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Monday, September 27, 2010
"Better Lucky than Smart": The Urban Legend of Warren Buffett
Asked by an audience member if returns such as those posted by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chief Executive Officer Warren Buffett…are the product of luck or talent, Taleb [Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of "The Black Swan"] said both played a part.
If given a choice between investing with Buffett and billionaire investor George Soros, Taleb also said he would probably pick the latter.
"I am not saying Buffett isn't as good as Soros," he said. "I am saying that the probability Soros's returns come from randomness is much smaller because he did almost everything: he bought currencies, he sold currencies, he did arbitrages. He made a lot more decisions. Buffett followed a strategy to buy companies that had a certain earnings profile, and it worked for him. There is a lot more luck involved in this strategy."
—Bloomberg Businessweek, September 25, 2010
Far be it for we here at NotMakingThisUp to take on the author of "The Black Swan," which is almost certainly the most timely cautionary thesis ever printed, warning as it did of the higher probability of random, dramatic, unforeseen, global cataclysms than most investors believed possible, just a year before the subprime mortgage crisis triggered a systemic risk of near-death proportions.
But Taleb's comments, reported this week by the alliterively named "Bloomberg Businessweek," during a speech in Montreal—comments that echo earlier statements by Taleb that "Soros has 2 million times more statistical evidence that his results are not chance than Buffett does," whatever that actually means—deserve a quick look, if for no other reason than they are the stuff of urban legend. And it is a legend believed by more people than you might think.
Specifically, the urban legend surrounding Warren Buffett—about whom we took a very clear-eyed look in " Secrets in Plain Sight: Business and Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett" (eBooks on Investing, 2011), including issues never before examined in the extensive literature on Buffett and his investment style—is that Warren Buffett was more lucky than smart.
It is a legend that comes up at least once every time we give a speech. Some skeptical guy (it's always a guy: women love Buffett) who dislikes the personal politics of The Oracle of Omaha and is hoping to find a reason to believe his investment results are a sham, will be sitting there frowning, arms crossed, waiting for a chance to ask a question…and his question will always be along the lines of whether Buffett is really as smart as the masses make him out to be, and isn't most of Buffett's success owed to his luck at coming of age as an investor in the right place (America) at the right time (post-Great Depression), and where does Buffett get off going around lobbying for higher taxes anyway?
Now, Taleb has added a sort of statistical patina to the urban legend of Warren Buffett, by claiming that Buffett's buy-and-hold investment strategy possesses a "randomness," and that this randomness makes his returns suspect.
George Soros, on the other hand, "made a lot more decisions" than Buffett, according to Taleb (trading currencies as well as stocks, and also engaging in arbitrage), which would indicate that Soros's returns are less random, and therefore more due to brains than luck; Buffett's more random, and therefore more due to luck than brains.
The howler here, as anyone who has studied Buffett over the last few decades, is evident immediately, in the line about Buffett making "fewer decisions" in his career—the fallicay being, of course, the notion that buying (or shorting) something is the only act that involves a decision.
For if Warren Buffett has demonstrated anything, it is that deciding not to buy (or short) something is also a decision—and frequently a harder decision to make than writing a trade ticket and going along with the mood of the market.
Indeed, the reason Buffett left New York City for his native Omaha after working with Ben Graham in the 1950s was precisely the issue that, as he once put it, the closer to Wall Street an investor was situated, the more "stimuli" hit the investor, encouraging all sorts of decisions that were not necessarily productive or likely to be profitable.
When asked why he moved back to Omaha, Buffett once said, simply, "It's easier to think here."
And that thinking led to extraordinary results—results that everyone accepts but few people actually grasp.
How good has Buffett been? Well, you can read the graphic facts for yourself in "Secrets in Plain Sight: Business and Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett," but consider that the S&P 500 closed at 89.66 on the day Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway (May 10, 1965) and today stands at 1,148—a 13-fold increase excluding dividends
Meantime, a share of Berkshire Hathaway has risen from $18 that same day to $124,850—a 6,936-fold increase, and purely from price appreciation, since Berkshire doesn't pay dividends.
As for Taleb's charge that Soros is more facile than Buffett for using currencies and arbitrage in his bag of investment tricks ("he did everything"), this actually says more about Taleb's spotty knowledge of Buffett's investment history than it does of Soros' abilities, great though they may be.
For not only has Buffett bought and sold currencies—his U.S. Dollar short early last decade was a money-maker for Berkshire, as was his long position in the Brazilian Real a few years back—but he has bought and sold commodities such as oil and silver, and frequently engaged in billion-dollar arbitrage deals such as RJR Nabisco.
Indeed, Buffett once arbitraged a chocolate maker's stock by selling cocoa beans on the open market, marking his first encounter with the Pritzker family, from whom decades later he purchased, lock-stock-and-barrel, an industrial business—something Soros has never done. So much for Buffett being a mere buy-and-hold equity investor.
Oh, and as far as shorting stocks goes, well, back in his hedge fund days (yes, Buffett ran a hedge fund before taking control of Berkshire) the Oracle of Omaha once borrowed and shorted the entire stock portfolio in Columbia University's endowment.
Lucky? Sure. Smart? Surer.
Jeff Matthews
I Am Not Making This Up
© 2010 NotMakingThisUp, LLC
The content contained in this blog represents only the opinions of Mr. Matthews, who also acts as an advisor: clients advised by Mr. Matthews may hold either long or short positions in securities of various companies discussed in the blog based upon Mr. Matthews' recommendations. This commentary in no way constitutes investment advice, and should never be relied on in making an investment decision, ever. Also, this blog is not a solicitation of business: all inquiries will be ignored. The content herein is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The NotMakingThisUp Book Review: What Ace Said About Jimmy
I hadn't finished reading the Journal story [describing supposed personal peccadilloes of Jimmy Cayne, the then-beleaguered CEO of Bear Stearns] myself when I knew that this was the end…. Did I discuss it with anybody? No. Did I go running around the firm saying he had to go? No, because I don't do those things…
But I knew that nobody believed his denials. Did I actually care whether or not he smoked pot? Here's what I cared about: Bear Stearns, its employees, and its shareholders. I knew that he'd been smoking pot for years. At bridge tournaments I'd seen it myself. Did I ever see him do it in the office? No. Had I heard that he did that? Yes.
—Alan C. ("Ace") Greenberg, The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns.
Wall Street guys, especially traders, love nicknames.
Nobody on the trading floor wants to be called "James," as in James E. Cayne, the former Bear Stearns CEO whose downfall coincided with the firm he helped build.
It's "Jimmy."
And it's not "Jerome" Kohlberg, the LBO pioneer who appears briefly in this book as co-head of Bear Stearns' corporate finance department: it's "Jerry."
Nor did the late "Bernard" Lasker, arbitrage pioneer, mentor to the author of this book, and NYSE chairman during the vicious 1970s bear market, go by "Bernard" any more than Curtis James Jackson III performs as, well, Curtis James Jackson III.
Bernard was "Bunny," and Curtis James Jackson III is "50 Cent."
And nobody but nobody calls Alan C. Greenberg, the author of the The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns and the man most closely associated with that firm in its prime, "Alan."
It's "Ace."
The reason traders on Wall Street go by nicknames, of course, is the same reason Cordozar Calvin Broadus began calling himself Snoop Dogg. It gives them credibility within their profession.
And for Ace Greenberg, that credibility was established early in life, when, like a lot of his peers on Wall Street, he learned the craft of buying and selling not from formal Wall Street training programs: he learned it from his father, who ran clothing stores in Oklahoma.
Indeed, so important was his father's experience in shaping Ace's rise to power in the meritocracy of Wall Street that Greenberg lists five of his father's "truisms" at the end of this book, the very first one being "If you own something you think is bad, sell it today because tomorrow it will be worse"—which applies to stocks and bonds just as well as trousers.
But this book is not merely an instructive look at the humble origins of one of the great individual success stories on Wall Street, nor is it merely an insider's view of one of the most spectacular corporate failures in American financial history.
It is payback.
Not, however, payback against a harsh and uncaring group of rumor-mongering hedge funds that some believe brought down Bear Stearns ("wolf-packs," ex-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson called them.) Indeed, readers will find no mention of the conspiracy theories that swirled in the days and weeks following Bear's collapse—theories picked up and run with, in the main, by ignorant Senators and Congresspersons during the worst of the financial crisis.
In fact, Greenberg accepts the ending of Bear with an almost eerie equanimity throughout the book. He even calls it "our man-made disaster."
But this quality becomes not so eerie as the reader comes to realize that Greenberg had wisely pulled millions, and millions, and millions of dollars out of the firm over the years by selling his shares as its stock kept rising. Indeed, Greenberg's stock selling became a sore point with Jimmy Cayne, who took to ridiculing Greenberg in meetings for "not owning any."
More fool Jimmy Cayne, of course: when Bear Stearns' stock plummeted, Jimmy watched billions evaporate thanks to his lack of foresight.
And Ace delights in detailing that lack of foresight to the nearest million:
One shareholder who didn't wait around for the merger [with JP Morgan] to be consummated was Jimmy, who sold his shares at $10.83, yielding $61.3 million. This outcome entitled him to membership in a rather exclusive club—consisting of individuals who have personally managed to lose more than $1 billion, not on paper but right in the wallet.
Since "Jimmy" was, by then, no longer a Bear Stearns employee, Ace rubs salt in the wound by charging a nickel a share rather than the low flat rate usually offered to insiders:
The trade cost $77,000, rather than the $2,500 maximum commission for employees. As always, I did what I felt was in the best interests of the firm. Nothing personal.
"Nothing personal," writes Ace, when in fact the book is quite personal.
Indeed, the payback here—and Ace begins to detail his displeasure with Jimmy's behavior, both personal and professional, starting around page 100, roughly halfway through the book—is the only thing that drags down the otherwise easy flow of Ace's storytelling.
Invariably, Jimmy ranked very high [in the partnership rankings]. He was a producer, by all means, in a place with a lot of producers….
He could be charming when he wanted to—the technical term would be kissing ass—and he certainly worked hard at cultivating a friendship with me. Not that that ever stopped him when the percentages were announced from complaining that I'd somehow screwed him…
And, there's the infamous "the elevator thing," long a sore point with ex-Bear employees:
Why was it that a single elevator in the lobby had to be reserved for one person [Jimmy Cayne] when we had thousands of employees coming and going all day long?
And the cigar thing:
We had a rule that you couldn't smoke in the building. I used to smoke an after-lunch cigar myself but quit when the city made it illegal. Jimmy kept right at it…
And the golf thing:
The hour of the Hilton financing discussion, it seemed, didn't work for him. And that was why? Because it conflicted with his golf date.
More serious, of course, was the leverage thing, which Ace attributes to Warren Spector's mortgage trading business rather than Jimmy himself:
If we were long $60 billion in mortgages and had $40 billion in short positions, I assumed our exposure was $20 billion. But what if we were long apples and short oranges? Then we weren't necessarily hedged at all, were we? That, alas, to a painful extent proved to be the case.
There are many other such things that set the author's teeth on edge—he delights in rebutting details from William Cohan's book House of Cards, a major source for which appears to have been Jimmy himself—but our favorite is the infamous "China deal" that Jimmy trumpeted in the waning days of Bear's public existence as a sure-fire saving grace for the firm.
The "China deal" was, on the surface, a $1 billion transaction with China CITIC Group, and it was pursued single-mindedly by Jimmy (at least, as Ace tells the story) and announced with much ballyhoo as the answer to the Bear's shrinking cash reserves, despite much skepticism on Wall Street.
And Ace clearly sides with the skeptics:
China CITIC, according to the deal terms, would make a billion-dollar equity investment in us and…[sic] we would make a billion-dollar convertible-debt investment in China CITIC. If the math on that has you stumped, let me help you out. The net dollars headed our way: zero. For many of us, Jimmy's characterization of this as "a groundbreaking alliance" had the unmistakable emperor's-new-clothes ring.
Thus one of Wall Street's oldest and most accomplished veterans makes it clear that corporate CEOs can be just as promotional and self-serving as any of the "rumor-mongering hedge funds" those same CEOs would rather blame for their crisis.
For that alone—and the stories of Wall Street's earlier days, as well as the remarkably dispassionate, clear-eyed and un-misty account of the remarkable demise of a Wall Street firm—the book is worth reading.
Jeff Matthews
I Am Not Making This Up
© 2010 NotMakingThisUp, LLC
The content contained in this blog represents only the opinions of Mr. Matthews, who also acts as an advisor: clients advised by Mr. Matthews may hold either long or short positions in securities of various companies discussed in the blog based upon Mr. Matthews' recommendations. This commentary in no way constitutes investment advice, and should never be relied on in making an investment decision, ever. Also, this blog is not a solicitation of business: all inquiries will be ignored. The content herein is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Here They Go Again: "The Death of Housing"
The stock market may be dragging, but home prices are soaring, fueling a national obsession with real estate. Your house is now your piggy bank.
—"Home Sweet Home," Time Magazine, June 2005
Buying a house is supposed to make us better citizens, better investors and better off. But that American Dream may well be a fantasy.
—"The Case Against Homeownership," Time Magazine, September 2010
Longtime readers of NotMakingThisUp know exactly where we're going with this—or at least the general direction.
But before we get there, let's recap the story so far.
All human beings—and especially those creatures residing on Wall Street—operate on the basis of pattern recognition.
Pattern recognition can be employed in the form of using a computer to analyze second-by-second trading patterns in whatever one happens to trade, looking for profitable ways to buy and sell; or it can be just sitting in a meeting listening to a CEO talk, keeping an ear out for things that remind you of similar, past investment ideas that worked or didn't work.
And one of the things that Wall Street types pay attention to when they look for patterns is something called "Cover Story Syndrome," which is a shorthand way of saying that when investment themes get so popular they appear on the cover of a major news magazine—a dying breed, but the basic idea is still there—then that investment theme is, by definition, too popular to succeed, and maybe popular enough to start betting against.
It is a pattern that occurs more often than you might think.
The Cover Story of all Cover Stories, as any investor with grey hair will tell you, is the fabled "Death of Equities" BusinessWeek cover story from August 13, 1979 ("How inflation is destroying the stock market"), which hit newsstands smack-dab at a market bottom—and indeed helped create that bottom by giving readers the intellectual stimulus to finally bail out.
Fast-forward to June 2005, the peak of those balmy home-buying days of Housing Bubble: Time Magazine publishes a front-cover story on the joys—at least, investment-wise—of owning your own home.
Here's how we began our report on that Cover Story:
I bought Time Magazine today for the first time since…probably since 9/11, when I bought every newspaper and magazine available with a cover story on the World Trade Center attacks. The relevance of a weekly "news magazine" these days is, after all, right up there with "Book-of-the-Month" clubs and the Sears Catalogue.
Nevertheless, I bought this new issue of Time Magazine because the front cover is titled "Home Sweet Home" (stamped in large letters, the "S" converted into a Dollar sign) with an illustration showing a man covetously hugging a house. The sub-title reads: "Why we're going gaga over real estate."
I bought it, quite simply, because this Time Magazine is as good a "cover story" kind of market-mania, surely-we-are-approaching-a-top indicator as I have ever seen.
—"The Last, Best Hope For Prosperity," JeffMatthewsIsNotMakingThisUp, June 2005.
Well, five years later, they're at it again: the editors of Time have given us another Cover Story—this one being possibly the gloomiest assessment of the worth of owning a home ever to hit the press:
Rethinking Homeownership: Why owning a home may no longer make economic sense.
Five years ago, Time's "Home Sweet Home" cover showed a drawing of a man hugging a house; this summer's Time cover shows a gloomy color photo of an empty-looking house in an empty-looking development, baking under a hot summer sun, with not a human being, or a dog, or cat or a tree or a bike or a car or a bird in sight.
Five years ago, Time pushed the benefits of owning a piece of the dream ("Real estate isn't so much about nesting today as it is about nest feathering"), offered a trivia "test" with questions such as "Which of these entertainers has sold at least seven homes in the past 10 years?" and declared—and we are not making this up—the following:
It's about the giddy tabulation of how many plasma TVs your house's appreciation could buy and the embarrassment of feeling too poor for your neighborhood as houses around you are torn down for McMansions…—Time Magazine, 2005
Now, that same magazine—with prices down, oh, 25% at least from those "giddy" years—offers up gloomy anecdotes and a stark litany of the horrors of that very same Bubble it once celebrated:
Yet by idealizing the act of buying a home, we have ignored the downsides. In the bubble years, lending standards slipped…. And we ignored longer-term phenomena too. Homeownership contributed to the hollowing out of cities and kept renters out of the best neighborhoos. It fed America's overuse of energy and oil. It made it more difficult for those who had lost a job to find another. Perhaps worst of all, it helped us become casually self-deceiving…—Time Magazine, 2010
Yes, the same editors who five years ago gave us the self-deceiving picture of a no-risk, no-money-down housing bonanza at the absolute peak of the Housing Bubble today lecture about the fallout from those days.
Now, there is one other pattern that tends to shows itself in Cover Story articles of the type Wall Street finds useful in marking peaks and valleys in the landscape of investing, and it is this: the same Cover Story itself invariably contains certain facts that a detached reader would say heralds changes to come.
In the 2005 "Home Sweet Home" article, for example, Time's editors included a number of happy charts and graphs which were really not so happy, if you looked closely at the data. Here's how we described some of that data:
However, as in all manias and bubbles, lurking within the happy graphics are some potentially disconcerting statistics, if you really look at the Time Magazine charts.
They show, for example, that the number of second homes purchased in America stayed within a range of 300,000 to 400,000 a year from 1989 to 2002—then suddenly doubled to over 800,000 in 2003 and broke 1 million in 2004. Home equity loans have also spiked, at the same time that rates appear to have bottomed and are moving higher.
And in several non-sexy, non-condo, non-second-home-inflated states, mortgage foreclosure rates have tripled.
But you will not read about all that in the article itself, for Time readers presumably do not want to read about anything except how much fun this house flipping thing is.
—"The Last, Best Hope For Prosperity," JeffMatthewsIsNotMakingThisUp, June 2005.
And, indeed, in this summer's cover story, Time's editors have done it again:
Until February, Star [one Star Korajkic, described as "one of America's newest homeowners"] lived in a rented apartment in Burlington, Vt., with her husband Danijal and daughter Alina, 6. Now the family lives in a modest Cape Cod, which they own. Danijal works 11-hour shifts as a truck driver, and Star works two jobs in order to make the mortgage, but the sacrifice, she says, is worth it. "It's amazing. We can do whatever we want… We can live a normal and nice life."
—Time Magazine, 2010
So it is that, like all really good—and by that we mean really bad—Cover Stories, "Rethinking Homeownership" contains the seeds of a housing recovery in the very same paragraphs it declares the Death of Housing.
Jeff Matthews
I Am Not Making This Up
© 2010 NotMakingThisUp, LLC
The content contained in this blog represents only the opinions of Mr. Matthews, who also acts as an advisor: clients advised by Mr. Matthews may hold either long or short positions in securities of various companies discussed in the blog based upon Mr. Matthews' recommendations. This commentary in no way constitutes investment advice, and should never be relied on in making an investment decision, ever. Also, this blog is not a solicitation of business: all inquiries will be ignored. The content herein is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author.


