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As food prices rise and vegetable/fruit crops rot in some Southeast fields awaiting harvest, the value of farm labor has never been clearer.
For years, producers and state agriculture officials have warned that federal laws governing farm workers — often in a three-way tug-of-war between farms' need for migrant workers in the field, security concerns in the wake of 9/11, and U.S. communities and states claiming heavy social/financial burdens imposed on them by illegal aliens numbering over 11 million — are heavy-handed and laden with unexpected consequences.
Until recently, those warnings have largely been ignored.
In 2009, Frank Gasperini, with the National Council of Ag Employers, blamed the inability of Congress to deal with the farm worker issues on polarization "by the far right and the far left. It's hard to get it toned down. For the last eight or 10 years in Congress it's been a case of do it all or do nothing. It's a difficult time to get things done in Washington."
Fast-forward two years and Gasperini says the problems have only worsened. "We see this horrendous ag labor shortage getting worse. We're currently seeing less immigration from Mexico because their economy is stabilizing and aging and their birth rate is dropping. So, where will farm workers come from in a decade?"
And then there are the visa programs — H-2A and H-2B— overseen by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Under the programs, temporary or seasonal visas are granted to migrant workers. To make agriculture-related hires, the certification process must begin at least 45 days prior to a visa being issued. Once granted, a visa is good for a maximum 364 days.
However, before the CIS even gets to the potential employer's request that migrant worker visas be granted, more hurdles must be jumped. One: an employer must prove he has "actively" advertised the job and had no takers. The employer must also file an assertion with the U.S. Department of Labor saying, essentially, that hiring migrant workers is his only option.
Very important program
"The H-2A program is very important," said Gasperini. "Obviously, with mandatory E-Verify, more people want to look at it. But the H-2A program only brings in about 60,000 workers every year. Actually, it was less than 60,000 people last year.
"If we implement mandatory E-Verify across the nation, even if only 50 percent of our (migrant) workforce turns to be falsely documented — and we think it's closer to 70 or 80 percent — we'd lose over 500,000 workers."
H-2A is "difficult to use, difficult to get everything done in a timely fashion. It's difficult for farmers to be assured they'll have workers where and when they need them.
"If it's hard to bring in 60,000 workers annually now, why would anyone believe the pipeline can be made big enough, fast enough? That system is going to serve American agriculture and bring in almost 500,000 people almost overnight?"
Gasperini was dismissive of legislators claiming the problem can be solved quickly by pushing the program into overdrive. "That doesn't pass the red-face test. That's why I like what (Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner) Mike Strain has been saying with regard to this."
Beating the drum for sensible reform of migrant labor regulations, Strain says hiring legal migrant workers has become an unnecessarily expensive, time-consuming process. With other state departments of agriculture's backing, Strain has called for streamlining the visa process and reducing red tape to a minimum.
"If we're going to continue to rely upon foreign workers, then we need an expedited system to bring them into the country, keep track of them and to make sure they return home when their work visas have expired," said Strain earlier this year.
"In Louisiana, we employ more than 3,000 H-2B workers. We have very few illegal workers in the state — we use legal migrant workers.
"But there are a number of problems in the system. One is the current electronic system makes it very difficult for our citizens to hire the people they need. That's particularly true of the seafood industry — things like peeling crawfish, working with alligators and processing crab. Skilled migrant workers are also prevalent in the sugar industry.
"Normally, you must get approval for a worker every year — the same tedious process every year. And it's very costly. You're looking at $1,000 to $1,500 per worker to try and expedite the system. You must expedite because of all the typical delays."
Provide extended visas
If nothing else, at least provide extended visas, says Strain. "Most of the migrant workers, 90 percent, come back year-after-year-after-year. So, instead of a yearly approval we propose a five-year approval. Make it like a 'worker passport' or whatever.
"That would save the average farmer — if he employs 15 or 20 migrant workers — $50,000 to $75,000 over a five year period. That's just the savings from expedited worker fees. A five-year approval process would cut down tremendously on red tape.
"Plus, the farmer would have a bit more time to get the approvals in order. It is very difficult to get the normal, legal, guest workers to their jobs. These workers are critical for a number of our industries: seafood, sugar, nurseries, forestry, vegetables, cotton gins, everywhere."
"It's almost as if the guest worker program is very unfriendly. Each agency says 'well, it isn't us making problems it's another agency.' Well, someone is responsible and let's work it out."
The regulatory tangle for migrant workers also affects the agriculture sector in ways many would never consider. Tracy Zeorian, president of the U.S. Custom Harvesters Association, has seen that up close. Zeorian, who operates a custom harvesting business with her husband, says procuring a hazmat endorsement which allows a driver to haul materials deemed "hazardous," including diesel — for migrant workers is impossible.
"H-2A employees aren't eligible to even receive the hazmat endorsement," says Zeorian, an advocate for changing fuel-hauling regulations. "So, if you have a crew of eight or 10 foreign employees, the American business owner would be the only one who could have the hazmat endorsement. He'd be the one who'd have to haul the fuel to the field every morning and would be the one hauling the tank down the road when driving from job to job."
What about farm workers coming to the United States through aJ-1 or student, visa?
"Generally, that works well only for relatively small growers — like some organic growers," said Gasperini. "If you need someone to pick crops for 10 hours, that's not likely to appeal to someone on an educational visa. They'll sign up for a small organic farm with lots of mixed crops with (the aim of taking the gained knowledge) back home. That's worked out well for some of those U.S. producers — but not for bigger operations.
"But producers are being forced to consider all kinds of farm labor alternatives, including convicts. And using convicts can be problematic because some large grocery chains have prohibitions against using prison labor."
Strain says the pressures facing businesses that rely on migrant labor mustn't be ignored. "You know, everyone talks about 'legal' and 'illegal' workers. Well, if you make it so hard to get legal migrant worker, guess what the consequences are? Everyone wants to hire legal workers but what's the choice (if they're shut out)?"


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
This is the code of conduct for Adaptive Path events. If you attend one of our events, we expect you to conduct yourself in accordance with these three very simple principles:
We're in the experience business; the least we can do is lead by example. Some of the behaviors that can lead to bad experiences include:
Keep in mind that it's impossible for us to maintain a complete list of bad behaviors, so we're not going to try. We think you have a pretty good sense of what makes for a bad experience.
Don't look the other way if you see something inappropriate happening. Don't just let a hurtful comment slide. Let those who may have been on the receiving end of bad behavior know that they have all of our support. Everyone, whether they are the target of bad behavior or just a witness, is empowered to speak up or report that behavior to Adaptive Path staff or volunteers.
Seriously, however funny you think that borderline-questionable joke might be, it's not worth it. We can't be there to help you make your choices, and frankly we don't want to be. So what you need to know is this: We need to be able to trust your judgment. If you show us that we can't trust your judgment -- by saying or doing something that creates a bad experience for somebody else at our event -- then we have to decide whether we can continue to trust you.
Aside from these three principles, there's one more important thing you need to know: We get to decide. If it seems like you have run afoul of this code, we are not putting it up for vote or public comment. It's going to be up to the Adaptive Path team what happens next. We will do whatever is necessary to keep our events a safe and healthy environment for participants. If that means removing you from the event, that's what we'll do. If it seems like law enforcement might need to be involved, we'll do that too.
Thanks for your participation in helping make our events great experiences for everyone.


