text:
by Holly Bennett
Ask last year's IRONMAN Maryland finishers what they enjoyed most about their race experience, and one name stands out: Gerry Boyle.
"The race director, Gerry Boyle, went above and beyond all expectations. Mr. Boyle has an unparalleled passion for this event."
"Gerry Boyle is amazing! I've never seen a race director work so hard to educate and support the athletes."
"I have never seen a race director so passionate, engaged, caring, committed and responsible to an IRONMAN event."
"Gerry is like our parent and we are his children, and it shows."
These are but a small slice of the comments gathered through the athlete surveys IRONMAN sends out to all participating athletes after every race. And they're a big part of the reason that IRONMAN Maryland received the 2017 IRONMAN Athletes' Choice Award for Overall Satisfaction. (IRONMAN conducts post-race surveys to give athletes a chance to provide feedback and help improve the events. Award winners are calculated each year using the data from survey scores across a variety of categories.)
I reached out to Boyle for an interview and straight away—within a minute or so of speaking with him—it was clear that this is a man I would gladly entrust with my next 140.6-mile journey. His caring nature (bolstered by a warm Scottish accent) and keen intelligence are immediately apparent. So is his humility. There wasn't a moment during our conversation when Boyle didn't mention his team, the Cambridge community, and the athletes themselves as the ones deserving credit for the success of his race.
Still, I wanted to know the "secret sauce" that sets Boyle apart, and why one athlete suggests that Boyle should "hold clinics on how to do a race properly." Here's what I learned.
You don't need to walk the walk (or swim, bike, or run)
Most people get into race directing as a way to transition their athletic passion into a career. Not so with Boyle. When asked if he's ever done a triathlon, or has any desire to someday compete, he replies without hesitation: "The answer to that is no in both cases." We share a hearty, knowing laugh.
While Boyle has the utmost respect for his athletic race director colleagues, his background is different. He believes that the path preceding his IRONMAN career helped him, for two reasons. "I was a volunteer primarily, and slotted into the job that way," says Boyle. His first experience with the sport was when the restaurant he ran with his sisters had the opportunity to cater a race.
"I need our athletes to feel the moment they register that they are part of a family who's going to get through this together,"
Years of volunteering followed until IRONMAN took over the now-defunct TriColumbia organization, reviving Eagleman (now IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman) and offering Boyle the role of race director. In 2014, IRONMAN gave Boyle and the community of Cambridge the opportunity to host a full-distance event—a mere five months later, the start gun marked the launch of IRONMAN Maryland.
Boyle hails from a military background, having served 20 years in the British Army before emigrating to the United States. "My focus as a commissioned officer was on detail, organization, and communication," says Boyle, who recognizes the value of being a logistician. "I really get down to detail, from where every trash can should be located, or where every port-a-pot should go, and how many rolls of paper should be there. If there are not the right number of port-a-pots, people are going to complain."
Be all-in
Anything Boyle lacks in first-hand racing experience he makes up for with a deep commitment to his athletes. His philosophy is service based. "I admire the athletes immensely. And considering what they expend in terms of energy, training, hours, and money to compete, I feel obligated to make myself as available to them as possible," he says. Whether you race the IRONMAN 70.3 or IRONMAN, and whether your goal is to finish or to PR, Boyle will be there for you, throughout your journey to the start line. "I need our athletes to feel the moment they register that they are part of a family who's going to get through this together," he says.
One way Boyle does this is through social media. Join the IRONMAN Maryland Facebook group, ask a question or seek advice, and you're practically guaranteed a rapid response, often from Boyle himself. "Gerry personally engages the athletes," says Volunteer Director Angie Hengst (aka Boyle's right hand woman). "We also invite volunteers and residents to be members of these pages so that everyone is part of the conversation. Gerry knows that the more people take ownership of our races, the more successful they will be."
He also focuses on helping the IRONMAN rookies. During race week, newbies will find time set aside to help them prepare, with experienced coaches and athletes providing education on everything from gear bags, to how to navigate an aid station, to what happens in the change tent. "They've never been inside a change tent until the moment they get out of the water, so we walk them through that process," says Boyle.
It's all about community
Boyle is deeply devoted to community—from close-knit Columbia, Maryland's residents, business owners, and race volunteers, to to the athletes that spend their IRONMAN journeys on his course. "One of the big things that sets Gerry apart is that he truly cares about the experience that every person has," says Hengst. "He wants to honor the athletes' hard work and dedication, the volunteers' tireless service and enthusiasm, and the residents' hospitality and pride in our small town by putting on the best race possible. I don't know many people who would take the time and effort to make sure everyone is excited about and looks forward to our races."
Boyle and his team get creative when it comes to community-building tactics. Last year, they kicked off a buddy system, where rookie athletes and their support crews were paired with more experienced athletes and their sherpas. Not only did the newcomer athletes gain valuable insight, their non-racing family members and friends got insider tips on how to perform their spectator duties with flair. No doubt, the pairs became fast friends.
The 2017 IRONMAN Athletes' Choice Awards
The 2017 IRONMAN 70.3 Athletes' Choice Awards
And then there are the kids. Boyle pioneer a ritual where every local elementary and middle school student writes a letter to an athlete as part of a school assignment. At packet pickup, each athlete selects a letter from a bag. "It might be something as simple as, 'Good luck. I hope you win. Lynne, age 6.' A lot of athletes make their way to the schools after the race, and many friendships result from that," says Boyle.
"There's a very close-knit atmosphere," he continues. "I feel it's my job to present the race in a way that shows it in the best light to the community, so they can then be proud of what we do. Because it's not me—it's my community that puts on these events. I need to direct the race in a way that everybody can feel they are playing a key role in its success."
Don't let the tough times bring you down
For anyone unfamiliar with IRONMAN Maryland's four-year history, it happened like this: Year one (2014) was a great success, despite only five months to prepare. Year two teetered on the brink of disaster when a hurricane paid a visit on the planned race weekend and forced Boyle and his team into a last-minute scramble to reschedule the event to two weeks later. ("Never been done before, probably will never happen again," says Boyle.) In 2016, Mother Nature had another go at the venue; the result was a canceled swim, a shortened bike, and flooding at the finish.
For Boyle, getting everyone through that day marked his biggest challenge as a race director. "You look at the faces of 2,000 athletes who you've just disappointed, and know their day is not going to be what was hoped," he recalls.
Thankfully, 2017's race day saw perfect weather and the event went off without a hitch. "I would joke with people that my biggest hope for 2017 was to manage the race that I had planned for all year, instead of on Wednesday of race week, throwing the operational plan out the window—because that's what we'd done for the previous two years," says Boyle.
He credits the event's Overall Satisfaction award in part to the athletes who showed up to race in 2017. "They had the confidence, after two bad years and a lot of negativity, that we would pull off a race that was creditable. They came, they raced with us, and now we're already almost at the same number of registrations for 2018 as we were for the whole of 2017," he says.
Reap the rewards
For Boyle, there are many rewards to his role as race director. The Athletes' Choice Award is one. "It's huge. Beyond our wildest dreams," he says. Being able to produce events that allow people to achieve their personal goals is another. "My gratitude to IRONMAN for allowing me to do what I do, and for their confidence in allowing our community to host these races, is immense," says Boyle.
Ultimately, though, Boyle's sweetest reward is something that happens in the pre-dawn hours on race day. It happens when he's standing in the entrance to transition, knowing from that moment, there's little he can do to dictate the outcome. To Boyle, the start of the day is as important, if not more so, than the end of the day.
"Greeting the athletes, seeing their faces on race morning," says Boyle, "that's a special moment that I think really only the race director can appreciate. You can tell the ones who are experienced and have done it before, because they're smiling and happy and ready to go," says Boyle. "And then you see the first-timers, who walk in with eyes the size of saucers, fear written across their faces."
Race day has arrived, and neither Boyle nor the athletes know what the day is going to hold. Whatever it brings, Boyle knows he and his team have done everything necessary. He knows it's time to send his beloved athletes off in pursuit of their dreams. And that's the moment that fills his heart most of all.
Inspired to join the family at IRONMAN Maryland? The 2018 race takes place on September 29th. Register here.


