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Storage Decisions Seminars
The trusted resource for IT pros looking for vendor-neutral advice and expertise to tackle today's most pressing storage-related projects.
Over the past few years, we've all been impacted by the increased scrutiny of budgets, resources, and storage practices. But, the need for your storage operations to perform more efficiently, economically and reliably only continues to grow. Storage Decisions seminars offer the training you need – from the independent experts you trust – all at a price that we can all agree to: FREE. Our seminars will not only enhance your skill set, but also satisfy your organization's technical requirements and business demands.
In condensed one-day and half-day formats, our seminars are an effective supplement to our flagship, multi-day conferences. Designed to facilitate education, peer-to-peer networking, and vendor interaction, they deliver a level of practical and technical information that storage pros can apply immediately upon returning to the office.
Each of our seminar series drill-down on just one topic – allowing our independent experts to dive deep into the issues – leaving you with actionable advice, technical take-a-ways, and unbiased tips that will enable you to successfully complete existing projects, kick-start new technology roll-outs, easily navigate the vendor landscape and make more informed purchasing decisions.
Attend these seminars right in your backyard and return to the office with expert tips to help you face both the technical and tactical challenges of your environment.


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|Twin Cities Retirement Income Planning | Financial Planning Associates
|5201 Duncraig Road
|Edina, MN
|Phone: 952-929-2577
|Fax: 952-928-3799
Securities and advisory services offered through Cetera Advisors LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. Cetera is under separate ownership from any other named entity.
5201 Duncraig Road, Edina MN 55436
We are licensed to sell Insurance Products in the following states: Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin
Financial Planning Associates and RE/MAX Results are not affiliated with Cetera Advisors LLC.
This site is published for residents of the United States only. Registered Representatives of Cetera Advisors LLC may only conduct business with residents of the states and/or jurisdictions in which they are properly registered. Not all of the products and services referenced on this site may be available in every state and through every advisor listed. For additional information please contact the advisor(s) listed on the site, visit the Cetera Advisors LLC site at www.ceteraadvisors.com
The registered representative(s) and/or investment adviser representative(s) listed on this website are licensed and registered in the following states:
We are licensed to sell Insurance Products in IN,MN.
[ Online Privacy Policy | Important Disclosures | Business Continuity | Privacy Promise | Order Routing Disclosure | Cetera Advisors ]

subset: commoncrawl


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Good readers, I have not forgotten both of you. Over the last few months, I have been quite busy performing my writing and editing services. Birmingham Magazine took me on as their primary food blogger at Good Taste, in addition to my monthly beer and casual dining columns in their print edition. The weekly posts there have robbed this Sandwich of many posts. Sorry about that.
In other blogland news, Birmingham photographer Caleb Chancey approached me with a collaboration that we eventually published on Kim Sunee's website. That recipe for Strawberry-Buttermilk ice cream is one of my favorites and I was happy to share it with Caleb, Kim and her loyal following.
That brings me to my last bit of news, dear readers. After much deliberation, I left Birmingham for plumper pastures at the end of August. After three years, I feel like I had just scratched the surface of that magical city and already miss my friends and colleagues there with my whole heart. This blog, as it was centered in Birmingham and about the South, will be migrated to my other blog–The Gourmetro–and in all likelihood, this will be the final post. That site is undergoing serious upgrades and will be pretty and functional soon. The Gourmetro was originally envisioned as a group blog about excellent, attainable food and travel centered in New York City. Over my years there, it had three major contributors and I am excited to have it running again.


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In my company project we are trying to convert the html pages which are developed using <table>,<tr>
and <td> tags and we are trying to convert them with Struts-2.0 related tags(i.e. <%@taglib
uri="/struts-tags" prefix="s" %>), but the problem is Struts-2.0 related tags are internally using
<tr> and <td> tags we understood this by viewing the source of the Struts-2.0 related JSP page from
the browser. So this is causing the alignment problem so can anyone please provide the solution for
Each html page is almost having 20 to 30 table tags likewise we have 100 to 110 pages so we can't
modify the table and tr tags from html pages so please give me some solution


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75 x 190cm
|3 (3 reviews)
The ever present beauty of wood has been harnessed to produce this design led range of beds and drawers. Clearly evident on each piece is the unique grain detail of American White oak and quality craftsmanship that has gone into creating this elegant, robust range.
With a strong sense of character, Windsor is a classic design that also answers the call for additional guest space, with a thoughtful guest bed option that can be neatly stowed away when not in use. A sprung slatted base adds additional comfort and a matching bedside table is available as an option.
• American White Oak
• Sprung Slatted Base
|Manufacturer Warranty
|1 Year(s)
|Underbed: Maximum Mattress Height
|3 3 reviews (3)
|5 stars:
|1 review(s)
|4 stars:
|2 review(s)
|3 stars:
|0 review(s)
|2 stars:
|0 review(s)
|1 stars:
|0 review(s)
Circumstances when prices cannot be matched
1) The product is displayed on an Auction website
2) The website does not have a direct trading account with the supplier
3) The full and final delivered price is not available on the competitors website
4) The item is not an identical product
5) Pricing error: Outdated, discontinued prices on competitor website
6) The product is shown on an affiliate / Comparison website. (The product must be compared on a UK trading website and able to accept payment).
7) Price matches will not be made retrospectively, i.e once an order has already been placed or delivered.
8) Price matches will be made on the same delivery basis as the competitor unless agreed otherwise.
9) To receive the free gift the item must first be delivered into our warehouse.


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Broad nasal bridge is a widening of the top part of the nose.
Broad nasal bridge can be a normal facial feature, but it can also be associated with certain genetic or congenital (present from birth) disorders.
There is no need to treat broad nasal bridge. Other conditions that have broad nasal bridge as a symptom may need medical attention.
Call your health care provider if:
The health care provider will perform a physical exam and ask questions about the patient's family and medical history.
Moore KL, Persaud TVN, Torchia MG. Human birth defects. In: Moore KL, Persaud TVN, Torchia MG. The Developing Human. 9th ed. Saunders Elsevier; 2013:chap 20.
This page was last updated on: 1/29/2019 3:21:13 PM


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All sessions of the VWBPE 2020 Conference are held in Second Life®. All times are in SLT (PST).
You may access this time zone converter for your local time: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html.
Add these events to your personal calendar! To add all VWBPE conference events to your calendar, scroll down to the bottom of the calendar, find the "Subscribe" button and click on it. You will find options to add to your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar. To add individual events, click the event and find the "Subscribe" button on that page. You don't have to miss any events at VWBPE!
In most of the United States, Daylight Saving Time is in effect as of 8 March 2020. Canada does not observe DST in 2020. Is your location affected? Check this page to find out when (and if) Daylight Saving Time begins for you.
Join us at the Gateway for Kick Off Event of VWBPE 2019. This is a time to socialize and network with friends, old and new, while enjoying the lovely piano music of Ari (Arisia Vita). The Conference Executive and Organization Committees will share a few of the upcoming highlights. Executive Director, Phelan Corrimal, will officially start the conference with the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. You will also have time to explore and enjoy the exhibits. Be sure to check for the Exhibit Scavenger Hunt Notecard in your Swag Bag. There will be a prize for completion!
The VWBPE Annual Parade is a great way to start our social plans! Meet us at the Lighthouse near Gateway and travel over the new bridge built just for this event! Together we will re:Vision this parade as we make our way over to the social sim. Be sure to look for your special parade t-shirt in your swag bag for this fun event!
Meet us at this location a few minutes before we start! Making Connections Parade Start
Our parade will end in the main building on the social sim with a fun-filled concert and dancing with DJ Coz Okelly who will spinning the NEW Oldies music from the 80's! Many pop stars emerged in the 80's including Madonna and Prince. You are sure to hear these superstars and more. So, whether you want to do the Macarena or the Moonwalk, there will be lots of fun for all!
Join us at the main social building to listen and dance to the music of live singer Jeffah. Jeff has performed all over the RL world, and quickly became a fan favorite in SL. You will especial enjoy his attention to detail and explicit emotion in each song. Whether you like rock, pop, or jazz, Jeff will sing your requests. Come and experience a musical journey as this multi-award winning vocalist performs songs the way they were truly intended to be heard!
Location: Social Building
Meet us on the social sim for an exclusive tour of the exhibits. Working in groups we will start the exhibit scavenger hunt if you haven't already and work through it together. You will have plenty of time to finish it later in order to get the fabulous prize!
Location: Social Plaza
Exhibitors, this would be a great time for you to be at your booth!
Most SLer's love to dress up! Put on your favorite fun and funky but low lag outfit and join us on the red carpet during our pre-show experience. You will have a chance to take photos with friends and mingle with other guests before the immersive performance by the Misfits begins. Come early to get a good seat and get your Misfit Dance Cam HUD – you wear a HUD button and "they" control what you see! Now you can just sit back and enjoy the show!
Location: Misfits Forest Theater
Join JenzZa Misfit and her dance troupe; Dulcikate Noel, Phoebe (darkentippy), Kyradevon Graves, and RebeccaLynn Fhang for an amazing performance of "Misfit Follies" – Think Broadway in SL! Music! Dance! Sets! Costumes! Special Effects!
JenzZa Misfit is full of positive energy and this is her artistic expression. She hopes to bring some "happy" to all who experience it. Come join us at this fun and professional show!
Location: Misfits Forest Theater
Come explore the beautiful underwater area of the social sim. This is your chance to be a mermaid or merman! There are free outfits available and volunteers will be available to help ease you into your mermaid/merman experience. Enjoy the beautiful plants and animals while you ride the undersea scooter, explore the ocean floor, and find hidden prizes. Be sure to grab a seahorse and explore with us or just enjoy our mer dances in the Merfolk area. We hope you join us Under the Sea!
Relax with us at the Main Auditorium before the Closing Ceremony and enjoy the music of Samm Quendra. Samm describes herself as just a simple, ordinary girl who loves to sing. She believes that everything that comes from the heart touches the heart. Samm enjoys impacting the listener's life with her music. She connects her audience to the heartfelt messages in every song. Come and listen to this talented performer!
Join us as we reflect upon the highlights of the conference, with closing remarks from Phelan Corrimal and other VWBPE Committee Chairs. This event is hosted by the one and only Pooky Amsterdam, CEO of Pooky Media. The 2019 Thinkerer Award Recipient will be named during this ceremony. Come celebrate your experiences with your colleagues from this amazing conference.
Heaven is Full of Music! Re:Vision great musicians of the past while joining Lightning Productions and the Dick Clark American Bandstand tribute show. Come dance with us in the clouds as Dick Clark brings back your favorite musicians. For this special show you will travel to an ethereal set in the sky. Dick Clark and his angels will greet you as the show unfolds with performers ranging from Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin. Enjoy Blues, Folk, Big Band, Rock, Hip Hop, Disco, and more. Join us dressed in the attire that represents your favorite decade of music – flapper, poodle skirts, tie-dye, etc… or come as you are for this fun evening of music and memories.
Immediately following the American Bandstand Tribute Show, join us for a "Dance The Night Away" party! There is no better way to end the 2019 VWBPE conference than to dance, chat, and enjoy good company while DJ Coz keeps the party hopping with great tunes! This is your chance to share your favorite moments from VWBPE 2019 and hang out with your old and new friends.


