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Comics History
Obscure US newspaper comics
Recently we asked for more information about these comic strips. Thanks to some of our scholarly visitors, we were able to identify most of the artists whose work is shown here. We welcome any anecdotes you may have about these artists or early comic strips.
This comic strip is 'Boys Will Be Boys', from the early 1900's. 'Boys Will Be Boys' was created in 1909 by Harry Grant Dart, who also made the beautiful comic, 'The Explorigator', in 1908 for The New York World. Thanks for help solving this mystery!
'Say!! Did this ever happen to you??' depicts a man introducing a friend to his wife. It turns out they are old flames, and hit it off so well that the husband decides to hit his friend with a chair. This strip appeared in San Francisco newspaper 'The Call' on 27 May, 1906, barely six weeks after the 'Great 1906 Earthquake' which resulted in fire destroying much of San Francisco.
The series was originated by C. H. Wellington in 1905 for the "boiler plate" Sunday section of the McClure syndicate, of which The Call was a subscriber for a while. Boiler plates were pre-printed sections, sold mainly to rural newspapers, with their masthead printed in the blank space at the top of the first page. They were invented by S. S. McClure; and the main producers were the various McClure Syndicates and the St. Louis-based "World Color Printing" company.
The series was continued by 'McKee' (perhaps McKee Barclay from the Philadelphia Sunday Press?) from 12 June 1906 and by R. Crawford Ewer from 14 January 1907. Another 'Say!! Did this ever happen to you??' series (or a reprint of the above) was published by the Philadelphia North American in 1913.
The panels displayed here are from before McKee took over the strip, and the 'S'-signature, accompanied by a three-leaf clover, indicates that the artist is most probably Dink Shannon.
This McKee drawing of the 'Say' strip is signed "Mac":
'A Shoveling Orgy' appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on March 22, 1914. A boy shovels his uncle's sidewalk in exchange for a Silver Dollar, but he loses it when he wants to leave (" - let's buy one of those monoplanes that wind up. They're marked down to eighty-nine cents."). To find it, he shovels another sidewalk. Unfortunately, the owner is not pleased - "I've shoveled every snowstorm off o' this walk fer 63 year myself an' I'm tryin' fer a record."
This page is most likely an installment of the long lived series by H. D. Blair published with a variety of titles, the most recurring of which were 'Fatty Spilliker', 'Cousin Jim', 'Danny', 'Danny, Kitty and Pierce', 'Kitty', 'Kitty and Danny', 'Kitty and Pierce', 'Percy and the Hoobley Family' and 'Uncle Henry'. The oldest sample found is dated 1904; the latest 1921.
The Boston Globe was one of the first newpapers to carry a color section (from 1894), and published many strips by house artists (the longest running was 'Billy the Boy Artist' by Ed Payne, from 1899-1955!) Most of them were characterized by frequent use of captions in the style of the French "Imagerie d'Epinal". The Boston Globe was also the first U.S. paper to publish comics from England, such as 'Vanities of Valdes' (from the London Daily Sketch) and 'Waddles the Waiter' (copyright by London Amalgamated Press).
(This info graciously provided by Alfredo Castelli.)
This cryptic signature is probably that of H. D. Blair.
These panels are from the newspaper comic 'Peg Leg Pete', created by Everett E. Lowry for The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1903. A year later the title was changed to 'Barnacle Bill', and again later to 'Poor Ol' Robinson Crusoe', which ran until 1911.
See a good collection of old newspaper comics at the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection


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Learning in Action: From English Club Members to Entrepreneurs
By Jeffrey Richardson on April 23, 2017
There are numerous challenges to maintaining professional outlets to stay connected to one's career, skill set, and passions as an "Eligible Family Member" of a Foreign Service Officer. For me, discovering the opportunity to facilitate English Club sessions at the Martin Luther King Jr. American Cultural Center in Maputo, Mozambique, has been a great outlet as a life coach and civic engagement advisor. When I began facilitating sessions, the most I could have imagined was the chance to keep my facilitation and coaching skills fresh and help participants strengthen their English language proficiency.
What I experienced over the last year and a half has been so much more. The English Club, recently registered as the NGO Moringa, has grown in participation from students and unemployed youth-- approximately 65 percent of Mozambique's population is under 25 years of age -- to include seasoned government and private sector professionals nearing retirement. On any given day, 60 or more participants might attend one of the five daily English club sessions. The club has grown to include specialized groups that focus on particular types of English language communication, the most popular of which is "English for Tourism." Participants undoubtedly hope to use their improved English skills to be competitive tour guides or operators in Mozambique's burgeoning tourism industry. One can't blame them considering the country's 1,500 miles of beautiful coastline and rich cultural heritage.
As the capital city of Mozambique, Maputo has a growing expat population, including many Anglophones, with expanding tourism opportunities. The "English for Tourism" group started in 2015 because of a relationship between the American Cultural Center and a tour company providing services in English. It began as an opportunity to practice speaking English with tourists and other visitors that might ask for directions or recommendations. As the club expanded, the students received requests to serve as guides for visitors coming to the cultural center.
Participants were soon leading tours for the company in their free time. The popularity of the tours has grown and created opportunities for English Club participants to launch their own independent tour guide services. It has been nothing short of inspiring to observe the evolution of these young entrepreneurs as a professional coach. They have created a model that moves the English Club beyond a gathering and conversation place to a professional development opportunity. Most importantly, they have increased their own self-confidence and developed valuable entrepreneurial skills.
As a result of the exposure from the tour guides services, participants have been presented a variety of professional and educational opportunities. Many have received scholarships to pursue studies in Mozambique or abroad. One "English for Tourism" alumnus even began doing voiceovers for a studio in East Africa. Regardless of their path, they all have one thing in common. They would not have had these opportunities without participating in the U.S. Embassy's English Club. And I wouldn't have had such a fulfilling time in Maputo as an Eligible Family Member without them.
In honor of the UN World English Language Day, I applaud the work of the Martin Luther King Jr. American Cultural Center, its staff, participants and volunteers, in Maputo, Mozambique in leveraging the opportunity for English language learning into a human capital and community development pathway.
About the Author: Jeffrey Richardson serves at U.S. Embassy Maputo.
Editor's Note: English Language Day at the United Nations (UN) is celebrated on April 23, the date traditionally observed as both the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare. The Day is the result of a 2010 initiative by the Department of Public Information, establishing language days for each of the Organization's six official languages. The purpose of the UN's language days is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity. This blog is also published on Medium.com/StateDept.

subset: commoncrawl


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Over the past decade, a chronic shortage of speech-language pathologists has left K-12 schools and healthcare settings in many parts of the United States struggling to provide speech therapy services. The problem has taken a financial toll, driving the cost of services up as institutions spend increasing time and funds searching for speech-language pathologists.
Telepractice offers a promising solution by enabling practitioners to conduct live therapy sessions with clients "anytime, anywhere" using real-time videoconferencing. Telepractice allows practitioners to flexibly "go where the work is" without actually having to physically travel or relocate. Speech-language pathologists who no longer engage in full-time practice but still wish to work part-time, can contract with school districts to provide speech therapy services via telepractice. Ultimately, telepractice addresses a labor problem that impacts many health professions.
This cost-effective approach is being successfully employed by school districts across the United States, reducing costs while providing high-quality therapy. Research indicates that speech therapy delivered through telepractice has comparable quality and outcomes as speech therapy services delivered in-person (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2005; Boisvert, Lang, Andrianopoulos, & Boscardin, 2010; Boswell, 2007; Grogan-Johnson, Alvares, Rowan & Creaghead, 2010; Grogan-Johson et al., 2011).
Although technology has removed geographic constraints, one major barrier remains: time consuming and expensive licensing practices due to a lack of state license portability. While the professional requirements for licensing speech-language pathologists are very similar from state to state, each state has its own licensing process. As a result, speech-language pathologists who want to practice in multiple states must complete applications in each state where a license is sought; submit required documentation; pay licensing fees; and, endure processing times that significantly vary by state. This duplicative process might be warranted if important state-to-state variations in professional requirements for licensing were to exist; however, there is a high degree of consistency in licensing requirements across states.
Though the professional requirements are typically similar, license application processing times and fees vary by state. Some states process applications electronically, while others use a paper-based format. Depending on the state, the processing times for applications range from weeks to months. All states charge licensing application fees (typically $150 and higher) for the initial application, with similar charges for annual license renewal. In some states, licensees must provide fingerprints along with their license application. States do not share fingerprint information; applicants must send fingerprints to the state where the license is requested through an approved process.
The importance of licensure portability was recognized fifteen years ago when the United States Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which urged the healthcare industry to develop multi-state licensure models. Similarly, the US Federal Communications Commission called on state licensing boards to accommodate multi-state licensure for health care practitioners. In 2000, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) instituted the Nurse License Compact (NLC). The NLC allows nurses licensed in a compact state (currently 24 states) to practice in other compact states through a mutual license recognition model. Physicians have labor mobility through an expedited license model.
True license portability for speech-language pathologists is long overdue. License portability would facilitate inter-state practice and thus enable speech-language pathologists who live near state lines to practice in adjacent states where personnel shortages may exist. Greater labor mobility is necessary to serve geographically shifting populations in the US.
It is time to remove the barriers to licensure portability! A national initiative that creates a model for licensure portability for the rehabilitation professions is needed. Licensure portability will enable speech-language pathologists to provide services wherever and whenever needed, thereby unleashing the full potential of telepractice to reduce costs and administrative burdens, increase access to services, broaden career opportunities for speech-language pathologists and improve outcomes for K-12 students and clients in diverse practice settings. A mobile, flexible workforce positioned to use telepractice for inter-state practice could alleviate the chronic shortage of speech-language pathologists.
1. 1. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2005). Speech-Language Pathologists Providing Clinical Services via Telepractice: Position Statement [Position Statement]. Retrieved from www.asha.org/policy.
2. 2. Boisvert, M., Lang, R., Andrianopoulos, M., & Boscardin, M. (2010). Telepractice in the assessment and treatment of individuals with autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 13, 423-432.
3. 3. Boswell, S. (2007, March 6). Ohio grant addresses personnel shortage: Innovative strategies meet short-and long-term goals. The ASHA Leader.
4. 4. Grogan-Johnson, S., Alvares, R., Rowan, L. E., & Creaghead, N. (2010). A pilot study comparing the effectiveness of speech-language intervention provided by telehealth and traditional side-by-side intervention. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 16, 134-139.
5. 5. Grogan-Johnson, S., Gabel, R., Taylor, J., Rowan, L., Alvares, R., & Schenker, J. (2011). A pilot exploration of speech sound disorder intervention delivered by telehealth to school–age children. International Journal of Telerehabilitation, 3(1), 31-42.
(This article was originally published in the International Journal of Telerehabilitation Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 2011, DOI:10.5195/ijt.2011.6079 (http://telerehab.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/Telerehab/article/view/6079)
Melissa Jakubowitz, M.A., CCC-SLP is currently the Vice President of SLP Services at PresenceLearning and has been a speech-language pathologist for more than 20 years, working in schools and private practice before joining PresenceLearning in January 2010. She is a former president of the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association and has been an active member of ASHA serving on Legislative Council for 12 years and on the ASHA Board of Ethics.