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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's ability to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to future generations relies on its collections. The museum has been on a 20th anniversary four-city tour to engage the public and gather artifacts that tell survivors' stories in vivid, lasting and personal ways.
The museum held a historic gathering of Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans in Washington for a national marking of its 20th anniversary.
The road trip started in Boca Raton, Florida, and continued in Los Angeles and New York. Now we're in Chicago, where Sunday, June 9, the museum will hold a daylong public event with many opportunities to engage with museum resources, people, and programs, and pay tribute to local Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans.
In Los Angeles, we met a woman who was born in 1939, after her father was deported from Vienna, Austria, to the concentration camps, where he spent the next five years.
Her mother and grandmother worked for the Jewish community and were never deported from Vienna. This woman spent her childhood in the hospital of the Viennese Jewish community, where her mother managed to survive and keep them from being deported.
It was amazing that three generations of Jewish women managed to survive Nazi occupation. It is extremely unusual. They had to care for themselves, surviving day to day, and care for their very young child. It seems unfathomable they made it.
In New York, a family donated letters and artifacts from their uncle and his wife, who were on the S.S. St. Louis, a ship that in 1939 left Hamburg, Germany, bound for the Americas with about 900 Jews aboard fleeing the Nazis. The were refused entry into Cuba and the United States and headed back to Europe, where many of them eventually wound up in the hands of the Nazis. The uncle and his wife were deported to concentration camps. The wife survived; the husband perished.
When the survivors and other witnesses to the crimes of Nazi Germany are no longer able to tell their stories, it will be the collections — artifacts, documents, pictures, films — that will help transmit this history and its lessons.
That's why we're racing to rescue the evidence of the Holocaust by working in 40 countries to preserve these materials.
To date our collections include more than 17,250 objects, 68.1 million pages of documentation, 135 million digital images from the International Tracing Service, 87,500 photographs and images and more than 1,030 hours of video footage. We expect our collections to double in size over the next decade.
The Museum's 20th anniversary is bringing Holocaust history to communities nationwide. Each tour stop featured programming that explores the history of the Holocaust and looks at why it remains so relevant for us today.
Even if people cannot attend a tour stop or do not have collections to donate, people can still get involved. The Museum has developed 20 actions that anyone, anywhere can take to help preserve Holocaust memory and apply its lessons today. Visit http://www.ushmm.org/support/ to see how you can participate. You can also see highlights from the previous tour stops and the National Tribute to Holocaust Survivors and World War II veterans.
We will continue to examine issues like the dangers of hate and indifference, the threats of continuing mass violence and genocide and what we can do about them. We want people to understand this history and move from asking «What would I have done?» to «What will I do?»
Suzy Snyder is curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She joins Pamela Brown on CNN «Sunday Morning» at 7:15 a.m. to talk about the museum's 20th Anniversary National Tour and the challenge to collect artifacts before time runs out.

