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Featuring The Audiophile Lending Library
FREE SHIP*1-800-328-9973 or 215 862-4870
We consider the new line of high performance audio racks from Butcher Block Acoustics to be something of a break through. The brainchild of designer and music lover Jim Whithorne, Butcher Block Acoustics is an audiophile rack manufacturer unlike any other. With inspiration taken from 43 years in the high end furniture business, these beautifully finished hardwood racks offer sturdy construction, gorgeously rich sonics, and a timeless aesthetic designed to last a lifetime.
Why Is Your Rack Important?
A truly optimized music system needs to be built on a great foundation.
That foundation is, of course, the audio rack combined with the footers and any isolation platforms.
Until the unwanted resonances that:
- mask the inner detail of the music
- cloud the imaging
- allow the out of control bass to muddy the midrange
...are addressed, you have not heard your system reproduce music the way it is capable of. We have always advocated for the use of dedicated audio supports for serious systems, and we have some other great racks on offer, but to date all of our top performance racks have something in common: lots of metal. Aesthetically, not always acceptable.
How many times have we been asked for a high performance rack line made from wood? And ideally not costing an arm and a leg? FINALLY we are pleased to offer just that: new designs specifically for audio from Butcher Block Acoustics.
Every Butcher Block Acoustics rack features Rock Maple from the forests of Northern Michigan and/or Black Walnut sourced from right here in Pennsylvania. These two woods are prized for their acoustical properties: just ask your favorite guitar or piano manufacturer! Black Walnut is slightly less dense and has a warmer tone, Rock Maple is denser and has a faster, more neutral sound. Both offer a more organic and inviting presentation than just about any other shelving material available. Regardless of wood choice, each shelf provides an outstanding platform for your prized audio components, managing vibration, and allowing you to hear much deeper into the music.
Starting at just under $1000 for a substantial 24" x 18" 3 shelf rack which includes 1.5"-thick solid Rock Maple shelves and legs, you'll be hard pressed to find a better value in an audio rack. Take a look at the photos, which although they don't really do justice, will give you an idea of just how solid and handsome these racks are.
Even if you already have a performance rack, you can improve your current system with a Butcher Block Acoustics platform. A Rock Maple 1.75"-thick stand-alone shelf starts at under $60, or get a 3" thick platform for under $90. Simply slide them underneath any component and hear the sonic improvements Maple or Walnut hardwood brings.
What's the catch?
There is none. No corners were cut. This is just a really good, established furniture manufacturer that happens to be run by an audiophile who decided to offer racks and platforms to audiophiles at really good prices.
We approve!
A solid hardwood shelf is heavy. A rack made with these materials even more so. For a limited time, we are offering FREE FREIGHT* on ALL Butcher Block Acoustics racks as well as on BBA Platform purchases of at least $100 ($25 flat shipping for Platform orders under $100).
* Free freight offer is valid only within the 48 Continental USA and by surface freight only. Other destinations and air freight require a freight quote.


text: In complex contexts that are constantly in flux, we must effectively use evaluation and evaluative thinking to manage programs adaptively. This presentation from AEA 2018 explores barriers to and recommendations for improving adaptive management practice and, in turn, evaluation use. The presentation is a systemic analysis of findings from a literature review and semi-structured interviews with ten evaluators and program staff who were intentionally experimenting with adaptive management in conflict-affected environments (full report on findings here). Questions explored in the AEA session included:

subset: commoncrawl


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"Gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgiving. Turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings."
~William Arthur Ward
I want to personally thank everyone for the support that has been given to my family and myself over the course of the past month. Thank you for…
- The text messages,
- The phone calls,
- The cards,
- The happy hours,
- The dinners,
- The food prep,
- The bartending,
- The jello shots, and
- The great stories of my father.
Over the course of this past month I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the definition of success. So often in our society, success is defined by the size of your bank account, the location of your house, the type of car you own, the title you carry, and the people you associate with. However this past month I saw a different side to success, a side where…
success is measured in laughter, stories, and friendships.
On many occasions I could see the similarity between my fathers' life story and the story of George Bailey in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life". Like George Bailey, my father always wanted to leave Pearl City and travel, however life circumstances always required that he stay close to home. After listening to the multitude of stories this past weekend I realized that my father was…
the richest man in town!
My father never had much money, but he was happy because he followed his heart. He found ways to do what he loved without leaving the area…travel and tell stories. He was a farmer, a feed salesman, and a truck driver. And as people shared these stories with me, I realized that my father gave me a very special gift…he taught me to follow my heart!
How do you define success?
How happy are you?
Are you following your heart?
Starting in June, I will be offering a new program for people who want to follow their heart and make the transition from a job/career/business that leaves you unsatisfied and exhausted to a job/career/business that feeds your soul. If you want to get on the first to know list, sign up HERE! Stay tuned! Details are coming in the next couple of weeks!


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For the latest coronavirus care instructions and resources, please call our COVID-19 hotline at 208-381-9500. Find additional information and resources here and learn more about how we're working to keep you healthy and safe.
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The man you see pictured here is Pete DiDio, St. Luke's Health System vice president and controller. He does not, usually, come to work so colorfully attired.
But last week Pete and I, along with a couple of other hardy volunteers, left the ties behind, donned trunks, and headed for the dunk tank to raise money for needy families that will be supported as part of our holiday "From St. Luke's With Love" effort.
Staff members from St. Luke's HR, Finance, Information Technology, Marketing, and Public Relations teams took their best shots, enjoyed a potluck, and sampled desserts whipped up for a fund-raising bake-off.
In all, more than $1,000 was raised. Click here for more pictures.
And when you see Pete, tell him ducks become him!
David C. Pate, M.D., J.D., is president and CEO of St. Luke's Health System, based in Boise, Idaho. Dr. Pate joined the System in 2009. He received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center.
How do you define health? Physical? Mental? Social? Health goes beyond medical care. It's how we take care of ourselves, how we interact with our communities, how we take care of each other.
Let St. Luke's support your health, however you define it.


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4 Strategic Moves to Make Now for Your Holiday Marketing Campaigns
This post was originally created by Spredfast before Spredfast and Lithium merged and became Khoros.
In the midst of preparing for a hectic holiday shopping season, it's tempting to play it safe and stick with what you know has worked last year in your marketing campaigns. But here's a reality check: If you're not innovating, you're falling behind.
Most digital marketers understand this but struggle to meaningfully integrate their brand into new features and trends. After all, a great holiday campaign requires a lot of time and resources, and you want to make sure you're not investing in – or strategizing around – a fad.
On the other hand, taking a smart and careful leap is necessary for growth. The social media sphere is filled with endless opportunities for people to critique their experience with your brand.
To survive and thrive in any big campaign, you need to first identify your obstacles and opportunities, and build your strategy from there. Read on for four ways you can do this that are specific to the landscape of the ideal online relationship between brands and people right now:
1. Cut through the noise with Live promotion
Black Friday requires shoppers to live in the moment. Deals expire rapidly, which doesn't give people much time to contemplate a purchase. Unfortunately, changes in algorithms across nearly all social media platforms have resulted in feeds that show you old (relatively speaking) content. These changes, however, have come alongside Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and Instagram Stories. These new opportunities for immediacy are also less saturated than a platform's traditional feed. Looking at these factors, your Black Friday campaign is the prime opportunity to invest resources in one or more of these tools.
Should you decide to tackle a live promotion, keep in mind: While the "here and now" aesthetic is meant to feel scrappy, you should still take the time to create and iterate on shot lists and practice with potential on-air talent. For example, if you are reporting live from a brick and mortar, how can you use that frantic, yet exciting energy to direct social media users to your online store? Execution is half the battle, and it begins long before you start broadcasting.
Even in the fleeting nature of "going live", thoughtful programming can be worth the investment. For example, Addition Elle used Facebook Live—putting them front and center in the action by live streaming directly from the runway—to give potential customers a taste of New York Fashion Week. The result? They lifted sales by 5 percent.
Thoughtful programming is always worth the investment on social media.
2. Take care of your customers with a chatbot
Some customers value interaction when they make purchasing decisions. This is especially true during the holiday rush. Many people have trouble keeping up with all of the deals and product details for things they are gifting, since they are often making purchases they don't normally make for themselves.
Chatbots can help boost efficiency in customer service support, and meet the potential customer where they are comfortable: in their inbox. However, if you're going to launch a chatbot for the holidays, you must first make sure it works. You'll want to start building it, like, now. The thought of building a chatbot in two months may feel daunting, but it's actually not impossible. Check out this Chatbots Magazine article to learn how a startup investor built a chatbot over the course of one weekend.
Whether you want to capitalize on these new opportunities or not, it's worth the time to sit down with your creative and digital teams to see how you can push the envelope. A lot of eyes are on retail during Black Friday weekend, so people will take notice of your efforts.
3. Execute a full-blown audit of your mobile experience
In 2016, mobile shoppers exceeded desktop shoppers on Thanksgiving Day. Translation: You cannot afford to provide a subpar mobile purchasing experience.
This starts with your website. A few years back, companies invested extensive amounts of time and energy into mobile applications that provided a great user experience, only to find out that people are fairly choosy when deciding which apps to download. This means that people who downloaded your app (and kept it on their phone) are probably brand loyalists already. This isn't exactly breaking news, but many companies still struggle to match the user experience of their mobile application to that of their website. The good news is that if you have a great mobile application to act as inspiration, you can still make meaningful changes to your website's mobile experience in the next couple of months.
Companies still struggle to match the user experience of their mobile application to that of their website
You can also let Facebook and Instagram take care of the user experience for you. Instagram Shopping integrates social media marketing and e-commerce, providing a pre-packaged, mobile-native experience. Facebook Instant Articles provides a faster load time – especially for people who are in areas with a poor connection. Pro-tip: Facebook provides some great advice for creating quality branded Instant Articles.
All of this is to say that maintaining and expanding your customer base means meeting them where they are, which increasingly means on their phones. One-third of U.S. shoppers say they complete transactions on their mobile device.
4. Don't just make the sale—build brand loyalty
In the rush of holiday shopping, it's easy to live in the moment. And while the nature of the season along with sweet deals can attract first-time or casual buyers, those factors won't necessarily keep them coming back when customers are harder to win over in the first quarter of the year.
That means to build your base during the holidays, you must strive to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible for customers. A spike in shoppers can possibly mean a spike in technical issues and confused people as well. To combat this, you need a customer service plan with granular detail and foresight. Think back to last year. Were there any mistakes your team made that you can fix this year? You should also consider whether you need to hire seasonal workers to keep up with online customer service demand.
Brand loyalty emerges when you take care of customers—and when they respond positively to your social media content. To draw them into your social channels, incentivize them to follow your accounts with promotional deals. To make sure you keep them hanging around after they make their purchases, plan a healthy mix of engaging, entertaining, and useful content to post before, during, and after the holiday rush. In other words, resist the urge to solely promote during the months of November and December.


