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March 2017 Co-organizing the Neural Time Series Coding sprint at NYU Center for Data Science. [meeting]
February 2017 Two posters and a talk at Cosyne 2017.
What can we learn about natural vision from color tuning curves? (Poster).
Deep learning approaches towards generating neuronal morphology (Poster, with Roozbeh Farhoodi).
Distinct eye movement strategies differentially reshape visual space (Talk, with Daniel Wood).
December 2016 Poster at NIPS Workshop: Brains and Bits. Deep learning for ventral vision. [poster]
November 2016 Talk at the Undergraduate Neuroscience Seminar, Loyola University of Chicago. Computation: by neurons and for neuroscience.
September 2016 Talk at the Motor Control Group, Brain and Mind Institute, Western Ontario. On the computational complexity of movement sequence chunking.
August 2016 New paper in PLoS One on reward coding in the premotor and motor cortices. [paper] [F1000]
August 2016 Talk at PyData Chicago, Chicago edition of a global data science conference. I will present a recently developed Python package Pyglmnet, an efficient implementation of elastic-net regularized generalized linear models (GLMs). [schedule] [video] [slides] [tutorials]
August 2016 Deep Learning Summer School, 4th edition of an annual week-long lecture series on Deep Learning run by Yoshua Bengio and Alan Courville. ~25% acceptance rate. [meeting]
I'll present synthetic neurophysiology approaches to characterize the functional properties of neurons in visual area V4. We use convnets to predict spiking activity recorded from monkeys freely viewing natural scenes and then show artificial stimuli to these model neurons. [poster]
July 2016 New paper in eLife on neural correlates of motor plans to uncertain targets. [paper] [commentary]
July 2016 New paper in Nature Communications on a theory of movement sequence chunking. [paper]
June 2016 Spykes, a new Python package that makes standard spiking neural data and tuning curve analysis easy and good-looking. [github]
June 2016 New paper in Journal of Neurophysiology on disambiguating the role of frontal eye fields in spatial and feature attention during natural scene search using generalized linear modeling of spike trains. [paper]
May 2016 New paper in Journal of Neurophysiology on expected reward modulation of FEF activity during natural scene search. [paper]
April 2016 Pyglmnet, a new Python package for elastic-net regularized generalized linear models! [github] [documentation]
March 2016 New paper in Neuroimage on decoding natural scene category representations with MEG. [paper]
February 2016 Two workshop talks at Cosyne 2016: On the computational complexity of movement sequence chunking, and The representation of uncertainty in the motor system. [meeting]
Departments of Neurobiology and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Northwestern University
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, 345 East Superior Street Chicago IL, 60611 Phone: (312) 608-7178
Unprecedented advances in both experimental techniques to monitor brain function, and computational infrastructure and algorithms over the past decade, provide tremendous opportunities to reverse engineer the brain basis of perception and behavior. To transition our efforts from a pre-Galilean age of individualized discoveries into an era of integrated theory development, we need to make two major computational advances. First, we need to develop models of perception and behavior that generate testable neurobiological predictions. Second, we need to analyze data from neuroscience experiments to test these predictions. I work at the intersection of these two computational endeavors.
A computational lens into brain function enables us to formalize perception and behavior as the result of neural computations. This branch of my research brings computational motor control to the brain basis of movement and computer vision models to the brain basis of vision. Computational tools in neuroscience enable us to make sense of large, heterogeneous and noisy datasets. This branch of my research brings machine-learning techniques and open source software development to neural data analysis. Specifically, I collaborate with theorists, data scientists, and experimentalists in both human neuroimaging and primate neurophysiology to study natural scene perception, visual search, motor planning, and movement sequence learning.
The rate of technical advancement in neuroscience will result in an avalanche of data; yet for theforeseeable future, our experiments will undersample both the animal's behavioral repertoire and the entire variability of its brain state. This combination of data deluge and partial observability, makes the testing of even the most neurobiologically grounded theories of brain function extremely challenging. Advances in deep learning can contribute to both these problems. Modern deep neural networks have as many neurons as a larval zebrafish. They can already match human behavior in object recognition and visually guided reaching movements. Importantly, unlike animal brains, deep neural networks with complex behaviors are fully observable and controllable: we can record their state throughout learning, modify weights, dropout neurons, or rewrite their loss function. Thus, we are confronted with a choice to measure and perturb real brains imprecisely or to measure and perturb deep network models of brain-like behaviors precisely. As a sandbox for sharpening our theory, experiments and data analysis tools, my research program will integrate this approach alongside traditional computational neuroscience work to model and analyze a wide range of behaviors in visual perception and motor control.
[17], Turner RS, Körding KP. Optimization costs underlying movement sequence chunking in basal ganglia.
[16], Fernandes HL, Smith MA, Körding KP. Hue tuning during active vision in natural scenes.
[15] Glaser J, Perich M,, Miller LE, Körding KP. Dorsal premotor cortex encodes ubiquitous probability distributions.
[14] PLoS One, 11(8): e0160851. [pdf] [F1000], Cooler S, Dekleva BM, Miller EL, Körding KP. Premotor and motor cortices encode reward.
[13] Journal of Neurophysiology, EPub Ahead of Print. [paper], Lawlor PN*, Glaser JI, Wood DW, Segraves MA, Körding KP. Feature-based attention and spatial selection in frontal eye fields during natural scene search.
[12] Glaser JI*, Wood DW*, Lawlor PN, Journal of Neurophysiology, EPub Ahead of Print. [pdf], Körding KP, Segraves MA. Frontal eye field represents expected reward of saccades during natural scene search.
[11] Dekleva BM, eLife, 5:e14316. [pdf] [commentary], Wanda PA, Körding KP, Miller LE. Uncertainty leads to persistent effects on reach representations in dorsal premotor cortex.
[10] Nature Communications, 7:12176. [pdf], Acuna DE, Berniker M, Grafton S, Turner RS, Körding KP. Chunking as the result of an efficiency–computation tradeoff.
[9] Neuroimage, 134:295–304. [pdf], Hansen BC, Pannasch S, Loschky LC. Visual information representation and natural scene categorization are simultaneous across cortex: An MEG study.
[8] Journal of Vision, 15(3):19. [pdf], Fernandes HL, Körding KP, Segraves MA. 2015. Modeling peripheral visual acuity enables discovery of gaze strategies at multiple time scales during natural scene search.
[7] Neuroimage, 86:480–491. [pdf], Parkkonen L, Hyvärinen A. 2014. Group-level spatial independent component analysis of Fourier envelopes of resting-state MEG data.
[6] Journal of Neuroscience, 33: 7691–7699. [pdf], Jas M, Pannasch S, Parkkonen L, Hari R. 2013. Feature-specific information processing precedes concerted activation in human visual cortex.
[5] Hyvärinen A, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7 (94). [pdf]. 2013. Testing independent component patterns by inter-subject or inter-session consistency.
[4] Human Brain Mapping, 33: 1648–1662. [pdf], Parkkonen L, Hari R, Hyvärinen A. 2012. Characterization of neuromagnetic brain rhythms over time scales of minutes using spatial independent component analysis.
[3] Hyvärinen A, Neuroimage, 49: 257–271. [pdf], Parkkonen L, Hari R. 2010. Independent component analysis of short-time Fourier transforms for spontaneous EEG/MEG analysis.
[2] Human Brain Mapping, 31: 820–834. [pdf], Parkkonen L, Hari R. 2010. Oscillatory Response Function: Towards a parametric model of rhythmic brain activity.
[1] Malinen S, Vartiainen N, Hlushchuk Y, Koskinen M, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 107: 6493–6497. [pdf], Forss N, Kalso E, Hari R. 2010. Aberrant spatiotemporal resting-state brain activation in patients with chronic pain.
Generalized linear models (GLMs) are powerful tools for multivariate regression. They allow us to model different types of target variables: real, categorical, counts, ordinal, etc. using multiple predictors or features. In the era of big data, and high performance computing, GLMs have come to be widely applied across the sciences, economics, business, and finance.
In the era of exploratory data analyses with a large number of predictor variables, it is important to regularize. Regularization prevents overfitting by penalizing the negative log likelihood and can be used to articulate prior knowledge about the parameters in a structured form.
Despite the attractiveness of regularized GLMs, the available tools in the Python data science eco-system are highly fragmented. More specifically, statsmodels provides a wide range of link functions but no regularization. scikit-learn provides elastic net regularization but only for linear models. lightning provides elastic net and group lasso regularization, but only for linear and logistic regression.
Pyglmnet is a response to this fragmentation.
Almost any electrophysiology study of awake behaving animals relies on a battery of standard analyses.
Raster plots and peri-stimulus time histograms aligned to stimuli and behavior provide a snapshot visual description of neural activity. Similarly, tuning curves are the most standard way to characterize how neurons encode stimuli or behavioral preferences. With increasing popularity of population recordings, maximum-likelihood decoders based on tuning models are becoming part of this standard.
Yet, virtually every lab relies on a set of in-house analysis scripts to go from raw data to summaries. We want to change this with Spykes, a collection of Python tools to make visualization and analysis of spiking neural data easy and reproducible.
Below is a visualization of my publications and ongoing projects embedded in my network of 28 co-authors using the force-directed graph schema. Cool-colored nodes represent authors and warm-colored nodes represent projects. Links represent authors that have collaborated together on a project. Nodes representing co-authors are sized according to the number of papers or projects I have in common with them. If you're viewing this on a desktop, moving the mouse over a node gives you the name of the author or the title of the publication or project that it represents.
|Accepted/ Published Articles
|PI co-authors
|Articles Under Review/ Revision
|Grad student or postdoc co-authors
|Ongoing Projects


