings calm to the environment is resisted


text:
Knoxville historian Jack Neely revisits a venerable frontier tradition—conspiracy to commit treason. Here in East Tennessee, two of our founders flirted with European powers on separate occasions, one of whom did so while participating in an illegal statehood movement.
It's surprising how tenuous allegiances on the Revolutionary-era frontier could be. Neely speculates that in the case of Tennesseans John Sevier and William Blount, it might have been a generational thing. "They were too young to have earned a place in the pantheon of the founders of a nation," he writes. "But they were too old to have grown up—as we did—revering our Founding Fathers as Immortals, something a little beyond merely human."
I think Neely's piece is the first one I've read that tries to find some link between the early separatist schemes in American history. The fact that these guys came into their own at a time when the federal government was still congealing is very suggestive. Sending out feelers to a foreign power probably didn't have the psychological ramifications that it does now, when U.S. sovereignty is more of a given.
In the case of the Blount and Wilkinson conspiracies, most accounts that I've read stress the agency of particularly ambitious and unscrupulous actors who were looking out for number one. The best and most thorough study of the Franklin movement also emphasizes the leadership of regional elites and land-hungry men of means. Many of these schemers no doubt acted out of motives that were (to put it charitably) something other than altruistic, but I think the support and approval they received from large numbers of frontier inhabitants is important, and we shouldn't overlook it.
The leading Franklinites may have been ambitious bigwigs, but to your run-of-the-mill frontiersman the Franklin movement still offered possible solutions to the problems of distant and unresponsive state and federal governments and threats to the ability to navigate the Mississippi. And even Blount, acting on his own behalf rather than as part of a larger protest, remained wildly popular back in Tennessee, which indicates that these Revolutionary-era plots may have been more attuned to the needs and beliefs of frontier inhabitants than we might assume by looking at their sometimes self-interested architects.
We still don't know enough—or at least I don't know enough—about the common frontiersman of the late eighteenth century. He's an elusive figure, but I suspect that we'd all be surprised at how much of his worldview we could recover.


text:
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text:
Dangling NYC high-rise crane boom now tethered
NEW YORK New York City's mayor says the dangling boom of a midtown Manhattan crane damaged in the storm is tethered to the luxury high-rise building.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Saturday that officials hope to open 57th Street on Saturday night.
The crane boom collapsed during Superstorm Sandy this week, likely because of heavy winds.
Engineers climbed the 74-story building in the midst of the storm to inspect the crane.
Some neighboring buildings were evacuated, including a hotel with 900 guests.


text:
Cinema advertiser Screenvision has extended its partnership with cable channel ReelzChannel.
ReelzChannel will continue to provide monthly content for Screenvision's pre-show, The Limelight, which is shown on more than 14,000 movie screens across the US.
"Reelz is a terrific partner and we are very pleased to extend this relationship," said Screenvision svp of strategic alliances John McCauley. "ReelZ is all about the movies, so this is a very organic partnership, one providing entertaining content that we know resonates with our moviegoers."
"We're very proud to continue this fruitful partnership with Screenvision and their quality theatres across the country," said ReelzChannel svp of distribution John de Garmo. "Screenvision's cinema network is a perfect environment for us to showcase our unique take on Hollywood, entertain moviegoers and build awareness and loyalty for the Reelz brand."


text:
Excerpted from America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great © 2012 by Dr. Benjamin Carson. Excertped by permission of Zondervan Publishers, a Division of Harper Collins. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Chapter 1
America's History of Rebelling for Change
Of all the nations in the world, of all the social experiments that have been tried down through the centuries, there is no country I'd rather be a citizen of and call home than America. Where else but in this land of opportunity are people given so much freedom to pursue their dreams, with the potential to bring out the best in everyone?
I have been fortunate enough to visit forty-nine of America's fifty states, and I never cease to be amazed by the tremendous diversity one finds here—from big metropolitan cities to small countryside towns, from tropical islands to forested mountain ranges. Vast expanses of farmland produce more than enough food to feed our nation, and huge industrial areas produce airplanes, trains, cars, washing machines, and a host of other devices. The creative innovations of Silicon Valley and Seattle give us technological strength, and the great Northeastern corner of our country boasts some of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world. Add to that our ethnic and cultural diversity—one of our greatest strengths—and you begin to see how this nation's diversity enabled it to rapidly become a world power.
Does America have its flaws? Absolutely. We've certainly made our share of mistakes over the centuries and then some. But in spite of our missteps, our nation's history shows that out of our darkest periods, we have responded time and time again to work toward "liberty and justice for all." One of America's most respected legacies is indeed that of rebelling for change.
I grew up in inner-city Detroit and Boston at the tail end of one of those dark periods in America's history. Slavery had long been abolished, but widespread racism remained. The civil rights movement was on the verge of completely transforming the social landscape, but such change often comes slowly. And today, decades later, I can still pinpoint the moment when I came of age regarding racism in America.
My brother and I were playing in Franklin Park in the Roxbury section of Boston when I wandered away alone under a bridge, where a group of older white boys approached me and began calling me names.
"Hey, boy, we don't allow your kind over here," one of them said. He looked at the others. "Let's drown him in the lake." I could tell they weren't just taunting me, trying to scare me. They were serious, and I turned and ran from there faster than I had ever run before in my life. It was a shocking introduction for a little boy to the racism that ran through America at the time.
Growing up, we faced constant reminders of how we were less important than white people. Even some of those who claimed to be civil rights activists could be heard saying such things as, "He is so well educated and expresses himself so clearly that if you were talking to him on the telephone you would think he was white."