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Positions of Responsibility
From MeritBadgeDotOrg
(→Boy Scout troop: add that Bugler can qualify for rank advancement)
Missylou2who (Talk | contribs)
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==Exploring post==
==Exploring post==
;[[Post President|President]]
;[[Post President|President]]
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;[[Administrative Vice President]]
Revision as of 04:34, November 29, 2008
Positions of Responsibility are leadership roles that Scouts perform. Some of them are appropriate for advancing to Star, Life, and Eagle Scout ranks.
In order to advance to the rank of Star, Life, and Eagle Scout, you must hold one of the following leadership positions for a certain amount of time. For Star, you must hold one of these positions for 4 months or more and for Life and Eagle you must hold them for 6 months or more.
= Qualifies for Star, Life, and Eagle advancement.
Cub Scout/Webelos den
- Denner
- A Denner is a Cub Scout or Webelos Scout who is elected to be the temporary youth leader of his den. All Tiger Cub, Wolf, Bear, as well as Webelos Dens should elect a Denner.
- Assistant Denner
- The Assistant Denner assists the Denner at den meetings and fills in for the Denner when the Denner is not available. The Den Leader may establish a practice of the Assistant Denner becoming the Denner in the next term.
Boy Scout troop
- Senior Patrol Leader
- The senior patrol leader (SPL) is elected by the Scouts to represent them as the top youth leader in the troop. He runs all troop meetings, events, activities, the annual program planning conference, and the patrol leaders' council meeting. He appoints other troop youth leaders with the advice and counsel of the Scoutmaster.
- Assistant Senior Patrol Leader
- The assistant senior patrol leader (ASPL) is the second highest-ranking youth leader in the troop. He is appointed by the senior patrol leader with the approval of the Scoutmaster. The assistant senior patrol leader acts as the senior patrol leader in the absence of the senior patrol leader or when called upon. He also provides leadership to other youth leaders in the troop.
- Patrol Leader
- The patrol leader is the elected leader of his patrol. He represents his patrol on the patrol leaders' council and appoints the assistant patrol leader.
- Venture Patrol Leader
- The patrol leader is the elected leader by his Venture patrol. He represents his patrol on the patrol leaders' council and appoints the assistant patrol leader. He is lead by the Assistant Scoutmaster - Venture under the direction of the Scoutmaster.
- Assistant Patrol Leader
- The assistant patrol leader is appointed by the patrol leader and leads the patrol in his absence. He represents his patrol at patrol leaders' council meetings when the patrol leader cannot attend.
- Troop Guide
- The troop guide works with new Scouts. He helps them feel comfortable and earn their First Class in their first year. He teaches basic Scout skills and works with the patrol leader at patrol leaders' council meetings.
- Quartermaster
- The quartermaster keeps track of troop equipment and sees that it is in good working order. He keeps records on patrol and troop equipment, makes sure equipment is in good working condition, and issues equipment and makes sure it is returned in good condition. (Appointed by the SPL)
- Scribe
- The scribe keeps the troop records. He records the activities of the patrol leaders' council and keeps a record of dues, advancement, and Scout attendance at troop meetings. (Appointed by the SPL)
- Historian
- The troop historian preserves troop photographs, news stories, trophies, flags, scrapbooks, awards, and other memorabilia. (Appointed by the SPL)
- Librarian
- The librarian oversees the care and use of troop books, pamphlets, magazines, audiovisuals, and merit badge counselor lists. (Appointed by the SPL)
- Instructor
- The instructor teaches Scouting skills.
- Chaplain Aide
- The chaplain's aide works with the troop chaplain to meet the religious needs of Scouts in the troop. He also works to promote the religious emblems program. (Appointed by the SPL)
- Den Chief
- The den chief works with the Cub Scouts, Webelos Scouts, and den leaders in the Cub Scout pack. Helps Cub Scouts advance through Cub Scout ranks and encourages Cub Scouts to join a Boy Scout troop upon graduation.
- Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
- The junior assistant Scoutmaster (JASM) serves in the capacity of an assistant Scoutmaster except where legal age and maturity are required. He must be at least 16 years old and not yet 18. He is appointed by the Scoutmaster because of his leadership ability.
- Order of the Arrow Representative
- The Order of the Arrow (OA) Troop Representative is a youth liaison serving between the local OA lodge or chapter and his troop. In his unit, he helps meet the needs of the unit and will serve as a communication and programmatic link to and from Arrowmen, adult leaders and Scouts who are not presently members of the Order. (Appointed by the SPL)
- Bugler
- The Troop Bugler should be able to make appropriate bugle calls, as requested, at troop activities. (Appointed by the SPL) Serving as Bugler can apply towards Positions of Responsibility requirements for Star and Life but not Eagle.
Varsity Scout team
- Captain
- The Varsity Team Captain is elected by the Varsity Scouts to represent them as the top youth leader in the team. He presides over all team meetings, events, activities, the annual program planning clinic, and the team leadership meeting. He coordinates activities of the program managers and sets requirements and awards all Varsity Scout Activity Pins. With the exception of Cocaptains, he appoints all youth leaders with the approval of the Team Coach.
- Cocaptain
- The Varsity Team Cocaptain s the second highest-ranking youth leader in the team. At the discretion of the Team Coach, one or more cocaptains are either appointed by the coach or elected by the youth team members. He stands in place of the captain during the absence or when called upon, and can function as a Program Manager for any field of emphasis.
- Team Secretary
- The Team Secretary keeps the team records. He records the activities of the team leadership meeting and keeps a record of dues, advancement, religious award progress, and Varsity Scout attendance at team meetings. He conducts all boards of review for team members' advancement except Eagle. (Appointed by the Team Captain)
- Squad Leader
- The squad leader is the elected leader of his squad. He represents the squad and is a voting member of the Team Leadership council meetings. At team leadership meetings, he presents potential activities of the program managers in his squad; conducts practice sessions planned by program managers within his squad.
- Quartermaster also called Equipment Manager (see above)
- Chaplain Aide (see above)
- Librarian (see above)
- Instructor (see above)
- Den Chief (see above)
- Order of the Arrow Team Representative
- The Order of the Arrow (OA) Team Representative is a youth liaison serving between the local OA lodge or chapter and his team. In his unit, he helps meet the needs of the unit and will serve as a communication and programmatic link to and from Arrowmen, adult leaders and Varsity Scouts who are not presently members of the Order. (Appointed by the Varsity Team Captain)
- Bugler (see above)
- Historian (see above)
- There are no leadership positions of Troop Guide or Assistant "Squad" Leader or Junior Assistant "Team Coach" in a Varsity team.
Venturing crew
- Crew Den Chief† (see above)
† To apply as an Eagle position of responsibility, Venturer must have earned Life Rank after January 1, 2007.
Sea Scout ship
Exploring post
- President
- The Post President is the youth head of the Exploring post. He or she delegates specific responsibilities to other officers and participants, and encourages and follows up to be sure that their jobs have been carried out.
Learning for Life group
Leadership units teach personal skills, cultural diversity, character attributes, and planning, and are designed to be presented by a teacher, post advisor, or other qualified trainers.
See also
(Youth Positions)

subset: commoncrawl


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The Wave UFO appears to be the first gesture-controlled...err...R/C vehicle. DVICE explains how you steer its flight:
Wave UFO Controlled By Gestures, Not Convenient, Well-Vetted Remotes
...start the motor and hold your hand underneath as it begins to hover. As you move your hand laterally to the ground, the UFO moves with you. Make an upward toss gesture, and up the UFO goes. The more violent the motion, the higher it flies. Make a diagonal toss gesture, and you can push it toward a buddy, who can "catch it" over his hand and toss it back (or not).
Sounds neat, but here's what I'd call the real-world usage scenario:
...start the motor and hold your hand underneath as it begins to launch unpredictably into the air. Quickly dodge out of the way as the UFO spirals, possibly while flaming, at you or a loved one (protip: protect your eyes, they are remarkably sensitive to ballistic attack). If you're lucky enough to get three or more feet away from the UFO, don't move. It might not see you, and the slightest motion could trigger a second onrush. Continue to stay calm for up to 1-2 hours as the battery pack runs out. And always remember those who gave their lives that day so that you could live.
Look for the Wave UFO for $25 this spring. [DVICE]


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Welcome to the Parallax Discussion Forums, sign-up to participate.
Edit: Then there's a battery-op one for half the price.
I wonder if the toy is licensed?
I wonder if the toy is licensed?
I was going to make my own but I am stuck on how to design the crankshafts in such a way that they are easily manufactured and assembled.
Loopy Byteloose wrote: »As odd and counter-intuitive as it may seem, Theo makes his out of large diameter plastic tubing and plastic elbows. I guess it doesn't really scale down to table-top models.
Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) wrote: »No batteries needed:
Maybe all he has is a table saw and a drill press.erco wrote:... it's like the designer of this one wasn't even trying ...
'Reminds me of a clock I once built for a friend's birthday. It used one of those cheap, ubiquitous, AA-battery-powered movements. I removed the 1 pps oscillator and used its 32 kHz crystal to drive a small PIC micro, which fed the 1 pps solenoid with its own pulses. The PIC could be programmed to stretch and compress time, still totalling 86_400 sec/day, but allowing longer breaks and lunch hours with shorter work periods -- or vice-versa, depending upon one's motives.Gadgetman wrote:This is one of the weirder: ...