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A Toledo Board of Education committee recently requested proposals to partner with an outside company to manage Toledo Public Schools' food service program, a move one union leader characterized as the first step in privatizing district food service.
A Toledo Board of Education committee recently requested proposals to partner with an outside company to manage Toledo Public Schools� food service program, a move one union leader characterized as the first step in privatizing district food service.
The district, after discussions by the board�s food service committee, sent out a request for proposals for a company to operate the food service department. Only one company, Philadelphia-based Aramark, responded, TPS business manager Jim Gant said.
Committee chairman Larry Sykes said the committee is simply looking for a corporate partner to help the district provider better service for students, possibly by bringing back hot meals and expanding healthier options. He points out that the proposal specifies food service workers would remain employed by the district under the proposal, and that more meals sold would lead to more work for staff.
�If our people can figure out how to provide a hot meal to kids, then great,� he said. �But we don�t we have the means or the equipment to do that.�
Dave Blyth, TPS staff representative for the union that represents food service employees, was critical of any plan to privatize the management of the department, and said the current system works well. The only way a for-profit company could make money from food service would be to cut costs, he said, which would invariably mean hurt the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees members in the department.
�It�s my position that no school system should allow a situation where a for-profit company comes in and makes a profit off of feeding children,� Mr. Blyth said.
Mr. Blyth also said privatization of the department�s operations could ultimately lead to a total outsourcing of food service in TPS.
Mr. Sykes rejected characterizations of the request for proposal as the first step toward outsourcing, and said he would not push a plan, but instead wants to come to an agreement between the board, district, and employees. He framed the committee�s conversations as simply an attempt to improve service for students and provide better, more nutritious meals that children want.
For years, food service has run deficits and required subsidization by the district�s general fund. Recent efforts, such as a push to increase breakfast sales, has greatly reduced that deficit.
There are several steps the district would have to take before the full board of education even considered contracting for food service. First, the food service committee plans to have Aramark make a presentation this month about its proposal. The panel wants to reach out to other firms for other options. And the committee would then vote on proposals, and possibly send one before the full board.
Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: email@example.com or 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.

subset: commoncrawl


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TCI Trumpets Investment in Japan Tobacco
Oscar Veldhuijzen of TCI Fund Management kicked off today's Active-Passive Investor Summit in Manhattan with a discussion of the London-based firm's investment in Japan Tobacco. TCI, which manages more than $9 billion, invested in the tobacco company in summer 2011. It has since more than doubled.
"It is one of our most successful investments in recent years, a turnaround investment," said Veldhuijzen, a partner and analyst at the roughly 50-person firm. In the beginning there were "virtually no believers."


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I always let my students know when friends and family know you know how to can, they start bring you food.
One or twin a week I open the front door to find food. Love it.
The best part of people giving you foods is that you can play and make new recipes.
I had some tomatoes left over from last weeks classes. My friend came over and give me some pear.
So I decide I would make a new recipes using what I had on hand. This jam is sweet and savory. It will be wonderful on toasted
bread with some fresh Parmesan cheese or Ricotta cheese. Who would think of making Tomato Pear Jam.
See you in class
Category Archives: Recipe
Making It Your Own
The other day a friend delivered a box full of three different kinds of cucumbers. I asked my friend what he does with them and he told me he turns them into pickles. I was confused because there were three different kinds of cucumbers here, but none of them were the kind you use to make pickles. He enjoys making them into pickles, anyway, and he says he mixes them all together. I needed to find a creative way to transform these veggies into crispy, delicious pickles. I found an intriguing recipe for Beer – Honey Pickles. When I finished those, I still had more cucumbers and I love the idea of alcohol plus a sugar. Hmm, what else could I use? I thought, "Why not make Wild Turkey – Molasses Pickles?" I have some family members that absolutely love bourbon and would love to try these,so what did I have to lose? Once you understand the balance and science of canning, you can switch up the ingredients to make wild and unheard of combinations. As long as you have the right amount of acid and sugars (as a preservative) to keep your food safe then you can go for it!
See you in class


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Home > Graphics > Product Mockups
Welcome to the Summer 2018 collection.
This frame mock up is very easy to expend with the Smart Object function. It is best to expend it with Photoshop. It comes in a High quality Web resolution PSD file and also as a PNG and a JPEG. Simply add a .png or text through the smart object system and voila! You hold it! It is really easy!
If you'd like to see more of this style, check the Second Edition of the Olive & White Bundle here: https://bit.ly/2scMUEw
The frame fits 20x25cm prints (8×10″).
Please note that this file is layered with a Background (the image) and a Smart object layer for you to insert your frame. The frame and props are on the same layer.
The file comes without watermark.
**THE CONDITIONS OF expend**
♡ Non-exclusivity: When you purchase an product from White Hart Design Co. you agree to a non-exclusive limited expend license that allows for personal and professional expend only of the item.
♡ How to expend your product: you can crop the image and overlay the image with your own text or artwork, as well as edit and manipulate the image to suit your needs. You can also expend any mock ups of White Hart Design Co. to display your products on your websites, online platforms, social media and anywhere you see fit for your business.
♡ Once you hold added your product or image to the styled Photograph you (or anyone) can also share it on social media for promotional purposes.
♡ You are allowed to re-expend this image multiple times in your shop to display your items, although it is recommended to hold a few consistent mockups to create a stronger brand image.
♡ What is not allowed: you may not sell, lease, loan, transfer, share or give the image to a third-party to expend in any way.
Thank you!