By that time, economic hardship had forced us to move to Boston, and we were living with my mother's older sister and brother-in-law in a typical tenement, where rats, roaches, gangs, and murders were all too common. One day my uncle William was giving me a haircut in the kitchen while we watched the news on television when I saw white police unleashing ferocious dogs on groups of young black people and mowing them down with powerful water hoses. Even little children were being brutalized
Perhaps even worse than the overt racism that I witnessed on television was the systemic racism I witnessed in my own family. My aunt Jean and uncle William had two grown sons who frequently stayed with them in their dilapidated multifamily dwelling. My brother, Curtis, and I were very fond of our older cousins, who always made us laugh. But both of them were constantly in trouble with the police, which resulted in their brutal, racially motivated beatings or Uncle William having to bail them out of jail. Unfortunately, their close friends were drug dealers and gang members, many of whom were killed or died young. Ultimately both of my cousins were killed because of their association with the wrong people.
One could legitimately ask the question. Which is worse, overt racist behavior by the police, or a society that offered certain segments of its population little in the way of opportunities, increasing the likelihood of "criminal associations"? We didn't realize these friends of our cousins were dangerous for us to be around. We only knew that they joked around with us, gave us attention, and even brought us candy from time to time.
It wasn't just our inner-city neighborhood where racism flourished; I found it at school as well. During report-card-marking day in the eighth grade, for example, each student was supposed to take their report card from classroom to classroom and have their teacher place a grade in the designated spot. I was very excited because I had all As, and I had only one more class to go for a clean sweep. That class was band, which was going to be an easy A since I was an excellent clarinetist. That last A would make me a shoo-in for the highest academic achievement award in eighth grade that year. I was beaming as I gave Mr. Mann my report card, but my joy quickly turned to sorrow when I saw that he had given me a grade of C in order to ruin my report card and my chances of receiving the highest academic award. I knew that my winning the award would have been an eye-opening experience for many people at Wilson Junior High School, since I was the only black student in the class.
Much to Mr. Mann's chagrin and to my delight, band was not considered an academic subject and did not count; therefore, I received the highest academic award after all. One of the other teachers was so upset about this that she literally chastised all the white students at the award ceremony in front of the entire school for allowing a black student to outperform them academically. The scene is depicted in the movie about my life, Gifted Hands, although in reality she ranted and raved a lot longer than the movie suggested. It was at least ten minutes, although it felt like longer.
In retrospect, I realize that all of these teachers and some of the students were simply products of their environment, but they triggered in me a strong desire to start my own personal civil rights movement to show everyone that I was just as good as they were by doing better than they did in school. As my academic awards and accomplishments continued to pile up, I had to combat feelings of superiority, which proved to be just as difficult as the task of fighting off an inferiority complex. Nevertheless, by the time I was in high school I had come to understand that people are people, and that their external appearance was not a good predictor of what kind of people they were.
In April of 1968, on the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a major riot broke out at my high school in inner-city Detroit. Most of the black students were so outraged that they were trying to physically harm anyone who was white. Some very serious beatings took place, and I saw many of my white friends being harassed. The student population of the school was about 70 percent black, so the white students did not have much of a chance. At the time, I held a job as the biology laboratory assistant setting up experiments for the other students. The department even trusted me with a key to the science classrooms and the greenhouse. So during the riot, I used that key to open the greenhouse and hide several white students during the melee.
By that time in my life, I understood the extent of racism in America, but I also was beginning to have hope for the future. Having lived and studied among both black and white cultures, I knew that there are good white and black people and there are bad white and black people. It mattered not what color your skin was on the outside, but rather what the condition was of your heart and mind inside. And as I better understood human nature, I felt more emboldened to do things differently than everybody else and to chart my own course for a successful life.
I think that many of the people involved in the founding of our nation also felt they were victims of injustice, but they too had a profound understanding of human nature and set out to design a system different from previous governments that would level the playing field.
Today our nation faces a challenge of a different kind—one that nevertheless requires of us all a movement to stand up for our civil rights. One that asks us to educate ourselves as to the founders' original vision for our nation and to take action to assure we protect and pursue that vision. While many nations lean on their past to give them a sense of accomplishment, the United States has a history of redefining itself and moving forward to ensure that there is indeed liberty and justice for all.
A New World Springs Forth
The dangers that face our nation today are every bit as great as those we have faced in the past. The question is whether we have lost our capacity to endure hardship and sacrifice for future generations. We face a national budgetary crisis that threatens to rip our country apart and destroy our way of life, yet many concern themselves only with the governmental benefits they might lose. I write with the hope that we can reawaken the spirit of greatness that created the wealthiest, most compassionate, freest nation the world has ever seen. In this book we will embark upon a brief review of pertinent parts of our history that have everything to do with finding our way forward to a prosperous future.
Whether the first people to arrive on the North American continent were migratory tribes that traveled across a land bridge between what is currently Russia and Alaska, or whether they were ancient sailors who navigated the ocean—America has always had a rich and diverse ethnic background. Our nation began that way and we continue to expand that way. All kinds of people are responsible for our nation's rapid development and great accomplishments, and by the same token, we share blame for many of the atrocities that have occurred on American soil.
The impetus for Europeans to quickly settle the Americas came from the discovery of vast mineral deposits and other natural resources that could create enormous wealth. It was Amerigo Vespucci, an acquaintance of Columbus, who is credited with America's discovery in 1497, five years after Columbus landed in the Caribbean Islands while searching for a new route to the spice-rich Far East. Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho, who visited the Americas in 1421, could lay claim as well—and there is also evidence that Scandinavian explorer Leif Erikson reached the Americas hundreds of years before any of these other explorers. Regardless of who "discovered" America, Columbus's expeditions certainly raised awareness back in the Old World as to the New World's vast potential for increasing the wealth of those nations that were able to exploit it. And once this became known in the Old World countries, explorers began to arrive.
