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A roaring cheer, emanating from the Diag, echoed throughout Central Campus Tuesday night as students gathered to celebrate the re-election of President Barack Obama.
Four years into a battered presidency, the thunderous outcry was a sigh of relief for many Obama supporters whose hopes for the future were pinned to the president's precariously narrow electoral success.
Across campus and partisan divides, students gathered in groups large and small to watch the returns from Tuesday's election. As the night progressed, and Obama's re-election became more assured, impromptu celebrations and fits of dejection became more common as liberals rejoiced and conservatives faced the imminent reality of another four years of the Democratic president.
Excitement reached a fever pitch after 11 p.m., after most major television networks called the election in favor of Obama. Spontaneously, hundreds of students began to gather on the Diag to celebrate the election, reminiscent of a similar outpouring after the 2008 election.
LSA freshman Sam Whaley, an Obama supporter, said he quickly made his way to the Diag after hearing reports on CNN that Obama would be re-elected. He used the words "happy" and "relieved" to describe the atmosphere in the Diag, where the crowd was rapidly growing.
"Everybody just wanted to be together and be excited," Whaley said. "So we all rushed to the Diag because it's like the heart of Central Campus. It has been a lot of cheering and excitement and some fight songs — 'Hail to the Victors,' patriotic songs, a little bit of everything. Just a lot of happiness."
Another reveler, LSA freshman Conner Wood, rushed to the Diag to join his peers in what he called a "magnificent victory."
"It's very community," Wood said. "People are very excited about it, to the point where they're doing handstands and dancing. I've hugged many strangers. It's just been a great, great euphoric moment. I mean, we came so close to disaster."
Regan Moro, a freshman in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance, said she was elated by the election results, noting she is a supporter of Obama's policies on social issues and came to the Diag to celebrate with other students who share similar views.
"I didn't think that Romney would win, but I was a little bit nervous about it because I know the last four years haven't been the easiest," Moro said. "I think we're all brought to the Diag for a sense of community. I really feel a part of the University of Michigan community."
At a small gathering of about a dozen members of the University's chapter of College Democrats early in the evening, LSA senior Lauren Coffman, the communications director of the group, said she believes Obama resonates for many young people around the nation.
"I think that (Obama) really embodies the American dream," LSA junior Lauren Coffman, communications director for the College Democrats, said. "I mean, he came from a single parent household, from a family that didn't necessarily have a lot of money, and he has inspired the country through his speeches and through his story."
Speaking at the Michigan Democratic Party's election center in Detroit, LSA junior Alexandra Brill, chair of the University's College Democrats, said she was proud of the work that the group had done leading up to Election Day.
"We worked really hard both with the top of the ticket and with local candidates that were victorious," Brill said in an interview.
At a muted affair early in the evening, about 30 members of the University's College Republicans gathered at the Michigan Union to watch election analysis and early returns from the first-reporting states. Though many members remained optimistic for a Mitt Romney victory, some quietly conceding the race was a long shot for the former Massachusetts governor.
Speaking only when the first returns began coming in, LSA junior Kaitlin Mikatarian, the secretary of College Republicans, said though she wasn't optimistic about Romney's chances, she hadn't given up hope.
By 8 p.m., the group had disbanded and members had gone to watch the election results individually or in smaller groups.
After networks called the election for Obama, LSA junior Jared Boot, the chair of the University's Students for Romney, said though his party lost the presidency, they were consoled by electoral success in the state Supreme Court races and the ballot proposals.
All six ballot proposals — including Proposals 2 through 6, which were opposed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and most other prominent Republicans — were defeated Tuesday.
"We put up a good fight," Boot said. "We've made a presence on campus, people know we exist, and hopefully people respect our positions better."
Boot added that the unclear outcome of the popular vote — which shows Obama leading by about 2.7 million votes as of 9:40 a.m. according to the Associated Press — is a mandate for the president to work more collaboratively with Republicans in Congress.
"We're looking for the bright spots," Boot said. "The governor was very proud of that — he's worked tirelessly on those six proposals and he's very pleased with the results that are coming in. He'll keep moving Michigan's economy forward, thanks to people realizing that special interests can't have a hold on our constitution."
Political Science Prof. Michael Heaney said that while the election was suspenseful, student participation was somewhat below average. However, he noted it was difficult to overcome the spirit and exhilaration of the 2008 campaign.
"2008 was just an exceptionally exciting election," Heaney said. "There are two things you've got to keep in mind: how dark and terrible the Bush (years) were, and bringing the first African-American president and this younger man who was such a charismatic speaker. 2008 was the most exciting election of my lifetime."
By 9 p.m., nearly 200 students and alumni filled the Union's University Club room as results began rolling across television screens. Gathering around crowded tables adorned with colorful balloons, posters and streamers, students nibbled on ice cream bars while keeping their eyes locked on the results.
The event, sponsored by the Center for Campus Involvement, drew students from across the political spectrum. At one table, a group of Obama supporters donned buttons and cheered with each state that turned blue on the electoral map, while others donned Michigan Republican Party T-shirts.
Overall, cheers for Obama victories dominated the night, especially when networks announced an Obama win in Michigan.
"I felt elated when Obama captured the state of Michigan," Kinesiology senior Miatta McCrummady said. "I voted for him the first time and I voted for him again today."
McCrummady said she stood with Obama primarily due to his support for women's rights and the middle class.
Before the election was called later in the evening, Romney supporters remained optimistic and hopeful about the Republican nominee's victory.
"This is huge, him being re-elected," LSA sophomore Kiana Alexander said. "As a black person, he represents the dream. America really is the land of opportunity. You really can be anything."
Further down State Street, North Quad Residence Hall hosted a watch party event of about 30 students, where discussion focused primarily on the foreign policy stances of the two candidates — seemingly fitting for a theme community focused on international studies.
LSA junior Nora Dagher said she talked to many international students who, though ineligible to vote, said they feel impacted by the election.
"The whole world is watching at this point," Dagher said. "Whoever wins will affect the rest of the world as well."
LSA junior Nick Hill, who concentrates in Middle Eastern studies and political science, said he has kept a special focus on international affairs while following the election.
"I think the rhetoric that Obama shows is better towards the Middle East," he said. "They look positively toward Obama and they don't really like the rhetoric Romney shows."
"The U.S. is a major player in world politics," Rackham student Ricky Punzalan said. "I feel like if the wrong person gets the job, it will dictate the future of not only the U.S., but the world stage as well."
When NBC first announced that Obama won re-election, cheers erupted across the room. Students jumped out of their seats, rushing to embrace their fellow supporters with hugs of relief and excitement, or reaching for their phones to compare reactions with friends and relatives.
Across the street, it was difficult to shuffle through the crowd at the State Street Buffalo Wild Wings, where students in the Ford School of Public Policy gathered together to watch the results amid the aroma of teriyaki chicken wings.
At a table in the back of the restaurant, Public Policy senior Matthew Mejia gathered with fellow policy students to await the results. Waitresses bustled in and out to replace plates of wings between cheers for Obama victories.
For Mejia, the electric atmosphere harkened back to the campus excitement of 2008.
"It's a really exciting night and it's a really important night," Mejia said. "You hear the cheers, you hear the boos. If nothing else, you can tell that people care and I think that I think is a really important thing. That is encouraging."
Nearby, Public Policy graduate student Matt Papadopoulos sported a Romney/Ryan sticker as he took in the results.
"Today is an expression of American democracy," Papadopoulos said. "Regardless of what happens, the American people had a chance to voice their opinion and I think that's an important right that we all have and it's exciting to be able to use that and be apart of that process."
Papadopoulos said he is curious to see how the Obama administration tackles national issues over the next few years.
"Washington, D.C. has kind of been at a stalemate for the few years," Papadopoulos said. "Ultimately, we elect our officials regardless of party or where they come from — we elect our officials to do things, not to stop doing things. And really, that's something that I would like to see continue happening, regardless of specifically what ideology that might service to."
— Daily Staff Reporters Tui Rademaker, Danielle Stoppelmann, Stephanie Dilworth and Carly Fromm contributed reporting.
Correction Appended: A previous version of this article said that Proposal 1 passed. It did not.


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One Max, two missions.Learn about our cardiac work at heartsmartekg.orgView our conservation work at maxandthewildthings.comAn
electrocardiogram (also known as EKG or ECG) is a non-invasive test
that measures the electrical activity of the heart and can detect some,
but not all, heart abnormalities leading to sudden cardiac death. An EKG
can sometimes indicate the presence of abnormalities which later
testing determines are within normal limits. There
is no known risk associated with receiving an EKG. There is a
possibility of minor skin irritation and redness where the electrodes
were placed. Students selected by the cardiologist will also receive an echocardiogram on test day at no cost. An echocardiogram is a
non-invasive test that uses sound waves to produce images of the heart.There is no known risk associated with receiving an
echocardiogram.For asymptomatic young adults, we recommend repeating the EKG test every two years.The heart changes over time, and some conditions are progressive and
may not show on an earlier EKG, and there are conditions which do not
manifest on every EKG, so a repeated test better allows capturing these
changes and conditions.Students approved for the free and reduced lunch program at Glenbrook North High School will be tested at no charge.Register early:
All students registered by 10/24/2018will automatically receive a
FREE copy of their EKG by e-mail from the Max Schewitz Foundation.If you
would like a copy after the early registration, there will be a $10
service fee per copy.

