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The new restaurant owners are introducing Watershed to a whole new clientele, and were wise enough to find talented people who understand the distillery's ethos.
Why They're Tastemakers
Have a seat at any bar or restaurant in Columbus and odds are you'll spy Watershed Distillery products on the shelves. Owners Greg Lehman and Dave Rigo have grown their portfolio deliberately from vodka, gin and bourbon to specialized spirits like the Nocino black walnut liqueur and bottled Old-Fashioned (with an apple brandy on the way). And last year, when state legislative changes began permitting distilleries to serve spirits directly to customers, they quickly made a bold move into the restaurant world.
From Distillery to Bar and Restaurant
Lehman and Rigo can tell you the exact date Ohio legislation went into effect allowing them to operate bars and restaurants—Sept. 28, 2016. The actual legislation was signed in June. "That's when we said, 'Let's do this,'" Lehman says. "The logical side said, 'Don't start a restaurant because they're scary.' The passionate side said we had to do it." Thus began the transformation from a distillery with a small bottle shop to full-fledged restaurant and bar. Their goal was to make space for guests to enjoy cocktails and become fans of the brand. "We'd give a tour," Lehman says, "and people wanted to hang out in the front room, have a drink, have some food. But [before the new laws passed] they could only buy a bottle to take home."
Distilling Talent
As they launched Watershed Kitchen & Bar, Lehman and Rigo were wise enough to find talented people who understand the distillery's ethos. To that end, they hired Jack Moore as executive chef and Alex Chien as bar manager. "They understand what the distillery's about," Lehman says. "We love to educate a bit, challenge a bit, mostly make sure people are enjoying themselves." Rigo adds that he and Lehman didn't fully commit to the restaurant until they found Moore, a veteran of top-notch Cleveland eateries like The Black Pig and Greenhouse Tavern. Likewise, Chien had made a name for himself in cocktail competitions, and they offered him the opportunity to lead his first bar program.
Celebrating Fellow Entrepreneurs
As the name implies, Watershed is based on the idea of celebrating important moments and big steps. With that in mind, Lehman and Rigo recently launched an online series called "I'll Have What I'm Having," where they invite some of their favorite entrepreneurs and collaborators to tell their stories and share their knowledge. "It highlights the people we want to highlight," Rigo says, "people who are changing the community." It's their way to support other businesses and give back to the restaurants and organizations that supported them early on. "We started being local," Lehman says, "but we realized we're more than that. We care about the community itself, being a part of the change that's driving it. We were inspired by others to start our company; now we're inspiring and celebrating others."


text: Getting sophisticated and highly engaging iOS apps is no more an exorbitant affair. Sevy Incorporation brings cost-effective iOS app development services using the latest iOS SDK. iPhone app development by Sevy delivers high-performing applications to run seamlessly on all Apple devices includingiPADS, iPhones, and Apple watches. The highly skilled iPhone app developers at Sevy showcase matchless proficiency to create epic applications to entertain people or to educate or to run the business or e-commerce.

subset: commoncrawl


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Before we can intelligently talk about developing joint marital dreams, we must first understand what we're talking about. We all have dreams about matters important to us – our lives, our jobs, our accomplishments, our dream vacation spots, and of course, our marriages.
The fascinating part of this concept is that few of us ever vocalize most of our specific dreams. In fact, many of us have never consciously determined what many of these dreams are beyond a vague idea of success, competence, fame, fortune, happiness, fulfillment, and/or influence. Just because we haven't consciously determined what most of these dreams look like, however, doesn't mean that we don't exert considerable influence on our mates to reach the ultimate achievement of our dreams.
For example, suppose a man's fondest boyhood memories of time spent with his father involved time bonding together while working on and riding his dad's motorcycle. As a result, one of his unspoken and unfocused dreams for his marriage might be to take biking trips with his wife across several states, camping out on the way, just enjoying nature and the love of his life. The woman he fell in love with and married thinks "roughing it" involves a week's stay in a 5-star hotel in the Caribbean, and never on a motorcycle. On a level he may not even be aware of, he views his marriage as a disappointment and failure because they can never bond in a way that speaks volumes to him of happiness, intimacy, and mutual interest.
Because our marital dreams color our view of happiness and success – at least, in marriage – understanding what our marital dreams are and what they mean to us is essential to our feelings of a successful and fulfilling marriage. Understanding our own dreams for our marriages, however, is only the first of three vital steps.
The second step is to understand what the spouse's dreams for the marriage are, and what those dreams mean to him or her. Finally, once you both understand each other's dreams and the significance behind each one, each spouse must find a way to fulfill as many of the other's marital dreams as possible. Obviously, the likelihood of some dreams being mutually exclusive with some dreams of the other is a real possibility. Consequently, not all dreams can be fulfilled.
When both spouses allow a give-and-take attitude to prevail so that some of both mate's marital dreams are fulfilled, and what is not achievable stems from fulfilling an opposing marital dream of the other or some other reasonable factor (like insufficient time or resources), love, respect, and appreciation permeate a marriage.
When two mature people who love one another deeply follow this plan, they see many marital dreams for both fulfilled. Isn't this what every married couple dreams of achieving?
– Family Dynamics Institute
Family Dynamics Institute collaborates with Churches, Companies, and Community Organizations to help them provide a Comprehensive Marriage Ministry to help married and engaged couples grow stronger at all ages and stages of marriage.
To Learn More, Contact Us At:
Email Us: email@example.com
Websites: www.FamilyDynamics.net


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Rating: WORTHY!
I'm not a huge fan of this author, but this short, amusing, and colorful pasteboard book for young children was a worthy read I thought, and the art by Mark Teague was great.
I think Dinosaurs are overdone these days, but this was a different take: working on the assumption of something which never happened in real life - that humans and dinosaurs existed together. This book amusingly takes that farce one step further by turning dinos into fellow citizens, who have lives and like to go out to eat - which seems to be true based on fossil evidence. Their al fresco dining habits are well documented.
Unfortunately their manners leave a lot to be desired and this is not so well-attested by fossil evidence, which is why this book is important! I found it entertaining, especially for the intended audience, and I commend it as a worthy read.


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Westward Strategy & Design Group is proud to support Women in Business.
Please be sure to pick up a copy of the June/July Northern Nevada Business Weekly 'Women in Business' magazine.
Other organizations that support local women in business:
- eWomen Network
Supporting, promoting and showcasing success-minded women.
- Professional Sales Women of Nevada
Local business professionals, who are committed to involvement in community service.


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Ever since I started using Mac portables, I have been using Raging Menace Software's SideTrack. Just in case you are unfamiliar with this program, SideTrack is a replacement driver for the track-pad on either iBooks or PowerBooks which allows much greater control over what you can do with your track-pad. Long before Apple introduced the two finger scrolling on PowerBooks (and very recently, iBooks), SideTrack allowed users to scroll using the track-pad. For me, however, and I am sure many other users of Apple portables is the ability to create a track-pad gesture that brings up the contextual menu (right click/control click).
However, with the introduction of the new PowerBooks in January, SideTrack was no longer compatible. This was due to the fact that Apple chose to switch from an ADB connected track-pad to a USB connected track-pad. Because of this, Raging Menace was forces to re-write SideTrack to allow support for the latest hardware.
Being the owner of a January 2005 PowerBook, I was horribly disappointed when I found this out. I was surfing around just now, and something drove me to check the Raging Menace site. Much to my surprise, SideTrack had been updated to support my machine! My jubilation was great as I downloaded and installed my old friend.


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A few of my giveaways have ended and the winners have been randomly drawn. The winners have 48 hrs. to respond to email notification or new winner(s) will be drawn.
The winner of the Gimme Shelter giveaway is #175, Shooting Stars Mag.
The winners of the Biore giveaway are #365, VickeC and #122, Raquel P.
The winners of the SafetyTat giveaway are #143, trixx and #68, Nancy.
The winner of the Put Me In the Story giveaway is #178, Gala.
The winner of the Fame by Lady Gaga giveaway is #275, Cassandra E.
The winner of the Free Birds giveaway is #154, Shemp DeYoung.
The winner of the Culturelle giveaway is #43, Darby Elizabeth.
The winner of the Charlie's Angels DVD giveaway is #78, Shelley L.
Congrats to the winners and thanks to all who entered. Be sure to check out my active giveaways, all listed on the left hand side of my blog. There's no limit to how many you can enter or how many you can win.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
First Winners of February
at 1:21 AM
Labels: winners list
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By Bryan Thao Worra Long the nail iron in What's cleft from time, the body seasoning. Clamber, clatter, silence seeker. Reek of all the morrows who round us ring! I know well both sides our craven slab So lustily devouring We clay scrabbles, we clawed things. Tombs are my books. Bones...Read More
By Bryan Thao Worra Some see an anonymous man or a thief of sheep. Some a goddess like Hina-i-ka-malama or Chang'e. Perhaps a princess of rabbits or a magician's jealous head, Her face painted with bells. Cain. A criminal from the Book of Numbers. A cook. A witch. A home for the dead...Read More


text: I really need to think of something more creative for my book post titles. Then again, this way it's very clear what this post is about. Hmm. I'll think on it. Anyway, in June I read 3 books, bringing my total to 18/30. Very happy with this. Reading is one of my favourite activities anyway,… Continue reading June Books


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What moron thought that a cow costume in a parade for the bull of solidarity would not make an a$$ out of the wearers?
Solidarity Cows
Uploaded by annalthouse on Mar 12, 2011
Meade breaks up the solidarity of the cows at the the 3/12/11 Wisconsin protest march.
The raucous hits keep coming via the Lunatic Left, Union Tools, Socialists, Liberals, Thugs, and Democrats that provide udder fodder. The childish ones still can't grasp the adult world.
As I have stated elsewhere, logic dictates that:
Whether the Fleebaggers had been present or not in the Wisconsin Senate, the outcome for the budget repair bill would have been no different… so why the foolishness of the mollycoddled tools? Grow up, move on (a term many tools are well versed in) and get a life! Is there nothing more pressing in the world today where you could really do some good? Oh I forgot… it's all about you tools!