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Whatever immigration deal might be claimed by labor and business, or by Democrats and Republicans, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is serving notice it has to go through him.
The tea party favorite made it clear over the weekend he has a make-or-break role for the most sweeping immigration changes in decades. It's a high-risk strategy that also puts his presidential ambitions on the line.
Four Republican senators are involved with Democrats in crafting a bipartisan bill to secure the nation's borders, improve legal immigration and offer eventual citizenship to millions now in the U.S. illegally. But only Rubio has the conservative bona fides plus life-story credibility to help steer the bill through the Senate with strong support from the GOP, and give it a chance in the House, where conservative Republicans hold more sway.
RELATED: Rubio, Schumer show that immigration is anything but a done deal
More than anyone else, Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, could have the clout to hold off rebellion from conservative talk show hosts and a Republican base whose opposition helped kill immigration changes last time around, in 2007. And perhaps only Rubio could sink the entire effort just by walking away.
If the first-term senator decides against the bill, "that just takes all the oxygen out of the room," said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "It may pass the Senate with Democrats' support … but that's not the kind of support you want out of the Senate if you expect passage out of the House."
With that unique status, Rubio is walking a fine line. He's helping negotiate the politically combustible legislation, which the bipartisan group is expected to unveil next week, while also taking care to maintain the conservative support that makes him so important to the process in the first place.
RELATED: Rubio, McCain disagree with Jeb Bush on legalization without citizenship
For Rubio, more so than the other Republicans involved — Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — there's danger in a full-throated embrace of comprehensive immigration legislation. For some conservatives, it will always be toxic: It's a priority for Democrats and President Barack Obama that some foes see as granting amnesty to millions of law-breakers.
But Rubio also could see the biggest political payoff. Helping shepherd a comprehensive immigration bill to passage could win support from Hispanic voters that could be critical if he runs for president in 2016. GOP nominee Mitt Romney's dismal showing among Hispanic and Asian voters last November helped seal his loss, and McCain and many other Republicans warn that the GOP risks permanent minority status if it doesn't resolve the immigration issue.
"If he's the guy who helps navigate a reform package over the finish line in a way that brings conservatives along and makes Latinos happy, then his viability as a GOP candidate in 2016 goes way up," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a group that advocates a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
All of this helps explain Rubio's caution as the debate moves forward, an approach that was on display this past weekend.
As Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were appearing on Sunday talk shows to all but declare an immigration deal completed — after a hard-won agreement between business and labor on a new low-skilled worker program — Rubio was putting out a different message: Not so fast.
"Reports that the bipartisan group of eight senators have agreed on a legislative proposal are premature," Rubio said in a statement that caused some consternation among immigration advocates. Even once there is a bill, he said, it will "only be a starting point," the precursor to what he suggested should be lengthy committee hearings and debate, not to mention full consideration by the American public.
Schumer hurried to dispute the notion of a disagreement between Rubio and himself, calling their difference "semantics" and praising Rubio as an "active and strong participant" in the negotiations.
"He is protecting some of the things that he thinks are very important in the bill," Schumer said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But I don't think that'll stand in the way in any way of any final agreement."
Obama spokesman Jay Carney said Monday the White House was encouraged by the positive comments over the weekend, but he was far from claiming victory. He said, "The process continues and is not finished." He wouldn't comment on Rubio's cautionary remarks.
Rubio's own comments were only the most recent example of his putting some distance between himself and other immigration overhaul supporters, including Obama and other members of the Gang of Eight.
When a draft of Obama's immigration legislation leaked in February, Rubio declared it "dead on arrival." On Saturday, he released a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., cautioning against a "rush to legislate" on immigration and asking for full hearings on the bipartisan group's bill once it is released
There's debate about whether Rubio is simply protecting his political flanks, or trying to prepare an exit ramp if he finds one necessary. Aides insist Rubio does want to support a bill and that everything he's doing is aimed at making the legislation politically viable by ensuring support from conservatives.
Schumer and others involved are acutely aware of the importance of Rubio's sign-off. That realization has helped the Florida senator win concessions on border security, legal immigration and other issues during months of closed-door negotiations. "He's gotten his way a good percentage of the time. He's persuaded people to his point of view a good part of the time," Schumer said.
Rubio became part of the bipartisan negotiating group after already having gone public with his own immigration proposals, which emphasize border security first before any pathway to citizenship can begin. And he would make that pathway a challenging one, requiring payment of back taxes and other concessions. Describing his own proposals to a series of conservative media hosts, he won generally positive responses.
Repeatedly, he's made clear that any proposal that does not meet his criteria will not get his support. And he's careful even in how he discusses the proposals under consideration. He shuns the phrase "path to citizenship," which he terms "an inaccurate phrase" because no immigrant can get on a path straight to citizenship — they have to get a permanent residence green card first.
Unlike several other Republicans with presidential aspirations, Rubio has avoided getting tripped up on the issue and having to clarify his stance, as happened recently to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
So far, his aides say, Rubio has maintained his support from conservative backers in internal polls and his fundraising remains strong. He made a strong showing at a straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, coming in a close second to Paul.
If the final bill is consistent with his principles, says spokesman Alex Conant, "Sen. Rubio and many other conservatives will support it. If the final bill doesn't meet those principles, Sen. Rubio won't be able to support it and conservatives will appreciate his principled stand."


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Lockout times are lean times, y'all. NBA players aren't flush with cash like they normally are. They're not the catches they would otherwise be. Who wants 'em anymore? (Not Kim Kardashian.)
Witness The Way They Get Seduced Now, courtesy of Danny Granger's Twitter feed.
dgranger33 I just get hit on by a man dressed like a woman!!....I don't even know what else to say about that #kneesshaking
dgranger33 she was 6feet tall smh
dgranger33 I don't feel proud smh"@missbumptious: @dgranger33 That's a bigger compliment than when an actual woman hits on you! Be proud, Danny."
It's all love, Danny. Embrace them. There's a world outside Indiana. Embrace it. Put the kinetic energy you use shaking your knees to better use.
Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Read Luke's Howie Spira piece and A.J.'s live chat to find out what you missed today.
You're on your own tonight, with no baseball. Endure.


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A solemn procession wound its way through Danielson's Davis Park on Friday as locals commemorated the Passion of Jesus Christ.
A solemn procession wound its way through Danielson's Davis Park on Friday as locals commemorated the Passion of Jesus Christ.
The Good Friday event drew more than 25 members of the Killingly-Brooklyn Interfaith Council, a group consisting of 10 local religious groups. The Rev. Jonathan Chapman, of the Westfield Congregational Church in Danielson, said the Way of the Cross ceremony serves as important reminder to the faithful during the Easter season.
"It's important to live through Good Friday before we celebrate Easter," he said. "It's easy to sometimes skip from Palm Sunday to Easter without recalling the messiness of Good Friday. But this day is what makes Easter matter."
For Christians, Good Friday marks the anniversary of Christ's journey to Golgotha, where he was crucified.
On Friday, participants took turns shouldering a large wooden cross around the park, pausing several times to listen to Gospel readings. After each reading, the group prayed silently until a bell announced the start of the next leg of the walk.
The Rev. Gregory Thomas, who carried the cross for the first part of the journey, said the annual walk has been a local tradition for "decades."
"It's about remembering," he said. "To 're-member' is to put back together. When we remember, we gather to tell this story, to support one another in fellowship and faith."
Brooklyn resident Lorraine Fox, 82, has attended the Good Friday event for years.
"It's a wonderful remembrance that reminds us of what Jesus went through," she said. "And, since it's attended by so many people of different faiths, it's a wonderful way to help us understand how others feel. You meet new people you wouldn't normally have met."
Chapman said the ceremony concludes with a Good Friday service at his nearby church. Inside, the altar was stripped bare, with the only color coming from purple banners hanging overhead.
"There's no lights or heat on," Chapman said. "We want people to be a little uncomfortable, to have that element of uncertainty that they're not sure what happens next."


text: KMWorld 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management Mar 1, 2010 Hugh McKellar This article appears in the issue March 2010 (100 Companies) [Volume 19, Issue 3] When we established our list of 100 Companies That Matter 10 years ago, "knowledge management" was just beginning to be a recognized term in the boardroom. However, getting the right information, product or service to the right people at the right time has been fundamental to the success of an organization since well before the Industrial Revolution.Make no mistake, though, KM is not now (nor will it ever likely be) a household word. Nor is it an application. It's an attitude, a commitment to excellence and innovation shared by the companies, large and small, on this list. A decade ago, a lot of vendors were so intoxicated by their technology that they tried to woo their customers with dazzling features, capabilities they thrust upon clients without fully understanding their legitimate needs. Now, in 2010, that's no longer true. The firms on this list are true solution providers that are dedicated to understanding what their customers need and delivering elegant technology for the requirements of the knowledge economy.As is the case each year, compilation of the list is a yearlong collaborative effort among colleagues, analysts, system integrators and a select group of users, all of whom requested anonymity, which we respect. With more than 1,000 companies in this "space," I'm sure we've unconsciously omitted some that are most worthy of inclusion. However, as it was a decade ago, the list is intended to spark a larger discussion of knowledge management. Hence, we consider this list to be a work in progress. We're always on the lookout for groundbreaking solutions or notable modifications to existing ones. As we move toward 2011, we'll likely add a few companies and make any necessary changes due to mergers or acquisitions. Throughout the year, the organizations and products we find most interesting will be showcased on our site and in our magazine.Our list is really a snapshot in time for the evolving and expanding knowledge management universe. We invite discussion and encourage you to contact us regarding KM tools and services you find especially valuable. Vendors: Ask your customers to tell us how your solutions have benefited their business. Analysts, consultants and integrators: Give us a heads-up when you discover especially interesting software and emerging trends. And we certainly encourage you to scour the Web sites of the 100 companies we listed—and don't forget the consultants and researchers. You'll see why we selected these companies. 5280 SolutionsA2iA ABBYY Accusoft Pegasus Adobe Alfresco Alterian AnyDoc Software AppianASG Software Solutions Attensity Attivio Autonomy AvePoint BA-Insight Baynote Bridgeline DigitalCaseCentral Citrix Online Comperio Concept Searching Connotate Consona CRMContent Analyst Contextware Coveo Day Software Dow Jones eGain Ektron Emantix EMC EndecaExalead EXSYS ExterroFabasoft/Mindbreeze FatWire Global 360 GoogleGuidance Software H5 HP/HP TRIM, HP Enterprise Services HylandIBM Information Builders Inmagic Innodata Isogen InQuira Integrify IntelliResponseISYS Search SoftwareJive Software JustSystems Kofax Lucid Imagination Mark Logic Metastorm MicroLink Microsoft MuseGlobal NetDocumentsNew Idea Engineering NewsGator Technologies NextPage nGenera CIM Noetix Nstein OmtoolOpen Text Oracle Perfect Search RaytionRealcom Recommind Reprints Desk Rivet Logic RSD Salesforce SAP BusinessObjects SAS/TeragramSavvion SDL Structured Content Technologies, SDL Web Content Management Solutions Search Technologies Sinequa Sitecore Siteworx Socialcast SpringCM StoredIQ SumTotal Symantec TEMISTraction Software Trinity Technologies Vivisimo Xerox XythosZL Technologies ZyLABYou can hear from some of the 100 Companies That Matter in the special View from the Top section on our website. Here, CEO and other top officials share their vision of the knowledge economy and how their solutions allow their customers to reach their goals.