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Letters | Welcome refugees, snow angel, charitable giving, extreme inequality
Welcome refugees
This holiday season, I feel so thankful that Louisville is such a welcoming and caring city for refugees.
In this season of plenty, let us try to remember the many refugees that make up our diverse community and think of the lives they are now pursuing and their dreams of a better life.
Please consider making a donation to one of the many fine local organizations that strive every single day to improve the lives of Louisville's refugee population.
Looking for a project for the New Year? A small amount of time volunteering to help a refugee can make a world of difference.
Sudanese Refugee Education Fund –
Elizabethtown, Ky. 42701 –
Snow angel
I was shoveling a path through the snow to get to my mailbox when a FedEx truck stopped at my driveway. Thinking I was getting a package, I went to meet the driver, David.
Instead, he took the shovel from me and shoveled the entire drive. By the time he finished, I came to know what a wonderful young man I had met.
He would not let me pay him so I gave him money for the charity of his choosing. Merry Christmas to David and his special family.
Louisville 40207 –
Charitable giving
In the Dec. 8 Courier-Journal, two articles in the Forum section misrepresented the teachings of Jesus, falsely claiming that liberals obey the teachings of Jesus about helping the poor, while falsely claiming that conservative Republicans disobey Jesus' teachings about helping the poor.
Jesus did not tell his followers to pressure Pontius Pilate's secular government to help the poor. Jesus told his followers that they as individuals should help the poor by giving to the poor directly or through religious institutions. That is exactly what conservative Christians do. Studies have consistently shown that conservative Christians donate to charity much, much more than liberals do.
In 1998, Al Gore gave only $353 to charity. Joe Biden gave a total of only $3,690 over the 10 years before he became vice president. But in 2007, George W. Bush donated $165,660 to charity, 18 percent of his income. And Mitt Romney donated more than 13 percent of his income to charity over the last 20 years.
So liberal columnists should stop claiming that conservative Christians ignore Jesus' teachings about helping the poor. The Courier-Journal should stop publishing articles which misrepresent the teachings of Jesus.
Louisville 40220 –
'Patriotic' caring
Columnist Cal Thomas (Dec. 13) would have Louisvillians believe that every wealthy American is a worthy Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs, who offers creative products and services and works ceaselessly to create bountiful employment openings for fellow citizens. It follows that unemployed people simply need to get up off the couch and emulate their betters. In this land of limitless opportunity, it is doing unemployed people a favor to cut off their benefits, because that will increase their motivation.
Unfortunately, that conservative myth is unrelated to modern reality. Most unemployed people simply cannot find decent jobs in today's economy. Rather than truly striving to create jobs, many of the wealthiest Americans, and the officials they put in office, are dedicated to making the 1 percent ever richer while everyone else becomes poorer.
The wealthy are working hardest to increase the size of their corporate monopolies so they can increase prices while holding down the minimum wage. They seek government tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, create loopholes to exert disproportionate influence on elections, secure government bailouts following poor financial decisions, reduce regulations on unsafe and polluting practices and reduce taxes on investments and estates.
Cal Thomas would have Louisvillians believe that it is communistic to point out the inherent unfairness of growing income inequality. We should ignore the fact that most Wal-Mart employees, for example, are denied full-time employment with medical benefits, and are forced to live on food stamps, while the Walton heirs receive billions of dollars per year.
Nonsense. It is cold and elitist to refuse support to one's fellow citizens who are needlessly suffering, and patriotic and progressive to care about them and to raise taxes on the 1 percent to pay for it.
Louisville 40223 –
Extreme inequality
Like columnist Cal Thomas, my earnings were low at age 14 (50 cents an hour), and the adults who employed me earned significantly more. I was a kid, and as such, I did not pay for meals, rent/mortgage, utilities, transportation, health care and the like.
It would seem that Thomas fails to grasp that it is extreme income and wealth inequality, not inequality per se, that is the problem. When minimum wage — earned by millions of adults with dependents working full time for such companies as Wal-Mart, Burger King and the like — is not a living wage, it is a problem. To punish work is to destroy bootstrap ideology. Such low wages for work is but a gimmick to get taxpayers to subsidize large corporations in yet another way — by providing for the needs of hardworking Americans who deserve fair remuneration.
New Albany, Ind. 47150 –


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Life upon the wicked stage ain't ever what a girl supposes.
It's more.
The casts, the curtain calls, the exquisitely tailored costumes built just for you--everything about singing and dancing for a living has surpassed my expectations. And the applause ain't bad either.
One day your alarm wakes you up at 5:30 am. You glance over at your backpack that you, a 30-something adult, have packed with tap shoes, character shoes, ballet flats, dance clothes, hot rollers, hairspray, Russian Red MAC lipstick, non-dancing heels, a wrinkle-free audition dress, and a three-ring binder of sheet music. You peek out the window and see the snow starting to stick. You know that to secure an audition appointment, you'll have to arrive at the audition by 6:30 am, but you may not be let into the building until 8.
Once inside the building, you'll have to sit on the floor (if you're lucky) in a room packed with hundreds of women with similarly bulging backpacks, all fighting to use three electrical outlets and talking in overly bright voices about nothing. If you're unlucky, you may find yourself standing up, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a hallway with a frazzled building manager charging you with the impossible task of not being a fire hazard.
It's now 5:40 am. Is it worth going to all that trouble to compete with two hundred girls for two spots in a show that will give you five weeks of work at $600 per week?
I used to think it was worth the trouble. Though I would complain about auditions, I would enjoy the challenge and the excitement and the camaraderie of my true friends, girls that I went to happy hour with after auditions, and my "audition friends," girls whose names and resumes I knew but that I didn't see outside the audition holding room.
Auditioning is exhausting--but what's my other option? Working nine-to-five at a job where no one applauds for you? Where's the fun in that?
I know I need to move on. But it's not easy.
Someone recently described leaving the theater life as a grieving process. And thinking about shelving that part of my life really does feel like a loss. Living your dream is intoxicating. It's hard to walk away, to move on. But more often than not, I find myself wanting to put down that backpack.
I keep hoping that the thrills of the "real world," like getting a weekly paycheck and going to one place everyday instead of running to five auditions in eight hours, will outweigh the addictive high of booking a job. And slowly, I'm beginning to appreciate the little things--like walking out the door with nothing but a small purse. (My non-sagging shoulders love it, too.)
Can stability really ever win over excitement? It's hard to say. Will I ever really leave theater behind? That's hard to say, too.
But I do know this: the thought of leaving my tap shoes, character shoes, ballet flats, dance clothes, hot rollers, hairspray, Russian Red MAC lipstick, non-dancing heels, wrinkle-free audition dress, and three-ring binder of sheet music is getting more appealing by the day.
For now, I'm still watching the snow fall and considering my options.


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Electronic Assembly Products is a manufacturer's representative agency that approaches every customer as a partner in solving process challenges.
Our salespeople have a working knowledge of all aspects of assembly processes.
We work with our customers to both identify and resolve their assembly challenges.
We choose to represent products that are the technology leaders in their sector.
By finding the right solution to every challenge, TEAM EAP maintains the confidence of its customers, enabling it to act as a trusted extension of their internal resources.