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|If Only I Had a Job
|Air date
|September 12, 2003
|Written by
|Laura Perkins Brittain & Carla Banks Waddles
|Directed by
|Richard Correll
|Previous Episode
|Psychics Wanted
|Next Episode
|Escape Claus
Victor is in the kitchen talking with Tanya, who is out visiting her parents. He tells her that everything is going well and to enjoy herself. After telling Cory to go back upstairs and put on normal clothes for school, he tells them that there is a new owner at the restaurant, Mr. Briggs. Before leaving for school, Raven has a vision that Mr. Briggs will fire Victor.
At school, Raven, Chelsea, and Eddie prepare to hear the announcement for the roles on The Wizard of Oz. Eddie tells them not to get too exited, but is elated to hear that he got the part of the Scarecrow, only because Rodney was sick.
Senorita Rodriguez continued and named Kayla as Dorothy and Raven as the Wicked Witch of the East. Chelsea comforts her until she gets the part of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Raven goes to the restaurant and where Mr. Briggs is arguing with Victor over the size of his artichoke. Raven tells Mr. Briggs that her father is a good guy. Mr. Briggs isn't listening so Raven brags about all the other restaurants that want to hire Victor. Mr. Briggs tells her he's happy with Victor to make her leave. Victor tells Mr. Briggs that Raven is a sweet girl and Mr. Briggs commented that show must be having an off day.
Back at home, the kids are practicing their roles for the play. Raven tries to avoid that fact that her character is crushed under a house and tried to make the character more dramatic. Chelsea and Eddie aren't going for it.
Victor returns home early from work and it is obvious he is in a bad mood. Raven talks to him and finds out that Mr. Briggs fired him after an argument.
Raven's friends try to comfort her, but Cory is measuring Raven's room because once Victor find out that it was Raven's fault, she'd be history. Raven tells him she will go speak with Mr. Briggs.
Raven goes to the restaurant and begs Mr. Briggs for Victor's job back, but he is sarcastic in his response of a no. He tells her to go away before beginning to kiss up to a famous celebrity who had just entered.
Raven dresses up a Liz Anya with Eddie and Chelsea disguised as her entourage. Mr. Briggs immediately begins to kiss up to Liz believing her to be famous. She tells tem to get Victor to prepare her usual and is informed that Victor doesn't work here anymore. She is outraged and calls her friend Jennifer Lopez.
Jennifer is actually Cory disguising his voice and agrees with Liz's statements. Victor catches Cory and Cory covers by saying all kids voices change at his age.
Back at the restaurant, Liz begins to point out the restaurant's shortcomings due to the loss of Victor. Suddenly, a patron asks Liz to sing something off her new CD. She tries to get out of it because she doesn't have a CD, but was in convinced after Mr. Briggs says he will consider hiring Victor back.
Eddie only knows how to play "When the Saints Go Marching In" on the piano, so Raven begins to sing it, changing some of the lyrics to continue bashing the restaurant and ordering Mr. Briggs to hire Victor back. Mr. Briggs finally agreed to hire Victor back just as Senorita Rodriguez enters restaurant.
The kids try to escape out the back, but run into a waiter. Their wigs are swaps and Mr. Briggs realizes he's been had. He laughs at them as he says he will not hire Victor back. Senorita Rodriguez tell Raven she should have gotten the part of Dorothy, but will not change the cast list despite it.
Back at home, Mr. Briggs is talking with Victor over the phone about what Raven did. Mr. Briggs was angry, which made Victor happy. Victor tells Raven about how after being cut from his high school football team, he discover his love of cooking by hanging out with his mother. Raven then has a vision of Victor owning his own restaurant called "Baxter's Place".
Raven is later at school telling Senorita Rodriguez that because she doesn't actually have any lines, she took it upon herself to design more contemporary looks for the characters. Senorita Rodriguez loves the designs and hires Raven.
- Raven-Symone as Raven Baxter
- Anneliese van der Pol as Chelsea Daniels
- Orlando Brown as Eddie Thomas
- Kyle Massey as Cory Baxter
- Rondell Sheridan as Victor Baxter
Guest Starring
- Rose Abdoo as Ms. Rodriguez
- Patrick Richwood as Mr. Briggs
- Fran de Leon as Kayla
- James Healy, Jr. as Waiter
- Sylvia St. James as Singer
- Kim Foley as Singer
- Madeline Thompson as Singer
- Beverly Dangerfield as Singer
- Series regular T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh does not appear in this episode.
- When Raven, Eddie and Chelsea crash into the waiter at the kitchen door, a cat meowing can be heard.
- At the end of the episode, "If Only I Had A Job" Raven takes hold of Cory's hat and wiggles it around. In the next shot, Raven is seen holding on to Cory's cheek instead.
- Raven has the flower on her right side of her head, which moves to the left side of her head, then back to the right, during the scene.
- When Raven, Chelsea, and Eddie are in the living room talking about the vision, there's a shot where Raven has on a red beaded necklace and then the camera shot switches to Chelsea and then to Raven again. When the camera switches back to Raven, the red beaded necklace is gone.
- When Raven, Chelsea, and Eddie are outside of the Drama Club, you see a frosted door with "Drama Club" written on it. Yet, when you see a shot from the inside, you see a clear glass door with no letters. It is also in a different position than the hall Raven, Chelsea, and Eddie were in.
- When the music plays in the background, Eddie's hands don't move with the music.
- Raven (to Mr. Briggs) Do you know who I be? Does you listen to music?
- Eddie: Do you watch T.V?
- Chelsea: Do you carry a lunch box?
- Raven (to Eddie about her fake name): Liz Anya?
- Eddie: It was about to be Pork Choppa!
- Victor (to Raven): It was Homecoming Week and I got hurt really bad.
- Raven: Oh, Dad, what happened? A bad tackle?
- Victor: No, they cut me from the team. That hurt really bad!
- Raven: (dressed up as Liz Anya) Tell Victor to give us the usual!
- Mr. Briggs: Uh, Victor doesn't work here anymore.
- (Raven, Chelsea and Eddie spit out their water and Raven gets up)
- Raven: (yelling furiously) Are you joking? This place is nothing without Victor!
- Raven: (singing) Something's coming, it's a house. I'll be under it in this blouse. That I bought today! (starts dancing)
- Victor: (while talking to Tanya on the phone) Raven, tell your mother everything's fine.
- Raven: (takes the phone) We haven't eaten in days, the house is a mess, your plants are dead and I'm dropping out of school. Love ya!
- Raven (to Chelsea & Eddie): You guys, I just had a really bad vision. I saw that my dad's gonna get fired today.
- Eddie: Man, Rae, that's deep.
- Raven: I know and I keep calling the restaurant but the line's busy. I'm gonna have to go down there at lunch and warn him.
- Eddie: Well, hey, since you're going down there could you get me one of your dad's desserts.
- Raven: Yeah, sure, Eddie, you know while I'm down there I'll just be like, "Hey, dad you're getting fired. Oh, but before you go could you grab me a cheese cake?"
- (The bell rings and they stand in front of a classroom)
- Chelsea: (sighing) This is it you guys, Drama Club. It's where people just go in with these high hopes and they come out with crushed dreams. So, you ready?
- Raven: I was.
|Previous episode:
|Next episode:
|Psychics Wanted
|Escape Claus


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Documentary photographer Celine Marchbank first came out to the island in April to look and photograph the goings on on the island. Though the project is still work in progress the first pictures are being displayed in an exhibition in London now.
The is show is runs until the 29th September Oxford House, Derbyshire St, Bethnal Green. The opening times are from 9am -10pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 2pm at weekends.
If you are in the area please drop by. I did the last time I was passing through Bethnal Green. It is a very classy exhibition with a diverse selection of work. For more information see the link below.


text:
Cochin University of science and technology CUSAT found its place among Times Higher Education BRICS and Emerging Economics Ranking 2017.
CUSAT was ranked as 801 among the world universities and 251-300 among the BRICS rank list.
Vice Chancellor J. Letha said that the global recognition came as a result of the academic reforms being made by the university in tune with the changing times. – The Hindu
The Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017 includes only institutions in countries classified as "advanced emerging", "secondary emerging" or "frontier" by the FTSE, including the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
See the Ranking here : http://cxpr.in/2gXAaJI