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Wish Kid was a Saturday morning animated series created to play off the success of pre-teen movie star Macaulay Culkin. This show opened with Macaulay in a live-action appearance in which he explained the show's premise. Nick McClary (Culkin) owned a magic baseball glove which, if punched three times, granted his every wish he desired. The only catch was that the glove could be used just once per week. Stories revolved around Nick's wishes and the trouble that usually followed. Nick's best friend was Darryl, the only one in on the glove's secrets and usually became involved in the adventures. Nick was frequently harassed by Frankie Dutweiler, the neighborhood bully; other characters included neighbor Mrs. Opal, Nick's Mom and Dad and his baby sister, Katie. The show ran one year on NBC, with new episodes airing on the Family Channel in 1996 (along with the original 13 NBC episodes).
Wish Kid is a DiC Enterprises production.


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Introducing the Draftec Deluxe Hand Pump Pressurized Cleaning Kit! This kit saves the life of your tower without requiring you to remove the faucet - just unscrew the beer line off of the keg coupler, and screw it directly to this cleaning kit! Includes a High Pressure Hand Pump Cleaning Bottle, a 32 oz. Bottle of Draftec Advanced Draft Beer Cleaner Clear, and a Nylon Beer Faucet Brush.
The 1/2 Gallon Cleaning Bottle holds plenty of cleaning solution for you to keep your draft beer lines clean. Draftec Advanced Beer Line Cleaner will clean the most stubborn draft lines. Its proprietary formulation was designed to attack not only the beer stone, but every element of beer line soils. Use the nylon faucet brush to keep your tap clean.
|PCK Instructions High Res 1.25MB
You may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print PDF's. Click the link below to download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free.
Download Adobe Reader
|Average Customer Rating:
|(based on 3 reviews)
|great product
|keg cleaner (08-13-2013)
|works like a champ--simple
|Bottom Line:
|I would recommend this product.
|Does the job!
|Bill (06-27-2013)
|Easy to use without having to remove the spiggot every time you clean the lines.
|Bottom Line:
|I would recommend this product.
|Great Product
|1iarrowking (03-15-2013)
|I used to clean my line and tap with a powdered cleaner mixed with water via gravity between kegs. I thought it worked OK but I could see that not all the powder dissolved.
I just used this product for the second time and all I can say is WOW. The first time I pumped the product through it came out looking like the lager I tap through it. There were chunks of crap in the container. This time I filled the system and left it set for 15 minutes then ran the rest of the mixture through and once again there were chunks of crap in the container. I gave it a rinse and took the tap apart even though you do not have to remove it with this system. It was spotless.
I put the keg on and tapped a lager. It's like I changed brands. It was that good.
A word of caution; do not get this solution on your hands like I did the first time.
|Bottom Line:
|I would recommend this product.
Be the first to ask a question.


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It would be easy to believe that human trafficking is a Third World problem, but efforts in Colorado show it's a problem here too.
The FBI rescued 59 teen prostitutes in the state last year through its Rocky Mountain Innocence Lost Task Force, up from 49 in 2012.
An FBI spokesman told the Denver Post that the problem isn't necessarily increasing, but by doing more to look for it, officers are finding more cases.
Teens, particularly runaways or those in search of drugs, can be vulnerable to becoming trapped in a life of prostitution.
Human trafficking also can include people made through use of force, coercion or fear to work in legitimate jobs — jobs in factories, restaurants, elder care facilities, hotels, housekeeping, child-rearing, agriculture, construction and landscaping, food processing, meat-packing and cleaning services.
It is, essentially, modern-day slavery.
On Tuesday, the White House released a Federal Strategic Plan on Services for Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States.
That plan presents a five-year vision to coordinate efforts by federal agencies to identify victims of human trafficking in the U.S. and to give them access to services to rebuild their lives.
"Survivors of human trafficking have had their lives ripped apart, and they deserve holistic, streamlined, and compassionate assistance as they rebuild their lives and their futures," President Obama said in a statement at the beginning of the five-year plan.
Anyone who suspects they've seen a case of human trafficking can contact the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or https://tips.fbi.gov.
The Emancipation Proclamation promised Americans that all persons held as slaves within would be forever free.
It would be easy to think the proclamation pertained more to 1863 than to 2014, but freedom is as important today as it was 150 years ago. And the effort to find and help human trafficking victims is important work.