subset: commoncrawl


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John Sheardown, an unflappable Canadian diplomat in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis who helped shelter six American "house guests" until they were secretly shuttled out of the country, died Dec. 30 at a hospital in Ottawa. He was 88.
He had Alzheimer's disease, said his wife, Zena Sheardown.
In the events that became known as the "Canadian Caper," Mr. Sheardown was serving officially as the top immigration official at the Canadian Embassy in Tehran. Recounting the 1979 ordeal, historian Robert Wright wrote that the portly, ruddy-faced Mr. Sheardown "exuded the sort of quiet but unyielding resolve that made him a natural leader in a crisis."
The strife began when an Iranian mob seized the U.S. Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, and took 52 Americans hostage in retaliation for Western support for the recently deposed shah. As was retold in the Ben Affleck film "Argo" (2012), six Americans managed to evade the hostage takers.
Mr. Sheardown became a vital — but necessarily discreet — point of contact for the desperate Americans seeking sanctuary. When the mission proved successful, he was often overshadowed in the public imagination by more prominent government officials.
He figured in a 1981 Canadian television film, "Escape from Iran," and later in books as a loyal and daring supporting player. More noticeably featured were Canadian officials including Prime Minister Joseph Clark, Foreign Minister Flora MacDonald and Ken Taylor, the gregarious ambassador to Iran lauded by Time magazine as the rescue plot's "mastermind and instant hero."
Most recently, Victor Garber portrayed Taylor in "Argo." Mr. Sheardown was not a character in the film.
But as Kathleen Stafford, one of the American "house guests," recalled in an interview Tuesday, Mr. Sheardown was "a lifesaver" at a time when she and her colleagues feared for their safety.
In the days after the U.S. Embassy takeover, the six fugitive Americans assumed that the turmoil would subside quickly. They hid in the homes of their abducted colleagues and spent brief periods in other embassies, but tensions continued to build in the city and their security became ever more precarious.
Robert Anders, another of the American diplomats seeking haven, knew Mr. Sheardown and called him to request official protection.
"Why didn't you call sooner?" Mr. Sheardown replied.
Five of the six Americans arranged passage to the Sheardown residence in the suburbs north of Tehran and arrived on Nov. 10. Mr. Sheardown, who had helped obtain permission from Ottawa, phoned Taylor to say that the "house guests" had arrived. They were soon followed by the sixth American, Henry Lee Schatz, who had been hiding at the Swedish Embassy.
The Taylors took Stafford and her husband, Joseph. The other four — Anders, Schatz, and Mark and Cora Lijek — remained with the Sheardowns.
"We were under surveillance," Mr. Sheardown once told an interviewer. "We had tanks at one end of the street and a fellow that walked up and down. They were always suspicious."
During the two months they quartered the Americans, the Sheardowns took creative precautions to avoid tipping off the authorities. To feed the extra mouths — especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas — they bought groceries at different stores to disguise the amount of food consumed at the home.
Mr. Sheardown took garbage with him on the route to work, to camouflage the amount of refuse they were generating. The CIA arranged preparations for the Americans' departure, which became urgent as the Iranians erected roadblocks around the city and rumors of the house guests spread among Western media.
On Jan. 28, 1980, the six Americans were spirited out of the country with fake Canadian passports and disguised as members of a Hollywood film crew. Schatz once told The Washington Post that his suitcase had been stuffed with strategic items, including a T-shirt advertising Canada's Molson Ale.
Soon afterward, the Sheardowns also left the country. The remaining American captives from the embassy were held in Iranian custody for almost another year — until Jan. 21, 1981, after Ronald Reagan's inauguration as president.
John Vernon Sheardown was born in Sandwich, now part of Windsor, Ontario, on Oct. 11, 1924. At 18, he joined the Canadian air force and served in Europe during World War II. He once broke both legs after jumping from a plane at low altitude on a training mission over England.
After the war, Mr. Sheardown spent several years in the Canadian army before joining the immigration service in the early 1960s and later the foreign service. He retired by the early 1990s.
His first marriage, to Kathleen Benson, ended in divorce. In 1975, he married Zena Khan. Besides his wife, of Ottawa, survivors include two sons from his first marriage, Robin Sheardown and John Sheardown Jr.; two sisters; and six grandchildren. A daughter from his first marriage, Jackie Hunter, died in 2007.
In the aftermath of the Iranian crisis, Taylor and Mr. Sheardown received the Order of Canada, one of their country's highest civilian honors. Mr. Sheardown waged a public and ultimately successful campaign to recognize his wife with the same award. Patricia Taylor, the ambassador's wife, also received the prize.
"The men went to the office every day," Mr. Sheardown told the New York Times in 1981. "The wives had a 24-hour responsibility. What we did was a normal extension of our functions. What they did was extraordinary."