text:
I am not one of these people who keeps up with every MAC release (there are so many!) but I do always take a look at the Summer releases because I love their bronzy releases which aren't as obvious as other beauty companies' offerings and they're always quite sexy!
I purchased a few things from the Temperature Rising collection (also not pictured the Strobe Lotion in the golden colour). I found these on counter as they were sold out online!
I purchased a powder blush in Ripe for Love, a watermelon/peachy blush which is so lovely, and a lipstick and lipgloss. Two of the lipsticks had the super glittery finish and I went for Sheer Seduction because I don't mind the bronzy brown copper look on the lip and Soft Serenade as a gloss because it's a neutral wearable glittery pale pink.
When I swatted Ripe for Love, I was concerned the 'watermelon-papaya' colouring would be too red for my complexion but actually, it is just really pretty on and pigmented!
Regarding my lip choices – I really do love glittery lips, and these two are super glittery. After the colour has disappeared, the glitter particles stick on for a while longer.
I like Sheer Seduction a lot – it's not like anything else I own because of how glittery it is. It's not that pigmented – I run the colour 2-3 times over my lips in order to get decent coverage.
The gloss, soft serenade is not my first choice of gloss – but I decided to choose it because I was going to use it as a 'topper' colour. On top of the lipstick it adds another layer of glittery-ness and also adds shine. They do work well together although on it's own I'd say the gloss is fairly boring.
On my tan complexion it doesn't run as brown as I suspected (I don't usually wear these tones that often). Face as a whole:
I am so pleased I picked up these two colours and that I went for something a bit different (I'd usually go for the nude choices!). There's just the right amount of colour and loads of glitter for a bit of summer fun!
Did you buy anything from Temperature Rising?


text:
BAGHDAD – When police came hunting for a 19-year-old woman they believed had been recruited by al-Qaida to be a suicide bomber in a town north of Baghdad, they found she was already dead: Slain by her father, who told police he strangled his daughter out of shame and then cut her throat.
The killing of Shahlaa al-Anbaky, reported by police Friday, appeared to be from an unusual melding of motives — part to defend the family honor, part to prevent her from joining the militants.(rebecca santana-APnews)
Fathers are called to uphold their honor in certain primitive societies by excising the shame their daughters bring into their homes. What al-Quaida or any terrorist groups who led women to such a terrible fate ought to prove their honor in far convincing manner: by choosing their mothers to be suicide bombers they would show that they do believe in the Cause. They do not really understand where their Cause leads them but will certainly know where their mothers would end up. Their mothers are as precious as the Cause to give a try.
Mothers may not understand the cause their sons so blindly espouse. After all each gave birth, in some cases almost at the risk of her health and life to a hope. Which mother could live with the shame of her sole hope and desire being eaten with hate and dead to sound advice or fine sentiments? They may be willing to take the way out such a son brings to them. They may also redeem their shame by sparing guileless girls,- who do not believe in the Cause anyway except as brainwashed and unwitting tools, from such dastardly fate as being blown to bits.
Terrorism merely breeds confusion and misery and it shall never build up a sane society. History has no example of a religion of hate or some beggarly band without allegiance to a land, toting a wretched set of laws and a Cause (and brutal repression and obscurantist ideas) ever nurturing a civilized society. Look at Russia: they had a geographical center from which they wanted to build up worker's paradise throughout the Soviet Union. But purges and Patriotic war took their toll. Stalin the great Killing machine went on with his killing spree. Result? some twenty million people died. Against such human loss how many years their Cause lasted? Less than a century. From That terrible loss in man power Russia has not yet fully recovered.
Without winning the hearts and minds by good deeds and thoughts and making the believers pure in deeds and thoughts no religion can build a better society. Terrorists who use suicide bombers are prodigals who waste manpower; they are fools because they do not account for events that always upset their pipe-dreams. By beggaring their manpower, be it as cannon fodder or creative elements building up a new society, they shall see themselves stamped out by others who do not believe in prophets or their past but in their own destiny.


text:
Search our database of handpicked sites
Looking for a great physics site? We've tracked down the very best and checked them for accuracy. Just fill out the fields below and we'll do the rest.
You searched for "astronomy"
We found 4 results on physics.org and 101 results in our database of sites
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Search results on physics.org
Curious about Astronomy?
Got a pressing question about astronomy? With over 10 years worth of answered questions in their archive and a panel of astronomers on hand, the answer you're after can't be far away.
Fantastic website offering answers to science questions, with a focus on astronomy. Features FAQs, audio interviews and astronomy guides on what to look out for in tonight's sky.
Melbourne's Astronomy Central
This site aims to provide education resources and general information on astronomy to the public. The sites main emphasis is on teaching astronomy at schools and universities.
Mixture of information, articles, news, pictures, sales of optical equipment, Astronomy magazine from the publishers of Astronomy magazine.
How Astronomy Benefits Society and Humankind
A look at the way technology from astronomy has cascaded into everyday devices.
Astronomy and Perception
Information on astronomy slides and models. Also including optical illusions.
Astronomy and astrophysics on the Web
Links to various telescopes, eg radio, GLAST and other astronomy resources.
Astronomy Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
A great resource for interactives, videos and simulations about astronomy.
Joint Astronomy Centre Public Information & Outreach
A page with a few astronomy resources for teachers and activities for students
Astronomy for kids
A fun site that offers lots of simple information, games and sky maps. Great way to get started on astronomy.


text:
crop market report
Stackyard News
FAO has launched a new website to track the advance of Ug99 the devastating strain of wheat stem rust disease and other wheat rusts amid concern the fungus is on the march across Africa and could head toward South Asia.
The aim of "Rust SPORE" is to deliver up-to-date information on the status of wheat stem rust, monitor important new strains of the disease and synthesize and provide easy access to reliable data on a global scale.
The information is retrieved from field data provided by national surveillance teams in cooperating countries that have been trained in using harmonized surveillance protocols and forming an international rust surveillance network.
The recent report of the spread of a virulent Ug99 variant into South Africa has raised further concern about the spread of this disease, which presents a severe threat to the world's wheat crops. There are currently seven recognised variants of the strain to which 90 percent of global commercial wheat varieties are vulnerable.
Centuries old problem
Throughout recorded history fungal rust diseases have been a recurring threat to wheat crops worldwide. Three rust diseases — stem (black), stripe (yellow) and leaf (brown) rust — are the most economically damaging diseases affecting wheat production. However, recently there has been an escalation in the threat posed by both stem and stripe rust.
"Emergence of the Ug99 races in East Africa transformed stem rust from a disease largely under control into a significant global threat," said David Hodson, FAO's international focal point for wheat rust disease.
"Ug99 is like the flu virus, it evolves continuously. The continued spread of Ug99, and the appearance of new variants that have broken down even more key resistance genes is increasing the danger it poses.
Carried on clothes
Wheat rust moves by the wind but can also be carried on clothes or in plant matter and the worry is it can jump continents by an unwitting human carrier.
Wheat rusts including Ug99 are one of the main topics under discussion among wheat rust experts from developed and developing countries gathered at the 8th International Wheat Conference in St Petersburg, Russia (June 1-4) organised by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI).
Rust SPORE is part of FAO's Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme and an important part of the BGRI efforts to mitigate the effects of wheat rust diseases globally.
First discovered in Uganda in 1999, the original pathogen of Ug99 has been confirmed in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Iran; variants of the disease have now been recorded in Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The main aims of coordinated international efforts are surveying and monitoring pathogen changes, developing new resistant varieties, supporting countries in their preparedness and the quick seed multiplication of resistant varieties and support to farmers for changing varieties.
Agressive yellow strains
Another global concern is the recent detection of new very aggressive strains of yellow or stripe rust that are crossing continents and getting established at an extremely rapid rate, causing serious outbreaks in many countries.
These new stripe rust strains pose an additional threat to wheat production since they are adapted to warmer temperatures, previously limiting the occurrence of yellow rust in cooler areas.
"This year millions of dollars in crop losses are likely because of yellow rust outbreaks in the Middle East, Central Asia, Caucus and North Africa," said Hodson.
Rust SPORE information system is presently focusing on stem rust and Ug99, but will be expanded to incorporate other wheat rust threats in the near future.
Wynnstay Acquires Woodheads Seeds Ltd
Risk Minimisation Key for Wheat Improvement - RAGT Seeds
Rhizobacteria Project Shows Major UK Wheat Productivity Gains