subset: commoncrawl


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By Maya Rhodan
NNPA Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON – In many ways, the route Bonita Rex took to college is not unusual. After graduating from high school in 2007, family issues forced her to delay enrolling in college. Two years later, thanks to Pell grants and an improved family situation, she enrolled in the Community College of Philadelphia with a focus on general studies in cultural science and technology.
After Rex earns an Associate degree while holding down two part-time jobs, she plans to complete requirements for a bachelor's degree at California State University.
But recent changes made to Pell grants has Rex, 24, worried that she might not be able to complete her bachelor's degree at Cal State or anywhere else.
The Pell Grant program nearly doubled from assisting about 5 million students in 2009 to 9.4 million students in 2012. The program, which provides low-income students with financial aid they do not have to repay, was projected to face an $18.3 billion shortfall during 2012-2013 academic year because of an increase in need.
In an effort to maintain the maximum grant of $5,550 per academic year, Congress opted to eliminate four qualifications for the program, making an estimated 145,000 students suddenly ineligible for funds. In addition, students are no longer eligible to receive their Pell Grants during the summer semester.
During the 2012-2013 school year, if a student did not have a high school diploma or GED, had a family income of more than $23,000, needed less than 10 percent of the maximum award, or had received a grant for longer than 12 semesters, they were no longer able to receive Pell funds.
"Twelve semesters is kind of slim," says Rex. "It's unfair. They're forcing non-traditional students to rush through our courses so that we have enough money to last through an Associate's, Bachelor's, and potentially a Master's."
After this year, Rex will have completed nine semesters on her Pell Grant, leaving only three to lead her through her studies at her dream school of California State University where she wants to study to become a dietician.
The 1,200 community colleges across the U.S. educate about 8 million students every year, representing almost half of all undergraduate students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Of the nearly 40,000 students enrolled at the Community College of Philadelphia, 56.7 percent are Black. Nationally, 32 percent of community college students are African-American.
About 92 percent of Black students received financial aid during the 2007-2008 school year, 80 percent of which came in the form of grants. Blacks received $4.5 billion in Pell Grant funds during the 2008-2009 school year.
A 2010 Journal of Blacks in Higher Education special report titled, "Pell Grants: The Cornerstone of African-American Higher Education," stated, "The importance of the federal Pell Grant program cannot be overemphasized. This federal grant program for low-income students is the life-blood for hundreds of thousands of African Americans seeking higher education. Without this important program, many black students would not be able to enroll in higher education. Hundreds of thousands of other blacks would have to go deeper into debt or hold down a job while attending college if it were not for the Pell Grant program."
Lezli Baskerville, president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) based in Washington, D.C., says the changes to the financial aid programs that have occurred throughout the past year do not align with the president's plan to have the majority of Americans college-educated by 2020.
"The cumulative impact of the aforementioned within the past year has been nothing short of catastrophic," said Baskerville via email. "As the colleges and universities were developing innovative ways of addressing the challenges created by [the] Great Recession and the economic and financial challenges of the day, they were hit by what I call a 'quintuple whammy,' including shifts in the Pell Grant Program."
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are also feeling the pressure of the changes.
This year, President Obama set a goal of having the majority of Americans college educated by 2020. To meet that goal, HBCUs will need to increase the number of students they graduate per year from 35,000 to more than 57,000 by 2020.
"To reach the goals, approximately 8 million more Americans must attain a 2- or 4-year degree, roughly 2 million more African Americans, 167,000 of whom must graduate from HBCUs," Baskerville said. "They cannot do this without an overhaul of the student financial aid system to invest more equitable and efficiently in expanding excellence, access, success, and diversity in higher education."
In 2010, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 45 percent of Black students enrolled in an institution of higher education had parents with a high school diploma or less. Studies also show that a large number of HBCU students are from low-income families
In 2008, more than 155,000 students at HBCUs received federal Pell Grants—just 10,000 more than the number of those now deemed ineligible for the grants under the new qualifications.
More than half of African American professionals are graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. According to a report by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the majority of HBCUs have student bodies where more than two-thirds of those enrolled are eligible for Pell Grants.
"In spite of these challenges, HBCUs and [Primarily Black Institutions] continue to do the lion's share of educating low-income, first generation, African American and diverse other students in STEM, health processions, teaching professions, and environmental profession," Baskerville added.
According to a study by the United Negro College Fund's Patterson Research Institute, 46 percent of HBCU students come from families with incomes lower than $36,000 and an average of half of all students qualify for Pell Grants.
All but a handful of HBCUs are in the South and that region is also taking a beating.
Schools across the Deep South have also experienced a decline in enrollment this year, which the University of Alabama Education Policy Center attributes to the eliminations made to the Pell Grant program.
In three of the most uneducated and impoverished states in the nation—Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi—just under 250,000 students were awarded Pell Grants to attend public colleges and universities in the 2010-2011 school year.
Two-thirds of the full time community college students in the states are Pell recipients.
According to the report, enrollment decreased at 47 of the 62 two-year colleges in those states during the 2012-2013 academic year, something the authors of the report attribute to the changes made to the Pell Grant program.
"The Deep South states clearly rely on public higher education to educate their citizenry beyond high school," the report reads. "By definition, this means that Pell Grants are vital to enhancing college degree completion in the Deep South, for it is the community colleges where economically disadvantaged students begin higher education."
After a round of changes to the federal Pell Grant program that eliminated assistance to low-income students in an effort to cut costs, the program is expected to have a $9.2 billion surplus at the end of fiscal year 2013.
But students no longer eligible for Pell Grants will have to look elsewhere.
"We can't say that students will choose loans, but they are another option on the plate for them to seek out," says Jennifer Freeman, the director of communications and marketing at Mississippi Valley State. "It's unfortunate as it relates to the cost of education going up, but we try our best to do much as we can."
At Rex's school, enrollment dropped by 4 percent overall and 8 percent among full-time students, which school officials attribute in part to students' Pell Grant funding.
Despite such dips, many students and advocates for Pell Grants remain hopeful about the program's future.
For two semesters, Bonita Rex couldn't afford to buy books for all of her classes when her Pell Grant didn't provide enough and the checks from her two minimum wage jobs couldn't cover the rest. She says without the grant, however, she wouldn't be able to afford school at all.
She says, "My Pell Grant is keeping me here."


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There's going to be an album release party tonight at Le Poisson Rouge. Two groups on the New Amsterdam Records roster, NOW Ensemble and the Chiara String Quartet, are celebrating their respective releases.
Chiara are presenting string quartets by Jefferson Friedman, along with remixes thereof by special guest electronica artists Matmos. Meanwhile, NOW Ensemble presents a mixed program of new synthetists pieces by the likes of Judd Greenstein, Sean Friar, and Missy Mazzoli.
Check out Joshua Frankel's new video Plan of the City below; it will accompany the performance of Greenstein's Change at the gig.
PLAN OF THE CITY from Joshua Frankel on Vimeo.
Event Details
Chiara String Quartet/NOW Ensemble/Matmos
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
Phone: (212) 505-FISH (3474)
Doors open: 6:30
Show starts: 7:30
Tickets: $18


text:
2017 NAAP Board Reports
NAAP 2017 Annual Board Reports
To read more.... The content of this page is limited to NAAP Members only as one of the many benefits of NAAP Membership.
If you wish to become a member and get all these benefits... Join NAAP now. If you're already a member, log in below:


text:
Vertical Cable 500ft 16 Gauge In-Wall Speaker Wire, CL3, 16/2 - White
Vertical Cable 500ft 16 Gauge In-Wall Speaker Wire - Cut and Run
Whether you are a seasoned professional or just trying to think like one, choosing home theater speaker wire often comes down to the classic combination of quality and quantity. Shopping at FireFold means you can find everything you are looking for all at once without a lofty price tag. There are several questions you should be able to answer while shopping for speaker wire. The gauge you need, how much you need, and where you are planning to run the cable all affect which product would best suit your installation. For larger tasks, bulk speaker wire offers the best value. We carry in-wall and outdoor bulk speaker wire in a variety of lengths and gauges.
What's in the Box?
This 500' box of 16 gauge wire is perfect for many projects including surround sound and intercom systems. CL3 in-wall rated, it is designed to meet the National Electrical Codes (NEC) standards for fire safety. A white PVC jacket and stranded copper design means this cable can handle the bends and twists of any indoor installation. It also means this wire is sturdy and protected enough to stand up to countless years of use. How many years? How does a lifetime sound? Every foot of speaker wire in this box comes with FireFold's Signature Lifetime Warranty.
This 16 AWG two-conductor wire is ideal for runs to single speakers or receivers. The polarized wires are color coded in red and black plastic sheaths to make identifying the positives and negatives easy no matter how long the distance. 99.99% oxygen-free copper conductors carry crystal clear sound while reducing the risk of degradation and corrosion over time. The cable jacket and box were both designed with professional usage in mind. Sequential length markings along the cable jacket take the guesswork out of measurements and the pull-through box saves you time by preventing kinks.