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"And they say, 'Where's that crazy girl? You don't get drunk on red wine and fight no more.'"
– The Background, Third Eye Blind
When I was young, I hated going to school. For the nine years or so I spent going to seven different schools in four different countries in two different continents, I'd wake up in the morning absolutely dreading the fact that we had school that day. I'd arrive in school that morning with my heart hammering in my ribcage and a certain uncertainty plaguing my consciousness — I was always afraid of not being in the right class at the right time, not having done the right homework, not wearing the right uniform, you name it.
This had a lot to do with our (too) frequent late arrivals to school. When we were in Accra, the company van reserved for family use would go around Manet Cottage — and later, Regimanuel Grey — every morning to pick up all the Malaysian kids at their respective houses. There were about fifteen to twenty of us at one time, both in junior and secondary school, and as always, one or two of us would be late. Sometimes traffic would make things a little difficult, but the most fun part was always when this ancient vehicle would break down at the side of the road. I remember one such time: one morning on our way to school, we'd just left the Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout (the largest in Ghana, I believe) and turned left into Liberation Road, when the van suddenly decided to take things into its own hands… We stopped right in front of what was then the Shangri-La Hotel (which has since closed or relocated, according to Google Maps).
Everyone in the van was nervous, and little comfort could be found in the fact that all the other kids would be coming in late as well. (For one thing, we were all in different classes anyway so this made little difference.) I forgot how we eventually resolved the matter; it could be that Abu, our driver, got a couple of people to help out, but I did remember all of us getting to school in the end. Abu's van was so ancient and nearing expiration already, so it was little wonder that this happened.
After we left Ghana at the end of 2001 and resettled in Seremban, Malaysia in 2002, my brother and I enrolled in Sekolah Rendah Islam Seremban, a private primary school offering an Islamic curriculum. Although both my brother and I were in Class 6 in Ghana International School, when we got to Malaysia he re-enrolled in Standard 6, while I was downgraded to Standard 5 due to my age. Our classmates knew us as 'budak Afrika' — 'the African kid'.
The school was bloody far from our house — almost at the complete opposite side of town, in fact. Either our mom or dad would send us to school in the morning, braving through fourteen traffic lights (seven on the way and another seven back) and the horrible morning traffic. Seremban is an old city with little motivation to rejuvenate itself with new, wider roads and less traffic lights. Some of the shophouses in the city date back to the colonial period — some terribly preserved — but the most bizarre thing about this city is that it's quite hilly, with narrow streets heading uphill barely enough to fit two cars. There is a big manmade lake right smack in the middle of the city called Lake Garden, next to which is an A&W Restaurant we always felt was a privilege to go to on the few occasions that we actually did. All of this — the lake, the land around it, and the restaurant itself, which was the first A&W franchise to open in Malaysia from what I heard — was owned by the royal family of Negeri Sembilan.
In the morning it took us nearly 40 minutes to reach school from home — 30, if we're lucky. On days when it was our dad's turn to send us to school, it was us who had to drag him out of bed, rather than the other way around. As always, we'd always get to school after 7.30, which was when the morning assembly started. We'd pass through the gates looking painfully embarrassed because everyone had already stood in line. Sometimes we'd manage to sneak into our class line, but more often than not, a teacher would already be waiting by the gate, ready to take down the names of late-comers.
God, I hated those times.
The photos below are of the road we'd always to take to school every morning. Sometimes when I pass through the roundabout today I still feel traumatized — I'd cringe and think about those times we'd come late to school and how I'd always show up to class a nervous wreck. The fancy gate at the left is the Istana Hinggap (sort of like a visiting home for the royal family, I suppose), whereas the road to the right leads to the Lake Garden I mentioned above. This setting looks exactly as it did ten years ago.
I can't believe ten years have passed since then.
In Dhaka, the traffic was always so much worse. Sometimes it'd take an entire hour to get from Bashundhara where my school is to our apartment in Gulshan 1. Tardiness wasn't so much of a problem, but when I was in Grade 12 they imposed a new rule — be there by 8am sharp, or be square. And this was a threat they actually delivered — mainly by turning away kids who showed up after this cut-off time, which means they would be marked absent for that day.
Harsh. But at least by this time we'd already moved to our apartment in Bashundhara, which was only a five-minute walk from school. In fact, in the morning, I would literally wake up at 7.30 and leave the house by 7.55. Sometimes my maid would be kind enough to walk with me and helped me carry my bag, which I truly appreciated.
But seriously, after all this, I cannot believe I actually managed to graduate high school at sixteen. And that ten years since I'd finished primary school, I'd started my PhD. It was a rough journey, but I think I wouldn't be where I am today had I not gone through it.
So — this is the story of my habit of coming late to school when I was a kid.


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The Tire Exchange donates to many great community projects as well as being a proud sponsor of many fine organizations.
3745 Trans Canada Hwy,
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Monday - Friday
9am - 5pm