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It was Friday night, May 22, 2009, and one of New York City's most storied music venues, the Fillmore at Irving Plaza, was sold out. The line stretched all the way down Irving Place, turned the corner onto East 16th, and kept going. People had come from as far away as Michigan, Toronto, and Ohio, but they weren't lined up for the latest indie darlings or house music sensation. They'd come to see an improbably successful Korean trio named Epik High, which as far as anyone could tell was the first Korean hip hop act to attract a mainstream American audience.
The group was headed by a skinny 28-year-old named Dan Lee, and when he danced onto the stage that night the audience started dancing with him. Lee—whose nom de rap is Tablo—had a puckish charm, a sly grin, and a reputation as a genius. In South Korea, Lee was already a superstar. He had released four number one albums with Epik High and published a best-selling collection of short stories in both English and Korean. Talk show hosts almost always found a way to mention that he graduated from Stanford in three and a half years with both a bachelor's and master's degree in English. Though that would probably count against a rapper in the US, back home he was lionized as a symbol of success.
Now the group was building a fan base in the States. In addition to its New York show, Epik High had sold out major venues in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The crossover success was visible on iTunes, where the trio was soaring up the hip hop charts and would soon hit number one in the US, topping Kanye West and Jay-Z.
But then, at the height of the group's fame, the comments sections of articles about Epik High started filling up with anonymous messages accusing Lee of lying about his Stanford diploma. In May 2010 an antifan club formed and quickly attracted tens of thousands of members who accused him of stealing someone's identity, dodging the draft, and faking passports, diplomas, and transcripts. The accusations were accompanied by supposed evidence supplied by the online masses, who also produced slick YouTube attack videos. It was a full-fledged backlash.
By that summer, Lee's alleged fraud had become one of Korea's top news items. Death threats streamed in, and Lee found himself accosted by angry people on the street. Since his face was so recognizable, he became a virtual prisoner in his Seoul apartment. In a matter of weeks, he went from being one of the most beloved figures in the country to one of the most reviled.
But in fact Lee had not lied about his academic record. He actually did graduate from Stanford in three and a half years with two degrees. His GPA had been in the top 15 percent of his undergraduate class. The evidence marshaled against him was false. It was an online witch hunt, and last spring I set out to discover why it happened.
I first heard about Lee when editors at Stanford Magazine, a publication of the Stanford Alumni Association, called to tell me about the rapper's plight. The university's administration and the alumni association had tried their best to defend him, seemingly with little success. The editors asked if I would write an article about the controversy, and I agreed to. (I attended Stanford as an undergrad.)
I started by tracking down Lee's classmates and spoke with four who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. They felt terrible about what had happened to their friend. He was smart, they all agreed, but what set him apart was his dedication to music. He could have taken a more traditional path after graduation—law school or consulting—but instead he chose to return to Korea to start a hip hop group. "It was a risky career choice," says Conrad Lo, a former dorm-mate and now a product manager at Google. "Koreans didn't even like hip hop back then."
Sure enough, Lee struggled when he first returned to Korea. Epik High released two albums to little fanfare. Lee titled the third album Swan Songs, on the assumption that he'd have to get a real job after it failed. Instead the 2005 release was a hit and helped introduce Korean audiences to hip hop. It also turned Lee into a celebrity, and his star power only grew over the next five years.
The campaign against him took off on May 11, 2010, when someone formed an online forum titled TaJinYo, an abbreviation in Korean for the phrase "Tell the truth, Tablo." The leader of the forum identified himself as Whatbecomes, indicated that he lived in the US, and explained that he was contacting news organizations in Korea and the States to inform them that Lee was a liar. Chief among the accusations was that Lee had fabricated his Stanford credentials.
Diploma falsification had been a sensitive topic in Korea for some time. In 2007 the chief curator of a modern art museum in Seoul was found to have fabricated a Yale PhD and was jailed for 18 months on forgery charges. The scandal prompted prosecutors to investigate at least 120 cases of diploma fraud, ensnaring celebrities, soldiers, and even a monk. "There are definitely more people out there," one of the prosecutors told Bloomberg News. "We just can't spot them."
In that environment, the accusations against Lee seemed plausible. After all, it usually takes four years to complete a bachelor's degree. A master's normally takes another year or two. Lee had done it all in less than four. Students also typically write a thesis to attain a master's, and yet Lee admitted that he never wrote one. (His program didn't require a thesis.)
After entertainment gossip sites wrote about the anti-Lee site, TaJinYo's membership swelled to more than 100,000. Not content to wait for more allegations to emerge, many forum members launched their own investigations into Lee's past. Soon, in a birtherlike onslaught, Stanford professors and administrators were flooded with emails from people questioning Lee's educational background. Thomas Black, the Stanford registrar, received 133 emails on the subject. Everybody wanted to know one thing: Was Lee telling the truth?
Forum members seemed to relish the digital inquisition. "We call this game <Tablo Online>," wrote one heckler, who referred to himself as a Tablo Online player, as if it were a casual pastime to be enjoyed during work breaks. Whatbecomes expertly fanned the flames, threatening to reveal dark secrets about Lee and promising to unveil them slowly for maximum dramatic effect. It was, he said, "more fun that way."
Whatbecomes began hinting at a broader conspiracy: The media was colluding to protect Lee, because he was part of Korea's upper crust. But the average citizen could fight back. "By proving Tablo's fraud this time, the deep-rooted symbiotic relationship [between the media and the rich] can be cut off," he wrote.
Photo: Miko Lim
Photo: Newscom
Photo: Newsis
Photo: Miko Lim
Within weeks forum members began to piece together their own elaborate theory. A man named Dan Lee may have graduated from Stanford, but many questioned whether Tablo was that same Dan Lee. They argued that it was possible that Tablo had taken over Dan Lee's identity to parlay a Stanford credential into fame and fortune. "People pay a lot of money to study overseas, and they work day and night," one forum member told a Korean TV crew, which blurred his face during the broadcast. "Tablo didn't study: He just did hip hop and became famous in Korea."
Barely a month after Whatbecomes created the forum, members were off on an international manhunt for the "real" Dan Lee. Dan Lees across the US were contacted and interrogated. "We think that you have been threatened by the Korean singer Tablo and completed his studies for him," one member wrote to a Dan Lee on Facebook. "Please reveal the truth. I'm begging you."
"What? You've got the wrong person," the other Lee wrote back, explaining that his name was pretty common. More to the point, he hadn't even attended Stanford. Another Dan Lee, who like the rapper had graduated from Stanford in 2002, was soon besieged. "One day I started getting random messages from people in Korea who were abusively angry at me for allowing some rapper to steal my identity," says this Dan Lee, who works at a product-design firm in Wisconsin. "I had no idea what they were talking about."
Undaunted, Whatbecomes began to incite his mob to violence. He said his aim was to "make Tablo and his family go crazy," and he threatened to kill all of them. "We have to beat the shit out of these swindler dogs in order to taste the truth," he wrote, going on to encourage others to target Lee's family. Lee's mother began to receive threatening calls. At a family dinner, she answered her phone and heard a man's voice. "You're a whore," he said. "You and your family should leave Korea." New posts cast doubts on Lee's brother, David, who had begun a graduate program at Columbia but left without a degree. A researcher found a web page that indicated (incorrectly) that David had completed the degree, and calls flooded into the public-broadcasting channel in Seoul where he worked. He was fired. David's home address and phone numbers were published, and he started to receive scary phone calls too. One person threatened to stab him to death for his alleged transgressions.
Other agitators approached John Shenk, a Beverly Hills lawyer whose website mentioned that he had graduated from Stanford as an English major like Lee, but in 2001, a year ahead of the rapper. They offered Shenk $10,000 to sign a statement swearing he had never seen Lee on campus. Shenk pointed out that he graduated in a different year, so it wasn't surprising that he didn't know Lee. Nonetheless, Shenk accepted the money and signed the statement, which was then touted as proof of Lee's deception. The detractors did not mention that they had paid for the statement.
The crisis continued to build, but Woollim Entertainment, Lee's record label, didn't issue statements defending him until June, when it pledged to help. Lee says Woollim never followed through, and he left the label later that month.
Lee thought that the best way to counter the attacks was to present the facts, so he released his college transcript to the press. Stanford issued statements confirming his academic record. The facts, he believed, would speak for themselves and put an end to the bizarre campaign. Instead, dozens of antifans began filing complaints with the Korean National Police accusing Lee of forging his diploma and student records. The Korean authorities were obliged to investigate, and the case became the top news story in the country, overshadowing Lee's attempt to defend himself.
Whatbecomes had succeeded in turning his vendetta into a national spectacle. Tens of thousands of TaJinYo members had made his cause their own and, in the process, ruined the life of one of Korea's brightest stars. Lee disappeared from public view.
In July 2011, after writing the article for Stanford Magazine, I flew to South Korea to track down some of the online persecutors—and to see how Lee was faring. He was no longer performing or recording and now rarely left his apartment, in a working-class neighborhood of Seoul. He had become a hermit at age 30.
I arrived in Seoul within days of the online release of my article. It emphasized the fact that Stanford had clearly confirmed Lee's academic record and professors had vouched for him. There could be no doubt that he had attended the university and graduated exactly as he claimed. The evidence, it seemed to me, left no room for argument.
I was wrong. While in Seoul, I was barraged by outraged emails from readers who remained convinced that Lee's diploma must somehow be a forgery. They sent detailed treatises noting how the positioning of commas and conjunctions on the document raised suspicions. If I refused to see that, many claimed, I must be part of the conspiracy. "You made a big stinky shit with your name tagged on it," one man emailed me. "Tablo Online players never forget."
Lee initially refused to speak with me—he believed that by publicizing his tormentors' accusations, the media had only fed the conspiracy and recruited more members to the forum. But after I explained that I wanted to hear his story firsthand, he relented and met me in the lobby of my hotel.
When Lee walked in, he looked crazed. He was no longer a cocky hip hop star. His hair was a bushy mess. Fidgeting with an unlit cigarette, his eyes darted nervously around the room. People in the lobby were looking at him. I asked how he was feeling.
"They're saying I'm not me, and I can't convince them I am," he mumbled. "It's like I'm living in a Kafka novel."
The reaction to my Stanford Magazine article was the latest twist. Lee took out his phone and showed me a list of the most viewed articles on one of Korea's leading Internet portals. "The Other Daniel Lee Responds to Tablo's Education Issue" was the headline on the site's number one story. The author of the article had downplayed the fact that my reporting confirmed Lee's credentials and instead fastened onto the incidental point that I had spoken with a Dan Lee who had graduated with the musician. It was at best disingenuous, at worst a deliberate distortion.
Lee asked me if I would talk to the journalist and clarify what the other Dan Lee had told me. I had to decline. My Stanford article stated the results of my research; if I spoke to someone on his behalf, I could be accused of bias. Though it felt heartless, I told him I couldn't do it.
He seemed despondent. "There's nothing I can do to beat this," he said. His voice was strained, as if he were on the verge of crying. His wife had given birth to their first child just when the TaJinYo forum was formed. He had been so excited to be a father; now he worried for his baby's safety.
Soon after the birth, he saw a chilling tweet that referenced his Twitter handle and threatened him if he stayed in Korea. When he took his newborn to the hospital for a routine checkup, he saw people looking at him coldly and he panicked. "I didn't know if the doctor putting needles in my baby was one of those people," he said. "They were all anonymous, so there was no way for me to know who was after me."
That's when he began to take the threats seriously. He hired a lawyer and filed a defamation complaint against 22 of the most egregious hecklers, including Whatbecomes. I asked if he had any thoughts about why the attacks started in 2010, five years after he had risen to stardom and three years after diploma forgery had become a hot topic in Korea.
"I don't want to talk about that," he said.
There must have been some reason for the sudden outbreak, I pressed. The public had known for years that Lee was a Canadian and thus exempt from the Korean draft. His marriage in late 2009 might have alienated some fans, but celebrities get married all the time without engendering a witch hunt. And Whatbecomes had, in fact, been posting scurrilous comments online for years. What made people listen to him this time? Lee avoided my gaze and asked if I liked Korean barbecue.
At a bookstore in a quiet, residential neighborhood in Seoul, I sat down at a small table with an anti-Lee crusader who has asked me to call him Stevie. A software programmer, he wore a blue blazer with corduroys and carried an iPad with a bright pink case. We ordered tea, and Stevie proceeded to explain that he worked hard at his job. When he read that Lee had lied to become successful, it made him angry. I asked him why he gave credence to the rumors. He cited some of the same accusations that had already been debunked, and then he said there was something else as well. He flipped open his iPad and showed me a compilation of blog posts. They were written by someone claiming to be Seungmin Cho, Lee's cousin.
The earliest posts predated the formation of the TaJinYo forum. One was a reaction to Lee's marriage to Hyejung Gang, a strikingly pretty film star who had acted in some of Korea's most popular movies.
"Dear Seonwoong," the blogger wrote, referring to Lee by his Korean first name. "You lie about your IQ, you were not a top student in high school, and your claim to have graduated from Stanford with a 4.0 is also all lies." The author went on to disparage Lee as a low achiever in high school ("You didn't even make it to 10th place") and ended with a stern warning: "From now on, stop exaggerating and live truthfully or people will start bad-mouthing your parents' hometown."
Stevie closed the cover. "Even this guy, who claims he's his cousin, calls him a liar," he said.
Across town, in a bustling café, I met another active member of the anti-Lee campaign. Keunbai Hwang was the editor of a Korean sports news site, and he seemed even more riled up. "The cousin is the most important person in this case," Hwang said, pointing out that the accusations, coming as they did from a family member, were the first credible source in the scandal. Hwang clarified that others, like Whatbecomes, amplified the accusations and turned them into a mass movement. But, according to Hwang, it was the cousin who provided the spark.
With the help of a translator, I searched Korean bulletin boards and read more of the purported cousin's posts. The author repeatedly accused Lee of lying about his academic achievements, and his posts triggered a heated discussion. "Don't you think a relative would know something like this?" wrote one commentor, who uploaded a screenshot of all the posts for others to see. The accusations seemed to have a powerful effect in convincing people that Whatbecomes was right when he called Lee a liar.
"The truth is in the cousin's comments," someone posted.
"I rely 100 percent on his statements," another added.
I met Lee again at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. We sat in the lounge overlooking the Han River and ordered coffee. This time I asked him about his cousin. He said he didn't want to bring shame on his family by talking about it. But when I pointed out that someone using the name of a family member had attacked him in public, Lee finally admitted that he had read the posts and suspected they played a role in igniting the controversy.
"It started a long time ago," Lee said wearily.
Then he started to tell me about Seungmin Cho, the cousin he grew up with. Cho was a year older than Lee, and their lives mirrored each other's. When the boys were in grade school, both families moved to Vancouver, Canada. For high school, the families moved back to Seoul and both boys attended Seoul International School, a small English-language school.
But the similarities ended there, Lee says. Cho was a diligent student and talented violinist. He was the concertmaster in the SIS orchestra. Lee described himself as a rebel who got into fights, smoked cigarettes, and didn't like to study. Three teachers from the school confirmed that Cho was the more conventional high achiever.
Lee's lack of academic focus frustrated his father, who constantly pushed his son to do better and insisted that he play violin in the school orchestra like Cho. Lee rarely practiced. In one rehearsal he segued from a Brandenburg concerto into the Jurassic Park theme, derailing the orchestra. He was exiled to the timpanis, where he only wreaked greater havoc. After dyeing his hair blue, he was suspended from school.
Cho, the dedicated violinist and successful student, was embarrassed by Lee's behavior. But all of Cho's hard work paid off when he was accepted to Stanford. He had done everything right.
Then a year later Lee also gained admission to Stanford. "Dan was the boy who didn't follow the rules," says Margaret Simmons, an English teacher at SIS at the time Cho and Lee attended. Lee, she says, was preternaturally smart and creative—she wasn't surprised he was accepted at a top university. Perhaps conflict between the two young men was inevitable. Cho was the accomplished musician, while Lee was the kid who refused to practice his violin. And yet it was Lee who rose to fame as a celebrated musician.
"It was like Cain and Abel," Simmons says.
In January 2010 Cho posted a video on Facebook in which he plays a passionate violin solo under the YouTube user name ViolinistAtHeart. After graduating from Stanford with a dual major in history and computer systems engineering, he started a patent consultancy in California. Not quite the glamorous life his cousin was enjoying.
Simmons, who'd had no contact with Cho since she left SIS 12 years earlier, ran across the clip and posted what she thought was a compliment. Cho fired off an angry reply.
"Fake literary flair does not sit well with me whose grave mistake was letting Dan Lee into Stanford back in 1998," he wrote in an email, though Simmons' comment hadn't mentioned Lee. "Dan Lee is a true disgrace to my relatives as a rebellious individual who got an F and a suspension record from SIS," he wrote.
In a six-paragraph rant, Cho went on to accuse Lee of inflating his IQ score and falsely claiming to be a top student in high school and college. Lee, he wrote, was even a screwup as a kid and got kicked out of middle school. "For the record, this is not jealousy," Cho added. "I have no reason to be jealous of an individual whom I obviously despise for his lack of candor."
Simmons didn't respond; she was baffled that her comment had provoked such vitriol. Three days later, Cho wrote again: "One more thing, Ms. Simmons. Great people of east Asia don't need you. We will own this century, and the next, and the next, until all non-Asians are essentially pounded to submission … Of course, it is the mission of thought leaders like myself who will propel what will be united Korea in the meantime."
In a phone interview, Cho willingly discussed the emails he had sent to Simmons but refused to confirm or deny the authenticity of blog posts appearing under his name. Nonetheless, those posts make many of the same heated arguments as the emails. They accuse Lee of inflating his IQ score and exaggerating his academic achievements while insisting that "this is not hatred or jealousy." Cho acknowledged that he had commented online about his cousin but said he had stopped some time ago. (Most of the blog posts under his name are no longer online.) In a later email, he asked not to be contacted further by Wired, adding that information under his name has been "falsely and incorrectly attributed" to him.
As the campaign against Lee grew, the person writing under Cho's name seemed to have a change of heart and rose to Lee's defense, asserting that Lee's academic credentials were valid. "I don't understand why people are arguing that his diploma and transcripts are fake," he wrote.
The online mob wasn't buying it. "The Tablo controversy would not have intensified and grown so much if you had not spoken out against Tablo," a blogger named Pusheke responded. "Even if these kinds of rumors were already there, it became firm because of Mr. Cho." The agitators weren't interested in hearing anybody contradict their point of view. They stopped citing Cho's comments as evidence, and his role in the controversy was soon buried under an avalanche of inflammatory new accusations against Lee.
In August 2010 Sewook Seo, a cop in the cybercrime unit of the Korean National Police, began investigating the forgery accusations against Lee as well as Lee's charges of defamation. He interrogated the star for eight hours and determined in the end that the claims against Lee were without merit.
The detective then turned his attention to Lee's attackers, starting with Whatbecomes. Seo subpoenaed the attacker's user data from the Korean service that hosted TaJinYo—even anonymous users are required to give their name and contact information when they register. He discovered that Whatbecomes was a 56-year-old father of two living in Chicago. His name was Eungsuk Kim.
In posts online, Kim explained that he had two daughters, one of whom had attended Johns Hopkins. Both were doctors now. In statements to the media, he took responsibility for the attacks, arguing that "those who forge degrees from prestigious schools are hurting honest young people." It appeared that he was just a father who had gotten wildly upset at a perceived injustice.
In January 2011 the Korean National Police announced that Lee's defamation complaint should proceed. The authorities charged 11 people with participating in the online attacks, and an extradition request for Kim was filed with the US. The defamation case is pending in Seoul.
At the end of 2011, I emailed Kim to ask about the attacks. He declined to talk to me on the phone and challenged me to go to Stanford and check whether Lee had graduated. I explained that I had and found no grounds for doubt. Then I asked Kim if the online postings attributed to Cho played a role in the uproar about Lee.
"You know better than me," Kim wrote and told me not to contact him again.
"I believe the controversy surrounding Dan is his own responsibility," Cho says when I call him at the patent consultancy he runs in Santa Clara. "He made a lot of money in Korea by being famous and in large part by being a Stanford grad and marketing very effectively."
Cho insists that Lee exaggerated his academic accomplishments but is quick to confirm that Lee attended Stanford and graduated with both bachelor's and master's degrees. When I press him to describe the exaggerations, he says that English majors have it easy. The classes aren't hard, and there's a lot of grade inflation. "I had two majors, but that's not relevant" he says. "What is relevant is that it's one thing to say 'I had As' and another to say 'I'm a super-mega genius.'"
I ask him whether he regrets writing online about his cousin, given that his posts were cited by Tablo's online harassers.
"I'm a big free speech believer," he says and adds that nothing he said was "materially incorrect or materially malicious." More important, he argues, he can't be responsible for what other people did with his comments. "It's just like, if you tweet something, you don't control that information."
When I ask when he last spoke to Lee, Cho says that his cousin stopped responding to his emails after he became famous. (Lee says he changed email addresses and never received any messages from Cho.) Cho says he got in touch "just to say hi, but he wouldn't respond."
They'd known each other most of their lives and had gone to the same schools, Cho explains. But then everything changed. "Tablo never refers to me, he never talks about me, he never talks about his cousin at Stanford, and the truth is he's probably very scared," he says. "He's got some weaknesses he needs to cover. And the best way to do that is never to touch me, and I think we already know that very well."
I ask Cho to elaborate. What was the dark secret he had about his cousin?
It traces back to high school, Cho says. Cho was a grade ahead, and when he applied to Stanford, he wrote his application essay about his father. A year later, Lee wrote an essay about his own father. Cho didn't appreciate the choice. "He knew I wrote about my dad, and he knew that played a part in my admission," Cho says.
He explains that a big reason Lee got into Stanford was because he, Cho, had created such a favorable impression there. And he argues that Lee's Stanford degree was a major factor in his rise to pop stardom in Korea. But Lee not only never thanked him, he wouldn't even respond when Cho tried to get in touch. "He got into trouble only because of his own actions," Cho says. "And that's how I feel as an upperclassman."
Lee spent much of 2011 huddled in a small room in his apartment, which barely had space for a bookshelf and an upright piano. His Stanford diploma was hidden behind some cleaning supplies on the top shelf. For months he wrote dark, despairing songs and sang them to himself. There was little else to do. He had given up hope of performing again. "My life was over," he says.
But then his wife set up a meeting with her management company, YG Entertainment. The firm decided to take a chance and paid for studio time. On October 21, 2011, it released the first half of a 10-track double album that Lee titled Fever's End. Lee's debut as a solo artist is a lush, captivating explosion of pain, anger, and defiance and was met with an outpouring of positive notices. "This album is proof that his merit can't be attributed to the halo effect of his academic credentials," wrote prominent music reviewer Jinmo Lim; another reviewer added that the album had moved him to tears. Jungbae, a reviewer on Hellokpop.com, wrote, "In terms of emotional impact and expression, Fever's End blows [his earlier] albums away—and recall that those were some of Korean hip hop's best albums." The response was equally emphatic internationally: MTV called it one of the world's best five debut albums in 2011.
Fever's End rose to the top of the charts, both in Korea and overseas. It reached number two on the Billboard World Albums chart and hit number one on the iTunes hip hop charts in the US and Canada. It no longer seemed to matter where Lee had gone to school. The music spoke for itself.
Joshua Davis (firstname.lastname@example.com) wrote about a sales executive turned vigilante in issue 19.12.
Note 1. Correction appended [April 24, 2012/10:49 PST]. Daniel Lee is still the frontman of Epik High.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