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Part-time work has seen a considerable swing since the recession (see earlier Roundup post). Different types of workers also saw varying fluctuations in part-time work. Take blue collar versus white collar workers, for example.
The Current Population Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, categorizes 11 major occupations by the color of their collar: Two are white collar and nine are blue collar (see table, at bottom). As a result, blue collar jobs currently make up a little more than 70 percent of all part-time jobs (see Chart 1).
Roughly one-quarter of all blue collar jobs are part time, a ratio that changed modestly during the recession, but has been declining (see Chart 2). Levels of "part-time jobs for economic reasons"—a category described by the CPS as "involuntary"—are also much higher as a share of the labor force compared with white collar positions (see Chart 3).
The share of blue collar workers at part-time jobs involuntarily rose steeply during the recession and remained quite elevated until last year, when levels began to fall quite rapidly and are now near prerecession levels. A similar pattern exists for the share of white collar workers who are part time involuntarily, although this share is still somewhat elevated.
Look for future fedgazette Roundup blog posts on more part-time job trends in Ninth District states, as well as an in-depth look at Ninth District job growth since the recession in the July issue of the fedgazette.


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Broken wires are about to be a thing of the past.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed elastic, self-healing wires that could be used in technologies that are exposed to high-stress environments.
They made these wires by first creating tiny tunnels in a self-healing polymer sheath. They then filled the tunnels with a liquid metal alloy made of indium and gallium, which they used to make a liquid metal wire in an elastic sheath.
If the wire gets cut, the liquid metal oxidizes and forms a skin to prevent leakage. When the severed edges of the wire are put back together, the liquid metal is able to reconnect and the sheath re-forms a molecular bond.
"We're also excited about this work because it allows us to create more complex circuits and rewire existing circuits using nothing more than a pair of scissors by cutting and reconfiguring the wires so that they connect in different ways," Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of the report, said in a press release.
Check out a video of the process below.


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Espresso Bound Sisal Rug
- Overview
Made of naturally tough and durable sisal, this rug is finished with a stain-resistant border.
- Handcrafted of natural sisal by artisan rug makers.
- Durable fiber is ideal for high-traffic areas.
- Use with our Rug Pad (sold separately).
- Catalog / Internet Only.
- Made of imported materials. Cut and sewn in the U.S.A.
- Dimensions & Care
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Category: Beowulf & Grendel News Posted by: admin Bringing the first epic poem in the English language to the screen was an ambitious endeavour, so it required a director with a deep passion for the Scandinavian mythological tale to make a picture like Beowulf & Grendel, and who better than Icelandic-born Canadian filmmaker Sturla Gunnarsson (Rare Birds)?
Beowulf & Grendel: Sturla Gunnarssons epic poem
Article Date: September 1, 2006 | Publication: Scene Magazine | Author: Angela Baldassarre
Source: [url]http://www.scenemagazine.com[/ulr]
The oral tale Beowulf was put into writing sometime between 700 and 1000 AD, in an English that is impossible to decipher for non-scholars. The film centres on Danish King Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgard) who kills an evil troll but spares his dimwitted son, Grendel, who takes off with dads head. Years later Grendel is back, this time taking revenge on his fathers death by killing many of Hrothgars subjects. This prompts the drunken and depressed king to hire Beowulf (Gerard Butler) to track down the killer and get rid of Grendel.
Scene talked to Sturla Gunnarsson about Beowulf & Grendel.
Tell me about your passion for the Beowulf poem.
On a very personal level, this poem represents the place where my tribal culture and my adopted culture intersect a Norse saga that lives with integrity in the English language. I grew up on this kind of story and had been toying with the idea of making an Icelandic saga movie, but could never get past the feeling that it would lose its integrity if it were translated to English. And I felt that doing a film in Icelandic would limit the audience (The Passion of the Christ notwithstanding). So when Andrew (Rai Berzins, the screenwriter) suggested Beowulf it was a big aha moment. Then when I re-read it (having struggled with it in high school), I got very excited. It is such an elemental story and a great ripping yarn. I got very excited both by what it is and what it represents, because it really is the prototype of the hero-myth in our culture and were living in a time, with the rise of warrior culture and religious fundamentalisms, when I think its important to re-examine that myth.
How did the idea of turning it into a movie come about?
I had just finished a film collaboration with Andrew Rai Berzins and it had been painless, which is a rare occurrence in this business, so we were casting about for something else to do together. We tossed around a few ideas that were doable in the Canadian context, but were not inspiring, so I said, to hell with whats financially possible, what do you really want to do? He said Beowulf and the penny dropped. At first everyone said we were crazy and they said, this is Canada, we do movies with three people in a room talking, but as the script took shape, people began to see the potential and the project started picking up momentum.
This is a massive tale. How did you decide which part to concentrate on?
The poem spans 50 years and has countless digressions, so we had to make a big choice. The idea from the start was to focus on the relationship between Beowulf and Grendel and to make Grendel a creature of the natural world, as opposed to being the mythological spawn of Cain that he is in the poem. The idea was to take the story back to its sixth century pagan roots. Once you eliminate the dualistic Christian morality in which Grendel is simply an embodiment of evil and Beowulf an embodiment of virtue, it becomes a much more complex and, to me, more interesting tale. The essence of it is our primal fear of the unknown and it speaks to the way we make monsters out of that which we dont understand.
How difficult was it finding financing to make this?
Very difficult. It took several years and the cobbling together of a Canada/Iceland/UK treaty co-production, with multi-source financing in each country. The financing didnt actually close until after the film was shot, so the production was hanging by a thread every step of the way.
Was shooting in Iceland always your intention?
Yes. I was born in Iceland and this landscape has been in my consciousness ever since I can remember. Its a powerful, primordial landscape and the elements dwarf all human endeavour. When youre on it, you begin to understand a culture in which the gods are embodiments of natural forces. The minute Andrew suggested Beowulf I booked flights to Iceland for Andrew to soak it up before he began writing the screenplay.
You have a great cast. How did you manage?
Beowulf was the biggest challenge. We needed an actor who is unequivocally masculine, who can swing a sword and looks good in chain mail but who can also chart the characters inner journey, his doubts, his growing awareness that his quest is not entirely righteous but who has no choice but to follow his destiny. The minute I saw Gerard in Lara Croft and Timeline I knew he was the guy, so I flew to New York where Dear Frankie was having its premiere and met with him. He liked the script instantly but his management needed a little more convincing. I think we finally sealed the deal when his agent came to Iceland and we exposed him to some of that notorious Reykjavik nightlife and then took him out to our locations to show him what we were on about. Stellan was always my first choice for Hrothgar he is a Viking and he is one of the most powerful actors alive but the terms of our co-production treaty didnt allow us to cast outside of the co-producing countries, so it took a long time and a lot of jigs and reels before I was even allowed to offer him the part. Once I was able to do that, he read the script, called me, we talked for 10 minutes and he said he was in. Sarah [Polley] loves Iceland and responded very strongly to the script, I think, because Selma represents kind of an evolved, female consciousness and also, as she said because I get to get f***ed by a troll. Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson, who plays Grendel is Icelands leading man and a very powerful and physical actor. I needed someone who could express Grendels full range of emotions, his rage, his pain, his sense of humour, his morality, without a single word of dialogue. I asked him to read the script but didnt tell him what part I wanted him to look at. He instantly identified with Grendel and from then on it was hard to imagine anybody else in the role. What was the most difficult part of making this film?
Probably the most difficult thing about making the film was working with a financial gun to my head every moment of every day. The 160K winds, flying rocks, horizontal rain and logistical nightmares were are manageable what was difficult was knowing that we were on the verge of being shut down at any moment because the financing hadnt closed, and still going out every morning to inspire the troops and lead the charge.
Now that youve dissected the poem, are you still in love with it or has the passion subsided?
Lets just say its not at my bedside table at the moment, though I will likely return to it sometime in the future.
What are you working on now?
Ive just finished a four-hour Canada/UK mini-series called Above and Beyond which will be on CBC in the fall. Its a WW2 story about the first guys who ever flew the North Atlantic in winter to deliver the planes that turned the tide in the battle of Britain.
�2006 Scene Communications
Category: Beowulf & Grendel News
Posted by: admin
Bringing the first epic poem in the English language to the screen was an ambitious endeavour, so it required a director with a deep passion for the Scandinavian mythological tale to make a picture like Beowulf & Grendel, and who better than Icelandic-born Canadian filmmaker Sturla Gunnarsson (Rare Birds)?