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Welcome to part one of our SYTYCD finale! At the end of the four hours of the two part finale, either Lacey, Sabra, Danny or Neil will have won the crown of "America's Favorite Dancer". Time to begin….
The judging panel who began the show in New York, will be the same panel ending it, in other words, Dan Karaty is on the panel.
Nigel tells us that SYTYCD will be back for another season!! Whoo!!
BLAH BLAH BLAH…. (more useless judge talk)
We get to watch a video of the top 4's best moments.
To start the night, the top 4 are going to be dancing a Tyce DiOrio broadway routine. He describes it as "slick and sophisticated". Apparently, they only had an hour and a half to learn this routine, or at least, that's what Sabra tells us. Tyce expects them to be "Brilliant" (with a capital B), let's hope so, this is the top 4 after all. The song is "Mein Herr" by Liza Minnelli (Cabaret soundtrack).
All the dancers will be dancing with each other, which includes guys with guys and girls with girls.
First, we find out a bit about Lacey, and then Lacey takes to the floor with a solo to the song "Technologic" by Daft Punk.
Sabra & Neil get together with Shane Sparks for a hip hop routine. And it's supposed to be as sexy as Nigel is british. The song is "Whine Up" by Kat DeLuna. I liked it but it just wasn't great, it wasn't finale-worthy dancing. Nigel thought that it wasn't as funky as he would've liked and Neil was a bit too stiff and he felt that Sabra wasn't strong enough. Mary expected more and was disappointed. Dan thought that it was a bit too bouncy, there shouldn't be so many faces.
Commercial break time!
Lacey & Danny will be dancing a Jean Marc Genereux viennese waltz. Lacey & Danny are apparently good friends and they have a lot of inside jokes and they talk a lot. With all the talking, Jean Marc felt like they were in kindergarten and he's a french teacher trying to teach english and then he tells them "YOU GET THE RYDEM IN YOR BODAY!" There's some really funny stuff in their video. They're dancing to the song "Keep Holding On" by Avril Lavigne. I thought it was excellent, both the dancing and the performance. Nigel thought it was soo good, it was like they were ice skating. Mary thought it was effortless and they got a standing ovation and a scream from her. Dan felt that they were both incredible and amazing.
Next, we find out a bit more about Neil, and then he dances a solo to the song "Gravity" by Shawn McDonald.
Lacey & Sabra are taking on a Wade Robson routine, where they're a mother fox (Lacey) and a baby fox (Sabra). The song is "Koyal (Songbird)" by Nitin Sawhney. It was an interesting routine, not exceptional, but not bad either. Nigel called it "extraordinary… Thank goodness he told us they were two little foxes". He felt that Lacey could have been a "velociraptor". He says he didn't get it, and finds it difficult to judge the dancers, with that routine. He's not sure this was the right time for Wade (whom Nigel says is one of his favourite choreographers) to experiment. Mary agrees. Dan says that there are going to be people who loved that and people who hated it.
Now, we find out some stuff about Danny, and then he does a solo (which involved a record amount of jumps and spins) to the song "We Are The Champions" by Gavin DeGraw.
Now that the girls have danced together it's the guys turn. They're going to be doing a Mia Michaels' routine. This should be crazy since both of them dance contemporary. They're both going to be princes battling for the throne. Since Nigel like masculine dances, they're doing it for him. The song is "Are You The One" by the Presets. I really enjoyed this routine, especially the part where Danny claps in Neil's face, the look on Neil's face was priceless. Nigel loved it and sait that it was indeed very masculine. Mary also loved it and thought that it was very believable. Dan also enjoyed it.
Sabra's last, and of course, we learn stuff about her, like that she's travelled a lot, and then she performs her solo to the song "Wonderful World" by James Morrison.
More commercials (and a commercial for "American Band" — the show that's like American Idol, but with, you won't believe it, BANDS!)
Lacey & Neil are now going to perform a lindy hop, choreographed by Nick Williams, which involves lots of flips and lifts and all that fun stuff. Their song is "Bill's Bounce" by the Big Elliot Swing Orchestra. It's going to be really hard. It started really strong, but then they started to lose energy. It was fun, don't get me wrong but it kinda lacked a bit but, in the end, I still enjoyed it. Nigel tells them how hard the dance is, especially in keeping the energy up all the way through it. He also says Lacey used her partner a whole lot better. Mary loved it. And they're on the hot tamale train, and then she screams. Dan thought the dance was awesome, and anyone who didn't enjoy it is just a boring person.
Final performance of the night is Sabra & Danny doing a cha cha, and their choreographer is Melanie LaPatin. The song is "Gotta Get Done" by Celia Cruz. It was awesome! And I loved it. Nigel felt that it was a shame they haven't partnered before, since they work so well together. Mary critiqued the first half of their performancce but about halfway through, they started to relax and show off their personalities and, by the end, she thought they'd nailed it. Dan thought the beginning was okay, and the second half was waaayy better.
Tomorrow: the top 20 are featured, there will be special guests, and Cat will be…dancing…with Nigel?
Stay tuned.
See your top 10 faves on the SYTYCD tour.


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Gwybodaeth Modiwlau
Course Delivery
|Delivery Type
|Delivery length / details
|7 Hours. 7 x 1 hour
|15 Hours.
|Assessment Type
|Assessment length / details
|Semester Exam
|2 Hours Written examination
|Semester Assessment
|Report (circa 1,000 words)
|Supplementary Assessment
|Resubmission of failed coursework and examination resit
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
- describe the information needs of managers
* assess the value of decision-making skills amongst managers
*appreciate the design of forecasting systems which support management decisions
* evaluate management information systems using a tool-box of measurement criteria
Brief description
This module will enable students to understand, use and design systems to aid management decision-making in all types of organisations. It covers the appropriate use of supporting technology in this area of information management. This includes design of a management information system and use of an actual system.
This module is at CQFW Level 6


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Note: This is the first entry in a two-part post about, well, the rather dull story of one man and a dog on the fringes of Sandy. The not-so-exciting conclusion of this rather mundane tale will appear on this blog tomorrow!
It didn't occur to me when I went to New York on Oct. 22, 2012, that my stay there might be extended by a week.
The trip had been on my calendar for a while. I had volunteered to dog-sit for a close personal acquaintance I'll refer to as R, who was flying out to the West to visit family for a few days. Happily, my journey to New York would not only enable me to see old friends, it would also allow me to obtain a well-maintained used car at a good price.
R was set to fly out on Thursday, Oct. 25, and return the following Monday. As R's departure approached, R and I were both aware of Sandy, the large storm that was moving north. As it happens, my schedule is flexible, so I was happy to ride out the storm if need be. I figured my return drive would only be delayed by two or three days at worst.
The dog I was caring for is a four-year-old, 70-pound yellow Labrador named Lucky, a very friendly and good-natured dog who is precious to R. As well behaved as Lucky has been, in my experience, I had no wish to bring her to a shelter unless it was absolutely necessary. I also wanted to minimize whatever hardship the storm might impose.
So as Sandy's chances of affecting the greater New York metropolitan area grew from highly likely to a dead certainty, I made plenty of preparations. I stocked up on groceries. I filled my car's gas tank. I bought a 15-pound bag of dog food and left it in my trunk in case Lucky and I did need to evacuate.
I paid a lot of attention to liquid supplies. I filled several containers with drinking water and stowed them in the refrigerator. I took a huge cooking pot, meant for boiling lobsters, into one bathroom and filled it with water to be used to clean myself or flush the toilet, if necessary. I moved a waist-high plastic hamper, about the size and shape of a 44-quart kitchen garbage can, into a second bathroom and filled that too.
And as the storm edged ever closer, I filled various containers and cooking vessels with water and froze them. Having extra ice on hand might help keep food from spoiling should the house lose power, I had read.
Sandy made landfall on Monday, Oct. 29. But when Lucky and I went out for her morning walk, it hadn't even started to rain. A very light drizzle began around 9:30 a.m., but the rains never poured down furiously that I saw.
There was no wind that morning. That changed, of course.
Lucky and I stepped out at an unfortunate moment in the early afternoon, when the rain was fairly heavy and the wind had increased. We were pretty wet when we got back. Every hour or two, I would notice that the winds were blowing harder than before.
Still, I wasn't particularly impressed with Sandy's local impact. Or at least, I wasn't impressed until after 6 o'clock, when I realized that the gusts of air had become much faster and longer-lasting, too.
I should have been frightened of a tree or large tree limb falling onto the house and crushing Lucky or me. (At least one person near R's house died that way, I later learned.) Instead, irrationally, I feared the wind shattering a window, blowing rain and glass into my face.
My preparations had included reading some hurricane survival tips. One was that the safest place to be in a multiple-story house during a storm was in a fully enclosed first-floor room or closet without windows. At R's home, that meant the first-floor bathroom (the only one in the house, incidentally, that I hadn't stocked with extra water).
So I knew where to go when the winds got fierce. But as the gusts rattled the house for longer and longer periods, with shorter and less frequent lulls, I was reluctant to retreat. It seemed — well, unbecoming, if not actually unmanly.
(Much later, it occurred to me that the laundry room, a small space connected to the garage, would also have been suitable — although it would almost surely have been less comfortable than the bathroom.)
As the storm intensified, I kept on considering different places to settle. Upstairs was a non-starter, of course, because that contradicted the advice I'd read: Stay on the first floor. The dining room was separated from the back deck by a huge sliding glass door, meaning that was out. So was the kitchen, which had several large windows. There were big windows in the office and in the parlor, too.
There were windows in the front hallway, but they were the smallest windows in the house. I nervously huddled in the hallway for a few minutes before deciding that it just was not a comfortable place to wait out the storm. And yet I still didn't want to retreat to the first-floor bathroom…
Indecisive, and increasingly edgy, I settled upon a muddle-headed compromise. I sat down in the TV room. It had a large bay window — perfect for shattering — and looked upon several large nearby trees. Still, it was a normal place for me to read and relax, so that was where I sat. Lucky lay down by the couch, which is near the bay window.
We didn't stay long. At roughly a quarter to seven, we heard a crack and a loud THUMP. Lucky and I jumped up and bolted to the hallway, even as it dimly registered in my mind that if something was to crash into the room, we would have known it by now…
The TV room was in fact intact, but there was no way I would stay there any longer. Flat out frightened at this point, yet still unwilling to hide in the bathroom, I went and sat at the top of the staircase. All the second-floor doors were closed, so Lucky and I weren't in any danger of being hit by glass.
Yet the top of the staircase wasn't a normal place to sit, either, especially in the dark. I went into the master bedroom. At first glance, it seemed normal and comforting. Yet looks could be deceiving: R habitually keeps the bedroom's windows covered with blackout curtains, so I knew that here, too, were large panes just waiting to be shattered by the wind.
Still, there was a large wardrobe in the room, and I figured that if I sat with my back to it, I would be unlikely to be slashed by glass.
My miserable self and an unperturbed Lucky had only been stationed there for a few minutes when R called.
R was upset — very upset. R originally had been due back around the time R called me. Foolishly, R had booked a new flight, attempting to return ahead of the storm, but that flight had been canceled. Then R's second rebooked flight, set to arrive Wednesday evening, had been canceled as well. That was why R was calling.
Although R was staying comfortable with family, R is unnerved by travel. Being subjected to yet another change in flight plans had temporarily driven R over the edge. Completely unwilling to discuss my immediate fear for my own personal safety, lest I upset R further, I spent a few minutes comforting R.
I was relieved when the conversation ended so I could set R's concerns aside and focus on my own worries.
Not long after that, the lights went out.
Note: This rather dull story of one man and a dog on the fringes of Sandy will continue tomorrow! Thanks for reading.