The Spaniards had significant colonies and exploited the mineral wealth here, and America could easily have been a Spanish-speaking nation, but an intense rivalry between Spain and England, particularly during the latter part of the sixteenth century, put America up for grabs. Spain's domination of the oceans was challenged by England and the Dutch, who were building an extremely large merchant marine fleet in Europe. The final nail in the coffin of Spanish domination of the oceans took place in 1588, when the Spanish Armada was sunk in a battle with the English and, more importantly, by a ferocious storm, which decimated their mighty fleet. Because the English dominated the seas in the early 1600s, they decided it was their right to begin colonizing America, and the first of the permanent English colonies, Jamestown, was established in 1607.
I still remember the idyllic pictures of the Jamestown settlement in my school books as a child, but in reality the settlement was anything but ideal. Many of the settlers were English gentlemen who had no idea how to work in a wild environment. They quickly ran out of food while battling the Algonquin and enduring very harsh winter conditions. You don't have to have much of an imagination to visualize how desperate those early settlers must have been. The vast majority of the early settlers succumbed to starvation and violence, and there are even credible reports of cannibalism. They suffered extreme hardship and personal sacrifice, all to create a more stable and prosperous future for subsequent generations.
The Europeans had also not anticipated the fierce resistance shown by the Native Americans, who had no intention of simply handing over their land. Although many movies portray the Europeans as vastly superior to the Native Americans in warfare, their most effective weapons were the diseases they brought, against which the Native Americans had no immunological resistance. These diseases wiped out whole villages and tribes through massive epidemics that were far more effective than any fighting force. While the Native Americans were being vanquished, the English, French, and Spaniards, among others, fought for the dominant position in the New World. The Jamestown colony would never have survived if it had not been for the friendship developed with the tribe of Powhatan, who taught them some basic fundamentals of farming and traded food for beads—a gracious, saving exception to the conflict and warfare that characterized our nation's early history.
In time, the English Jamestown settlement grew and thrived, especially after the introduction of indentured servants and slaves in 1619 and the development of American tobacco, which quickly became all the rage in England and other parts of Europe. The rapid growth of the tobacco industry turned out to be a financial bonanza for the fledgling colony, enabling it to survive. There were early attempts at remote self-rule, the most permanent of which was the establishment of the House of Burgess, which consisted of a governor and "councilors," appointed by the governor, and some representatives of estates.
Around the time of the establishment of the House of Burgess, a second permanent colony was being established by the pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the harbor of Cape Cod Bay. These religious separatists were interested in the New World primarily because they felt that their freedoms were compromised both in terms of religion and life in general. In an attempt at self-rule, they constructed an agreement of behavior known as the Mayflower Compact, the first formal constitution in North America. In this contract, they agreed to the fair and equal treatment of everyone for the good of the colony. Unfortunately, "everyone" did not include women, those who were not land owners, slaves and indentured servants, or the region's natives. To their credit, they were attempting to build a type of society that was foreign to most of the world, since most colonies were governed according to the wishes of the ruler. These were immature baby steps toward a more noble goal, but at least they were steps in the right direction
Over the next few decades, an explosion of colonization occurred, largely from people seeking religious freedom and/or financial opportunities. Many in Europe saw an opportunity to escape the oppressive and overbearing governmental systems under which they languished, and these people emigrated in droves, bringing with them a strong determination to make a better life for themselves and their offspring, unfettered by oppressive overseers disguised as government. The opportunities to enrich themselves through their own efforts brought out the best in many people, but it also brought out avarice, greed, and a host of unethical behaviors that invariably accompany freedom.
Fortunately, those whose characters were constrained by religious principles far outnumbered those lacking moral rectitude. The British remained technically in charge of all these colonies, but due to the independent-minded nature of many of the colonists and the distance involved, British control was somewhat tenuous. The other great power of Europe, France, was also vying for control and power in the New World, but they were largely distracted by their ongoing wars with the Iroquois, and seemed to be much more interested in trading and exploration than they were in establishing permanent settlements.
Throughout the mid- and late seventeenth century, immigrants flooded in not only from England, but also from France, Germany, and other parts of Europe. Migrating into the area that was to become Pennsylvania, a large influx of Quakers provided a solid base for the abolitionist movement that was to come. By the end of the seventeenth century, the colonies had become more sophisticated and organized, establishing Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, with Georgia added in 1732. Thus the basis of the original thirteen colonies was in place.
This ambitious taxation was a haunting echo of the life the colonists had experienced in the Old World and set out for the New World to escape. But it was also a harbinger of the times we find ourselves in today in America. In both instances, unrest began to stir in the people.
Growing Resentment over Out-of-Control Taxation
The British Parliament had imposed many taxes on the colonists under the revenue acts, but still they were not satisfied with the amount of money being collected. So in 1765, the Stamp Act was passed, which imposed a levy on just about every type of legal document imaginable, including marriage licenses, college degrees—even such ordinary items as newspapers and playing cards. Needless to say, the colonists were not pleased about this, even though British citizens in England were already paying not only this tax, but many other exorbitant taxes. The Americans felt that once they acquiesced to more British taxation, there would never be an end to escalating tax rates, so they began to boycott British products. The colonists vigorously—and sometimes even brutally—encouraged their fellow Americans to use only products produced in the New World, and they began attacking British tax collectors, sometimes beating them, or even worse, tarring and feathering them. They also used these same intimidation tactics later on fellow Americans to assure compliance with boycotts of British goods. Finally, in 1766, the British Parliament repealed many of the taxes, including the Stamp Act. The colonists celebrated the repeal, even erecting a statue of King George in New York.
It wasn't long, however, before the taxation monster raised its ugly head again, for in 1767, the Townshend Act was passed. This famously included taxes on tea, which the colonists had grown increasingly very fond of. Through trickery and parliamentary procedures, the Townshend Act allowed the British's almost bankrupt East India Company to gain a virtual monopoly on tea sales, exacerbating tensions between the colonies and England. The colonists once again decided to boycott English imports, prompting an angry response from England, who sent four thousand British troops to quell the colonial protests. To sustain themselves in the New World, the British troops competed with the locals for jobs, which further inflamed tensions between the sides.