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Designing 'Downton Abbey'
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Written and produced by Cathy Whitlock
The English phenomenon known as Downton Abbey has gripped viewers worldwide and developed quite the cult following. Echoing the styles and storylines of period costume dramas Gosford Park and Upstairs/Downstairs, the popular Masterpiece series on PBS centers on the aristocratic Crawley family and their dutiful servants in the early decades of the 20th century.
Downton Abbey is set in England's real-life Highclere Castle, the Victorian estate that forms the backdrop for tales of love, ambition, rivalry, and adventure. The highly anticipated third season premieres in the U.S. on Sunday, January 6, as the inhabitants of Highclere—both upstairs and down—face new challenges and "welcome" a new character (Cora's American mother Martha Levinson, played by Academy Award-winning actress Shirley MacLaine). Look for fireworks to ensue between Levinson and Dowager Countess Violet Crawley (played brilliantly by another Academy Award-winning actress, Maggie Smith).
Check your local PBS stations for times or watch online at PBS.org. If you missed the first two seasons, the Downton Abbey Collection is available at Shop PBS.
All photographs: Copyright Carnival Film & Television Limited 2012 for MASTERPIECE unless otherwise noted
Highclere Castle aka Downton Abbey is the show's home setting for the Earl and Countess of Grantham and their three daughters. Located an hour outside of London on 1,000 acres in Newbury, the Victorian country estate was renovated in the 19th century in the Elizabethan Revival by Sir Charles Barry, who rebuilt the houses of Parliament. The Carnavon family has lived there since 1679.
Actors Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern, who portray Robert Crawley/Earl of Grantham and his American wife, Cora/Countess of Grantham, greet visitors at the entrance of Downton. Many of the show's interiors and exteriors are shot on location at Highclere.
Production designer Donal Woods (My Week With Marilyn) created the environs of Downton Abbey that he describes as two separate worlds under one roof —"above the stairs, which would always be rich, lavish, and elegant" and usually shot on location at Highclere. Below the stairs (servants' quarters, offices, storerooms, kitchens) were built on a soundstage in West London.
"Some of the state bedrooms we built and dressed on a sound stage and matched the look of the opulent interiors of Highclere," says Woods.
Shown above is actress Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley.
The Earl of Grantham with future son-in-law Matthew Crawley (played by actor Dan Stevens) at Highclere. The majority of the castle's original furnishings are used along with cast members' personal photographs and accessories added by the show's designers.
Interiors were lightened up for season three as a contrast from the bleakness of the Victorian era and World War I. Above is scene-stealing Maggie Smith (who not only has all the best lines in the show but also delivers them with acid wit) as the Dowager Countess.
Photograph: Copyright Carnival Film & Television Ltd.
Photography by Joss Barratt, Nick Briggs, Giles Keyte, and Gary Moyes.
Actress Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson arrives at Downton Abbey.
In addition to the show's production design, the props and costumes must be period perfect as well. Woods notes Martha's arrival from America "brings a great gust of the modern age."
Costume Designer Caroline McCall molded the Countess's wardrobe to that of Queen Alexandra while Levinson's clothes were less subdued and more modern than those of her English counterparts.
Production Designer Woods visited 40 houses in Britain before Highclere was selected. "We have all filmed in some of the great houses of Britain and we all respect and appreciate that they are full of priceless treasures and they are a family home," he says. "The dining room [at Highclere] has a 14-foot-high painting by Van Dyck of King Charles I! Priceless!"
The grandeur of the castle with its magnificent arches and "High Elizabethan Style" is on full display in this aerial view of the salon from the gallery. Shown above is preparation of a scene of a hospital benefit at Downton Abbey.
Downton Abbey owes its rich production values to the original settings that are not always found in a typical television series. The show's designers benefit from the high ceiling rooms filled with priceless paintings and furnishings.
Current residents Lord and Lady Carnavon estimate the castle has some 200 to 300 rooms—with 50 to 80 bedrooms!
Set decorator Judy Farr says the sofa (from a season two scene) was most likely from the reign of William and Mary. This copy was made by Victorians and reupholstered in the 1970s.
The influence of Downton Abbey can be seen in everything from fashion (Ralph Lauren's 2012 fall collection) to a resurgence in English Country style interiors. Woods speculates fringe on lampshades could make a comeback.
Photograph: Copyright Carnival Film & Television Ltd.
Photography by Joss Barratt, Nick Briggs, Giles Keyte, and Gary Moyes.
Historical accuracy is key when designing a period drama. That often translates into the proper china and menus. Shown here is footman Alfred Nugent played by Matt Milne.
Photograph: Copyright Carnival Film & Television Ltd.
Photography by Joss Barratt, Nick Briggs, Giles Keyte, and Gary Moyes.
Eye on the details: a few period accessories used to create the world of Downton Abbey.
Photograph: Copyright Carnival Film & Television Ltd.
Photography by Joss Barratt, Nick Briggs, Giles Keyte, and Gary Moyes.
For a more in-depth look at the series, read the companion book The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era (St. Martin's Press) by Jessica Fellowes and Matthew Sturgis. The lavishly illustrated tome gives a behind-the-scenes historical look into the ancestral home of the Crawleys.
Photograph: Copyright Carnival Film & Television Ltd.
Photography by Joss Barratt, Nick Briggs, Giles Keyte, and Gary Moyes.
Get an updated Downton Abbey decorating vibe—traditional, elegant, and always impeccable—in your own home. Enjoy these rooms and ideas from the pages of Traditional Home.