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If you have a colleague you would like to attend in your place, please email their details to Lucy Renshaw and we will send them an invitation.
The Colliers International Research team provide expert advice and a wide range of specialist services to clients across the UK, including a property market forecasting capability.
An in-depth survey of 500 key global investors reveals the most attractive property regions, sectors and features in an optimistic look ahead.
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Goodyear's 16-Year Alliance With Nascar Gets New Treads During Daytona 500
By Barry Janoff
February 22, 2013: Goodyear Tire & Rubber will take full advantage of its position as the official tire of Nascar by using the Daytona 500 to launch a multi-media campaign that will drive through the entire racing circuit season.
The initial effort will be anchored by a TV spot, "Most Demanding Customer," that shows how Nascar drivers push their Goodyear tires to the max, and how Goodyear then turns the experience into products for use in everyday life.
Support encompasses print, radio, Internet — including the company's dedicated Goodyear Racing Web site — and social media destinations such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Lead agencies are GSD&M Idea City, Austin; and Boston-based digital agency Digitas.
Activation during Daytona 500 weekend includes on-site and in-air presence, the latter via the iconic Goodyear blimp.
Goodyear has been the official tire of Nascar since 1997 and has had a relationship with the circuit since the 1950s. The current deal with Nascar's Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck series runs through 2017. Goodyear is also the official tire of the National Hot Rod Assn.
"As our 'More Driven' campaign has progressed, we have successfully shown consumers the history and tradition of Goodyear, as well as the passion, innovation and expertise Goodyear uses to provide tires for superior performance in challenging conditions," Gary Melliere, GM-brand/sponsorshiops for Goodyear, said in a statement. "In our new advertising, we continue to showcase that what we learn making tires for expert drivers who face grueling conditions, such as Nascar, inspires what we roll into consumer tires."
In the launch "Most Demanding Customer" spot, we see Goodyear tires in the factory and then on high-speed cars on the track. A voiceover explains, "At Goodyear, we make tires for the world's most demanding drivers. Meticulously crafted to help handle 200 mile per hour turns."
"These types of conditions provide continuous opportunities for Goodyear' to further develop tires for superior performance, on the track and on the highway."
As race action continues and cars hit pit row for changes of Goodyear tires, the voiceover says, "Always evolving to face the grueling demands of Nascar. And everything we learn from making tires for our most demanding customers inspires what we roll into yours."
The final scene is on a highway, where cars roll with Goodyear tires. (See the full spot here.)
"These types of conditions provide continuous opportunities for Goodyear's engineers to further develop tires for superior performance, both on the track and on the highway," said Melliere.
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Search results
Managing Phosphorus for Yield and Reduced Edge of Field Losses
quality models, or monitoring to evaluate site risk for P losses and need for further site BMPs. See step ... site: Production practices that increase soil organic matter to retain water on site Drainage Water ... applications when STP is greater than 150 PPM. Follow NRCS 590 site and rate criteria between 40 to 150 PPM. ...
Agronomy Beyond 2019: Prepare for 2020 at FSR Agronomy College
https://fsr.osu.edu/sites/fsr/files/imce/pages8-12.pdf; and at the Gwynne: https://fsr.osu.edu/sites/fsr/files/imce/FSR-2019-Program-Gwynne-AUG8.pdf ... available at oaba.net/events. Also at the Farm Science Review on September 17, 18 and 19 will be several ... the east end of the grounds, at the Small Farm Center on the west side of the exhibit area and north ...
4H Project Green Teacher
celebration/certificates Note: The program will take place on Wednesdays from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. on the OSU campus. Unless ... program for afterschool personnel, educators and others who are engaged in, or would like to learn more ... Project Green Teacher is a program facilitated by Ohio State University 4-H personnel in Franklin County, ...
Ohio 4-H Center Parking
Nationwide & Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center Parking Information 2201 Fred Taylor Dr., Columbus, ... scheduled in the facility and at nearby venues. Park only on pavement and in designated spaces. No parking ... on grass, gravel road or in gated area of arboretum grounds. One way only entry at the north driveway ...
Pesticide Container Recycling Collection Program
following link: https://clinton.osu.edu/sites/clinton/files/imce/Pesticide%20Recycle%20Day.pdf ... Pesticide Container Recycling Collection Program. This event is sponsored by the Clinton County ... collecting containers on two days: Friday, September 20, 2019 from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm and again on Monday, ...
Typical autumn weather changes ahead
by a degree or two and rainfall between 0.25-0.75 inches on average. There could be some scattered ...
New and Upcoming Episodes of the Agronomy and Farm Management Podcast Focus on Harvest and Compaction
The Agronomy and Farm Management Podcast has new episodes available to check out. Episode 36 ... yields and quality. Episode 37 will be released Wednesday, October 16 and focuses on compaction. The ...
Tar Spot of Corn in Ohio Again this 2019
down, if Tar Spot is present, you can still detect it on dry, senescent leaves almost as easily as you ... can on healthy leaves. So, please check your fields to see if this disease is present. " Symptoms of ... tar spot first appear as oval to irregular bleached to brown lesions on leaves in which raised, black ...
The Agronomic Crops Team will welcome you to the Farm Science Review
complete schedule here: https://fsr.osu.edu/sites/fsr/files/imce/pages8-12.pdf. ... schedule in the program. We have an industrial hemp planting on our north side at Gate B, stop by and ask ... The Farm Science Review this year is September 17, 18 and 19 th at the London, Ohio location at ...
Sampling for Soybean Cyst Nematode – Fall is the time!
reproduce on the SCN resistance source PI 88788 or Peking. All of these numbers can impact management of ... to measure some yield loss on susceptible varieties, especially on lighter soils. Low: Plant SCN ... soybeans can be planted again. SCN is picky about what it feeds and reproduces on but it does like a few ...


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Mayor Gimenez, animal lovers of Miami-Dade voted YES and passed the plan
to make Miami-Dade a "NO KILL" county by a resounding 65% margin. Miami-Dade
commissioners unanimously echoed our decision. It is not right as well as unjust and immoral to have animals keep
needlessly dying in Miami-Dade County. We voted YES on the proposed
2013-2014 budget for $19 million to be dedicated to saving innocent
living, breathing, FEELING animals and stopping their senseless, daily slaughter. Animal
lovers of Miami-Dade and beyond demand that homeless, abandoned and suffering dogs
and cats be given what we VOTED for - their right to LIVE.
Sue Audrain
This petition closed 10 months ago
The voters cast their ballots and CHOSE to make our county no kill. Animals aren't put on this planet to suffer and needlessly die. Speak up for those who have no voice.


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At Cone Communications, we believe building successful brands and making a positive impact on the world is not mutually exclusive.
In fact, doing both is what drives us. We have a 36-year history of developing inspiring consumer, cause and sustainability campaigns to prove it.
Catch us on any given day and you'll find us helping a client launch a new product. Or working with a nonprofit to raise funds for a critical issue. Or helping a brand protect its reputation. No matter what we are doing, we are Always Making A Difference℠ for business, brand or society. Often all three at once.
Explore and discover our unique blend of innovative communications and industry-leading corporate responsibility strategies that sets us apart from others.
Always Inspiring Passion. Always Creating Change. Always Making a Difference℠.


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New 2019 FordRanger STX Truck
- Stock: 9425
- Fuel Economy
- 21.0/26.0 mpg City/Hwy
- Exterior Color
- Black
- Interior Color
- Other
- Body
- Truck
- Transmission
- Automatic
- Engine
Ford Ranger
Highlighted Features
Detailed Specifications
KBB.com Consumer Reviews
- 1.0
Buyer beware
By Dissatisfied on Saturday, August 31, 2019I purchased the Ranger in March 2019, it went in for repairs May of 2019, with only 4,500 miles on it (it is now September) I still don't have my truck. The SYNC screen would go blank, the backup camera would turn on while driving, the touch screen quit working, the seat belt warning lights would turn on when no one is sitting in the seats and not warn me if someone did not have their seat belt on. I went through the whole buy back process and Ford gave me an offer that was far less (-$10,000) than the negative equity I had in the previous vehicle, Ford basically told me I need to write them a check for almost $10,000 so the buy back is complete, so, basically they charged me for diminished value and are not willing to compensate me for payments I had made while the vehicle at the dealer, this is the third new Ford I purchased in the last 2 years and I promise you, I will NEVER again purchase a new Ford!!!!!!!
- 5.0
Awesome truck!
By Ron on Monday, April 01, 2019Was skeptical of the 4 cylinder until I drove it....270 horsepower, this thing will fly! The 10 speed transmission is incredible. I switched from a 2016 Tacoma and have no regrets. Ford should have been building this truck long ago! Only disappointment is that a sunroof wasn't available.
- 4.0
Very nice truck if you want to pay the price
By Agatehunter54 on Monday, February 18, 2019The 2019 Ford Ranger Lariat drives smoother than my 94 Ranger V6 did, with a lot more power. Highway ride is good, but a rougher road will give you a bumpier ride, though it is not that bad. The turbo engine and 10 speed transmission work great together. Acceleration is effortless and really gets going when punching the gas. I actually have to concentrate on not accelerating too fast. The start/stop feature of the engine when at a stop works well. There is a little shake when the engine starts again, but it's not bad. Most of the time, it is not noticeable. It can be turned off if it bothers you, but I prefer the better gas mileage. The interior is nice and comfortable. Even the backseat is tolerable. When adjusted for myself (5'10") as the driver, I can fit in the backseat with plenty of head room and tolerable knee space. Definitely better than the Tacoma. Interior storage is not the best, with a small but deep center armrest console (16.9 oz. water bottles can fit upright inside), a typical glovebox and 2 storage bins under the back seat. (For some rope or bungie cords, maybe tire chains, but not sure.) It would be nice to have larger bins. The open bin on the top of the dash would be much better with a lid. I can't see putting anything in it because of the reflection on the windshield and the heat of the sun. There are plenty of cup or bottle holders in the cab. The 2 console cup holders are not huge, but big enough. I'm not sure if a "Big Gulp" or a big coffee cup would fit. Button layout is ok once you get acquainted with them. Some of the controls are duplicated in the 8" touchscreen. The tech stuff is all good (Love that 8" screen), and the B&O sound system sounds great. Wi-Fi will cost a minimum of $60.00 a year after the free subscription expires. To get the accessories that you want, you are forced to take several items that you don't want, or leave something off, which is their way of upping the price you pay. The plastic bed liner is just ok, with the 6 low tie downs for tying cargo up covered with large rubber covers that are a pain. But it includes a 12 volt receptacle at the rear of the bed, so I'll deal with it. The tailgate drops heavily if let go, but it is made of aluminum, so it is a lot lighter to lift or let down. I never let it drop anyway and appreciate that it lifts so easily. The hood and front fenders are also made of aluminum. The safety suite of sensors are awesome. It's great to have them when parking in a parking lot or in the garage. Not sure of the gas mileage yet, as I'm on the first tank, but it's better than my 94 Ranger for sure. I spent more than I had planned, but it's all forgotten when I'm driving it.