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Mac & Cheese
In relationships, it's all about blending two hearts, two minds, and two ways of doing things. The same can be said for the famous soul food dish of mac and cheese. Lawrence takes you and the twins through the blending of the perfect cheeses, macaroni and technique to make a dish you'll never forget while peppering in how these same techniques can help you perfect your love life too.


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submitted by: Patchwork Posse
This is a quick tutorial for a DIY plastic bag holder. You can use your fabric scraps and leftovers and either the string piecing technique or the quilt as you go technique…or even the mile a minute technique!
- 18″ X 18″ outside piece (can be one fabric or you can go scrappy)
- 20″ X 20″ muslin or lining fabric
- 2– 6″ elastic for the closures
- 2– 12″ Ribbon for the hanging tie
1) Sew your bit of pieces together until it measures at least 18″ X 18″. You can use the mile a minute method– or use the muslin while you are sewing them together (foundation piecing).
2) Trim up the piece to 18″ X 18″.
3) Pin your outside piece to the muslin lining- yes, the foundation piece is larger than your scrappy patchwork piece. This is so if there is any shifting while you quilt, you won't mess things up.
4) Machine stitch lines in any direction and design you'd like. I simply quilted straight lines following the seams- stitching 1/2″ away.
5) Trim the piece to 18″ X 18″.
6) Hem the top and bottom edge.
7) Fold in half the long way and pin together- right sides facing- hems are at the top and bottom.
8) Sew along the seam.
9) Lace the elastic in one end- pull tight leaving it open enough you can stuff and remove bags. Stitch to secure.
10) Turn right sides out place hanging ribbon inside the top hem- stitch to secure each to the side opposite each other.
11) Hang where you'd like.


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Motorcycles are like women in that it is very hard to become interested in one you don't want to fuck or fall in love with. That leads to the obvious question: who would want to do either to a Hayabusa? I think I know the answer. Let's see that tootsie roll. Photos: Magda Wosinska The 1340cc Law Master with the cage fighter tattoos distinguishes itself from a standard sportbike not onl...
Motorcycles are like women in that it is very hard to become interested in one you don't
want to fuck or fall in love with. That leads to the obvious question: who would want to do either to a Hayabusa? I think I know the answer. Let's see that tootsie roll.
Photos: Magda Wosinska
The 1340cc Law Master with the cage fighter tattoos distinguishes itself from a standard sportbike not only in appearance but also in that is has twice the engine most of us require from something that fits between our legs.
The cultural baggage which saddles the Hayubusa has led me to question whether,
intentional or not, its success in reaching a certain ethnic minority in America was
through the appeal of its unique aesthetic. This bike is bought by black guys, which, bear
with me, leads me to presume that this bike it bought by the men that love big arses.
Before branding my thinking brash or racist lets clarify that a brief look at the shelf
targeting an African American male readership at any local magazine stand will
confirm that a large manure spreader is an absolute must to garner sales. No secret and
nothing to be ashamed off. Videos and album covers cement the concept that a giant
pooper trumps tremendous titties any day of the week. Starting to see a connection? Has this bike been conceived for the booty connoisseur or has its posterior inadvertently drawn the
attentions of the ass worshipper?
The Hayabusa's designer, Koji Yoshiura approach to the design was to build a powerful bike
that looked like it had muscle tone. Koji-san has been quoted as saying "I created a somewhat grotesque design in the hopes of creating a strong initial impact." Mr. Yoshiura, I think we can safely say that you have achieved your goal. But what does this do for my theory?
Having never ridden a Hayabusa, I started the bike and was surprised at how little sound
the stock exhaust produced. Pulling onto the freeway felt more like piloting a 7-series BMW than a 195.6 horsepower widow maker until my wrist decided that it was Hadron Collider time.
There is one word that best describes the results. Fuck. After a brief and unscheduled
power wheelie I nicknamed the throttle "You want the truth? You cant handle the truth."
Unlike a puny literbike, the Hayabusa's engine power seems to stem directly from a
connection to a volcanic fault line somewhere beneath the tires. Broad, wide, ancient. I
will admit that there was a part of me that just wanted to twist until my head exploded but
the 405 North is not the best place to see how quickly I would reach the limited 186mph, although I came pretty close in complete comfort.
Ex-GP racer, ex-TT racer and current dog lover Jamie Robinson had nothing but good things to say about what he calls "the fat girl." Turns out I was currently riding sloppy seconds on the same press bike he'd just had. A blast up mountain roads just outside LA with his buddy on a GSX-R left no doubt about whether or not the bike's cholesterol level was a factor in road performance. Jamie sung the praise of its power, its brakes and said the bike's weight would only be a problem for the rider without the plums to "chuck her about a bit" in the turns.
But for me, the performance of the bike was quickly becoming overshadowed by the styling. All my life I have seen any connection to an instrument of speed as a love affair, but now, for the first time, I was becoming just friends with a motorcycle. This silent monster took me everywhere I wanted to go in comfort, without complaint and when I gave it a little twist it would soften my stools, but I just couldn't fall in love with riding something this ugly.
So, I decided to create my own logic out of the assthetic and enlisted the help of a local
Argentinean nicknamed "The Onion" because her booty apparently makes men weep. Once the plastic camel's hump was replaced for a rear seat and The Onion was gently lowered into place the planets aligned and lust once again entered the equation. The quintessential aftermarket part for this bike is not an extended swing arm or chrome iron cross mirrors. This bike requires a rear passenger with large, shapely buttocks for it to achieve symmetrical harmony. I think Koji-san was an ass man after all.