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Tuesday, 26 May 2009
(art.inspiration) raquel mazzina
A while back Raquel Mazzina was recommended to me as an artist to watch in an article I wrote for real living. Two years later I'm still loving her bold and brilliantly coloured brush strokes. It's no wonder Raquel cites de Kooning as an inspiration.
Which five words best describe you? Passionate. Determined. Loyal. Playful. Dreamer.
What was your first job and what path have you taken since then? Casual nannying whilst studying Fashion Design, then leaving fashion behind as a career to pursue painting and an artistic career.
What's your proudest achievement? I am not sure that I am able to single one achievement solely as my proudest, rather an accumulation of smaller achievements.
What's been your best decision? Returning to study Fine Arts at the National Art School, Sydney.
What was the starting point for your most recent exhibition? The phenomena of seasonal changes in my surrounding environment.
Who inspires you? All who pursue their dreams.
What are you passionate about? Life and its experiences.
What's the best lesson you've learnt? Never lose hope and consider different perspectives.
Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Goya and de Kooning.
What dream do you still want to fulfil? The next painting.
What are you reading? de Kooning - An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan.
Images courtesy of Raquel Mazzina and Arthouse Gallery
6 comments:
- Kellie Collis said...
The depth in this art is divine. Really beautiful.
- 26 May 2009 at 21:33
- Karen said...
The bright colours and wide brush strokes certainly lift my mood as I gaze at them. Lovely work!
- 27 May 2009 at 01:34
- The Disposable Customer said...
This fantastic art makes me feel restful, yet energetic and lively.
- 28 May 2009 at 00:47
Beautiful! Thanks for this. I love the staccato-feel of the colour. We share some favorite authors-- I am digesting Margaret Atwood's poetry collection, The Door. Have you ever read Shirley Hazzard? She's an Australian writer, and her Great Fire is expertly researched and transformative.
- 28 May 2009 at 15:30
- Sindi Kwenaite said...
I'm a textile designer and these art works remind me of abstract quilts. She has managed to capture a three dimesional quality in her brushstrokes! Amazing. Also love her child like use of colour.
- 28 May 2009 at 21:14
- ticklishfromadistance said...
Gorgeous, gorgeous work!!!
- 30 May 2009 at 07:05
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Google has agreed before a court in Delhi to remove religious and other content considered objectionable, though some other Internet firms are likely to appeal the court's decision, plaintiff Mufti Ajiaz Arshad Qasmi said on Monday.
Qasmi, a private citizen, had filed a civil suit against Google and other Internet companies including Facebook, objecting to certain content on their websites. The content is said to mock gods worshipped in India. He is now pressing the companies to put in place technology for filtering out content that is considered objectionable.
"This step is in accordance with Google's long-standing policy of responding to court orders," a Google spokeswoman in India said.
India has been sensitive to certain political and religious content on websites, and the country's minister for communications, Kapil Sibal, said in December that Internet companies should evolve a mechanism to remove objectionable content immediately after it is put up.
Google told the court of civil judge Praveen Singh that it had already removed some of the objectionable content, and promised to remove the remaining content pointed out by Qasmi in the 15 days given to it and other Internet companies to take down the content, Qasmi said.
In a separate criminal suit filed in Delhi by a newspaper editor, Vinay Rai, against objectionable content on websites of 21 Internet companies including Google and Facebook, Google India has argued that it is not responsible for third-party content, and in any case the sites are not owned and operated by Google India but its parent company, Google Inc.
The government allowed the court to prosecute the Internet companies under various Indian laws in the criminal case, but Google has meanwhile appealed the decision before the Delhi High Court.
"They are saying a different thing before each court," Rai said on Monday. "In the civil matter they have agreed to remove the content, which they had refused to remove in the criminal court."
The criminal case, however, holds Google responsible for the third-party content, and also named its officials as liable, said a person close to the situation, who declined to be named. The civil case is entirely about removal of certain content, the person added.
Google said last month it was directing users to localized country domains on Blogger to provide it flexibility to comply with content removal rules in various countries. Twitter also decided last month to withhold certain content from users in a specific country, when required by local laws, while keeping it available to the rest of the world.


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A few weeks ago the "fans of norah gaughan" group on Ravelry reached 2000 members, which I declared cause for celebration. I asked the members for celebratory suggestions. Someone suggested a KAL and someone else requested a new pattern just for the group. So, I decided to make a new pattern for the occasion and the knit along has begun. I'll be posting all of the information here – you don't even have to belong to Ravelry. Why wouldn't you want to though? It's so much fun to see what other knitters are doing, and of course, if you need help, you have a built in and experienced support group.
NOTE: THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE DESIGNER INSTRUCTIONS – THERE MAY BE MISTAKES! I'll correct mistakes as they are brought to my attention. I'm not knitting this one, the members of the Ravelry group are my test knitters (or is it guinea pigs) 🙂
First, the schematic, in 7 sizes:
A fun way to test your gauge is to knit the wedge scarf, free pattern on the Berroco web site.
Now, to get started:
scarf as gauge:
40 sts seven and a half " across widest point
40 sts = a generous 7" in garter st
size 5 needle 3.75mm
5.75 sts = 1″
23 sts & 32 rows = 4″ (10 cm)
garter st 23 sts = 4"
Wegette cardigan"skirt"
Cast on 68(70-70-72-74-74-76)sts
Wedge with garter:
Knit 12 rows. Purl one row.
Short row lace wedge (starts on a RS):
1&2 – (Yo, p2tog) to the end, turn
repeat rows 1 &2 4 times more (10 rows total)
3&4 – (Yo, p2tog) 32 times, turn
5&6 – (Yo, p2tog) 24 times, turn
7&8 – (Yo, p2tog) 16 times, turn
9&10 – (Yo, p2tog) 8 times, turn
Knit 12 rows.
Stockinette st Separator: Work 1.75(2-2.25-2.5-2.75-3-3.25)" in stst (starts and ends with a RS row).
Work wedge with garter and separator 4 times more, then work wedge once more, Binding off on last row of garter st. (last knit row).


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The Vampire Diaries Season 4 Episode 5 recap
I was watching something else last night when a commercial for The Vampire Diaries in syndication came on -- you know, just all kisses and quick cuts and good lines -- and I realized how much I miss Katherine. All that sass and a real willingness to get into trouble and curly hair.
And then I realized that maybe that's the road we're on right now.
It's been a long time coming, figuring out who Elena could be with her new persona, but watching her jones for blood from the vein and have difficulty with the transition made the angst of things more exciting. Stefan was the one reminding us that if Elena changed, she'd never be the same, booo hooo hoooooo.
But I am so into the fact that Elena is showing us she's made of stronger stuff. As she took Damon down (onto the bed, where she wound up straddling him, which is one of those things that's such an obvious move that absolutely nobody is ever going to complain about ), he said the best line of the episode, right? "For someone who doesn't want to be me, you're sure good at it."
This is what we've been told over and over and over. Elena is more like Damon. Much more. She's adaptable and she can enjoy a wide range of people and she can recover from all kinds of tragedy – we've watched her. All she needs is a dude who believes in her and a bunch of friends and she's good.
But this is the problem. Stefan doesn't believe in her. Stefan wants to cure her so bad because he thinks she won't be able to handle it when she kills someone, by which of course he means he won't be able to handle it. Whereas Damon finally, finally says in so many words that he's fine with Elena any which way (…no kidding) so anything he does to help is for Stefan. This is so obviously what is going to make him win. Damon wins. Loving the girl the way she is is always the win.
But let's not kid ourselves -- that's for end-of-season or next year. For now, we get to watch Elena as she sees her own words come true. "I'm dangerous too", she spits, and for once it doesn't seem like you want to pat her on the head. I'm sorry, but I was happy when she snapped dude's neck, because she didn't agonize over it. Does that make me a sociopath? Probably, right? But she did something because it needed to be done and it could be done (and in the grander scheme of things if you believe in self-defense, it was kill or be killed). Isn't that kind of the definition of maturity?
I've said before that I never thought I could get this involved in a show about vampires. But they're setting up a really nice conflict. Can a man who was so invested in the fact that this girl was a virgin deal with the fact that she's a fully formed sexual being with desires and talents, and can he love her as an adult? Is that what she will want? Or will she choose the man who loves her always, no matter what? It's kind of amazing how simple it is when you boil it down, right? There I go with the subtext again, but honestly, this is a lot of what this is about, and it makes me feel justified in how I've always felt – that Stefan is a creep.
Speaking of men and the choices they make, I'm glad the show is reaffirming my belief that Tyler Lockwood is still a bit of a player. I am happy as long as Caroline is happy because she is the beginning and the end of sunshine in Mystic Falls, but did we really think he was going to be without reproach? Hayley is annoying (and how come everyone in the world decided to name the brunettes on TV this fall "Hayley'"), and way, way too superior, but it's probably because she knows the truth about Tyler and partly pities the innocence that is Caroline. I mean, she's another one who's going to deal with some changes sometime soon if she gets an idea of what's really going on, but I only forsee her getting more Caroline, you know? I don't see her going down the rabbit hole. Maybe that's naïve.
At this point I would like to give thanks for the relative lack of Klaus in this episode, and for the second week in a row, give thanks for the lack of Klaus in Caroline's life. I know he's a necessary evil, sort of, but he got cartoonish for me a long time ago, and now that he's sort of faffing around whining about hybrids, he seems even more pointless. Also, this may be something I've missed in vampire lore, but um…why do they have to take planes?
Bonnie and Jeremy. Not a couple I ever understood, not a romance I ever believed. In fact, I think those two are mainly about feeling equally left out. But as Bonnie gets romanced by a witch-fetishist vampire-hunter and Jeremy wears the mark now that Connor is dead, it kind of seems as though they might have more in common, doesn't it? I could be wrong, and I could be offending all of you forever, but it seems to me that Bonnie's being groomed to turn against her friends – something that's been brewing at least half a year. Everything she does is anti-everything witches want. Hypnotism and trances and lighting candles are one thing, but she's continually saving the lives of those who should have died. She's messing with the order of things.
And Elena and her friends will always want and need that to be the case, and Bonnie's instincts will always tell her it's the wrong thing to do, and isn't this when sh-t gets real? When you have to look at your friends and wonder whether it was all just pretend?
Also, showrunner Julie Plec squealed on Twitter last night because of this, just in case you thought it was getting a little too heavy in here:


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Matt Barrett.Net
I wanted MattBarrett.com but it was taken. It was not even taken by another Matt Barrett but by someone who thinks I am famous enough to want to buy my domain name and sell it back to me for a million dollars. It's called cyber-squatting. So I e-mailed this person and they never responded. I suppose that means that I am not famous enough so that he can sell my name for a million dollars and he is going to wait until I get more famous. So until I make enough money to buy the domain mattbarrett.com I am using mattbarrett.net as a sort of index for people to find my travel websites and some of the other projects I am involved in. By the way that is my daughter Amarandi in the photo. She is now 19 years old and I am still not famous enough to buy mattbarrett.com for a million dollars. So most likely I will be mattbarrett.net forever. Well at least it is not mattbarrett.info or mattbarrett.tv so things could be worse. If you have any questions you can e-mail me at email@example.com
Index of Matt's Sites
The reason I am famous enough to attract cybersquatters is because of my Greece Travel Guides which have been readby about a million people a year. In fact if every person who used my Greece Travel Guides last year had sent me a dollar I could probably buy Mattbarrett.com and not be stuck on the humiliating Mattbarrett.net. But if you are planning to go to Greece in the near or distant future or you just like to look at cool travel stuff on the web because it makes you feel like you have actually gone somewhere then visit my Greece Travel Guides at www.greecetravel.com
Yes I know that for a lot of people Athens is no longer on their top-10 places to visit, mostly because of the financial crisis and the perception that it is a nasty place where people just riot and burn and fight with the police. But Athens is a big place with a lot to offer in the way of archaeological sites, museums, wonderful restaurants, beaches, and all sorts of things you don't see on CNN. Despite the economic hardship the people are going through now, tourists are still coming to Athens and enjoying themselves either on the way to and from the islands, or because they just want to go to Athens. So whether you want to visit Athens or not visit my Athens Survival Guide at www.athensguide.com
Lesvos: More Than Just Another Greek Island:
The island of Lesvos, in the North Aegean is about ten kilometers off the coast of Turkey and is one of the most beautiful and interesting islands in Greece. It could be a country all it's own were it not so culturally tied to the Greek mainland. It has some of the best beaches in Greece and probably the freshest and most inexpensive seafood in Greece and they claim the best olive oil in Greece. It is also the bird-watching capital of southern Europe and in spring the migrating birds and wildflowers make it seem like paradise. People thought it odd that I would devote so much effort to making a website for one island but fifteen years later I have received hundreds of e-mails from people who used my advice and visited an island they had never heard of, and loved it. Many go back every year now. See www.lesvos.com
|See Spearfishing in Skatahori
This is a website I did wth my friend Stephen Papadopoulos, a Greek-American poet who splits time between Paris and Athens. I discovered a great way to break up the 9 hour flight from NY to Athens was to spend several days in Paris. While this site is not as popular as my Greece websites there is a lot of good information, some nice photos and some excellent travel writing, mostly by Stephen though each time I go and add a little more of my writing and my photos. It may not be the best guide to Paris but it is free and it is good enough and it covers the basics. After your tenth trip or so you might want to move on to something more complete but if this is your first trip you will never know that I don't know everything. See www.aparisguide.com
I began this site when I went to the beach and tried out a new digital camera. The photos looked pretty good so I made a page for them and then thought that since I spend much of the year in North carolina, why not make a travel guide for the state like my Greece Travel Guides. The first thing I did was write about the music of North Carolina and most people say that this is the best part of my guide, but if you want to visit North carolina you may find the whole thing pretty useful. Actually North Carolina is the 6th most popular tourist destination in the USA and has islands and mountains, like Greece, though not together, being on opposite sides of the state. But the roads are better than in Greece. In fact they are probably the best in the USA. See www.northcarolinatravels.com
When I visited Chicago Illinois a couple summer ago for the Taste of Greece food festival I really did not know much about the city. What I discovered is that Chicago is an amazingly beautiful place. Lake Michigan reminded me of the Aegean Sea and not only that but there were Greeks everywhere. It was the Greekest place I have ever been besides Greece. So I took about a thousand photographs and put together a Guide to Chicago, which has a slightly Greek slant. So if you can't make it to Greece this summer then why not go to Chicago. Or at least visit my Chicago Guide at www.mattbarrett-travel.com/chicago
Once I finally visited Istanbul, Turkey I had to ask myself what took me so long. Istanbul was one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to and the people were extraordinarily nice. So of course I had to put together a website about it and to help me with the rest of Turkey I solicited the help of some very wise friends who know the country way better than I do. But this site should continue to grow as I plan to return there as often as possible. You can see my Guide to Turkey at www.greecetravel.com/turkey
Several years ago I put together this website on Greek Food, comprised mainly (completely actually) of articles about food from my Greece Travel Guide. The plan was to have one central location that had all my information about Greek food. But as the site seemed to gain in popularity I began to feel guilty about how much of the information on the site could also be found on other pages of my website. Sort of like turning in the same book report or term paper year after year because you have different teachers or switch schools. So I made up my mind that one day I was going to make this website a guide to Greek food that would stand on its own. But what do I know about Greek food besides how to eat it? As it turns out: alot. See www.greecefoods.com
AMARANDI BARRETT'S GREECE 4 KIDSMy daughter Amarandi has put together her own travel guide to Greece called GREECEJUST FOR KIDS. If you are thinking of going to Greece and you have kids that are not yet as enthused as you are about the prospects of a vacation thousands of miles away in a land they have never been to and maybe not even heard of, send them here. Amarandi did most of the writing from the age of 8 until 12 and then she sort of lost interest in it. She is nineteen and in university now but for thousands of children around the world who use her site Amarandi is still around 12 years old and she still gets e-mail from children who want to be her pen pal. You can see her website at www.greece4kids.com


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Specifications of Churidar Leggings 3 PCs Combo Pack CYG
Fabric: 95% Cotton , 5% Spandex
Colour Combo: Cream Natural/Bright Yellow/D.Green
Shasaa Leggings - knitted fabric with an elasticated waistband. This soft, stretch-blend pair feels luxurious against your skin. Skin-friendly fabric, fast colour that never fades away in normal wash (easy wash), bubble free fabric and comes with high quality stitching. Specially processed for shrinkage control. Styled pattern and perfect fit to give maximum free movement. Cut to size for better body Shape.
It's a 3 PCs Combo Pack
Note :Colors of the product might appear slightly different on digital devices.


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The NFL easily passed its controversial crown-of-the-helmet hit rule Wednesday, banning a runner or tackler from delivering a blow with his helmet against an opponent when outside the tackle box.
It's exactly the type of blow Cleveland Browns running back Trent Richardson delivered last season on Kurt Coleman, separating the Philadelphia Eagles safety from his helmet.
The hit became Exhibit A in the NFL's explanation of why a change was necessary. The rule passed by a 31-1 vote, with only the Cincinnati Bengals saying no.
"I feel like I made it bad for all the backs," Richardson told The Plain Dealer on Wednesday. "I feel like it's my fault."
It's an interesting choice of words by Richardson. He feels its his fault the NFL instituted a rule that's meant to improve the safety of the players. Such is the complicated process of trying to make professional football less violent.
"I keep hearing people call it the T-Rich Rule," Richardson said. "I guess I made some history today."
If Richardson is lucky, that won't be the totality of his NFL legacy.