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Orange County Water District named a groundwater guardian community for fifth year in a row
The Orange County Water District (OCWD) was recently awarded its fifth designation as a Groundwater Guardian Community.
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Nov. 27, 2001 — The Orange County Water District (OCWD) was recently awarded its fifth designation as a Groundwater Guardian Community.
This designation is awarded to entities who develop and implement successful projects that benefit groundwater. Groundwater Guardian designation is earned by a community when progress is made toward the implementation of groundwater-related activities and accomplishment of goals.
Groundwater protection is an ongoing process, and communities re-enter for designation each year as they continue to build on previous successes. OCWD's Groundwater Guardian Team was presented their award by The Groundwater Foundation during the Foundation's Annual Conference held in Pittsburgh in November.
"Earning the designation for five years in a row is a direct result of the OCWD Groundwater Guardian Team's hard work," stated Phil Anthony, OCWD board member. "Activities such as the annual Children's Water Education Festival held last spring, mirror the goals of the Groundwater Foundation."
The OCWD Groundwater Guardian Team won the designation for a number of activities it planned and conducted in support of protecting Orange County's groundwater basin, including:
— A two-day Children's Water Education Festival, which featured hands-on activities designed to teach third- and fourth-grade students about the interdependence of water, soil, plants, trees, animals and humans. In 2001, the event drew more than 6,400 students from throughout Orange County.
— A Festival Computer Program, which will streamline the planning and implementing of the Children's Water Education Festival scheduling. This program will be used throughout the country, helping festival teams use technology to more efficiently organize the scheduling of the classes and booths they'll visit throughout their day at the festival. Currently this is a very time-consuming, manual entry process.
— Involvement in the watershed education exhibit at Santiago Oaks Regional Park in Orange, Calif. The team is working with several other local agencies to develop a model interactive watershed ecosystem education center.
— Development of a year-long interactive presentation at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, Calif., educating visitors about water and oil and why the two don't "mix." Oil can be recycled and should be disposed of correctly to avoid water contamination.
— Establishing an MTBE (Methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether) committee to initiate public outreach about the gasoline additive that is contaminating groundwater supplies in Southern California.
The Groundwater Guardian program encourages communities to begin groundwater awareness and protection activities, supports the communities in their efforts, then recognizes their achievements. Communities can represent a number of diverse settings including rural areas, large incorporated cities, Indian reservations and water basins in the United States and Canada. These teams then develop Result Oriented Activities to address the community's groundwater protection concerns.
The OCWD Groundwater Guardian Team was formed in 1997 under the direction of Phil Anthony, an OCWD board member since 1981. The team has approximately 20 members representing business, education, local citizens, water utilities and other local agencies. Anyone interested in joining can call Sharon Lien at 714/378-3362.
Orange County Water District is a state agency that was created by the California State Legislature in 1933 to maintain and manage the groundwater basin under northern and central Orange County. OCWD's groundwater basin supplies 75% of the water needs in Anaheim, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Irvine, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Stanton, Tustin, Villa Park, Westminster, and Yorba Linda. To learn more about water in Orange County, log on to www.ocwd.com.


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Northside ISD is enforcing its "No Shots, No School" policy, which means students who are not up-to-date on immunizations will not be allowed to attend classes when the 2012-13 school year begins Aug. 27.
Texas law requires all public school children to have current immunizations in order to attend class.
Students who come to school and don't have up-to-date shots will have to wait in the school office for their parents to pick them up and take them to get their shots.
"The closer we get to the start of school, the longer the lines get at the doctor's offices and city health department," Northside Health Services Director Shirley Schreiber said. "Please take care of your children's shots now and avoid a long wait."
For a complete list of immunization clinics in San Antonio, call San Antonio Metro Health at 207-8750. For additional information about immunization services, visit the San Antonio Metro Health website.
Required immunizations for 2012-13 include:
DTP/DTaP/DT/TD/Tdap: Five doses required for entry of kindergarten students unless the fourth dose was received on or after the 4th birthday. Students age 7, starting their vaccine, are required to have three doses. One booster dose of a Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis-containing vaccine is required for entry into 7th grade if at least 5 years have passed since the last dose of a Tetanus-containing vaccine. Grades 8-12 require a booster dose of Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis-containing vaccine every 10 years.
Polio: Four Doses of IPV required for kindergarten students unless the third dose was received after the 4th birthday. It can be any combination of OPV or IPV. Not required of 18-year old students.
Measles/Mumps/Rubella: Two doses of MMR are required. The first dose shall be administered on or after the 1st birthday. The second dose to be administered by age 5 or entry into kindergarten.
HIB: Three doses of Haemophilus Influenza type B vaccine and a booster if given before the child is 15 months or one dose of vaccine if given after 15 months. HIB vaccine is given through 4 years of age.
Hepatitis Type A: Two doses of Hepatitis A are required for students in grades PK, K, 1, 2, and 3. The second dose of Hepatitis A is administered six months after the administration of the first dose.
Type B: Three doses of Hepatitis B are required for kindergarten through 12th grade.
Varicella (Chicken Pox): Two doses of Varicella vaccine received on or after the 1st birthday are required for students in grades K, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Two doses are required if the student was 13 years of age at the time the first dose of Varicella was received. If the student has had Varicella (Chicken Pox) illness, please request a form from the school nurse to validate illness.
Pneumococcal (PCV7): PCV7 is mandated for all students 3 through 4 years of age. The school nurse will evaluate the number of doses needed or if child is complete.
Menactra (Meningococcal Conjugate Vaccine): This vaccine protects students 11 years of age and older from Meningitis. One dose is required for students in grades 7, 8, 9 and 10.
State law allows physicians to write a statement that the required vaccines pose a significant risk to the health and well-being of the child. Parents may request an exemption from immunization requirements for reasons of conscience, including a religious belief. For more information about exemptions, call the Texas Department of Health at (800) 252-9152.


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This last two weeks we have had three family reunions, all in Salt Lake or Utah Valley. The Linton Family Reunion was the second one held. The last one took place five years ago. Over 200 people came to the two day affair. The second reunion was the Wessman family with about 80 people present. The last was my own family with 42 family members present for a week of dinners capped by a campout over three days. The reunion with the most logistics and planning was the Linton Reunion. Relatives came from as far away as China. I wrote about this reunion in my last post. For those of you who do not know, Utah Valley lies to the south of the Salt Lake Valley. There are a number of small towns including Orem and Provo, Provo being the home of Brigham Young University.
The second reunion was more informal. The Wessman family got together at one of the houses and had an extended pot luck dinner on one night. The Reunion was in Salt Lake City and many of the attendees had made extensive travel arrangements, coming from Wyoming, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Florida and Texas as well as Utah. Fortunately, all of the main (read parents with children) family members had land lines, cell phones and/or E-mail. Coordination of the food and arrangements were done in advance electronically. During the dinner we set up a computer with our genealogy program running and each of the families came by and we updated the information on each family.
Our immediate family is spread all over the U.S. As they were able to do so, my children and grandchildren also attended the other two reunions. Some of those furthest away flew but some drove long distances to attend the week long activities. Food was a most pressing topic, but all of the arrangements were done in advance using telephone or E-mail. In keeping with the informality of our family, we decided some of the activities at the time they occurred. The biggest part of the reunion was the camping experience held at a Utah Valley campground. Some of our immediate family members had not seen each other for five years.
Reunions are valuable ways to reconnect with family members. Many of the babies born in our immediate family had never been seen by some of the family members. Many of the children could not remember their cousins from previous years. It was important to see the changes in the families and to connect the grandchildren with the grandparents.


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04 June 2009
Photo Friday #12
Travelling from Trinidad to Cayo Coco we decided to take a little beverage break along the way and accidentally captured a rainbow.
For other travel pics, check out my favourite family travel site Delicious Baby. Or go there to share your travel photos on Fridays too.
Photo Friday #1
wee cuba
9 comments:
- Mara from Motherofalltrips said...
I love rainbow shots - we got one last year by the Gare de Lyon in Paris.
- 05 June, 2009 05:22
- Wanderluster said...
Nice catch. Hope you didn't get stuck in any rain.
- 05 June, 2009 07:39
- marina villatoro said...
You gotta love rainbows. We get a ton of them, since they usually come at the end of rain. And we just can't get enough of them.
It's funny, we could be having a bad day, or my son can do something that really riles me up, and then out of nowhere he points to a rainbow, and we all smile and simply forget the tedious stuff we were bickering about!
Photo Friday - Dominical Beach - The True Surf Town and So Much More!
- 05 June, 2009 08:46
- jessiev said...
- 05 June, 2009 10:34
- Debbie said...
absolutely beautiful. this feels like such a peaceful moment.
- 05 June, 2009 14:38
- Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish said...
Amazing capture. Would love to hear more about your time in Cuba. It's a place that has always fascinated me.
- 05 June, 2009 18:30
- Dominique said...
Beautiful shot.
Like Dim Sum, I'd like to hear more about your travels in Cuba as I've never really heard from someone who actually traveled there.
- 06 June, 2009 12:26
- Jackie said...
Well, funny, I've been lucky enough to go to Cuba 3 times! I can barely believe it myself. But each time we spent most of a week there enjoying the lazy life of an all-inclusive. The little travelling we did do was to Havana, a must-do, and to Trinidad, a very charming colonial town.
I have a few posts about our experiences there with child ...
: )
- 06 June, 2009 17:35
- wandermom said...
Cuba, eh?
Well I'll just have to figure out how I can squeeze that into my travel plans over the next couple of years - since I have a feeling everything could change there pretty radically when Castro dies.
Great shot!
- 13 June, 2009 10:19


