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Important. Copyright 2011 Tom X. Chao
Purchase "The Only Record"
Tom's web presence
The Peculiar Utterance of the Day [Archive]
Publications and other web appearances
Blog Archive
- ► 2012 (231)
- PODCAST: Shoes
- PODCAST: Things to shout during sex
- PODCAST: Rug merchant
- PODCAST: Soylent Green hot dogs
- PODCAST: Excitement-filled Thursday!
- PODCAST: Mulholland Dr.
- PODCAST: The sloppytini recipe
- PODCAST: Takeout food plus one verse of Danny Boy
- PODCAST: Don't close bookstores
- PODCAST: Single strand of red hair
- PODCAST: Last Days of Disco characters
- PODCAST: Euro-socio-politico-erotico drama
- PODCAST: Forever alone
- PODCAST: What do we need to protect from Republica...
- PODCAST: Crapville Fringe Festival
- PODCAST: Woman-soul-fire
- PODCAST: My spiritual counselor's hair
- PODCAST: The energy of fruit
- PODCAST: Post-show schmooze
- PODCAST: Dropping food
- ▼ March (20)
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For a more detailed overview of Tom X. Chao's work, please see his Wikipedia page that was created in October 2015.
Tom X. Chao has written, directed, produced and performed original theater pieces for over 10 years. His works include:
The Negative Energy FieldAudio: The Peculiar Utterance of the Day podcast
Can't Get Started | 2000, revived 2006
Cats Can See The Devil | 2003
Freak Out Under the Apple Tree | 2005
Callous Cad | 2009, revived 2011
The previous incarnation of this website is still available here.
Please hire Tom as an editor, indexer, researcher, or maker of bibliographies for psychology textbooks.
PODCAST: My spiritual counselor's hair
Saturday, March 05, 2011 | Filed Under | 0 Comments
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Bit of a mixed bag this time round!
At home, by Bill Bryson [audiobook]. Read by the author. Bath: Chivers, 2010.
Supposedly a history of the domestic interior, based on Bryson's own parsonage home in Norfolk, this book has the usual broad strokes of popular history Bryson's become so famous for. It does tend to meander all over the place, but is immensely entertaining for all that, and has some fascinating facts - I think my favourite one of these was that Friedrich Engels came to England to manage his family's sewing-thread factory. Bryson is one of those few authors who read their own books well, and this is a very charming and enchanting addition to his other works. SamuraiKnitter has blogged about this one recently and was also enjoying it.
Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Carey. London: Faber, 2010.
Carey's contribution to the Booker shortlist this year. Parrot is a British engraver, Olivier a French aristocrat, but it's all more complicated than that; Olivier is sent, almost as a refugee, to examine the US penitentiary system as an envoy for the French régime, and Parrot as his servant. It's a strange, picaresque journey, with various sidetracks and flashbacks along the way. While Carey makes us aware that society in England, France and the USA are entirely different from the present day, he also makes wry comments about the way that human nature really doesn't change that much. After a series of alarums, excursions, love affairs and strange ménages, it ultimately doesn't really go anywhere, but it's immensely entertaining on the way. In the end, though, Olivier muses on the nature of democracy: It is a truly lovely flower, a tiny tender fruit, but it will not ripen well. You will see.
The burying place, by Brian Freeman [audiobook]. Read by Garrick Hagan. Bath: Oakhill, 2009.
I think this was a recommendation from Wibbo and a good one. The intertwined plots are pretty gripping and there's one Deaver-scale shift in the plot about three-quarters of the way through. The small-town Minnesota environment is also very well rendered, and you do really feel as if you're there... I'll be looking for some more of these as I gather this is the fifth with a recurring character.
The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. London: Bloomsbury, 2009.
A Kniterati book - and another I wouldn't normally have picked up - the word "Charming" as the first word of a cover review usually rings alarm bells. And that would have been a mistake - I think this is possibly the most wonderful thing I've read all year, and it's been a very good year for new discoveries.
Juliet, a London journalist, is casting around for ideas for a book when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a pig farmer in Guernsey, asking her for a recommendation for a good bookshop in London. An unlikely correspondence starts and a chorus of distinctive voices appear. This is entirely a roman à lettres, but given that this is a book set in 1946, the Guernsey voices have an urge to tell recent history through their letters. This is a book which has you laughing on one page and crying on the next; it doesn't shrink from telling some of the worst aspects of the Occupation, but it also reflects the absurdity in the minutiae of everyday life deprived of virtually everything. It genuinely is charming, but in the slightly creepier, harder-edged sense of drawing you in and refusing to let you go.
Totally, totally recommended. And wonderful for a book group because it rattles along, there are a lot of different themes there, and they pack a huge amount into the 250 pages.
Grave doubts, by Elizabeth Corley [audiobook]. Read by Charlotte Strevens. Bath: Oakhill, [n.d.]*
This is really quite creepy; a serial killer and rapist is arrested, but the spate of killings and attempted murders goes on. Louise Nightingale, a police sergeant, is viciously attacked leading to the arrest of the original culprit. Nightingale goes to her grandmother's old farm to recuperate, but finds out some fundamental secrets about her own family's past but is unaware that she is the target of her attacker's mentor in crime who is determined to track her down. I can't say this is the best reading in the world, but it's pleasant enough and not at all irritating, which is the main thing!
*There probably is a date on this, but the library have worked their usual magic and obscured the copyright information...

subset: commoncrawl


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Gerald W. Lynch, who led the fight to preserve John Jay College of Criminal Justice when it was threatened with closing or merger because of New York City's fiscal crisis, died on Wednesday at his home in Bridgehampton, N.Y. He was 76.
He died after a brief illness, said Mayra Nieves, special adviser to the president of John Jay.
Dr. Lynch, the college's longest-serving president, was a psychology professor when he was named acting president of John Jay in 1975. Within weeks, the entire City University of New York system became embroiled in the fiscal crisis, and John Jay's future was in doubt.
Mayor Abraham D. Beame had ordered the CUNY system to cut nearly $100 million from its budget. One solution proposed by the City University chancellor Robert J. Kibbee involved closing or merging multiple schools, one of them John Jay. The Board of Higher Education — now called the City University of New York Board of Trustees — was ready to go along, but Dr. Lynch opposed the plan.
He enthusiastically supported student protests, even scaling a wooden barricade with a megaphone to lead hundreds of students in chants. He also courted high-profile supporters in politics and law enforcement, including Police Commissioner Michael J. Codd and Nicholas Scoppetta, then the city's commissioner of investigations and a teacher at John Jay. And he cut nearly $3 million with an austerity budget of his own.
"Even though this is radical surgery," Dr. Lynch said, "it is better than death."
The Board of Higher Education wound up merging many of the other CUNY schools, but John Jay survived.
Dr. Lynch was formally sworn in as president in March 1977, and remained until 2004.
During his tenure, John Jay became one of the top criminal justice programs in the country, and enrollment nearly doubled to 14,104 at his retirement, from 7,229 in 1976.
He also secured financing for John Jay's first official home, the former Haaren High School, in the late 1980s, and persuaded the CUNY system to transform it into a blocklong state-of-the-art building on 11th Avenue that opened in 2011. A campus theater was named for him in 2004.
Gerald Weldon Lynch was born in Manhattan on March 24, 1937, to Alice Margaret and Edward Dewey Lynch. He earned a bachelor's degree from Fordham and a doctorate in clinical psychology from New York University.
Dr. Lynch became a psychology professor at John Jay in the mid-1960s. He soon became the dean of students and eventually the vice president and acting dean of faculty members.
He was widely sought after as an expert on an array of topics. He led a study panel on legalizing casino gambling in New York State in the late 1970s and early 1980s under Mayor Edward I. Koch and Gov. Hugh L. Carey; advocated for the professionalization of the police and fire departments; and was a staunch opponent of capital punishment.
Dr. Lynch is survived by his wife, Eleanor Sherry Lynch; a son, Timothy; a daughter, Elizabeth; and a granddaughter.


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The Recreation Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) has scheduled its 2014 Annual Meeting for March 4–7 at the Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad, Calif.
According to a press release, Annual Meeting attendees will have the opportunity to discuss association activities, attend informative seminars and network with business colleagues.
The tentative schedule includes the arrival of Executive Committee and board members on March 4. The following day will be the major day of arrival for Annual Meeting attendees and will also feature the Executive Committee and RVIA board meetings, the First Timers and Welcome receptions, and an Annual Meeting Alumni Dinner.
A seminar session, featuring three presentations, will take place the morning of March 6. RVIA's Annual Membership Meeting will be held that afternoon and feature reports on association activities from RVIA Chairman Doug Gaeddert and RVIA President Richard Coon. The day concludes with the Chairman's Reception and Dinner.
Friday is an open day with attendees able to play golf or tour the area.
"The Annual Meeting is the ideal venue for our members to come together and develop the relationships that are so crucial to success," said RVIA President Richard Coon. "I've heard from so many people that attending this event opened their eyes to all the association does on behalf of the industry and influenced them to become more active in the organization."
The Park Hyatt Aviara is an award-winning property set on 200 acres approximately 40 minutes north the San Diego airport. It offers state-of-the art meeting facilities as well as a wide range of activities and dining options.
For more information about the RVIA Annual Meeting, contact the association's Meeting department at (703) 620-6003, ext. 305.