text:
Last Activity: 1 Hour Ago 12:02 PM
Moderator of Feedback & Support (Administrator)
About Me
- About Cherrim
- Quick Self-Introduction
- If I'm on PC, I'm probably procrastinating.
- Biography
- Hello! My name is Erica and I have been a member of PC for literally more than half of my life (which is a long time when you're my age). I used to be known as Lightning.
I play a lot of video games and am always up for talking about my favourites. I've listed all that stuff below so please don't be shy about coming into my VMs and jumping right into a discussion about anything we're mutually interested in. No need for formalities or small talk, you can just pretend we've known each other for years. :) I don't bite!
[note: my profile background is by pokemonpalooza on tumblr!]
- Interests
- Fandoms and interests! Here we go, in no particular order (usually):
Kingdom Hearts (BBS♥♥♥, COM, KHUX), Final Fantasy (VI, X-2, Dissidia), Tales of Series (Destiny♥, Xillia♥, Berseria♥, spinoffs), The World Ends With You (Pi Face♥), Ace Attorney, Assassin's Creed, Ghost Trick, Professor Layton, Okami, Hatoful Boyfriend, Rakuen, Left 4 Dead, Puzzle Agent, Portal, To the Moon, Picross, ....oh! and Pokémon, of course.
TV & Movies:
Parks & Recreation♥♥♥, I.T. Crowd♥♥, Brooklyn 99♥, Schitt's Creek, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Cardcaptor Sakura♥, Steven Universe, The Office, Avatar: TLA/Legend of Korra, Firefly, Marvel movies (Iron Man, Avengers ♥), Ghibli (Arrietty♥), Pixar (Nemo♥, Inside Out), Departures, Disney (Tangled, any rennaissance film), How to Train Your Dragon, Monty Python, + any number of childhood shows
Harry Potter, A Song of Ice & Fire, anything Michael Crichton (Sphere, Jurassic Park), some John Green (Abundance of Katherines, TFiOS), Philip K Dick short stories, Fahrenheit 451, anything John Wyndham, Hunger Games series
Nerdfighting, tabletop gaming (getting into this more and more), Japanese language, linguistics, math (mainly number theory/pure math, some calculus, some logic, and algebra), programming, visual art (I draw, don't do much else but appreciate all kinds), collecting Cherrim, sleeping (when possible)
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- Favorite Pokémon
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- Cherrim
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- X: Erica / OR: エリカ
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View Cherrim's BlogRecent Entries
Latest Blog Entry
Posted December 13th, 2017 at 4:19 PM by Cherrim Comments 0
Posted in Real Life, Miscellaneous
hi does anyone still use blogs
i hope so bc i'm about to dump a bunch of cat photos here bc i havent introduced my cat to pc yet.
his name is jude nyathis, named for jude mathis of tales of xillia except my cat is really dumb unlike his namesake. (i love him all the more for it tho.)
he follows me from room to room and meows at me to turn the tap on for him and he likes to go for walks outside.
i hope so bc i'm about to dump a bunch of cat photos here bc i havent introduced my cat to pc yet.
his name is jude nyathis, named for jude mathis of tales of xillia except my cat is really dumb unlike his namesake. (i love him all the more for it tho.)
he follows me from room to room and meows at me to turn the tap on for him and he likes to go for walks outside.
Posted November 26th, 2013 at 3:38 PM by Cherrim Comments 3
Posted in Uncategorized
Lightning → Cherrim
Part of me wonders if people who keep up with me off of PC will even really register my name change...? So many people associate ME with the name Cherrim before even the Pokémon that it wouldn't surprise me if everyone forgot it wasn't my name here too.
But anyway, yeah, name change! I've had the name Lightning on PC for over 11 years now so this is kind of a sudden change but, honestly, I've wanted to switch to Cherrim for years now. I couldn't...
Posted April 3rd, 2012 at 10:40 AM by Cherrim Comments 6
Posted in Miscellaneous, Gaming
Unfortunately, I was unable to get the Kingdom Hearts 3DS, although I really wanted it because it was gorgeous. ;_; Play-Asia never put it up for preorder, though, and whatever allocations they got were sold out by the time I checked the page again. That's annoying, but apparently it was going for like $500 so it's probably a good thing I didn't even have a chance to buy it. :x
So instead...
Posted November 27th, 2011 at 6:29 PM by Cherrim Comments 9
Posted in Miscellaneous
I would never have made it out of my room this morning without this detailed step-by-step solution.
I would never have made it out of my room this morning without this detailed step-by-step solution.
Posted October 8th, 2011 at 5:56 PM by Cherrim Comments 9
Posted in School, Real Life, Miscellaneous
It's been a while and I was really inactive last month and I feel bad about it. So here's what I've been up to.
I started school again.
I started school again.
I took a term off of school last winter and worked over the summer, but [s]because I was kicked off my dad's drug plan for not being in school[s] I wanted to get back to doing something so I registered for classes this September and I'm back as a full-time student. I decided while I was down that I wanted to take on a minor so now I'm aiming for an...
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Posted November 26th, 2013 at 4:01 PM by Treecko
Nice new name 8) and...
Posted November 26th, 2013 at 3:49 PM by Ms. Jiggly


text:
ITA, a defense contractor, is Virginia's fastest-growing company
Roosevelt quote formed company philosophy
- April 30, 2010
- |
The letter's "ITA" in Michael Melo's company, ITA International, stand for "in the arena," a phrase President Theodore Roosevelt made famous in a speech given 100 years ago. For years, an inspiring paragraph from that speech hung in a frame in the office of Melo's father, a retired Air Force fighter pilot.
Speaking to an audience at the Sorbonne in Paris, Roosevelt said, "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena … who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
"My dad is a hero of mine," Melo explains. "I had the quote as my philosophy in the military and now I have it in my company." ITA International's motto is "serving those in the arena."
Melo's own 23 years in the U.S. Navy were a great training ground for the CEO of the Yorktown-based company. "It's where I learned how to plan and execute," he says.
ITA provides training, consulting, program management and staff support functions to the military, government agencies and large defense contractors. The company is currently trying to diversify into the commercial market sector as well as state and local agencies.
Melo and his wife, Kathy, who serves as senior vice president, founded ITA in 2000. In 2005, Melo landed a U.S. Navy contract doing mission analysis for anti-terrorism force protection for Navy bases. "If I could get one job, I knew I could be successful," he says. "A month later I was approached to do some more analysis work for the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command."
From 2005 through 2008, the company's revenue soared 5,779 percent, landing ITA in the top spot for the Fantastic 50 and making it No. 19 on Inc. magazine's Inc. 500, an annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America. The company now has 104 employees. "I never thought it would grow that quickly," Melo says.
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Best Places to Work in Virginia 2018
College Profile: Randolph-Macon College
February Interview: Larry Stimpert, president, Hampden-Sydney College
Virginia cities scramble to provide more affordable housing.