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This utility converts (migrates, translates) Modicon (such as Modicon 484, Modicon 884, and Modicon 984) programs that were created with the ProWorx NxT programming software to Studio 5000, in other words Modicon 984 to ControlLogix (CLx).
Each register (0xxxx,1xxxx, 3xxxx, 4xxxx) will be converted into a one-dimentional array of type INT. Extended memory (6xxxx) will be converted into a two-dimentional array of type INT. The 0 and 1 registers access the individual bits. For example, 10017 will become M1[1].15.The 3 and 4 registers use the same word offset. For example, 40100 will become M4[100].Timers and counters will have new tags created of type TIMER and COUNTER. For example, timer 43493 will become T43493.
The network logic is converted using Smart Translation Technology.Some instructions will convert without any issues. Some instructions convert but have additional logic added by the conversion utility to emulate the original instruction. Some instructions cannot be converted. They will be noted in the conversion log. Please review the conversion samples to see how the most common instructions will be converted. You can enter an optional "Trash Register" to help with cleanup. When the conversion utility comes to a SUBTRACT instruction with the Trash Register as the result (bottom node), the SUBTRACT instruction is replaced with comparison instructions.
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(1) Symbols are converted to aliases. Some characters cannot be used in tag names. These aliases will be renamed and noted in the conversion log.(2) Rung comments are created in this format: "Network #", page title, descriptor, short comment, long comment.
Here are three options for remapping the I/O:NONE: I/O addresses stay at their M0 and M1 address1756: I/O addresses will be remapped to an equivalent 1756 I/O module (refer to Rockwell Automation catalog number 1492-CM800, "Conversion Module for Modicon" for more information).AN-X: I/O addresses will be remapped to an AN-X-MOD module (see ProSoft under Resources).
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text: One night, when my husband and I had first started dating, we were on our way home from the gym and decided to stop and grab something to eat. We spotted The Melting Pot, which we thought sounded awesome, and went in (yes, still in our workout clothes). It didn't […] Read More »


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Over 70 Lighthouses stand sentry over the Maine coast, and seven of them can be seen from the Boothbay Harbor Region. Once tended by dedicated light keepers and their families, most towers are now either automated or decommissioned. For many people the world over, however, nothing embodies the spirit of Maine like the image of the lighthouse keeping vigil along the rugged coast.
The Inn at Cuckolds Lighthouse, erected in 1892 off the tip of Southport Island, has welcomed thousands of vessels passing each year. The Inn at Cuckolds Lighthouse is set to open this summer as a luxurious retreat for adventurous travelers who want to experience their own private island while staying in the lighthouse. Guests will be transported to the Cuckolds by licensed Launch Captains in a restored Navy motor whaleboat.
Burnt Island Light is the most prominent lighthouse seen from Boothbay Harbor. Built in 1821, its red light is visible for 12 miles, and it foghorn can be heard throughout the harbor. Living History Tours are available in season, with the roles of former light keeper and his family played by local actors & historians.
Hendricks Head Light in Southport was built in 1829 off the tip of Southport. Its 43 foot tower is small compared to many, is no longer operational, and is now privately owned, but easily visible from the beach.
Ram Island Light in Boothbay is only 36 feet above mean high tide, but its light can be seen for 13 miles. There's a great view from Grimes Cove at Ocean Point, but the light is best seen from a boat passing between Ram and Fisherman's Island.
Sequin Light, Georgetown, is Maine's second oldest lighthouse, built in 1795, and its highest, at 180 feet above mean tide. It can only be seen by boat.
Pemaquid Point Light, Bristol, sits atop a magnificent outcropping of igneous rock that tumbles down into the sea for hundreds of yards from the light. Built in 1827, it is so quintessentially Maine that it was chosen as the image for the Maine state quarter. The former light keeper's house serves as fisherman's museum. This lighthouse is well worth the 45 minute drive from Boothbay.
Monhegan Island Light, Monhegan Island, was built in 1824, at the site of a 1614 fishing settlement. Look for an excursion from Boothbay Harbor to get you there.
A group of local citizens are working together to restore the Cuckolds light. For more information on the project and how you can help, visit the Cuckolds website by clicking here. To view the lighthouse when you are in Boothbay Harbor, visit us at Newagen Seaside Inn for a nice view from the coast or we would be happy to show you the town landing where the view of the Cuckolds, surrounding islands and Maine coast is magnificent.