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Hockey loses edge on Monarch in 5-2 loss
summit daily news
Monarch High School scored on Summit's hockey team within the first 20 seconds of Wednesday's game, putting the Tigers back on their paws from the start.
Though Summit (3-7 overall, 2-4 Foothills) recovered enough to respond with two goals, Monarch outplayed the Tigers, putting up 35 shots to Summit's 20. The game ended in a 5-2 loss for the Tigers.
One of Summit's two goals came from George Kamins, who scored the second goal of his high school career off an assist from Luke Egging and Sean Farley. Jack Nevicosi followed that up with a goal of his own on a power play, assisted by Farley, who has turned into a playmaker when teams look to shut down his action in front of the net.
The team wasn't able to maintain the lead though, as the rest of the period was dominated by Monarch, whose Joey Buchan and Jack Christofferson each scored goals to end the first period with Summit lagging behind, 3-2. Zero Summit goals in periods two and three landed the Tigers the loss.
"When we get leads or when we score first, it's frustrating when we don't stay with the same intensity and don't continue to put the same pressure on," head coach Chris Ruhly said. In last week's game against Regis Jesuit, the team scored in the first minute, but then let Regis tally 10 goals without a response. On Wednesday night, the team held the lead at 2-1 for the majority of the first period before letting the game go.
"I thought we played very well at times, and that's been kind of the theme of the season. We play well at times and not all the time. It's something we've been trying to put in people's minds for the past few years: It's a 51-minute game, and we're not playing all 51 minutes," Ruhly said.
The four unanswered goals all came from mistakes the team can learn from, the coach said.
"It's not passing the puck up the middle. It's chips and dumps off the boards and glass. It's turning around to pick up the guys coming into the zone and not focusing on the puck. It's coming out ready to play the game," he said.
Now with four losses in conference play, the team is back at practice, preparing for tonight's 5:15 home game against Resurrection Christian.
"We're not quite with the hand on the panic button, but there are some things that need to get corrected, and get corrected immediately," Ruhly said, adding that he would like to continue to see Farley and Nevicosi working together to step further into their offensive leader positions and bring Summit High Tigers victories.
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that's what i was thinking. it was fancy food show swag so i thought i'd at least try it. i'm not a milk in tea person so perhaps it's worse than i thought for me to even suggest it. i'm happy to send you a packet to try. it was not like any puerh i've even tried in the past.
the marketing description sounds even worse