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Prevention of recurrent heart attacks and strokes in low and middle income populations
Evidence-based recommendations for policy makers and health professionals.
This publication summarizes the evidence for the effectiveness of interventions for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD) and cerebrovascular disease (CeVD). A commentary on the evidence for cardiovascular prevention in peripheral vascular disease and diabetes is also included.
Each review of evidence is followed by a short summary of clinical recommendations for secondary prevention. A review of other considerations influencing policy-makers in the implementation of secondary prevention strategies, including health economics, follows. Finally, the book identifies areas in which research is needed to improve secondary prevention of CVD in low- and middle-income populations.
This publication is intended for practicing physicians responsible for the care of patients with established cardiovascular disease (CVD) - specifically CHD and CeVD - in low- and middle-income populations and countries. The aim is to provide general guidance about the effectiveness - or lack of effectiveness - of specific interventions, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological.
In addition, the information will help a wide range of health professionals concerned with individual and community care, and will provide guidance to health policy-makers about the broader issues pertaining to implementation of interventions in low- and middle-income populations.


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|Me holding my very first Barbie, and my sister.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Sepia Saturday - Me and My Long Lost Barbie
14 comments:
Poor Barbie, upside down, but I'm sure you didn't mean to do it. Very cute pictures. Thanks.ReplyDelete
You know, the best presents are those given because...ReplyDelete
Nice post.
oh, the barbie culture!! how many girls in this world have fond memories of their childhood due to this tiny piece of plastic? lovely pics!!ReplyDelete
little girls with dolls; and those old polaroid photos, scan before they fade away completely. Cute posesReplyDelete
Great photos and you were adorable. Poor Barbie was all dressed up because she heard she was going to Paris. I don't suppose she knew it was going to be Paris, Idaho. Maybe she hitched a ride to Rome (Idaho.)ReplyDelete
I wonder how many of us have toys that just disappeared, and we wish we had them again? No Barbie for you now, but at least you have photos of her and some great memories of your dad. Fun post.ReplyDelete
i miss my G.I. JOEs!! i had those with "real hair"!!!...ReplyDelete
What a fun thing to do, find a picture of your first Barbie. I agree those Polaroids do not look good after a few years. Better than no photo at all though. great post.ReplyDelete
I was too old for dolls by the time Barbie came along and could never see the appeal . . . but oh how many of my friends treasure those Barbie memories! Nice post!ReplyDelete
Ah yes, Bubble Barbie. I have two in my collection. They were a lot of fun.ReplyDelete
Fun photos.
I was too old for Barbies, too, but I still have one of my childhood dolls.ReplyDelete
I always enjoyed buying clothes for my niece's Barbies. I think she, at one time, thought they were named after me because she has always called me Aunt Barbie.
Just because is such a wonderful way to receive things. Barbie must have been a great friend of yours.ReplyDelete
Lovely photos to have of times gone by.ReplyDelete
Welcome to Sepia Saturday, so glad you have decided to join us. And right from the start you have got the Sepia Saturday mix to perfection : old photographs and memories blended like an emotional smoothie.ReplyDelete


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The gravestone for Mary Jane Case (d. 1853) is one of these orphan stones, broken in two pieces. One of the roses carved on the gravestone is wilting and has drooped to touch the ground.
Dau. of S.W. &
Jan. 16, 1853
14 Y's & [_______]
Remember youth as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so you must be
Prepare for death and follow me.
Mary Jane was listed as nine years old in the 1850 Federal Census. She was one of eight children of Seth W. and Mary Case.
By the way, the Philo Thomas household is listed two lines above the Seth W. Case household in the 1850 Federal Census. Their daughter Margaret, whose gravestone was featured here yesterday, has not yet been born.
Liberty Church Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio


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All those shot dead by the British Army in Northern Ireland's infamous Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972 were unarmed and innocent, according to a British government report released today that repudiated an earlier investigation that had accused the civil rights marchers of carrying weapons and provoking the violence.
The long-awaited Saville inquiry into the killing of 14 people and the injuring of 29 more in the city of Derry on Jan. 30, 1972 criticized the soldiers and officers involved and said they gave false testimony about the events of the day to deflect blame onto their victims.
The Saville report, the result of the longest and most expensive investigation in British legal history, should bring some measure of closure to one of the ugliest and most contested chapters in the history of Northern Ireland's "troubles." The official Widgery report of 1972 had exonerated the Army, claiming that soldiers came under fire and that forensic evidence showed those killed handled explosives.
The relatives of the dead considered the report a whitewash, and have been fighting for years to set the record straight. The report released today, which took 12 years and £195 million ($287 million) to complete, appears to do just that.
British Prime Minister David Cameron apologized to the families of those killed. He said he was "deeply sorry" and that the findings were "shocking ... what happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong."
There had been much speculation that lawsuits and possible prosecutions would follow. But the report, whose lead author is the former judge Lord Saville, did not refer to the actions as "unlawful killings," something that analysts said makes prosecutions unlikely.
"It certainly doesn't sound like he [Saville] had the desire or the wherewithal to recommend prosecutions," says political consultant Mick Fealty, a commentator on Irish affairs who edits the political blog SluggerOToole.com.
Mr. Cameron refused to talk about possible prosecutions, saying he did not wish to prejudice any future actions, including civil suits.
Shot in the back
The 10-volume, 5,000-page report found that the British Army opened fire on unarmed protesters complaining of anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland. The report says that none of the victims posed a threat. It notes people shot in the back, people shot while already injured, and one man who was shot in the back while crawling away to take cover from fire.
The report firmly rejected the testimony of soldiers, saying that soldiers "knowingly put forward false accounts in order to seek to justify their firing." The soldiers that day lost self-control and there was a "serious and widespread loss of fire discipline," the inquiry found.
Relatives of the dead celebrated the report's release in Derry.
"It can now be proclaimed to the world that the dead and the wounded of Bloody Sunday, civil rights marchers one and all, were innocent one and all, gunned down on their own streets by soldiers who had been given to believe that they could kill with perfect impunity," said Tony Doherty, whose father, Paddy, died when paratroopers started shooting, according to a report in the local Derry Journal newspaper.
Speaking on the steps of Dáil Éireann, Ireland's parliament, Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen thanked his British counterpart and went on to excoriate the previous inquiry. The Irish government has pressed for this latest investigation for decades.
"Bloody Sunday was unique," he told reporters. "The ultimate injustice perpetrated on Bloody Sunday was the unjustified and unjustifiable killing of innocent civilians by those who claimed to be keeping the peace." Mr. Cowen called the previous inquiry "a shameful attempt to distort history."
Mark Durkan, former leader of the moderate Irish republican Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), said the victims had been "exonerated" in an emotional speech in the British parliament.
The year 1972 was the bloodiest in the conflict in Ireland, seeing a total of 479 deaths.
Political problems with history
Kevin Bean, a professor at the Institute of Irish Studies at England's University of Liverpool, says that despite the prime minister's reconciliatory tone, the report will not be welcomed in the backrooms of Westminter.
"It's problematic for the government because there have been unpleasant echos in the conduct of British troops in Iraq. The political problem the Conservatives had was that this report had to be published, the machinery was already up and running," he says.
Cameron himself said there would be no more "costly and open-ended" inquiries.
Ireland's Pro-British Unionist politicians struck a discordant note, however. One longtime critic of the inquiry, Gregory Campbell, who is a member of parliament for the hard-line pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), criticized the report, telling the parliament: "The sorry saga of this report is over and done with."
Mr. Campbell compared the events to killings by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and brushed aside complaints that state violence and violence by non-state combatants were qualitatively different. He also claimed that the Irish government funded the armed wing of the IRA. "That Irish state acted as a midwife to the birth of an organization that murdered thousands of United Kingdom citizens," he said.
Fellow DUP party member Jeffrey Donaldson said: "The truth is we don't know what Martin McGuinness and the IRA were doing on that day." The report said that the movements of Sinn Féin's Martin McGuiness, then second in command of the local Derry IRA, that day were unclear. The report said he may have fired a sub-machine gun but that even if he had that it did not cause the Army's actions.
The DUP, led by first minister Peter Robinson, forms the government of Northern Ireland in partnership with Sinn Féin. Mr. McGuiness is the deputy first minister.
'Blaire's touchy-feely politics'
Northern Irish Unionists and British Conservatives have long been suspicious of the inquiry, but there is also weariness among many in the Republican population. In his book "Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland," Tony Blair's chief of staff Jonathan Powell said Martin McGuinness told him that an apology would have sufficed. McGuinness denies he said any such thing.
Professor Bean says the inquiry can be understood as a "folly" of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"It was all part of Blair's touchy-feely politics and ideas of truth and reconciliation. It uses the language of healing wounds and the pattern of the peace process as psychological rather than political," he says. "There was a strong lobby in Derry centered on 'closure' but in terms of the wider nationalist population there was less of a sense that it was a central issue in terms of moving forward, despite clear anger over the events."
According to Bean, the inquiry has shown up the faults of individuals without explaining the politics.
"The wider political issue is being buried by blaming the individual soldiers and their immediate superiors," he says. "It ducks the question as to what was going on – it's very much a 'bad apple' argument."