text:
Leon de Winter denies that he defended Islam in his article on the Wilders trialLawrence Auster's reply was gentlemanly and fair. But then, he doesn't know the entire background. How can he? It is worse, MUCH worse than just an intellectually dishonest and cowardly interpretation of the Wilders trial and a rude reply to the PI team. So here it is again:
Nora Brinker (the Editrix) writes from Germany:
I recently wrote a blog entry about the Dutch writer Leon de Winter, which was triggered by your critique of his article at the Wall Street Journal on the Geert Wilders trial but went beyond it. My blog entry was published by the English section of the biggest of all German blogs (overall, not just the biggest among political blogs) Politically Incorrect, to which I am a regular contributor. Today, the PI-Team forwarded de Winter's reply to me (see below).LA replies:
I do not communicate out of principle with people who write "r u" when they mean "are you" (isn't it amazing that even supposed intellectual heavyweights resort to "kiddie" Internet jargon?), but I thought the reply might be interesting to you because it was your interpretation to which he objected. I guess the rest of the article went over his head.
De Winter writes interesting novels, I even liked one or two of them. How that man can be quite that bigoted and plainly stupid (he seems to think that PI is a monolithic block) is a revelation for me.
Best regards,
Nora Brinker
Leon de Winter comment at blog PI:
Leon de Winter
I stumbled upon this blog--you are totally incorrect in interpreting my piece as pro-islam--r u nuts? You know my pieces, you know my points of view--so don't try to bend this piece in the WSJ. In my piece I defend the premise that you cannot condemn a historical text like the Koran in a modern court of justice--is that weird, pro-Islam? Grow up! I've written dozens of pieces about the Koran--you know where I stand ...
Thanks for writing and sending this. De Winter is contemptuously dismissive of my charge that his article was defensive of Islam rather than defensive of Geert Wilders, but he fails utterly to respond to what I actually said. So I'll repeat it. In his WSJ piece, dramatically (and misleadingly) titled, "Stop the Trial of Geert Wilders," he said nothing against the tyrannical Dutch hate speech laws, nothing against prosecuting a man for stating an opinion about Islam, nothing against making it a crime for Netherlanders to criticize Islam. Rather, he said that the Wilders trial should be terminated because the trial would put Islam itself on the docket.
And indeed, putting Islam on the docket was and is precisely Wilders's defense. His defense is that the statements he has made about Islam are true. De Winter wants to avoid any public procedure that discusses whether it is true that Islam commands its followers to wage Holy War aimed at subjugating all non-Muslims. The fact remains: de Winter said nothing against the indictment and trial of Wilders. He was only opposed to the trial because the Wilders defense would examine the teachings of Islam.
A person who responds to an article critical of himself, an article that quotes his own statements and shows their meaning, by retorting, "r u nuts?... Grow up!... you know where I stand," is a person who has never thought critically about the meaning of his own statements--and may be unwilling to do so.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 07, 2010 03:06 PM
I stumbled [So it is clear that he doesn't read it regularly!] upon this blog - you [Not PI is, I am, quoting Lawrence Auster.] are totally incorrect in interpreting my piece as pro-islam - r u nuts? [What an insufferable, juvenile, sneering, contemptuous tone!] You know my pieces, you know my points of view - so don't try to bend this piece in the WSJ. [The great intellectual considers himself above reproach based on his past merits.] In my piece I defend the premise that you cannot condemn a historical text like the Koran in a modern court of justice - is that weird, pro-Islam? [Well, yes.] Grow up! [Again incredibly rude, juvenile, contemptuous and putting himself above criticism.] I've written dozens of pieces about the Koran - you know where I stand... [He seems to think that he is immune to intellectual inconsistency and that puts him in his own mind above criticism.]Here is the great master, the serious intellectual, the internationally acclaimed novelist, sneeringly and contemptuously talking down from a great height in Internet jargon to the despised street urchins of "Islam critique". One doesn't play with children from the wrong side of the tracks, to whom serious "Islam critics" usually don't even talk.
You go, PI! You MUST do something right.


text:
Showing 1 - 20 of 42
Report Transportation
Recessions and Revenues
December 16, 2015This policy brief considers the implications of a recession for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) current financial plan.
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November 17, 2015CBC Breakfast with NYPD Commissioner William J. Bratton in November 2015.
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April 29, 2015This report identifies the reasons for NYCHA's operating deficits in the last decade - insufficent operating subsidies, low rent collections, low nonrental income and high operating costs - and offers recommendations to increase revenues, curb expenses and improve productivity in order to eliminate NYCHA's projected $150 million deficit and improve conditions for its residents.
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January 12, 2015This report analyzes the fiscal condition and outlook at the Port Authority's maritime ports, known as Port Commerce, and recommends strategies to place the business line on a course toward fiscal sustainability.


text: Difficulty settings are extremely important. Gamers are a diverse bunch and not everyone is evenly skilled, however, some developers take extensive time developing how hard specific modes should be. With Eidos Montreal, they're offering extensive customization options to alter the difficulty in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Square Enix detailed the options on their website. Easy – Aim assist will be enabled and enemies will have lower health, which will make them easier to kill and do less damage to Lara. Ammunition boxes are plentiful giving you the options to always have enough on you at all times, plus enemies will have illuminated silhouettes making them easier to spot. Normal – Enemies will have normal health and damage this time around and ammunition boxes are rare, so make every shot count! Enemies will still have illuminated silhouettes, the same as in easy. Hard – Enemies will have increased health now making them a little trickier to floor and with this, they'll do more damage and locate Lara more quickly. There will be no health regeneration in combat and ammunition boxes are rare. No hit markers on the reticle and enemies are not highlighted in Survival Instincts, time to get your sneak on and eyes peeled! Deadly Obsession – For the player looking to sweat a little. Deadly Obsession is the same as hard, but this time you will have no HUD icon when Lara is being detected by an enemy. This could be extremely interesting or extremely nerve-wracking! Square Enix explained how these settings will impact the player when it comes to exploration as well. Combat Easy Aim assist enabled Enemies have lower health and do less damage Ammunition boxes are plentiful Enemies have illuminated silhouettes Normal Enemies have normal health and damage Ammunition boxes are rare Enemies have illuminated silhouettes Hard Enemies have increased health, do more damage and locate Lara more quickly. No health regeneration in combat Ammunition boxes are rare No hit markers on the reticle Enemies are not highlighted in Survival Instincts Deadly Obsession Same as hard No HUD icon when Lara is being detected by an enemy Exploration Easy Obvious white paint on critical path Longer saving grab timer Base camps are lit Normal Discreet white paint on critical path Normal saving grab timer Base camps are unlit Hard No white paint on critical path Reduced saving grab timer No Survival Instincts during exploration Base camps are unlit Deadly Obsession Same as Hard Base camps are unlit and require resources to light Game only saves at Base camps Puzzles Easy Lara gives direct hints on next action to perform Interactable objects are highlighted in Survival Instincts Objects necessary to progress highlighted in blue during Survival Instincts Longer window of opportunity for timed mechanics Normal Lara gives general hints on the next action to perform Interactable objects are highlighted in Survival Instincts Normal window of opportunity for timed mechanics Hard/Deadly Obsession No hints are given by Lara No Survival Instincts Shorter window of opportunity for timer mechanics Shadow of the Tomb Raider launches this September 14th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Related


text:
Among the services that WordPress blogs (and undoubtedly others) get are basic statistics about visitors. Today I noticed a referral from a site called Identity Campaigning. This meant that they had created a link to this blog, which is kind of nice, since we're just getting going here (thanks folks!). Of course I had to check it out.
I discovered that Identity Campaigning is part of WWF-UK's Strategies for Change project. Their web site introduces the project thusly:
WWF's Strategies for Change project re-examines some of the assumptions that underlie current environmental campaigning, and suggests new evidence-based responses. In particular, the project looks at the importance of collective social values in driving change, and at the ways those values are shaped.
Though I haven't had time to explore their work in depth, Strategies for Change provides some very interesting material, including free downloads of three of their publications: Meeting Environmental Challenges: The Role of Human Identity, Weathercocks and signposts: the environment movement at a crossroads, Simple and Painless? The limitations of spillover in environmental campaigning. Some of these have been mentioned before over the ECN mailing list, but I figure they are well worth a shout out here.
Along with the core Strategies for Change web site, they are also running two relevant blogs, the above-mentioned Identity Campaigning, and Valuing Nature, both of which are now in the Indications blog roll. These reflect the emphasis that this project is putting on these a-typical approaches (values and identity) to campaigning. I'm looking forward to hearing more from these folks.