text:
Scott Wannberg, a gentle behemoth of the Los Angeles poetry scene and a mainstay of the old Dutton's bookstore in Brentwood, where for nearly 25 years he molded the reading habits of a wide assortment of customers and petted every dog that crossed the threshold, has died. He was 58.
Wannberg was found dead Friday at his home in Florence, Ore., where he moved after Dutton's closed in 2008, said his uncle, Kenneth Wannberg. He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and died of natural causes.
A mountainous man — he topped 6 feet and weighed about 350 pounds — Wannberg was "one of most loved people in the Los Angeles poetry community. He was extremely warmhearted, generous to everyone he met, especially beginning poets," said Richard Modiano, director of the Beyond Baroque literary center in Venice, where Wannberg read his work.
He was a prolific and spontaneous poet who performed for many years with the Carma Bums, a traveling troupe of poets. With inspiration always at hand — in a birthday, a headline or a bookstore's demise (I still passionately advocate the physical feel of a/book) — he improvised lines of verse on scraps of paper and gave them to friends, such as poet-critic Carlye Archibeque, who in a blog post Sunday called Wannberg the "Johnny Appleseed of poetry."
The poems he didn't give away were published in half a dozen books, including the forthcoming "tomorrow is another song," which will be published Sept. 30 by actor Viggo Mortensen's Perceval Press.
At Dutton's, Wannberg was a clerk and buyer — one whom most customers could never forget, and not just because of his bearish physique.
"He would champion certain books that meant a lot to him," such as Louise Erdrich's "Love Medicine" and Charles Baxter's "First Light," bookstore owner Doug Dutton recalled in an interview this week. "He would browbeat customers into trying these books. Generally they'd be quite grateful for the browbeating."
Wannberg's recommendations were sought by an eclectic range of readers, from elderly Westside matrons to celebrities, including Ed Harris, Randy Newman and the late Peter Falk.
"He wasn't the usual salesman you'd find in any store," said Newman, whose song about the race to fame and fortune, "It's Money That Matters," has a line influenced by characters like Wannberg, who cared little about material success. "He loved books, he loved Los Angeles and the people of it.... Of all the people at the store, I miss him most of all."
T.C. Boyle, the novelist and USC professor, said Wannberg had a "sixth sense" for what he should be reading and always plied him with books when he visited Dutton's. Calling him "one of the true literary zealots," Boyle fondly recalled how Wannberg introduced him whenever he came to the store to launch a new work.
"He would write poems particularly in my honor as the introduction," Boyle said. "He wouldn't read them, he would just rap them. He was an uncontainable fountain of energy."
Wannberg was born in Santa Monica on Feb. 2, 1953, and attended Venice High School, where he was known as a cinephile "who rattled off full cast lists of movies from memory," said former classmate Rip Rense.
Even then, Wannberg was constantly spouting poetry in what Rense described in a 1995 Times profile as "a stream-of-consciousness kind of Chick Hearn-meets-Charles Bukowski narrative."
Wannberg, who had a bachelor's and a master's degree in creative writing from San Francisco State, brought that passion to the Carma Bums, who performed in bookstores, galleries and coffeehouses around the Southwest and Canada for two decades until 2009. The group often traveled in a 1959 Cadillac owned by poet S.A. Griffin, who noted that Wannberg, who did not drive, "always rode shotgun … spiritually and physically."
At Dutton's, he not only tended literary appetites. He kept a stockpile of dog biscuits for four-legged patrons, to whom he seemed acutely attuned. "He could be talking to a customer, but when a dog came in he'd have to go scratch it behind the ear," Dutton recalled. "I don't think he would have survived at Barnes & Noble."
Wannberg was never married. His survivors include two brothers, Paul and Robert.