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[Update: Michael Bay himself is speaking out about his involvement with TF4. See quote below.]
Yesterday we rehashed some old thoughts from the summer where we discussed our belief that Michael Bay could return to the Transformers franchise to direct a fourth installment. Since before Transformers: Dark of the Moon released this summer, Michael Bay and series star Shia LaBeouf adamantly claimed that this trilogy-concluding film would be the last for the both of them for the franchise.
Of course, money talks, and Michael Bay is far from denying he'll return now. The latest reports go as far as saying Bay's almost signed a deal with Paramount Pictures for him to return to direct Transformers 4.
After Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the series' second installment, Michael Bay was determined to take a break to work on a passion project of his titled Pain & Gain before returning to the bigger budget, sci-fi action genre with another Transformers movie. Executive producer Steven Spielberg and the studio managed to convince him otherwise which resulted in the last 6 years of Michael Bay's life in the film business spent nearly entirely directing a cast chock full of Cybertronian characters.
Perhaps that's part of the reason Bay spoke so assuredly that he'd be done after doing three, but ever since day one of the release of Dark of the Moon, I knew there was a darn good chance he'd return thanks to something he told us at the Miami premiere of the film.
Last Friday, Michael Bay said the following during the unveiling of a Transformers-themed ride at at Universal Studios Singapore:
"We're talking about it, but there's nothing right now… I'm going to do a tiny movie first, then we'll talk about it, if I potentially do it."
This came shortly after Spielberg was quoted revealing his desire to have Bay return as well. According to insiders of New York Magazine's Vulture blog, Bay is now in final negotiations to return to direct another Transformers movie and that it could be officially announced by next week. The one stipulation is that he'll finally be able to make Pain & Gain first, a film he started on a decade ago and one that he's hoping to have Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg star in.
The tentative plan is for Bay to begin work on Pain & Gain early next year in the spring, followed by Transformers 4 shooting in the Winter. There's no word on the previous rumors of Transformers 4 & 5 shooting together and that will depend on the deal Bay signs with director.
UPDATE: Bay himself has spoken out about directing TF4, and though the studios are pushing for his involvement, Bay is still weighing his options:
Right now I'm not decided on Transformers 4… Studio's are passing rumors but I'm not sure what I'm doing? I know I'm going to do Pain and Gain early spring but that's it for right now. I'm leaving all my options on the table. I've got several Studio meetings in the next two weeks.
What we do know is that there's already a rough plan in place for the film since producer Don Murphy already came out and said the next film would not be a prequel and that it would continue the franchise's focus on human characters in an effort to kickstart a second Transformers trilogy. According to Vulture, this remains true and TF4 will "delve deeper into Transformers canon to mine older characters and lore." One of their insiders says the following that we can take as a hint:
"Regular people might not care about bringing out a character like Sentinel Prime. But believe me, fans of the series cared."
Fans who saw Transformers: Dark of the Moon understand that it would be difficult to continue the series as is due to how of the characters ended up by the story's conclusion. We can therefore expect radical changes and plethora of new characters, perhaps even mining stories from some of the other animated television series.
Expect Transformers 4 to release in summer 2014.
Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes.
Source: Vulture & Shoot for the Edit


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Vote for your favourite HELLO! cover of the year
We provided unrivalled coverage of the Queen's 60th year on the throne plus what the royals got up to in the run up to the highly anticipated sporting event. Plus there were great HELLO! covers depicting royal tours that celebrated the diamond monarch.
We also brought you the best of celebrity weddings, exclusive star news and interviews and all the glitz and glamour from Hollywood's red carpet events. From all the issues that have hit the newsstands, HELLO! Online have chosen the top 20 covers of the last 12 months. Vote now and tell us which one is your favourite.
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Hamas militants and Israeli soldiers held their fire Monday after agreeing to halt fighting after three weeks of war. Israeli troops began pulling out as Gazans assessed damages, cared for the wounded, and buried some of the estimated 1,300 dead.
But there is no mutual cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, meaning this could merely be a pause in the war. Both sides have warned that they could resume fighting at any time, keeping the pressure on the international mediators, namely Egyptians, to come up with a deal Hamas and Israel will accept.
"The political results of this war are much more important than the military results, and these results will be tested according to the will and ability of the Egyptians to fight against the smuggling of arms into Gaza," says Professor Moshe Lissak, an expert on the Israeli military at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In a press conference, the military arm of Hamas vowed that it would rearm, despite a series of pledges by Egypt, European powers, and the US to stop the Islamist organization, which rejects any recognition of Israel, from restocking its weapons supply.
"Manufacturing holy weapons is our mission and we know how to acquire weapons," Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, told reporters.
He also said that only 48 Hamas fighters had been killed in the operation, a small fraction of the 500 that the Israeli military says it killed in the fighting. Reuters reported that according to figures from Hamas, 112 Hamas fighters and 180 Hamas policemen were killed. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned that if Hamas renews cross-border rocket fire, Israel will launch another offensive. "If Hamas fires a [rocket] at Israel, it will get slapped down again."
In Gaza Monday, Palestinians went to the site of their homes and picked at the rubble in disbelief, looking to salvage belongings. After the cease-fire went into effect, at least 100 Palestinians were found beneath the ruins, according to a print reporter allowed into Gaza. Israel has not allowed foreign journalists into Gaza during the offensive, and as of Sunday evening, has begun letting in a pool of six media representatives at a time.
In the center of Gaza City, most ministry buildings are in tatters. Even the parliament building is destroyed. Some Palestinians who became internally displaced during the crisis are finding that they have no homes to go back to. Gazans are still finding food, fuel, and cooking gas in short supply, and many were still without electricity. A Hamas official in Gaza said 5,000 homes, 16 government buildings, and 20 mosques were destroyed, and another 20,000 houses damaged, Reuters reported. Saudi Arabia has pledged $1 billion in aid to help Gaza rebuild. Palestinians put the total cost of damage at $1.9 billion.
Casualties in Gaza skyrocketed in the last week of the war, pushing a sense of urgency upon regional and international players trying to lead Israel and Hamas toward a cease-fire. At the forefront of these was Egypt, which borders both Israel and Gaza, and which has often acted as an intermediary.
But with no breakthrough imminent, Israel decided to go it alone and declare a one-sided cease-fire, signaling a reliance on the unilateralism that the ruling Kadima Party first became famous for when the controversial Ariel Sharon, then prime minister, decided to pull troops and settlers out of Gaza in August 2005 with no Palestinian partner or coordination.
Following the Israeli cease-fire decision on Saturday, Hamas announced its own self-declared truce the next day, saying that it would give Israeli forces a week to get out of Gaza, and they did not, Hamas would resume rocketing Israeli towns.
Israel's decision now to end its campaign in Gaza, which began on Dec. 27 in a bid to stop rocket attacks on southern Israel, evinced some disappointment from Cairo because it was seen as circumventing Egypt's initiative.
A summit meeting in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, on Sunday, attended by several European leaders, was in part an effort to reaffirm the importance of Egypt's role, analysts say.
"Egypt withstood much criticism from Syria, from Iran, from Palestinians around the world, who say that Egypt should cut off its relations with Israel. But in the end, the summit proved that Egypt is the only partner who was able to stop the Israeli operation and get them to declare a cease-fire in Gaza," says Emad Gad, head of the Israel unit at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
"Egypt is working now to lift the embargo on Gaza, to open the passages, and to work against all kinds of smuggling," says Mr. Gad.
"The war in Gaza proves to Syria and Iran that they have no alternatives like the ones we have. They support the Palestinians by speeches, but Egypt is the one that changes the situation on the ground," Gad adds. "I think the ultimate lesson to everyone is that we have moderate Arab countries – like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia – and if you want to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, you need to deal with these countries."
Still unclear is how smuggling into Gaza from Egypt will be curtailed. Egypt rejects the possibility of placing international forces on the Egyptian side of the border, viewing this as a violation of its sovereignty. Rather, officials in Cairo have indicated that they would favor deployment of international troops on the Palestinian side of Rafah, the border town, but so far Hamas has treated that as a nonstarter. Another proposal suggested that forces loyal to the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority would control the border, but this was rejected by Hamas.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, speaking at a summit of Arab leaders in Kuwait, virtually blamed Hamas for inviting Israel's military offensive in Gaza when it refused to extend the six-month cease-fire, which expired on Dec. 19. Palestinian militants in Gaza had already started launching rockets in the days before, citing that Israel was keeping the borders closed.
"You all know about efforts Egypt undertook to extend the cease-fire and our warnings that a refusal by factions to extend it was an open invitation to Israeli aggression," Mr. Mubarak said. He promised to continue working to try to achieve a national unity government in order to rebuild and rehabilitate Gaza.
Both sides in the war have begun to speak – and spin – in the language of achievements. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that Palestinians had triumphed greatly. He commended the families of "the martyrs who sacrificed their blood for this victory."
Israeli officials, meanwhile, sounded equally certain that the war had achieved its objectives, because it would make Hamas think twice before shooting again.
Mr. Lissak, the Hebrew University professor, said that while he and some others on the left in Israel think that the military used too much firepower in Gaza, there is widespread support in Israel for the war. "There was more firepower used here than in any other war in Israel that I know of. From the world, this will engender harsh criticism, and here, it will be moderate."
Mainly, he says, Israelis will walk away with the understanding that their army shouldn't have tolerated repeated missile attacks on the south of Israel.
• Safwat al-Kahlout in Gaza City, Gaza, contributed to this report.