In December of 1773, some of the colonists were so outraged with the taxes on tea that they disguised themselves as Native Americans, boarded British ships in Boston Harbor, and destroyed the tea by tossing it all into the harbor. This, of course, was the famous Boston Tea Party. The British were so outraged that they closed Boston Harbor and instilled a harsher governing structure. More taxes and regulations followed, many of which were quite punitive and became known by the colonists as the "Intolerable Acts." There were frequent clashes between the locals and the soldiers without bloodshed, but this changed on March 5, 1770, when a crowd surrounded a group of redcoats in an angry confrontation and the British soldiers fired shots into the crowd. Five of the locals were killed, the first of whom was Crispus Attucks, an African-American and the first American to die in the Revolutionary War.
The tensions between Great Britain and America continued to build and numerous skirmishes, some of which are well documented by historians, broke out. One of the most famous fights took place on June 17, 1775, at Breed's Hill,1 where approximately 2,500 British troops attacked an American installation defended by only about 1,400 troops. It was an intense battle and the British lost approximately 40 percent of their troops, while the Americans lost less than a third of theirs. Even though the British eventually won that battle, it was a Pyrrhic victory, with the devastating psychological impact of their heavy casualties impacting the rest of the war.
The combination of heavy taxation, excessive regulations, and lack of representation in their governing structures irritated the colonists to the point that many of them began talking not only about ways to protest, but also about the desire to declare independence once and for all from the British Crown. With all of their backbreaking hard work, they felt it unfair to have such a significant portion of the fruits of their labors confiscated by a government that neither represented their interests nor respected their freedom. Nevertheless, many colonists (known as Tories or Loyalists) remained loyal to the British Crown and felt that the benefits of British citizenship—or at least of being a British colony—were too great to sacrifice for an uncertain future of independence.
Waking Up to Some "Common Sense"
In 1776, as Washington's ragtag army kept British forces engaged, public sentiment was growing in favor of independence. All the colonists needed was a spokesman to galvanize public opinion toward resistance from Great Britain—and an unlikely figure emerged in the form of Thomas Paine. He had only been in the country for a little over a year, "arriving as a failure in almost everything he attempted in life. He wrecked his first marriage, and his second wife paid him to leave. He destroyed two businesses and flopped as a tax collector. But Paine had fire in his blood and defiance in his pen,"2 and America was and still is a country of fresh starts.
An editor of a Philadelphia magazine, Paine published a fifty-page political pamphlet, Common Sense, in January of 1776, which began with one of the most memorable lines in American history: "These are the times that try men's souls." The pamphlet resonated so well with the colonists' feelings about independence that over 120,000 copies of the pamphlet were sold within the first three months, and half a million copies were sold in the first year. To put the impact of Paine's pamphlet Common Sense into perspective, in the United States today you would have to sell about 65 to 70 million copies of a publication—or about one copy per four to five people—to equal the proportionate distribution.
Spurred on by the message of Common Sense, enthusiasm for independence grew dramatically, even among former Loyalists. Paine donated the profits from the sale of Common Sense to George Washington's army, saying, "As my wish was to serve an oppressed people, and assist in a just and good cause, I conceived that the honor of it would be promoted by my declining to make even the usual profits of an author."3 Thomas Jefferson even included a portion of Common Sense as the prelude to the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted by Congress in July of that year. The publication clearly resonated deeply with the American colonists' desire for independence.
In fact, their longing for self-government and willingness to fight—even die—for freedom became so strong that the words of politician Patrick Henry became a rallying cry for the colonists when he said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" Finally, in 1776, each of the colonies (except Georgia) sent delegates to the First Continental Congress, where the process began for the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.
Tea Parties—Then and Now
The rebellion of the Boston Tea Party has many similarities with the political movement today known as the Tea Party. For the sake of simplicity, let's call the colonial protesters the old Tea Party movement and call the political movement established in 2009 the new Tea Party movement.
In the days of the old Tea Party, the British government and American Loyalists attempted to establish and maintain control of the colonies. When the Patriots first began to resist such efforts, those in power tended to deny that there was any real resistance from anyone except extremist, fringe individuals. Let's call this the denial phase. But as the protests became more prolific, denial was no longer tenable, and the powers that be decided to ignore the movement. Their hope was that if they paid no attention to the protesters, it would be less likely that others would join them and the movement would simply fade away. Let's call this the ignore phase. Unfortunately for those in control, ignoring the movement did nothing to lessen its intensity and, in fact, gave it time to grow even more powerful. The colonists ended up inflicting significant damage on those in power, forcing them to fight back, in many cases, with more force than necessary. Many of the regulations subsequently imposed were a part of this punitive resistance phase. The more the established powers resisted, however, the more determined the colonists were to overcome that resistance. Some of the British military leaders actually began to admire the tenacity and bravery of the colonial fighters.
After the Battle of Breed's Hill, some of the enthusiasm of the British and American Loyalists began to wane, and doubts began to creep into their thinking about whether the growing war was really one worth fighting. The British had a long and successful history of colonizing many parts of the world, which had brought them great power and wealth, but America and the Americans were different than any of the other groups they had ruled. Perhaps, they considered, America should be exempt from the sovereign dictates of the throne. Maybe they were more like England than any of the other colonies in the world.
At some point in the struggle to regain power, it becomes easier for a ruler to exempt an unruly but powerful subject from punishment than to suffer defeat. During this exemption phase, it became increasingly easy for the Loyalists to desert the throne and align themselves with the Patriots, who were gaining power and the admiration of the populace. Many of those formerly in power—the American Loyalists, dedicated to the British crown, for example—began to believe and act on the very things they once railed against, conforming to the ideology and actions of their previous enemies. This we shall call the conforming phase. The final phase is the transformation phase, in which the ideology of the resistance movement becomes the mainstream philosophy governing a now changed society. And in the case of the American Revolution, the ideas of the old Tea Party—less central government, more local rule, and more personal responsibility—became the basis for a new society that rapidly rose to the pinnacle of the world.