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Succession planning importance of a comprehensive approach
As a business moves through its natural lifecycle and evolves, it faces many challenges along the way. The challenge of survival during the start-up phase is followed by the many challenges associated with growth. As a result, owners are usually dealing with the day-to-day requirements of running their business and overlook or defer succession planning "until tomorrow."
Ignoring or repeatedly putting off this important task can eventually lead to an organization's demise. Less than one third of businesses survive the transition from the first to the second generation — and even fewer make it past that. Planning and assembling the proper team is an important part of survival, success and sustainability.
The first step in succession planning is for the owners to recognize and accept that a succession plan is, in fact, needed. Not all businesses need a succession plan: Only those that have a long-term perspective with the desire to provide long-term employment opportunities to employees and meaningful value to their customers need apply.
Many people are uncomfortable discussing topics like aging, death and financial affairs, and these issues often become more difficult when considering the relationships and emotions tied to family dynamics. When succession is dealt with in urgent situations only, the results are often very poor. When the owners of a business can get to a point of acceptance — and have sufficient time, the development of a multi-faceted plan can begin.
Many succession plans focus on only one part of the transition; these plans are usually doomed to fail. A more comprehensive or holistic approach will greatly increase the odds of success. A comprehensive plan should address the financial issues, the management issues and the numerous non-financial issues of succession. Ownership succession, management succession and leadership development are critical. In addition, there may be a need to consider changing an organization's business model due to technological improvements, industry innovations or the specific skill sets of the next generation.
Financial issues affect the business, the departing owners and the new owners. If the business is going to fund the buy-out of the former owners, an analysis needs to be performed to determine if the business will still be able to thrive, given its new repurchase obligations. These obligations can come from deferred compensation plans, ESOPs, redemptions and other mechanisms. If the plan handicaps the organization's future capability for growth and strategic change, then it does not serve all of the needs of an effective plan. (Tax planning strategies will have a significant impact in this area, as well.) The plan also needs to meet the financial objectives of the selling shareholders. If the transition does not provide the needed cash flows to the departing owners, it will obviously not be feasible. Finally, the plan needs to be acceptable for the new owners. It cannot require the new owners to pay out cash flows to the former owners that are of an unreasonable amount or length of time.
The transition of management is also vital to the organization's success. The new management team should be identified through careful analysis of individual capabilities. Simply plugging people in because they are family members or the "next in line" will often lead to a poorly managed business. Too often a second-generation family member inherits the reins when they do not have the capability (or drive) to effectively lead the organization into the future. Changes in management from one generation to the next can also cause dramatic shifts in the culture of the organization that can lead to negative outcomes. Again, identifying the target managers early will provide time to mentor and facilitate the transition. The successor managers require time for learning and time to recover from mistakes that may be made. If there are no mistakes made, there were no large chances taken.
There are also several non-financial issues that must be considered in succession planning. These are often most important to the founders of the organization. The business is usually an extension of the owners; their identities are tied to each other. After years of hard work and sacrifice to build their enterprise, the owners need to know that what they have built will not be destroyed. The owners may also have a familial relationship with their employees. Some employees will have been there a long time and will have helped build the business; the founders want to make sure these people are taken care of.
Another possible issue of concern relates specifically to businesses in which the owners have several children who may or may not be active in the business. Navigating the issues of fairness among siblings, while recognizing the considerable contributions of some over others, is often challenging. When this is added to the dynamics of estate and wealth planning on the part of the owners, additional issues may need to be taken into consideration.
Planning for the effective transition of a business is a process that often is neglected or addressed haphazardly. When this approach is taken, the results of one action may appear to address succession but cause significant problems in other areas. For this reason, it is best to work with a multi-disciplinary team of experts who recognize all of the key areas surrounding a good succession plan. They need to ask questions, learn about the business and its owners, and work with them to formulate a plan that meets the challenges of successfully transitioning to the next generation.
Eric Larson is the Partner-In-Charge of Beene Garter's Business Valuation Practice; Carol Hubbard is the Partner-In-Charge of the Audit Department.


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Building Africa bloc by bloc
Monday June 20 2011
One of the most persistent images of Africa is that of a fragmented continent whose nation states originate from the Western "scramble" for colonies in the 19th century. The recent initiation of negotiations for a Cape-to-Cairo Grand Free Trade Area will reposition Africa as a major player on the global trade scene.
The grand free trade area will cover 26 countries with a combined GDP of $875 billion and a combined population of 700 million. This is a significant market, with a single economic space whose systemic benefits will be larger than the sum of the three regional economic communities.
It will be more attractive to foreign investors and stimulate large-scale production that will in turn help to lower the price of manufactured goods. It is estimated that exports among the 26 member countries increased from $7 billion in 2000 to $32 billion in 2011, while imports grew from $9 billion to $35 billion over the same period. This phenomenal increase was spurred by the free trade area initiatives of the three regional blocs.
Strong trade performance, when well designed — for instance, by promoting small and medium enterprises that produce goods or services — can assist the achievement of the core objectives of eradicating poverty and hunger, promoting social justice and public What is more, the more we trade with each other, the less likely we are to engage in war.
The speed at which leaders have moved to start negotiations has been equally phenomenal. The process started in 2008 when heads of state of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in Kampala and called for negotiations to start as a matter of urgency.
The grand trade area will build on three pillars: market integration; infrastructure expansion; and industrial development. The formal negotiating process established an institutional framework and process to be followed. This includes a summit of heads of state, a council of ministers, sectoral ministerial committees and a negotiations forum. The negotiations will be conducted in two phases. The first phase (lasting up to one year) covers trade in goods (including tariff liberalisation, rules of origin, Customs co-operation, non-tariff barriers, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, and dispute settlement).
The second (lasting up to five years) covers trade-related issues (including trade in services, intellectual property rights, competition policy, trade development, and competitiveness).
The agreement will be signed at the end of the first phase, and the second phase will be a built-in agenda for further negotiations. Strong public awareness programmes have been mounted for stakeholders including parliamentarians, the business community, educational institutions, civil society, and development partners.
One of the key limiting factors to intra-Africa trade is infrastructure — energy, transport, irrigation and telecommunication. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, is the same size as Western Europe while its total paved road network is equivalent to that of Bahrain. DRC's ability to effectively participate in the free trade area will depend on how fast it ramps up infrastructure construction and maintenance.
The continent will need nearly $500 billion over the next decade to meet its infrastructure needs. This factor alone is likely to define Africa's diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. Countries that have strong standing capacity to help build infrastructure will emerge as natural partners with Africa. Conversely, countries that want to help shape the future Africa as defined by Africans should be thinking about how to engage the continent through engineering and technology.
Over the decades, large infrastructure projects have earned a bad name as breeding grounds for corruptions, drains on national coffers and threats to the environment. These concerns will need to be addressed. The region will need to adopt smart procurement practices that are based on new performance standards in these areas. It is also an opportunity for the continent to start exploring new technologies and materials for use in infrastructure projects. These investments will also need to take into account possible impacts of climate change on infrastructure.
The anticipated infrastructure investments also offer Africa the best opportunity to build up its engineering capabilities directly through project design, execution and maintenance. Dedicated technical institutes can now be directly linked to major energy regional energy, transportation, irrigation and telecommunications projects.
Such specialised universities will have the opportunity to combine theoretical training with practical work through experiential learning. This approach will also help to diversify higher education approaches without the pressure of seeking to reform existing universities. Some of them will opt to follow new models while others will continue to serve traditional human resource markets.
Examples of such universities already exist in Africa and other parts of the world. Egypt, Kenya and Ghana have universities dedicated to the telecoms sector. Malaysia pioneered an infrastructure university college inspired by the needs of the Ministry of Public Works. China has a telecommunications university and South Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology was incubated by a public iron and steel corporation. There is no shortage of models to learn from.
This logic of university formation is not limited to infrastructure projects. Africa's diverse exports such as minerals and agricultural commodities are associated with long value chains that can provide adequate material for curriculum development, innovation in pedagogy and diversity in the location of universities. Coffee, chocolate, tea, roses, copper and diamond universities are just examples of those waiting to be created.
The combined investment in infrastructure and technical training will provide a strong basis for fostering technology-based enterprises with the inner dynamism needed to propel economic prosperity. The emergence of such enterprises will in turn stimulate innovation in the financial sector, leading to the emergence of venture funding activities.
Africa is entering uncharted territory with only a few year' experience of managing regional trade affairs. The good news is that it can draw from the experiences of existing regional bodies to advance its agenda. The bad news is that there is no systematic mechanism for training regional integration professionals.
The case for creating a graduate School of Regional Integration is even stronger. Africa is positioning itself to use trade to fight against poverty through trade and regional integration. But doing so without a school of regional integration is like preparing to go to war armed only with a doctrine but without the benefits of a military academy.
The map of Africa as a hopeless collection of failing post-colonial economies is being redrawn before our very eyes. Credit should go to African leaders for their stubborn refusal to accept the future as predicted by others but to seek to change it. As they say, for Africa, the future is not what it used to be.
Professor Calestous Juma teaches at Harvard Kennedy School and is author of The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2011) Twitter: @calestous


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Huckabee hosts a show on Fox News and did interview Bono at the end of last year and last night he threw out Bono's name with the following comments. Hum, are we sure Bono would support such comments ? - No word from Bono's camp.
"Sometimes — sometimes we get so close to the picture, we really can't see it clearly. I've had the privilege of working with Bono for the past few years in the One Campaign to fight AIDS and hunger and disease around the world. Bono is an Irishman and a great humanitarian. And I remember him telling me of his admiration for America. He said, 'America's more than just a country. We are an idea.' And he reminded me that we are an exceptional nation with an extraordinary history who owes it to the generations who are coming after us to leave them with an extraordinary legacy."