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Union Gas
P.O. Box 849
4091 Highway 17 West
Keewatin, ON P0X 1C0
Phone: (807) 466-7291
Fax: (807) 543-1752
Contact: Duane Harris
KCA Newsletter Spring 2018 featuring KCA Apprenticeship Bursaries (6 Available in 2018); KCA Apprenticeship Bursary Final 2017 Recipients; 2018 Membership Fees Now Due; Biennial General Meeting Invitation; Call for Board of Director Nominations; Save the Date: 25th Annual Golf Tournament; GreenON Program … Continue reading
The Kenora Construction Association invites you to join us at our Biennial General Meeting on Thursday, April 12, 2018 at 6:00pm at the Clarion Lakeside Inn – Heritage Room. Enjoy one free refreshment and complimentary appetizers! Please R.S.V.P. by Monday, … Continue reading
Kenora, Ontario, March 27, 2018 – The Kenora Construction Association presented its final two bursaries for the 2017 year to recipients Mike Snyder an employee of Solid Construction Inc. and Stephen Baxter an employee of A.K. & Company (Kenora) Ltd. … Continue reading


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Special biodegradable packages (bio packages) – are environmentally friendly innovations that will improve the image of your company. These are packing materials of the future. For caring about the environment and the client, in order to show that your company tracks the innovations and brings them to life, it is absolutely necessary to use biodegradable packaging. Bio – packages in no way inferior plastic counterparts, either in appearance or in strength.
Degeneration period of bio-plastic package is 1.5-2 years, without a need to create special conditions, only light, water and oxygen must be provided. The cost difference between conventional and biodegradable package is not essential, the usual package is cheaper for 10-15%.
Popularity of bio packages increases constantly, they conquered more than 60 countries. The largest wholesale customers are global retailers such as Tesco, KFC, Pizza Hut, Aldi, Walmart and many others. By placing your ads on the package, you will be able to emphasize your attitude to the environment. The gradual transition from conventional to biodegradable packages is an important socially responsible task for our company.


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Derek Jeter Scores 3000th Hit, Fan Returns Ball
Playing in front of a sold-out hometown crowd on Saturday, Derek Jeter sent his record-setting 3,000th hit deep into left-field, making him the 28th major leaguer and first New York Yankees player to reach the hitting milestone.
And who caught the potentially money-making ball? Christian Lopez, a 23-year-old fan whose girlfriend gave him tickets to the game as a birthday present.
Surrounded by security and hustled away to the Steinbrenner family luxury box, Lopez was asked what he wanted in exchange for the ball. His only requests were season tickets, some signed swag, and the chance to present the ball to Jeter himself – all of which were accommodated.
"It wasn't about the money," Lopez said. "It was about a milestone and I wasn't going to take that away from [Jeter]. Money's cool and all, but I'm only 23 years old. I have a lot of time to make that."
via Derek Jeter Scores 3000th Hit, Fan Returns Ball [VIDEO] - TSM Interactive.


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WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) -- Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate, died Monday of viral pneumonia, his office said. He was 89.
Lautenberg, a Democrat, had missed several weeks of votes because of flu and bronchitis, The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record reported.
The senator announced in February he would not seek re-election in 2014.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama expressed their condolences. Obama, in a statement issued by the White House, lauded Lautenberg's commitment to the nation's health and safety.
"Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Senator Frank Lautenberg, a proud New Jerseyan who lived America's promise as a citizen, and fought to keep that promise alive as a senator," Obama said. "The son of working-class immigrants, Frank joined the Army during World War II, went to college on the GI Bill, and co-founded one of America's most successful companies. First elected to the Senate in 1982, he improved the lives of countless Americans with his commitment to our nation's health and safety, from improving our public transportation to protecting citizens from gun violence to ensuring that members of our military and their families get the care they deserve. "
Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, will appoint a replacement to complete Lautenberg's term, The Hill reported.


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The Interior Department is consolidating its nine content management platforms into single one, based on the open source Drupal CMS and hosted in the cloud. Bureaus within the agency will be able to maintain the same look and feel of their websites, while running them from the common platform.
With this new open source platform, the department will save on software licensing fees – paying for none instead of nine. Alexandria, Va.-based Phase2 will be building the Drupal platform for Interior, and IBM will host it in its cloud.
"What we realized four or five years ago is that each of the bureaus had their own content management system, with different contracts and different platforms," Tim Fullerton, director of digital strategy at Interior, told FCW. "It's really expensive to do it that way."
The most challenging part, Fullerton said, was that this approach -- a consolidated, departmentwide CMS platform, open source and in the cloud – had not been done before in government.
"We're hoping to lead by example and show agencies it's a great model for improving efficiencies," Fullerton said. "Since we've gone through the contracting process, agencies can go to DOI if they need help and adjust the documentation to meet their needs."
DOI will be building out the platform over the next three months, holding workshops to identify bureau needs and training employees in Drupal.
A longer version of this article appeared on FCW, a sister site to GCN.
Posted by Colby Hochmuth on Jul 21, 2014 at 11:49 AM
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Power outages are a common occurrence in Kabwata, a poor neighborhood in the capital of this Southern African nation, where residents spend many of their evenings by candlelight, cooking with charcoal.
"Our electrical infrastructure is too old. It hasn't been rehabilitated for the last 40 to 45 years," says Given Lubinda, an opposition member of Parliament who represents Kabwata. Power cuts "occur in my constituency on a daily basis, regularly, from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m."
But when the lights flickered and then shut down throughout Zambia just before 8 p.m. last Saturday night, people immediately sensed that something different was happening.
The lights remained out for nearly eight hours, save for the lucky few with generators. The outage turned out to be the first of three nationwide blackouts over the next four days – part of a sudden regional power crunch that has underscored the fragile state of southern Africa's inter-linked electrical networks.
A national blackout simultaneously hit its beleaguered neighbor Zimbabwe on Jan. 19, and Zambian officials say the two problems were linked. This came amid a major power shortage in South Africa, the region's economic powerhouse, where increasing power cuts across most of the country have caused mounting frustration among businesses and the broader public. South Africa announced Jan. 20 that it will temporarily stop exporting electricity to its neighbors – bad news for countries such as Namibia and Botswana, which have their own power troubles.
"Over the last week or so, it's been a crisis," says Kevin Bennett, director of the Energy Research Center at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. "South Africa has been a major provider. Now we're in a situation where South Africa does not have spare power to share."
Looming power crisis
Energy experts have long warned of a looming power crisis in the region, part of a larger shortage of energy on the continent. Governments in the region are taking steps to address it through new investment in energy production. But that will take several years, say analysts and business officials, some of whom are already working to increase the use of conservation measures and renewable fuels.
In South Africa, rising economic growth and poor government planning, critics say, have left Eskom, the country's energy parastatal, scrambling to build new power plants. The crisis has raised fears in some quarters about the impact on foreign investors, especially as the country gears up to host the 2010 soccer World Cup.
"If I were an investor and I had to choose between Country A, B, and South Africa ... I can't afford to have my factory shut down every few days," Mr. Bennett says, noting that some of South Africa's most important industries, such as platinum and gold mining, are energy-intensive.
Zambia, whose growing economy is overwhelmingly dependent on foreign copper mining companies, faces a similar problem. The blackouts caused Konkola Copper Mines, the country's largest copper mine, to shut down almost all of its operations.
Zambia possesses more than 40 percent of the region's fresh water and plenty of waterfalls, and relies on a handful of hydroelectric plants. But underinvestment in energy production, combined with the recent opening of new mines in north and northwestern Zambia, fueled by high global copper prices, has strained the system.
China to the rescue?
Currently, China is helping to expand the hugely important Kariba Dam on Lake Kariba, which straddles the Zambia-Zimbabwe border and serves as a key source of hydropower for both nations. India's Tata Holdings is working with ZESCO on a $150 million hydroelectricity project on the Kafue River. But dams also raise environmental concerns.
With the changing climate making rainfall more erratic in the region, Francis Yamba, director of the Centre for Energy, Environment, and Engineering in Lusaka, is pushing the Zambian government to look at feeding renewable energy into the national power grid and incorporating energy-efficiency measures. "In this country, energy is not used efficiently," he says.
In the wake of the national power outages, mines are scrambling to buy diesel generators, adding pressure to Zambia's diesel supply. Australian-owned mining firm African Energy Resources has set up a separate venture to encourage Zambian farmers to grow jatropha, a plant whose seeds can be turned into biodiesel. The farmers could then sell the biodiesel to mines, making money and lessening the strain on the energy infrastructure, says Alasdair Cooke, African Energy's executive director.
Next door, Mozambique, Namibia, and Botswana are all planning major power generation projects that, when completed, are expected to ease the crunch. In addition to more coal-fired power plants, South Africa is planning to renew its nuclear energy program.
All that will go a long way to easing the problem, Bennett says. But South African leaders will also have to find a way to reduce the country's energy demand, perhaps with financial incentives for those who agree to use less power.
"It's not going to happen next week or next year," Bennett says. "It's an amazingly complex problem we face."
In Zambia, the power crunch came just as its national team prepared to play in the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament in Ghana, which has annoyed many Lusaka residents.
"For sports enthusiasts, this is a very bad time," says Mr. Lubinda, who worries about ZESCO's ability to keep the power supply stable "For the economy, there can never be a good time."