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At Appleis "Showtime" press event on September 12, the biggest news was about a product that wonit be available until next year and which Apple barely mentions on its Web site. Before I get to that, however, I have a few semi-random observations about the rest of what Steve Jobs revealed at the press event.
- Apple announced a revamped iPod line, including a completely redesigned iPod shuffle. The shuffle looks like a winner for those minimalists for whom small size and low price are primary concerns. Itis hard to imagine an encore here; the device certainly canit get much smaller. As it is now, the entire shuffle is barely bigger than the click wheel.
- The new iPod nano is also a bit smaller than before...and colored cases are back. Still, I continue to be mystified by the popularity of this mid-sized iPod, especially the top-of-the line model. I can understand some people, especially joggers, preferring the smaller size of the nano to a full-size iPod. For these users, the least expensive 2GB nano would likely be adequate (after all, how many people will need more than 500 songs for a jog?). What remains a mystery is why anyone would prefer to spend $250 on the new 8GB nano, when for the exact same price you can get a full size iPod that comes with a 30GB drive and a larger display--plus the ability to play video. And it can still fit in your pocket.
- The new full sized iPods are still called 5th generation iPods -- although with a "(Late 2006)" added to their technical moniker. This makes sense, as they are not that much different from the previous iPod models. Rumor sites are still predicting a 6th generation iPod, featuring a touchscreen that covers the entire front of the device. I am sure it will arrive someday, but, at this point, I would not hold my breath to see it at Macworld Expo this January. (It does make me wonder what Apple has up its sleeves for a major announcement at Macworld Expo. In the last few months it has unveiled Leopard, new iPods and a completed transition to Intel Macs. Whatis left? New iMacs? Heck, Iill just wait until the Expo to find out.)
- The iTunes Store (you notice itis no longer called the iTunes Music Store?) now features movies for downloading. The only studio to sign up so far is Disney. Does this mean that other studios are either going to pass on this opportunity or go with another vendor such as Amazon.com? I doubt it. The iTunes market share is too big to ignore. If the Disney movie downloads are even a moderate success (and I predict they will be), the other studios will be signing up soon enough.
By the way, I downloaded a movie ("Enemy of the State") on the day the service was announced. It took almost 8 hours. Steve said at the press event that, with a broadband Internet connection as fast as mine, it should only take about 30 minutes. An Apple Knowledge Base article gives a broader range of 20 minutes to 3 hours. Regardless, my experience was not close to any Apple estimate. Maybe it was first day "jitters" -- the service may have been overwhelmed with people like me who wanted to test it out. Weill see.
- The iTunes Store now also features downloadable games. They are designed just for video iPods and wonit play on your Mac.
- Happily, the just-announced movies and games are compatible with the original 5th generation iPods, not just the newly announced ones. However, to get them to transfer to your older iPod, youill need to update your iPod software to version 1.2 (you can get the update from within iTunes 7).
- Speaking of iTunes 7, its newly revamped interface is gorgeous -- as well as easier to navigate. Kudos to Apple on this. The new cover art views are especially great (although if you have a lot of music for which Apple cannot locate the needed cover art, youill see a lot of boring "blank" covers).
Getting back to movies...
You canit copy downloaded movies to a DVD in a format that will play on a typical DVD player. Not a surprise here. This has also been true for the TV shows already available on iTunes. Yes, you can transfer music downloads (as copy-protected files) to a CD. But it remains a no-go for movies to DVDs.
Conversely, there is still no legal way to transfer a movie from a DVD to your Mac, so that you can get it on an iPod for example.
Too bad...as it would be convenient to have these options. They way it is now, if you want a movie available both as a DVD and on your Mac, you need to pay for the same movie twice. Weive all been down this road before (such as having to get the DVD version of a movie you already own as a VHS tape), but I still hold on to some faint hope that the studios may relent on this some day (hopefully in my lifetime).
Until then, when I want to buy a new movie, I am going to have some intense internal debates. Do I want to pay as much as $14.99 to get the movie from iTunes or would I rather (often for just a couple of bucks more) get the DVD? The iTunes option allows me to play the movie on an iPod as well as in a "disc-less" form on a Mac (useful on plane rides where you donit want to drain your battery by the constant spinning of your DVD drive). The DVD option offers better resolution (although the improved 640 x 480 resolution of iTunes movies will be more than adequate for most users) and the ability to easily play it on a TV or any other medium that accepts DVD discs.
One partial solution here would be for Apple to do something it has so far resisted: offer a rental option for movies. I completely understand and support Appleis position to avoid rentals for music and TV shows. But the cost of one movie is much more than one song or one TV show. And people are much less likely to rewatch a movie than relisten to a song. So a rental option, with a $3.00 fee for example, might prove to be quite popular and profitable.
Finally, letis return to what I consider to be the biggest announcement at the press event: iTV. Essentially, it is a wireless device that will allow you to stream movies from your Mac to your television. Think of it as a combination of an enhanced version of Front Row software together with a hardware device that resembles a Mac mini that has expanded connectivity options but no hard drive. And all for just $299.
In an unusual move, Steve showed off a prototype of this product even though it wonit be available for sale until the first quarter of 2007. I can understand why. Most people still watch movies on their televisions, not on their computers. This is likely to remain true for quite some time. By offering a convenient way for movies downloaded from iTunes to play on a television, the entire concept suddenly becomes a lot more attractive! Assuming iTV even comes close to working as well as it did in the demo, I know I will be lining up to get one.
What does this all portend for the future? It means that we are at the threshold of a new era in how we get and view media content. I have heard predictions that Appleis venture into movies is the beginning of the end for the DVD. The demise of the CD has been predicted for a couple of years now. I am not ready to start tossing out my discs yet. But clearly the move is on to shift content delivery from discs to downloads. With products such as iTV and iTunes movies, Apple is breaking down some of the barriers to this transition and is well-positioned to continue leading the charge. For Apple, and especially for Mac users, the future looks brighter than ever.


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Hi I'm VK2BYF and brand new on satelites.
I'm using home brew eggbeaters over reflectors. I can hear the signal sort of white noise and every few second I hear a tone, actually 2 tones I can see on dashboard. I don't decode anything on the status bar.
I'm using FT-817 Receiver and feeding Audio into Mike input on sound card via a Rascal i/f. This has worked successfully on RTTY and PSK31.
I'm in the process of building better antennas but curious what I missed somewhere. Yes I have read he manual for the dasboard. I'm not using the dongle and I limit the bandwidth to around 3500 Hz as the RX is no wider than that anyway. Even with full 48000Hz bandwidth I can hear but not decode.
I guess auto tune only works with the dongle SDR. I suppose the data is a short burst when we hear the tone pair. What is the white noise between tone pairs and how do I tune accurately because I have to chase the signal for almost plus 10kHz to minus 10kHz over the path/footprint. Two short nulls when overhead as expected.
Lot's of questions as I have never worked satellites before. I heard the signal tonight after dark which , I think is low power mode so my eggbeaters with preamp must be doing ok or am I kidding myself. It sure would be handy to have some local help from some VK2s I'm on the South Coast near Nowra.
Regards and thanks for any replies. 73 Bob


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04 September, 2009
My first U2 showSo here are some impressions/memories from my first U2 concert . . . I and my friends were amazed at Bono's stage presence. We sat up in the upper level and got a great view of all the goings-on below. No one on the lower floor were in their seats, they were up and crowded around the stage. During one of the songs, Bono noticed someone with their daughter at the show, Bono pulled the 5-6 year old on stage, took the parents camera, gave it to the kid to take his picture while he patiently stood still (the band played on), the child could not apparently manage the camera, so Bono took it and handed it back to the parent, he picked the child up and held her so that the photo of the two of them could be taken. At a later point Bono jumped off into the crowd and hid . . . challenging the guy who operated the spotlight to find him (I don't believe he could). Frank Sinatra had been at the Sunrise the week before, Bono started singing a Sinatra song and then stopped when he didn't know the rest of the lyrics, he turned it over to the crowd to keep singing, telling us "it's your song!" Great great show. They built such a reputation off of that one show in that relatively small venue, that the next time around for TUF tour, they sold out the much much larger Hollywood Sportatorium in 15 minutes, which led to a second show, that of course sold out as well. They became my favorite band that night, and have been ever since. And will be forever.