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When Not to Shout 'Fire!'
From Washington Lawyer, February 2011
By Anna Stolley PerskyIt all started with a pastor on a mission, one that horrified the majority of Americans. As the anniversary of the September 11 attacks approached, the Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center announced plans to burn copies of the Koran to protest the religion of Islam.
His words caused a furor that swept the entire country, and arguably the world. Across the Internet, in coffee shops, and on the unemployment line, people in this country and abroad began to debate. Was burning the Koran, Islam's holy text, considered protected expression in the United States?
It's nothing new, this debate. Sometimes it's a cross being burned. Sometimes it's neo–Nazis marching into a town square. And sometimes it is a young man burning a draft card or a flag. Yet a heated discussion over the perimeters of permissible expression is always relevant as we, as a society, redefine ourselves each decade.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court's position changes with time. In fact, in September 2010, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer first told ABC News that he was not prepared to conclude that the First Amendment condones Koran burning. He pointed out that you "can't shout 'fire' in a crowded theater." Within days, however, Breyer refined his views on the matter, saying instead "we protect expression that we hate." Breyer's initial remarks could indicate a question in his mind—the seed to a possible shift in views, perhaps small, perhaps large.
"We revisit the scope of free speech protection periodically. It's done on the local level, and sometimes nationally and sometimes globally," says Timothy Zick, a constitutional law professor at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia. "It's a good thing to revisit because it forces us to reexamine our commitment to certain First Amendment values."
Broad Protection for Expression
Traditional free speech advocates argue that the Framers intended to protect the minority from being silenced by the majority. Therefore, the First Amendment free speech guarantee should be interpreted broadly.
"The Constitution protects free speech even when it is viewed as obnoxious by the majority of citizens," says Jonathan Turley, a nationally recognized constitutional law scholar and professor at The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. "It is there to protect people who are in the minority, people who are hated and despised for their comments."
But the United States is fairly unique in its perspective. Other countries, from Germany to Jordan, have criminalized comments that either criticize or mock a particular religion, or are considered outside the realm of polite exchange.
"In the United States, we have always recognized the rights of people to proselytize for their own religion. But also to criticize other religions," says Turley. "That has always been a bright line rule and should remain so."
In fact, state blasphemy laws do not hold up under constitutional scrutiny. In June 2010, a federal judge found unconstitutional a 1977 Pennsylvania law banning blasphemous or profane words from the names of corporations. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson in Pennsylvania explained that the law impermissibly requires employees on the state Corporation Bureau to make judgments "based on nothing but their own individual religious beliefs."[1]
The trend in recent years is for more expansive free speech protection in the United States. However, not everyone agrees that this is the direction our country should be going. And when Jones threatened to burn the Koran on September 11, 2010, certainly many Americans began to wonder why there was not a clear path to stop him.
To some observers, there is a problem when our interpretation of our laws does not match up with our sense of appropriateness in political conversation. In other words, why can't we determine Koran burning as so outrageous it falls outside the realm of protection?
"It's possible to ban the assaulting words and gestures and symbols as assaults," says Hadley P. Arkes, the Edward N. Ney Professor in American Institutions at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. "This isn't diminishing in any way the freedom of people to make substantive critiques."
But Eugene Volokh, who teaches First Amendment law at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, argues it would have been unlikely for the Supreme Court to uphold any attempt to stop Jones from burning copies of the Koran.
"The Supreme Court in recent decades has provided very broad protection for political expression," says Volokh. "There's no reason to think the Court would reach a different view in this case."
Messy Marketplace
As every law student learns, the original U.S. Constitution did not contain the Bill of Rights. But, as a concession during the battle to get the Constitution ratified, the Federalists agreed to write up a series of amendments addressing the protection of individual rights.
James Madison, originally a skeptic of the need for additional protection, wrote the Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson, who did not attend the Constitutional Convention, wrote to Madison to advise him: "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth… "
The First Amendment forbids Congress from passing any laws restricting the free exercise of religion or speech. Over the decades, in a series of landmark rulings, the Supreme Court has reiterated that, under the First Amendment, the government cannot suppress speech simply because it may be offensive to the majority of citizens.
That being said, the Court has carved out some exceptions to the protection, such as obscenity or speech clearly directed to intimidate or incite violence.
To some, our public exchanges can appear a bit like a rude and crazy shouting match.
"We have this vision of a marketplace of ideas, and sometimes it's messy," says Charles C. Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. "But the argument is that democracy is best served by a robust and free debate."
For certain, First Amendment protection was not always interpreted as broadly as it is now. The Sedition Act of 1798, signed by President John Adams, allowed for the prosecution of anyone suspected of plotting against the federal government. In addition, the act made it a crime to speak or write maliciously about the president or Congress. The Sedition Act expired two years later and was never renewed.
Wartime Worries
During wartime, our country also has narrowed the scope of free speech rights. For example, during World War I, Congress passed several laws, including the Espionage Act of 1917, limiting language that could encourage disloyalty to the United States. Also during that time, a Federal Censorship Board regulated taking "subversive" books off the shelves of stores and libraries.
In Schenck v. United States,[2] the Supreme Court upheld the Espionage Act, finding that the defendant, Charles Schenck, did not have a First Amendment right to speak against the draft. In that case, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writing for the majority, found that the circumstances of wartime permitted greater restrictions of free speech rights.
"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent," wrote Holmes. The "clear and present danger" test was used for decades afterward.
Holmes also wrote in Schenck that "[t]he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."
In 1942 the Supreme Court established that "insulting or 'fighting' words" fall outside of First Amendment protection. The Court defined fighting words as words "which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."[3]
In the World War II era, Congress passed the Smith Act of 1940, making it a federal crime to advocate violent overthrow of the government. Then came the time some critics describe as the worst period for First Amendment rights in this country—the McCarthy era—when America appeared obsessed with silencing communist propaganda and support.
In 1951, for example, the Supreme Court found that Eugene Dennis, convicted of violating the Smith Act, did not have a right under the First Amendment to conspire to overthrow the government. In ruling, Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson specifically relied upon the "clear and present danger" test.[4]
By 1957, however, the High Court had started to move away from that ruling and began to narrowly construe the Smith Act.[5]
The O'Brien Test
In a landmark case, United States v. O'Brien,[6] the Supreme Court held that a federal law criminalizing the burning of draft cards did not violate the First Amendment free speech guarantee.
The O'Brien case began on a March morning in 1966, when David Paul O'Brien and three others burned their draft cards on the steps of a Boston courthouse to protest the Vietnam War. U.S. prosecutors indicted O'Brien for violating title 50 of the U.S. Code, section 462(b)(3), which makes it a crime to knowingly destroy or mutilate a draft card.
O'Brien represented himself at trial, telling the jury that he burned the draft card to state his antiwar beliefs using symbolic speech. He was found guilty, and the case eventually landed in the Supreme Court.
The High Court ruled 7 to 1 in favor of the government. Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for the majority, found that the law only prohibited specific conduct, not speech. Warren said the federal government could limit symbolic speech when there is a substantial interest in doing so, when it is content-neutral, and when it interferes with the "speech" aspect as little as necessary. This analysis became known as the "O'Brien test" for limiting a speech-conduct mix.
Warren found that the government had a substantial interest in ensuring that draft cards were handled properly. He concluded that the law interfered with speech rights as little as necessary to achieve that end.
Unpopular Opinions
After O'Brien, the Supreme Court crafted a more expansive view of First Amendment rights, creating a bubble of protection for speakers with unpopular views. For a while, this expansive view became associated with liberal-leaning perspective.
In 1969 the Supreme Court decided Brandenburg v. Ohio,[7] one of the most cited cases in the history of the Court.
Clarence Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan leader in Ohio, had been caught on film participating in a Klan rally. Brandenburg delivered a speech in which he stated, "We're not a revengent [sic] organization, but if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it's possible that there might have to be some revengeance [sic] taken."
Brandenburg then announced plans to hold a march in Washington, D.C., on July 4 of that year. He was later arrested, fined $1,000, and sentenced to one to 10 years in prison for advocating violence in violation of the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism statute. The statute prohibited advocating "the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform" and "voluntarily assembl[ing] with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism."
Eventually the case reached the Supreme Court, which reversed, unanimously finding that the state law violated the First Amendment.
The case is significant because the Court discarded its old "clear and present danger" test for a new and more protective test involving incitement to imminent lawless action.
"[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action," the Court stated in a per curiam opinion.
"It's all about the incitement of imminent lawless action," says Jamin Raskin, a Maryland state senator and constitutional law professor at American University's Washington College of Law. "The speaker handing out bricks and egging people on to attack city hall, he can be silenced. Anything short of that is mere advocacy."
Immature But Protected Acts
The Court's trend of expanding First Amendment protection continued into the 1970s. In 1971 the Supreme Court overturned a disturbing the peace conviction of a man who wore a jacket bearing the words "F*** the Draft" inside a Los Angeles courthouse.
At trial, Paul Robert Cohen testified that he wore the jacket knowing the words were on the back and intending to portray the depths of his feelings against the Vietnam War and the draft.
In its 5–4 decision, the Court said that "absent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions," the state cannot make the "simple public display" of a "single four-letter expletive a criminal offense."[8]
"[O]ne man's vulgarity is another's lyric," wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan II for the majority.
But for some, the Court had gone too far.
"There's the question—why in the world would we protect such an immature act?" asks Zick, author of the book Speech Out of Doors: Preserving First Amendment Liberties in Public Places. "But under the First Amendment, we protect even the speech that is inartful."
The next major ruling in this line of cases came at the end of the 1980s, and in a case that involved flag burning.
"There's a lot of burning in First Amendment case law," notes Zick. "That's because it's a very emotive and effective way of demonstrating disaffection. It's almost the most extreme thing you can do to an object to show disrespect for it."
In 1989, in Texas v. Johnson,[9] the Supreme Court found unconstitutional a state law forbidding the desecration of the U.S. flag.
During the 1984 Republican National Convention in Texas, Gregory Lee Johnson set an American flag on fire. He was arrested and charged with violating a Texas law criminalizing vandalism of venerated objects. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,000.
In the 5–4 ruling, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote for the majority, "If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."
Raskin describes Texas v. Johnson as "a watershed case."
"The Court recognized that flag burning should not be considered fighting words—it's a generalized political statement that doesn't have the same meaning as insulting someone's mother," he says.
Legislating Against Hate
The question that inevitably comes up, again and again, is this: What do we do about hate-laced speech and actions? In recent years, the federal government and many states have passed laws against bias-motivated crimes—when a perpetrator targets a victim based upon criteria like class, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. States also have passed legislation banning cross burning.
In 2003 the High Court examined a case involving a Virginia law forbidding cross burning where the intent is racial intimidation. The Court found 6–3 that a state may ban cross burning with intent to intimidate, but it struck down a provision of the Virginia law that declared any cross burning as prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate.[10]
In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the statute only prohibited conduct, not expression, and should be upheld. Interestingly, Justice Antonin Scalia, who often rules alongside Thomas as fellow conservatives, wrote that he would have upheld the entire statute.
In 2009 Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expands the 1969 U.S. federal hate crime statute to include crimes committed on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Some religious organizations protested the expansion, saying it would allow the prosecution of religious leaders for speaking out on their beliefs.
In September 2010, a federal judge in Michigan dismissed a lawsuit against the act that, in part, claimed it violated the First Amendment. If the case hits the Supreme Court, constitutional law experts say it is unlikely that the law would be found to be in violation of the First Amendment.
"Federal hate crime statutes generally focus on punishment enhancement for violent crime," says Volokh. "The law does not punish speech—it punishes violence."
Technology and New Tensions
New technology has given us the ability to communicate to the world in a matter of seconds. But with the new marketplace comes increasing concern about the impact of words that might not have traveled so far so quickly decades ago. And privacy advocates worry about how to protect the individual's rights in the modern age.
"The marketplace has exploded because of technology," say Toni Locy, the Reynolds Professor of Legal Reporting at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. "It's instantaneous that ideas are flying around the globe. It's like a tsunami of ideas."
A case that highlights the tension between First Amendment free speech rights and privacy rights in the modern era is presently before the Supreme Court. The case pits Albert Snyder, the father of a U.S. marine killed in Iraq in 2006, against the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Westboro Baptist Church.
Snyder won a $5 million jury verdict against Phelps and his church after the group protested a thousand feet from the funeral of Snyder's son. The church members sang songs and waved signs that read "You're Going to Hell" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" during the funeral as part of their protest of the government's policy on homosexuality.
The group, which maintains a Web site, believes that God hates homosexuality and is punishing the country for tolerating it by allowing U.S. troops to be killed overseas.
The High Court heard arguments in October on whether a private citizen should be able to recover damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of the sanctity of funerals. The church members have argued that their speech is protected under the First Amendment and, therefore, they should not be made to pay. As of press date, the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the case.[11]
Separation Anxiety
The intersection of the Establishment and the Freedom of Speech clauses of the First Amendment has always been an area of conflict. The Establishment Clause requires that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . . "
The Supreme Court has had its say in this area.
In 1980 the High Court found unconstitutional a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments on the wall of every public school classroom in the state.[12]
In 2005 the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that public displays of the Ten Commandments on government property, such as courthouses, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.[13]
A current battle in King, North Carolina, depicts an ongoing friction between supporters of the Establishment Clause and those who think the government should be able to symbolically represent a particular religion.
In September 2010 the King city council decided to remove a Christian flag that had been displayed as part of a war memorial in a public park. The city leaders made the decision on the advice of the city attorney after receiving a complaint from a resident. The council said it was concerned about the cost of defending itself in a lawsuit if it chose to continue displaying the flag on government-owned property.
The council's decision infuriated many of King's residents, who protested the decision as a violation of their rights to both freedom of speech and religion.
Katy Parker of the American Civil Liberties Union in North Carolina told Fox News that the organization supports residents' right to free speech, but "there is a critical difference between private religious speech and government religious-based speech."
Constitutional experts say the case is a fairly clear example of a violation of the Establishment Clause, and that the city would likely lose a legal case against it if it chose to continue displaying the Christian flag.
"The free speech clause protects the rights of religious people to express themselves in public, but it does not establish any right of a government to promote a religion," says Raskin.
Nevertheless, the city council voted in November to eventually allow the flag to continue flying as a part of a larger display of religious flags recognized by the U.S. military.
Protect the Speaker
Constitutional law experts and comparative law scholars say that the United States is unique in its broad First Amendment protections. Other countries have criminalized certain areas of speech, including criticizing either the government or certain religious beliefs.
In 2009 the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation. Free speech advocates remain concerned that such a resolution could be used to stifle criticism and silence religious dissenters.
Some nations have very strict blasphemy laws. Muslims believe the Koran is the sacred word of God. In countries where the majority of people are Muslims, government officials can take quite seriously laws ensuring that the Koran and references to the Prophet Muhammad are treated with respect.
In this country, some states have anti-blasphemy laws on their books. However, the Supreme Court has rejected arguments that speech should be silenced even if it attacks a particular religion, or if it could incite a violent reaction in religious supporters.
Another difference comes in the area of encouraging courteous conversation in public discourse. In countries like Germany, there are civility codes, with bans on expression such as cursing or using obscene hand gestures.
"In places like Canada, there's no such thing as a false idea, but you have to be polite in the way you express your thoughts," says Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., a constitutional law professor at The University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and author of The First Amendment in Cross-Cultural Perspective. "In other places, like Germany, there are false ideas with limited freedom to express, such as you can't call for the overthrow of the government."
Krotoszynski says the argument in favor of limits is that "if you ban the public use of really offensive terms, you create a more inviting marketplace of ideas in which minorities feel comfortable in participating on a full and equal basis."
But the United States allows for the protection of seemingly rude, even cruel, speech as part of a free exchange. For this reason, there was little that could have been done to stop Jones, a pastor with about 50 followers, when he announced plans to burn the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks.
As Zick explains, "We tend to protect the speaker, whereas other countries focus on the dignity of the audience and equality issues.
"We are clearly exceptional in the degree that we protect the speaker who says deeply offensive, even psychologically damaging, things," he adds.
Evaluating the Media
Some critics blamed the media for the way it reported on Jones' threats. They declared the press irresponsible and asked why it did not just ignore the entire story.
The primary legal standard applied to the press comes from a 1964 case. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,[14] the Supreme Court established that the media must have "actual malice" before comments about public officials can be considered defamation or libel. The Supreme Court later said that the actual malice standard applies to public figures as well. The media is generally required to tread more carefully with private citizens.
Beyond these standards, the U.S. media faces very few restrictions on how it portrays a given news situation. Concepts like journalistic objectivity and fairness are not codified—they are professional attitudes.
For many observers, the answer is simple: The media should stop sensationalizing stories involving people who say—or threatening to say—offensive things. If no media outlet paid attention to, for example, a pastor announcing his intention to burn the Koran, then his actions would go unnoticed, they argue.
On September 9, 2010, Melody Moezzi, an attorney and author, wrote on the Huffington Post that fellow members of the press and fellow Muslims should ignore Jones.
"At this point, it's as if the media is running advertisements for this pseudo-Christian man and his church," Moezzi wrote. "I beg you to ignore this ignorance and get on with the real business of faithful practice and responsible reporting."
But others disagree, emphasizing that the new technologically-based marketplace does not allow for anything to go unnoticed.
"Even if the national media had not paid attention to him, the situation would have drawn a lot of attention on the Internet," says Turley. "But the media could have done a better job in raising the issue of free speech with more substance. It seemed perfectly ludicrous to watch the world's media do a countdown to the burning of the Koran by an extremist preacher."
And, unfortunately, some in the news media will stoop to amazingly low levels of bad taste, says Locy, a former USA Today reporter with 25 years of journalism experience. "But that's not new. There's always been nastiness in print, but because of technology, it's overwhelming. It's in your face."
Locy points out that along with the development of new technology, there has been a crippling recession. Journalism outlets—from traditional to new media—have slashed their budgets and staff.
"With the 24/7 aspect of the media, there's an enormous pressure to fill the air. Couple that with the recession and its impact on news media—it's the perfect storm for bad reporting," says Locy. "The public is going to have to demand quality reporting and be willing to pay for it."
With quality journalism, says Locy, even the most outrageous exercise of free speech can be put into context for the public by proving background information. Who is the speaker? What is that person's criminal record, prior conduct, and stated belief system? Who supports the speaker—a throng of congregants or a couple of followers? And, importantly, what is the source of the speaker's financial support?
"When reporters ask the basic questions, people are in a better position to decide for themselves whether this is worth paying attention to," says Locy.
Mass Condemnation
Some observers suggested that the pastor could be prosecuted for a hate crime if he had chosen to burn the Koran. But experts agree that Jones' actions would not fall under any hate crime legislation.
"The burning of the Koran doesn't fit a hate crime definition," says Turley. "It is a vile and obnoxious statement, but it is a statement against a religion as a whole, not a direct threat to another person."
And so the next question is, Why couldn't we pass a law that simply banned Koran burning? The philosophical argument against doing so can be traced back to our Framers' fear of government oppression.
"If today the government has the power to ban Koran burning, tomorrow they could ban your church from doing something that it wants to do because the power has been given to the government to determine what's offensive and what's not offensive," says Haynes. "Truth be told, many religious ideas are offensive to somebody."
Some politicians even suggested banning the burning of the Koran on the basis that it would incite violence in others. But such a notion would allow for what the courts call the "heckler's veto"—the ability for someone who disagrees with another's public speech to shut that person down by behaving badly, or threatening to do so.
"The Court has generally rejected that argument. The law should punish the violence, not silence the speaker," says Volokh. "When you inform the thugs of the world that all you need to do is make threats, and occasionally make good on those threats, and the law will suppress the speech the thugs want suppressed, then the result is more thuggery."
In the end, Jones withdrew from the debate and decided not to go forward with his plan.
"For those of us who are advocates of free speech, the situation seemed a triumph of our constitutional values," says Turley. "There was universal condemnation by political and religious leaders. We were left with a teeny church and a pastor surrounded by an entire nation condemning their actions."
[1] Kalman v. Kortes, Civil Action No. 09-684.
[3] Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568.
[4] Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951).
[5] Yates v. United States, 345 U.S. 298 (1957).
[8] Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).
[10] Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003).
[11] Snyder v. Phelps, 09-751.
[12] Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980).
[13] McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, 545 U.S. 844 (2005).
Freelance writer Anna Stolley Persky wrote about the pared down honest–services law in the December 2010 issue of Washington Lawyer.