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The thought of undergoing a colonoscopy while not completely unconscious might give you shivers.
And it shouldn't, say several doctors who perform the procedure.
Responding to business columnist David Lazarus' article last week calling out insurer Anthem Blue Cross for declaring that propofol-induced complete sedation isn't "medically necessary" during colonoscopies, several readers declared that the bean counters at Anthem should have to undergo this probing procedure under only moderate sedation before denying other patients access to propofol (one such letter was printed today).
Lazarus quoted several doctors to support his point -- that Anthem's decision to not pay for propofol during colonoscopies risks turning away more patients from this potentially life-saving procedure.
Judging by the letters we received, not all doctors agree.
Among the nearly two dozen letters written in response to Lazarus were a handful of doctors who agreed with Anthem. One such doctor had his letter printed Tuesday; several more whose submissions weren't published in the paper relayed their experiences performing colonoscopies using moderate sedation. Of the several physicians who wrote to us, only one agreed with Lazarus.
Here are their letters.
Jerome P. Helman of Venice, a physician and frequent letter writer on all things medicine, says propofol for colonoscopies is a relatively new expectation:
"Lazarus ignores past community standards. As an elder gastroenterologist, there was a time not too long ago when we performed endoscopies without the anesthesiologist at our side. We called it moderate sedation because the deeper sedation level of anesthesia was unnecessary for such procedures, and we administered the medication ourselves.
"Then along came propofol and the 'need' for anesthesia materialized. Reimbursements for endoscopies decreased substantially, so investments in endoscopy centers brought in considerably more income for the gastroenterologist."
Sajen Mathews of Fullerton, also a gastroenterologist, outlines the propofol-free protocol:
"Moderate sedation with medications like fentanyl and versed is universally used for colonoscopies. At my endoscopy center in Fullerton, we perform about 12,000 procedures a year, and 95% of them are done under moderate sedation. Patient satisfaction is high, and there have been no complaints of pain during these procedures. I do not know of a single patient who refused a colonoscopy because propofol would not be used.
"While the recovery time for propofol may be slightly shorter, this does not make any meaningful difference to the patients, who are told not to work or drive the day of the procedure with any type of anesthesia. All high-risk patients are treated with propofol administered by an anesthesiologist.
"There have been reports that complications including aspiration, perforation or splenic injury occurred more frequently in patients who received general anesthesia assistance than in those who did not."
"The cost savings for my center alone from not using propofol has been about $60 million. About 10 million people get colonoscopies each year in the U.S., adding up to more than $10 billion in annual costs. Making propofol administration routine for colonoscopies would greatly increase that amount without any significant benefit."
Physician Edward Evans of Thousand Oaks says bashing insurance companies is fine with him, but not for the reasons Lazarus gives:
"I usually wholeheartedly agree with Lazarus' consumer protection pieces, but I really felt this one was way off base. As a physician I generally love to vilify the insurance companies as much as the next person, [but] in this case I think they are in the right.
"Administering propofol during colonoscopies is an example of why medical costs continue to increase. We simply have an insatiable desire for more healthcare. The cost of colonoscopies has skyrocketed.
"Colonoscopies were initially office procedures with sedatives and analgesics safely given by the physician. This kind of conscious sedation is successfully used for many procedures, including chest tube insertion and central line placement.
"But recently, and thanks in part to advocacy by anesthesiologists, colonoscopies have been elevated to the level of outpatient surgery, with an anesthesiologist present and often done in a full surgical suite. Both add enormously to the cost, but without benefiting the patient much."
Santa Monica physician Jonathan D. Kaunitz speaks up in favor of propofol:
"Lazarus deftly highlighted controversies surrounding the economics and relative merits of endoscopic sedation.
"What could have been mentioned is that propofol has been widely adopted by practices not only due to its greater patient preference, but also due to its promoting increased efficiency, since with very short induction, procedure and recovery times, the endoscopic 'throughput' can be substantially increased. Since only one nurse anesthetist is required per endoscopy unit, the additional cost and procedure is more than compensated for by the increased number of procedures performed.
"Also, using propofol, the endoscopist is also able to conduct the examination more quickly, carefully and thoroughly. Thus, many practitioners have opted for propofol since it makes economic as well as medical sense.
"I certainly hope that the insurers can listen to reason and not penalize patients for insisting on an anesthetic that will ensure a complete, comfortable and safe procedure while increasing efficiency, which in turn will increase the population percentage who will undergo this helpful test."
Elephant bullhooks? Not in L.A.


text: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – More than 400 employees from Etihad Airways Engineering and Etihad Technical teams gathered together to celebrate the 15 Year Anniversary of Etihad Airways, with a human mosaic photographed in front of one of the airline's Airbus A380s at the Etihad Airways Engineering facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport. Get in touch with us. Contact us Let us know what you think Send feedback Join our community Etihad Facebook


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by Wesley Ratko
What the Chestnut Hill Community Association's role in dealing with zoning issues will be if proposed changes to Philadelphia's zoning code become a reality was the focus of discussion at the Nov. 4 meeting of the association's Land Use Planning and Zoning Committee.
Chief among the committee's concerns was a new process for conducting neighborhood meetings that could supersede the community association's existing review process.
"The requirements for community review meetings would be much less than what we do now," said LUPZ chairperson Larry McEwen.
The current process requires an applicant to appear before the Development Review Committee at least once before a recommendation can be sent to the CHCA board. Often, an applicant must present his project to other committees like Land Use Planning and Zoning, Aesthetics, and Historic Preservation for input before returning to the DRC, which considers the comments of the other committees before making a final recommendation.
Under the new code, only a single meeting would be required.
According to McEwen, community groups like the CHCA would have to register annually with the city to get early notice of projects requiring ZBA approval. Registration would include naming a contact person and an agreement to meet with zoning applicants within 21 days of receiving notice of the project from the city. Both the applicant and all community groups (there could be more than just the CHCA) would submit documentation of this meeting to the ZBA, prior to the applicant's meeting with the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
"There is a minimal description of what the applicant would be required to present at this meeting," said committee member John Haak, voicing concern about the new process.
Committee member and former CHCA president Betsy Masters explained that if this were to take effect, the CHCA board would no longer make decisions to either support or not support applications for variances.
"This would require a jostling of responsibilities," she said.
"This seems to run contrary to our existing operation," said committee member Ned Mittinger.
Committee Member John Landis put the changes in context and suggested that the Zoning Reform Commission had a few goals in mind. The first would be to identify the applicable stakeholders affected by a given project and ensure that a developer enters into discussions earlier in the planning process than is now the case.
"The purpose here is not to cut off debate but to make sure that the conversation is happening sooner," he said. "The intent is to promote communication – however, it doesn't ensure it." Landis suggested that some language is needed to protect the CHCA and its process. He also suggested the possibility that the CHCA would not be the only recognized community organization in this process.
"That would dilute our power – we need language that recognizes that we are the de facto organization," he said.
McEwen recognized that in neighborhoods without a process for review, these changes would be a step up, noting that the process in Chestnut Hill was well established and served the community well.
"We want it the way we have it," he said.
Masters said that the changes were designed to make the review process easier. She said, however, that by simplifying things, "our process would be cut off at the knees."
Landis proposed that a mechanism called a "Finding of Overriding Consideration" be employed to require the ZBA to go on record when they make a decision that is contrary to the recommendation of the local community groups. Now in use in several places around the country, Findings of Overriding Consideration provide for transparency in these kinds of decisions.
Masters noted that even if provisions for this mechanism were added, it would merely be advisory and carry no weight – the ZBA could still make whatever decisions they wanted independent of the wishes of the Chestnut Hill community.
McEwen countered that while that might be true, the comments would go into writing and, from there, back to the planning commission, which could lead to another meeting and grounds for appeal.
Committee member Jean McCoubrey asked which recognized community organization the developer would go to. Committee member Joyce Lenhardt answered that the RCO would be designated by the local City Council person.
In addition to this issue, the committee also offered comments on the length of the transitional period that will run between the adoption of the new code and the date it becomes effective, and the maximum allowable height of buildings in the newly consolidated commercial districts along Germantown Avenue.
Comments must be submitted to the Zoning Code Commission by Nov. 12.


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major macro economic indicators
|2018 (e)
|2019 (f)
|GDP growth (%)
|Inflation (yearly average, %)
|Budget balance (% GDP)
|Current account balance (% GDP)
|Public debt (% GDP)
(e): Estimate. (f): Forecast.
- Extensive mineral resources (potash, copper, gold, silver, zinc)
- Strategic position on the Red Sea
- Large public and external deficits
- Critical level of debt
- Country has become an international pariah state
- Worrying human rights record
- Very difficult business climate
Growth dependent on the extractive industry
Economic activity is expected to be moderate in 2019, being driven by the performance of just one sector: the extractive industry. The Bisha mine (copper, zinc, gold) remains the main contributor to growth, and its acquisition by a Chinese company planning new exploration activities will delay the end of operations, which was initially scheduled for 2021. The Colluli potash mine will gradually take over from the Bisha facility, and assuming there are no further postponements, it will start production in 2019. Until now, the mining sector has been the only area attracting the country's few foreign investments, most of which have come from China. However, the recent resumption of peaceful relations with Ethiopia opens up new opportunities by placing the country in a strategic position on the Horn of Africa. In this context, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will start building an oil pipeline linking the Eritrean port of Assab on the Red Sea to the Ethiopian capital. DP World, a multinational port company from the UAE, is reportedly considering building infrastructure in Assab, as is Russia, with whom negotiations are underway on the construction of a logistics hub at one of Eritrea's ports. However, private investment and the potential increase in cross-border trade are unlikely to have a significant impact on growth in the short term, since they remain constrained by the severe lack of infrastructure. Public investment in development does not look to be on the cards, as the government has not taken any official initiatives in this direction. In addition, the government's dominant presence in other areas of activity will continue to hamper the development of the private sector. In a setting featuring an almost non-existent labour market, extreme poverty, and household dependence on a rudimentary agriculture sector plagued by frequent droughts, private consumption will remain sluggish. Inflation, meanwhile, is expected to stabilise at a high level, supported by elevated food prices.
Persistent deficits
In 2019, the government deficit could be slightly reduced as mining revenues hold up, coupled with a probable reduction in military spending following the end of the war with Ethiopia. Some of this expenditure could eventually be redirected towards rehabilitating roads and upgrading the port of Assab, as reportedly planned by the government. The deficit will continue to be financed by monetary creation, fuelling inflation. Although relations with the international community have improved very slightly, the country remains excluded from access to donor support, meaning that Eritrea's substantial and mainly domestic public debt is not expected to benefit from relief under the HIPC initiative.
Turning to the external accounts, the current account deficit may increase as a result of the widening trade deficit. Exports, mainly of agricultural products and minerals, are expected to remain low, while the country remains dependent on imports of food, capital goods, which are increasing with construction projects, and oil, whose rising price will amplify the deterioration in the deficit. Monetary policy will continue to focus on maintaining the dollar peg of the nafka, which will remain overvalued given the lack of foreign exchange. This should maintain the gap between the official exchange rate and that of the parallel market.
A gradual return to the international scene
The political landscape is dominated by the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice, the only legally authorised party, which has been led by President Isaias Afwerki since 1993. The total absence of democracy and fundamental freedoms, along with the regime's totalitarian excesses, are widely acknowledged and make Eritrea one of the most closed countries in the world.
However, in July 2018, the President signed a peace declaration with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, agreeing to end 20 years of war, reopen borders and restore trade, transport and telecommunications links between the two countries. Originally due to an armed conflict over disputed borders, the situation with Ethiopia, coupled with accusations over the funding of al-Shabab armed groups in Somalia, had excluded Eritrea from the international community and led to UN sanctions (arms embargo, travel bans, asset freeze). These sanctions were lifted in November 2018 by the UN Security Council to welcome the peace efforts made, which also extended to relations with Somalia, with the reopening of embassies in the respective capitals of the two countries, and Djibouti. Although these developments may restore investor confidence somewhat and represent Eritrea's first diplomatic steps forward, the country remains characterised by recurrent human rights violations, forced labour and indefinite periods of military service, as well as a wave of migration as people flee the regime. This will continue to hamper development. The business environment remains very poor, with Eritrea coming second-last in the World Bank's Doing Business ranking.
Last update: February 2019