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Children in Dubai who catch the bus to school could soon be carrying satellite tracking devices so that parents and the authorities know where they are.
The personal tracking cards will alert a control centre when the kids get on or off a school bus and mums and dads will be able to log on to a computer to check kids' location.
The new system, 'Smart School Bus', invented by vehicle tracking company SamTech, is being considered by Dubai authorities.
CEO Samir Abdulhadi told 7DAYS: "People are not sending their children to schools on the bus because they think it is not safe. The tracking system was previously for cars but now it enables you to track everything that moves, even your kid."
Parents will get SMS messages when the bus is about to arrive in the morning and another when it is time to meet the bus after school.
In 2010, a Dubai mum claimed that three Indian men raped her four-year-old daughter who was the last child on the bus. The men were found not guilty. Smart school buses will have video cameras on board and footage will be available to be viewed if necessary.
Abdulhadi said: "Footage can be presented to the police or RTA. It is there for prevention and protection." He added: "We have completed a pilot scheme in conjunction with the RTA and three schools."
Using the new system, drivers will use a barcode scanner to confirm they have checked the fuel level, oil, tyres, lights, wipers and the A/C before each journey.
The bus will also have state-of-the-art anti-theft devices and a speed regulator. Real-time GPS tracking and an emergency panic button will mean emergency services can quickly be at the scene of any incident.
Dubai British School principal Mark Ford said he would support the system. He added: "Any communication to parents to keep them updated on the whereabouts of their child will go a long way to reassure parents about their child's safety. If parents feel more comfortable with children using school buses, more parents will use them. This will have a huge impact on traffic on and around school sites, which can only be a positive thing."
Do you think the tracking devices are a good idea or is it a step too far? Share your comments with us below!
Via SyndiGate.info
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I am pleased to announce the Recorded A Cappella Review Board's Picks of 2013. Congratulations to all the groups selected!
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Tight Game, Good Series
I think my blog-mates have expressed a great sense of relief in seeing a quality start. The Giants (and Nats) played error-free ball today. Gonzalez was dealing, tough not to see the Giants hit, but seeing good pitching made up for it. Jeez, what is with this Harper guy? He's good, and so are the Nats, in spite of the fact that they have stumbled out of the gate a bit. The Giants have already beaten them more than they did all of 2012. The Giants do not play tomorrow. That allows them to start Matt and Madison on normal rest without another starter and gives Tim and Barry an extra day, then they will be on a 5th day next time around. No real travel either. So far, Matt and Madison have reacted well to the friendly enclave of ATT Park. Let's show the Rockies some of the Giants that was missing at Cuurs.
5 comments:
- M.C. O'Connor said...
Yeah, it's always better when the ro' puts together quality starts. Rack up those innings, lads. I love watching this club. I've never been so relaxed and confident with a Giants team. You know that they will always bounce back and that they will always have a chance.
All knotted up among three teams in the West: SF/CO/AZ 26-21.
- Wed May 22, 06:45:00 PM PDT
- nomisnala said...
The guys that made the difference in a close game on Tuesday, did not start on Wednesday. I guess they needed a rest. Supposedly a one day rest on Thursday is not enough. Vogey sparked the rally with his one armed cheer.
- Wed May 22, 09:10:00 PM PDT
- M.C. O'Connor said...
I like that. I'm going to start "one-arming" when I cheer for the Giants.
You have to love Bumgarner. Here's a bit from Baggs:
Did the pitchers have any kind of meeting to remind themselves what was expected of them?
"No," Bumgarner said. "There's no need to say stuff we already know."
- Thu May 23, 06:36:00 AM PDT
- Brother Bob said...
Scutaro's 19 game hitting streak ended when the game ended. Isn't he great? You could say that he was THE difference last season.
- Thu May 23, 08:23:00 AM PDT
Scutaro's streak ended when he took a walk to push Pagan to second, which resulted in the tie score.
- Thu May 23, 09:13:00 AM PDT


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WORCESTER — Holden native Maryanna Owoc, a senior at Worcester State University, took the stage at North High School Tuesday and described how she has done work at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Institute and has even performed surgeries on mice.
The packed house of 400 students from North, Doherty Memorial, Burncoat and South High Community schools gave that a mixed response but seemed impressed.
"Your futures aren't fixed," Ms. Owoc said. "Take four years of math, take four years of science, so that when you get to college, you can take advantage of all the opportunities you didn't even know existed before."
The event, which featured five college students, was part of Go Public!, a campaign by the state Department of Higher Education to build interest in state colleges and universities, such as Worcester State, Quinsigamond Community College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In Worcester, the Go Public! campaign coincides with changing high school graduation requirements designed to help students get into those schools.
While community colleges like Quinsigamond and Mount Wachusett are open enrollment, state universities have higher minimum requirements than what Worcester seniors will need to graduate this year.
The main shortfall at the moment is two years of foreign language.
But the state is increasing its admission requirements. By the time this year's high school sophomores are applying to state universities, they'll need four years of math. The class two years behind them will also need two lab courses among their three science courses.
Worcester public schools are changing their graduation requirements starting with this year's high school freshmen, the class of 2017, and they'll meet or exceed those state university requirements. The new requirements add a fourth year of math, two years of the same foreign language, a world history course, a course in the arts, five additional core courses of the student's choosing and a physical education course per year.
Only 4.6 percent of the class of 2013 would have met those requirements, but the biggest shortfall was physical education classes, according to David A. Perda, Worcester public schools' chief accountability officer.
Statewide, it's hard to know what percentage of high schools require four years of math and three of lab science, as the state universities will eventually require, but more and more high schools are doing so, said J.C. Considine, a spokesman for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
If students want to get into engineering, management or computer science at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, there are more specific requirements, like algebra 1 and 2, geometry and calculus or trigonometry. Engineering applicants must also have chemistry and physics classes on their record.
Worcester Superintendent Melinda J. Boone said district leaders started looking at changing the graduation requirements two years ago to better prepare students for college and for the higher demands of today's jobs.
"Parents want to know that their child's diploma will be a door opener," Ms. Boone said. "I realize all students won't go to college, and that's fine. But if you look at careers now, the pathways are about the same."
College-savvy students could find the high school courses they needed before, but "it was clear that it wasn't an expectation for all," she said.
The changes were also an outgrowth of courses students said they wanted to take and should make courses more rigorous.
Some students are already getting the message. Jonathan Alvarado, 15, a sophomore at North, is taking two math classes this year and plans to take calculus his senior year. He hopes to study engineering at UMass or another four-year college. "All I know is I gotta take a lot of math," he said.
Kiana Stone, 17, a senior at North, hopes to study criminal justice at a private college, but she is taking four years of math and science, including a course in biotechnology. She liked the Go Public! presentation but said public colleges are too big for her. She'll probably apply to one, but only as a safety school.
Admission isn't as competitive at state universities as at elite private colleges, but it isn't guaranteed, either. Worcester State, for instance, accepted 60 percent of this year's applicants, which is down from the 69 percent it accepted in 1993.
Not all accepted students enrolled. Fitchburg State, meanwhile, accepted 62 percent of the applications it received from first-time freshmen for this year's entering class. That's actually more than the 57 percent it accepted in 2013 (Fitchburg figures from 1993 were not immediately available).
UMass Amherst accepted 63 percent of the students who applied this year, a considerably smaller percentage than the 82 percent it accepted in 2003.
A number of students at North Tuesday learned that their high MCAS scores had qualified them for a John and Abigail Adams scholarship, which gives them free tuition at a public college or university. However, in Massachusetts, the tuition is far smaller than fees, which make up the bulk of the cost and are not covered by the scholarship.
Community colleges are generally low-cost and can be used to transfer to four-year programs, but the four-year programs, while having a lower price tag than private colleges, might not offer the same amount of financial aid as a small, well-endowed private college. Actual costs and financial aid packages vary by student.
Go Public! speakers urged students to look for private scholarships, on-campus work and, if they plan to enter a high-salary field, take out loans.
Contact Jacqueline Reis via email at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @JackieReisTG.


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Halloween Party
Each year, families join the Joslin staff for a Halloween costume party in October. This event gives children and families a chance to celebrate with others who also face the challenges of balancing life with diabetes. Everyone can enjoy Halloween snacks, making crafts, and playing such games as "pumpkin bowling," "cauldron toss," and "pin-the-hat-on-the-witch." This event is held the Saturday before Halloween.
Sweets in Moderation Are Okay
Children with diabetes can actively enjoy Halloween by planning ahead to fit treats into their diabetes management plans. But alternative ways to celebrate - like our party - that don't involve so much candy are also a nice way to participate.
Children can and should trick-or-treat. But after trick-or-treating, there may be lots of candy left over. Parents and kids can discuss together what the child's favorite treats are and work those snacks into the meal plan.
To help motivate children to make healthy food choices, we also suggest that parents buy back some candy. Let your child use the money to buy a non-food treat, such as a game or small toy.
Candy equal to about 15 grams of carbohydrate:
- One fun-size chocolate bar
- 11 candy corns
- 4 Starbursts
- One-half stick Twix
- 2 sticks Kit Kat
- 30 Reese's Pieces
- 1/2 pack of M&Ms, plain or peanut
- 1 piece of Fruit-by-the-Foot
- 6 Hi-C gummy fruits
- 5 LifeSaver Gummy Savers
- 3 Twizzlers
- 3 Tootsie Rolls (small)
- 6 Junior Mints
- 16 Good & Plenty's
- 15 Skittles
- 9 Sweettarts
- 2 Jolly Ranchers
- 1 Tootsie Pop
Saturday October 27, 2018
10:00 to 12:00
For more information, please contact Joslin Pediatrics at:
617 732 2603
email: firstname.lastname@example.com
For Families
For More Information
- To learn how to prepare your child with diabetes for Halloween, read Halloween and Diabetes: Tips for Handling Treats
- Click here to see more tips for trick-or-treating with diabetes and healthy Halloween recipes provided by the Joslin Clinic.
- Click here to view a list of nutritional information for various candies and other treats.
Page last updated: October 16, 2019


text: Friday, January 06, 2012 APTA Projects Future Supply and Demand of Physical Therapists In an effort to determine a more accurate picture of the physical therapy workforce and aid workforce planning, APTA's Workforce Task Force has developed a model to project supply and demand of physical therapists through 2020. Using the model to manipulate data collected through APTA member surveys, the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy, and federal and other sources, the task force projected a either shortage or surplus of physical therapists in 3 different scenarios. The model includes multiple variables that may impact the future workforce, such as physical therapist attrition rates, the number of full- and part-time personnel, and the percentage of the US population with health care insurance. The model is easily updated to reflect changes in physical therapy education program graduation rates, employment patterns, health care reform, and other factors. APTA will continue to monitor the health care environment, make any necessary modifications to the model, and communicate changes to members and the public. An explanation of the how the model was developed, a description of the possible scenarios, and graphs illustrating the projections are available on APTA's Physical Therapy Workforce Data page.