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The other night, Jim and I watched The World According to Garp. I read the book long ago and this was the second time I've seen the movie. Watching it again, at this point in my life, seemed pertinent to two things that are nearly always on my mind but perhaps have been more in the foreground lately: parenting and writing.
My favorite thing about parenting was sharing as much of my knowledge with Mycol as I could and expanding his world to include as many experiences as possible. I loved teaching him the academics, like reading and math, and I loved talking philosophically with him, at any age, in an effort to get him to consider the relationship between himself and the world.
When Mycol was 13, John Irving was on the schedule of presenters for the Drue Heinz Lecture Series. Because I'd read nearly every one of his books, I was excited to go and hear him speak. He was promoting his then yet-unpublished novel Until I Find You. I took Mycol with me. A prominent theme in many of Mr. Irving's stories is that of an only-child; a son, raised by a single mother. At the lecture podium he spoke to the audience about the pros and cons of this relationship, which was again featured in the upcoming book. He spoke about how only-children often get included in adult conversations, and in particular, only-children of single parents are likely engaged in even more still, because the parent relies on the child to be a sounding board for venting daily struggles they would otherwise dump on a spouse. And to top it all off, Mr. Irving felt that this situation is most exaggerated when the only-child is a boy and the single parent is a mother. So, there we sat, my 13 year-old son and I, in the Carnegie Music Hall, listening to John Irving talk about how the single mother in Until I Find You treated her son like an obligated boyfriend, and when I looked around the room all I could see were couples, not one single other pubescent child at all. True, I'd wished my boyfriend would've gone with me, but I also felt glad that my son said he'd go when I asked him. I was proud when he participated in things of that nature without so much as sighing, as if he really had learned to thirst for knowledge and new experiences (from me, of course!). But when John Irving started to say those things, I felt like a spot-light was on us and I was flushed with embarrassment. He'd called me out and announced to everyone that it was inappropriate to bring a child to adult programs. After all, he was (is) John Irving.
Well, thank God, my son wasn't scarred for life!
It reminds me of how my brother and I grew up in a house filled with books. I am by far a more avid reader than he is, which I can only imagine is a direct result of the trauma incurred by Richard III when he was merely 3!
Then there is writing. Another prominent theme in Mr. Irving's novels is a main character who is a writer. A writer who struggles. Authors are always saying the same thing about writing – that it is hard. It is so hard to find the necessary discipline to keep at it, to not think everything you write is crap, to stop procrastinating by doing everything under the sun other than write something and just do it. John Irving had a lot of athletic discipline as a wrestler. I've been inspired every time I remind myself of what he used to do. He used to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and sit at his desk to write. He set an alarm clock on his desk to ring at 8:30 am, at which time he would push away from his desk and lead the rest of his life, which was the life of a father, husband, wrestling coach, and teacher. Whether he got anything on paper in those 3 hours was not necessarily the most important thing.
I have a slightly different clock than John Irving. I don't ever plan to get up before the sun rises, it makes my stomach turn. But I am pushing myself, challenging myself every day to try harder, to do my best, and looking for inspiration. Sometimes I think that I could pour all of my parenting energy into writing discipline and I may end up with yet another creation (besides my only child).