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Observers estimate 40 percent of identified Lithuanian trafficking victims are women and girls subjected to sex trafficking within the country. Lithuanian women are also subjected to sex trafficking in Western Europe and Scandinavia. Having grown up in a state-run children's home, Loreta was prostituted from age 15 to age 19 by a man who claimed to be her Godfather. After escaping her abusers, she lived at the Klaipeda Social and Psychological Services Center in Lithuania for a year, where she was provided with holistic survivor-oriented services to help her regain control of her life.
I was born near the Lithuania–Latvia border. Since my alcoholic parents were incapable of caring for me, social workers sent me to a state-run children's home. My seven brothers and six sisters were also sent to group homes, scattered across the country.
Growing up in a children's home was really tough. We often tried to run away. The wardens treated us badly and beat us heavily for any perceived misdeed. Unhappy and depressed, I started smoking opium when I was 13 years old. We couldn't wait until we turned 15 and could legally leave the home. At that time, the Soviet Union assigned newly emancipated children a foster parent until they turned 18 years old.
The only person who ever visited me was a man who claimed to be my godfather. He already had two foster children and told me I could live with him when I turned 15. All my friends thought I was very lucky and special. One day, however, when I was 13, he raped me. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't think anyone would believe me. Everyone at the home said, "You are lucky you have someone who will take care of you when you leave." They didn't understand why I kept saying that I never, ever wanted to live with the man.
When my 15th birthday finally arrived, I was very relieved because I thought nobody would ever again have the right to hurt me, boss me around, or punish me. I left the home without any idea that this was only the beginning of a very difficult road.
I was sent against my will to live with my godfather and began to consume more opium. Shortly after my 16th birthday, a 21-year-old woman named Dana introduced herself to me as my sister. She treated me more like an acquaintance than a sibling, but I figured it was because we'd spent so much time apart. I hoped we would grow closer. Whenever I visited her apartment, there were many young women there who drank a lot and talked about going "to the bar to hook up with some studs." I thought their language was interesting but didn't understand what they meant. A couple of months later, my sister asked me if I had any girlfriends my age and I said I did. She didn't mention my girlfriends again for a long time.
One day, Dana asked if she could drop by my place to see how I lived. She came with her friend and inspected how my four friends and I lived. We had no idea that they had visited us to secretly decide if we were fit for prostitution. We had never heard of "human trafficking" because everyone in the Soviet Union was fed propaganda that claimed that "life is beautiful."
The next night Dana invited me and my two friends over to her apartment—even specifying the name of the friends I should bring—and promised to pay for our taxi. When we got there, we saw three more girls our age and seven Greek men speaking in English, drinking alcohol, talking and laughing. My sister and her friend told to us to chat with them, but I told them that we didn't feel comfortable meeting the men whom we didn't understand. Dana grew angry and demanded we talk to them. She said we owed her friend money for the taxi ride that she had promised to pay for. She asked me if I really didn't understand where I was and what we were expected to do. I had no idea. That's when Dana explained she'd invited us over to sell our bodies. She told us that we would be prostitutes from now on. My friends and I were shocked and refused, but my sister's friend threatened to call "the gang" if we continued to refuse to pay for the taxi and sell ourselves. She told us that the gang would beat us, rape us, and bury us alive in the woods. My friends and I started crying. I told Dana that I didn't understand how she could do this to her sister. From that day on, Dana was no longer my sister but my madam.
That night after I sold my body, I felt repulsed. I wouldn't get out of the shower until I washed everything away. I felt so humiliated. I heard my friends crying too.
I was in prostitution from age 15 to 19. My friends and I lived in one apartment with the madam. When we had clients, taxi drivers would call and she would tell us to get ready. The clients waited in bars, nightclubs or hotels. Sometimes, we brought them to our apartment. We worked from 4pm till late night or early morning with three to four clients a day. Sometimes we used condoms, but sometimes we didn't. Most of the clients were foreigners who didn't speak my language and didn't care about my age. I didn't know how to contact the police and I didn't know if the police would even care. I wanted to run away, but was scared the gang would find me and kill me. My self-loathing grew, so I began injecting myself with drugs. I tried to numb myself from the pain so I wouldn't feel anything at all.
When I turned 17, the madam told us that a pimp was selling us abroad. One girl was sold in Poland, two in Budapest, and the rest of us were taken to Ravenna, Italy. When we arrived, we were sold to men whose language we didn't understand. They took us to a brothel filled with women aged 14-32, trafficked from Belorussia, Poland, and Lithuania. We had to take care of our clients in the public restrooms within 15 minutes. Pimps prevented us from escaping and used violence to force us to work in the streets.
After two weeks in Italy, I had an older client who understood Lithuanian. I took a risk and begged for his help. His friend took my friends and me to the Italian police. I was so surprised by how well the police treated us. They helped us get documentation so we could return to Lithuania and helped us change our names and appearances so the pimps couldn't find us. We were sent to an Italian organization that worked with victims of human trafficking and were granted refugee status. We spent around four months in protective custody until our identification documents were sorted out and then were brought to Vilnius, Lithuania where social workers took care of us. We lived there for about a year. A social worker worked with me a lot and helped me realize how I had been exploited.
As I struggled to rebuild my life, I realized that I didn't have any chance of supporting myself with only a ninth grade education, so I started making and selling drugs. Then, I met the man who would father my first child. After I got pregnant, I stopped the drugs. I tried to take care of my child and was moved from place to place. Over the years, I had three other children with different men. I really love my children and I live only for them, but I do not love their fathers. I realize that I cannot keep a long-term relationship with any man, probably because I hate how men have treated me.
When people ask me what I think about prostitution, I tell them that I sympathize with women who are trying to provide for their children and have no other option. I knew a woman whose pimp controlled her access to her children. She was scared to death and had no choice but to stay with her pimp. Many girls stay in prostitution just so they can buy drugs, but the majority of them only became drug addicts to escape their terrible lives. I think the pimps should be gunned down, so that none of them are left on this earth. Maybe that would put an end to human trafficking and prostitution. As for myself, I hope to help children who are vulnerable, children who might fall prey to pimps. I live for these children and for my own four children.
As told to Equality Now