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Thursday, October 3, 2013
Michele Acquarone, Director at RCS Sports, Suspended
Michele Acquarone, Managing Director at RCS Sports (owner of the Giro d'Italia, MSR, Il Lombardia, +), has been been suspended as a precautionary, "non-disciplinary", measure while an investigation of a shortfall of 13 million euro is investigated.
Always present at their races, Aquarone is said to be not appearing this Sunday at Il Lombardia. It will be more telling to see if he's present at the 2014 Giro d'Italia official presentation on Monday, October 7th.
Aquarone took over the reins from Angelo Zomegnan soon afterward the 2011 Giro d'Italia.
Follow on Twitter: ITALIANCYCJOURN or receive an email when new content is added using the "Follow by Email" button on the right side column. With more than 3,000 stories in this blog the custom search feature (right column) works best for finding subjects in the blog. There is also a translate button underneath the search button.
Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, touring, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, racing, etc. are always welcome. Contact me at email@example.com.
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TUESDAY, Nov. 8, 2011 (HealthDay News) -- Smoking bans in public places have had a spillover effect by reducing smoking in homes as well, according to a new study.
U.S. researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative household survey of tobacco use and found that people who lived in counties with total smoking bans in workplaces, restaurants and bars were more likely to have total smoking bans at home.
Homes with children were most likely to be smoke-free, according to the study appearing online and in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"Although the aim of clean indoor air laws is to reduce secondhand smoke exposure in public venues, our results show that these laws have the important additional benefit of stimulating smoke-free homes, with a larger association in homes occupied by smokers, protecting kids and other family members from secondhand smoke," lead investigator Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a journal news release.
"Since the home remains a major source of secondhand smoke exposure for children, this work shows that an additional justification for enacting smoke-free legislation is the secondary effect of encouraging voluntary smoke-free rules at home, particularly in homes occupied by smokers," he concluded.
Another study published in the same issue of the journal found that the rate of total smoking bans in U.S. homes more than tripled from 1992-1993 to 2006-2007. However, only half of households with both smokers and children were smoke-free.
Increases in total smoking bans at home were "smallest among African-American households, and among households with older versus younger children. There were fewer smoke-free households below the poverty line, in households with less education and in states with high smoking prevalence," lead author Karen Messer, professor and director of biostatistics at Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, said in the news release.
"Effective interventions to promote smoke-free homes among smoking families are needed, and this study can help identify populations that would benefit from such interventions," she added.
More information
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency outlines the health dangers of secondhand smoke.


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Kantha Pouch Clutch - 190254
$ 28.00
This small pouch is handcrafted using vintage cotton fabrics, and held together with a traditional Kantha stitch. Toss this zippered pouch in your purse or overnight bag to keep your essentials in one place. The small size is perfect to store makeup, a cellphone or important receipts.
- Handmade by an Artisan in Ajmer, India
- 7"h x 10"w
- Each pouch is one-of-a-kind and handmade from 3 layers of vintage cotton sari
- Vintage sari material may contain small imperfections or patchwork, enhancing the character, charm, and story of each piece.
- Spot clean only.
- Item #PCHSR190254
Every purchase of an Anchal product has an immediate impact and provides an artisan with a full-time job, health care benefits, design training, and educational workshops.


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9 Ways To Tap Into The Hidden Job Market
With summer upon us, some of you job-seekers may think about taking a break from your search. Instead, you might want to ramp up your efforts and consider the new season as an opportunity to relaunch any unfinished career plans.
One inevitable aspect of the search? Interacting and engaging with connections -- extending your network to tap into the hidden job market. Sudy Bharadwaj is the co-founder and chief executive officer of JackalopeJobs.com, which allows you to log in with your favorite social network and learn which of your connections work in companies that interest you. He has seen many job-seekers benefit from carefully accessing their extended network.
1. Connect with your network before you apply for positions.
Even if you identify jobs via boards or postings, touch base with connections before applying directly. Many organizations prioritize applicants who are referred by employees. Some companies even give bonuses to employees who suggest candidates who are hired, so some networking contacts may have a financial incentive to pass along your information. Don't be shy about reaching out and asking for a hand.
2. Rotate your thinking.
Bharadwaj suggests: "Instead of finding jobs and focusing on connections in those companies, consider targeting your connections first and investigating who among them may be able to provide a link to a potential opportunity."
To be successful, it's important to know what you want and to be able to articulate how you can help an organization solve its problems. Once you know what you offer and how it relates to companies where you want to work, it will be much easier to leverage your network of contacts who can help you land jobs successfully.
3. Encourage your network by making it easy for them to help you.
Bharadwaj reminds job-seekers: "Your connections are busy -- aren't we all? It's up to the job-seeker to be specific when asking for a connection. Forward the job description and information about your background and skills. Tell the contact exactly how he or she can help you."
4. Be concise and offer easy access to your information.
It's likely your contacts will access your information or email inquiry via their smartphones. Include all key points in the body of your email, such as links to online social resumes or your LinkedIn profile, instead of asking them to download and view your resume.
5. Go wide.
Spread out your inquiries; try not to ask one person for too many things. Most people will want to help, but if it seems you are knocking on their door every week, the welcome will wear out quickly.
6. Don't go too deep.
Even though social networks allow easy access to distant contacts of contacts, you should focus your interactions on contacts who know you well. Bharadwaj explains, "Unless a connection is very close to you, don't bog them down with numerous requests. Your first-degree contacts are the ones most likely to go the extra mile for you."
7. Limit time requests.
Unless you are already good friends with your contact, "Don't ask to meet for lunch or dinner, since it seems like a big time commitment," Bharadwaj says. "Instead, when asking for in-person meetings, offer to bring coffee to the office or to meet at another convenient location for a 15- to 30-minute coffee break."
8. Be patient.
Don't give up on a connection if the first targeted job opening doesn't work out. Keep in mind, if a contact believes in you, and future opportunities at the company are good fits, you may be successful connecting with a job that isn't advertised yet. "We have seen successful job-seekers who do not get job No. 1, No. 2 or even No. 3, but whose networking enabled a relationship with a new connection that led them to landing job No.4."
9. Keep track and follow up.
No one likes to feel used; be sure to follow up with contacts who help you and let them know you appreciate their efforts. Send a note or an email to let people know where you are in your search, and whom you've met per their recommendations. Send notes, links to articles they may appreciate, and touch base even when you don't need anything. When you do, you'll create relationships that extend beyond your immediate job search needs.
Miriam Salpeter is a job search and social media consultant, career coach, author, speaker, resume writer, and owner of Keppie Careers. She is author of Social Networking for Career Success. Miriam teaches job seekers and entrepreneurs how to incorporate social media tools along with traditional strategies to empower their success.
Don't Miss: Companies Hiring Now
More From U.S.News
- The 25 Best Jobs
- In Pictures: 10 Tips For New Grads Hoping To Score A Job
- 6 Networking Tips For Your Job Search
Looking for a job? Click here to get started.