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Today's challenge has made me look at blogging from a different perspective - my readers' perspective.
When we write a blog post, we take too much for granted. We believe that the readers know everything we know. We suppose that our readers know us, that they have read every single post we have written.
What we should ask ourselves is a very simple question: Is this the way we read other people's blogs? Once you think about how you behave on the Internet - not as a writer, but as a reader, you begin to understand that you have to do everything you can to make your reader's life as easy as possible.
Today's task was relatively simple - to add a "Subscribe to this post via RSS or via email" link directly to my most popular posts. The idea is not simply to make my readers subscribe, but rather to save them a lot of time if subscribing is what they want - instead of searching the sidebar, they simply click on the link at the bottom of the post.
I write on Fridays. Or on Saturdays. Which is OK if I am working on a long complicated post with a lot of links like I did last week. On the other hand, writing about how I stickified my posts (love the word) shouldn't take long, should it? Yes, but the actual process of stickifying (I do love this word) is what takes time. It is similar to interlinking. You have to go all the way back and add the RSS link to your old posts.
In his video Darren suggests that you should add the Subscribe link to the posts that are attracting more readers than others. By now I have become good friends with my Google Analytics tool. It gives me confidence to know that there are a few people out there who are reading this. I know which posts are being read more than others. And I know which posts have attracted comments. Still, I added the "If you like this blog you can subscribe to it via RSS or via email" link to the bottom of every single post (maybe I skipped a few by accident, but I'll get there). To be on the safe side. And to make your life really easy.
Days 6 and 8 Multitasking
What links here:Somewhere Between Days 11 and 12
Days 6 and 8 Multitasking
Technorati Tags: 31daychallenge, day15, RSS


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Main Content
About the Talk
November 14, 2009 7:45 AM
Rails is fantastic for building a full web application with Ruby quickly but sometimes it's not lean enough or classy enough. Meet Sinatra (http://www.sinatrarb.com) - the lean Ruby web-framework offering developers both convenience and control. In this talk, you'll meet Sinatra and see how he compliments and collaborates with Rails.


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Multiple Teams · Conquerors Wrap Up Season with First Round Exit
By Damien Alvarado ~ LAHS Journalism The Los Altos Conquerors wrapped up their season with a first round loss on Friday night. The Conquerors engaged in a tough battle against the number 1 ranked CIF-Southern Section Division 5 playoff foe Aquinas. Los Altos previously lost to the West Covina Bulldogs, and the team made it


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ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at email@example.com.
- Krajmalnik-Brown, Rosa
- Popat, Sudeep C
- Ki, Dong Won
- 1 Arizona State University
- 1 Parameswaran, Prathap
- 1 Rittmann, Bruce E
- 1 Torres, César I
- 1 English
- 1 Public
- Anaerobic treatment
- Energy Conversion
- Primary Sludge
- 1 Environmental engineering
- 1 Microbial Electrochemical Cells
- 1 Resources
- Mobile Crowd Sensing in Edge Computing Environment
- The Effect of Disability on Subjective Well-Being across the Adult Lifespan: The Moderating Roles of Age at Disability Onset and Disability Type
- Mechanically Active Heterogeneous Polymer Matrix Composites
- Attribute-Based Encryption for Fine-Grained Access Control over Sensitive Data
- 并购背景下教育行业品牌价值研究
Microbial electrochemical cells (MXCs) serve as an alternative anaerobic technology to anaerobic digestion for efficient energy recovery from high-strength organic wastes such as primary sludge (PS). The overarching goal of my research was to address energy conversion from PS to useful resources (e.g. hydrogen or hydrogen peroxide) through bio- and electro-chemical anaerobic conversion processes in MXCs. First, a new flat-pate microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) was designed with high surface area anodes using carbon fibers, but without creating a large distance between the anode and the cathode (<0.5 cm) to reduce Ohmic overpotential. Through the improved design, operation, and electrochemical characterization, …
- Contributors
- Ki, Dong Won, Torres, César I, Rittmann, Bruce E, et al.
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- 2016


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The powers of the Local Government institutions which were acquired by the Urban Development Authority will be vested in the local government institutions without delay, said Megapolis and Western Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardena yesterday.
The Minister said all the projects that had been initiated by the Urban Development Authority would be continued, while measures would be taken to realise the people's housing dreams.
Minister Gunawardena was speaking after assuming duties at the Megapolis and Western Development Ministry yesterday morning.
"A new government has been set up with new Ministers and Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister," Minister Gunawardena said. "This government will recommence the development programmes. Although the development rate has dropped to 3.6 percent now, when the government was handed over in 2015, the development rate in the country was nearly nine percent."
The Minister also said they would take measures to run a stable government and a country, while guaranteeing the aspirations of the people are fulfilled. The foundation for this situation was created with the vote of the public at the recent Local Government Election.
Minister Gunawardena also said the new government has the majority. "The Speaker has issues with his arithmetic sometimes. He did not understand that 70 was greater than 16," he said.
A Vote on Account would be presented in Parliament on November 16, the Minister said.