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Gown and accessories. England, Europe, and China, 1740–1785. Silk, linen, cotton, straw, ivory, paper, feathers, and leather. Various dimensions.
Museum purchases and gifts of Tasha Tudor and Tibo van der Does
Textiles and Costumes
Quilt. Sarah Anne Wittington Lankford (1830-1898) and others, Baltimore and Princess Anne County, Maryland, ca. 1850. Cotton, ink, wool and cotton embroidery threads, and metal and glass beads. OH 99"; OW 84."
Gift of Miss Marsha C. Scott
Sampler. Mary Welsh (1760-1820), Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1770. OH: 23"; OW: 16 3/4." Silk on linen.
Museum purchase
Bed Valance. Member of the Gore family, Massachusetts, ca. 1770. Wool embroidery on linen. OH: 12 1/4": OW: 65."
Museum purchase
Online Extras
Eighteenth-Century Sampler
Textiles and costumes touched every aspect of life from birth to death and every level of society, including the enslaved, the middling sort, and the aristocrat. Expensive and elaborate textiles were more than functional: they proclaimed wealth and status. In fact, clothing and textiles represented a far greater investment in the past than they do today.
Spanning four centuries, the textile collections at Colonial Williamsburg include clothing, needlework, quilts, carpets, and textiles from several continents. Many of the textiles and costumes are masterpieces of workmanship and design, but the unique strength of the collection lies in the modest but scarce objects that interpret the lives of everyday Americans. Among these rarities are the faded sampler on which a little girl practiced her marking stitches, the quilt made by an African-American woman in her home, and the valance that retains the nail holes where it was tacked to the bed frame.
Embroidered textiles in the collection range from clothing, bed furnishings, and schoolgirl samplers to early British raised-worked boxes, silk mourning pictures, and costume accessories. Nearly every type of needlework technique is represented, from cotton and linen whitework to colorful embroidery with silks, crewel wool, and metallic threads. Many are products of housewives and their daughters, while others were created by professional men and women who spent arduous days performing hand embroidery for sale.
Household furnishing textiles are represented by white linen tablecloths, homespun sheets, and woolen blankets, in addition to printed cotton bed hangings, chair covers, and—for the wealthy—expensive carpets from Asia and Europe. The figured and fancy woven bed coverlets of the 19th century exemplify the period's fondness for brilliant color and bold pattern.
A particular strength of the collection lies in quilts that women decorated by piecing small bits of cloth together into geometric patterns or appliquéing cutout shapes onto a ground fabric. The hand stitches that held the finished quilt top to the warm inner batting and plainer backing fabrics added additional texture and subtle pattern. Today, many quilts that once warmed beds are appreciated for their abstract designs and impressive color as works of art in their own right.
The costume collection encompasses garments for men, women, and children from about 1725 to 1840. Included are women's elaborate court gowns, more practical gowns and outdoor cloaks, and colorful suits for men, sometimes embroidered as elaborately as women's ensembles. An extensive assemblage of costume accessories comprises hats, shoes, stockings, handkerchiefs, aprons, gloves, and pocketbooks.
Books about Colonial Williamsburg Textiles
- Linda Baumgarten, What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America (New Haven: Yale University Press and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2002).
- Linda Baumgarten with John Watson and Florine Carr, Costume Close-up (New York: Quite Specific Media Group, Inc. and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1999).
- Linda Baumgarten, Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1986).
- Kimberly Smith Ivey, In the Neatest Manner: The Making of the Virginia Sampler Tradition (South Austin, Texas and Williamsburg, Virginia: Curious Works Press and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1997).
- Kathleen Epstein, British Embroidery: Curious Works from the Seventeenth Century (Williamsburg, Virginia and Austin, Texas: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Curious Works Press, 1998).
What Clothes Reveal
The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America.
By Linda Baumgarten
Drawing on the costumes and accessories in the Colonial Williamsburg collection, Linda Baumgarten examines how Americans of all classes dressed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Topics range from the work clothes of slaves to the elegant, high-style attire of the gentry. What people wore during significant life passages and the social contexts of such apparel are fully and engagingly discussed. The time line illustrates trends in fashion over three centuries. 278 pp., 355 color photographs, 36 black-and-white illustrations. Paperback $29.95


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Update: Cal. Governor says Bill Goes "Too Far" in Protecting Pregnant Women
Two sessions. Two bills passed unanimously by the Legislature, thanks to broad-based organizing campaigns.
And now, two vetoes, from governors of two different political parties.
According to The Sacramento Bee, California's Governor Brown vetoed the bill to protect pregnant women from shackling today, October 9.
After waiting until the last minute to issue a decision, he said, "At first blush, I was inclined to sign this bill because it certainly seems inappropriate to shackle a pregnant inmate unless absolutely necessary." "However," he continued, "the language of this measure goes too far."
This veto leaves in place the status quo of uneven implementation of the current inadequate law. While pregnant women incarcerated in the state of California have more protections than women in most other states, too many government officials and employees, especially in the county jails, are still not complying with existing legal mandates.
After such a strong showing of support from formerly imprisoned women and diverse allies -- medical, civil rights, reproductive justice -- as well as the entire Legislature, what will it take to make further progress on this issue?
For more background, see my earlier post here (which links to many of the key organizations leading the way).


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Regular Readers will probably remember yours truly, the ol' TwoPutter, had media credentials for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. And we had a LOT of fun covering Charlotte 2012, beginning with finding fake lemons in the tree outside of failed Veep Candidate Paul Ryan's WI Office. While in the media area of Charlotte 2012, I happened across the Twitter Office of, well, Twitter – picture to the right.
So I stopped to talk to the nice people at Twitter, and asked 'em how yours truly, the ol' TwoPutter, could get one o' those elusive, but coveted, blue checkmarks for my Twitter account – signifying a Twitter "Verified Account". There's a screenshot, below, on what these check marks look like.
Here's what Twitter says about 'em:
What kinds of accounts get verified?
Twitter proactively verifies accounts on an ongoing basis to make it easier for users to find who they're looking for. We concentrate on highly sought users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, advertising, business, and other key interest areas. We verify business partners from time to time and individuals at high risk of impersonation.
We do not accept requests for verification from the general public. If you fall under one of the above categories and your Twitter account meets our qualifications for verification, we may reach out to you in the future.(emphasis added)
I figured it'd be a slam dunker; there I was with the media credentials, and I already had worked with Twitter to get a few nasty fake twitter accounts (stuff)-canned that had been causing problems for yours truly, the ol' TwoPutter.
So when I asked the nice person at Twitter, in the media area, at Charlotte 2012 about it, the nice person handed me off to another nice person working for Twitter – in sales.
Yes, "sales." And here's what I was told:
For most folks, it takes dough to get one of those elusive, but coveted, blue check marks that indicate a "verified account;" a blue check mark like you see to the right on a screen shot of Minnesota Supreme Court G. Barry Anderson's Twitter account.
How much dough, I asked. $15,000.00 was the answer; but not necessarily all at once – it could be spread out over a couple of months. I explained I had read the Twitter "Verified Account" policy; it seemed I qualified for a freebee for two reasons (as outlined above). Reply? Nope. Cash. Well, it was also explained that if someone who was already spending dough on Twitter ads and promoted tweets, etc already had one, Twitter often gave one o' those elusive but coveted check marks to a friend/associate/whatever of one of said spenders as a comp.
I checked around with a few media types in the media areas while in Charlotte, and heard in essence: yep, that's how the "Verified Account" game was played. Did a little digging on google too. No biggie; if that's the way the game was played and since I didn't have – let alone plan on spending – $15 biggies, no blue check mark for yours truly, the ol' TwoPutter.
Fast forward to October 8th, 2012, and a story by Strib Reporter Rachel Stassen-Berger: "Promoted Justice On Twitter". Rachel writes about the blue "verified account" check mark that's shown on the screen shot you see just a little bit above on the Twitter Account of G. Barry Anderson, running for re-election for his seat on the bench on Minnesota's Supreme Court.
Here's Rachel's lede:
Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson may be making history, 140-characters at a time.
The justice, first appointed to the high court by Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2004, is using promoted tweets to advance his campaign to stay on the court. He is among the first prominent Minnesota politicians to use promotion, Twitter's version of online advertising, in his campaign. (emphasis added)
Rachel also noted that Justice Anderson's Digital Director is the Justice's son, Grant Anderson. Noted now is that Justice Anderson's campaign web page is credited, on the web page, to Election Energy.
Didn't think much of Rachel's story, at the time. And pretty much forgot about it, until I saw and retweeted the tweet to the right. OK, a lot has been said by a lot of people about Michael Brodkorb – including by me – for, ahem, "a variety of reasons."
One thing a lot of people that have said a lot about Michael Brodkorb also say is that when it comes down to political skills and instincts, it pays to pay attention to Michael Brodkorb. So if Michael thought "the campaign spending & contribution report" of Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson was "interesting" – well, yours truly, the ol' TwoPutter, pays attention.
And said report is indeed interesting – and we'll get to what yours truly, the ol' TwoPutter has found.
So – stay tuned!!!
(cross posted at MnProgressiveProject; comments welcome there)