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About iterate
iterate is an iteration construct for Common Lisp. It is similar to the CL:LOOP macro, with these distinguishing marks:
- it is extensible,
- it helps editors like Emacs indent iterate forms by having a more lisp-like syntax, and
- it isn't part of the ANSI standard for Common Lisp (which is sometimes a bad thing and sometimes good).
Where to get it
- The Iterate Manual in PDF
- The Iterate Manual in browsable HTML
- Iterate itself
Iterate has spent most of its life in the CMU AI archive as a lisp file for pre-ANSI Common Lisps. Some people have adapted it to other implementations, but the most activly maintained version right now is the one you find here.
You can get the latest version with darcs (this is the recommended way):
darcs get http://common-lisp.net/project/iterate/darcs/iterate
You can get it by asdf-install, if you have
that installed, via:
CL-USER> (asdf-install:install :iterate)
Several lines of compiler output will come up; you'll be asked if you want to accept my GPG key, if you have gnupg installed, and after that, you have iterate installed.
If you don't have ASDF-INSTALL in your lisp, but you have ASDF, you
can just grab the latest tarball at
http://common-lisp.net/project/iterate/releases/iterate-current.tar.gz and unpack
it into a directory, say
/home/you/iterate-1.0.4. Make a symbolic link called
iterate.asdfrom your
asdf:*central-repository*directory to the file
/home/you/iterate-1.0.4/iterate.asd, and you're ready to use iterate.
How to make it available to your code
If you're using ASDF (highly recommended), have :iterate on the :depends-on list to your system, like this:
(defsystem my-example :depends-on (:iterate) :components ((:file "foo")))
If you're not using ASDF (not recommended), use code like this in one of the files that use the iterate construct:
(eval-when (:compile-toplevel :load-toplevel :execute) (require 'iterate))
Some examples
...to highlight the superiority of the iterate construct (-:
Finding the longest list in a list of lists:
(iterate (for elt in list-of-lists) (finding elt maximizing (length elt)))
Whereas with loop (with whose maximizing clause can be used to find the greatest sublist length only), you'd have to use something like:
(loop with max-elt = nil with max-key = 0 for elt in list-of-lists for key = (length elt) do (when (> key max-key) (setq max-elt elt max-key key)) finally (return max-elt))
So, which version is clearer? I know which I prefer. (-:
Here's another example, using named blocks:
(iter outer (for i below (array-dimension ar 0)) (iter (for j below (array-dimension ar 1)) (in outer (collect (aref ar i j)))))
A named block in an iterate form lets you perform operations inside the context of that named form from iterate forms nested inside it. So here, in this example, we collect all elements in a two-dimensional array in a flat list. The loop equivalent isn't very nice.
You can find more documentation on iterate and its features (there are a lot more than I can demonstrate in this document!) in the
doc/directory in your iterate distribution.
There is a darcs repository for iterate on common-lisp.net. You can browse the repository or get the tree with the following command line:
darcs get *firstname.lastname@example.com:/project/iterate/darcs/iterate
Bugs, feature suggestions and requests
Send those to email@example.com list (also note the list info and archives).
The current bugs file can be found at the current iterate bugs page.
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
- You can get the latest version with darcs (this is the recommended way):


text:
Police: 3 teens arrested in strong-armed robbery
Odenton teens stole bike, assaulted victim
Anne Arundel County police said they arrested three teens in a strong-armed robbery in Odenton.
Officers were called to a home on Imperial Square in Odenton around 8:20 p.m. Thursday for a report of a strong-arm robbery that happened earlier in the 1100 block of Annapolis Road.
A 15-year-old boy told police he was riding his bike through a parking lot when he was confronted by three other teens he knew. They demanded his bike and the victim refused.
At that time, one of the teens struck the victim, causing him to fall off of the bike and strike the ground. The attackers took the bike and fled. Police said the victim initially followed and attempted to retrieve the bike, but was assaulted several more times before he ran away and got help from someone.
Police said they found the attackers in the area of Chapelgate Drive and Williamsburg Lane. All three suspects were charged on juvenile citations with robbery, second-degree assault and theft under $1,000.
Police said two 15-year-old boys and a 13-year-old boy, all from Odenton, were arrested and face charges.


text:
If you are looking for Johnny "the Potato" or his wife, "Chinese" Luciana, the Spanish phone book may not be much help if none of their neighbors can recall their real names.
The habit of giving people nicknames leads to so much confusion in Spanish country towns and villages that the 600 inhabitants of Cedillo, in western Spain, have published their own phone book -- using nicknames instead of real names.
It means that Johnny the Potato can be found under P for Patata while Luciana is under C for Chinita.
From Pedro "the Whistle" to "Balls" Francisca, the Cedillo phone book is designed to give people the quickest and easiest way of finding their neighbors' phone numbers and addresses.
The new guide also helps distinguish between those who share real names with them now defined by their individual nicknames.
The phone book was the idea of the town's mayor, Antonio "Booties" Gonzalez.
"My mother bought me some boots when I was a little boy and the heels clicked on the pavement, so my brother called me Botines" [booties]," he said. Over time that has been reduced to the diminutive "Boti."
When he campaigned for mayor he used his nickname rather than his real name, printing posters saying "Vote Boti."
Even streets have nicknames in Cedillo. These, which are often used more than the proper names, are also given in the book.
Comandante Carrillo Street becomes The Street of Juana's Shop, and the grand-sounding Marques of Guadalcazar Street is reduced to The Church's Street.
Not everybody in Cedillo is happy with the new phone book, however.
A man known as "Baldy" and another called "Peg-leg" asked to be registered under their proper surnames.


text:
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text:
March 7, 2009
LAS VEGAS - Senior guard Sara Majors brought her collegiate career to a close with a career-high 19 points, eight field goals, three three-pointers and two blocks Saturday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the 2009 West Coast Conference Basketball Tournament. The eighth-seeded Santa Clara women's basketball team fell 71-60 to fourth-seeded Loyola Marymount at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
"First we have to tip our hats to LMU," said head coach Jennifer Mountain. "We battled the entire game and it came down to rebounding. We can't give up 17 offensive boards and expect to be in the game at the end. But I'm really proud of our effort yesterday and today."
Fellow senior Elizabeth Doran added 12 points for the Broncos, while Maggie Goldenberger and Alyssa Shoji each had 10 points. On the boards, Goldenberger and Lena Gipson had seven each.
For the Lions, Renahy Young had 23 points and Cassady Moore registered 15 points. Aleyse Evans led the game with 10 rebounds.
The Lions jumped to a 4-0 lead quickly but at 16:41 Gipson broke the silence and cut the lead in half, 4-2. Majors then knocked down a three-pointer to give SCU a 5-4 advantage. The two teams then battled point-for-point until the 12:15 mark. The lead changed five times during that span.
LMU used a 9-0 run to gain a 22-14 lead with about eight minutes to play. Santa Clara interrupted the run with a layup from Majors, 22-16. The Broncos came within five points on a three-pointer from Doran. However, the Lions continued to push ahead and ended the half with a 32-25 edge.
In the beginning of the second half, LMU made it a 10-point game with a three-pointer from Cassady Moore, 37-27. At 10:48, the Lions claimed a 53-41 lead and never looked back. The Broncos continued to fight with points from Majors, Shoji and Goldenberger. With back-to-back treys from Majors and Doran, SCU made it a nine-point game, 65-56, with 2:01 to play. However, Lion free throws prevented the Broncos from coming any closer. A layup from Shoji made the final score 71-60 with a jumper.
The Broncos end the season with a 4-27 overall record and a 1-13 WCC mark.


text:
Pomegranate-Glazed Turkey Meatballs
A splash of pomegranate juice turns ordinary meatballs into something extraordinary. I love the sweet lightness of the glaze combined with the ground turkey, herbs and spices. —Danielle D'Ambrosio, Brighton, Massachusetts
Total TimePrep: 30 min. Cook: 10 min.
Makes3 dozen
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
- 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1-1/4 pounds ground turkey
- 3 cups plus 1 tablespoon pomegranate juice, divided
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- In a large bowl, combine the egg, bread crumbs, parsley, salt, paprika, pepper and garlic salt. Crumble turkey over mixture and mix well. Shape into 1-in. balls.
- Divide between two ungreased 15x10x1-in. baking pans. Bake at 375° for 10-15 minutes or until a thermometer reads 165° and juices run clear.
- Meanwhile, in a large skillet, combine 3 cups pomegranate juice and sugar. Bring to a boil; cook until liquid is reduced to about 1 cup. Combine cornstarch and remaining juice; stir into skillet. Cook and stir for 1 minute or until thickened.
- Gently stir in meatballs and heat through. Serve in a slow cooker or chafing dish.
Recommended Video
Jan 11, 2014
I love meatballs and these were great to serve as an appetizer. The pomegranate juice gave them a distinctive flavor. My guests enjoyed them and I will make them again.