The New Tea Party: DIRECTing America Today
The old Tea Party would probably have never been birthed if large segments of the colonial population had not felt oppressed and betrayed by the very government that was supposed to be taking care of their needs. If one were to make an acrostic of the first letters of each of these phases—denial, ignore, resistance, exempt, conforming, and transformation—one gets the word DIRECT, and that's basically what happened: an enthusiastic group of fervent believers was able to direct a fledgling new nation away from corrupt, oppressive, nonrepresentative government to a fairer, limited, and representative government.
Now let's look at the same DIRECT acrostic with respect to the new Tea Party. Late in 2008 and early in 2009, a number of things happened that caused great concern to a large number of Americans. Among these were the passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the bailout of several major financial agencies, and talk about dramatic reform of the nation's health care system. Scattered small protests about these things were seen around the nation, but the entrenched powers of government and most of the media denied their significance.
Then on February 19, 2009, a business news editor on CNBC by the name of Rick Santelli in a national broadcast from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange severely criticized government plans to refinance "underwater mortgages," those mortgages whose values are less than the balance owed because of the collapse in housing prices. Many of the derivative traders on the floor in the background applauded, and the hosts of the show were bewildered.
The video of Santelli's outburst went viral, with special emphasis on the part where he called for another tea party, during which traders would gather all of the derivatives for their mortgages and dump them in the Chicago River in protest of the massive corporate infusion at the expense of taxpayers. Shortly after that, many people on television began to refer to the various local protests as "tea parties." The entrenched political establishment and most of the media ignored how fast these protests were growing, just as the British had regarded the colonial protests during the American Revolution. However, as the numbers and intensity of these protests began to multiply, the media began to make fun of the protesters in the hope that this would discourage others from joining in. The passage of the new health care legislation in December of 2009, contrary to what the majority of Americans wanted, was like pouring gasoline on a fire, and it dramatically increased the strength of the Tea Party movement. From the perspective of those in the new Tea Party, not only was the government spending money that it didn't have at an alarming rate, but it had now enacted a gigantic federal program that was going to be very expensive and impose freedom-robbing regulations.
As the protests grew, however, they could no longer be ignored, and the resistance phase began to set in. The attacks from much of the media, from several members of Obama's administration, and from the Democratic Party were relentless and mean-spirited. As with the colonial Tea Party, resistance only served to strengthen the movement, which was beginning to be joined by many notable political figures and other individuals. During the 2010 midterm primaries, Tea Party membership had grown to the point that it was able to significantly influence the outcome of the primaries. Since their values were more closely aligned with the values of the Republican Party than those of the Democratic Party, they concentrated on the Republican primaries, where they prevailed in several states, removing the entrenched traditional Republican candidate and replacing them with a Tea Party candidate.
It became increasingly clear that the Tea Party was not simply an arm of the Republican Party, but rather a significant force for real change. Its constituents recognized that both the Democrats and the Republicans were responsible for excessive spending, incessant pork barrel projects to benefit special constituent groups, and intrusion into the private lives of citizens. Tea Party members were especially outraged by the fact that the president and Democratic congressional leaders did not seem particularly interested in the feelings of the people, as manifested by their cramming of the health-care bill down the throats of the American people. As with the colonial Tea Party, denial, ignoring, and resistance had all failed to stem the tide; therefore, it was time for them to exempt themselves from the struggle to quash the rebellion.
Commentators stopped deriding the Tea Party and began recognizing it as a legitimate political force. They began to think that maybe it was different from some of the other fringe movements that had popped up over the course of the preceding decades. Officials of the Obama administration stopped calling them "tea baggers" and began treating them with respect. As this book is being written, the conforming phase is beginning, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the transformation phase arise before or soon after the 2012 presidential election.
Our Nation Is in Hot Water
For several decades now, America has basically had a two-party system: Democrats and Republicans. Each of these parties has been engaged in the gradual but consistent growth of the central government and its claim on power. Ever-expanding programs offering benefits to the masses are difficult to resist, and with the proliferation of the news media it also became possible for elected officials to gain great notoriety and power. This power became addicting to many elected officials who, instead of going to Washington, DC, for a brief time to represent their constituency, wanted to hold their positions for extended periods of time—even for life. This growing power and the progressive intrusion of government into the lives of the people was so insidious that it went largely undetected. This process is much like the frog that willingly sits in the saucepan as the temperature is gradually increased until the water is boiling, killing the frog. The frog would have immediately jumped out of the saucepan, however, if the water was already boiling from the beginning.
In early 2009, many throughout America voiced their discontent as they began to worry about the excessive government spending for such programs as TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) and the proposed bailout for many Wall Street entities and large companies such as General Motors. The country was already in significant debt, with no clear indication of how that money was going to be repaid. It is easy to see how our growing debt, excessive spending, and elected leaders ignoring the will of the people closely resembles the set of circumstances that precipitated the American Revolution.
Will We Once Again Rebel for Positive Change?
America got off to an auspicious start centuries ago because its citizens were unwilling to be herded like sheep by an elite group of "leaders." They were driven instead by a desire to take ownership of their own fate and establish a nation created by them and for them. Their self-determination and celebration of freedom to control their own lives helped birth our great nation.
Today, however, a fundamental shift has occurred in the role of our nation's government and the role of its people, and so throughout this book, we will determine whether those seeds of independence still remain viable or whether they have been supplanted by passivity and acceptance of the status quo. For freedom is an elusive bird, constantly on the move, progressively distancing itself from complacency. Do we value our freedom enough to pursue it, or have we lost our way without realizing it? Do we benefit from the principles that established this nation without understanding them?
What will we as America's citizens write in this next chapter of our history? Will we settle for being herded by our leaders' understanding of what is best for us? Or will "we the people" once again rally together, educating ourselves as to the best possible solutions for a way forward, communicating to our leaders our collective desires, and demonstrating that we truly are a nation that rebels for positive change?