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According to the County Attorney for Maricopa County, Arizona (by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas | December 3rd, 2008 ) – Phoenix law enforcement says that Phoenix has now become ""ground zero"" for the violent Mexican drug cartels. There has been a 325% increase in kidnapping for ransom cases in Maricopa County since 2005.
Kidnappings for ransom are increasing in Arizona, as drug cartels and ""coyotes,"" or human smugglers, hold their own customers and other victims for ransom. Special interest groups that favor looking the other way when it comes to illegal immigration insist that illegal immigrants are peaceful, but this naïve outlook doesn't take into account the violence that inevitably accompanies illegal immigration. This latest wave of violence hitting Arizona puts women and children at risk as they are frequently targeted as hostages and held for ransom. At the same time, combating this new type of Latin American-style violence is increasing the load on our justice system and straining our financial resources.
Powerful illegal drug cartels used to be considered a Latin American phenomenon, limited to countries like Colombia where drug dealers control the government. In recent years, the drug cartels have moved northward illegally into Mexico, turning Mexico into the kidnapping capital of the world. Over 4,400 people have been killed in drug cartel wars in Mexico this year. But the violence hasn't stopped there. It has continued to move north, as the drug cartels and coyotes found a profitable market crossing the border illegally into the U.S. Phoenix law enforcement says that Phoenix has now become ""ground zero"" for the violent Mexican drug cartels.
Police estimate that over 300 kidnappings are investigated each year in Phoenix. So far this year we've had more than 200 referred to our office by law enforcement. There are more that go unreported, because many victims fear retribution from the drug cartels.
Looking the other way at illegal immigration and making excuses to avoid dealing with its associated crime by saying it is the federal government's responsibility will not stop the coyotes and drug cartels from bringing their Latin American-style violence into the U.S. The federal government is still doing little in this area to protect us. As long as I am County Attorney, I will work to protect the residents of Maricopa County from this new wave of violence.
Las Vegas, Nevada has also seen an increase in the number of drug gang related kidnappings: "Clemens Fred Tinnemeyer, disappeared in May after stealing millions of dollars related to "major drug trafficking," authorities have said, and investigators think Cole's kidnapping was intended to send him a message. Tinnemeyer was already at the center of a federal investigation when Cole was kidnapped, Nichols testified. "There was on ongoing investigation involving a ton of money, a ton of drugs and a Mexican cartel that was serious about getting that money back," he said. http://www.lvrj.com/news/33564389.html
Maricopa County Attorney Asks why National Guard on Border
Retreated from Armed Gunmen
Maricopa County County Attorney Andrew Thomas called for an inquiry by Congress and the Arizona legislature into the circumstances surrounding last week's reported retreat by National Guard troops along the Mexican border after they were confronted by four armed gunmen from Mexico. This development was troubling given that Valley streets increasingly are being flooded with crime, drugs and violence flowing from the open border with Mexico. The Border Patrol acknowledged last week that National Guard troops abandoned a post along the Arizona border after being threatened by armed men entering from Mexico. This confrontation occurred along a porous border where drug lords and their gangs operate freely. http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/01/10/maricopa-county-attorney-asks-why-national-guard-on-border-retreated-from-armed-gunmen-2/
Of the 46,000 arrests made in Maricopa County last year, 6,000 involved illegal aliens. 120 arrests were made for the illegal summgling of human beings. http://www.mayorgordon.com/news/view.cfm?id=483420746
Latin America-style kidnappings move into Ariz. – http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-11-smuggler-kidnappings_N.htm
PHOENIX — A woman leaving an eyeglass store is grabbed in the parking lot by four men who force her, kicking and screaming, into a pickup. The kidnappers demand a $900,000 ransom.
PHOENIX (Reuters) – The criminal underworld in the sun-baked Arizona capital of Phoenix has long enjoyed the hot money profits from illicit smuggling of drugs and people over the border from Mexico. But now its members are living in fear as they are stalked by kidnappers after their proceeds, authorities say. Police in the desert city say specialized kidnap rings are snatching suspected criminals and their families from their homes, running them off the roads and even grabbing them at shopping malls in a spiraling spate of abductions."Phoenix is ground zero for illegal narcotics smuggling and illegal human smuggling in the United States," said Phil Roberts, a Phoenix Police Department detective. http://www.tigardtimes.com/us_world_news/story.php?story_id=TRE4979VW
PHOENIX – Phoenix police have arrested a suspect wanted in the kidnapping of a teenage girl.
Thomas was in a southwest Phoenix neighborhood Monday evening with other children and adults when an SUV with a strobe light on its front grill pulled up and two men armed with assault-style rifles and another two with handguns exited the vehicle. Two of the gunmen had utility belts that witnesses described as resembling the gun belts worn by police officers. Despite the strobe light and belts, Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said the kidnappers never claimed to be police officers. http://ktar.com/index.php?hlpage=8&nid=6&sid=770438
Each year, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled through Arizona from Mexico, most heading on to join relatives living and working in the shadows in towns and cities across the United States. The desert state also straddles a furiously trafficked corridor for drugs, especially marijuana, more than 400 tons of which were seized last year by the U.S. Border Patrol alone. Profits from the two crimes amount to billions of dollars.
In one recent kidnapping, a 14-year-old girl from south Phoenix was mistakenly picked up on the street by a gun-toting snatch squad looking for the daughter of a known drug dealer. The girl was subsequently released by her captors. "She happened to be standing outside in front of the home … they grabbed her in broad daylight … threw her in the vehicle and took off," said Roberts. "Here is the perfect example of a young girl who has nothing to do with this, her family has nothing to do with this, she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4979VW20081008?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true
Man kidnapped from Phoenix store, police ask for your help. http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/story/Man-kidnapped-from-Phoenix-store-police-ask for/ktkfLTjEk0ygMqGoNh_L0A.cspx
Phoenix police uncover organized crime ring
Filed under: Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Mexican Violence Sweeps Across US Border | Tagged: 400 Kidnappings In Phoenix, AZ in 2008, Mexican Violence Spills Into Arizona - Dems Fail To Act | 4 Comments »


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Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief: Congratulations on the recent release of your comic book series, Captain Ginger, through AHOY Comics! For those who may be unfamiliar, what can you tell us about the series' premise, and what inspired you to tell this story?
Stuart Moore: Captain Ginger is a grand-scale space adventure about a starship crewed by evolved, intelligent cats. It kind of came to me all at once, unlike some projects that I think about for years. The inspiration, honestly, was June Brigman. I'd worked with her on other projects, and I knew that she not only loved cats, but LOVED to draw them. The story grew from there, in a variety of directions.
BD: What can you tell us about your shared creative process in working with artist June Brigman, inker Roy Richardson, and colorist Veronica Gandini?
SM: I just give June scripts and she draws them. She's suggested some characters, and I follow her menagerie of real-life cats for inspiration. There's a character in #2 that I based on a little guy she'd just adopted.
Sometimes, I don't notice June's little touches until I'm doing balloon placements for lettering. I just went over a page that's a two-character scene, and the character work was so perfect—I'd asked for one character, Sergeant Mittens, to "look over slyly, as if he's scenting blood." The expression was subtle but unmistakable, and it set the tone for the whole scene.
Roy and June have been married, and collaborating, for a long time; he's a skilled and experienced inker, and he knows exactly how to render her pages. June picked Veronica—they'd worked together briefly at DC. I think Veronica's one of the most underrated colorists in the business; her spacescapes are breathtaking and she can make very complex scenes clear and striking. She's also really made the ship look moody, dingy and dirty in spots. Cats don't always take care of their surroundings.
BD: What do you hope that readers will take away from Captain Ginger?
SM: Well, I hope people will enjoy it. The focus is on the characters, but GINGER is also designed as a space-opera thrill ride. These characters are trying to survive in a universe that really wasn't built for them.
As with all of the AHOY books, we also hope it's funny. Both June and I have plenty of experience with cats and their ridiculous behavior.
BD: As with all of AHOY's releases, there will be incredible extras included within the comic. What will readers have in store for them with the release of Captain Ginger?
SM: The first issue's lead story runs a full 35 pages, making it the BEST! BARGAIN! IN COMICS! There's also a feature called "The Intrepid Files," a cartoon by Shannon Wheeler, and a very funny short text story by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Phil Hester. Beginning with issue #2, we'll have a new HASHTAG: DANGER serial running in the back of the book by Tom Peyer and Randy Elliott. Plus, more illustrated text features.
BD: What makes AHOY Comics the best home for the series?
SM: Captain Ginger is a character-based adventure story, first and foremost. But there's a darker aspect to it, as well. Humanity has wiped itself out, and it's an open question whether the cats can do better. That question plays very heavily into the initial storyline.
BD: Are there any other upcoming projects on which you are working that you are able to share with our readers?
SM: Working on, YES. Able to share, SADLY NO. I hope to have an announcement very soon about a new series that's very close to my heart from another publisher. And I have another AHOY project that I am DYING to show off. The coloring for issue #1 just came in, and it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever been involved with.
Aside from that, I'm writing the graphic novel adaptation for Batman: Nightwalker, coming from DC's Ink imprint next summer; I'm doing the English-language adaptation for Batman and the Justice League, a translated manga series beginning in October; and I've just written an X-Men novel that will be out in January. I like to keep busy.
BD: Lastly, what would you like to tell fans who want to learn more about Captain Ginger?
SM: If you like cats or space, you'll love it. If not, give it a try anyway. Remember, BEST! BARGAIN! Etc.