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I call on the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, to permanently ban the practice of fracking for gas as unsafe for clean water, air, and a liveable climate.
Fracturing bedrock for gas is an inherently dirty and unsafe technology. Cement and pipes at these great depths and pressures leak, as the industry's own documents show. Water laden with toxic chemicals poisons drinking water. Powerful methane leaks and warms our climate. Radiation underground is released and risks human and animal health. Pastoral rural areas are turned into brownfields. No amount of regulation can prevent this, nor can cement or pipes be repaired thousands of feet under the earth.
Instead, New York should lead the nation and become the Clean Energy State. Far more jobs can be created by insulating every building and installing modern insulating windows. These jobs pay for themselves with the energy cost savings, and save far more energy than fracking will produce. New York should also greatly expand affordable solar and wind power.
Furthermore, we submit this as an official public comment on the revised regulations proposed by the Department of Environmental Conservation on High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing. The proposed regulations will not protect our air, our water, our land, or our health from the hazards of fracking. We call upon the Department to withdraw the regulations and ban fracking in New York.
Lastly, we call on the Governor to give his Health Commissioner at least another year to conduct a truly thorough and credible study of fracking's impact on human health. Rushing this study will expose it as politics, not science.
Governor Cuomo, Don't Frack New York!
Artists Against Fracking
This petition closed over 6 years ago
Right now, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is considering lifting a temporary ban on fracking in New York. Lifting this temporary ban would threaten communities' health, pollute vital water...
Right now, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is considering lifting a temporary ban on fracking in New York. Lifting this temporary ban would threaten communities' health, pollute vital water sources, open up peoples' lands to gas exploration, and speed up global climate change. Communities across the country are watching to see if the Governor will stand with communities calling for a healthy environment or an industry determined to exploit New York's gas fields. What happens in New York is critical to the nationwide fight against fracking.
Realizing the fight New York's communities face, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon started the Artists Against Fracking campaign, which has organized over nearly 200 of the world's biggest artists, musicians and filmmakers to raise public awareness about fracking to new levels. Now we're taking public awareness and turning it into public action to get fracking banned, starting in New York!
What is Fracking?
Hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking", is a new method of extracting natural gas and oil from rocks at depths from 2,000 to 10,000 feet. First, deep wells are drilled straight down through the aquifer. This drilling then curves horizontally below the earth's surface and into its shale rock formations. Next, millions of gallons of water laced with chemicals is injected at extremely high pressure into these rock formations, breaking apart the rock and freeing trapped methane along with other dangerous materials.
There are more than 27,000 wells in the US and each well uses 1-8 million gallons of water and 80-300 tons of chemicals each time it's fracked (wells can be fracked up to 8 times). However, only 4 states of the 31 that have major fracking projects have robust drilling rules in place. The fracking industry remains exempt from Clean Water, Safe Drinking Water and Clean Air Acts, hazardous waste disposal and other federal regulations.
Why New York?
New York, a bellwether state for natural gas development, is home to the marcellus shale, the type of rock formation that holds large reserves in natural gas. Many states with natural gas reserves are watching New York's decision on whether to lift the temporary ban. Lifting the ban instead of making it permanent would likely usher in a new era of gas drilling across the country. New York Governor Cuomo's decision on fracking will define his administration's clean energy policy. Let's help him make the right choice and turn New York into a clean energy state!


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Sevier Drive Church of Christ, Harriman, will have its gospel meeting Aug. 4-6.
"What Excuse Do You Have?" based on Luke 14:15-24, will be the theme.
Services will begin at 7 p.m. daily in the church at 1014 Sevier Drive.
Bro. Charles Caruthers, minister of Scarboro Church of Christ, Oak Ridge, will conduct the meeting.
A member of Scarboro Church of Christ for more than 38 years, Caruthers has served as the church's pulpit minister since May 2010.
Courts of Praise Church, Harriman, will give away backpacks and school supplies on Aug. 3 in the church at 215 Maple St., Harriman.
A short service will kick off the event at 11 a.m. followed by the giveaway and fun activities for the youngsters.
Free hot dogs and snacks will be available.
Two hundred backpacks will be given away.
Courts of Praise collaborated with Cedar Grove Baptist Church, Kingston, to provide the backpacks.
A child must be present to receive a backpack.
Call 335-3077 for details.
Orchard View Baptist Church, Oliver Springs, will have a free community outreach and night of encouragement on July 27.
The event starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Oliver Springs High School football field.
Guest speaker will be University of Tennessee quarterback Nathan Peterman.
Inky Johnson, a former UT player whose hopes of having an NFL career were ended with a paralyzing injury while he played for UT, will be the featured speaker.
Johnson went on to earn his bachelor's and master's degrees at UT.
The Royal Priesthood of Southeast Tennessee will be the featured group for Victorious' Singing in the City on July 19 at Rockwood Event Center.
Dudley Evans of Victorious described The Royal Priesthood as "an old-style Southern gospel music group" whose leader was formerly with the Kingsmen Quartet.
Refreshments will be served, and a love offering will be taken for the group.
Luminary United Methodist Church, along Watts Bar Lake a few miles south of Kingston, has welcomed a new pastor.
The Rev. Chuck Griffin officially became the spiritual leader of the 350-member congregation on July 1. He previously served churches in Lexington, Ky., Jonesborough and Kingsport.
Molly LaRue, above, keeps a tight grip on her balloon before Cardiff Baptist Church's big balloon release last week to launch the church's upcoming vacation Bible school.
Each balloon released from the church at 2170 N. Gateway Ave., Rockwood, has a special invitation and tag on it. Anyone who finds one of the balloons and returns it to the church during VBS will be eligible for a special prize, said VBS director Les LaRue.
The VBS theme is Lifeway's Agency's "D3."
New Mountain View Baptist
"Gone Fishing: 'Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men' (Matthew 4:19)" is the theme of vacation Bible school at New Mountain View Baptist Church, Oliver Springs. Classes for all ages will be offered from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. July 14-18 in the church at 381 Mahoney Road; refreshments will be served. Call 435-5242 for details or transportation.
• St. Mary's Missionary Baptist Church, Harriman, will celebrate Pastor Jesse and Elfreda Williams for 35 years of spiritual leadership and faithful service. They will be honored during two services: the Rev. Gerald Marshall of Dayton, Ohio, will lead the 11 a.m. service; the Rev. Alvin Douglass of Anointed Praise and Worship Church will be in charge of the 3 p.m. service. The church is at 1038 Trenton St.
Rockwood United Methodist Church welcomes the Rev. Bill Fowler to its pulpit.
Appointed to the church by the Bishop and Cabinet of the Holston Annual Conference, Fowler assumed pastoral, preaching and administrative duties on July 1.
Fowler will emphasize preaching, teaching, pastoring and church administration.
"Hopefully, all of us will follow the Lord's leadership as the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to possibilities for witness and service in the Kingdom of God through Rockwood UMC," he said.
The Council of Catholic Women at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, Harriman, recently presented a $1,000 scholarchip to Cynthia Roberts.
Roberts, a 2014 Roane County High School graduate, finished with a 3.85 grade-point average.
She was president of both the Key Club and Future Business Leaders of America.
She was also secretary of both DECA and the Beta Club, and she served as a woodwind section leader in the Roane County High School Band.
Copyright © 2019
The Roane County News is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in Roane County and Kingston, Tennessee, and the surrounding area.


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To repay an underpayment the case must be active. If the case is not active, note in the case record the amount owed. If the case starts to receive the same type of cash again, send them their underpayment.
Underpayments can only be made for the same type of cash benefit program. For example, a TANF underpayment can only be paid with a TANF check.
Checks to make up underpayments are not income, do not affect the current cash benefit amount, and are not assets for the month received or the next month. If the family still has the money after 2 months, treat it as an asset for AABD cash.
If a case has been both underpaid and overpaid over a period of time, subtract the amount of the underpayment from the amount of the overpayment. When the amount of the underpayment is greater than the overpayment, use the remainder as the underpayment amount.


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On the Radio: John Flowers on WDEV, 12/13/11
Thu, 12/15/2011 - 12:05pm Anonymous
Senior reporter John Flowers makes a weekly Tuesday radio appearance on Morning News Service, a program on Waterbury-based WDEV, 96.1 FM. He wraps up recent Addison County news for listeners across Vermont.
This week he chats about a Middlebury College stormwater study that aims to help clean up Lake Champlain, the United Way's struggle to raise money in the wake of generous post-Irene giving, and a Middlebury-area school board that is struggling to reduce costs.
December 13, 2011
Audio courtesy WDEV Radio


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Washington - The most sweeping housing bill Congress is likely to consider this year passed the Senate Friday as house price woes persist in much of the United States and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stagger from foreclosure losses.
Despite the atmosphere of urgency, the housing legislation still faces an uncertain future. House leaders want some significant revisions – and the White House has threatened to veto the bill in its current form.
Washington "should have put up or shut up" on the housing measure by now, says Douglas Elmendorf, a senior fellow in economics at the Brookings Institution.
The housing bill easily passed the Senate 63 to 5 in a rare Friday afternoon vote.
The bill's centerpiece is a provision that would allow the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to provide up to $300 billion in new, affordable fixed-rate loans intended to help struggling owners stay in their homes.
Lenders would have to agree to absorb a loss of 15 percent on individual mortgages covered by this program. In return, they would be guaranteed to receive at least some money, while avoiding a foreclosure – an action that by itself can cost as much as 40 percent of a home's value.
Borrowers would have to pay a small annual insurance premium. If they made a profit when they eventually sold their home, the FHA would get a slice of the money.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this program would probably help about 500,000 homeowners over the next four years.
"The housing bill helps out a specific group of people. That's good to do – it's good value," says Mr. Elmendorf of Brookings.
But some critics note that given the scale of the problem, 500,000 loans spread over four years is a relatively small number. Lenders made foreclosure filings on 252,363 US properties in June alone, according to RealtyTrac's US Foreclosure Market Report. That's more than a 50 percent jump from the comparable number of June 2007.
Plus, many of the mortgages refinanced under the prospective FHA program might be liable to fall into default again, says David John, an economist specializing in government programs at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that up to one-third of the refinancings will subsequently fail.
The FHA financing provision "is not going to help that many people, will be expensive, and really will bail out bad lenders rather than homeowners," says Mr. John.
The Senate housing bill would also create a new regulator and tighter controls for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin government-sponsored mortgage-finance giants.
Fannie's and Freddie's share prices have plunged and their borrowing costs have sharply risen as investors have come to believe that defaults and falling home prices will cost the firms far more than the $11 billion loss they already have incurred.
A strong regulator who had required Fannie and Freddie to maintain a better capital position "might have made a difference" and helped the firms avoid the current crisis, says John.
Democratic leaders in the House have said they want to make small but important changes in the housing bill before their chamber votes its approval.
The Senate bill, for instance, calls for the new regulator to immediately start overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts says that should be delayed by six months to allow time for the government officials involved to develop regulations and properly get up to speed.
The House wants to raise the limit on the size of loan the FHA may insure from $625,000 to $730,000. Perhaps most importantly, a group of conservative Blue Dog Democrats oppose an extra $3.9 billion shoehorned into the bill to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed properties.
It's the cost, not the activity, that the Blue Dogs oppose. They say this $3.9 billion is not offset with savings elsewhere and that it would simply swell the federal deficit.
The White House also has singled out this extra $3.9 billion, calling it a bailout for irresponsible lenders and saying that President Bush may well veto the whole bill if it is not removed.
Any FHA modernization effort, says the Bush administration, should also include a ban on any seller-funded down payments.
"Congress should quickly pass responsible legislation modernizing the FHA," said a White House July 1 analysis.