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Donny undone by Dalle Valle
Doncaster only had themselves to blame for missed chances as Crewe ended their seven-match unbeaten run with a 2-0 away victory.
Last Updated: 06/11/12 11:50pm
Doncaster only had themselves to blame for missed chances as Crewe ended their seven-match unbeaten run with a 2-0 away victory.
Rovers were outplayed in the first half as the visitors passed the ball and retained possession impressively after on-loan Finnish striker Laurie Dalla Valle had grabbed a goal on his debut after just five minutes.
The 21-year-old Fulham forward outpaced the Rovers' defence to latch on to a superb through-ball from Chuks Aneke and fired home via the near post.
Rovers were fortunate not to concede again when an attempted clearance from Tommy Spurr was brilliantly clawed off the goalline by goalkeeper Gary Woods, who did well to tip away a dipping shot from Abdul Osman soon after.
The home side suffered a blow when influential skipper Rob Jones went off with a head injury in the 27th minute, but they played much better in an entertaining second half.
Iain Hume missed a great chance to equalise after dribbling through and Paul Keegan hit the crossbar when he should have scored in the 58th minute, but young striker Mathias Pogba wrapped up the points for the visitors with a superb header from Michael West's corner 18 minutes from time.


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Should people with melanoma stay out of the sun at all times?
Dear OncoLink "Ask The Experts,"
Should people with melanoma stay out of the sun at all times?
Christopher J. Miller, MD, Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, responds:
It is impossible for any of us to stay out of the sun all of the time. Therefore, we recommend a more practical approach: try to avoid the sun between 10 am and 4 pm and when you're out in the sun, take precautions to protect your skin. Find the shade, cover up with clothing, hats and sunglasses, and use sunscreen on exposed areas (preferably limited to head and neck and hands and forearms.
If you're out in the sun, be sure to avoid burning. One blistering sunburn doubles your risk for skin cancer. People who have had melanomas have an increased risk for another melanoma.
This question and answer was part of the OncoLink Brown Bag Chat Series: Sun Safety and Skin Cancer Prevention Webchat. View the entire transcript on sun safety.


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Innovation Forum Preview: Flash Mob Creator Bill Wasik on How Online Connections Change Offline Events
As senior editor of Wired magazine since 2010, Bill Wasik contributes stories on technology, science, and culture. But he may be best known as the person who created the concept of a flash mob when he organized the first one in 2003. Building on that experience, he subsequently authored And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture, sharing his observations on the power of electronic communication to influence people and ideas.
Wasik will discuss how digital media have changed the way people get together offline—sharing examples that include the London riots, Occupy Wall Street, TED conferences, and his own experience with flash mobs—at the Event Innovation Forum, a new conference held at the BizBash IdeaFest in New York on October 24. We spoke to Wasik for a preview of his presentation.
You've said that you created the first flash mob as an almost scientific experiment. What do you mean by that?
I was really interested in viral email. Social networking was still in its very early days, so the main medium through which you would see things go viral was email. I had this idea of, wouldn't it be fun to make a viral email that told people to come to the same place at the exact same time, which would make this virtual network of people into a physical group of people? And what would that look like and how would that go? I sent the first one out really not knowing what to expect. Over the course of that summer, not only did hundreds of people come to my events, they started to spread all over the country and all over the world. By the end of the summer, they had happened on every continent except Antarctica.
I did eight flash mobs in the summer of 2003, and almost immediately the entire phenomenon got entirely out of my control. So almost from the beginning I became more of an observer. Part of what people love about the flash mob idea is, it's open-sourced. It's an invitation to do it themselves and document it themselves. There's no standard you have to live up to. One consequence of that is that, even though I had this role at the beginning, I don't have any ownership of it, and I'm just amazed to see how much people do with it.
How have you seen flash mobs evolve since 2003?
What was interesting in the early conceptions was they were more about gathering people than about doing anything in particular. And they definitely weren't about documenting themselves to show to the world. They were more about the experience of doing the thing in the real world. That early conception sort of died out. With the rise of YouTube and camera and video phones, the documentation now has become such a huge driver for doing flash mobs. There's Improv Everywhere. Flash mobs have become so much about not just having this visceral experience in the real world, but also documenting it, and then you have this secondary experience of people who can see this amazing thing you did.
The use of technology and social networking tools has come a long way since 2003. They have really become an integral part of most people's daily lives. How is that impacting the relationship of online and offline interactions?
The main thing that I think is fascinating that is going on right now is that people are able to do so much alignment of their interests and ideas, their social compatibilities, and their friendships online. So that when they come together in the real world, they have presorted themselves in a way I think is unprecedented. The crowd has been connected before they get together. They stay connected with Facebook and Instagram and real-time documentation—which adds a lot of the pleasure to being in the crowd—and then they stay connected after they are in the crowd. The physical event is not a stand-alone thing. It's the fulfillment of connections that are being made online and becomes fodder for connections that will persist.
So do you think those online interactions—before, during, and after—are good for face-to-face events?
I think it creates a totally different type of experience. If you get comfortable with the idea that the event isn't just a stand-alone goal in itself and is embedded in this giant universe of digital connections that happen before and persist afterward, then it can be really positive. It can make people's experiences richer and more persistent. A lot of things that are messy about real-world events become less messy when it is an augmented event and people have access to technology. It puts the attendees in more control. One of the benefits of physical events is that it is a captive audience. You want to make certain things happen there. When the audience has on some level formed before the event itself, they have more information, and that can make the physical event more powerful.
Do you think in years to come, the continued growth of technology will mean we see fewer face-to-face events?
There might be fewer physical events, but the events become richer and more crucial. The events are the thing that can't be commoditized. You can't download them. The fact we can do more and more online doesn't make that any less true. Obviously, the bad economy has had an impact. But I don't think face-to-face events are going away. I think there may be fewer, but the ones that are there are more important.