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On May 5, 2007, Oscar De La Hoya, long diminished but still the most popular boxer since Mike Tyson, climbed into the ring to face a highly skilled, undefeated 30-year-old champion named Floyd Mayweather for the WBC light middleweight title of the world.
Mayweather vs. De La Hoya had been billed as the biggest main event since De La Hoya fought Felix Trinidad back in 1999, and to promote the fight, HBO created a landmark documentary show called 24/7 that followed both boxers as they prepared for the upcoming fight. It's easy to forget now that we've suffered through our fourth or fifth bout of Floyd fatigue, but the first season of 24/7 was the first public unveiling of "Money" as the big-bet-placing, father-haranguing, hardworking persona that has helped turn Floyd Mayweather into the best-paid athlete in the world. Between the airing of the first 24/7 and now, De La Hoya, who was known as much for his saccharine, omnipresent smile and his bad singing as his inspired, brutal superfights, would open up and talk about his struggles with substance abuse, depression, and the falsity of the Golden Boy persona that had made him a multimillionare. In that first season of 24/7, we saw Oscar's first cracks. A change was in order. Long before the opening bell — around the time we first saw 50 Cent on 24/7 — Floyd Mayweather became the new face of boxing.
The fight itself proved underwhelming. After 12 rounds, the judges awarded Mayweather a split-decision victory. The fight broke the record for the biggest live gate at a boxing match as well as the record for the most pay-per-view buys. De La Hoya earned a record $52 million. Nineteen months later, De La Hoya quit on the stool against Manny Pacquiao.
In defeat, Oscar De La Hoya created boxing's two biggest stars. Once he hung up the gloves and came to terms with the passing of his own legacy, Oscar De La Hoya went looking for the next Oscar De La Hoya.
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, redheaded Mexican, teenage heartthrob, and the 23-year-old light middleweight champion of the world, cannot dance. I am not talking about dancing in boxing terms here. I am talking instead about the ranchera and norteño music blasting through the speakers in Shane Mosley's gym in Big Bear, California, and Canelo, hands on hips, clunking around the ring on lead feet, a rare smile spreading across his stony face. I try not to make too much of this. The history of boxing writing has been littered with hundreds of diagnoses made by overzealous reporters on the lookout for any small detail that might give their readers some insight into the upcoming fight. And so, while no one can deny the badness of Canelo's dancing or help but feel a tinge of aesthetic offense at every misstep, every stomped-on beat, every awkward bounce of the shoulder, let's focus instead on some (arguably) objective positives. Canelo can really punch. He beat Austin Trout, who beat Miguel Cotto, who gave Floyd Mayweather his toughest test since Jose Luis Castillo back in 2002 …
But what's uglier in life than a bad, confident dancer? Canelo's badness overwhelms, and I go back to scribbling notes about cement feet and a straight bludgeoning of rhythm. You watch the so-called future of boxing as he clomps around to ranchera in Seahawk green shoes and Under Armour everything in Shane Mosley's gym, surrounded by posters of Shane's great fights, and you see bright-green heavy feet thudding around and try to convince yourself that you're watching Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya rolled into one.
In the oft-brilliant but borderline irresponsible The Devil and Sonny Liston, Nick Tosches punctuates a 250-page-long rant about boxing's toughest fall guy with the following exclamation: "Fuck this shit — adjournment for dick in the midst of this ever more precipitous and perplexing narrative. Let's talk cock. Let's talk all sorts of shit."
It's a moment of frustration for Tosches (one of many), where he clears away the task of accumulating facts and making his controversial argument (Liston threw the first fight against Ali) and cuts a path straight to what Nick Tosches finds interesting about Sonny Liston.
In that spirit, let's start with hair. It's true, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, light middleweight champion of the world, has red hair. This is unusual for a Mexican. Every conversation about Canelo starts and ends with red hair and he must know how hair opens up a back door to discuss the real issue: His very, very good looks. So, let's talk hair and let's talk square chins and broad shoulders and a face of mean, compact symmetries that evoke Marky Mark during the underwear period. Let's talk Televisa, the Mexican network with dozens of beautiful news anchors, telenovela actors, and the TV home for the entire Canelo Alvarez media empire. Let's talk about why boxing needs Canelos and the decade-long search by Oscar De La Hoya for the next Oscar De La Hoya. Let's talk about the biggest hype job since Gerry Cooney and how a 23-year-old boxer from Guadalajara has simultaneously become the Great Mexican Hope, the Great White Hope, and the Great White Mexican Hope.
We have to talk about all these things because Canelo won't say much. I first met him in the flora-stuffed, starched-linen breakfast room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Mexico City. We sat with two of Canelo's brothers and a PR rep/translator. Canelo wore a shiny purple polka-dot shirt and well-tailored slacks. His brothers, hulking brutes with bulbous foreheads and vague, threatening demeanors, had dressed themselves in soft leather jackets and brightly colored high-end designer sports shirts. As a trio, they looked like the ruin of many a Vegas bachelorette party. For 15 minutes, I asked Canelo a list of questions through a translator. Canelo stared ahead into space, waiting for his oldest brother to tell a joke, any joke, which he unfailingly found hilarious. Between jokes, Canelo ate his eggs, slowly and methodically, one of those weird eaters who does not compromise his posture while at the table so that every fork's journey from the plate to the mouth has to be executed with exact precision.
This sort of passive-aggressive non-engagement is par for the course in interviews with professional athletes. Fighters, however, tend to be a bit looser with their words — all boxers dream of Ali and so all boxers talk, mostly stupidly and rarely poetically, about themselves. But Canelo is not some kid off the streets of Cincinnati or East Los Angeles or Philadelphia whose tenure in the spotlight will last exactly as long as he can stay upright in the ring. Canelo is an industry now, and industries succeed by not talking.
So here's what we know: Saul "Canelo" Alvarez was born in 1990 and grew up in Jalisco, Mexico, the youngest of eight children. His official creation myth reads about as apocryphally as most boxers' creation myths: Canelo claims to have been bullied as a child for his pale skin and his red hair. At some point, like all great champions, he started fighting back and found that he had the heart of a true champion. Or whatever. More likely, Canelo, whose six older brothers all boxed professionally, would have been in the gym, regardless, and in the interviews in which he explains this perseverance against bullying, it's Canelo who comes across as the violent, unyielding, and nasty kid. Regardless of the source, Canelo's fighting confidence served him well in his youth. After a successful amateur career, Canelo turned pro at the age of 16 and quickly built up the sort of résumé that fits a young, handsome contender. His first 12 opponents, fought over the course of approximately 19 months, had a combined record of 16-27. He went 11-0-1 during this period, with 10 fights ended by knockout. None of this is unusual. Promising fighters, especially 15-year-olds, must be built carefully. Televisa, one of the most watched TV networks in all of Latin America, took notice and began to build up the Canelo brand, mostly on the oddity of his red hair and his movie star good looks.
Then came a string of opponents who were one or two degrees from respectability. Canelo fought Miguel Cotto's older, much smaller brother, who almost knocked Canelo out in the first round. He knocked out a dried-up corpse who was calling himself Carlos Baldomir. He won a decision against Ricky Hatton's younger brother. He beat the dude who came in third place on the reality show The Contender. As his star rose in these arguably competitive fights, Canelo was offered his own telenovela (he turned it down) and dated a former Miss Universe turned Televisa star named Marisol Gonzalez. His personality during this time never changed — he was the muttering, work-is-life athlete, the stone-faced, handsome prodigy who never said much of anything. News would pop up here and there about trouble back home in Jalisco. In 2012, Canelo's brother was accused of murdering a rival in Mexico. In April of this year, before the Trout fight, Archie Solis, a boxer who fought at 108 pounds, accused Canelo of attacking him outside a nightclub. Of course, this news was mostly swept under the rug by the television networks who carried Canelo's fights. And because anyone who shows up on TV enough times can simply point to his television appearances as the evidence of his wild popularity, Canelo Alvarez was whatever Televisa, HBO, or Showtime said he was.
What Televisa and HBO and Showtime said was this: Saul "Canelo" Alvarez is a boxer. He has red hair. And he is popular. He is a good boxer, which makes him wildly popular back in Mexico, where he is known for his red hair.
You don't need much else to create an icon these days. Hair is almost always enough.
What else do we know? We know he can't dance, either in the ring or at the club. We know he fights in a plodding, heavy-handed style that wouldn't look so bad if Canelo were fighting 20, maybe 30 pounds heavier. We know he has improved over the past two years — against Austin Trout, he exhibited flashes of defense in the pocket (although, to be fair, the new and much-discussed Canelo-wiggle only came out after Trout had proven himself completely unable to hurt Alvarez); against a gassed-up Josesito Lopez, he showed gut-busting power, especially to the body. We know he throws precise, devastating punches. And we know he has no real shot against Floyd Mayweather, but we also know that nobody in the world, save maybe a Klitschko, has any chance against Floyd Mayweather.
For the six days prior to our interview in the Four Seasons, Team Canelo traveled from New York to Washington, D.C., to Grand Rapids to Chicago to Atlanta to Miami to Mexico City. In each of these places, Canelo walked out onto a stage and nuzzled up nose-to-nose to Floyd Mayweather. During all this intense cuddling, Canelo must have learned exactly what Floyd's upper lip smelled like, as well as his clavicle, his forehead. We were in Mexico City for yet another press conference, the only one to take place south of the border. So if Canelo seemed a bit tired of the press, I certainly understood. How many times can a man say "This is a big fight and I will try my hardest and I believe in my heart that I will win and shock all the so-called experts"?
Getting nowhere, I just tossed out the questions I never expected to get answered. "Canelo, how much of your success do you attribute to Televisa? How do you respond to the ongoing criticism here in Mexico that you are a media creation, a TV idol?" His eyes narrowed and he finally looked away from his brothers, although not directly at me. Instead, he fixed his gaze on a spot on the ground and muttered his answer to the translator. "What am I supposed to do?" the translator relayed. "A fighter has to be on television, right? How can I fight on television without being on television?"
After breakfast, we rode in an armored motorcade with a police escort from the Four Seasons to the Monumento a los Niños Héroes, a memorial in Chapultepec dedicated to six teenage soldiers who died at the hands of U.S. soldiers during the Mexican-American War. The organizers had promised a massive gala with more than 30,000 screaming fans, and although the event ultimately fell well short of the hype, you would never have known it from the police presence interspersed among the ancient trees and fenced-off walkways of Chapultepec. Those of us in the press corps went back and forth on exactly how many cops there were, and we came to the following conclusions: There were somewhere between 400 and 1,000 men and women in police uniforms and at least 80 percent of those might not actually be real police officers, but instead might be people hired off the streets to provide a visual threat against a crowd that never showed up. By any fair estimate, about 5,000 people came to the event, an estimate that includes the cops, 100 press members, roughly 75 PR professionals, and about 50 Corona girls.
After Canelo and Floyd both said their bits about being the best and how excited they were about the fight and how they both felt ready to take boxing to the next level, after they stood nose-to-nose for the ninth or 10th or 11th time, and after they both signed about a hundred autographs each, many of them made out to cops, the Canelo show moved down the plaza to a bright-blue ring that had been set up by Corona, the fight's sponsor. There, we encountered about 200 selfie-ing fans and a legion of young, shirtless redheaded Mexican kids who jumped around and waved oversize Corona blue boxing gloves in the air. The Canelettes, I guess.
What had gone wrong? HBO, Golden Boy Promotions, and now Showtime had been telling us for the past five years that Canelo Alvarez was the Mexican Elvis, that his popularity in Mexico transcended sports. We were told stories about screaming women rending their blouses and offering themselves up to the redheaded one who would fulfill the wayward prophecy of Salvador Sanchez. Where was #CaneloNation?
The next morning, several news and television outlets reported that 32,000 fans had shown up for the event.
If you ever travel to Mexico City, make sure to visit the bookstores. There are almost no self-help or diet sections, no food porn, no reprinted covers taken from movie posters. Instead, you'll find shelves of thoughtfully published literary works that can only find a home here in the United States through small, literary presses like New Directions or the New York Review of Books.
Esquina Boxeo comes out of this serious literary tradition. Printed on a broadsheet and beautifully illustrated, the magazine publishes essays on boxing that go far beyond the usual pound-for-pound lists and promotional fluff. I met Mauricio Salvador and Rodrigo Marquez Tizano, two of Esquina Boxeo's editors, at a party in La Roma, and at around two in the morning, they started talking about why nobody had shown up at the Monumento a los Niños Héroes. Part of the problem was Floyd. The overwhelming majority of champions who occupy boxing's middleweight classes are either Mexican or won their belt by fighting a lot of Mexicans. Manny Pacquiao, for example, fought Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, and Juan Manuel Marquez, three of Mexico's all-time greats, a total of nine times. Floyd, for his part, came to prominence by humiliating Diego Corrales, Arturo Gatti, and ultimately Oscar De La Hoya. "Mexican fans don't really know much about Floyd," Salvador explained. "He's never fighting Mexican fighters so he's not on television much."
Floyd's problems in Mexico extend beyond his fight history. He is a technician, one of the finest the sport has ever seen, and although American television networks tend to overstate the importance and the ubiquity of the "Mexican fighting spirit," it's true that the country's great champions have all displayed a willingness to toss away technique and patience whenever a fight demands a more dramatic sort of machismo. "We understand Floyd is talented," Salvador said, "and we understand he is an expert boxer. But we are not a country who values expertise above all other things."
"We are a country of dilettantes," Salvador continued. "We need to believe that courage and heart can overwhelm precision. The most popular Mexican boxers, even if they are, in fact, skilled, still have to show that spirit. Floyd, even if he is great, does not inspire people here."
Salvador and Tizano placed the rest of the blame for the lack of attendance at the rally on Canelo and the gap between his actual popularity in Mexico City and what Televisa and the American television networks would have you believe about a redheaded superstar who supposedly cannot walk 20 feet without being mobbed by beautiful, crazed women and adoring, usually macho men who nod, grimly, and acknowledge that the sex god of Mexico has arrived. Through creative marketing and cheap ticket prices, Canelo has been able to draw a crowd whenever he fights in the United States, whether in Las Vegas or in San Antonio, but opinion remains split in Mexico, particularly in Mexico City, where many fight fans see him as nothing more than another Televisa creation, as vacuous and substance-free as the slew of hypersexualized, Jessica Rabbit TV personalities who read the news and conduct interviews for the network.
Canelo has been pegged as the next Julio Cesar Chavez, the great hero of Mexican boxing, and his promoters will point to the fact that he will be going into the fight of his career at the age of 23, a full three years younger than the age at which Chavez first fought Hector "Macho" Camacho. They will point out, of course, that Canelo's popularity has transcended the sport. Both these assertions are largely irrelevant and a bit apocryphal. It's true that Canelo has reached the pinnacle of boxing at a young age, but who put him there? As for Chavez, the comparison is ridiculous. "I think it's very difficult for any fighter to achieve a popularity level near that of Chavez," Tizano explained. "Even when Chavez had a lot of easy fights to pump up his record, he still involved himself in the politics of the time — he had gas stations when Pemex (the largest gasoline distributor in Mexico) was involved in a lot of frauds. He brought huge crowds to the Azteca for every brawl. Canelo, as of two years ago, was still giving away four-for-one tickets in Plaza Mexico."
"But," Tizano continued, "if Canelo beats Mayweather, he will have lived up to all the Televisa hype. Can you imagine it?"
In this way, Canelo represents a protected gamble for Televisa, Golden Boy Promotions, and Showtime. If he somehow wins, boxing has its new crossover star and Canelo-Mayweather II and Canelo-Mayweather III are as good as booked. If Canelo loses — and he will almost certainly lose — what, really, has been lost? There will be others.
La Romanza gym in Mexico City is nothing more than two white brick rooms and a modest, windowed office where Nacho Beristain, one of the great trainers in boxing history, sits amid a clutter of old, battered objects. Photos of Daniel Zaragosa, Gilberto Roman, and Juan Manuel Marquez hang from the walls. A placard from the Boxing Hall of Fame sits squarely above Beristain's beat, leather chair. Like all boxing gyms worth a damn, La Romanza smells of sweat and blood — you could detonate the place and build a condo in its stead and whatever lofty, airy space replaced La Romanza would probably smell like the inside of a boxing glove after a 12-round fight.
Back in 2011, before Canelo's fight against Matthew Hatton for the vacant 154-pound WBC belt, Beristain showed up on a television panel with women's world champion Ana Maria Torres, Canelo, De La Hoya, Marquez, and WBC president and general boxing crazy man Jose Sulaiman. The show, translated here via Hesiquio Balderas on BoxingScene.com, turned into an interrogation of Canelo's actual boxing résumé. Torres referred to Canelo as a "joke" and said most people within the Mexican community agreed. The show came to its climax when the great Julio Cesar Chavez called in and said, "I think Canelo has the talent, the skills, the power, and he is on his way up, but [what] I truly believe — and I always say things the way I think — is that at the moment you guys at Televisa have created a monster by way of publicity."
"He is just a product of TV," Chavez continued. "You make people believe that he is Superman and he is not."
On the day I visited Beristain at La Romanza, an ancient man sat in his office and worked on a deflated speed bag. When he got bored with the repair, he creakily got up to a rusty filing cabinet and leafed through a stack of pornographic DVDs. Beristain sat behind a desk and talked to me about all things Canelo. Beristain's venom for Canelo had faded, at least a little. He said Canelo had improved as a fighter but had very little chance against Mayweather, but then added that he did not think that Canelo had fully earned the right to fight Floyd. Some fighters, Beristain explained, earned their popularity by taking on and beating the best. As an example, he brought up his own fighter, Juan Manuel Marquez, who beat every good fighter in Mexico before heading Stateside. Other fighters, Beristain said, get hooked up to publicity machines. Even if he has feet of clay, the machine still insists that the fighter is great, and a certain portion of the population will simply accept the message. Canelo might have improved, Beristain noted, but he was not popular in any organic way. If a publicity-machine fighter loses a single fight, the entire apparatus collapses. Marquez, because he earned his popularity, could lose to Manny Pacquiao (at least according to the official record) and Floyd Mayweather and still maintain his esteem in Mexico. What will happen to Canelo if he gets humiliated by Floyd Mayweather? How many people would suddenly see the hype machine laid bare for what it was?
NatureNutrition, a healthful cooking oils company based in Mexico, has a Pynchonian name and a fresh investment in boxing. Just recently, NatureNutrition added its name to the list of sponsors for the upcoming fight, and as part of the agreement, Team Canelo agreed to conduct a short interview via Televisa about the foods he likes to eat, all of which, presumably, can be cooked with one of NatureNutrition's wide variety of healthful oils. The interview took place in the basement of Canelo's rental house in Big Bear. The fight was a month away and Canelo, who had recently clocked in at 167 pounds, was preparing himself for the last weeks of training and the task of getting himself below the 152-pound weight limit agreed upon for the fight. For about an hour, I loitered around the basement with a few of Canelo's handlers and the interviewer, a Televisa reporter who was having blonde extensions woven into her hair. Once the lights had been set up and the row of NatureNutrition oils had been placed on the mantel in the background of the shot, Canelo, wearing Under Armour everything, came downstairs, sat down on the stool, and quickly and unenthusiastically answered a whole bunch of questions about his favorite foods. The whole thing took about 15 minutes.
As the crew were breaking down their equipment, I asked Canelo the same question I had asked him back in the Four Seasons in Mexico City: "How are you dealing with all the increased scrutiny and media attention surrounding this, the biggest fight of your career?" Canelo's eyes narrowed again — he has the angsty habit of always looking slightly angry and dismissive, especially around the print media — but this time instead of saying some boilerplate about how seriously he was taking his preparation, he just sort of shrugged.
"I'm used to it now," he said. "Of course, I'm used to it now."
Boxing cannibalizes its young. It doesn't matter how many belts you win; at some point the sport will prop you up just so the fans can see someone, anyone, get his comeuppance. Canelo has become the Great Red Hype, and his purposeful, almost scornful lack of depth has turned off many of those same hypothetical fans who should have shown up at the rally at the Monumento a los Niños Héroes. In his rare interviews, Canelo comes across as cruel when he should be thoughtful, seems dismissive when he should be earnest, and buries everything under the promise that he will work hard and beat anyone in front of him. This nothingness would be acceptable if Canelo were Tiger Woods or, say, Floyd Mayweather, and turned every fight into a virtuosic performance; if we, as fans, felt like we were watching the absolute best at work every time he climbed between the ropes.
Instead, what we have with Canelo is a talented yet mostly untested young fighter at odds with the legacy of the man who promotes him. Canelo might seem like an anomaly, but in truth, he is simply the latest in the line of young, good-looking fighters with Mexican lineage groomed by Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions to become the next Oscar De La Hoya. Before Canelo there was Victor Ortiz, the hard-luck kid from Kansas whose story of growing up alone in an abandoned house with his brother catapulted him to a short-lived, erratic, and ultimately doomed stardom in the sport. Like Canelo, Ortiz got shoved in front of Floyd before he really deserved the shot and suffered through one of the most strange meltdowns in big-fight history when he got knocked out while trying to hug, kiss, and apologize for an egregious, shameful head-butt. To be fair, the Ortiz train had derailed long before — what had first seemed like a smiling, affable face on an unbelievable story of perseverance fell apart every time Ortiz opened his mouth. What had first seemed like a bright, chatty, and compelling young man with a bright future quickly devolved into a seemingly vacant and bizarre kid who kept stumbling over himself while trying to say the right thing. In 2009, Ortiz quit in the ring against Marcos Maidana, ending his chances to win over the Mexican and Mexican American fan base. Eighteen months later, he fought the uninspiring Lamont Peterson to a majority draw. Given what Golden Boy invested in Ortiz, it's easy to understand why it would want to protect Canelo from a similar fate. There is no need to explain your red hair, your good looks, and your presumed popularity, so Canelo has mostly stayed quiet. And if Canelo gets knocked out by Floyd or loses in a humiliating decision and then loses again to a lesser opponent, Oscar and Golden Boy will start puffing up a fighter like Omar Figueroa Jr., an undefeated 23-year-old prospect from the Rio Grande Valley coming off a fight-of-the-year candidate against Nihito Arakawa, and the search for the next Oscar De La Hoya will continue.
This past Tuesday, De La Hoya released a statement to the press that he had voluntarily returned to rehab and would therefore be missing the festivities surrounding this Saturday's superfight. It was the latest chapter in what has been a heartbreaking battle with substance abuse, one made all the more shocking for how much it contrasts with what used to be the cleanest-cut and most affable persona in sports.
Three weeks prior to the announcement, I spoke to De La Hoya over the phone about his connection with Canelo. The conversation turned almost immediately to the pitfalls of early fame and how Oscar hoped Canelo might avoid some of the same problems that derailed the first Golden Boy.
"Saul is considered the next superstar that's going to carry boxing for the next 15 years," De La Hoya explained. "He has that opportunity. The difference between Sugar Ray Leonard, myself, Mike Tyson — the other guys who carried the sport on their backs for many years — the difference with this kid is that he doesn't have the baggage. He's a fighter who doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he has no bad habits at all. His worst habit is collecting cars. He's a 23-year-old who wants to be great.
"If I didn't drink while I was fighting with all the partying and nightclubs and women, I probably would still be fighting now," De La Hoya continued. "You're chipping away from that rock one fight at a time when you do those things — there are fighters who are 36 years old who can keep fighting till they're 40 and still look young and fresh. Why? Because they take care of themselves. Then there are guys like me who, at 35 or 36, are over the hill. And it's because of my fast life. Canelo is going to go a long, long way in taking care of himself."
Outside of the substance abuse issues and how he and Canelo differed in that respect, De La Hoya does see a lot of himself in his young protégé, albeit with another caveat.
"I had the women fans and attracted them into the sport of boxing," De La Hoya said. "Canelo's doing the same thing, but the difference is that when the male fans came to see me fight, they wanted to see me get beat because of how I conducted myself. In my career, I was always concerned with saying the right thing, even when the right thing was actually the wrong thing to say. The fight fan doesn't want that. He wants someone honest, someone who they can respect. Canelo, because he doesn't say much and just works hard, has converted the male fan who wanted to see me lose over to his side."
I asked Tizano and Salvador, two of Mexican boxing's most impassioned and knowledgeable ambassadors, if they wanted to see Canelo beat Floyd Mayweather on September 14 in Las Vegas. Salvador was noncommittal. "I always root for the underdog," he said. "But we'll see … "
Tizano was a bit clearer.