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RV Friendly Lot
Only 20 Minutes From Taos
Only 20 Minutes From Taos
Located just off Highway 64, this parcel of land is located within Tres Piedras Estates, a master planned subdivision, platted out and pinned back in the 1960's. Sitting just twenty minutes outside the vibrant community of Taos, and close to the slopes and trails of the world famous Taos Ski Valley, this land is perfect for anyone looking to live an "off grid" lifestyle, as zoning laws within the county are generally very relaxed. This fact alone makes the area ideal for anyone with an RV who's looking for land they can vacation to, camp on, or park and live on for a long period of time without being hassled by local officials. This also makes the area fitting for other types of "off grid" dwellings such as earth ship homes, tiny homes, shipping container homes, etc.
About Tres Piedras Estates:
- All parcels within the Tres Piedras Estates subdivison have legal access, as roads and easements were allowed for in the original Plats of the area. A four wheel drive or other off-road capable vehicle may be required to navigate some of the roads. As is to be expected, some areas are easier to get to than others, some roads are easier to drive on than others.
- Power can be found nearby on the 64 and in some of the parcels closer to that highway, but city utilities have not yet been extended into the further parts of the subdivision, hence making solar energy a necessary but affordable solution. When the day comes that power lines are extended throughout this area, however, the value of this land will increase immeasurably making this an even better investment.
- Wells are generally considered infeasible in this area and most residents either rely on rainwater catchment systems or refillable tanks for their drinking water.
- If you're purchasing land to build you should check with the county zoning office to learn what permits are required on land smaller than 3/4 of an acre.
- Taos County has very relaxed zoning laws, and in an area such as this which is zoned County Rural Area, a person can park an RV and live out of it for 180 Days even without a building permit. Realistically, one can probably live out of it for much longer as it's doubtful that anyone in county government is keeping track of how long what is parked where.
- Our quarter acre lots are priced at $750, our half acre lots are priced at $1,500 and our one acre lots are priced at $3,000. Based on all available comps both on the MLS and the internet, these are the lowest priced and most affordable lots within this area. Owner financing with affordable down payments and easy monthly payments are also offered.
- The Hemingway Land Company has recently acquired 50 parcels within this subdivision and plans to acquire more in the interest of recombining adjacent quarter and half acre parcels to make larger one acre parcels, and hence, create more value for our buyers. Linked below is a list of the properties we own in this subdivision as broken down by Legal Description of Unit/Block/Lot. This list will be updated as time goes on to reflect which lots have been sold, and what properties are Under Contract or Coming Soon. Should you already own land in this area and are looking to expand your property boundaries, we encourage you to review this list or call our offices to see if the land you're looking for is one we may be listing in the weeks ahead.
|Reference Number
|Taos County, New Mexico
|Lot Size
|0.25 Acre
|Available Financing
|Click Here To Read About Financing Options
|Legal Description
|Parcel Number
|Account Number
|Center: 36.625899 -105.928173
|Annual Taxes
|County Rural Area
|Dirt Road
|Solar or Alternative
|Catchment System or Holding Tank
|7,713 ft
|Conveyance Document
|Special Warranty Deed
|Type of Closing
|Notary Close
|Doc Prep Fee
|Nearby Towns
|Taos: 25 miles
|Santa Fe: 66 miles
|Las Vegas: 83 miles
|Albuquerque: 118 miles
|Farmington: 128 miles
|Points Of Interest
|Things To Do In Taos (Link)
|Taos Ski Valley (Link)
|Taos Pueblo (Link)
|Pueblo Balloon Tours (Link)
|Taos Wine Tours (Link)
|Llama Trekking (Link)
|Angel Fire Ski Resort (Link)
|Sipapu Ski Resort (Link)
|Things To Do In Santa Fe (Link)
|County Contact Info
|Taos County Assessor's Office (575) 737-6360
|Taos County Planning & Zoning (575) 737-6440
|New Mexico Environmental Department (505) 827-2855
|Taos County Zoning Ordinance (Link)
|Taos County Zoning Map (Link)
Disclaimer: While The Hemingway Land Company does extensive research on all our properties prior to listing them, there are always County-specific rules/regulations we will not be aware of. The information provided on this page is, to the best of our knowledge, correct. All prospective buyers, however, are encouraged to contact the county at the links and numbers provided in this table to confirm that whatever plans that buyer has for the property in question are in fact legal, feasible and permitted. Due diligence is the buyer's responsibility and all sales are final.


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Ms. Chaitnaya Jonker addressing the Congress party members
- On May 21, 2015 MOHAN Foundation was invited to address the congress party members on organ donation at Lovely Public School, Krishna Nagar, New Delhi. The campaign on organ donation was organized in remembrance of former Prime Minister Late Shri Rajiv Gandhi on his 24th death anniversary.
Dr Anshu Gupta (Block Vice President, Mahila Congress, Preet Vihar, Delhi) took the initiative to organize the talk. She is also associated with Dr Subhash Gupta (Chief Liver Transplant Surgeon & Director CLBS, Apollo Hospital) as a liver Transplant Coordinator. The main objective of the campaign was to spread awareness on organ donation amongst the party members.
The program started with presentation on basic concepts of organ donation and transplantation by Dr. Suresh Singhvi (Chief Liver Transplant Surgeon, SGRH, New Delhi). Dr. Akshay Gupta (Consultant, Liver Transplant, SGRH) spoke on technical aspects of liver transplantation. Foundation's representative gave information on organ donation, eye donation, cardiac death/brain death, donor card and types of donations. The counselor also handled individual queries in a professional manner.
Arvinder Singh Lovely and Anurudh Lal were few of the prominent Congress members who attended the program. Around 15-20 people attended the session and few donor cards were picked up.
Source-Ms. Chaitanya Jonker


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msh necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 44 diseños de 13 diseñadores freelance.
We are looking for a clean, simple design for our new website! We had our logo developed on 99 designs, and are excited to see the web designs! We help families make decisions about retirement communities and long-term care facilities.
We need a home page for our website, to really drive the look and feel for the entire site. There is the potential for follow-on work with the winning designer to continue designing the other pages for the site.
Our home page needs to include our logo which can be found here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfjc3m9g_1d4k5x4dx, and have a consistent look and feel.
We need a log-in/sign-up area for members
The navigation bar should include the following items: Home, Communities, Home Care, Professionals, Services, Products, Information, About
There should be spaces for a few pictures on the home page
There should be a text area to be able to put a welcome to our site paragraph.
We also need a simplified search area asking people to select which type of housing they are looking for (Independent Living, Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, Continuing Care, Home Care); and where they are looking (City, State OR Zip Code - within a X mile radius) - the two "submit button" options would be to start search or add more options
For the types of housing, we want people to be able to see an explanation of that type of living somehow (scroll over, pop-up, etc.)
We are excited to see your designs and will actively post feedback!!!


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r.well.i have learnt english for years now, but i have just met some problem with the passive voice recently.
I know that in english grammar,in the passive voice,we have some rules about change active sentences into passive sentences,but in this situation,i can't clearly understand that :
A : The government is building many new schools
=> p : Many new schools are built by the government (is that correct or not ???)
when you change from the active to the passive, the subject changes. So the verb now has to agree with "schools" - the new subject.
the man feeds the dogs => the dogs are fed by the man.
the subject changes from "the man" to "the dogs", so the verb changes from singular to plural. Yes, you can say "the dogs are fed".
a : The police arrested several dangerous criminals
=> p : Several dangerous criminals were arrested by the police (is that correct or not???) yes, it's correct.
i know a rule that when the subject is not clearly understand => we can remove this in passive sentence. you mean when the subject is clearly understood.
so, in this situation, "the police and the government " is not clearly enough. Can we remove them in sentences above??? And can you tell me another situation like this???
you can remove the former subject (the subject of the original sentence):
=> p : Many new schools are built.
=> p : Several dangerous criminals were arrested.
thanks a lot
Student or Learner


text: The 81st Annual Academy Awards At 91, Shoemaker To The Stars Is Still In Business February 20, 2009 The man behind Charlton Heston's sandals in The Ten Commandments is 91-year-old Willie Rivera, who began making shoes at the age of 13 in Mexico City. He moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s and has dressed the feet of legends such as Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Lily Tomlin and Bill Cosby. At 91, Shoemaker To The Stars Is Still In Business Listen Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/100687447/100906445" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript


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"There are small clam shells in the basket".
(1956- )
Diane is a Haida artist from Ketchikan, Alaska. She is an instructor in the Totem Heritage Center's internationally recognized Northwest Coast Native Arts program. Her woven cedar baskets have won both "Best of the Division" and 1st place at the prestigious Santa Fe Indian Market in New Mexico.
Spirit Wrestler Gallery
101-1669 West 3rd Ave.
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6J 1K1
Toll Free: 1-888-669-8813
Phone: 604-669-8813
one block West of the Granville Island gates
Between Pine St. and Fir St.
Tuesday to Saturday, open 10-5
Sunday and Holidays, open 12-5
© 2019 Spirit Wrestler Gallery. All Rights Reserved.


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9Ct Rose Gold Round Signet Ring
9Ct Rose Gold Round Signet Ring
Select your size Size Guide
No jewellery box should be without a classic signet ring.
The ring is presented in Myia's branded box, ready for gifting.
London hallmarked 375
- Tracked delivery to home or work, direct from the designer.
- Customs fees may apply for international delivery - see FAQs for details.
- Free returns within 14 days, collection arranged by us.
- Price match guarantee
- If you find an item cheaper elsewhere we will match the price*.
- See FAQs or Contact Us for full details.
- Wolf & Badger acts as agent to the brand only - you, the customer, are purchasing any item directly from the brand
View More Myia BonnerFine Rings
Meet The Designer
Myia designs striking contemporary jewellery underpinned by delicacy and quality. Her distinctive work is defined by a signature graphic precision, geometric style and playful approach to reinterpreting the traditions within her craft. Created by award-winning jewellery designer Myia Bonner, the sharp and distinctive designs are handcrafted in her London studio.