text: So I finally have a hatchback car (Kia Soul) that is worthy of a car magnet! Every time I have thought about it, I realized my car sent the message "If you sell Pampered Chef, you can have a crappy car like this!" So I am wondering about some thoughts: * I'm going through Vista Print (I don't want to spend a lot just for the new logo) for the magnet and a local person for a window cling down the line. (I don't trust myself to apply them properly and I'm not sure if I want one now, but I may change my mind come winter.) * What Vista Print designs do you think would work best? * What size would you get?


text:
Illinois Fruit and Vegetable News
Basic Info
Resource Type:Online Resource
Website and/or Calendar Links
Newsletter for Commercial Growers of Fruit and Vegetable Crops
A Publication of University of Illinois Extension and the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences
Illinois Fruit and Vegetable News is a newsletter to provide timely, research-based information that commercial fruit & vegetable growers can apply to benefit their farming operations
Visit the Illinois Fruit and Vegetable News website for current newsletters and other resources.
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- College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
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Contact PageVisit Contact Page
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text:
7th Year Red Salmon Fish Bliss Order starts NOW!!!
May 9, 2016 at 4:37 pm (Serendipity Plant Lore Group Announcements, Wild Teas and other Goodies for sale!)
Tags: 2016 Red Salmon Fish Bliss Order!, Bio-regionalism, Blessings, Community, Planting Love, Wild Caught, Wild Eating Ethics, Wild Eats, Wild Fish
Sunning in the Heart Beat Sunshine of Meadow Soul!
April 28, 2015 at 6:20 am (Field Training and Workshops, Herbs, Musings)
Tags: An Herbalist's Heart, Botanical Field Training, Herbalist Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, Holy Water!, Planting Love, Processing Herbs with Love Prayer Devotion!, Serendipity Plant Lore School of Ethnobotanical Studies, Sunning in the Heart Beat Sunshine of Meadow Soul!
It's been awhile, and far too long between musings, but living in such a seasonal way between sun-dances, my heart and soul have been taken up with the seasonal tasks of a wild forager and healing companion to many.
For there are seasons to everything, of rest and work and this is definitely a season for work!
Lots of hiking, walking, rolling in soil, knees deep in mud looking for treasures, hearing the wind whistle through the new growth of tree buds. Many wildflowers have been out, and significant meetings with many beautiful pollinators. Mason Bees joined our family this year as well, and the familiar daily ritual of harvesting Dandelion Leaves from our yard for our Family has definitely been a delight of the season!
Some of the beautiful experiences of recent times with Botanical Students have been to be very close to a family of Deer for quite some time, watching several Bald Eagles this spring, identifying the differences between Coyote scat, Deer, Raccoon, Elk, Bear and Mice droppings, taking pictures of Salamanders and Newts (and their cute little bottoms), listening to songs of Meadow Larks, watching the flights of Red Tail Hawks, and coming home at night to a Parrot in our own house, that via my son Ben in February, officially joined our Family.
Bright Sunshine and Winds blew us over to a Student's Botanical Haven she is restoring in the Columbia River Gorge, and drippy days in coastal forests 'shrooming, both gaining and losing personal items spiritually as well as physically, and watching a herd of Elk and communing with a very singular orange beaked Shore Bird that grabbed at our hearts in an amazing way!
We also smooched with a Turkey Vulture, and made love with Hummingbirds, and buried noses in the scents of many types wild carrot family members. We ate joyful foods in meadows singing love, and sighted Horton the Elephant's prized plant that he cared for so much!
Smelling Pine and Nettle Feet, our Hearts spread deeper in a day of Elder Love, and we sat and worked with certain Live Love Medicines.
My Sons have found the brilliant sun of loves outside of themselves and inside, and we feasted on the freedom of free ranging Spirits in the Soul of the Divine World so large!
Drinking the droplets of water through ancient mosses, we give praise to Holy Water so free and abundant. The dew of flowers, the wet sticking stamens of the spring, the water dribbling in crevices, the dew of the Emerging Spring Heart!
Abundant Eggs!
A plentiful pantry!
Wild and Purple!
Distant Horizons!
Hearts FULL of Joy, Heartfull Joy, Heart Joyfull, Joyfull Hearts!
Forest Love!
Tasty Findings!
The Pantry under the Floor.
(c) 2015, Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH
All Rights Reserved.
Pantry Pickles Cold and Flu Herbal Workshop this Tuesday, February 17th!
February 12, 2015 at 5:39 am (Herbs, Serendipity Plant Lore Group Announcements)
Tags: Creative Hungarian Frugality, Innate Immunity, Pantry Pickles Cold and Flu Workshops, Planting Love, Serendipity Plant Lore School of Ethnobotanical Studies, Strange Potions
Serendipity Plant Lore School of Ethnotanical Studies
Pantry Pickles Cold and Flu Workshop, Tuesday, February 17th, 2015
Come and learn some old-fashioned and time proven methods for strengthening your beautiful body against viral villains by shopping in your cupboard and making your own villain stoppers! If you do succumb to a group of viral villains, learn to shorten your illness, make the bad villains good friends in an effort to strengthen the bodacious immune system! Together, we will get our hands messy with folklore, put together pantry pickles; listen to stories about emerging from immune suppression and planting the seeds of nurtured health. We will make strong and strange potions that are effective supporters of our unique lives. Learn the difference between innate and acquired immunity and how to stave off secondary infections. Learn to treat yourself to your own body wisdom and body cures!
This class is messy and is potluck; please bring a dish to share, your own mug, fork, spoon, plate and napkin. Be prepared to smell interesting smells, taste interesting tastes, and enjoy stories while we craft ourselves into wholeness and wellness!
Workshop Date: Tuesday, February 17th, 2015
When: 1:00-3:30′ish PM
Where: Vancouver, WA
Cost: Pre-registration is necessary. $40.00
Supplies to Bring: Dish to share, Mug, Fork, Spoon, Plate and Napkin, Pen and Paper
Register with Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH@ email@example.com
(c) 2015, Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH
Serendipity Plant Lore January 2015 Announcements!!! :)
January 7, 2015 at 1:54 am (Serendipity Plant Lore Group Announcements)
Tags: Herbal Tea Garden Love, Koya Designs handmade Aged Christmas Potpourri, Pastured Eggs and Holistic Chickens and Ducks, Planting Herbal Love, Planting Love, Precious Salts, Serendipity Plant Lore January 2015 Announcements!, Workshops and Apprenticehips in Vancouver WASHINGTON
These teas and herbs are highly medicinal, and are extras from my own organic garden and wild forages. All ethically harvested, the exceptions to the herbs that I've grown or foraged myself are those like Cinnamon, All Spice, and Red, Black and Green, and Olive Tea Leaves. These are ethically obtained from other Herbalists who have the same great care and ethic. These Tea Herb extras help to support the consultation work for those those in need of receiving free services. I thank you for your support, and hope, in return, you are tantalized with amazing Earth Medicine for your own health care and lovely, compost-able gifts! Some NEW offerings too! Limited Quantities. 🙂
Serendipity Plant Lore has beautiful hand grown, hand sourced, sustainable and ethically wild-crafted herbal teas for $7 a box/sack. Each of the tea offerings has been used by this herbalist for many decades to aid health, enjoyment and vitality, recovery from many health problems. They have "lived" with me for so long, they have become part of me, and I am excited to have these offerings which truly support our family and the work as I continue my ongoing education and offering sliding scale consultations for those in need.
Merry Christmas and Birthing Love!
December 25, 2014 at 9:33 pm (Herbs, Hungary, Musings)
Tags: Farkas Takacs Family Stories, Farkas Takács Family Traditions, Merry Christmas and Birthing Love!, Planting Love
Merry Christmas and Birthing Love into the Growing Light to ALL!
From my heart to yours…..on Christmas, we are in remembrance and awareness of the baby growing light that brings us into the New Year. We remember the soul, the birth of Christ, the Greenary of Being, and the weaving of love that holds the years together.
Our traditions in our Family are simple….they are the awareness of light, of love, of growth in the dark, of deepest roots one way and freshest branch tips the other. We live with the understanding, in an unbroken chain, of living between and ad-mist all cycles of the year.
Particularly for those who live as poets, close to the Earthen Lands of God, unapologetically living in the mystical grace of the way our ancestors left, we bless all the dark spaces, all the composting condensing that allows our soul the space to grow with the growing light.
In a very old herbal healing tradition, practiced in and amongst the kinship of animals, the wind on the face, the touch of frost on the cheek, and the deep warmth of a hay pile, we grow under the cloak of fibre and spinning. We grow under the tree, in the tree, and the very tips of the tree.
We are graced with the beautiful gifts of life, we are graced with a soul of deep awareness….aware of Heaven and Hell, aware, of everything Green, aware of the deep down roots and the tops of trees. We are planted in God's World to grow.
Those who grow the herbs of separation are simply growing their awareness of their own destruction…for the herbs of rebirth and renewal are of the protection and protector of the grace that provides life.
This is not of the hands of man, this is the hands of something greater which we are asked and offered to participate in. The hand of the Steward, the hand of the Shepherd, the hand of us that live so close to land and God, and away from the internal oppression that bewails Spirits so separated from the Grace.