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Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. "Administration as Design Art."
Writing program administrators should see themselves as designers, the programs and institutions they work in as designs and sites of design, and their work as WPAs as design art. Phelps draws on the work of the New London Group, Gunther Kress, and architects Karl Weith and Stewart Brand to offer a new lens to administrative work to not just see their work as design but to also challenge them to think of their programs as always designable, never concluding in a final design. Writing programs can be sites of institutional change if they continue designing and re-desigining after their initial structure is put into place, and writing programs have the unique complex, contradictory, and improvisational place in the academy to which enact change because they are a managable size with connections, like a sprawling network, across the campus. Phelps shows how crucial it is to reach out beyond one's own discipline to find design inspiration in all different fields. Phelps also argues that a WPA does much more than design curriculum: the teaching staff, the physical space of the institution, the relationships with different deans and other departments and faculty – these all must be designed.
Quotable Quotes
Object: "to locate administration as design art at the juncture of the practical and productive arts" (7)
"This is the road I advocate for writing programs as transformers: design things that work, but are below the radar, friendly and sprawling, messy and temporary, constantly learning" (26)
"I suggest that it is a mistake to set up a writing program primarily as an instrument to critique or change an institution. It will do that as a consequence of your designing the program to meet the intrinsic goals of its situated design, because writing programs require institutional redesign to locate, support, and implement their characteristic purposes. But theprocess, or rather consequences, should be indirect and ordinary, not grandiose, direct, and instrumentalist." (26)
Notable Notes
high road/low road of use
designs should not be fixed, they should never end
the challenge of administration is that you cannot design in a bubble: you must jump in and design something that you can't have complete control, management, or knowledge of. That's the downfall of the theories presented by Kress and the New London Group
the importance of the feedback loop: remaining sensitive to context, unpredictable, in the moment, temporary – like jazz improv
the importance of construction and building over analysis and critique
Questions: Why is this the way it is? Can it be designed better? Does it have to be this way?


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Don a hat and your whole persona and outlook can change. Go instantly from boring to bold or from dull to dramatic. A felt hat may be a lightweight fur felt or a heavier wool felt. You can usually tell the difference by looking at the edge of the brim. Because fur felt is lighter, it requires no binding, while wool felt will often have a binding around the raw edge of the brim. If you wish to reshape a felt hat, steam it carefully.
Fill the stockpot about three-quarters full of water.
Place the stockpot on the stove top and turn the burner to high. Wait until the water reaches a full boil and then reduce the heat to medium.
Hold the felt hat about 6 inches over the stockpot so that the steam rises directly into the felt. Move the hat around inside the steam vapors for about 30 seconds to saturate the felt and then remove the hat from the steam.
Manipulate the hat with your hands immediately to shape it into the shape you desire. For example, if you want a more pronounced crease, create the crease with your hands while the felt is damp. If your hat has a dent that you want to remove, smooth out the damp felt with your hands.
Allow the felt to cool and dry and assess the hat's appearance. After the felt dries, it should hold the shape you created. If the felt needs more shaping, repeat the process.
- Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images


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Three hockey players from Oliver Ames High School will miss Saturday's tournament game because they were suspended from school, reportedly for drinking alcohol.
Three hockey players from Oliver Ames High School will miss Saturday's tournament game because they were suspended from school, reportedly for drinking alcohol on their way to a basketball game in Duxbury Wednesday night.
Principal Wesley H. Paul confirmed Thursday that the hockey players, who include two captains, were suspended from high school and from participation in all remaining MIAA games this season.
He would not elaborate on the incident that led to the disciplinary action. Their names were not released.
According to people familiar with the circumstances, the three hockey players rode the high school's "fan bus" to Duxbury High School Wednesday night to watch the Oliver Ames boys basketball team play in the MIAA tournament and, on the way, drank from cans of iced tea that reportedly contained alcohol.
Paul said the suspended students included two seniors, who have been stripped of their title as captains, and a junior.
It's the third time in three months that alleged wrongdoing by area high school athletes has led to suspensions and missed tournament play.
In November, three football players from Brockton High School missed the Thanksgiving game and a playoff game after they were stopped by Avon police and found to have beer in their vehicle. The students, all 17, were also charged by police.
This week, four players on the Brockton High School girls basketball team were suspended from school for two days and barred from competing in Thursday night's MIAA tournament game against Mansfield. The nature of their offense was not known, though the school principal said it did not involve alcohol or drugs.
Paul, the Oliver Ames principal, said Thursday MIAA rules make penalties for infractions "non-negotiable."
According to the MIAA blue book on chemical health, alcohol, drugs and tobacco, "From the earliest fall practice date, to the conclusion of the academic year or final athletic event (whichever is latest), a student shall not, regardless of the quantity, use, consume, possess, buy-sell, or give away any beverage containing alcohol; any tobacco product; marijuana; steroids; or any controlled substance.
"When the principal confirms, following an opportunity for the student to be heard, that a violation occurred, the student shall lose eligibility for the next consecutive interscholastic contests totaling 25 percent of all interscholastic contests in that sport."
In response to a reporter's inquires, Paul issued a prepared statement on Thursday acknowledging that "two of our hockey captains were involved with an incident that resulted in their removal from their positions as captains as well as resulted in MIAA and OAHS suspensions. They will not be able to play in any additional games this season."
Paul called their actions "a misstep."
"They have learned a costly lesson in poor decision-making and have expressed remorse for their actions, their poor leadership, and their lack of modeling good decision-making," Paul said.
"They have accepted their consequences. As their principal, that is all I can ask. They are good young men who will learn from this incident and come out better people on the other side. Part of adolescence is making mistakes and learning from them so that they can reach their potential and be prepared to assume meaningful roles in society."
The seventh-seeded Oliver Ames hockey team, which plays in Division 2, beat Dedham by a score of 5-1 on Monday and is scheduled to play second-seeded Franklin in the quarter finals at 1 p.m. Saturday in Bourne.