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Oregon OSHA cites Cornelius construction company $70,000 for willful fall violation
Salem, OR — The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division (Oregon OSHA) cited Munoz Construction $70,000 for not protecting its employees from falls. The fine was based on a willful violation and was the result of an inspection at a Portland apartment complex on Feb. 27, 2013. The employer appealed the citation but agreed to it following an informal conference with Oregon OSHA.
Two employees working on a second-story roof standing on trusses without fall protection.
During the inspection, an Oregon OSHA inspector observed two employees working on a second-story roof standing on trusses. Neither employee was wearing fall protection. The owner was on site and said his employees were comfortable working without fall protection, even though it was available in the company trailer.
"Falls are the primary source of serious injury and deaths in construction," said Oregon OSHA Administrator Michael Wood. "With that in mind, there is simply no excuse for an employer to decide that compliance with the rules is not necessary."
Under Oregon OSHA's rules, employers must protect employees from falls when working at heights of 10 feet or more. The typical penalty for a first-time violation ranges from $400 to $1,000 for a small employer and increases with each repeat violation. A willful violation, where an employer intentionally or knowingly allows a violation to occur, can result in a $70,000 penalty.
Munoz Construction was also cited $2,920 for a repeat fall violation on Sept. 13, 2013, at a site in North Plains, Ore. Employees were working at 12 feet on a house without fall protection.
In addition to the 10-foot rule, employees working at six feet or above a lower level also need to be protected from falls near open windows, doors, mezzanines, balconies, or walkways. There are different ways to comply with Oregon OSHA's fall protection rule, such as using guardrails, catch platforms, and personal fall arrest systems. Since 2000, the agency has placed an emphasis on fall hazard inspections in construction.
More details can be found on Oregon OSHA's fall protection topic page. Federal OSHA also has training tools and posters available to help raise awareness around falls: www.osha.gov/stopfalls/index.html.
Oregon OSHA, a division of the Department of Consumer and Business Services, enforces the state's workplace safety and health rules and works to improve workplace safety and health for all Oregon workers. For more information, go to osha.oregon.gov.
The Department of Consumer and Business Services is Oregon's largest business regulatory and consumer protection agency. For more information, go to www.oregon.gov/dcbs/.
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View the Northern Star Academies
Northern Star Academies Trust is a growing multi-academy trust in the north of England and comprising seven schools: Skipton Girls' High School, Harrogate High School, New Park Primary Academy, Hookstone Chase Primary School, Holycroft Primary School, Eastwood Community School and Starbeck Primary Academy.
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Hookstone Chase Primary School is operated by Northern Star Academies Trust, an exempt charity regulated by the Secretary of State for Education. It is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 07553531), whose registered office is at 77 Gargrave Road, Skipton, North Yorkshire, BD23 1QN (where a list of members may be inspected).
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Domaine Carneros
The other weekend we had the wonderful opportunity of taking a tour and tasting at Domaine Carneros. This gorgeous French style chateau, completed in 1989, is just off Highway 12/121, with amazing rolling hill vineyard views. Our particular March visit was raining, but just as beautiful, with verdant green grasses among the dormant vines.


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THERE'S no doubt that New York City is weathering this tough economy far better than the rest of the country.
Since the national recession began, the U.S. has lost 5.6 percent of private sector jobs.
New York City, on the other hand, has lost only .3 percent.
And since October 2009, the nation has gained back one out of every four jobs that were lost.
Meanwhile, New York City has gained back all of its lost jobs — and added even more.
Our city's resilience and recovery didn't happen by accident.
It happened because of the investments we continue to make to diversify our economy, spur innovation, and establish the conditions for long-term growth.
And last week we saw two great examples of that.
Let's start with our work to help entrepreneurs, who have always provided the heartbeat of our city's economy.
For many of them, the initial costs of office space and modern equipment can keep their businesses from getting off the ground.
That's why we've opened low-cost workspaces for entrepreneurs in growing industries like technology, fashion and media.
Earlier this month, I visited one of these "business incubators," as we call them.
It's located in Long Island City and it focuses on startups in the culinary industry.
One of the biggest challenges for many budding chefs is getting access to a fully-licensed commercial kitchen.
Our culinary incubator has four of them, and 120 entrepreneurs are currently taking advantage of the opportunity.
Our hope for all of the entrepreneurs is that they'll eventually open their own shops, creating jobs and injecting new energy into our economy.
Altogether, we've established nine different incubators across the city.
Combined, they provide more than 125,000 square feet of affordable real estate to more than 500 growing businesses, and support some 800 jobs.
And in another measure of their success, tenants in our incubators have received more than $39 million in venture capital funding.
Recently, we saw another example of our work to encourage job growth.
We selected a developer to transform the bottom floors of the Brooklyn Municipal Building into a major retail destination.
Those floors are currently occupied by the city's Department of Finance.
But as part of our ambitious effort to use the city's real estate more efficiently, we're relocating the Finance Department to other parts of the Municipal Building, freeing up space for new shops and a full-scale restaurant.
This move will give another shot in the arm to Downtown Brooklyn, which has experienced tremendous growth.
On the back of $200 million in public infrastructure improvements, we've been able to attract $3.4 billion in new private investment to the downtown area over the past five years.
That translates into thousands of new jobs — and the new retail in the Brooklyn Municipal Building will create hundreds more.
Make no mistake: in this tough economy, creating jobs is our number one job.
Across our city we're pursuing numerous projects that are putting thousands more New Yorkers to work, giving our economy a boost when it needs it and building our city's future for generations to come.
Tim Lyncecum See details


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Cindy Campbell
Wetumpka, AL
1957 Chevy coupe
The 1957 Chevy two-door hardtop coupe is sprayed in PPG red and pewter and is powered by a LS1 V-8 with EFI. The 4L60E overdrive is shifted by a push button smart shifter while a Ford 9-inch gathers up the power in back. The suspension is also home for Wilwood disk brakes and Pro coilovers shocks. The Coy wheels are shod with Mickey Thompson rubber, also found at the corners. Inside you will find a factory dash outfitted with Dakota Digital gauges, Vintage Air A/C, tilt column and Budnik steering wheel.


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WASHINGTON (AP) - After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, former President Bill Clinton apologized for long championing food aid policies that helped Arkansas rice growers but made it harder for the impoverished country to grow its own crop.
Floods of imports of U.S. rice had put many of the country's growers out of business, and Clinton called his policies a 'mistake.'
Three years later, aid groups are pushing President Barack Obama to make the kind of change Clinton argued was needed and send cash in lieu of crops.
The White House won't say whether Obama's budget proposal, scheduled to come out next week, will suggest changing the way foreign food aid is distributed. But food aid groups, farm groups and their allies in Congress are preparing for the possibility Obama will tackle the issue in his second term.
At issue is whether the government should ship U.S.-grown food overseas to aid developing countries and starving people or simply help those countries with cash to buy food. Currently, the United States is shipping food abroad under the 'Food for Peace' program started almost six decades ago by President Dwight Eisenhower to help farmers get rid of food surpluses and boost the country's image during the Cold War.
This approach has long been a profitable enterprise for American farmers and shippers, and those groups are strongly opposing any changes to the program.
But several food aid groups say times have changed and argue that shipping bulk food abroad is inefficient and expensive when government budgets are tight and developing countries need every dollar. Particularly controversial is the process of what is called 'monetization,' or selling the food once it arrives overseas to finance development projects. A 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office found monetization cost the U.S. an extra $219 million over a three years, money that could have been used for other development projects.
Aid groups are split on the point, since some finance their activities through monetization. But major aid groups like Oxfam and CARE say the process can destroy local agriculture by dumping cheap crops on the market at a price too low for local farmers to compete.
The food aid groups are pushing Obama to shift all or part of the average $1.8 billion spent on the program annually to other cash development accounts. If the administration does propose change, it could be in for a tough political battle.
Worried that an overhaul of the Food for Peace program could come in Obama's budget, a bipartisan group of 21 senators wrote a letter to the president in February asking him not to make changes.
'American agriculture is one of the few U.S. business sectors to produce a trade surplus, exporting $108 billion in farm goods in 2010,' the senators wrote. 'During this time of economic distress, we should maintain support for the areas of our economy that are growing.'
The letter was signed by Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, the Democratic chairman of the Senate subcommittee that controls agriculture spending. The top Republicans on both of those panels signed the letter as well, as did Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.
Farm groups say the program is also a public relations tool for the United States.
'Bags of U.S.-grown food bearing the U.S. flag and stamped as 'From the American People' serve as ambassadors of our nation's goodwill, which can help to address the root causes of instability,' several farm and shipping groups wrote in a February letter to Obama.
'These are the kinds of things you don't want to make dramatic quick changes to,' says Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, one of the groups that signed the letter.
But aid groups say change is a long time coming. Gawain Kripke of Oxfam says his group estimates that by spending the same amount of money, the United States could provide assistance for 17 million more poor people by changing the way the aid is distributed.
Blake Selzer of CARE says he is encouraged that food aid is being discussed.
'A lot of people don't understand our food aid program,' he says. 'The more daylight this is given the more people will say to themselves, is this the best way to use our tax dollars?'