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SAO/NASA ADS -> Help -> Browsing Articles
|SAO/NASA ADS Help Pages
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5.2 - Browsing Full-text Articles
The most common access to the scanned articles is from the ADS Abstract Service results page via the "G" or "F" links. The "G" link displays a document containing images of the scanned article pages, while the "F" link returns a Postscript or PDF file containing the entire article. Links to images of the scanned pages or to the full-text article in Postscript or PDF format are also available from the page displaying the full bibliographic information for a record in the ADS abstract system.
The scanned pages and articles can also be accessed directly through the Article Service by volume and page at:
The default viewing mode for scanned pages displays a screen divided in three panes, with the requested page occupying the main one. On top of the scanned page, a separate pane displays the basic bibliographic information for the article, with a link named "Other article options" that takes the user to a simpler page-by-page view of the article (called "classic" view mode) which contains additional viewing options, including the capability to extract data from the image using Dexter. Also available in the top pane are links to retrieve a fulltext document for the article and to see its full bibliographic record in the ADS. If the page to be displayed is part of an article (as most are), thumbails of the other pages within the article are displayed in the left navigation bar. Clicking on a thumbnail will display the corresponding image at full resolution.
In the "classic" view mode, additional pages within the article or section can be viewed by using the navigation links, forward/back, located on the top of the Article Page or the links to any individual page of the article listed below the scan. As an alternative to this single-page browsing mode, users may choose to view the set of low-resolution images for all pages composing the article by selecting the "Thumbnails" link at the top of the Article Page. When viewing thumbnails, a high-resolution image of each page can be displayed by clicking on the corresponding thumbnail.
Other options available from this screen include the ability to retrieve the full bibliographic record and abstract for the article being viewed and in some cases the ability to retrieve a particular plate number. If the article being viewed appeared in a publication that printed the plates at the end of a volume and the plates have not been assigned to the article they belong to, then an option to display a given plate number will be available. The plate number discussed here refers to the sequential number assigned to a plate within a journal volume, and is typically referred to in the full text of the paper. Users must read the article to decide if there is a plate associated with a given paper, and can then use this option to retrieve the plate itself.
The Print button listed at the bottom of the screen should be used to retrieve a copy of the full-text article (or page) suitable for printing. The format and resolution of the document created for printing are controlled by each user's Default Settings, which can be set via the Article Service Preference Settings. You should never use your browser's Print button to create a hardcopy of the page currently viewed as it will produce poor quality output. Please see the Document Formats section for more information.
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Founded in 1979, Hospice of Wake County has become the largest and most experienced hospice organization serving its region. Today, we provide much more than hospice care. And we serve more than Wake County. We changed our name to Transitions LifeCare to better represent our full range of support for each stage of a chronic serious illness, terminal illness, and grief – provided by our same compassionate team of dedicated professionals and trained volunteers.
Visit our homepage, and be sure to save to your bookmarks.


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Top Gear is about to wrap up their season driving from Uganda to Tanzania, searching for the source of the Nile. Where should they go next?
Certainly, the world is a big and wonderful place, and we're sure you can think up an infinite number of beautiful, remote locales. That's fine and wonderful, but we want more.
We need challenges.
So if your suggestion lists a place but not a challenge, it's not getting accepted. You hear me? NO CHALLENGE, NO NOMINATION. Now give us your best ideas on how to torture the Tall One, the Short One, and the One Who Has Hair Like Mike Spinelli.
(QOTD is your chance to address the day's most pressing automotive questions and to experience the opinions of the insightful insiders, practicing pundits, and gleeful gearheads that make up the Jalopnik commentariat. If you've got a suggestion for a good Question of the Day, send an email to tips at jalopnik dot com.)
Photo Credit: Top Gear