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Damascus, Arabic Dimashq, city, capital of Syria. Located in the southwestern corner of the country, it has been called the "pearl of the East," praised for its beauty and lushness; the 10th-century traveler and geographer al-Maqdisī lauded the city as ranking among the four earthly paradises. Upon visiting the city in 1867, Mark Twain wrote
To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality.
The city's Arabic name derives from Dimashka, a word of possibly pre-Semitic etymology, suggesting that the beginnings of Damascus go back to a time before recorded history. The city is commonly called al-Shām, the vernacular name of Syria as a whole, which is said to mean "the left" or "the north," where the region is situated relative to the Arabian Peninsula. Owing to associations of Damascus with Aram, the biblical capital of the Aramaeans, some Arabic sources link Damascus and the Iram dhāt al-ʿimād ("Colonnaded Aram") mentioned in the Qurʾān, an identification that has long been disputed. Also contended has been the association of Damascus with Jilliq, a fertile pre-Islamic site whose name derives from a word of unknown origin in use by the Ghassānids active there in the 6th century (see Ghassān). The city is still known by its popular epithet al-Fayḥāʾ ("the Fragrant"), earned perhaps for the freshness of its surrounding orchards and gardens. Many scholars believe that, among the ancient cities of the world, Damascus is perhaps the oldest continuously inhabited.
Over the centuries, Damascus has been conqueror and conquered, wealthy and destitute, and capital of empire and small states. Its fame has been sustained by its continuous prominence as a commercial and intellectual centre. Its life has been nourished periodically by immigrants from the hinterland and from the Mediterranean Basin and Southwest Asia. Often a focus of contention by powers of East and West, Damascus's fortunes have frequently been linked to those of distant capitals, most notably Ashur, Antioch, Rome, Baghdad, Cairo, and Istanbul. Now a burgeoning metropolis of the Middle East, it retains, as it has through centuries of triumph and disaster, an indomitable spirit and a considerable charm.
Area city, 17 square miles (43 square km). Pop. (2007 est.) municipality, 1,669,000.
Character of the city
Travelers to Damascus have been struck by the sight of aspens and poplars growing along streams, of fruit (particularly apricot) and nut orchards, and of olive groves and vegetable gardens. A popular story about the Prophet Muhammad's journey to Syria recounts that, upon seeing verdant Damascus, he refused to go in, as man should only enter paradise once. Upon reaching Damascus in 1326, Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, the Arab travel writer from Tangier, said that no words could do justice to the city's charm; he resorted to quoting his Maghribi predecessor, Ibn Jubayr, who sojourned in Damascus in 1184 and wrote that Damascus had "adorned herself with flowers of sweet scented herbs" and "is encircled by gardens as the moon…by its halo." In 1350 a European traveler, Ludolph van Suchem, wrote of the city as "begirt with gardens and orchards and watered in and out by waters, rivers, brooks, and fountains cunningly arranged to minister to men's luxury." While the accelerated and often disordered growth of the city since World War II has sharply raised the ratio of buildings to trees and open space, Damascenes still enjoy some of the former splendor of al-Ghūṭah, the fertile belt of irrigated land adjacent to the city.
City site
Water and geography have determined the site and role of Damascus. Early settlers were naturally attracted to a place where a river, the Baradā, rising in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains (Al-Jabal al-Sharqī), watered a large and fertile oasis before vanishing into the desert. This tract, al-Ghūṭah, has supported a substantial population for thousands of years. Damascus itself grew on a terrace 2,250 feet (690 metres) above sea level, south of Mount Qāsiyūn and overlooking the Baradā River. The original settlement appears to have been situated in the eastern part of the walled Old City. City and oasis grew together, and over time Damascus came to dominate the lesser rural settlements surrounding it.
The natural endowments of an assured water supply and fertile land made Damascus self-sufficient. Successive colonizers from the 2nd millennium bce onward developed an intricate irrigation system that fed the city through a system of branches derived from the river, contributing to a steady expansion of al-Ghūṭah, especially to the east and west. Damascus's position on the edge of the desert and at the eastern end of the easiest route through the Anti-Lebanon range made it a trade centre where caravan routes originated and terminated. Since the advent of Islam, the city has also been the starting point of the northern pilgrimage road, the Darb al-Hajj al-Shāmī, to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Some 50 miles (80 km) from the sea yet separated from it by two mountain ranges, Damascus receives only about 7 inches (178 mm) of precipitation annually, most of it from November through February. The Anti-Lebanon range gets far greater amounts of both rain and winter snow, which annually replenish the water table that is a source of the Baradā River and other, more minor springs watering Damascus. Owing to the city's elevation, winter is rather cold, with average temperatures of around 40 to 45 °F (5 to 7 °C). A short blossoming spring in March and April is followed by six to seven months of hot dry summer. Temperatures average around 80 °F (27 °C) in midseason, although they occasionally reach 100 °F (38 °C) or above. Summer evenings tend to be tempered by cooler breezes, with temperatures dropping to 65 °F (18 °C). Dust-laden winds blowing in from the desert are somewhat mitigated by small mountain ranges to the east and south of the city.
City layout
Damascus was an active commercial centre in the 2nd millennium bce and developed through different stages of urbanization thereafter, reaching its zenith at the beginning of the 7th century ce when it became the capital of the Umayyad empire. The heart of Damascus's Old City, which contains most of the city's historical monuments, is Hellenistic in origin, with significant Roman additions and modifications. It is a rough oblong about 5,000 feet (1,500 metres) long and 3,300 feet (1,000 metres) wide and is defined by historic walls, of which sizeable stretches still stand, especially in the north and west. Eight gates, seven of which are of Classical derivation, pierce the walls. The long axis of the oblong runs between two gates, Bāb al-Jābiyya (the Roman Jupiter Gate) in the west and Bāb Sharqī (the Roman Sun Gate) in the east. It occupies the former location of the decumanus maximus (main east-west thoroughfare) of the Classical city, which lies some 15 feet (5 metres) below the modern street level; no cardo maximus (main north-south thoroughfare) has been positively identified. Many secondary streets and some of the most prominent features of the Old City owe their positions to the Roman city planners of the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce.
The city's orthogonal plan deteriorated during the late Byzantine period in the 6th and 7th centuries. The Umayyads (661–750) chose Damascus as their capital but did not much change its layout or considerably expand beyond its walls. Although the city was neglected and its population drastically decreased between the 8th and 11th centuries, by the 13th century Damascus had revived and was outgrowing its walls. Two axes of development extra-muros, beyond the city walls, predominated. One linked the city to the northwest with the suburb of Ṣālḥiyyah, which was established in the 12th century by immigrants from Jerusalem on the slopes of Mount Qāsiyūn; the second extended as a long, narrow strip southward along the road leading to the Ḥawrān and Palestine. The Old City was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
The modern city began with the Ottoman Tanzimat (Reorganization) in the late 19th century. Buildings in pseudo-European styles were constructed along new, straight streets to the west and north of the walled city or in Al-Mujāhirīn, the new quarter for immigrants on Mount Qāsiyūn. Later developments followed a plan originally devised by the French during the mandate period (1920–46), with a number of revisions attempted thereafter. Its basic elements include wide boulevards radiating from squares spread around the Old City, especially in the west and northwest and, later, in the east. New housing has developed in the form of concrete blocks of flats along these boulevards. Government buildings are concentrated in an area west of the walled city around Marjah Square, along Nasr Street, and in several districts west of Ṣālḥiyyah Street. Stimulated by the appeal of modern housing and amenities, well-to-do families began in the 1930s to move to the area northwest of the Old City, whose magnificent courtyard houses were left to poorer tenants recently arrived from the countryside, or to light industry. As the population grew, more and more of the garden and farm area was converted into residential districts, many of them illegal settlements, while mukhalafāt (informal districts, such as upper Al-Muhājirīn and the Kurdish quarter) expanded up the slopes of Mount Qāsiyūn. Ancient farming villages close by, such as Al-Mazzah, Barzah, Kafr Sūsah, Al-Qābūn, and Al-Qadam, were incorporated into the city, both administratively and physically. Government efforts to retain green areas and to zone housing and industry have been plagued not only by overwhelming population growth but also by administrative laxity and corruption. The development of affluent residential suburbs in the 1990s added precious new parks and gardens in the north, northwest, and southeast of the city, yet more than half of the city's green space has been lost since 1945.
Damascus experienced tremendous growth during the second half of the 20th century, with its population estimated to have increased more than tenfold. The city's growth rate is higher than that of the country as a whole, owing mainly to steady migration from rural areas. So heavy has been the influx of young migrants drawn by employment and educational opportunities that the average age of Damascenes has dropped below that of the national level. Among the religious minorities, the ʿAlawites from the coastal mountain region are notable for their prominence in the army and in the intelligence services (al-mukhābarāt). Other religious and ethnic groups, principally the Druze, Kurds, Circassians, Twelver Shīʿites, and Ismāʿīlīs (see Islam: Ismāʿīlīs) maintain their identity among the majority Arab Sunni Muslim populace. The city's minorities include a Palestinian community. There is also a substantial Christian population representing various denominations, including Syriac and Armenian, while a once-flourishing Jewish population has been greatly decreased. The population decline owes largely to emigration in the late 20th century following pressure on Syria to allow the remainder of its Jewish population—previously subject to limitations on travel, employment, and other restrictions—to leave the country.
Manufacturing, finance, and other services
Government is Damascus's most important economic activity. National politics and administration, including large military and secret services establishments, are centred there. Well-known over the centuries for luxurious manufactured wares, especially textiles, the growing city has attracted many new industries since the mid-20th century. All major factories and most strategic industries are state-run, but the private sector began in the 1990s to assert its economic agility in small, service-oriented industries. Textile plants, the chemical industry, cement works, and food-processing factories are principally distributed to the south, east, and northeast. Most of the population's requirements for food, clothing, and the like are met by private businesses. Traditional artisan crafts such as copper engraving, mother-of-pearl-encrusted woodwork, and brocades are still practiced in the Old City.
The historical role of Damascus as a "desert port" has changed because of political developments and the scale of modern commerce. Most imports come through Syria's own ports of Latakia, Tartus, and Bāniyās instead of through Lebanon, as was the case until about the mid-20th century. Goods are transshipped to countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Damascus distributes its own products and imported goods within Syria as well. A large international trade exposition is held there in the autumn. The potential for a highly profitable tourism sector—particularly cultural tourism, for which Damascus is well suited—has been modestly explored since the late 1980s through the active promotion and development of new accommodations and transportation facilities. Attempts to modernize the financial and banking systems and to liberalize trade that took place under Pres. Bashar al-Assad in the early 2000s largely lacked the vigour required for a measurable impact on the economy. After a series of delays, the country's first stock exchange formally opened for trading in Damascus in March 2009.
Damascus's traffic problems are relatively few and are largely resolvable. Damascus is adequately connected to its surrounding regions; major highways fan out in all directions, connecting Damascus with such cities as Beirut, Ammān, Aleppo, and Baghdad. A rail line north to Homs ties in with the national railroad system; along with the trucking industry, it transports imported products to the city. Damascus International Airport, located some 20 miles (32 km) east of the city, is served by many commercial airlines that offer direct flights to major regional and international cities. Inner-city transportation is largely provided by motor vehicles. Animal-drawn carts, which once gave the city a picturesque aura, have largely disappeared, except in some of the poorer residential quarters. Buses and taxis carry passengers both within the city and to other parts of the country; these are supplemented by the microbus and the "service," a car or van that travels an established route for a fare. The substantial increase in the number of private cars since the early 1980s with no corresponding expansion of the basic street system has subjected the city to unprecedented congestion, especially in the administrative and commercial centre. New projects aimed at alleviating this problem have included the construction of a highway belt encircling the city, as well as the creation of satellite towns through ventures such as the Dummar Project and the Qurā al-Assad (the Assad Villages) west and northwest of the city.
Administration and society
The municipality is administered as a muḥāfaẓah (governorate), one of 14 in the country. The president of Syria appoints a governor who administers the city with the assistance of a council made up of elected and appointed members. The city is divided into quarters (aḥyāʾ), each of which has a mayor appointed by the governor. The post of governor of Damascus is an important one with national implications. Political activity is national, not municipal, as Syria is a centralized state with one party dominating public affairs. The outlying portions of al-Ghūtah and a vast surrounding district constitute another governorate, Rīf Dimashq (Rural Damascus), of which Damascus city is the capital.
Municipal services and health
Rapid population growth has put a strain on the city's services, health facilities, and water supply. Damascus draws its water mainly from the Baradā River as well as other, smaller springs, receiving it through a centuries-old system that has been enlarged several times. At the beginning of the 21st century, increasing demand on established water sources forced a steep drop in the surrounding water table. As the water supply crisis grew more urgent, resources were rationed and plans were considered to supply the city with water from the Euphrates River or other sources. The city's electricity is generated locally and also is brought from the hydroelectric station at the Euphrates Dam. Health care has been improving and is better than in much of the country. About half of the country's doctors practice in the capital, dividing their services between government hospitals and private clinics. The ratio of hospital beds to population has been rising but is still low compared to more industrialized countries.
On the whole, Syrian literacy rates are high by regional standards, with more than nine-tenths of males and more than three-fourths of females being literate. Primary education is mandatory; an extensive public school system provides primary and secondary education for the vast majority of Damascene children. Private schools supplement the public schools, and there is a separate system run by the United Nations for Palestinian refugee children. The University of Damascus was founded in 1923 through the joining of four older institutions of higher learning and was a pioneer in the Arab world for introducing Arabic as the sole language of instruction and research. It is the largest and oldest of Syria's universities, and there are several institutes of technical training and advanced research.
Cultural life
Damascus is both Syria's cultural and political centre; the city has long attracted great interest for its numerous sites of historic and cultural significance, including the Great Mosque of the Umayyad period and the turbah, or tomb, of Saladin. Under the Ministry of Culture, which supervises most of the formal aspects of the cultural life of the capital, there has been an effort to combine elements of the city's heritage with contemporary developments. The prestigious Arabic Language Academy of Damascus (1919) is a bastion of Arabic language, working both to preserve and modernize the language. The National Museum, established in 1936, boasts an extraordinary collection of artifacts from across the country, representing six millennia of civilization. A military museum occupies the cells of the 16th-century Ottoman takiyyah (monastic complex) of Süleyman I. The small yet impressive Museum of Arabic Calligraphy is housed in a 15th-century Mamlūk madrasah, whereas the Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions is situated in the splendid 18th-century al-ʿAẓm Palace. An institute for music instructs in both traditional and Western styles, another institute promotes the theatre arts, and a third sponsors a performing folklore troupe. The Dār al-Assad for Culture and Arts, a major cultural complex featuring a range of dance, musical, and film productions, was inaugurated in 2004.
Since the final decades of the 20th century, Damascus has been the centre of a burgeoning artistic movement. The work of both Syrian and international artists is exhibited regularly, increasingly in the private galleries proliferating around Damascus. The arts are subsidized by the government, though artistic expression is impeded by bureaucratic restrictions. State control dominates publishing and journalism, both of which are centred in Damascus. Three national dailies, largely reflecting the state's viewpoints, are edited in the city, as are most of the country's magazines. Damascus also leads the country in book publication, an enterprise that involves the government as the leading publisher and ultimate censor. Al-Assad National Library was inaugurated in 1984. Among other important materials, it contains the precious collection of manuscripts and rare books of Damascus's venerable public library, al-Ẓāhiriyyah. The library associated with the University of Damascus is also significant.
Television enjoys considerable appeal; programming includes locally produced material in addition to imports from other Arab countries and from abroad. A number of locally produced television series, especially those treating historical topics, have begun to enjoy immense popularity across the Arab world. Damascus radio broadcasts in Arabic, English, French, Turkish, Hebrew, and other languages. Sports are very popular among Damascenes. Football (soccer) especially is a national pastime, and swimming and basketball, along with wrestling, boxing, and tennis, are among other widespread recreations. The city's stadiums draw large crowds for a heavy schedule of events.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
Ghassān, Arabian kingdom prominent as a Byzantine ally ( symmachos) in the 6th century. From its strategic location in portions of modern Syria, Jordan, and Israel, it protected the spice trade route from the south of the Arabian Peninsula and acted as a buffer against the desert Bedouin. The Ghassānid king al-Ḥārith…
biblical literature: The divided monarchy: from Jeroboam I to the Assyrian conquestDamascus was the main immediate enemy, which annexed much of Israel's territory, exercised suzerainty over the rest, and exacted a heavy tribute from Judah. Under Jeroboam II (783–741) in Israel and Uzziah (Azariah; 783–742) in Judah, both of whom had long reigns at the same…
Islamic arts: Early religious buildings…cases, such as Jerusalem and Damascus and perhaps in most cities conquered through formal treaties, the Muslims took for themselves an available unused space and erected on it some shelter, usually a very primitive one. In Jerusalem this space happened to be a particularly holy one—the area of the Jewish…
history of Mesopotamia: Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser VDamascus and Israel tried to organize resistance against him, seeking to bring Judah into their alliance. Ahaz of Judah, however, asked Tiglath-pileser for help. In 733 Tiglath-pileser devastated Israel and forced it to surrender large territories. In 732 he advanced upon Damascus, first devastating the…
ancient Iran: Conflicts with the Turks and Byzantium…Syria, and captured Antioch (611), Damascus (613), and Jerusalem (614); in 619 Egypt was occupied. The Byzantine Empire was, indeed, at its lowest ebb.…
More About Damascus17 references found in Britannica articles
Assorted References
- importance to Syria
- early Islamic
- Mamlūk
- damascening
- In damascening
- glassmaking
conquest by
- Khosrow II
- Abraham's sojourn
- cities of Decapolis
- In Decapolis
- conflict with Judah