And all it requires is our resounding, and beautiful, crystal clear voice that sings YES! Yes, to this rebirth, of sleeping body and soul and spirit, of sleeping tree and sleeping Borage plant. The YES that the Linden Tree sings in the breeze with open wings, wings given of and from God.
As a Traditional Herbal Healer, in contemplation of Spirit, of Herbs, of Herding beautiful animals and beautiful children, I am reminded of all the lessons of teaching from my family of Healers, of Hunters, of Herbalists, of Herders, of Farmers. How we, we each hold the balances of love, of life and death, of resurrection, of destruction, of beautification. How each, is given a great responsibility. How each of us, can choose to live this love, instead of making excuses against the love, or proving, why we are right not to experience a deep love in this deep season of darkness and growing light.
However deep, we can prove ourselves right by the barring of great love, or we can open and say YES to love and find there is no barrier that exists against it. And YES, the ages of this knowledge passed down, will never die, simply hiding within cycles of light and dark, love and oppression, until we understand.
It is hard to understand without the air touching our face, or frozen earth under our feet. It is hard to understand if one is not standing upright under the cloak, recycling heat under the fiber, from herding the animals, that show to us what we do not understand.
We are one with our flocks, yet we nourishing and steward the diversity and the difference. It would be no other way.
Our ways with the plants are the same, we open and say YES to them, and they dance through a prayer of grace in our beings, our souls, our very Mother Earth.
One of our Farkas Takács Family Traditions is the hanging of candies filled with cream on our tree. With the beautiful and exciting taste we remember the Gift of Taste we are given. However, this is a later adaptation of an earlier tradition.
We cut the trees, and cut the greens for our house for decoration and celebration, but also, to see and contact the Divine in a closer manner. Sitting with trees, we hear them and know them, and the removal of trees has always been considered a Sacred Action to be closer to God. In doing so, the trees were thanked and given blessing before the fire, and decorating with them brought a connection into our homes with God. Tree Clearing was only for communion, any other benefit was secondary. The connection with Jesus and Holy Trees is a long one, as well as many other peoples of many other religions.
From the Song of Songs, there is a little winged beast that beats from the chest, and springs thereof.
To desecrate the world, is to create the greatest of all sins against God.
In our world today, we would do well to remember the teachings of our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and great-great grandparents. I have been besotted with grace to have meetings and living ins with Great Grandparents as well as a brief touch from Great Great Grandparents. Our Family has always been long lived, and for the little that it is worth, we teach our young ones from a small age the traditions that are ageless.
From a small age, we are taught about living in the boat of the tree in space. For this, we see many and much written account as well as direct teaching. Like Jesus, we die upon the tree, and the soul is born of it. So my Grandfathers taught to me. Not some effort of recitation and early childhood programming…but a living tradition that continues.
And so, when our Family comes together, united, and decorates our Tree of Blessing, it is of handmade, and loving gift, of remembrance. Remembrance of God, remembrance of toddlers, remembrance of the next generation, remembrance of the Holy, of the Divine, of the Connection between Heaven and Earth that is the powerline behind our hearts. We are in remembrance of Love, and continuation to rebirth that into the world through the cycles of light and shadows, compost and seed sprout, tree root and tree limb. We are that which we remember in our herding, in our healing, in our weaving, in our blessing and our heart shaped knowing. We are the remembrance that carries through the growing understanding of multiple millenniums.
And if one has lost family and is not in contact with that anymore, do look for your true home. Pick up your thread, pick up your cloth, pick up your fiber, and your barbed needles, and tease the material until the wisdom of healing pours forth. Then, you will know, and be thankful!
(c) 2014, Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH
All Rights Reserved.
Holly Remembrances
November 25, 2014 at 9:47 pm (Herbs, Recipes)
Tags: Family Tradition of Holly Foraging, Farkas Takács Family Traditions, Holly Remembrances, Planting Love, Table Wreath Remembrances
I am happy with how our table wreath turned out this year! I kept this very simple. This very much reminds me of my family, who harvested wild holly right here in Southwest Washington wooded areas for many decades. My family would harvest and then load on a truck and drive it down to California for California peoples to purchase greenery for their holiday celebrations. My family was always appreciated for their foraging work, and would have the same customers, year after year! This was in a time when joy was at a simpler level, when people wanted to buy from each other the efforts of work that turned into celebration. Making this table wreath feels strongly in connection with the traditions and stories of our family's life. I may add to the wreath, maybe not quite finished, and our Holly Tree has abundance for us, always.
(c) 2014, Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH
All Rights Reserved.
7th Annual Ol' Fashioned Fermenting and Preserving the Autumn Harvest Workshop!
November 10, 2014 at 4:01 am (Herbs, Hungary, Recipes)
Tags: 7th Annual Ol' Fashioned Fermenting and Preserving the Autumn Harvest Workshop, A Toast to Bugs!!!, Cabbage Fingers :), Planting Love, Swirling Lekvár!, That's a Crock of...!!!
7th Annual Ol' Fashioned Preserving the Autumn Harvest Workshops are coming up! A favorite workshop, this is a fun, hands on workshop devoted to the understanding of traditional food storage techniques that use the basic gifts of earth, air, water and salt to put up food in a creative and individual way, to best enhance the flavor, nutrition, over-all health and pure excitement of fresh, local whole food and garden harvests. This class is poetry in motion and participants are encouraged to bring their ideas, questions and recipes, every class is unique!
We'll cover techniques for Lacto-Fermentation, Pickling, Oiling, Wet and Dry Salting, Summer's Hungarian Salt Preserves, Drying, Cold Cellar Storage and more low energy techniques and recipes!
This class is also potluck, so please bring a dish to share, your own plate, mug, fork, spoon and napkin. Cost: $40, Pre-registration only to guarantee a spot!
What to Bring: A dish and or snack to share, pen and paper, eating utensils, questions, and a heart ready to have fun!
Saturday, November 22nd, from 2-4 PM'ish. To register, send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com.
(c) 2014, Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH
All Rights Reserved.
Serendipity Plant Lore School will be at the F.A.R.M. Stocking Up Event this coming Saturday!
October 6, 2014 at 5:53 am (Herbs, Serendipity Plant Lore Group Announcements, Wild Teas and other Goodies for sale!)
Tags: F.A.R.M., Fermentation, Food Demos, Free 5 Minute Consultations, Herbal Medicine, Herbal Medicine Talk, Herbal Teas, Planting Love, Serendipity Plant Lore School of Ethnobotanical Studies, Traditional Foods, Wild Berries, Wild Foods Foraging, Wild Mushrooms, Wilderness First Aid
Hi Herb Folks, Student Folks and Friend Folks!
Serendipity Plant Lore School of Ethnobotanical Studies is going to be at the F.A.R.M. stocking up event for its third season! I'll have a table there with wild foraged and organic garden herbs and hand-made herbal teas from Serendipity Plant Lore School of Ethnobotanical Studies, Wild Mushrooms, and other cute little herb tidbits! Pre-order to guarantee the filling of your order (instructions below), but I will bring extra wild foraged mushrooms, and possibly other berries and teas to the event. Pre-order is October 1st, but I will bring any extras I have too! I have enjoyed being part of this gathering, I love each and every Farmer at the event, hold dearly in my heart the organizers of this group, and highly encourage folks to come grab some local seasonal goodies to stock up for winter from great, sustain-ably minded and organic farmers and producers! This is also a good time, if you have a few questions, to bring them to the event, especially about herbs, healing, pickling, farming and other food subjects/discussions. I don't always get a chance to respond to every email, but this is a perfect place to grab my ear for a 5 minute free consultation gab! I'll also be doing some Herbal Medicine Talks, Traditional Food Preservation Demos and more as time permits. So come on out, would love to see you!!!
~Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH
Serendipity Plant Lore School of Ethnobotanical Studies
Herbalist, Wild Foods Forager and Master Pickler
>>>F.A.R.M. is hosting our second "Stocking Up" event here in SW Washington on October 11th, 1-4pm! Mark your calendars!
What sets this market apart from a farmers' market or other direct marketing option is the fact it's an annual event and customers are encouraged to purchase the quantity they would need for a year. They can purchase bulk quantities of staples directly from farmers.
We have very pickily selected farmers that we know and trust, and value agriculture techniques from, to keep this event a wholesome, healthy, and exciting time — keeping the offerings as near as our food shed as possibly possible.
We have several awesome sessions going on, as well as a petting zoo, hay maize, face painting, wagon rides and lots more! Bring the whole family!
Maybe we'll get lucky and have an impromtu singer songwriter show up like in 2012, or a band like last year!
Pre-orders are encouraged (and necessary for many items). We will be sending out a detailed list of offerings on October 1st, with orders due by October 8th. To receive this list, email firstname.lastname@example.com and express interest in participating!
See you there!<<<
(c) 2014, Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH


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By Bernie Quigley
For The Hill on 3/25/13
At least we're winning on the Fox Evening news . . . Dad's gonna kill me. – from Richard Thompson's driving 2007 ballad on the war in Iraq
Again and again the apologists, those who have not already escaped retribution to the academy or the "think" tank, make the claim that no one challenged the nefarious triumvirate of Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and especially George W. Bush although the lies and deceptions were apparent to all. Let's be specific about the NY Times editors, the Fox news commentators, the appeasing Congressmen and Senators then and now. Lets' put their pictures on milk cartons.
This week in ten-years hindsight there are many questions asked by journalists and much apologia. There will be many more and much concerned hang-wringing because again, as in the war on Vietnam we, the Americans, did not win. This should not slip away now to denial, to a refusal to take responsibility with pretty blond on blond journalists mindfully agreeing and disagreeing with one another with little bottles of water in their hands. Journalists and editors and Senators and Congressmen specifically bear responsibility for this failure of the American heart and mind. I propose no general absolution and the questions asked be not from other journalists or vaulted senior statesmen of journalism and cardinals of the media's college, but by veterans of Iraq combat. And the questions asked as Hemingway asked, starting with this one: "Did you every kill a man in anger?" Or have you ever lost a child – a daughter – in combat? Because that is burden we asked our soldiers bear in another war that we did not win.
Some of the apologia is absolutely stunning. My thought is that we never ever had an impulse to win, but only to punish make a noise in tribal retribution, our soldiers only pawns in another Beltway game. The Huffington Post reports 3/24/13: "Greg Mitchell, author of a recently updated book on media mistakes during the run-up to the Iraq War, So Wrong For So Long, revealed Saturday night on his blog that the Washington Post's Outlook section had killed an assigned piece related to the press debacle that was slated for publication this weekend."
In all of the press apologies I have read there was never a mention of four whom I followed closely at the time who gave precise predictions on the war and its aftermath: General Wesley Clark, who ran for President in 2004 in opposition to the war on Iraq, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who also served as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff and Gary Hart, former Colorado Senator and presidential candidate. These four, three of whom had distinguished military careers, virtually railed against the invasion. Let's start with them- lets's start with soldiers - in a commission to investigate the origins and advancement of the war in Iraq.


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Welcome home
I've been travelling the world for almost 30 years, and while I have always missed those I love, only now do I know what…Read More
I've been travelling the world for almost 30 years, and while I have always missed those I love, only now do I know what…Read More
Lora has been surfing for more than four hours straight. His mother Elly is getting impatient to go home but he shows little sign…Read More
Adeng Adeng means "slowly slowly" in Balinese and it is a phrase that's used a lot out here on Bali's remote west. There's little reason…Read More
At just 12 years old little Hizkia has seen more adventure and desperation in his short life than any of us should ever have…Read More
Rubbish is a huge problem in so many places around the world, Bali included. I guess that's the downside to being an island on…Read More
BERLIAN INN, POPPIES 1, KUTA, BALI – price at the time of writing from US$15 a double (B&B) No website – Call +62…Read More
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Ketut, with a picture of his mother. [words and photograph by Mark Eveleigh] "I can't cure black magic. I'm not a magician. I'm just Ketut."…Read More
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- Not to be confused with Goggol.
Googol is a very well-known large number, equal to 10100 or 1 followed by 100 zeroes.[1]
Coined before 1940, it has become very famous as a generic example of a large number, and is what the field of googology is named after.
The term was coined by Edward Kasner's nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, some time before 1940. It was first published in a book co-written by Kasner Mathematics and the Imagination. The name was most likely influenced by name of the title character of the American comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, which was very popular at the time. Barney Google's name was in turn inspired by Vincent Vickers' 1913 children's book The Google Book.
The googol is equal to ten duotrigintillion in the short scale, or ten sexdecilliard in the long scale.[2] Googol can be expressed as {10,100} in BEAF, or as E100, E100#1, or E2#2 in Hyper-E notation.
Sbiis Saibian has given the alternative name guppyding.[3]
There are a mere 1080 elementary particles in the observable universe, so googol has little use when measuring real-world quantities. However. it is still much less than the number of Planck volumes in the observable universe (which is about 10183), so it still has some real-world meaning. Sbiis Saibian showed that a googol particles in a tightly packed sphere would still have a diameter of 5.6 quadrillion meters, or half a light-year.[4]
A cube with edge length 35mm contains about a googol Planck volumes.[5]
Googol is comparable to some numbers produced by combinatorics. For example, 70 factorial (the number of ways 70 distinct objects can be arranged in a row) is about 20% larger than 10100.
A googol seconds is about a sexvigintillion (1081) times the estimated age of the universe. A googol angstroms is approximately 100 trevigintillion light-years.
It takes approximately 317 novemvigintillion years to count to a googol one integer at a time. Counting by googols, half googols, or duotrigintillions, of course, one could count there faster but it is not considered kosher in hide-and-seek or googology.
Cultural impactEdit
The definition of googol, googolplex, and similar numbers eventually branched into the field of googology, the study of, nomenclature of, and creation of notations for large numbers.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of the Google search engine, named their company after a pun on googol, as their goal is to cache the mass of data that makes up the World Wide Web.[6]
Googology Wiki has a tongue-in-cheek goal to reach 10100 articles.
- ↑ Googol (from Wolfram Mathworld)
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ 4.3.2 - Hyper-E Numbers - Large Numbers
- ↑ Plexing & The Googol Series - Large Numbers
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ [3]
See alsoEdit
Googoltoll googoltoll Googolex googol • plex It's 100 zeroes 1 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


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Expects revenues to be $19.6bn in 2011
EMC has posted revenues of $4.9bn in the fourth quarter of 2010, an increase of 20% compared to $4.1bn for the same quarter last year.
The company posted operating income of $943.7m in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $587.6m in the previous year quarter.
For the quarter ended December 31 2010, the company's net income attributable to the company was $628.6m, an increase of 61% compared to $390.6m for the same period last year.
Diluted earnings per share increased to $0.29 from $0.19 in the fourth quarter.
For fiscal year 2010, the company posted net revenues increased 21% year-on-year to $17bn, operating income of $2.7bn and net income was $1.9bn.
EMC chairman and CEO Joe Tucci said the platform for change in the IT industry has arrived with the biggest opportunity residing at the intersection of trusted cloud computing, enterprise data and 'Big Data.'
The company expects revenues to be $19.6bn, net income to be $2.4bn, and diluted earnings per share to be $1.07 for 2011.