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The reason is quite simple: that stupid summer cold I've been battling for a month now finally drove me to the urgent care doctor on Sunday, whereupon the following internal dialog occurred:
Stubborn redhead: Great. I'm at the doctor's office on a Sunday. For a stupid cold. I'm a world-class wimp.So when the wait was over and the doctor heard me coughing from outside the exam room and strode in saying in a cheerful, hearty, yet concerned voice, "You sound terrible! How long has this been going on???" I was paradoxically relived. And when she quickly and competently diagnosed a bronchial infection and wrote out a prescription for a potent antibiotic and also ordered an antibiotic shot right then and there, I was both relieved and grateful. The bottom line, for me, is that I may be a wimp, but at least I'm not a world-class one.
Rational redhead: I've had this "stupid cold" for a month. I've been coughing for a week, a week, I might remind me, in which I got nothing done, got almost no sleep, and didn't even make Mass this morning because I was coughing so much I would have alarmed the entire congregation.
Stubborn redhead: But that's only because it's a small church. And the fever this morning--low grade. No big deal. I'm a world-class wimp. Why didn't I wait and call the doctor on Monday?
Rational redhead: Because I might not have gotten an appointment right away. And I'm tired of sleeping in 30 minute snatches between coughing fits.
Stubborn redhead: I know what's going to happen. The doctor's going to come in, and she's going to pat me on the head (figuratively speaking) and tell me it's a virus and there's nothing she can do and I should go home and get some rest and drink some juice.
Rational redhead: Maybe...but I have been resting and drinking juice for a month!
Stubborn redhead: Ha! My idea of "resting" apparently means sticking to the laundry, dishes, and cooking and putting the plans to clean out and reorganize several closets on hold for a bit. And blogging every day. And wandering around aimlessly doing chores in between blogging because it helps the writing process. And staying up past midnight to plan a literature schedule and finish the book orders for the upcoming school year. And as for juice--if you can call that "grown-up" Koolaid(tm)-esque sugar water "juice," I still don't drink nearly enough of it. I am here because I'm a world-class wimp, and that's exactly what the doctor is going to say...
Rational redhead: Hmmm. I really am a world-class wimp...
But I am going back to bed, in the middle of the day. Because even if she's wrong about the "world-class" wimp thing, my inner stubborn redhead had a major point about my idea of resting when sick. :)
And I'll return to the blog next week--or, if I really can't stand it and my poor children have to hold my hands down to keep me from typing, perhaps late Thursday or early Friday-ish. We'll see.


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Las Vegas might be the king of Nevada's tourism industry, but Reno, Nevada's second largest city, is a tourism and gambling hotspot in its own right. Its neon might not be as bright and its casinos might not be as large, but many people consider Reno a viable alternative to Sin City. The laid-back, small-city vibe is a welcome contrast to nonstop Vegas for many vacationers.
Reno has plenty of casino choices, but it is also known as the hub for the Tahoe area, where some of the Mountain West's best ski resorts are located. Reno is framed by the Sierra Mountains, which offer plenty of non-casino-related attractions. The natural landscapes in and around Reno give tourists a chance to add a non-gaming dimension to their vacation. Hiking, biking, climbing and other outdoor activities are easily accessible from the city.
The Reno Arch, located on Virginia Street, the city's main boulevard, bills Reno as the "Biggest Little City in the World." While Reno might not be the greenest little city in the world, it does have a laudable list of eco-friendly features. And it starts with the arch itself. The city recently replaced the arch's incandescent lights with LED lights that use 75 percent less electricity . Some of the casinos, restaurants and other attractions are following the city's lead and getting greener. Add this eco-friendly movement to all the area's natural attractions and Reno becomes the best choice for a city-based, Earth-friendly Nevada vacation.
Go green
Reno's public bus service, known as the RTC Ride , is quite useful for tourists. Reno's large tourism industry means that, unlike other small-sized cities, the transportation system is aimed at serving visitors as well as local commuters. The RTC Rapid serves downtown Reno and most of the area's major attractions. Day passes cost $4 at the bus station. A complimentary bus, called the Sierra Spirit , runs between the University of Nevada Reno and central Reno between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily.
The TART , Tahoe Area Regional Transit, provides bus service around the Lake Tahoe resort area. Since service is limited, driving is the best way to explore the Tahoe area. However, TART buses feature bike racks, so ambitious cyclists can piece together a pedal-powered excursion around the lake. Cycling is also an option within Reno. The Bike Reno website has resources to help cyclists rent some wheels and find their way through the city.
Sleep green
Several campgrounds are situated in the Reno area, with dozens more in the mountains near Lake Tahoe. Washoe Lake State Recreation Area , near Carson City, is an 8,000-acre natural area with 49 campsites. Davis Creek Regional Park is another camping spot in the Washoe Lake area. It sits 20 miles from Reno and has 62 campsites in a campground that has basic amenities such as hot showers and a dump station.
Inside Reno, several chain hotels have earned high marks for their eco-friendly features. The Reno Residence Inn , part of the Marriott brand, received Energy Star Certification recently. It also engages in the eco-friendly practices undertaken by many other hotels that carry the Marriott label.
Perhaps the most surprising and impressive green venue in Reno is the Peppermill Casino. The Peppermill utilizes geothermal energy for its water and mechanical heating throughout the property, including the hotel. The natural heat source has replaced the resort's gas-powered boilers. The geothermal project is especially impressive because of the size of the hole drilled (more than 4,400 feet deep) and because the resort embarked on the project despite not knowing whether the drilling would result in a usable energy source.
Eat green
Reno has a decent selection of farmers markets running on various days during the summer and early fall. These are the best places to purchase food close to its source. The Park Lane Mall hosts an indoor farmers market on Saturdays for those who travel to Reno in the colder seasons. Reno's sister city, Sparks, hosts a large farmers market on Thursday afternoons during the summertime.
Reno's zpizza is a good choice for organic aficionados. This franchise makes its pies using natural ingredients like freshly made organic wheat, nitrate-free sausages, and fresh, organic produce and natural cheeses. The menu at zpizza also includes vegan and gluten-free options.
One of the more unusual gastronomic venues in Reno is Freeman's Natural Hotdogs . Though the tube-shaped meat is not usually considered natural in any sense, Freeman's has created a healthy, Earth-friendly menu. Breads are organic and toppings are pesticide free and organic whenever possible. High-quality beef is used to make the dogs. Vegan and vegetarian options are also on the menu at Freeman's.
See green
The Peppermill Casino (see "Sleep green" above) is arguably one of the country's greenest gaming establishments , thanks to a geothermal heating system. This makes it possible to lose your bankroll while saving the Earth. The entire facility uses geo-thermal energy, including the resort's spa and caldarium.
Wingfield Park , a huge greenspace in central Reno, consists of five interconnected sub-parks. The main draw at Wingfield is the amphitheater and the whitewater park. The parkland also has walking paths and easy access to the Truckee River. Rancho San Rafael Regional Park , one of the largest parks in Reno, is another public space worth visiting. Rancho San Rafael is probably best known as the home of the Wilbur D. May Arboretum and Botanical Garden . The arboretum has an impressive collection of plants that thrive in the unique semi-arid steppe climate of Reno.
For more uninterrupted nature experiences, it is best to travel beyond Reno's city limits. Washoe Lake State Park , between Reno and Carson City, features hiking trails and a campground, as well as a wetland area with a viewing tower. It is not uncommon to encounter wildlife here, with deer and coyotes among the park's residents. Birds, from hawks and eagles to magpies and herons, make Washoe Lake one of the better birding spots in the Reno area.
Another day-trip-worthy natural attraction is Pyramid Lake , about 35 miles from Reno at the end of the Truckee River. Conservation efforts at Anaho Island National Wildlife Refuge , a protected, non-public island reserve in Pyramid Lake, have created an attractive nesting place for pelicans and other birds. The Lahontan Audubon Society has in-depth information about the avian species on Pyramid Lake.
Nature can be found closer to the urban core of Reno. Trails , such as the Keystone Canyon Trail , within minutes of downtown Reno, offer one- or two-hour hikes. Hidden Valley Regional Park has hiking, biking and horse-riding trails that crisscross the park's 480 acres. The Hunter Creek Trail winds through the Mount Rose wilderness area for more than five miles, while the Huffaker Park Lookout Trail passes between two of the Reno area's more prominent hills and offers views of the city and the surrounding natural areas from higher elevations.
Reno's calendar is packed with events, especially during the warmer months. Green-minded visitors might enjoy the Great Reno Balloon Race , which is held in September and draws balloonists from around the country. Another option is the Artown festival in July. Events include outdoor concerts and shows, as well as gallery shows and workshops for people of all ages.
The Reno Riverwalk is a good place for foot-powered sightseeing and window shopping. This promenade, which sits aside the Truckee River, is filled with restaurants, galleries and shops. The West Street Market is an alternative to the Riverwalk for people who want their retail venues to be more overtly green. Many of the retailers in West Street have eco-friendly themes .
Ski green
Reno is often referred to in the same sentence as Lake Tahoe, which boasts some of the nation's most prominent ski resorts. Places like Squaw Valley and Northstar-at-Tahoe also have impressive environmental features in addition to ideal snow conditions. Northstar has a program to offset much of the carbon that it produces. It also ferries skiers to the resort on biodiesel-powered buses. Squaw Valley, meanwhile, has an extensive replanting and anti-erosion program. It also boasts state-of-the-art energy systems . Energy that is used to cool the resort's ice rink is also harnessed to heat a nearby swimming pool and hot tub. The resorts' restaurants burn much of their waste in an on-site incinerator, which creates heat used in some of the buildings.
Reno has some impressive green features, from restaurants and casinos to natural attractions and ski resorts. So while it will remain second to Las Vegas when it comes to tourism in Nevada, Reno's laid-back charms and eco-friendly efforts should put it on the map for green-minded travelers seeking a high-excitement, low-impact vacation.
Related on MNN: Visit our other destinations of the week.
MNN homepage photo: audreyObscura /Flickr