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Intake for Individuals
September 17, 2018 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
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With just two months until the Oct. 1 deadline for states and the federal government to have their health-care exchanges up and running, now's the time for consumers to learn how their insurance plans will operate under the Affordable Care Act.
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The individual mandate, which requires every U.S. citizen to either have health care or pay a penalty--which begins at $95 per year, kicks in Jan. 1, so it behooves people to understand their options. Experts the exchange landscapes will begin to solidify more over the next several weeks, providing consumers a better sense of what they are in for come the New Year.
The new law means very different things for different groups of people, says Devon Herrick, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. For example, certain low-income individuals and undocumented workers will not be penalized for not having coverage.
"You also cannot be turned away from insurers due to your health status, which is a big issue for people [today] as they approach middle age," he says.
And while not all states are expanding their Medicaid programs, eligibility requirements will loosen, Herrick says. "If you are a low-to-moderate income individual, you will probably qualify for free--or nearly-free--coverage through Medicaid." Subsidies will be available for people that are at or below 400% of the poverty level.
Here's a breakdown of how the upcoming rollouts of health-care reform impacts different groups of people:
Those With Coverage at Large Companies or Individual Plans
Already-insured consumers will face minimal changes, according to Herrick, as long as their carrier continues to participate in either the state or federal exchange. Prices may fluctuate though as premiums shift under the new law.
For those with current coverage, Nate Purpura, director of consumer information for eHealth Insurance, suggests finding out if it will be grandfathered in under the new law, meaning it had an effective date of March 23, 210.
"If so, it will have all of the old benefit structures and you can hold onto that plan," he says. "But you will have more choice come open enrollment."
It is less clear what happens to those without grandfathered plans, he says.
"This is a state-by-state issue. If the Department of Insurance in your state is letting insurers stay on the existing plan, that is the insurance company's decision if they are going to do that, or move the pre-ACA plan to a new post-ACA plan model. This is a carrier-by-carrier level."
To find out more information, contact a state's department of insurance and the individual insurance company.
For consumers currently insured with a carrier that is leaving the state or not listing on an exchange, it's possible another carrier may pick up its participants. If not, it may be time to look for a new provider.
Those Without Coverage and Working at Small Companies
Workers that don't get insurance may be in for a pleasant surprise if their company has at least 50 full-time employees, as some businesses will choose to offer their workers coverage under the new law.
The employer mandate portion of the ACA was recently delayed until Jan. 1, 2015, but Herrick suggests uninsured workers inquire with employers about their plans.
Businesses with more than 50 workers will have to offer coverage to full-time workers or pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker, per year. Some businesses plan to pay the fine saying it's cheaper than offering coverage.
"It may be in their best interest to offer workers these plans directly," Herrick says.
Part-time workers could face a reduction in hours as employers look to avoid the requirement to provide coverage for those that work 50 hours a week.
"They need to be on their guard," Herrick says.
Those Without Any Coverage at All and no Employer Options for Coverage
Those who are currently uninsured because they do not work, don't have coverage from their employer or do not qualify are in the best position come the 2014, says Purpura. Once state and federal exchanges are open for business, it will be easier to shop for qualified health plans and compare pricing to find what works best for each consumer.
"There are new marketplaces opening up, and once the exchanges open you can look around like you do when buying airline tickets on Travelocity," he said.