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How Mass Effect 3 will be easier on series newcomers
"Story so far" narrative, altered AI responses.
Mass Effect 3 will be the third and final part of Shepard's story, but don't worry if you've never played the series before - BioWare has come up with a couple of ideas to ease you in.
"In all honesty, we didn't do a really good job of new player orientation [in Mass Effect 2]," Mass Effect 3 producer Nick Clifford told IGN. "If you didn't play the first game then two was pretty jarring for the first half hour."
Mass Effect 2 begins with Shepard being pieced back together after his ship, The Normandy, was blasted to pieces. There are references to the events of Mass Effect 1, and characters interact with you with an appropriate level of regard for your previous-game adventures.
Not that you'd know any of that if you hadn't played Mass Effect 1.
"If I'm a new player and some guy walks up to me and is like, 'Oh Shepard! Remember that one time?' I would be like, 'No, I don't remember that one time,'" Clifford said.
"So we wanted to make sure that there aren't those moments that the player is like, 'Who is this? What's going on? What are they talking about?'"
Clifford said Mass Effect 3 will alter character's behaviour toward Shepard depending on whether you import a saved game from Mass Effect 2, or start an adventure from fresh.
BioWare will also integrate a "story so far narrative" to fill in the blanks. But Clifford wouldn't offer any more information on it.
Mass Effect 2 on PS3 came with an interactive comic-book charting the storyline and main choices of Mass Effect 1.
Mass Effect 1 isn't available on PS3.