What are you currently working on?
I have a story coming out around the end of the year about TEDx and other conferences. One of the reasons I am so excited to come [to the Event Innovation Forum] is that I'm really interested in writing more about how different organizations are using flash mobs and others sorts of impromptu crowd gatherings. I'm eager to hear from people at the conference about how they are using crowd events to promote their businesses. So I will be there trying to learn more myself.
More about the Event Innovation Forum—including the full schedule of speakers and topics, plus registration information—is here.


text:
|Search Results (39 videos found)
|Anatomy of a Hurricane, segment 01 of 5
Anatomy of a Hurricane
Genre: Documentary
Keywords: Hurricanes;Weather;
Duration: 00:00:09
Popularity (downloads): 1313
|NASA Connect - AATC - Hurricane Hunters
NASA Connect Segment explaining what hurricane hunters do and how they do it. The video explores the instruments they use to collect data from a hurricane and the types...
Genre: Educational
Keywords: NASA Connect; Hurricanes; Hurricane Hunters; Temperature; Moisture; Air Pressure; Wind; National Hurricane Center; Eye Wall; Computer Models; Data;
Duration: 00:04:41
Popularity (downloads): 2844
|NASASciFiles - Hurricane Game
NASA Why? Files segment involving students in an activity to track the paths of hurricanes.
Genre: Educational
Keywords: Niki Srigley; Ashaundria Greene; Molly Gallina; Thompson Elementary School; Tracking; Track Chart; Coordinate; Landfall; Hurricane Watch; Hurricane Warning; Why? Files Kids' Club;
Duration: 00:01:19
Popularity (downloads): 1683
|NASASciFiles - Weather Reconnaissance
NASA Why? Files segment explaining how Hurricane Hunters fly into a storm to track its progress.
Genre: Educational
Keywords: Hurricane Hunters; Gordon Ford; Chad Gibson; Rain Band; Weather Sensor; Drop Sonde; Tropical Disturbance; Tropical Depression; Tropical Wave; Hurricane; Category;
Duration: 00:03:40
Popularity (downloads): 1571
|Hurricane Force - A Coastal Perspective, segment 01 of 12
Hurricane Force - A Coastal Perspective
Genre: Documentary
Keywords: Hurricanes;
Duration: 00:00:15
Popularity (downloads): 1104
|NASASciFiles - More Air Pressure And Hurricane Prediction
NASA Why? Files segment explaining, overall, the different factors that affect the life of a hurricane.
Genre: Educational
Keywords: Dr. D.; Tornado Box; Probability; Expansion; Cooling; Lisa Mozer;
Duration: 00:03:01
Popularity (downloads): 900
|Shock Troops of Disaster: The Story of the New England Hurricane
WPA workers mobilize to help New England recover from the effects of the disastrous 1938 hurricane.
Genre: Ephemeral
Keywords: Weather: Hurricanes;
Duration: 00:10:53
Popularity (downloads): 255
|NASASciFiles - Hurricane Formation
NASA Why? Files segment explaining the anatomy of a hurricane, and how it forms.
Genre: Educational
Keywords: High Pressure; Low Pressure; Dr. Stephen Lyons; Tropical Storm; Tropics; Trade Winds; Ocean; Eye;
Duration: 00:03:16
Popularity (downloads): 2935
|NASA Connect - AATC - The Imperfect Storm Activity
NASA Connect Segment involving students in an activity that uses a game called the Imperfect Storm. Students must track a hurricane, predict the probability of landfall, and issue watches and...
Genre: Educational
Keywords: NASA Connect; Student Activity; Hurricanes; Landfall Probability; Hurricane Watch; Hurricane Warning; Tropical Wave; Low-Pressure System; Coordinates
Duration: 00:04:14
Popularity (downloads): 755
|NASASciFiles - Hurricane Paths And Landfall
NASA Why? Files segment explaining how the NOAA predicts hurricane severity and travel patterns.
Genre: Educational
Keywords: NOAA: National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration; Michelle Meinelli; Prediction; Decadal Scale; Circulation; Air; Landfall;
Duration: 00:02:51
Popularity (downloads): 1504


text:
Statement of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus Hearing
On the Nomination of Jo Anne Barnhart to be Commissioner of the Social Security Administration
October 4, 2001
This morning, we consider the nomination of Jo Anne Barnhart to be the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
Before I go any further, I want to say that given the tragic events of September 11th, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has risen to the occasion. By being extremely flexible, SSA has been able to get survivor and disability benefits to family members and injured workers as quickly as possible. I applaud their efforts.
Social Security is a critical program for seniors, disabled people, their families, and for the families of workers who have died. For example, if we did not have Social Security today, 48% of our seniors would be in poverty.
On a more sour note, however, although Social Security will continue to run yearly budget surpluses for quite a while, its long-run financial situation needs to be fixed. And the sooner it is fixed the better.
President Bush has a proposal to change the way Social Security is financed. He favors diverting part of the Social Security payroll tax into private savings accounts, and he has convened a Commission to flesh out the details of such a proposal.
I have very serious concerns about such a proposal, because it would lead to deep cuts in retirement income for our Seniors. A study done for The Century Foundation by four top economists shows that diverting 2 percentage points of payroll taxes into private accounts would result in a 20% drop in retirement income for all those under age 55 today, even after taking account of the income from the private accounts.
Moreover, private accounts are subject to all the risks of the stock market. The recent huge declines in stock prices should give us pause about using the value of shares in stocks in place of guaranteed Social Security benefits.
That said, the Social Security Administration has a number of other major challenges facing it over the next decade.
Now, Ms. Barnhart has been a member of the Social Security Advisory Board since 1997. During that time, this non-partisan board has produced many valuable reports that have catalogued the daunting challenges facing SSA now and in the years ahead, and made recommendations on how to meet these challenges. Fortunately, Ms. Barnhart's membership on the Board means she is already extremely familiar with the problems facing the Social Security Administration.