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You are able to drop a class from your schedule via CheckMarq up until the close of registration. Please review the Academic Calendar for dates.
Select Enrollment: Drop from the drop-down menu, and select the appropriate term.
A new page appears with a list of the classes in which you are enrolled for the term.
Check the box beside each class you wish to drop. Click the Drop Selected Classes button.
Verify that you have selected the correct class to drop, and click the Finish Dropping button to confirm you selection.
If you have successfully dropped the class, you will receive a Success message.
IMPORTANT: You are still enrolled in the class until you click the Finish Dropping button and receive a Success message in the Update Status column.
See also: How do I swap classes?
The Office of the Registrar is the official keeper of academic records including course registrations, grades, transcripts and diplomas.
Find information about...
Trouble finding something? Contact the Office of the Registrar


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A-P-D needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 41 designs submitted by 13 freelance designers.
I require a professional looking brand for my Plumbing and heating business. Its needs to be simple, yet eye catching, and easily recognisable. Colour is a must, but nice and simple, to aid fabric design and printing. Does not have to be assiociated with and plumbing or heating appilances, tools etc etc. Just something striking!
Small company, new startup. Have close relationships with my clients. Business is small, and personal, but large enough to command a nice chunk of my local market. Will be expanding nationwide (UK), so need to have a very clean and clear brand to go with my name. This logo/brand needs to promote the fact that I am affordable, yet professional. Striking, eye catching. As already stated, the actual brand does not have to be associated with plumbing or heating, just needs to be easily identifiable, and the company name or acronym (CHS) needs to be displayed somewhere
very open about what I want, will take all and any ideas
HAS to be on a white background
- floerscent colours
- too much blue (very good reason for this)
- too much black, dont want to be assoiacted with bad things!
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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What's inside...
Secretary Spellings Visits Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
Empowering Parents School Box Released
Secretary Spellings Launches Operation Caring Classroom
Assistant Secretary Kerri Briggs Travels to Fort Bliss,Texas
Secretary Spellings Reads Names at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Secretary Spellings Praises Nonprofits
ED Says Thank You to the Troops
Assistant Secretary Michell Clark Addresses Army Accessions Research Consortium
Assistant Secretary Lauren Maddox Delivers Holiday Cheer to Fort Belvoir Students
Resource: Military OneSource
Secretary Spellings Visits Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
In September 2007, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings visited Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, during her back-to-school bus tour through the Midwest (http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2007/09/09202007b.html). The Secretary, who was known as "Starbuck," her military "call sign" while on base, had breakfast with military spouses and discussed education issues that face military families. She also toured STARBASE, a Department of Defense (DoD) program that supplements local school curriculum with 25 contact hours of science and math activities.
STARBASE targets at-risk fifth-graders and offers them an opportunity to participate in hands-on activities in aviation and space exploration. The program hosts 75 class sessions a year; over 4,000 students from eight area school districts have participated.
During the Secretary's visit, she took part in a lesson in which students watched clips from "Apollo 13" and then discussed what they would have done in the same situation. The students also built water rockets. Four students launched their rockets, and then the Secretary, with the help of Colonel Colleen Ryan, launched her own. Afterwards, a student presented Secretary "Starbuck" Spellings with "wings" in honor of her successful launch.
Later, the Secretary read The Story of Ferdinand to the children as part of the Jumpstart Read for the Record campaign (http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/notesfromtheroad/
index.html#bus-tour2). She also presented a copy of the book to both STARBASE and the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Empowering Parents School Box Released
Secretary Spellings released a new publication, the Empowering Parents School Box, at the first nationally televised Parent Town Hall Meeting on September 19, 2007 in Cleveland, Ohio. The school box was the cornerstone of the Secretary's Midwestern bus tour and consists of seven items to help families: three booklets (What Every Parent Needs to Know, Taking a Closer Look, and Learning Checklists); a bookmark on options for parents; a door hanger on Academic Competitiveness Grants; a poster on parental involvement; and a resource guide.
Various organizations that give support to military families, such as Family Assistance Centers, New Comers and Child and Youth Programs have already requested more than 2,000 copies of the Empowering Parents School Box, which is available free from the U.S. Department of Education. To order copies (order # ED003651K) contact EDPUBS at http://www.edpubs.org or 1-877-433-7827 (toll free). The publication can also be viewed online at http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/schoolbox .
Secretary Spellings Launches Operation Caring Classroom
Secretary Spellings delivered a message about The Armed Forces Foundation's Operation Caring Classroom (http://www.armedforcesfoundation.org/programs) to students while visiting Andrew J. Brown Academy in Indianapolis during her back-to-school bus tour. The Pentagon Channel broadcast her message on September 24, 2007 to military families around the world.
The Secretary taped her message while working on a letter writing and crafts campaign with the students. This campaign encourages elementary school children to remember and support the children of military service members on Veteran's Day by sending letters, cards and other craft projects.
The program was launched this school year by Secretary Spellings and Patricia Driscoll, President of The Armed Forces Foundation, and involved one school from every state in the country.
Assistant Secretary Kerri Briggs Travels to Fort Bliss, Texas
On October 29, 2007, Assistant Secretary Briggs participated in a DoD-sponsored team visit to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Fort Bliss expects to see one of the largest expansions of Army activities over the next 5 - 10 years. The community is concerned about the effect that thousands of additional school-aged children will have on education facilities and programs. Assistant Secretary Briggs led a group discussion with Fort Bliss parents on how they identify quality schools for their children and what issues they encounter in transferring from community to community during their military careers.
Secretary Spellings Reads Names at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Secretary Spellings joined government officials, military family members and the public on November 8, 2007, for the "Reading of the Names" of the more than 58,000 veterans killed or missing in action, who are remembered on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (http://www.nps.gov/vive/). This year's event marked the 25th anniversary commemoration of the memorial (http://www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=604) and was only the fourth time in the memorial's 25-year existence that all the names were read aloud.
Secretary Spellings Praises Nonprofits
On November 22, 2007, Secretary Spellings was interviewed by CNN about how such nonprofits as The Armed Forces Foundation and ThanksUSA help military families. ThanksUSA is an online treasure hunt game based on American values and history (http://www.thanksusa.org/main/hunt-main.html). The players are encouraged to donate to the scholarship fund that benefits the children of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. ThanksUSA has given out more than 1,000 scholarships, totaling nearly $4 million.
ED Says Thank You to the Troops
As part of the Thanksgiving observance, U.S. Department of Education (ED) employees joined Americans from across the country in texting "thank you" to soldiers overseas http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48161.
Assistant Secretary Michell Clark Addresses Army Accessions Research Consortium
Assistant Secretary Clark spoke at the Army Accessions Research Consortium on December 6, 2007, in Norfolk, Virginia. He talked about ED policies that address the critical need to educate high school students in areas such as science, technology, engineering and math. The focus of the symposium was adapting Army accessions and initial training to the requirements of the components of the Army Force Generation model (ARFORGEN) http://www.army.mil/aps/07/addendum/h.html, a program that aims to produce an increased number of trained, ready and cohesive units within the Army.
Assistant Secretary Lauren Maddox Delivers Holiday Cheer to Fort Belvoir Students
Over the holiday season, the U.S. Department of Education donated 1,400 books supplied by PBS and Lyric Publishing to the children of military families who attend Fort Belvoir Elementary School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In addition, Assistant Secretary Maddox and a group of other Department of Education officials presented a handmade holiday card that was signed with greetings from Department employees.
Resource: Military OneSource
1-800-342-9647 or http://www.militaryonesource.com for consultants who are available 24-hours a day, 7-days-a-week, 365 days a year to provide referrals for non-medical, short-term, face-to-face counseling and email consultants on topics such as education, parenting, elder care, transition, special needs and other family matters.
Contacts: Lauren Maddox, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Outreach; Meredith Beaton, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Outreach and External Affairs; Emily Casarona, Liaison to the Military Community; Cynthia Hearn Dorfman, Advisor; Carrie Jasper, Editor; Hannah Stearns, Writer
To subscribe, unsubscribe or comment on this newsletter, please contact email@example.com
Touching Base can be found online at: http://www.ed.gov/news/newsletters/touchingbase/
Note: This document contains information about and from public and private entities and organizations for the reader's information. Inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any entity or organization or the products or services offered or views expressed. This publication also contains hyperlinks and URLs created and maintained by outside organizations. They are provided for the reader's convenience; however, the Department is not responsible for the accuracy of this information.