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The theme of today's inauguration was "Faith in America's Future." Whether or not you support our president and his opinions, you can support our nation. After all, you still live here, you still reap its benefits of freedom and equality, and so you, as a citizen of the United States, take what you want from our country and therefore can take what you want from today's inaugural speeches. But the most important thing to remember is that life is not about taking, but giving. So give back what you get out of these speeches. Maybe it's just one line, maybe it's a feeling or an opinion, but whatever it is, use it. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where we can have a voice. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and it is our jobs as citizens of this country to let our voices be heard and to help people of other nations, who may not be as lucky, find and free their own voices.
We can certainly see the obvious significance of holding our first African-American president's second inauguration on a day that has been set aside to honor a man who is arguably one of the most famous African-American leaders of all time, Martin Luther King Jr. But to me what is more important to observe is the idea that Martin Luther King Jr. had a story that affected the lives of so many others and this will be evident for years to come. As I said in my first post for this blog, "Your story is theirs. Theirs is yours. We are constant page-turners in each other's lives." I wanted to take the time to intertwine quotes from today's inauguration with words from Martin Luther King Jr. to notice how much of a page-turner he continues to be and how we can have hope for America's future if we continue to incorporate his dreams and virtues into our lives for generations to come. It truly is all one story and Martin Luther relayed this when he said, "It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly." Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't great because he had all the ideas he preached about in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech before anyone else. He was great because he used that pedestal to let his dreams be heard. He was just one man, but his voice will forever echo in the hearts of Americans as well as anyone else striving to work towards creating a better future. He had faith in his ability to make a difference even though he was just one person. But, he also said this: "I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality." The reality of the matter was that even though he had a dream that he voiced beautifully to the world and even though this dream of his did ignite change in America, the fire would have just as easily died out if he didn't have other people, other page-turners, willing to gather around him and add more fuel to the fire to keep it burning strong. We are all woven into a "single garment of destiny" and individual threads have the ability to stand out, let's say by creating a zig-zag pattern, but all the other threads must do their part in order for this new, bold pattern to hold its shape and continue to create new possibilities for the future look and feel of the garment.
Nothing comes easy and change takes time. Besides acknowledging that he could not change this country on his own, Martin Luther King Jr. also knew that after making his speech, America would not simply become an entirely new nation overnight. President Barack Obama highlighted this idea today when he said, "We must act, knowing that today's victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and 40 years, and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall." We are so quick to demand immediate results in all aspects of life. I don't want that car in two years, I want it now. I don't want to see that band in concert over the summer, I want to fly two hours so I can see them next weekend. I think our president should be able to make sure we have a thriving economy in a matter of four years. What we must learn is that it is going to be a constant struggle. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this. He didn't expect there to be no more racism in the country after his work was done. Change is an ongoing process, not an end result. The most important thing to do to promote change is to seize opportunities as they come to us and to be continually moving forward and taking strides towards making our nation and this world a better place. It is not up to one person to make these changes for our country and for the world. It is up to all of us.
In a country with two political parties who hold lots of opposing views, there is always a constant struggle for control. But, when it comes down to it, there is only one person in this world who you can control and that is yourself. What we don't realize is that this is also the most important thing to have control over in life. Although you sometimes may not feel this way, you do affect everyone around you and the little actions you make every day indirectly touch the pages of others. This control is the only one which enables us to persevere through difficult circumstances. Why? Because we have the power to choose how we will react to the things that happen to us which are out of our control such as a giant superstorm or a tragic shooting. These were events that indirectly affected all of us in this country as well as around the world. Why? Because one person decided to react to their house being knocked down by going around town to make sure everyone else was okay. Which then inspired another to do the same. Which then led to a committee being formed in a small town to join together and rebuild what had been lost. And so on. Another person chose to honor her child's life with dignity and courage. To let his short-lived time on earth become an inspiration for people in states that don't even touch hers. And in countries across vast bodies of water. These people chose to stand up in the face of destruction. They saw something within themselves. Myrlie Evers-Williams's prayer at the Obama inauguration included a reference to a hymn from the early 20th century which goes, "There's something within me that holds the reins, there's something within me that banishes pain, there's something with in me I cannot explain, but all I know America there is something within, there is something within." As a country we have been faced with a lot of hardship and devastation in the past year. The reason I say "as a country" is not because we each lost a child in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting or because all of our houses were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy. I say it because the individuals who were directly affected by these events hold threads that tug on the garment of our country as a whole. When they looked in the face of evil and decided to stand tall, we were there to support their backs. We live in a world that is so limitless, so unpredictable, so ever-changing, that it is impossible to prevent every bad thing from occurring. What is possible, however, is to control the way we react to these events when they do happen.
It isn't until we all believe that the change that we want to see in this country and this world, and which we demand from all of our presidents is not the responsibility of one person, but EVERYONE. This is what I see when I look at that word: Every person becomes one. Every individual affects the oneness of our nation and our world. Think of a synonym for every: "each." Take away the "one" from eachone and you get "each." Take away the "each" from eachone and you get "one." Each=one. They are equal. "Each" does not mean two or more. It means one. It means ONE person can make a difference. Now that we have a better grasp on the equivalence of "every" and "one," let's go back to the actual word, "everyone." Replace "one" with "I am." We use this phrase in order to convey our individuality and inform others of our relation to the world as a whole. I am Kelly. I am female. I am here. Saying "I am" means we are going to reveal something about ourselves. Now, reverse "I am" and put it back into the word. Everyami. Reverse the whole word. I may rêve. Rêve is the French word for dream. I may dream.
We are all one. We may all dream. Our dreams are what make us unique. They are what keep our lives going and help us connect with one another. So, what we dream about may ultimately affect the "every." There is something within us that holds the reins. There is something within us we cannot explain. What is that something? The ability to dream. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. A dream that made history. A dream that turned into a reality. A dream that came from the lips of one, but ultimately affected everyone.
So dream on, America. Dream of an equal nation. Dream of a better life for our posterity. Dream of a cure. Dream of hope.
Hope is the origin of all dreams. And dreams ignite hope. The poet Richard Blanco ended his poem at today's inauguration with the line, "Hope, a new constellation, waiting for us to map it, waiting for us to name it together."
We all look up at the same night sky every night. We seek its guidance when we are in prayer and we look to the stars when we think about our dreams. Hope is up there too. Hope is the reason our eyes make the decision to turn towards the sky when we are searching for answers, instead of staring at our feet on the ground. To have hope is to be looking up towards something better. It is a gift that everyone has the ability to harness and far too many throw away very early on in life. So hold onto your hopes and dreams because you never know where they may take you or others around you.


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Many rapid and sophisticated issues overwhelm educators as we speak. Following the reading, employees from the Florida Department of Education's (FDOE) Division of Blind Services (DBS) led the scholars in interactive activities that supplied them with an understanding of how individuals with varying visible impairments dwell, work and play.
Current assets, information, and links to help parents, families, and caregivers support Maryland's college students in K-12. Obviously, the poorest of the poor in these nations could have a tough time getting into the most effective faculties of their vicinity.
From encouraging higher enrollment to selling studying for all, the World Bank Group performs a major position in education globally. With thousands of activities to match to your child's distinctive interests and wishes, we are able to level the way on their studying journey.
The influence of eager pupils may very well be an element right here, not solely by perhaps encouraging the disruptive pupil but additionally on the idea of sanctions that children are generally adept at using. We're in charge of enforcing education legislation and laws and continuing to reform and enhance public college applications.
Due to the political and socio-financial differences amongst nations, it might be inconceivable for this diploma of technology to reach all elements of the world, but effort should be made to see that education is fairy distributed to all youngsters in every single place.
Students are usually not taught to manage their time, to make decisions about how they complete duties, or even just how to decide on what environment they work finest in. This can be a time for a loud call to common sense, our founding values, and the premise that the self-serving educational elite can't be permitted to compromise our kids's education and their very future anymore.
Designating presents to help specific programs, akin to educational activities, a live performance, a lecture, or movie sequence assist further the Gallery's mission. Students who take part in continuing their education are generally working professionals who seek to further advance and promote their intellectual capabilities while still working.