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Very few companies understand the size and complexity of the consumers with disabilities demographic. Helix Opportunity has the data points, and research.
The world of disability has been deeply rooted in medical terms for the last two centuries. The standard definition is: a medical condition that substantially limits one or more activities of daily living. Typically, that is seen as a physical or intellectual "impairment from the norm" as defined by a clinician. But, disability is just as much how an individual sees him/herself, or how society perceives that individual. Under what condition, time, and environment an individual considers themselves, or society considers them, disabled is an open question that is complicated by perspective.
Once accommodated, other employees may resent and begrudge that employee, without even realizing that they have a disability. All they see is special treatment. You cannot share any employee's disability information with anyone else, so your workforce may begin to resent the manager for treating one employee more privileged than others. "Harmony at Work," through Cooperative Understanding teaches organizations how to accommodate every employee's needs, and empower everyone to perform at their best, in collaboration with the team.
Persons with disabilities are a lucrative, driving economic force, amassing wealth, the world over. Still, we are an untapped global population rivaling the size of China. Consumers with disabilities are, potentially, your most powerful ally in a marketplace takeover.
G10 economies have been working towards including persons with disabilities to actively, and fully, participate in society and the economy since 1972. The initial beneficiaries of these efforts now command nearly $2 trillion in annual earnings. The demographics of the aging baby-boomer population are increasing the number of persons with disabilities, and their market wealth, on a daily basis.
As Boomers' physical realities change, their need and desire to remain active in society harmonizes with the demands of the disability community. These seniors, age 50 and older, control a larger share of G10 national wealth than any previous generation. The result is three generations of skilled consumers who have similar needs, emerging identities and tremendous buying power. The Baby-Boomer population represents more than 77 million people, controlling more than $19 trillion in household earnings. 50% of this aging G10 population lives with one or more disabilities. These seniors have re-defined every generation they have touched. They are characterized as being dragged into old age, kicking and screaming.
Companies and investors seeking to capitalize big returns on little investment, in a market rewarding innovation are now targeting consumers with disabilities in their business development strategies. However, most have yet to step beyond legal obligation and civic duty, into market recognition and capitalization. Consumers with disabilities are increasingly more self-aware of the significant impact that our buying power makes on your bottom line. Thus, we choose to make well-informed, calculated purchases, based on a number of emotional, rather than practical factors (i.e. how we feel about our customer experience).
Persons with Disabilities are more than just wheelchair users, and service dog owners. However, they are the group that receives the most public attention. That is because it is easier for legacy programs to use visuals to deliver a fund-raising message. But, in all actuality, 75% of all disabilities are hidden, or invisible. Those with visible disabilities and those with invisible disabilities may have different identities because of their disability, but we have one pertinent, common, interest. We all want to share in the same life experiences as our non-disabled counterparts, without being unintentionally stigmatized as different.
More than 2 billion consumers and employees, worldwide, controlling nearly $7 trillion in discretionary income, annually, are considered to be family members and friends of consumers with disabilities. They have an intimate reason to understand disability and its impact on those that they have an emotional connection with. Formal discussions with this group reveal that Friends and Family are "evangelists" that act on an emotional response to the experiences of persons with disabilities in the consumer marketplace. This has profound ramifications for any company, whether you are targeting, or ignoring, the consumers with disabilities demographic.
It is critical to view persons with disabilities as part of the mainstream market, and not isolate us as consumers. All too often, companies conceive products and services, conjure up land-use developments, websites, or building concepts and think, "now I need to make them accessible". Persons with disabilities demand more than just the ability to use your products and services, or function in your physical and virtual environments. We demand to be included in the very same experiences that we see and hear our non-disabled family members, and friends, having. Accessibility and Universal Design merely create separate, but equal experiences.
It is time to focus on including consumers of all different abilities, backgrounds, cultures, and languages in the meaningful experience that your products, services, and environments offer, through "Harmony at Work".
Disability is not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person's body and features of the society in which he or she lives.
More than 60 million persons with disabilities live in the United States. Over 4 million are home to California. More than 3 million live in Florida, and an excess of 2 million reside in New York. These are the wealthiest states in the country.
So, it shouldn't come as any surprise that Americans with disabilities possess more than $544 billion in discretionary income, out of over $1 trillion in annual earnings.
That's twice the amount controlled by the U.S. Hispanic community in 1990 (the point at which Latinos became an identifiable market segment for companies to serve). The U.S. disability market is three times the size of the U.S. Hispanic market, today.
American's with disabilities influence an additional $4 trillion in spending power that is possessed by more than 105 million family members and friends. Be that as it may, 10 years of observation, analysis of published company materials, and retail audits reveals that only 31% of the largest US-based companies demonstrate any kind of business-related mention of disability. Of the 639 firms analyzed, just 7% are actively engaging this market with publicly observable effort.
More than 91 million consumers with disabilities live in Europe. They wield more than $406 billion in annual discretionary income. Yet, still, 2014 consumer surveys reveal, widespread, unpleasant, retail shopping experiences for European consumers with disabilities. The surveys report that unpleasant experiences, including poor accommodations and unhelpful staff attitudes, are pushing many consumers with disabilities to shop online.
Some 100 people with different disabilities between the ages of 16 and 30 report that they struggle to even gain access to many shops, cafes and restaurants. Some customers said they felt "invisible" after being ignored by rude and insensitive staff who addressed their companions or caregivers, instead of them directly.
A 17-year-old survey participant with minicore myopathy said, "As much as I love shopping, sometimes it can feel like a military operation. No matter how much planning I do, there are always problems. Even if I can get into the store, the shop floor can feel like an obstacle course. I can barely move between the packed clothes rails and steps between levels – meaning some areas of the shop are completely out of bounds."
75% percent of the survey respondents say they essentially felt they were left with no choice other than to shop online. What the survey respondents are really saying they want can be boiled down to one essential point: A meaningful customer experience.
This, experience of consumers with disabilities, good or bad, influences the buying decisions of more than 168 million additional European consumers, considered to be their family members and friends, with more than $3 trillion in discretionary income of their own.
More than 6 million consumers with disabilities live in Canada. These Canadians with disabilities control more than $46 billion in discretionary income. Unfortunately, consumers with disabilities are largely perceived as a niche market in Canada. Therefore the Canadian culture of diversity is far less developed than in the United States.
Canadians with disabilities influence the buying decisions of more than 11 million family members and friends, along with their more than $311 billion in annual discretionary income.
However, 10 years of observation, analysis of published company materials, and retail audits reveals that only 34% of the largest 282 publicly traded companies in Canada demonstrate any kind of business related mention of disability. Even more alarming, research further reveals that these efforts are rarely backed up by strategy, process or budget. Of the 282 firms analyzed, only 10% are actively engaging this market with publicly observable effort.
This same research reveals that the majority of business-related disability focus in Canada is on legal compliance regulating employment and customer service practices.
Legal compliance does not attract, invite, and engage consumers with disabilities, our families, or friends.
It is time to focus on including consumers of all different abilities, backgrounds, cultures, and languages in the meaningful experience that your products, services, and environments offer, through "Harmony at Work".


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53 organisations urge UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to call for Nabeel Rajab's release, who will face trial on 28 December for speaking out about human rights abuses in Bahrain.
Nabeel Rajab is President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, the Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, and the Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights. He has been imprisoned for tweeting.
Rajab has been incarcerated several times during his lifetime due to speaking out against the human rights violations committed by the Bahraini government and its Saudi coalition war in Yemen. He has led numerous protests against the government since the 1990s uprising in which activists demanded democratic reforms. In the protests around 40 civilians were killed.
In the past Rajab has also criticised the US, an ally of Bahrain, for turning a blind eye to the government's human rights abuses.
Rajab will face up to 15 years in prison for posts made on his Twitter account which documented prison torture allegations and criticised the war in Yemen. Charges include: "disseminating false rumours in time of war" (Article 133 of the Penal Code1), "insulting a statutory body" (Article 216 of the Penal Code2) and "offending a foreign country [Saudi Arabia]" (under Article 215 of the Penal Code) (see background information).
Whatever happens, it is very unlikely that it will stop Rajab speaking out against injustice.
"I know [the Bahraini authorities] are serious about targeting me or silencing me. I guarantee that they will leave me alone if I keep quiet. But I know myself I will never keep quiet. I will keep speaking for those people, for those victims, who cannot speak about themselves." Nabeel Rajab, 2016
His trial has been postponed to 28 December.
Find the letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights here.