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Red Mountain Garden
|Location of Smith's house, Birmingham, Alabama. Copyright GoogleMaps, 2013.
My backyard garden is sited on the steep north slope of Red Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama, about sixty vertical feet down from the ridgeline and about 250 feet above downtown.1 In front of our home extends a suburban landscape of half–century-old houses. There is not a front porch in my entire neighborhood; whether despite or because of this, the homes—which I might generously describe as "midcentury modern"—exude a remarkable kind of 1950s optimism not ordinarily associated with the South, and from every window in the front of our house we can see, on a clear fall day, between five and fifteen miles. (Even in the post-bubble Los Angeles real estate market, this would be a multimillion-dollar view. We bought the place in 2003 for $137,000.) In the winter, when the leaves have finally fallen from the white oaks, the view includes the modern downtown skyline. Behind and above us, however, Red Mountain is too steep to build on, so there's nothing but second-growth hardwood forest and a few limestone outcrops between us and the condominiums at the top of the ridge. Through the woods just behind our lot, about twenty feet above the house, runs the old grade for the Birmingham Mineral Branch of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which carried iron ore from the mines that still angle down into the narrow seam of ore-bearing sandstone that runs along the ridge. Today, it's a footpath that intersects, three-tenths of a mile to the east, a paved section called the Vulcan Trail, which itself runs, closed to motor vehicles, exactly a mile to the base of the Vulcan statue. In 1924, when America's leading landscape architecture firm, Olmsted Brothers, put together their proposal A System of Parks and Playgrounds for Birmingham, they recommended this area be part of a "radical expansion" of Green Springs Park (now George Ward Park) at the base of the mountain.2 "It is worth while," they wrote, "also to provide parks of the mountain type—places where people can climb, can enjoy the wild woods, and can enjoy that sense of freedom and expansion, in contrast to the restrictions of a city, which comes with the contemplation of distant and spacious views, even though in detail these views may be largely over urban districts. Because of its height and its nearness to the city, the Red Mountain ridge is particularly fitted to this purpose."3 Because the iron mines were still running at full tilt, Olmsted Brothers realistically anticipated the land would be difficult to obtain. They were right. Our neighborhood, initially Lebanese, was built shortly after the mines shut down; the city purchased the steepest section, a strip about two hundred feet wide, less because of civic foresight than because real estate developers couldn't use it. Fortuitously, that strip is today poised to become part of an extensive network of linear parks across the metropolitan region.
|Birmingham skyline through the white oaks. Birmingham, Alabama, March 21, 2008. Photograph by Jon Smith.
The site is thus classically liminal, on the threshold between city and forest, automobile grid and curving mountainside. Deranged by the mountain, parallel grid lines converge here: below our house, Twenty-second Avenue intersects Twenty-first. We float on red Alabama clay between service and industry, between Birmingham's present skyline of banks and hospitals and its past mine railroad, between midcentury modern houses and neighborhood and second-growth woods that seem much older. More: Red Mountain is almost the last ridge of the great Appalachians running nearly the length of the eastern United States. Topographically if not quite culturally, Birmingham sits where the post-plantation Deep South in which I lived and worked from 1995 to 2010 meets the Appalachian South near which I grew up. When in Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner's Thomas Sutpen falls Miltonically from the (West) Virginia mountains into the Virginia tidewater, "descending perpendicularly through temperature and climate," the landscape he plummets through on his way down—the Piedmont Virginia of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, all of whom would have been alive as he passed through—looks surprisingly like Birmingham's.4
Edward O. Wilson claims we are hardwired to want to live in places like this one. Across cultures, he argues, "people prefer to look out over their ideal terrain from a secure position framed by the semi-enclosure of a domicile. Their choice of home and environs, if made freely, combines a balance of refuge for safety and a wide visual prospect for exploration and foraging."5 Yi-fu Tuan phrases the balance more elegantly: "Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other."6
|Start of the raised vegetable bed, with Virginia bluebells lining the path, Carolina silverbell and wildflower patch with Trillium cuneatum in foreground, Alabama snow-wreath left of the bench, and Rhododendron 'Maxecat' at bottom left corner. Birmingham, Alabama, March 30, 2008. Photograph by Jon Smith.
From the start, and quite unavoidably (given the glory of the site), I imagined my garden as site-specific art, a celebration of both place and space. What I wanted—my wife, far the more experienced gardener, ceded the yard to me, as I was obviously obsessed with it—was a seamless transition from the retro-modern ambience of the house to the woodlands above: a garden that would understand and embody "seeming oppositions as sustaining relations."7 The hardscape of the yard made achieving this goal much easier: near the house rose a series of whitewashed terraces, their walls still in good condition, with a set of concrete steps heading up toward the gate in the chain link fence. But the steps stopped about two-thirds of the way up; here there were still terraces, but separated by slopes rather than walls, and the path curved around to the right before angling back up the slope to the gate. Outside the gate, the natural curves of the hillside had remained, and we discovered a lush, level area with a limestone outcrop just below the footpath. When we moved in, all of this was overgrown with vines and all the invasive (sometimes botany employs political discourse, too) non-native species mentioned above—mercifully minus kudzu but plus mimosa. Our discovery that the fence even had a gate was the result of an almost archaeological investigation.
Unlike my midwestern in-laws, my parents (a North Carolinian and a New Yorker) were not gardeners; to follow my "family recipe" would have been to plant a few flowering dogwoods (classic understory plants) in full Virginia sun, fail to water them enough, and watch them "mysteriously" die.8 Instead, I spent hours and hours online and poring over books checked out from the Birmingham Botanical Gardens library. When I started, I had four or five general ideas, each of which stayed with me through the process, and which I hoped to weave into a seamless whole. I wanted some plants that were native to this area, chiefly to blur the boundary between the public park behind the house and our yard, but also to begin to diversify the ecosystem in the woodland park since even the native species that had recolonized that area over the past half century were still far less diverse than what had once been there. (I also wanted plausible deniability since I was, in a few places, planting on city property, practicing what David Tracey and Richard Reynolds, among others, call "guerrilla gardening.") I wanted to attract and sustain birds, butterflies, and other wildlife, and I had a certain fantasy, drawing on German Schrebergärten and English garden allotments, of the kind of public European footpath that people garden right up to. Second, I wanted plants that reminded me of Appalachian and Piedmont Virginia as much as the site itself did: the classic exile's garden.9 Third, since the house, with its wide eaves and long, low midcentury-modern form, drew on a vaguely East Asian stylistic language, near it I wanted plants with a Chinese or Japanese provenance—daphnes, gardenias, camellias, lacecap hydrangeas. (While there were several evergreen azaleas already on the property, however, I was not tempted to add to their number.) Fourth, somewhere under the power-line easement out back where I could see it from my study window, I wanted a small, tropical-looking area full of huge leaves and bright color all summer. Part of this was my nod to the more irreverent and ebullient traditions of African American southern gardening and yard art; part, too, was my nod to global warming, since, defying stereotypical notions of unchanging "place," Birmingham has rather firmly moved in the past fifteen years from USDA Zone 7 to Zone 8.10 I have invested a significant part of my career arguing for certain shared features of the United States and global Souths, and in addition I did want a small eruption of Martha Schwartz-y "artificiality," even if only in the form of decidedly "out of place" shrubs and perennials, since, for example, the bright-orange plastic garden bench in the Design Within Reach catalog was, for two Alabama college professors, not within reach at all. Hence cannas, Formosa lilies, ginger lilies, Hydrangea aspera, a bougainvillea experiment, lobelias, a deciduous Ashe's magnolia—the latter two, native but tropical-looking, to tie the tropical and native areas together. I even put in a couple of Sabal 'Birminghams,' a hardy cultivar one of whose ancestors is almost surely the cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto), the state tree of Florida and South Carolina. (Since I could only afford young plants, they simply look, even now, like large gladioli.) In the drought that ran from 2006 to the end of 2008, the worst in recorded history, when plants native to central Alabama themselves struggled, I learned to overcome my resistance to yuccas, several of which—some native to Alabama, others introduced from Mexico, whose climate we may have begun to borrow—now lend their strikingly sculptural presence to key focal points of the garden. In the late summer of 2007, I installed by my downspouts six rain barrels. Half an inch of rain yields 330 gallons, which, hand-carried up the slope, can keep my ornamental shrubs alive from two to four weeks.
|Young hedge of Rhododendron 'Maxecat,' piedmont azaleas to the left of the hedge. Birmingham, Alabama, April 8, 2008. Photograph by Jon Smith.
Insofar as the garden abutted a public pedestrian thoroughfare, what I wanted, too, was a sense of surprise for those pedestrians who happened upon it. Though polemical, Lucy Lippard's definition of public art as "accessible art of any species that cares about, challenges, involves, and consults the audience for or with whom it is made, respecting community and environment" is helpful here.11 My garden—small-scale art for the long haul, as Lippard would say—is inevitably about motion too. For now, the footpath behind it serves as an unmarked spur of the paved Vulcan Trail. Precisely because at present the trail doesn't "go" anywhere, many of the people on it are first-timers. Six hundred yards from the paved section, after a shady stretch through invasive English ivy behind our neighbors', the curious come across the spray of native rhododendrons that is slowly forming a flowering evergreen screen between the trail and our property. A break in the row reveals three stone steps (edged in spring with Virginia bluebells) descending into a small garden with mountain laurel, deciduous native azaleas, bottlebrush buckeyes, Alabama snow-wreath, smooth and oakleaf hydrangeas, American beautyberry, a sourwood and a silverbell tree, atamasco lilies defining the curve of a limestone outcrop, Stokes' aster, foamflower, Indian pinks, a few trilliums (T. cuneatum) that were already on the site, and a host of other small native flowers gleaned from Jefferson County's annual landfill digs. Closer to the terraces are my wife's rosebushes (increasingly shaded out as the woods behind continue to grow) and a pair of fastigiate Graham Blandy boxwoods mock-pretentiously guarding the gate in the chain-link fence. In future years, I'd hoped to make the footpath truly pass through, instead of just alongside, a subtly landscaped area, with redbuds, dogwoods, red buckeyes, and, someday, American chestnuts all brightening the woods above the trail. Ideally, people would not realize the area is landscaped at all.12
|Workers clearing powerline easement, Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' in foreground. Birmingham, Alabama, July 5, 2007. Photograph by Jon Smith.
Two steps inside the gate in the fence, just where the natural curves of the mountainside give way to the terraced slopes planted with hydrangeas and brugmansia, hellebores and ginger lilies and crested iris, a previous owner—I could never have done this—had bolted through the trunks of two young pine trees to create a frame for an outdoor swing, though when we moved in no swing hung from the 4x4s fixed there. We purchased by mail and assembled one made of—globalization strikes again—sustainably harvested teak. And it is here at night, especially in winter when the mosquitoes are gone and the view is unobstructed by oak leaves, that we will sit and look out over the city of a million people in which we live. Often I can see the glow of my computer monitor through the study window; from the roof above it, the DSL connection over which most of the plants in this garden were researched and ordered runs up the telephone line to the row of poles behind us. This is where I most want to sit, the most liminal place in the whole liminal site. My physical pleasure—visual, auditory, and tactile—in the urban space is inseparable from my pleasure in the place from which I view it. And this latter pleasure is complex.13 Like the bodily pleasure of swing dancing noted by V. Vale, it's been partly the pleasure, after hours each week in front of that monitor (and of students!), of hauling eighty-pound chunks of sandstone to make steps, of spreading compost, of planting and tending mountain laurel and silky stewartia (the latter, I confess, unsuccessfully).14 Yet it is not and, unlike swing dancing, has never been, hip, and while I tend to buy my plants not from big-box chains but from smaller local nurseries or places like Woodlanders in South Carolina (for southeastern native plants), or Greer Gardens in the Pacific Northwest (for rhodies), or several of the edgier nurseries run by globetrotting "plant hunters" (Plant Delights, Yucca Do, or Heronswood when it was run by Dan Hinkley), it isn't consumption as protest. In fact, despite a significant cash outlay, it's not really reducible to consumption, any more than the pleasure of running is reducible to the pleasure (or hassle) of buying running shoes. And though I have consulted gardening books from the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, even laying out a garden incorporating plant combinations and design philosophies favored in those decades does not feel like wearing vintage. As separate, living organisms (i.e., as the Real), all but the most ancient individual plants resist the artifactuality, perhaps even the implicit narcissism, of a skinny tie or, for that matter, a postwar Danish credenza.15
Even ten years ago, most critics of southern culture—ignoring the DSL connection and the urban setting—would have discussed my garden labors, if pressed, as evidence of my southern "sense of place," my "attachment to the land," and so on. Confusing me, perhaps, with Walker Percy, others might alternately have read all this as tragically "post-southern": removed from the land of my ancestors, thrust into a world of postmodern space, I desperately attempt to reestablish connection, to re-create place. Conversely, many postmodern geographers, still under the spell of what Edward Soja happily calls "the Edge City maxim, that every American city is growing in the fashion of Los Angeles," would have simply ignored the site, and potentially all Birmingham's parks as well, considering Birmingham, if at all, as a kind of poor man's or proto-Atlanta, itself a kind of poor man's or proto-Los Angeles of simulacra and abstract capitalist space.16 Neither approach suffices.
Afterword: The View from British Columbia
In 2010, my wife and I moved to North Vancouver, British Columbia. By 2012, our Birmingham garden was no more. We had been unable to sell the house in the depressed US market, and the folks to whom we were able to rent it were lovely people but in no sense gardeners. (Nor could we have expected them to be.) Scores of plants, including virtually all the rhododendrons, died from lack of watering; others were shaded out by weeds. To make matters worse, sometime in early 2012, a crew from the city of Birmingham came down the trail with a backhoe on some sort of trail widening mission, got the backhoe stuck, and destroyed many more plants in the process of extricating it. For no apparent reason, they also went twenty feet out of their way to cut down my sourwood tree, which had gotten about twelve feet tall. A few plants—generally, those native not simply to "the South" or Alabama, but to Jefferson County in particular—do still thrive back there. The Alabama snow-wreath I planted by the limestone outcrop likes the location so much it has suckered all over the place, almost blocking access to the path. The Piedmont azaleas, bottlebrush buckeyes, oakleaf hydrangeas, and three cultivars of Hydrangea arborescens are all still there, if you know where to look. But for the most part, the garden has been swallowed back up into the mix of invasive plants and second-growth forest that was there before I started the project. Inside the fence, meanwhile, most of the non-native hydrangeas are gone. In fact, when we do put the house on the market next year, we've been told we will have to do considerable work just to restore its "curb appeal."
Part of me wants to interpret all this metaphorically, to read my desiccated, neglected garden as a slightly accelerated version of the Deep South as a whole, whose fate in fifty years as a result of anthropogenic global warming is on track to be, in a single word from NASA climatologist James Hansen, "desertification." After all, how easy it would be—and, I argue in Finding Purple America, how unethical—to fall into pleasant, moralizing tears over my garden as a figure for such a loss, to adapt old southern studies' endlessly replicable melancholia to yet another Lost Cause! Conversely, how easy to lay, from the safe distance of western Canada, the problem at the feet of "the South," so that the whole mess could be attributed to those pickup-driving, coal-burning yahoos, the exception to some putatively eco-virtuous blue-state nation? Both narratives, however, represent their own kinds of obvious mythmaking, their own fantastic "jukeboxes" (in the terms of the book).
Instead, as soon as we got to North Vancouver, I started another garden. Among the more conventional roses, peonies, dahlias, and crocosmia, it contains what may be the only longleaf pine seedling in British Columbia.
About the Author
Jon Smith is associate professor of English at Simon Fraser University. He is the coeditor with Deborah Cohn of Look Away! The US South in New World Studies (Duke University Press, 2004) and the author of Finding Purple America: The South and the Future of American Cultural Studies (University of Georgia Press, 2013). He has been a certified master gardener in Alabama and is currently one in British Columbia.
- 1. We now live in North Vancouver, British Columbia, but—since we moved during the Great Recession—we were unable to sell our Birmingham house. I have opted, therefore, to continue using the present tense and referring to the place as "our house," especially because we own no other: in North Vancouver, we are renters.
- 2. Olmsted Brothers, A System of Parks and Playgrounds for Birmingham: Preliminary Report upon the Park Problems, Needs, and Opportunities of the City and its Immediate Surroundings (Birmingham: Park and Recreation Board of Birmingham, 1925), 12. Reprinted by the Birmingham Historical Society, 2005.
- 3. Ibid., 20.
- 4. William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! In William Faulkner, Novels 1936–1940, ed. by Joseph Blotner and Noel Polk (New York: Library of America, 1990), 111.
- 5. Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life (New York: Vintage, 2003), 135.
- 6. Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 3.
- 7. Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), 166.
- 8. Apparently they were not alone. As the leading book on dogwoods puts it: "Take a typical understory plant like C. florida that thrives in the partly shady wood with nice rich organic soils all moist and acidic. Once the plant leaves the nursery for that long trunk ride to its new home, the game is just about over. Despite all encouragement and direction, most homeowners run right home and find the sunniest, driest, and nastiest site with the poorest excuse for soil available to them." See, Paul Cappiello and Don Shadow, Dogwoods (Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2005), 32.
- 9. For what is quite possibly the definitive treatment of diasporic gardening, see Sarah Casteel's remarkable recent book Second Arrivals (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007).
- 10. On December 19, 2006, the National Arbor Day Foundation—hardly a political organization—published, based on the past fifteen years' climate data, its independent revision of the USDA's 1990 map of climate hardiness zones (arborday.org/media/zones.cfm), reinforcing what gardeners had been experiencing—"on the ground," as it were—for some time.
- 11. Lucy Lippard, The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society (New York: The New Press, 1997), 264. Frankly, as a modernist I'm not much concerned with accessibility, and, at the risk of sounding overly literal about it, most people seeing the garden from that direction will have had to walk at least half a mile to do so.
- 12. Louise Wrinkle's Mountain Brook garden, often cited in works like Sally Wasowski with Andy Wasowski, Gardening with Native Plants of the South (Boulder, CO: Taylor Trade, 1994), is a model here, or was until she paved her creekside walkway with asphalt. (In some cases, creating such an illusion is not difficult because people are not always very observant. In 2004, a group of non-neighborhood-residents calling themselves "Friends of the Vulcan Trail," on an annual and officious "trail-clearing" mission, veered several yards off the trail to destroy two of my rhododendrons, not to mention a small tree belonging to one neighbor and a mahonia belonging to another.) But the real impulse behind this sort of restorative gardening is what Ken Druse calls "giving back" in The Passion for Gardening: Inspiration for a Lifetime (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003), 97–143. It's a different aesthetic and ethic from Schwartz's, which I deploy elsewhere in the garden. (Why choose?) Schwartz, notes Tim Richardson, "does not try to manipulate the natural landscape in a subtle way, bending it to her ends by using nature's own palette of trees, shrubs, and flowers. For Schwartz, such an approach is lazy or even dishonest, since her argument is that even the notion that unsullied 'nature' exists out there is patently false," see Tim Richardson, ed., The Vanguard Landscapes and Gardens of Martha Schwartz (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 7. Like most dogmatism, such orthodox postmodernism can overstate its point. Habitat restoration, subtly aestheticized or not, isn't about pretending unsullied nature exists, it's about ameliorating some of the sullying.
- 13. Partly because of gardening's perceived distance from urban youth subcultures and electronic media, no scholarly cultural studies treatment of its pleasures exists, and the afterword below is not intended to fill that void. For an impressionistic meditation intended to "inspire" other gardeners, see Druse, The Passion for Gardening.
- 14. V. Vale, Swing! The New Retro Renaissance (San Francisco: RE/Search Publications, 1998).
- 15. "I wonder," asks Tom Rooks, a landscape designer in Michigan extensively quoted by Druse, "what do people do who are in love with things that are completely man-made? Like people who are in love with cars? What we're in love with is so complex and so never-ending, you can never feel you've done everything or learned everything about it." Druse, The Passion for Gardening, 22. Druse's own metaphor that nature is "the senior partner in this collaboration" is schmaltzy but accurately depicts the basic ontological sense that gardening can resist fetishism. Ibid., 232.
- 16. Edward W. Soja, Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Madden, Massachussetts: Blackwell, 2000), 401. For the classic postmodern-geography treatment of Atlanta, see Charles Rutheiser, Imagineering Atlanta: The Politics of Place in the City of Dreams (New York: Verso, 1996).