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Get Fit with Treadmills For The New Health – Benefits do exist for your exercise program with the use of treadmills. Your heart, lungs, and circulation evidence get a wonderful cardiovascular custom from the use of a treadmill. It is easier and less painful to relation when there is low effect on your establishment while you exercise.
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Treadmills have a non-physical benefit, they don't profits up a yard of space. Some treadmills could income up a whole room but you can finds some that groove and are powered by your stamp only, if gap is the issue. If you deficiency to discovery the one that is appropriate for you, do some research and speech to professionals.
The best entity to do is to compare various models. What apoplexy of features do you omission on your treadmill? When comparing different shape you should look at a mathematics of things. This can all be overwhelming because all you protocol to do is workout.
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Have you seen the checkout region in the fair that proceeding then stop and event again and stop again? If your treadmill mechanism like that there can be more touch on your structure than necessary and wrath could result. The thickness of the sphere and its section is something else to seeming at.
You could fool up "running-off" the last of the panels if it is too short. Your stance testament not necessarily be supported if the panels is too narrow. You tins try a machine that is similar to the one you claim or test the one you do escaping if possible. The stamp on your succession as well as your drills evidence be affected by the makes and segment of incline.
You tins additions the incline to be as if you were rising a steep mound on pack treadmills as you type progress. You should be able to adjust the speed-how fast the region moves also. There is a minimum and maximum speed, do you know what it is? You can makes your practice more effective with this understanding and plan it better.
Check your treadmill console for the breasts monitor which should be a key feature. Knowing your resting sanity rate and the article opinion rate (the highest number you can safely reach to get maximum benefits) will business makes your workout more beneficial.
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When not in use, evidence it be easy to store? Since it will likely occupy the same breach it does when not in use, you evidence have to decide if this is practical for you. Treadmills should not be location near walls to prevent injury. Set it up at roughly 8 shoes from any wall, ledge, or window.
In order to prevent someone from descending while becoming off the treadmill all of the line and the spirit fund should be out of the provision of carriages field or taped down. Listed below are a few tips on using your new treadmill.
Straddle the area before you get on it, and type sure it's set at the proper speed. Keep your eyes straight ahead because your feet will follow your eyes. Preventing transgression and falls tins be done by halting in the heart of the belt.


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Fine Tuning: Succeeding with SLAs--why, when, and how!
This Fine Tuning on SLAs has been moved to our knowledge base here:
24 Comments
Can't wait to hear your great ideas for workflow and best practices Sam Chandler !!!
Aw thanks, Michelle! I'm super excited to hear about the cool things people have done with Zendesk SLA targets!
Hi - looking forward to hearing more on SLA.
What timezone is this in?
Hey, Carsten!
The times listed are in the Pacific timezone (PST)
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Greetings, all! Section 1 of our Fine Tuning discussion on SLAs has been posted. Can't wait to hear your thoughts!
Hi Sam! Thank you for your first post regarding SLAs in Zendesk. I want to share our experience using this feature to see how others are dealing with this in their teams.
- What SLA metrics does your Organization use when establishing SLA policies?
Our SLA is that next and first reply should be under 24hs. Our main concern is that our customers aren't left without a reply for a full day. When establishing SLA policies in Zendesk, we created a workaround for tickets submitted by an agent on behalf of a requester, triggering a tag that activates an exclusive Full Resolution policy for those cases, that is later removed when the ticket changes status (so that the general Next Reply SLA policy will be applied in the future).
We did this as we wanted all tickets to have this active and visible, so we could sort the tickets by the label ("Reply in 3hs", "Reply in -2d", and so on), so that the "most breached" are shown at the top, but as some tickets are still open but the agent has replied something to the customer (maybe something like "Let me check that and I'll write you back"), the label is hidden and the ticket drops to the bottom of the view. How are other dealing with sorting tickets and these policies? Are they useful for them? How?
Other thing we wonder over here is how are others using the Full Resolution policy. We don't have any standard for how long a ticket should last until it's solved for good (we are in the Travel industry). How can you create that metric? What happens if the client keeps having new questions or updates, and reopening the ticket? I imagine this must be frustrating for the agents, but I'd love to hear other people's experience with this metric.
Thanks in advance for your comments,
Thanks for your question, Sol!
Instead of focusing on how to get customers to stop reopening tickets, you might want to examine why they're reopening tickets. Generally, if a customer keeps replying to a ticket after it's closed it means that their issue hasn't been fully resolved. Are these customers reopening tickets and asking new questions or are their questions related to their initial reason for reaching out?
Look into a some recent tickets that have been reopened and analyze the comments after the 1st resolution time:
- Are these new questions or related to the original request? Are there particular agents that have more reopens than others? If so, are the agents with higher reopens fully answering the question on their 1st response or could they have been more thorough in their answer?
- Are your customers' follow up questions related to issues that could have been avoided if proactive information had been given in the agent's first response?
If the answer is yes in either scenario above, you might think about employing macros with canned responses to situations that frequently arise. It will help reduce your agents' resolution time and reduce your ticket reopens
Does anyone else have any suggestions for Sol?
@Sam and @Sol: Not SLA related, but following on from what Sam says here.. One of the things we do is having a required 'topic' field on each ticket. The agent must select one of the topics in order to Solve a ticket. We then run analytics on reopens and negative CSAT responses against those topics to understand areas where agents have particular development needs, or we perform badly because of process problems. It takes a second to complete, but provides a wealth of useful information after the event.
Just whilst we're talking about reopens, we do have a specific set of SLAs that are for that channel specifically ("Closed Ticket"). That way, if an issue is reopened as a follow up ticket our customer gets a very speedy response.
As we all know, speedy responses do happy customers make, and if they're reopening an issue, chances are we did something to make them unhappy already. I don't want to fuel that negative feeling by making them wait longer.
GREAT tips, Mat! Thanks so much for sharing
Jeff Toister presented an awesome webinar that reinforces the methods you mention above and gives some other pointers along the same lines: https://www.zendesk.com/resources/turning-data-into-action/
I setup some SLA's about a month ago and was surprised how easy it was to setup. The only issue I ran into was that we were not populating the 'Priority' field so I had to go and update all my triggers to automatically populate that field. I loved that I could setup SLA's per group as one of our metrics that we track is the first response time which is different per group. Another great feature was being able to define Business Hours vs Calendars Hours. I know there is alot more to play around with but this was a great improvement over the old SLA setup.
Great discussion so far and great job Sam!
Thanks, Wes! Glad you mentioned the Priority ticket field and Business vs. Calendar hours. That'll come up a little bit in Section Two as well.
Hi @Sam and @Matt, thank you for your feedback and tips. I see your point, and of course, you should see why the tickets get reopened after being solved, but regarding SLAs, what I wondered was how can you create a time metric around this. Maybe our case is different from other's. For example, when you are trying to sell something, at least we can't put together a metric to say what the full resolution time should be, as there is so much back and forward with a client. We are concerned our agents would be frustrated by being out of time as those cases can't be easily standardized.
Maybe in other industries it does make sense and wanted to know how this is used to see if this is something we could implement.
Thank you!
@Sol - One thing to note is that when you are talking back and forth with your client make sure to put the ticket in a 'Pending' or 'On-Hold' status as that will pause your SLA so the SLA is only counting time while its in your agents hands.
Hi Wes! Yes, back and forth, thanks.
Yes, of course, but still you could go over the full resolution time. Maybe we are too permissive with our 24hs SLA for next reply? Because with that rule, I guess our full resolution SLA should be "24hs x average interactions needed"? Is this how others are crafting that metric? Or is it a lot less?
No clue here, I'm just asking for tips, but I don't want to hijack the post either!
Hey, everyone! Just wanted to let you know that Section Two has been posted. Can't wait to hear your thoughts!
@Sol - You're not hijacking anything. You've got great questions and I hope you keep them coming :)
I went back to your original post to get a better idea of your goals and workflow. In addition to monitoring your agents' reply times, it looks like you're utilizing the Zendesk SLA feature to put your most pressing features at the top of your queues. Instead of adding an SLA target to monitor reply time, have you thought about reconfiguring your View instead? You can reorder your Views by a plethora of options including "last update" and "last update by assignee."
Not sure if that would solve everything but I thought I'd offer that option!
Hi Sam! Thanks for the follow up!
Yes, regarding the views, we had them ordered by last update, but we got excited about SLAs labels and wanted to use them instead as they are so graphic and we hoped they would be a useful tool for sorting. We also wanted to stop using "last update" as we were running an automation to insert tags when tickets breached the SLA policy so we could put together reports about this, but that automation "unsorted" what we needed initially.
So we got to a point where:
- We have the views sorted by the label, risking tickets will be lost by not having the counter active, BUT we could report on the ones that did.
- OR we could have the views sorted by "last update", have the labels active or inactive depending on what the agent did (and they could or not make sense with the "last update" order), and not having reports about this.
Is anyone else having the same situation? =/
Hi @Sol! I'm not sure if this will be helpful or not, but here's my setup.
- We have multiple SLAs defined, each with 1st reply and requester wait time defined
- Each SLA is for a defined 'user need' (eg. payment query, refund request, technical issue etc), and each value for 1st reply and RWT is different depending on the importance we place on the user need
- All of our views are sorted by SLA
- All of our views exclude Pending and On Hold tickets (ie. we don't distract our agents with tickets that are with the customer)
- We run the same bump-bump-solve process as Zendesk, so that we nudge our customers to reply if they leave things for a while
- We run automations to reassign tickets and add tags if we see that a ticket is getting close to breaching an SLA, or has been Open and not updated for a while (4 hours in our case).
All in all, this works well for us. Our most important tickets tend to get to the top of the view, and everything gets its fair turn.
Not sure if that's any use, but chipping in just in case :)
Slightly off topic: Sam, have you thought about turning this fine tuning into a video? The tips you're giving in the posts are excellent, and it seems really well suited to a talk with some nice graphics ;)
@Mat - I LOVE that idea! I agree that topics like SLAs and other business rules are best explained visually. I'll get with the team and see if we could get something going :)
Thanks for your suggestions above as well!
Hey, guys! Section Three is officially up!
Hi Sam! I tried my best to read through some articles for my answer but I've officially failed. Can you advise on how we can create an SLA that monitors total time to resolution <= 72 hours (excluding pending)? Thank you!
Hi Patrick!
You can choose to set the target metrics for resolution time – agent work time or requester wait time – to 72 hours. You must only choose one of these two for a policy. Agent work time will count the time that the ticket is in New and Open statuses, while Requester wait time will measure the time the ticket is in New, Open, and On-hold. Both metrics will pause when the ticket is in Pending status, and will stop when the ticket is set to Solved.
You may read more on the target metrics for resolution time here: SLA Resolution Time Metrics. Hope this helps.
Thanks Patrick!
Post is closed for comments.