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A man he thirsts to know everything about from his height (six-foot-seven) to his to his jobs (football player, veterinarian, and investment broker) to his passions (hiking and camping.)
"My dad also played basketball," Thomas says helpfully. "But he didn't play dodgeball."
On Friday morning, Thomas, his mom Tracey and half-brother Justin boarded a plane to Toronto to take in the 100th Grey Cup. The trip, funded by the Canadian Football League and Cisco, is a pilgrimage, of sorts, for a young boy looking for his father.
A young boy in search of context for the 1990 Grey Cup ring that hangs around his neck on an oversized silver chain.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," says Thomas, a well-spoken chap who turns seven next month.
Steven Rodehutskors, an imposing offensive lineman for eight seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, died five years ago from a mystery form of cancer at age 43.
"Thomas, he was nearly 2 when his dad passed away," says his mom, Tracey Deplaedt. "This is the first time he's old enough to understand it.
"I mean, it's easy to talk about the Grey Cup, to tell him your dad played and he won some rings. But I don't think you really understand until you see the Cup and you see the big football players there."
The all-expenses trip to Toronto came as a result of an outing to the Grey Cup train when it rolled through their hometown of Okotoks this summer.
Sensing the importance, sensing the opportunity, Tracey took her son in hopes of teaching him something about his dad.
Once aboard the train, they saw the ticket stubs from the Grey Cup championships he won (1988 and 1990.) They looked at the game posters, the vintage blue and gold uniforms. They found his name engraved on Lord Grey's chalice.
Then they received the invitation to the 100th Grey Cup Sunday at Rogers Centre.
"This is actually the first few months where I've been able to look at the photo albums again," Tracey says. "And now we're in the thick of it and reliving things.
"Ultimately, for me, this is a chance to remember him again, to keep it going."
A Vanier Cup champion with the University of Calgary Dinos and basketball player for the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns, Rodehutskors refused to let sports define him. He simply wasn't one of those folks to regale dinner parties with tales of gridiron glory.
"The one thing I would say about my Steve would be that he was pretty much a renaissance man," Tracey explains. "Football was only part of his life."
Upon retirement from the Bombers, Rodehutskors worked in the investment world before opening a large-animal veterinary clinic in Strathmore.
At 42, cancer struck Rodehutskors when Tracey was nine months pregnant with Thomas. At first, the doctors couldn't figure out why his body started to rebel against him.
Eight months later, the family finally received the diagnosis: an unknown primary cancer that had spread to the point of no return.
"He was a fighter," Thomas says.
Indeed. Rodehutskors continued to tend to cows and horses. He continued to camp and hike . He continued to savour every moment with his three children, Jeffrey, Mark, and Thomas. Until one day, the time came when his body would no longer cooperate.
"We had so much help," Tracey says. "The veterinarians Steve worked with did his job when he couldn't, and they let us bill for it. All his football and basketball buddies did fundraisers.
"And we never had to buy groceries because the Hutterites (loyal vet clients) supplied everything we needed, literally for nearly two years. We would wake up in the morning, and there would be a big turkey on our doorstep."
Rodehutskors died on Oct. 25, 2007. Every year to mark the anniversary, Tracey and the boys release balloons skyward, with personal messages attached.
"This year, we're going to do it on Sunday morning by the stadium," Tracey says, tousling Thomas's blonde hair. "We'll write our little notes and send them up to him.
"He'll be happy that we'll be there, being a part of it."
None more part of it than a blonde-haired boy in a blue and gold jersey emblazoned with the number 57.
Just like his dad.


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What makes our Italian cashmere so special? Not only do we insist on using the best yarn out there, but each season we develop completely custom colors that you'll find only at J.Crew (we work hand in hand with a centuries-old Italian mill to ensure that each shade has just the right depth, saturation and brightness). Our featherweight cashmere is a tissue-soft, delicate 14-gauge knit that takes color especially well—so it was the perfect choice for this graphic twist on the Tippi silhouette.
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30/12/12 20:16
China's capital has seen a huge variety of traction over the years, although steam had been banished from the city centre long before I first got there. These pictures show several different classes of diesel and electric locos, DMUs and EMUs, including a CRH High Speed Train, in and around the main station from the early 1990s onwards.
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Miscellaneous images from around Lanzhou Bureau in China's west.
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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
Making Meaning in Literature:
A Video Library, Grades 6-8
Individual Clip Descriptions
1. Introducing the Envisionment-Building Classroom
2. Building a Literary Community
3. Asking Questions
4. Facilitating Discussion
5. Seminar Discussion
6. Dramatic Tableaux
7. Readers as Individuals
8. The Teachers Role in a Literary Community
9. Whole Group Discussions
Howard A. Doolin Middle School
Location: Miami, Florida
No. of Students in School: 1,980
Teacher: Ana Hernandez
No. of Years Teaching: 4 Years
Grade: 7th
Subject: Language arts
No. of Students in the Classroom: 30
after a Dade County music teacher, Howard Doolin Middle School
in Miami, Florida, is a fine arts school with an emphasis
on character education. The school building was constructed
in 1997 and has a spacious, open feel. It serves the rapidly
growing, racially and economically mixed neighborhood of West
Kendall. Most children walk to school or take a bus paid for
by their families; the district does not arrange transportation
if students live within two miles of school. The student population
is approximately 82 percent Hispanic (many from South America)
with a smaller percentage of African Americans, Caucasians,
and Asian Americans. Although many students are bilingual,
classes are conducted in English. Students take the Florida
Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT), an essay and short-answer
exam, at the end of each year. The school receives a grade
based on student results.
boasts a Gifted and Talented (GT) program into which students
are admitted based on an IQ test or teacher recommendation.
Class periods last nearly two hours, in an ABC schedule, allowing
adequate time for a wide range of activities within a single
period. Because GT classes are looped in the sixth and seventh
grade, teachers like Ana Hernandez have the additional luxury
of working with the same students for two full years before
passing them to their eighth-grade instructors. As a department,
the language arts teachers establish a scope and sequence
that prescribes what standards and objectives teachers should
address but allows for teacher discretion in how to meet these
Hernandez strives to incorporate connections from literature
into what students are studying in other subjects and into
their own lives and choices. She employs a mix of both formal
exams and project-based assessments in her classroom to monitor
student progress.
previous next
© Annenberg Foundation 2017. All rights reserved. Legal Policy