text:
Progress and Confusion
- 1. A Road Map to "Progress and Confusion"
- toggleThe "New Normal"
- toggleSystemic Risk and Financial Regulation
- 4. A Note from the Session on Systemic Risk and Financial Regulation
- 5. A Comparative Analysis of Financial Sector Health in the United States, Europe, and Asia
- 6. Rethinking Financial Regulation: How Confusion Has Prevented Progress
- 7. Systemic Risk and Financial Regulation: Where Do We Stand?
- 8. Shadow Banking as a Source of Systemic Risk
- toggleMacroprudential Policies: Gathering Evidence
- toggleMonetary Policy in the Future
- toggleFiscal Policy in the Future
- toggleCapital Flows, Exchange Rate Management, and Capital Controls
- toggleThe International Monetary and Financial System
- toggleConclusion
5. A Comparative Analysis of Financial Sector Health in the United States, Europe, and Asia
- Editor(s):
- Olivier Blanchard, Kenneth Rogoff, and Raghuram Rajan
- Published Date:
- April 2016
Show Summary Details
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text:
The Greatest Hits, featuring 21 of the songs most requested by their fans.
Title: The Greatest Hits
Record Label: Rainy Day Dimes
Latin GRAMMY Award Winning and 3 Time EMMY nominated and EMMY Winning pop music for children of all ages! As seen on CNN, Sprout and in People Magazine
LATIN GRAMMY WINNERS! EMMY AWARD NOMINEES and WINNER Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band have been crowned the very first Americans to ever win a Latin GRAMMY in the children's album category! As Featured on NPR, All Things Considered and in Coca-Cola's national commercial- Here's to Falling
Lucky Diaz and Alisha Gaddis, a married couple, have been named 'THE face of kindie music' by the Washington Post, 'SUPERSTARS' by Red Tricycle, 'The Rolling Stones of Kids Music' by the Style Network, and PEOPLE Magazine called their album the #1 in COOLEST kids music! They create indie music sounds that are rooted in their whimsical child-friendly imaginations.
The songs on their five acclaimed and award-winning recordings offer a musical and topical range aimed at exploring all of the wonder and joy of a young person's life. After they teamed up with artist Micah Player, their 2011 video "Blue Bear" became a hit sensation. The song appeared on their very first EP, Luckiest Adventure, and enjoyed #1 position on SiriusXM Satellite Radio for many weeks in 2010. By 2011, USA Today was calling them the best new band for kids. In 2012, the band released A Potluck, which People magazine reviewed as the #1 new children's album of the year. The new songs enjoyed heavy radio rotation nationwide. A Potluck earned a Parents' Choice Gold Award, a NAPPA Award, and many other kudos by year's end.
Next, Latin GRAMMY Award winning, ¡Fantastico! Translating their hit "Blue Bear" into "Oso Azul" and re-introducing songs like "Say What?" as "¿Que Dices?"(Also a #1 hit on SiriusXM), Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band's Spanish language release found a new audience of families yearning to immerse their youngest listeners in dual language right from the start. SiriusXM's Mindy Thomas said that it set the standard for Spanish-language music for kids, and ¡Fantastico! went onto be the first album ever to win a Latin GRAMMY by an American group in its category.
In 2013, after a year of intense development with a team of creative partners, the band released Lishy Lou and Lucky Too.This album contains the Song of the Year by several parenting publications, the smash hit- "Thingamajig." Like NPR exclaimed, "This music is rocking!"
2013 was a smashing success for the group in the commercial market as well. Iconic brand Coca-Cola chose Lucky's song "Falling" as their national summer campaign anthem playing on television and movie theatres everywhere. The duo showcased at Kindiefest, the family music conference at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); spent the summer touring with venues including sold-out shows at the Smithsonian, Los Angeles Book Festival Target Stage, Skirball Cultural Center, NYC Symphony Space, and Madison Square Park- with more than 50 dates in three months' time; and appeared on CNN, Univision, PBS and Sprout TV's "Sunny Side Up Show." Later, they were crowned the TV show's #1 best guests of the year.
Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band have also been brand partners with GAP, Whole Foods, LEGO, USO, and Discmakers. They have been featured in Apartment Therapy, Los Angeles Living Magazine, Daily News, E! TV, Washington Post, New York Times, Style Network and more.
Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band also includes an evolving guest rotation of the most talented musicians around including: Musical Director Wes Switzer on bass, Multi-instrumentalist Michael Farkas (of WIYOS fame), Michael Klooster (Smashmouth superstar), Kurtis Keber (*bonus bass), Deacon Marrquin Gee Rabe on accordion, and many more!
Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band is on the pulse of all things kids music and brings smart, crafty lyrics with irresistibly fresh pop beats. Like Zooglobble states, "It'll take you all of about 15 minutes to become a fan of Lucky Diaz."
The Greatest Hits, featuring 21 of the songs most requested by their fans.
Title: The Greatest Hits
Record Label: Rainy Day Dimes