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Paperback, 351 pages, Random House Inc, List Price: $15 |purchase
Buy Featured Book
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Book Summary
The Booker Prize-winning author of Amsterdam creates a richly textured coming-of-age novel, set in 1935 England, that follows thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis, who witness an event involving her sister Cecilia and her childhood friend Robbie Turner, as she becomes the victim of her own imagination, which tears her family apart and leads her on a lifelong search of truth and absolution. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 300,000 first printing.
Awards and Recognition
National Book Critics Circle Award (2002)
NPR stories about Atonement
Note: Book excerpts are provided by the publisher and may contain language some find offensive.
Excerpt: Atonement
The play, for which Briony had designed the posters, programmes and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper, was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch. When the preparations were complete, she had nothing to do but contemplate her finished draft and wait for the appearance of her cousins from the distant north. There would be time for only one day of rehearsal before her brother arrived. At some moments chilling, at others desperately sad, the play told a tale of the heart whose message, conveyed in a rhyming prologue, was that love which did not build a foundation on good sense was doomed. The reckless passion of the heroine, Arabella, for a wicked foreign count is punished by ill fortune when she contracts cholera during an impetuous dash towards a seaside town with her intended. Deserted by him and nearly everybody else, bed-bound in a garret, she discovers in herself a sense of humour. Fortune presents her a second chance in the form of an impoverished doctor — in fact, a prince in disguise who has elected to work among the needy. Healed by him, Arabella chooses judiciously this time, and is rewarded by reconciliation with her family and a wedding with the medical prince on `a windy sunlit day in spring'.
Mrs Tallis read the seven pages of The Trials of Arabella in her bedroom, at her dressing table, with the author's arm around her shoulder the whole while. Briony studied her mother's face for every trace of shifting emotion, and Emily Tallis obliged with looks of alarm, snickers of glee and, at the end, grateful smiles and wise, affirming nods. She took her daughter in her arms, onto her lap — ah, that hot smooth little body she remembered from its infancy, and still not gone from her, not quite yet — and said that the play was 'stupendous', and agreed instantly, murmuring into the tight whorl of the girl's ear, that this word could be quoted on the poster which was to be on an easel in the entrance hall by the ticket booth.
Briony was hardly to know it then, but this was the project's highest point of fulfilment. Nothing came near it for satisfaction, all else was dreams and frustration. There were moments in the summer dusk after her light was out, burrowing in the delicious gloom of her canopy bed, when she made her heart thud with luminous, yearning fantasies, little playlets in themselves, every one of which featured Leon. In one, his big, good-natured face buckled in grief as Arabella sank in loneliness and despair. In another, there he was, cocktail in hand at some fashionable city watering hole, overheard boasting to a group of friends: Yes, my younger sister, Briony Tallis the writer, you must surely have heard of her. In a third he punched the air in exultation as the final curtain fell, although there was no curtain, there was no possibility of a curtain. Her play was not for her cousins, it was for her brother, to celebrate his return, provoke his admiration and guide him away from his careless succession of girlfriends, towards the right form of wife, the one who would persuade him to return to the countryside, the one who would sweetly request Briony's services as a bridesmaid.
She was one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so. Whereas her big sister's room was a stew of unclosed books, unfolded clothes, unmade bed, unemptied ashtrays, Briony's was a shrine to her controlling demon: the model farm spread across a deep window ledge consisted of the usual animals, but all facing one way — towards their owner — as if about to break into song, and even the farmyard hens were neatly corralled. In fact, Briony's was the only tidy upstairs room in the house. Her straight-backed dolls in their many-roomed mansion appeared to be under strict instructions not to touch the walls; the various thumb-sized figures to be found standing about her dressing table — cowboys, deep-sea divers, humanoid mice — suggested by their even ranks and spacing a citizen's army awaiting orders.
A taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit. Another was a passion for secrets: in a prized varnished cabinet, a secret drawer was opened by pushing against the grain of a cleverly turned dovetail joint, and here she kept a diary locked by a clasp, and a notebook written in a code of her own invention. In a toy safe opened by six secret numbers she stored letters and postcards. An old tin petty cash box was hidden under a removable floorboard beneath her bed. In the box were treasures that dated back four years, to her ninth birthday when she began collecting: a mutant double acorn, fool's gold, a rain-making spell bought at a funfair, a squirrel's skull as light as a leaf.
But hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. Her wish for a harmonious, organised world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. Mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes, and she did not have it in her to be cruel. Her effective status as an only child, as well as the relative isolation of the Tallis house, kept her, at least during the long summer holidays, from girlish intrigues with friends. Nothing in her life was sufficiently interesting or shameful to merit hiding; no one knew about the squirrel's skull beneath her bed, but no one wanted to know. None of this was particularly an affliction; or rather, it appeared so only in retrospect, once a solution had been found.
At the age of eleven she wrote her first story — a foolish affair, imitative of half a dozen folk tales and lacking, she realised later, that vital knowingness about the ways of the world which compels a reader's respect. But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story, no one could be told. Pretending in words was too tentative, too vulnerable, too embarrassing to let anyone know. Even writing out the she saids, the and thens, made her wince, and she felt foolish, appearing to know about the emotions of an imaginary being. Self-exposure was inevitable the moment she described a character's weakness; the reader was bound to speculate that she was describing herself. What other authority could she have? Only when a story was finished, all fates resolved and the whole matter sealed off at both ends so it resembled, at least in this one respect, every other finished story in the world, could she feel immune, and ready to punch holes in the margins, bind the chapters with pieces of string, paint or draw the cover, and take the finished work to show to her mother, or her father, when he was home.
Her efforts received encouragement. In fact, they were welcomed as the Tallises began to understand that the baby of the family possessed a strange mind and a facility with words. The long afternoons she spent browsing through dictionary and thesaurus made for constructions that were inept, but hauntingly so: the coins a villain concealed in his pocket were 'esoteric', a hoodlum caught stealing a car wept in 'shameless auto-exculpation', the heroine on her thoroughbred stallion made a 'cursory' journey through the night, the king's furrowed brow was the 'hieroglyph' of his displeasure. Briony was encouraged to read her stories aloud in the library and it surprised her parents and older sister to hear their quiet girl perform so boldly, making big gestures with her free arm, arching her eyebrows as she did the voices, and looking up from the page for seconds at a time as she read in order to gaze into one face after the other, unapologetically demanding her family's total attention as she cast her narrative spell.
Even without their attention and praise and obvious pleasure, Briony could not have been held back from her writing. In any case, she was discovering, as had many writers before her, that not all recognition is helpful. Cecilia's enthusiasm, for example, seemed a little overstated, tainted with condescension perhaps, and intrusive too; her big sister wanted each bound story catalogued and placed on the library shelves, between Rabindranath Tagore and Quintus Tertullian. If this was supposed to be a joke, Briony ignored it. She was on course now, and had found satisfaction on other levels; writing stories not only involved secrecy, it also gave her all the pleasures of miniaturisation. A world could be made in five pages, and one that was more pleasing than a model farm. The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page, a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence, falling in love could be achieved in a single word--a glance. The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained. Her passion for tidiness was also satisfied, for an unruly world could be made just so. A crisis in a heroine's life could be made to coincide with hailstones, gales and thunder, whereas nuptials were generally blessed with good light and soft breezes. A love of order also shaped the principles of justice, with death and marriage the main engines of housekeeping, the former being set aside exclusively for the morally dubious, the latter a reward withheld until the final page.
The play she had written for Leon's homecoming was her first excursion into drama, and she had found the transition quite effortless. It was a relief not to be writing out the she saids, or describing the weather or the onset of spring or her heroine's face — beauty, she had discovered, occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, had infinite variation. A universe reduced to what was said in it was tidiness indeed, almost to the point of nullity, and to compensate, every utterance was delivered at the extremity of some feeling or other, in the service of which the exclamation mark was indispensable. The Trials of Arabella may have been a melodrama, but its author had yet to hear the term. The piece was intended to inspire not laughter, but terror, relief and instruction, in that order, and the innocent intensity with which Briony set about the project — the posters, tickets, sales booth — made her particularly vulnerable to failure. She could easily have welcomed Leon with another of her stories, but it was the news that her cousins from the north were coming to stay that had prompted this leap into a new form.
That Lola, who was fifteen, and the nine-year-old twins, Jackson and Pierrot, were refugees from a bitter domestic civil war should have mattered more to Briony. She had heard her mother criticise the impulsive behaviour of her younger sister Hermione, and lament the situation of the three children, and denounce her meek, evasive brother-in-law Cecil who had fled to the safety of All Souls' College, Oxford. Briony had heard her parents and sister analyse the latest twists and outrages, charges and counter charges, and she knew the visit was an open-ended one, and might even extend into term time. She had heard it said that the house could easily absorb three children, and that the Quinceys could stay as long as they liked, provided the parents, if they ever visited simultaneously, kept their quarrels away from the Tallis household. Two rooms near Briony's had been dusted down, new curtains had been hung and furniture carried in from other rooms. Normally, she would have been involved in these preparations, but they happened to coincide with her two-day writing bout and the beginnings of the front-of-house construction. She vaguely knew that divorce was an affliction, but she did not regard it as a proper subject, and gave it no thought. It was a mundane unravelling that could not be reversed, and therefore offered no opportunities to the storyteller: it belonged in the realm of disorder. Marriage was the thing, or rather, a wedding was, with its formal neatness of virtue rewarded, the thrill of its pageantry and banqueting, and dizzy promise of lifelong union. A good wedding was an unacknowledged representation of the as yet unthinkable — sexual bliss. In the aisles of country churches and grand city cathedrals, witnessed by a whole society of approving family and friends, her heroines and heroes reached their innocent climaxes and needed to go no further.
If divorce had presented itself as the dastardly antithesis of all this, it could easily have been cast onto the other pan of the scales, along with betrayal, illness, thieving, assault and mendacity. Instead it showed an unglamorous face of dull complexity and incessant wrangling. Like re-armament and the Abyssinia Question and gardening, it was simply not a subject, and when, after a long Saturday morning wait, Briony heard at last the sound of wheels on the gravel below her bedroom window, and snatched up her pages and ran down the stairs, across the hallway and out into the blinding light of midday, it was not insensitivity so much as a highly focused artistic ambition that caused her to shout to the dazed young visitors huddled together by the trap with their luggage, 'I've got your parts, all written out. First performance tomorrow! Rehearsals start in five minutes!'
Immediately, her mother and sister were there to interpose a blander timetable. The visitors--all three were ginger-haired and freckled — were shown their rooms, their cases were carried up by Hardman's son Danny, there was orange juice in the kitchen, a tour of the house, a swim in the pool and lunch in the south garden, under the shade of the vines. All the while, Emily and Cecilia Tallis maintained a patter that surely robbed the guests of the ease it was supposed to confer. Briony knew that if she had travelled two hundred miles to a strange house, bright questions and jokey asides, and being told in a hundred different ways that she was free to choose, would have oppressed her. It was not generally realised that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone. However, the Quinceys worked hard at pretending to be amused or liberated, and this bode well for The Trials of Arabella: this trio clearly had the knack of being what they were not, even though they barely resembled the characters they were to play. Before lunch Briony slipped away to the empty rehearsal room — the nursery — and walked up and down on the painted floorboards, considering her casting options.
On the face of it, Arabella, whose hair was as dark as Briony's, was unlikely to be descended from freckled parents, or elope with a foreign freckled count, rent a garret room from a freckled innkeeper, lose her heart to a freckled prince and be married by a freckled vicar before a freckled congregation. But all this was to be so. Her cousins' colouring was too vivid — virtually fluorescent!— to be concealed. The best that could be said was that Arabella's lack of freckles was the sign — the hieroglyph, Briony might have written — of her distinction. Her purity of spirit would never be in doubt, though she moved through a blemished world. There was a further problem with the twins, who could not be told apart by a stranger. Was it right that the wicked count should so completely resemble the handsome prince, or that both should resemble Arabella's father and the vicar? What if Lola were cast as the prince? Jackson and Pierrot seemed typical eager little boys who would probably do as they were told. But would their sister play a man? She had green eyes and sharp bones in her face, and hollow cheeks, and there was something brittle in her reticence that suggested strong will and a temper easily lost. Merely floating the possibility of the role to Lola might provoke a crisis, and could Briony really hold hands with her before the altar, while Jackson intoned from the Book of Common Prayer?
From the Hardcover edition.


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Reputation matters -- but which part?
Reputation matters -- but which part?
While I have previously railed on the obsession with share price as an accurate indicator of company health, I have come to terms that my position is like renouncing English as the emerging language of global commerce. So I have embraced share price as something people care about.
And if you care about share price, there is finally hard data showing you should also care about environmental and social issues that impact operations. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, a U.K. law firm, recently conducted an analysis of 78 publicly traded companies that endured "global reputational crises." Freshfields mapped share performance for the year following different events.
What the study found is that "behavioral events," such as a rogue trader, have a big effect in the short-term, but minimal impact in the long haul. On the other hand, operational events, such as a supply chain breakdown, product recall, or environmental issue, have a profound long-term impact. One year after an "operational event," share prices were down an average of 25 percent for the companies studied.
Moreover, if senior executives did not return their company share price to pre-crisis levels within six months, their attrition rate was nearly double the relevant industry norm.
It is common these days to link sustainability and shared value to innovation and growth. I firmly believe such "offensive" moves are the key to resiliency and success for businesses. But that does not mean we should ignore defense either. Defense provides the foundation on which innovation can flourish. Good defense depends on paying attention to the right things, and the Freshfields study sheds some light on where to focus.
I have spoken with leaders at companies and at times been posed a very frank question paired with a quizzical look: How much does this stuff -- environment, social, stakeholders -- really matter to our reputation? This study is proof that this stuff matters, that you can't talk your way out of situations after the fact, and that a minor investment on the front-end can avoid significant headaches one year on.
I had the good fortune to discuss this issue with a mining company in 2007. They were considering transmission lines in an ecologically rich corridor in the Southern Hemisphere, and had run the numbers on the cost of a shutdown due to potential protests. The cost to move the transmission line was a fraction of the potential lost outputdue to local protests, so they moved the transmission lines. Simple.
I interpreted an equally simple message from this study. Reputation matters, and operations and stewardship matter most.
Photo of electronic stock prices provided by Bianda Ahman Hisham via Shutterstock.