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"Since my son is extremely gifted, as his teacher confirmed, I beg you to let me have the piano that the evacuated Jews left." With this request, an Offenbach citizen approached his tax office in 1942. At that time, the tax office was already involved with the "recovery" of property of the deportees...learn more
The cooperation agreed between the International Tracing Service (ITS) and Gießen University brought another group of students of the University's History Faculty to Bad Arolsen on 15 June 2012 where they pursued research in the ITS archives. Their group included four students taking part in a project of the European...learn more
Final class pupils of Kassel Herder School enrolled for a bilingual basic course in history undertook a one-day excursion to the archive of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen on 14 June 2012. After listening to an introductory lecture on the history of the ITS and viewing a clip from a 1946 movie,...learn more
Dr Roman Herzog, political scientist and documentalist, has spent two days at the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) looking through records on camps in Italy. He got an overview of the holdings available on Italy and Italian persecutees. Among other files, the archives include ITS correspondence with...learn more
Nicole Mueller has come to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen to do research for her exam paper entitled "Codename Katzbach - forced labor and extermination in the concentration camp of the Adler factories, Frankfurt am Main, 1944/1945". "After I have been to the archives in...learn more
Holocaust survivor Jules Schelvis spoke about his ordeal during events held in Vöhl commemorating the deportation of over 500 Jews from the Kassel area to Sobibor and Majdanek. The 91-year old survived several concentration camps including the extermination camps Sobibor and Auschwitz. He had to endure his beloved...learn more
In June 1942 more than 500 Jewish residents of the Administrative District of Kassel were deported to Sobibor and Majdanek. The Friends' Association of the Vöhl Synagogue, local authorities and instiatives and the International Tracing Service (ITS) remembered the victims in Vöhl last weekend.learn more
After more than 40 years, Isabelle de Cocatrix Kechavarz longed to come back to Bad Arolsen – the place where she spent many years of her childhood. Her father, Albert de Cocatrix, had been Deputy Director and subsequently Director of the International Tracing Service (ITS) from 1955 to 1977. "He was a very discreet...learn more
In mid-May 2012, 26 pupils from the Bad Arolsen Kaulbach School came to see the International Tracing Service (ITS). Apart from preparing a presentation on the history and present tasks and objectives of the ITS, the pupils formed groups and occupied themselves with the subject of "conceptions of man". "A three-hour...learn more
Between 9th and 11th May 2012, Karsten Kühnel, Archivist and Head of the section Archival Description at the International Tracing Service (ITS), attended a conference of the Work Package Standards and Guidelines of the Archives and Research Portal EHRI (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure). EHRI partners met at...learn more


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All World Athlete Program
The IRONMAN All World Athlete program is our way of rewarding age-group athletes for their hard work, dedication, and performance across IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 racing. As long as one IRONMAN or IRONMAN 70.3, is completed you can also receive points for IRONMAN 5i50 events.
The program uses IRONMAN's Age Group Rankings system to determine which athletes have finished within the top 10 percent or better of their age group each calendar year. Within this system, athletes generate points based on their finish time behind the first official finisher in their age group. Athletes accumulate points at every race they complete, but on December 31st, only their top three performances will count toward their All World Athlete status. This makes it easy for athletes to improve their ranking simply by racing more with IRONMAN.
An athlete can achieve All World Athlete status in one or all of the following catego
ries: IRONMAN, IRONMAN 70.3 and OVERALL (IRONMAN, IRONMAN 70.3, IRONMAN 5i50). There are three levels associated with the All World Athlete program:
GOLD (top one percent)
SILVER (top five percent)
BRONZE (top ten percent)
All World Athletes receive a variety of benefits from IRONMAN, please see AWA benefits tab.
For questions regarding the program or help selecting races to help you gain or maintain All World Athlete status


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Kofax Buys Analytics Software Maker
Friday, March 1, 2013
Business software maker Kofax PLC in Irvine has acquired a Pennsylvania company for $13.5 million in cash.
Kofax—which is publicly traded in London but maintains its headquarters here—acquired Altosoft Inc., a business intelligence and analytics software developer.
Its software provides real-time reporting that's billed to enhance Kofax's smart applications and get information to customers quicker.
The privately-held company based outside of Philadelphia in Media, Penn., targets the healthcare industry. It saw revenue of $3.4 million in 2012 and has no debt.
Altosoft Chief Executive Scott Opitz and Chief Technical Officer Alex Elkin, who were majority shareholders, will be retained.
Kofax makes scanning software used by businesses to streamline the flow of information, eliminate paper, speed up productivity, reduce costs and improve customer service.
The company marked a 5% rise in profit to $16 million from continuing business in fiscal 2012, ending June 30.
Revenue hit a company-record $262.5 million, up 8%.


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Welcome to Teaching As Leadership Online
What Is It?
This website offers "how to" guides, annotated illustrations, common pitfalls, and tools to help all teachers embody the principles and strategies that distinguish highly effective teachers in low-income communities.
The Ms. Lora Story
Learn, grow, struggle, fail, succeed, cry and laugh with one teacher aspiring to lead her 4th graders to dramatic academic achievement.


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Carrier Grade Linux: Linux in Telecom
Linux and the Telecommunication Industry--Overview
Traditionally, communications and data service networks were built on proprietary platforms that had to meet very specific requirements in areas such as availability, reliability, performance, and service response time. Those proprietary systems were composed of highly-purposed hardware, operating system, middleware, and often included proprietary technologies and interfaces. Such proprietary approaches to system architecture fostered vendor lock-in, very served to limit design flexibility and freedom, and produced platforms that were and are very expensive to maintain and expand.
Today, those same service providers and carriers are challenged to drive down costs while still maintaining carrier class characteristics for platforms to provide service and mission critical applications in an all-IP environment. They are in a position today where they must move away from specialized proprietary architectures, and towards commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) approaches and building practices (Figure 1) for several reasons:
- Faster time to market.
- The need to reduce design and operation costs by using COTS hardware and software components.
- The growth of packet traffic is placing added pressure on communication networks. Communication platforms reside on all-IP networks and need to maintain carrier grade characteristics in terms of availability, reliability, security, and service response time.
- The emergence of COTS hardware and software components is driving the need for seamless integration of all components as integrated solutions must be validated for carrier grade availability and scalability.
- Service providers and carriers need to be able to deliver new services based on common standardized platforms.
Figure 1 shows where the PICMG and Service Availability Forum are active in defining building block components and open interfaces for standards-based telecom platforms.
As a result, proprietary legacy systems no longer offer a viable approach. They are expensive to buy, maintain, and scale. As a result, the telecom industry is moving away from specialized proprietary systems toward open platforms that are based on industry established standards and common practices.
- Skip Ahead
- 1. Linux and the Telecommunication Industry--Overview
- 2. Linux and the Telecommunication Industry--Overview
- 3. Linux and the Telecommunication Industry--Overview
- 4. Linux and the Telecommunication Industry--Overview
- 5. Linux and the Telecommunication Industry--Overview


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