text:
Take a look at some of the questions we're most frequently asked about psychometric tests and be prepared for the assessments you're about to complete.
This could get long and complicated. Put simply, psychometrics is the field of study concerning the theory behind psychological measurement. Psychometrics involves research into the measurement of skills and knowledge, abilities, attitudes and personality traits.
The theory of psychometrics is the foundation of assessment instruments, such as the Thomas set of assessment tools.
Psychometric tests provide an indepth insight of what goes on under the exterior. They compare one individual's performance with others, or show what the relatively strong and weak areas are within an individual. True psychometric tests look at three basic areas:
Mix and match these and you get dedicated tests of areas like emotional intelligence, trainability, leadership, customer service orientation and how people think – areas that are directly related to particular careers. Assess lots of people in your company and you can get an organisational profile: how well your teams work; what particular skills you lack; who's going to fit in.
Tests are used across business, education and sport to tackle a whole array of people decisions. Commonly, psychometric tests are used to recruit new staff, identify people with the potential to be developed, counsel people who are under-performing, put teams together, provide career advice, coach people, identify stress factors in an organisation, decide on the best organisational or team structure and create incentive programmes that really motivate. Any decisions about people individually or people in groups can benefit from the use of a psychometric test.
We often think that testing looks at what you know; that a test is something you pass or fail. Yet you know that your knowledge is only part of what you bring to life - at school, work or home. Given how quickly the world changes, it might seem better to find out what and how easily someone can learn in the future rather than what they know now.
What are often known as 'softer' factors are increasingly seen as important in success, for instance: how well you understand and get on with people, your ability to lead, how far you follow rules or come up with your own unique solutions and your ability to cope with stress. Testing is as much about these as about being a 'know-it-all'.
Personality and behaviour assessments can reveal an individual's capabilities and how they are likely act.
This information can be used to identify what sort of job they will be good at, how likely they are to perform under pressure, how well they fit within a team and even what type of career would best suit them.
These types of assessment look at how people behave and answer questions such as:
Behavioural profiling won't show you 'good' or 'bad' qualities in a person, it simply provides an understanding of how someone prefers to behave in their working environment and the characteristics they will display. There are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers.
Personality and behavioural assessments can be used to recruit, identify potential, develop, put teams together, for career development, to improve communication and get the best out of people through better management.
An aptitude assessment measures a person's fluid intelligence – how quickly they can learn and retain new skills and procedures. Aptitude tests are an accurate and reliable predictor of a person's development potential.
Aptitude testing offers an objective way of assessing a person's abilities. Aptitude tests can provide the answers to question such as:
These assessments are designed to measure your potential rather than your knowledge. They commonly include verbal, numerical and reasoning tests. For example, numerical tests are designed to measure how quickly and easily your mind can manipulate numbers - not how accurately you can do algebra or quadratic equations.
Psychometric assessments can be used to recruit new staff, identify potential, develop, put teams together and get the best out of people through better management.
Research shows that interviews, references and application forms are very bad at predicting whether people will succeed. Interviews are particularly dangerous because they are influenced by people's prejudices, likes and dislikes. Using tests can never prevent mistakes like this, but they can make them less likely.
Psychometric assessments can be used with students, teachers and educational organisations to get the best out of people.
Assessments can provide practical careers advice to students, helping to bridge the gap between education and work. Psychometrics help students to determine their strength and weaknesses, helping them to progress into positive destinations after school or college.
Educational establishments also use psychometric tests to recruit, develop and manage their staff, including teacher and support staff. Assessments help to place the right people in the right roles, providing more clarity to their people decisions.
Psychometric assessments are used in sporting environments to create advanced coaching and training programmes, manage athlete development, build coach and athlete relationships, improve team communication and raise organisational performance.
Psychometrics can help sporting organisations to get the best out of their people; be it their coaches, athletes or support staff. Assessment tools can provide objective feedback on people potential within a team, club or organisation.
The sorts of times and places you'll be asked to complete tests, include:
Tests are also used with employees to: inform appraisal interviews, evaluate training needs and achievements, identify people for development and leadership, evaluate stress levels and well-being, see how well people are working together and prepare someone for coaching.
Testing is widely used because it helps make all these processes fairer for all parties involved. In doing so, it gives you the opportunity to learn a lot about yourself.
In general, psychometric tests cover three key areas that measure what is going on inside you and how that affects your behaviour. You're likely to be given one of three types of test:
Tests are used at different stages and when you will be tested depends on the situation in which you are taking the test. In business, tests are used at different stages in the recruitment process. Tests are also used for development and therefore can be used at any point during a development, career or training programme. The person administering your assessment will provide you with information on when they plan to test you and why. You will then find that access to the test is given via email.
Some psychometric tests do. Many use simple right/wrong questions. Some ask you to choose the one out of three or four responses that best reflects your views. Others, however, will show you shapes, numbers and pictures. For many there are no right or wrong, just responses that reflect your individuality. Whatever you see, the difference between a good psychometric test and a quiz is what lies behind the test: over 100 years of theory, data gathered on other people, complex statistical techniques and the precise way the items are worded and drawn, or ordered. Sometimes a true psychometric test does look like a quiz…but there's a lot going on beneath the surface.
You should take the test in a good environment where you can concentrate on it without disruptions. If you're taking test at school or in offices, the test administrator should put you at ease and be happy to explain anything you're not sure of. Check that the test looks good – it's not a photocopy or a cheap print out. Ask questions about the test: what it's for and how it's being used in the process.
If you're taking the test on the internet, make sure you chose a place and time where you feel comfortable, you won't be interrupted and you have the time to finish filling it in.
Finally, all good test users are trained to give feedback to you on how you performed once the test has been interpreted. This should always happen because you have a right to understand the results and learn a bit more about yourself.
No, not on its own. Good tests are supplied only to people trained in their use and they know that tests should NEVER be used on their own to make a decision. Tests are used as part of a process, each part of which (interviews, references, work simulations) provide different parts of the jigsaw. Tests only measure specific aspects of people and are often used to challenge subjective feelings and people's prejudices with more objective, scientific information on your human qualities.
Not exactly! The test doesn't give you a list of jobs you should do, instead it highlights your key behavioural strengths and preferences and allows you to gain a better understanding of what areas of work would be most suited to you. It gives you an insight into what sort of working environment your behaviours would fit in, helping you make more informed decisions when choosing your university options, moving into work or your next career move.
Our tests are completely confidential, meaning that the only people who will have access to your test results will be those that administrated your assessment. This means that you don't have to worry about other people seeing your test results, such as peers, teachers or teammates. You will also receive a copy of your results should you wish to see them.
We recommend that all test users receive feedback from a trained test administrator once the assessment is completed. This allows you to gain a deeper understanding of your results and to discuss any issues you may have. You may need to request feedback as it is not obligatory for assessors to provide this.
A little bit of adrenaline helps in a lot of activities including testing, but there's no need to be worried. Strangely, research shows that a lot of people enjoy a well-run testing process because the feedback gives them more information about themselves. Tests are there to help you as well as the person administering the test.
Far from it: people actually like doing tests because tests tell them about their favourite subject; themselves. If handled the right way tests can cause a buzz amongst people as it gives them a common ground to discuss their behaviour and emotions.
It depends on the test! All of our assessments that follow questionnaire format (PPA, TEIQue and Engage) are fully compatible with mobile devices so you can complete the test on these at ease wherever you are.
It is not recommended that our GIA assessment is performed on a handheld device. This is because it measures speed and accuracy to a high degree and results could be distorted by using different input methods (for example, touch screen). The GIA has been calibrated and normed for mouse and keyboard entry. We therefore recommend desktop as a preferred platform for this.
Our team of experts are skilled in all our assessments and will be happy to help. For price enquiries on our assessments, please call us on +61 (0) 2 8404 0666.


text: Holidays evolve — for better or worse. And while there is reason to bemoan the creep of commercialism into every niche of the holiday season, such disappointment is not necessarily as recent as one might think. Charles Dickens' iconic work, A Christmas Carol: In Prose: Being a ghost story of Christmas arrived in America at a time when contemporaries…Read More