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Teresa Edwards stood yards from her burning home on Bethlehem Road, waiting and hoping that firefighters would rescue the dog that saved her life.
KINGS MOUNTAIN � Teresa Edwards stood yards from her burning home on Bethlehem Road, waiting and hoping that firefighters would rescue the dog that saved her life.
"I love him. I hope he is still OK," Edwards said. "I haven�t seen him."
She said she was asleep in her bed Tuesday as the flames spread. Her 3-year-old Pomeranian named Tanner knew something was wrong.
"The dog woke me up," Edwards said. "He started barking and the smoke had come all the way to the bedroom."
Investigators said the fire started in a heating unit a couple rooms away. The fire gutted the inside of the mobile home and destroyed nearly everything in it.
"My first instinct was to run to the front door," Edwards said.
When Edwards got outside, she realized Tanner and her five cats were still inside.
"I screamed for somebody to call 911," she said.
Neighbor James Carroll heard the cries for help. He called 911 and ran to Edwards� front door.
"Flames was already in the living room. When I opened it up, it just gusted out," Carroll said.
He said he heard the animals running around inside, but there was no way to help them.
"It�s terrible," Carroll said. "It�s terrible for the lady."
Edwards does not have insurance. She said she doesn�t care about the items she lost, but wishes she still had her cats and the dog that saved her life. They never made it out.
Edwards had a group of friends to provide emotional support for her almost immediately after the fire. They said they will also provide a place for her to stay until she gets back on her feet.


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Riverdance team Fuse flamenco and fiddlers in new show
'Heartbeat of Home', a new dance show from the creators of 'Riverdance', with lyrics by Joseph O'Connor and music by Brian Byrne, is drawing a new musical map of Ireland
Captivated by an idea: dancers tap out the 'Heartbeat of Home'. Photograph: Jim Byrne
A salsa bassline under an Irish reel: Joseph O'Connor and Brian Byrne. Photograph: Eric Luke
In a dark studio on a sunny day, the composer Brian Byrne and a couple of engineers are working on a recording. They've had some late nights. They're putting the finishing touches to an album that will accompany Heartbeat of Home, the first big dance show produced by Moya Doherty and John McColgan since Riverdance. Strings, brass sections, uilleann pipes and Broadway vocals blast from the speakers. The album features the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and world-class players such as Paddy Moloney and Carlos Núñez. They play me a beautiful flamenco song with words in both Irish and Spanish.
"Do you speak Spanish?" I ask the show's lyricist, the novelist Joseph O'Connor.
"I do now," he says.
Heartbeat of Home is a big deal, but O'Connor and Byrne seem relaxed about it. O'Connor first met McColgan, its director, simply to trade music. "We met for a coffee and swapped a few CDs. He gave me out-there stuff with African drummers, a lot of salsa and Cuban music and Ennio Morricone. He told me about this idea he'd been working on for an Irish dance show that would blend Irish music with Latin American and African music.
"He didn't ask me to get involved, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd be listening to Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, the fiddler, or to Johnny 'Ringo' McDonagh, the great bodhrán player, and I'd be hearing tangos and flamencos. And when I listened to songs on the Buena Vista Social Club album or to Paul Simon's Graceland they seemed to rewrite themselves suddenly to be songs about Ireland. I was captivated by the idea."
Byrne's background is primarily as an arranger and film composer; he won awards for the soundtrack to Albert Nobbs. "I had worked as a kid in amateur music hall," he says. "I had arranged, orchestrated and conducted shows. I was very much aware of musical theatre. When I was very young I wrote a musical against the backdrop of the Famine, and my mother and I put it on . . . We couldn't get a scriptwriter. We wrote to all these people. Then I read Star of the Sea on my way to meet Joe the first time, and I kept thinking, Why didn't I meet him when I was 18? He was Mr Famine. "
The show itself, says O'Connor, is in two parts. "The first part is built around a sea voyage with people leaving an unnamed series of countries and going to an unnamed big country. In the second part of the show they have intermarried, they flirt and trade and their music bounces off each other, and they learn different dances and different modes of storytelling. It's built around a wedding. The first act is a journey, because on a ship you can meet anybody. The second act is a wedding; the Talmud says the world is a wedding."
How does this manifest itself in music and dance? "In the first half you hear salsa music by itself and Irish music by itself, and gradually they intertwine," says Byrne. "By the time you reach the end of the show there's rap, mambo, salsa, Irish céilí, jazz, Benny Goodman. "
He explains the complexity of different folk rhythms and traditional airs. He taps out beats. He lilts a few tunes. He explains how to put a salsa bass line beneath an Irish reel, again singing and tapping it out.
He also discusses the role of technology in the creation of the show. The writers collaborated via email. Initial audition tapes were collected online from dancers all over the world who were influenced by Riverdance, and Byrne absorbed hours and hours of music on the internet. "I'd go down the wormhole of YouTube for hours, days, weeks," says Byrne. "I knew about flamenco music, but for me to write a bulería, the most difficult flamenco dance, I really had to get the rhythm of it into my body . . . There are these internal accents. I'd look it up on YouTube and watch for hours and then would spend weeks walking my dog around Los Angeles [where he lives], counting it out."
"That dog's a great dancer now," says O'Connor.
'Riverdance' nailed it
Byrne was first approached by McColgan and Doherty when he was working on a film score in Ireland in 2010. He initially thought of turning the job down, "because I thought that what Bill [Whelan] did with Riverdance, blending Irish music with a contemporary orchestra and band, just nailed it."
O'Connor sees Riverdance as a milestone on the road to Irish self-confidence and maturity. "I grew up in an Ireland that wasn't even on the map. My grandfather used to read the News of the World or one of the other English tabloids; there was the weather map of Britain, and beside it was this funny little island called Northern Ireland. The place that I lived actually wasn't there. We weren't worth the ink. So you had a notion of Ireland being a disappeared place.
"There are moments over the past 20 years when Ireland came out of the 20th century . . . The World Cup was one of them: seeing players in an Ireland jersey who were black and spoke with a Liverpool or Glasgow accent all on the same team. The Irish rugby team playing in Croke Park is a huge part of Ireland's growing up.
"A writer such as Kevin Barry couldn't exist 20 years ago . . . There's a generation of Irish writers now who are not in the shadow of writers 20 years older. And Riverdance was part of that. It took this thing, Irish dancing, that a lot of people were a bit embarrassed about.
"In the same way, some regarded the Irish language as this sad old relic from the past and forgot the enormous richness of it. In our haste to hate ourselves we were ready to throw these things away."
Last year Doherty and McColgan put on a promo presentation of Heartbeat of Home for promoters from all over the world. The promoters "had been begging for a dance show, because Riverdance has an amazing following", says Byrne. "John and Moya resisted for years and years. So we did this 40-minute warts and all version, with just a tiny little band . . . All the promoters bought it up."
O'Connor and Byrne don't seem intimidated by the expectations. "There'll always be a comparison with [Riverdance], because it's from the producers of Riverdance and there are Irish dancers in it and at some stage they're going to come out in a line," says Byrne. "We pay homage to that."
Here, ensconced in the studio, they're happy to chat away about music and art. O'Connor talks about the music in Irish writing: "William Trevor to me is like a beautiful chamber music. Beckett has a minor-key sadness". Byrne talks about jazz: "I snuck in a lot of jazz," he says guiltily.
They discuss misheard song lyrics: "My brother thought 'Ghostbusters' was 'Those Bastards'," says Byrne. He says they have left some room for improvisation in the score. "The bass player for Cats in London played the same score for 25 years." He shakes his head in wonderment. "Twenty-five years playing Memories."
Celebrating commonalities
O'Connor says things have changed since Heartbeat of Home's groundbreaking predecessor. "In the 20th century, Ireland did what all post-revolutionary societies do: we concentrated on what was special and unique about us," he says. "Maybe the time has come to celebrate commonalities rather than differences. I spent six months in Nicaragua in 1985, and I was very struck by the emotional similarity between their music and ours. And on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua you hear English Victorian music-hall songs played with a kind of calypso sensibility. The Lambeth Walk is a big traditional song on the east coast of Nicaragua. They'll tell you it's a traditional Nicaraguan song, but your Irish granny in Kilburn would also sing it. I was always struck by this. So when John started talking about this stuff, I wished he would invite me to get involved." O'Connor laughs. Later, he says: "For me [Riverdance is] the four-minute mile. No one will ever again be the first to break the four-minute mile, but Roger Bannister leads to Usain Bolt, and Gene Vincent leads to Imelda May, and the Dubliners lead to the Pogues.
"Riverdance was a wonderful thing coming out of Ireland at that time. This is coming out of Ireland now."
Heartbeat of Home previews from Wednesday at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, in Dublin. It opens on October 2nd, running for 10 nights before touring China and North America