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Welcome back! With 2016 just a week old the internet is swarming with articles proclaiming lofty New Year's resolutions. Obviously, ours are completely different than all of those other lists…well, at least ours are social media-themed and they're not that lofty.
So, here is my suggested list of social media resolutions, a mixture of goals for professional social media usage and some personal social media habits.
1. If you want to be heard, use the right hashtags
Like many self-employed people, I use Twitter both as a personal communication channel and as a way to market myself. However, I can get a little lazy with the self-marketing part, because it's exhausting (and also a little gross, I know).
Most of the time I'll just tweet using hashtags willy-nilly, going for the funny-factor instead of using all of my resources to make an impact. Meanwhile, it would only take a couple of minutes of research to figure out the best hashtag for my purposes, and then building that into my tweet.
Let's say I'm tweeting out a blog post I wrote about freelancing, but I don't know which of the many freelancing-related hashtags are currently en vogue. One way to check up on that is via RiteTag (which we've talked about before in our hashtag analytics article):
When we search RiteTag for "freelancing", we learn that that tag is not really in use, but that #freelancer or #freelance, should do the trick.
RiteTag also tells us that a lot of people currently seem to tweet using #business, so I might want to consider taking that route as well.
Of course, you can always go further down the rabbit hole by checking out the hashtag connections towards the bottom of the RiteTag results page as well.
It might seem like a small difference, but the choice of the right hashtag could be quite significant for your marketing efforts. It's easy to care about your own hashtag campaigns, but you can give those an extra push by using hashtags all year round and not just when you're marketing your own campaign.
2. Join the conversation
I can also get a little lazy on social media when it comes to diversity of conversations. On Twitter I talk to and retweet mostly the same group of people. Occasionally, I'll stumble upon someone new to follow because of a retweet or a funny hashtag, but that's generally it. It's my "feminist-geeky pop culture & freelancer bubble", and I don't often venture out of it.
However, a way to get involved in a more diverse set of conversations on Twitter is to take part in Twitter chats once in a while. Most of these take place regularly and will expose you to a more diverse set of opinions and topics. You could use the new year to try out a couple of these — just don't be discouraged if it takes a week or two for you to get the hang of it; Some Twitter chats can move extremely fast.
Of course, you can also join relevant groups on Facebook, and there are some pretty interesting Slack communities out there as well. After all, social media should be more than just a way to while away some free time. It's a great way to connect to communities that you can't get direct access to IRL, converse with others who share your interest or profession, and elegantly market your services (i.e. don't be a gross self-marketing spammer), as well as get plenty of interesting content which you can, in turn, share on your own channels.
3. Schedule and analyze your social media activities
Speaking of your own channels: Coming up with social media posts can be a drag, and when you're handling more than just one account per network, the admin part of it can be debilitating as well. Luckily, there are tools that can help you with that, among them Buffer, Hootsuite, Edgar, and our very own Swat.io. [Full disclaimer: Swat.io is a product of Walls.io's parent company Die Socialisten.]
I started using social media scheduling mid-2015, when I suddenly had to handle not just my personal Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but also my Facebook page as well as Twitter and Facebook channels for my side project. Scheduling has been a boon for keeping on top of everything.
There are multiple ways to go about it. You could add tweets and posts to your queue right away when you think of them. Or you can simply throw anything you read, and would like to share on social media, into an Evernote folder, and then go through it later and batch-schedule your social media posts for a few weeks at a time. Or you can do a combination of both, which is what I currently do in order to keep my social media queue full. My current resolution is simply to have fewer lapses in 2016. 😉
4. Stop being on social media just because you're bored
It's evening, you're tired, you should probably go to bed. Yet, instead of putting your phone down you're sitting slack-jawed on the couch and scrolling half-brained through Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
I think almost everyone does this for some reason at some point during the day, but that doesn't mean it's a particularly smart habit.
I've indeed found that social media is often my alternative to getting up and transitioning to another activity. For instance, I tend to grab my phone when the TV show I have been watching is over, but I just can't find the energy for the change in posture a different activity would require. Or, just before I'm about to meditate in the morning, instead of immediately starting my meditation app, I dick around on my phone, and suddenly 20 minutes have passed and I'm late for everything.
I haven't tracked it, but I'm pretty sure I'm losing hours in my day this way. No more of that! Not for you and not for me. Or, at least, a lot less of it in 2016.
5. Cut the clutter with "see first", unfollow, mute and lists
Do you suffer from information overload? Feel like you're missing out on interesting bits, because Facebook is swamping you with irrelevant information on who liked what? Are you starting to dislike your friend because of all the crap she posts? Have you seen just about enough infants to last a social media lifetime but your acquaintance simply keeps posting pics of his new baby?
I've weeded out the politically questionable friends on Facebook (and in my life) long ago. But I noticed towards the end of 2015 that so much on Facebook was putting me in a rage anyway.
Partly because people were posting things I simply didn't give a damn about. But, partly, also because Facebook's algorithm is just plain unhelpful.
So, I started unfollowing people. Not to the extreme extent that a friend of mine has — they indiscriminately unfollow everyone they friend, resulting in an eerily-but-blissfully quiet, timeline view. But, by selectively unfollowing, I have managed to seriously cut down on the chatter and, now, I feel less overloaded when I open Facebook.
On the other hand, I make sure to turn on the "see first" function on Facebook for those people, groups and pages I really want to hear from.
There are only a limited amount of sources you can turn this on for, and, sadly, there is no unified list that shows you who you set to "see first", but it is a nice option of making sure you see the updates you want to see. Of course, you could also use Facebook lists, but that is way too much hassle for me.
Similarly, I have begun to mute people on Twitter if unfollowing would be too rude (and obvious) an act and have created a private Twitter list (visible only to me), which includes people whose tweets I want to see without slogging through a cluttered timeline. It's also a nice way to keep up-to-date on those tweeps in different timezones — because you can see what they posted while you were sleeping without having to scroll too far back.
Overall, as you can tell, I hope to be using social media more responsibly this year. I fully expect all kinds of relapses, but I think being conscious of the changes I want to make is a good first step to actually changing my habits.
Do you have any New Year's resolutions for your social media habits? I'd love to hear about them!


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The Tea Party movement began following Barack Obama's first presidential inauguration in January 2009. This conservative movement, which was the far right wing of the Republican Party, came into being in response to the Obama administration's plan to give financial aid to bankrupt homeowners. Its basic premise was to 'reduce the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit by reducing government spending and for lower taxes.'
The Tea Party members in Congress were considered more outliers by the mainstream Republican establishment, which had gradually moved more left as the Progressive element of the Democratic Party increased their hold on Washington. At the same time the American public was becoming more and more dissatisfied with the growing array of government mandates and regulations that were being heaped on them. Struggling business were increasingly burdened by high corporate taxes as others moved to more friendly environments. The remaining labor force was now fighting for the jobs that were still available as cheap labor from across the border vied for their places.
Neither side of the aisle was listening to what the American public was trying to tell them! The Obama administration was routinely going around Congress, shredding the Constitution along the way, while the Supreme Court was increasingly legislating from the bench. The voice of the electorate, dumbed down by their addiction to government entitlements, a higher education system that is raising a generation of self-indulgents and a liberal media that advocates more for socialism than capitalism, has finally broken their chains of silence.
This upcoming election is the breaking point! The gridlock in Washington, held by both the Democrat and Republication establishments, is about to implode. On the left is the surprising popularity of Bernie Sanders. On the right is the ascension of Donald Trump. Although Trump is not a Tea Party member, his quoted positions on immigration, terrorism and trade deficits resound with the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
Hillary Clinton seems destined to lead the Democratic Party into the election, unless her violations of national security, while she was Secretary-of-State, turn her from candidate to convict. Although Sander's quest for Democratic Socialism seems to have been stopped, the increasing move toward socialism will gain further strength with the brainwashing by our universities and liberal media.
The 'establishment' of the Republican Party is in full-scale panic mode over Trump's popularity. Although Trump, with all his negatives, is the clear favorite of the electorate as demonstrated by this first round of Republican primaries, he is in the position to make or break the party. It seems the more the wealthy donors and the 'old guard' try to bring him down, the stronger he becomes. Mitt Romney's public dressing down of Trump on Thursday only seems to harden Trump's supporters' belief that the time for change is now.
Trump's supporters are right! But is Trump the right person to lead this change? One fear is that his high negatives will put another Democrat in the White House either by Trump losing the election or going independent, which assures four more years of an Obama clone. Just as important, the next President will pick the justice or justices that will determine the balance on the Supreme Court.
Maybe the best answer to the current Republican dilemma came from former Republican Presidential candidate, Herman Cain:
"My take is the 'establishment' thought, four months ago, that Trump was going to flame out. He didn't. He got stronger. And so the 'establishment', I believe, is acting insane and irresponsibly. They are now in a panic, because they can't control Trump. So now they do want to get behind Marco Rubio. There is nothing wrong with trying to promote the person you want to support. The problem, I have, is that they also, simultaneously, want to try and stop somebody else. The American people who voted for Trump have spoken. Let this play out! If he is the nominee, they ought to support the ultimate Republican nominee."
The 'old guard' in Washington never seems to learn. This is just one more example of why term limits is the only way to run this democratic republic!