text: It had to happen sooner or later: Eater gets wind of a Craigslist casting ad for a New York foodie dating show in the works from NBC. "Each episode pits real-life single men in competition with each other in the kitchen as they try to win the affection of our lovely bachelorette," the announcement reads. Ho-boy — a date that only wants to talk about sustainably raised squab, let alone one that's an actual chef (The hours! The ego!) is kind of our nightmare. This could only possibly be good if the guys from the Meat Hook are somehow involved. [Craiglist NY via Eater NY]


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PHOENIX — In a season when losses and injuries have become nearly as certain as death and taxes, the Lakers' never-ending nosedive took on a new twist.
The Lakers' 121-114 loss Wednesday to the Phoenix Suns at U.S. Airways Center featured Nick Young getting ejected with 7:33 left in the second quarter after being assessed with a "punching foul" on Suns guard Goran Dragic. It's likely the NBA will suspend Young for the Lakers' game on Friday in Boston and up to $35,000. And on a team that prides itself on unity amid the struggles, Young openly lamented that his teammates didn't intervene.
"What I was mad about is it was one-on-five," said Young, who has posted nine points on 4-of-8 shooting before his ejection. "If somebody had gotten in the middle, it wouldn't have escalated that much."
It started when Phoenix forward Alex Len delivered a hard foul on Young that knocked him to the floor as he drove for a layup. Young immediately stood up and shoved Len back. Young and Suns forward Marcus Morris also shared shoves. Young then made contact with an open hand on Dragic's head after he entered the fray. Len also earned a flagrant foul 2 and a subsequent ejection. Morris was slapped with a technical foul. Young soon removed his jersey before entering the player's tunnel.
"You don't fight in this league," Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said. "It wouldn't help us to lose two or three more guys. I hate that Nick feels that way, but I'm sure at the moment he's just talking."
The Lakers (14-25) talked plenty afterwards. It went beyond the team's sixth consecutive defeat, its 12th in the past 13 games and a 14th place standing in the Western Conference. Not to mention the Lakers going on a 21-8 run following Young's ejection before a seven-man rotation fizzled out.
"Unfortunately we didn't get a guy in between Nick and the three or four guys going at him," said Lakers forward Pau Gasol, who posted 24 points on 10-of-20 shooting. "That was a first mistake or slow reaction on our part. We should've protected Nick there."
Gasol and plenty of others didn't leap off the bench since the NBA immediately suspends any player who does so. That's why Jordan Hill could face a suspension for getting off the bench.
"For us people on the bench we wanted to come out there," said Lakers forward Wesley Johnson, who had 22 points on 7 of 14 shooting. "It was the cirscumstance we had to deal with as well. You cant walk of fthe bench. We wanted to be out there for him. I understand there was a lot of guys swarming him. It was like 1 on4 . We say he have his back but for the players on the bench, you can only do so much."
What about Young's teammates on the floor?
None of them intervened, including Ryan Kelly, Kendall Marshall, Chris Kaman and Jodie Meeks. Kelly took exception to criticism from former Laker Robert Horry criticizing him on TWC SportsNet for intervening. Marshall echoed similar concerns.
"I understand where Nick is coming from. He did get fouled hard. It wasn't a basketball play by any means," said Marshall, who had 10 points on only 4-of-16 shooting and 13 assists. "But at the same time, we have to understand you have to win some and lose some. I don't know if that was the smartest play at the time."
That's because the Lakers already field long-term injuries to Kobe Bryant (fractured left knee), Steve Nash (nerve issues in back), Steve Blake (hyperextended right elbow), Jordan Farmar (torn left hamstring) and Xavier Henry (bone bruise in right knee).
That's not what Young was thinking moments after Len knocked him to the floor.
"I wasn't trying to punch," Young said. "I was trying to shove out of my way. I was getting pushed further and back. It was more trying to get out. I'm very frustrated. But it's basketball."
Nick Young ejected in Lakers-Suns game
Jordan Hill helps out with breast cancer awareness efforts
Lakers' Jordan Hill succeeds in memory of mom, victim of breast cancer
Follow L.A. Daily News Lakers beat writer Mark Medina on Twitter. E-mail him at firstname.lastname@example.com


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Music Night at Bogies | Masta Edge of Soul (no cover)
October 27, 2017
Friday | October 27, 2017 | 6pm | Music Night at Bogies | Masta Edge of Soul (no cover)
Masta Edwards is an acclaimed vocalist, bandleader, songwriter, and teacher and is an advocate of American music history and culture. He has performed with hundreds of musicians in his career, which spans more than four decades. He has worked with Don Covay, and David Foster. He has shared the stage with Stevie Wonder, LTD, Al Jarreau, Seal, and Bobby Brown, just to name a few. Masta is sought after by many of Hollywood's "A" list celebrities to perform at their events and private parties. He is known not only for being an exceptionally talented musician, but also as an exceptional entertainer. He can perform tunes from the Roaring Twenties through each decade until present day songs; from be-bop, to doo-wop, to rap, and every era in between.


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Plass' research illustrated that students in both urban and rural settings with use of the simulations, led to better performance in chemistry compared to learning without simulations.
Thanks to Jan Plass, kinetic molecular theory can be as easy as making a cup of hot chocolate.
Following a four-year study of 357 rural students, 361 students in urban areas, in a total of 25 high school classrooms in New York City and rural Texas, Plass' research found that well-designed computer simulations are an effective tool in boosting comprehension of chemistry subject matter including topics of diffusion, gas laws and phase change.
"Our goal was to focus on underserved and underprivileged learners as many of these students were not introduced to important chemical principals in their middle school science classes," Plass said. "At the high school level in particular, success in science classes is seen as opening doors to science careers as well as promoting scientific literacy – a prerequisite for being an informed citizen. We designed our simulations specifically for those learners whose previous experience of chemistry was very limited."
The study was funded by a $1.35 million grant by the Institute of Education Sciences to Jan L. Plass, Catherine Milne, and Trace Jordan of NYU Steinhardt along with Bruce Homer of CUNY Graduate Center, to study simulations aimed at enhancing chemistry learning for a broad range of learners.
Starting in 2008, Plass and his research team partnered with high school teachers and students to design and develop a sequence of simulations for use in high school chemistry classrooms based on theories of learning, research in cognition and multimedia, and best practices in science education. Using narrative and visual icons, such as flames to signify heat, the simulations told a story of phase change in the characters attempt to heat hot water to make hot chocolate.
"Kinetic molecular theory requires an understanding that matter is composed of particles in constant motions," Plass explained. "Multimedia can communicate this idea in a visually dynamic way that is not available in static resources such as textbooks."
The results of Plass' effectiveness studies illustrated that students in both urban and rural settings with use of the simulations, led to better performance in chemistry compared to learning without simulations.
"This study demonstrates practical principles for the effective design and use of computer simulations in science classrooms," Plass explained. "These types of simulations do contribute to the understanding of complicated subject matter and are examples of digital tools that can foster learning of science knowledge that students need to succeed academically and beyond."
Plass is co-director of the Games for Learning Institute, Paulette Goddard Professor of Digital Media and Learning Sciences at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and the founding director of the Center for Research and Evaluation of Advanced Technologies in Education (CREATE).
To learn more about the Consortium for Research and Evaluation of Advanced Technology in Education (CREATE), visit: http://createlabs.org.
To learn more about NYU Steinhardt, visit: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu.


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Friday, March 5, 2010
Let's get this party started!
4 comments:
You go girl! This is a very impressive workout regime.ReplyDelete
I too, was a "lucky" on who gained weight after starting the gf diet. My doctor actually didn't want to test me for Celiac because I wasn't losing a lot of weight. Boo.
You motivate me to get moving too!
I hate the gaining weight part, I thought it would make me loose weight like others I have read about, but nope :( My GI tells me it is because of all the baking and baked goods I eat. it is extremely frustrating!ReplyDelete
Too bad you are not closer, we could work out together!
I totally hear ya! I lost a ton of weight when I was first diagnosed, but then as I added everything back in (gluten free versions, of course!) the weight crept back up.ReplyDelete
I'm so happy to hear you are doing Zumba! I've never done it, but hear such good things. I joined Jazzercise and lost a ton of weight that way and it was fun as all heck. Dancing away the pounds is the best way I think.
You go girl!
I literally LOL'd about the GF baking. Unfortunately they do have calories!ReplyDelete
Sounds like you have a very realistic goal. Best wishes!