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Every other Thursday, we bring you Nicholas Day -- on cooking for children, and with children, and despite children. Also, occasionally, on top of.
Every day till Christmas, we're bringing you 12 Days of Baking: 12 all-new baking recipes to lift holiday spirits -- from breakfast pastries to dinner rolls, and all the desserts you can handle.
Today: Nicholas brings us a memorable Italian fruitcake variant.
We all have our peculiar favorite holiday baked goods, which may be radically different from what you like to eat the rest of the year. These affiliations were formed in childhood; they owe nothing to how you think of yourself now. It's worth remembering this when you decide what holiday treat to make with, and for, and despite, your children. Because they may imprint on it. And you may have to make it for the rest of your natural life. Which is why I am warning you, in advance, that panforte is an addictive substance. Carol Field describes panforte as "the best fruitcake you could ever imagine, denser than sweet bread and only slightly less rich than candy." All this is true. Panforte is incredibly powerful: it has more taste per square inch than any other holiday baked good. That's an invidious comparison, though: that's like saying that Michael Phelps is a better swimmer than you. The truth is, panforte is in a different class altogether. It doesn't taste baked. It tastes as if it were made using special equipment that Willy Wonka kept hidden in the basement. It is glossy and gummy and it looks compacted by time. It resembles a geological core sample, if the Earth had gone through a period where the sediment was almonds, and hazelnuts, and candied citrus. This panforte is from Field's The Italian Baker, a superlative and endlessly inspiring book. The list of Italian holiday baked goods alone is staggering, and even more so in her Celebrating Italy, which goes long and deep on the subject. It would be a good idea to not open any other cookbooks in the month of December. She claims that panforte "may" have taken by the Crusaders as a "long-lasting food to give them quick bursts of energy." Panforte: the original Powerbar.There is nothing especially child-friendly about making panforte. Really the only thing child-friendly about panforte is that you can make up stories about a superhero named Strong Bread, who saves lesser breads from staleness and insipidness. (His superpower is the ability to slip candied orange peel in already baked breads.) It's not a time-consuming cake; it just requires a fair amount of fine-measuring and syrup-making and chopping, especially if you make the candied orange peel (and the candied citron). In my mind, though, at this time of year, that is a reason to make panforte. Baking in December is all about making things you really don't have time to make and can't possibly justify setting aside time to make. That's why we remember these particular treats with such vividness, of course: no one bothers to do that in May.Last night Isaiah had his first slice of panforte. It takes a while to chew through it. It may take a lifetime.
Adapted very lightly from The Italian Baker by Carol Field (Ten Speed Press, 2011)
Makes 1 cake1 cup hazelnuts1 cup blanched almonds1 cup candied orange peel, coarsely chopped1 cup candied citron peel, finely chopped1 teaspoon lemon zest, grated1/2 cup all-purpose flour1 teaspoon ground cinnamon1/4 teaspoon ground cloves1/4 teaspoon ground coriander1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmegpinches ground white pepper3/4 cups sugar3/4 cups honey2 tablespoons butterconfectioners' sugar (optional) See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.
Photos by James Ransom
A New Way to Dinner, co-authored by Food52's founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, is an indispensable playbook for stress-free meal-planning (hint: cook foundational dishes on the weekend and mix and match 'em through the week).
See what other Food52 readers are saying.


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Wetlands restoration not a panacea for Louisiana coast
Counting on wetlands restoration projects to protect storm buffeted infrastructure along the Louisiana Coast is likely to be a "losing battle" that provides "false hope" and prevents endangered communities from clearly planning for their future, says a researcher from Western Carolina University (WCU).
As hurricanes have pounded the Gulf of Mexico this fall, the media has been filled with the words of politicians, policy makers, NGOs and local communities touting the importance of ongoing wetlands restoration projects as long-term storm protection for coastal communities and infrastructure. Unfortunately, there's little science to support this growing belief.
"I think that's a potentially dangerous message" said Robert Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at WCU. "While I think that wetland restoration is a worthy goal, there's almost no scientific evidence that suggests that we will be able to put the wetlands back on the scale and nature needed to reduce storm impacts."
Young is scheduled to present recommendations from a recent white paper, co-authored by 26 leading coastal scientists and engineers, on Tuesday, 7 October, at the 2008 Joint Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, this week in Houston, Texas, USA.
As a hurricane moves toward land, onshore winds push water in front of the storm and cause water levels to rise as the storm makes landfall. This storm surge can range from several to 30-plus feet and, along with the waves that accompany the storm, inflict the greatest damage to infrastructure, Young said.
Wetlands can dampen the effect of storm surge, the problem is that scientists don't fully understand the impact that adding wetlands might have. "In order to predict the impact of wetlands on storm surge, you need to have good storm surge data to understand what happened in the past. But we simply don't have that data," Young said. "It's one of the gaping holes that we have in understanding what's going on at the coast."
The problem is that storm surge is hard to measure. "You can't just go out there and stand with a stick and measure a 30-foot storm surge." There's also a tremendous amount of variability in storm surge height along the shore, variability that isn't reflected in current storm impact models.
Scientists can measure storm meteorology – wind speeds and directions, rainfall and such – but until they can measure the ground effects of storm surge, including how far inland the waves are penetrating, "we'll never be able to say much of anything about storm impact, and we certainly won't be able to calibrate, verify and check the veracity of the models being used."
As a result, the models are flying blind, Young said. Add to this the fact that land loss is happening at such a rate in the Gulf, due to subsidence of the Delta and exacerbated by rising sea levels, that Young fears that the billion-dollar restoration programs planned for the region will do little to maintain the status quo, let alone repair previous damage.
"I'm afraid that over the long term this is a losing battle," Young said. "If the government of the State of Louisiana wants to do its citizens the best service, it needs to begin to understand how it will relocate some of these communities."
Source: Geological Society of America
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Selectmen's News; At their recent meeting the board discussed proposed budgets for the coming year.
Fire Chief, Nick Marique was present to discussed his proposed budget. He explained some of the items he is currently working on such as new education, achievements and other responsibilities he has taken on. Marique noted that he has a basic rescue skill class coming up and is signing up 10 firefighters for this class. He reported that it costs at least $12,456 for four sets of gear for firefighters. He also told the board that he had hired a grant writer to assist the fire department with writing grants in the proper format. The fire department is proposing a 17 percent increase.
Sewer Commissioner, Walter Burnett discussed the sewer department's proposed budget with a 8.5 percent increase.
The town's administration budget was proposed at a negative 14 percent.
The recreation proposed budget was presented with a 1.79 percent increase.
There was some discussion regarding a payroll change to go bi-weekly to cut processing costs.
Community News
VFW Post 8393 is having a 20th annual Toys for Kids fundraiser on Sunday, December 11 beginning at 2 p.m. at the Emma Ramsey Center. The general public is invited, bring a new and unwrapped toy for a boy or girl. Santa Claus will make an appearance passing out gifts for the children and a free photo of his visit with you, compliments of Chris Goodale. Entertainment for the children and adults will be a "Magic Show" by Phillip and Henry Productions. There will be refreshments for everyone and a very profitable auction of gift certificates and item that have been donated. All proceeds will help out local families who need a helping hand to experience joy and happiness for the Christmas Season. For more information call Paul Carlson at 473-2160.
Senior Citizen bingo will be held on Sunday, November 27 at the Emma Ramsey Center. Doors open at noon and games start at 1 p.m. Steamed hot dogs, chips, cookies and soda are available for a small donation. This is a senior citizen program and players must be 60 years or older. The cost is $5 for sixteen games with all money returned to the winners. There is a 50/50 raffle and a special game.
The senior citizens will be taking a trip to Portland, ME on Tuesday, November 29. The bus will leave the Emma Ramsey Center at 8 a.m. There is no charge for transportation. The first stop will be Cabela's in Scarbough and will continue on to the Christmas Tree Shop and to the Hometown Buffet in Portland. For more information or to sign up for this trip, please call 652-4501.
The lighting of the Cr�che and Christmas Tree will be held on Sunday, November 27 beginning at 4 p.m. This event is sponsored by the Milton Women's Club and the recreation department. The local pastor will be on hand to join in the celebration and the women's club will welcome in the season with traditional Christmas Carols. When the caroling is over, journey down to the Emma Ramsey Center for homemade cookies, coffee and milk. Santa Claus will welcome everyone and you will be able to make a holiday ornament for your tree.
Budgets discussed by selectmen
Selectmen's News; At their recent meeting the board discussed proposed budgets for the coming year.