The Advisory Board's reports indicate that the disability programs of Social Security have many problems that need immediate attention. One of these problems is that it can take way too much time for applicants to get through all the layers of appeal in order to get their benefits.
In my home state of Montana, it is not uncommon for individuals to wait two to three years for a final decision on their disability benefits. Of course, during this time, these individuals have no earnings. This puts them and their families into true hardship. This is not happening just in Montana, but all over the country. This is totally unacceptable.
In Montana, we have found that part of the problem creating these long delays is that SSA just does not have enough workers. And the Advisory Board has found that the shortage of workers in the disability program has occurred all over the country. The reason is that SSA's budget is inadequate. So I would like Ms. Barnhart to tell us whether she agrees that the agency has insufficient staff and budget resources and whether she will try to fix this problem by seeking a bigger budget.
SSA has serious administrative problems in other ways. For example, last year, only 66% of the 800 number phone calls received by SSA were answered, once calls that had been abandoned were taken into account. I would like to hear Ms. Barnhart make a commitment to dramatically improve on that situation.
Finally, SSA faces a problem that will plague all federal agencies: the aging federal workforce. It is projected that almost 50% of the SSA work force will be leaving the agency over the next decade, mainly due to retirements, but also through normal attrition. Given that it generally takes 2 to 2 and 1/2 years to get new hires up to speed, this talent drain needs to be dealt with immediately. I would like our nominee to say how she will recruit a sufficient number . of people quickly enough to fill these vacancies.
So it is clear that SSA faces daunting challenges now and in the future. The next Commissioner will be sorely tested. Ms. Barnhart, SSA needs an outstanding individual like you to be at its helm. The country deserves no less. If you are confirmed, I would look forward to working with you to meet these challenges.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, Senator Warner, and Chairman Ross, I am truly honored to be here today as the nominee of our president, George W. Bush, for Commissioner of Social Security. I welcome this opportunity to serve our nation, and I ask for your support.
Although my parents are unable to be here today, I would like to introduce my sister, Jan Nell Bryant, my husband, David, and my son, Niles who are joined by some of my closest friends and colleagues.
Mr. Chairman, I have a short statement which I would like to give. But first, I want to thank Senator Warner and Chairman Ross for their generous comments and for taking the time to be here today. I also want to thank Senator Roth. Although a previous commitment abroad , prevents him from being here today, I truly appreciate his support.
Throughout my life and career, I have had the great fortune to learn much from some ordinary and extraordinary people. My father served overseas in the Army in both World War II and the Korean War, and continues today to provide the finest example of patriotism I know. He also taught me that any job worth doing is worth doing right. My mother taught me to judge people for who they are, not what they are. Senator Roth and Senator Warner, who have served our nation so well through their work in the Senate, taught me that the best decisions are made by strong adherence to principle and thoughtful consideration of the facts. My sister's work with her students at the Alexandria adult learning center shows daily the difference we can make in ,the lives of others on an individual basis. My husband is truly the most honest person I have ever known. And my twelve year old son, Niles, every day provides me the opportunity to see, through his eyes, a world that is filled with the possibilities of what can be.
I take this opportunity to publicly thank them all.
Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee, I tell you all of this because these are the values that will guide me as Commissioner of Social Security.
America is a diverse nation. I have had the opportunity to spend t h e in forty-seven of our fifty states. Through my work and travels across OUT nation, I have learned that each state is unique, different from the next. More importantly, America is many different people. People who go to work every day. People who are not able to work. People who choose to be homemakers. Young people, old people. People who are native Americans. People who are born Americans. People who are Americans by choice.
Whatever the individual circumstance, the vast majority of Americans will at some point in their lives be touched by our most important social program, Social Security. Providing survivor benefits to children and spouses, disability benefits, retirement benefits, and Supplemental Security Income, the Social Security Administration's programs reach into almost every home. For the millions of people currently receiving benefits, these programs play an important role -- be it a supplement to private retirement or a lifeline of critically needed income support.
Today, Social Security faces great challenges ensuring the program's financial solvency for future generations, providing good service to the public as the number of beneficiaries increases each year with the aging of the baby boomers, and improving program integrity through sound fiscal stewardship.
Mr. Chairman, one of the immediate challenges the agency now confronts is to assure the smooth and expeditious processing of applications for benefits filed by the families of the victims of the recent terrorist attacks. I understand that SSA expects to receive several thousand of these applications, and it is vitally important that each be treated with compassion. I assure you that,' if I am confirmed, I will make it my first priority to see that the necessary arrangements are made to process these applications as quickly as possible ahd in a manner that expresses to each family member the entire Nation's understanding and sympathy.
I look forward to confronting this and the many other challenges that will come our way in the weeks and years ahead. In doing so, I will work within the Administration, with the Congress, and with the dedicated and experienced employees of the Social Security Administration to find the best solutions. While doing so, I will strive to put a face on the work of the Social Security Administration. By this I mean, looking beyond and behind the numbers and recognizing that each number represents a person, someone whose life will be affected by the work that we do, and how well we do it.
Mr. Chairman, as I told you and other members when we met prior to this hearing, I do not seek this position to manage the status quo. Through my work on the Social Security Advisory Board, I have become convinced that we can and must do better. The people of America expect it, and they deserve it.
Whether they are just beginning their careers or retiring next month, the people of America expect and deserve to know that Social Security will be there when they need it. Whether they are applying for a Social Security number for a new baby or for disability benefits for themselves, the people of America expect and deserve timely service. And, the people of America, who find the Social Security program through their payroll tax contributions, and fund SSI through their income tax payments, expect and deserve well managed programs providing accurate payments that safeguard their trust.
As my father would say, the task that lies before me, if confirmed, is, indeed, a job worth doing. And you have the commitment of a daughter who takes her father's lessons to heart, that I will do my best to do it right.