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Investors may want to hit home runs when stocks rally, but the market's tendency to throw curve balls is a reminder to play defence, too.
After last month's sharp market selloff, it's worth flagging some defensive names. These stocks, which are less vulnerable in choppy markets or tough economic times, can be found in the health-care, utilities and consumer-staples sectors.
Being labelled defensive stocks doesn't mean their value won't decline, but they could outperform the broader market during volatile conditions. They typically have stable earnings and pay a dividend, allowing investors to be paid while waiting for a rebound.
We asked three portfolio managers for their top defensive stock picks.
Rick Ummat, portfolio manager at Jemekk Capital Management Inc., Toronto
His fund: Jemekk Total Return Fund
The pick: Waste Connections Inc. (WCN-TSX)
52-week range: $81.52 to $107.63 a share
Waste Connections, North America's third-largest waste services company, is an attractive defensive play because garbage always needs to be collected regardless of the general economy, says Mr. Ummat. "The company also has great earnings visibility because it is a contract-based business." The Vaughan, Ont.-based company was created in 2016 after U.S.-based Waste Connections bought Canada's Progressive Waste Solutions Ltd. in a reverse takeover. Waste Connections is a free-cash-flow machine with the ability to internally finance tuck-in acquisitions, he adds. Its dividend-paying shares trade at a premium to those of peers such as U.S.-based Waste Management Inc. and Republic Services Inc. That's because of Waste Connections's strong management team, which has succeeded in carrying out its strategies, he says. Execution is key, so any misstep is a risk, he adds.
The pick: Andrew Peller Ltd. (ADW.A-TSX)
52-week range: $11.64 to $19.04 a share
This wine and spirits producer's stock is a defensive play because people will consume alcohol in good and bad times, says Mr. Ummat. Andrew Peller, based in Grimbsy, Ont., has premium labels such as Peller Estates and Wayne Gretzky Estates as well as price-conscious brands. Andrew Peller, which owns the Wine Shop retailer, is also benefiting from the growing popularity of wine among millennials and growth from acquisitions that includes the 2017 purchase of three British Columbia wineries, he adds. The company could also be a contender for some of the US$3-billion in wine assets which U.S.-based Constellation Brands Inc. may sell, he says. Because Andrew Peller's dual-class stock is "fairly illiquid" and its share price can be under pressure from profit-taking, that also creates a better buying opportunity for investors, he notes. The company has paid a dividend every year since 1979.
Lorne Steinberg, president of Lorne Steinberg Wealth Management Inc., Montreal
His fund: Steinberg Global Value Equity Fund
The pick: Novartis AG (NVS-NYSE)
52-week range: US$72.30 to US$94.19 a share
This Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer's shares are a compelling way to play defence because the demand for drugs is not affected by economic conditions, says Mr. Steinberg. Novartis, which also owns the generic drug maker Sandoz, has a diversified portfolio of medicines focused on cardiology, immunology and oncology, he adds. "We look for earnings growth in the next few years in the 7- to 10-per-cent range. … It is a conservative, well-run company trading at a reasonable valuation and generating pretty decent dividend growth." Novartis has been successful in building its drug pipeline organically as opposed to making costly acquisitions, and it expects growth in developing countries including India and China, he says. While a risk is its underperforming Alcon eye-care business, Novartis plans to spin it off and that already is priced into the shares, he notes.
The pick: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (PHG-NYSE)
52-week range: US$32.98 to US$46.67 a share
This Dutch company, which spun off its lighting business in 2016, has since focused more on health-care technology, says Mr. Steinberg. While Koninklijke Philips Electronics still has a consumer electronics division, whose products include electric shavers and toothbrushes, it has also become a major player in selling medical diagnostic and treatment equipment as well as patient monitoring systems, he notes. Its customers are now hospitals and health-care providers, so "it's a very stable business and very non-economically sensitive," he says. Earnings are expected to grow at about 10 per cent a year over the next few years, and "we are looking for ongoing dividend and revenue growth," he adds. "Its stock trades at reasonable valuation at roughly 17 times next year's earnings." The risk to this stock lies in management's ability to execute its strategy, he adds.
Pierre Trottier, vice-president and portfolio manager, Industrial Alliance Investment Management Inc., Quebec City
His fund: IA Clarington U.S. Dividend Growth Fund
The pick: NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE-NYSE)
52-week range: US$145.10 to US$184.20 a share
The U.S.-based utility's stock is defensive because consumers need electricity in both a growing and recessionary economy, says Mr. Trottier. NextEra, which was known as FPL Group. Inc. when it focused on the Florida market, now does business in 33 U.S. states and in Canada. NextEra, a leader in wind and solar energy, also benefits from the growing desire by technology companies, such as Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, for green electricity, he adds. NextEra's dividend yield, which is close to 2.5 per cent, is lower than the 4 per cent offered by some other utility stocks, he notes, but the company's dividend is expected to grow by about 12 per cent annually over the next couple of years. While rising interest rates can be a risk to utility stocks, companies with higher dividend yields would be more vulnerable, he suggests.
The pick: Kraft Heinz Co. (KHC-Nasdaq)
52-week range: US$41.60 to US$89.59 a share
Shares of the global food giant declined last year despite its traditionally defensive nature, but the potential return is worth the risk, suggests Mr. Trottier. U.S.-based Kraft has been hit by competition from private-label products offered by Amazon.com Inc., while consumer tastes have also shifted toward healthier foods, he notes. Kraft Heinz, which was created in a 2015 merger, slashed costs to improve profit margins, but it failed to innovate and generate sales growth, he says. But Kraft, which last year earmarked US$300-million for new investments, has acquired firms such as Vancouver-based Ethical Bean Coffee and U.S. paleo-diet-friendly condiment company Primal Nutrition LLC to tap into new trends. The risk is failing to turn the ship around, but investors get close to a 5.5-per-cent dividend yield while they wait, he adds.


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Women's rights activists condemn police for investigating 26 women on abortions
By Jo He-rim
Published : Dec 25, 2018
Women's rights groups in the Gyeongsang provinces on Tuesday condemned a provincial police agency for investigating 26 women on whether they had abortions.
Members of the women's rights groups, including the Gyeongnam Women's United Association, said they held a meeting with officials at the South Gyeongsang Province Police Agency on Monday and delivered a letter of complaint.
Continued: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20181225000167


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Himalayan Herders
Film et Vidéo
- Auteurs : Bishop John M. ; Bishop Naomi ;
- Editeurs : Watertown Documentary Educational Resources [éd., distrib.] ;
- Date d'édition : 2004
- Sujets : Films documentaires -- Asie, Anthropologie visuelle, Ethnologie, Népal, Films ethnographiques Népal
- Langue(s) : Népalais, Anglais
- Description matérielle : 1 DVD vidéo monoface simple couche zone 0 (76 min), : Coul. (SECAM)
- Pays de publication : États-Unis
Film en version originale en népalais. Sous-titres et commentaire en anglais ; The DVD also contains Update 2002 video, Making Himalayan Herders video and PDF texts files (article, film transcript, book excerpt)
Himalayan Herders is an intimate portrait of a temple-village in the Yolmo valley of Central Nepal where Tibetan Buddhists consult shamans, married life begins by kidnapping the bride, and the nearest road is a two-day walk away. The community drama of marriage, death, and rituals is juxtaposed with the rich texture of daily life, both in the village and the surrounding mountains and forest where these pastoralists herd zomo, a cross between a cow and a yak, which thrives in middle altitude pastures between 8,000 and 14,000 feet. Cultural change, in the form of a government primary school, incorporation into a national park, and circular migration for wage labor outside Nepal, is discussed by residents in interviews. A twenty-five-year-long collaboration between an ethnographer and a documentary filmmaker, the film provides rich material for examining gender, cultural change, religion, pastoralism, South Asia, and the cultural ecology and economics of mountain populations.


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Coaches, planes and wheels: My work placementSkip to Section Navigation ↓
Whizz-Kidz runs work placements for young wheelchair users aged 14-25, to help them experience the workplace, learn more about a career and improve their employability. We work with dozens of partners all over the UK to provide a range of opportunities. Here, Simon shares his experience of a placement with National Express.
As I looked around Victoria Coach Station on the first day of my placement, I was a little intimidated. Seeing crowds of people rushing to get their coaches showed me just how large of an operation National Express was running from this coach station alone. But I shouldn't have been worried. The team at National Express would support me all the way and Karl, another Whizz-Kidz Ambassador, would be there to keep me company.
We were whisked off to a Eurolines ticket office and told that we would be issuing tickets to customers. After a demonstration of the ticket system, we were ready to go. Karl and I were soon serving customers who wanted to go to Southampton, Reading or even Spain! One of us would talk to the customer to find out what they needed and use the computer mouse, while the other would operate the keyboard to make sure that we served customers. There's nothing like good teamwork.
At one point during the day I had to serve a French family who spoke very little English. This meant having to say bonjour to the tiny bit of French I know and haven't used in years. Eventually, I was able to issue them with their tickets successfully and it felt great that I was able to help them.
On the morning of the second day, we were given National Express orange jackets and asked to direct people to their coaches if they asked us. This was a great experience for me because I felt that people really took me seriously and I was able to relieve some customers' stress.
In the afternoon, I had to get my face video-ready for an interview about National Express by Whizz-Kidz. I will always say that the camera adds 10 pounds!
The last day of the placement was a lot of fun. We took a coach ride to Heathrow and I was surprised to see just how accessible the National Express coaches are. There's a proper wheelchair lift to get wheelchair users on board. We took a tour of Terminal 3 and I even got to see some planes fly off. I must admit, it did make me feel a bit jealous of the people going on holiday!
Everybody should go on the National Express work placement if they can. The team there is great and at the end of it I really felt like I had boosted my self-esteem and made a positive impact.
Want to go on a Whizz-Kidz Work Placement? Visit our Work Placements page.
Categorised under: Young People
Tagged under: Work placements