text:
Parenting and Autism: A Mother's Learned Lessons on Raising a Special-Needs Child
Jennifer Byde Myers' work with autism, including taking care of her 12-year-old autistic son Jack, has taught her valuable lessons in parenting. Here's what every mom can learn from the mother of a special-needs child.
My son, Jack, couldn't lift his arms above his shoulders until he was about 5. Even then he struggled to guide his little limbs into his shirt each morning, so my husband and I would just move his arms for him. It probably wasn't until a year later and the birth of his sister, Katie, that we realized we couldn't gloss over this missed milestone. Jack needed to learn to maneuver his arms on his own. This wasn't just about making our job as parents easier. His future depended on it.
Jack is autistic with ataxic cerebral palsy, a motor movement disorder. Every new skill puts him closer to leading a life where he becomes better able to care for himself independently. But how I help him gain those abilities has required me to shed a lot of my preconceived notions of what it means to be a mom. I suppose parenting is never what any of us expects it to be. There are more joys, more fears, more everything than we can ever imagine. I've stumbled upon some surprising lessons that keep shining true with each candle we put on Jack's birthday cakes. I think they make me a better mom and the world a more tolerant place for all our kids — whether they have special needs or not.
Lesson 1: Know Patience Is Power
Which shoes did you prefer putting on your kids when they were younger: ones with laces or ones with Velcro straps? Or should I say, ones that set our kids up for success or ones that got you out the door faster? I readily admit patience is an acquired skill for me. Yet I realize it's a skill worth honing to make headway with Jack. When we're seated at a restaurant booth, for example, it will be quicker if I physically scoot Jack over. But this isn't the only time he'll need to scoot over, and learning motor movements is part of his gaining independence. He should be able to maneuver in multiple places, with different caretakers and, most important, when I'm not there. Not to be too dramatic, but I'm not always going to be around.
Of course, all that teaching requires slowing down and building in time for trial and the inevitable errors. I still get frustrated, sigh heavily and pray swiftly in moments when I want everyone to pick up the pace. Then I realize that taking a deep breath and allowing my son to learn something is much more productive. In a world of helicopter parenting, giving a child of any age the space to grow can be difficult. But it helps if you raise an adult who can confidently find his or her own way.
Lesson 2: Find Your Tribe
Being a parent can feel lonely — which sounds crazy when you consider how many of us there are — so surround yourself with people who understand your life. It's exhausting to spend time with adults who don't get what it means to have a special-needs child, those who won't change their expectations (no, the kids can't play unsupervised while we chat) or accept Jack's limitations (it's not that we don't like you, but houseboating will not be an enjoyable vacation). Just figuring out who was still willing to have us over to their house took some effort.
Along the way we've lost some friendships. We also gained some lifesaving connections when I took my first steps into the special-needs world in search of "my people." I became friends with a small group of parents, and together we established one of the first Special Education PTAs in the country. We've raised money to buy iPads for special education classes, connected parents and provided training for classroom aides. But I'm most grateful that the PTA became a safe place to talk about some of the fears I had. I was not as alone and I was not as different as I had thought.
Friends who don't have special-needs children still give balance to our life and help take some of the focus off Jack. He shouldn't always be the sole point of discussion — no kid should. Our best moments are when Jack is just one of a gaggle of children playing in the yard. It's important that he be part of that mix, because that's what a community should look like: diverse, with people leaning on and learning from one another.
Lesson 3: Presume Competence
When you meet my nonverbal son — or any disabled person — please assume that he understands you and what's happening around him. Nonverbal doesn't mean not intelligent. Say hello to him; don't just speak to me or his aide. He may not answer, but his hearing is perfectly fine. If you think he doesn't understand anything, that's all you will see. But if you pay attention, you will witness so much more of how Jack does hold up his end of "conversations." He squints his eyes to say yes, uses a hand gesture to signal that he would like some more, and smirks when his little sister is being funny.
The kids he hangs out with always naturally assume he understands them. Even though he doesn't say so, they think he wants to play, eat a second piece of cake, and go to the park, because it's what we taught them: Jack communicates in a different way. It's not a person "hidden behind the autism." It's who Jack is and how he interacts with the world. The more we treat people with that kind of respect, the more likely we are to consider them our equals who have the same rights to learn, grow and love.
Lesson 4: Advocate the Moment
We have a rule at our house that you may want to adopt in yours as well: "You can smile, say hello or mind your own business, but you don't just stare at someone." Standing up for what's right within my own family is easy. Doing so outside our intimate circle is more complex. Still, no matter how difficult it is or how awkward I feel, I speak up whenever someone unwittingly puts my family down. I explain that nothing is "wrong" with Jack and there's no need to feel "so sorry" for us. Or I set the record straight that nonverbal doesn't mean not intelligent. But I wasn't always so vocal.
Last year, a mom from school used the R-word (retarded) in a conversation with me and I silently let it go. But it gnawed at me for days. What if my children heard her say that? What if someone overheard that conversation and made an assumption about me based on her language? When she repeated the word a few weeks later, I took a deep breath and spoke up. I knew it might end the friendship with her child or make me seem overly politically correct; however, I couldn't let it slide. "I didn't mean it that way," she said. But when pressed, she agreed that there wasn't really an appropriate way to use the word, period.
The trick to advocating for my son was to learn to do it without being condescending or angry, because then I wouldn't be heard. Once I got better at it, I realized I made things easier for everyone in my family. The other day a stranger was staring at Jack. My daughter immediately said, "He's just autistic. You can say hi." For her, it wasn't difficult or awkward. Stepping up for her brother was effortless.
Lesson 5: Accept Your Limits
Several years ago, I found myself in a dark place. Every afternoon I was exhausted and frustrated, trying to care for Jack while I prepared dinner. He uses his hands to explore his environment, so Jack's sleuthing skills combined with any raw meat or onions out on the counter made creating even a simple meal problematic. Just being in the kitchen puts him in peril, whether or not I was cooking. Only two minutes on his own was once long enough for Jack to climb onto our electric stovetop and turn it on. (Thankfully, he wasn't directly over the burner.)
I had to get over a self-imposed roadblock: I, like many other mothers, set unrealistic expectations for myself. I believe I should be able to serve elaborate meals, do all the laundry, and still be a writer and editor while parenting. Now, maybe I can do all those things, but I also need to make sure my son is safe and cared for without my feeling stretched too thin.
Jack needed more help than I could provide, even with an awesome husband who parents actively. So we made it a financial priority to be able to have an aide come in each afternoon for a few hours. I don't ever want to be frustrated with my son because of the level of care he needs. All it took was one small change, and the flustered, tired old me was long gone. Sometimes I still feel that having that help is a luxury I don't deserve. At the same time, I know it's a gift to my family that I have more patience. And I know it's okay to acknowledge that I can't do it all.
I'll never learn all the things it takes to be a perfect mom, but thankfully I have enough grace to forgive myself for that. What I am doing is trying my best to be respectful of my son, encouraging him to develop new skills and providing him with opportunities.
I think many parents with special-needs kids simply don't imagine their children as adults. When you're sitting in a therapy room, a doctor's office or an Individualized Education Program meeting, it might seem as if childhood lasts forever. But it doesn't. My son is now closer to being a man than he is to being my baby, so I need to work fast in order to learn what I can to help him transition into adulthood.
I'll try to keep the beauty of the long road in mind when I think a shortcut might be tempting. I'll talk with autistic adults to gain their insights. And I'll hold Jack's hand while I can, because I truly believe there is a day ahead when those long, lanky arms just won't need me quite as much. With a little encouragement and the right opportunities, I can see my tween growing into a tall, confident, independent and happy young man.
Jennifer Byde Myers is an editor at The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism (thinkingautismguide.com) and blogs at Jennyalice.com.
Originally published in the April 2013 issue of Family Circle magazine.


text:
EON Reality's Human 2.0 Initiative to empower people to grow beyond current human constraints
Thirty forward thinking governments, academic institutions, and corporations in United Kingdom, France, South Africa, China, United States, India, Singapore, and other locations have already joined the EON Human 2.0 initiative that targets to empower 3.8 Billion people to grow beyond current human constraints, democratize access to knowledge and create new smart jobs of the future.
Technology disruption is causing a massive shift in the job market with millions of jobs rendered obsolete while, at the same time, new positions and industries are being created. Many political and business leaders fear that AI powered machines will replace humans and a new class of people emerge — the displaced class — a group of people who are simply unemployable. They propose universal basic income as a solution leaving people struggling to find meaning in a world without work. We believe this is not a humane solution. A job is more than a salary. It represents purpose, meaning, and identity.
We need a solution on two fronts: that helps the 2.5 Billion workers lacking ICT support who risk becoming victims of AI and automation, and the 1.3 Billion students who are coming of age in a world where they need to learn more with less time and less money.
EON Reality has over the last 18 years developed an Augmented and Virtual Reality solution that addresses the technology disruption by fast tracking knowledge transfer and creating a symbiosis between man and machine. Watch our videos for Smart Nation and the AVR classroom.
You will specifically learn how the EON Human 2.0 Initiative has provided partners with the following benefits:
- Implemented disruptive innovation 4.0 learning and training methodologies
- Delivered a new region campus wide mechanism to reach out to students, industry leaders, and donors/philanthropists
- Enhanced regional reputation for innovation and research based on the latest AR and VR solutions
- Improved retainment and recruitment of workers, students, and companies
- Hear directly from business owners, students, and officials on the positive impact of the Interactive digital center:
- Helps regions teach more in less time
- Advances education from memorization to higher skills such as critical thinking and problem solving.
- Improves attention rates for trainees and students to make learning engaging rather than a chore