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Quality control and standardisation
Teys is committed to producing and maintaining high standards of product quality. By utilising the latest technology in foreign contaminant detection, Teys can ensure their product integrity has not been jeopardised. Teys' "THE MARK OF QUALITY" reflects our aim to strive for strong brand recognition and to be a market leader.
Aus-Meat & MSA Standards
We use processing principles that comply with accreditation standards and certification requirements of Aus-Meat and Meat Standards Australia (MSA). These principles ensure that the product quality attributes are of the highest standard.
Process & Product Standardisation
To ensure customers continuously receive consistent product, Teys has introduced a standardisation system whereby all processing facilities use Teys Best Practice processing procedures.
Implementing Continuous Improvements
Teys' commitment to customer service and satisfaction is of the highest priority at all processing facilities. With the implementation of the Teys Electronic Document Management system, access to real time information for all plants within the Teys Group of companies is now a reality. The new system allows remote access and reporting for all quality related information and data across the group. To meet our customer's needs, we utilise industry experience in Quality Management principles and processing practices, invest in new technologies and implement continuous improvement processes.


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Grove City Rotary Club's Polio Plus Initiative
Rotarians around the world embraced polio eradication through the Polio Plus program – which started as an idea from one, single Rotarian and became a worldwide effort. For the past 25 years, Rotarians and our partners have worked to administer the vaccine in every country and put an end to this crippling disease.
Your TAX DEDUCTIBLE contribution, and our Club's $500 match, will help close that gap. Please contribute as much as you can. Any amount is greatly appreciated. You will receive an email receipt of your contribution for your records.
Polio incidence has dropped more than 99 percent since the launch of global polio eradication efforts in 1988. According to global polio surveillance data from December 17, 2014, 333 polio cases have been reported to date in 2014 from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria. In 2013, a total of 416 polio cases were reported from the following countries: Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, and Syrian Arab Republic.
Rotary is committed to this cause and that includes the members of the Grove City Rotary Club. In October, Rotary International announced its plans to contribute $75 million over three years to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative as part of a world-free effort to close the $945 million funding gap.
To date, Rotary has contributed more than US$1.2 billion and countless volunteer hours to help immunize more than two billion children against polio in 122 countries. Currently, Rotary is working to raise $35 million per year through 2018 for polio eradication, which will be matched 2 to 1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Please "LIKE" us on Facebook and Share this initiative with your friends and family today! Look for more facts about Rotary's efforts to eradicate polio on Facebook. Thank you.


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Though I've fallen behind on The Venture Brothers, I tend to watch more Adult Swim than I blog about here. Partly because so many of the late-night toons are difficult to describe to the uninitiated, partly because people who love them already really love them, and people who don't, or wouldn't, tend to tune out when I evangelize for them.
But tonight Adult Swim—or at least the Adult Swim sensibility—is grabbing for a mass audience, or at least a more-mass audience. Spy parody Archer, from the producers of Frisky Dingo, debuts tonight on FX. If you're a fan of offbeat live-action comedies, I suggest you try it; and even if it doesn't grab you at first, I suggest you stick with it.
Drawn in a heavy-lined, Flash-animation style, Archer is something like a dirty Get Smart, with equal elements of Arrested Development and Better Off Ted. Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is an agent with the International Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS), which is both a spy agency and something of a family business, headed by his controlling mother, Malory (Jessica Walter). (Another AD connection: Judy Greer voices Cheryl, a secretary with self-esteem so low, she frequently changes her name to "Carol," or whatever it's been mispronounced as most recently.)
There's the requisite amount of spyplay in this raunchy sitcom—you got your poison pen-darts, etc.—but it's really more about office politics and entanglements. Archer is the bluff, lunkheaded star of ISIS, who's worked his way up the ladder and through the directory of female staff. (Benjamin perfectly captures his arrogance, even if it is weird at first to hear the voice of Home Movies' Coach McGuirk coming from a handsome spy.) But he's saddled with an insulting code name ("Duchess"), an awkward relationship with an ex-girlfriend (Aisha Tyler) who's dating the accountant (Chris Parnell), and a too-tight apron-string connection to Malory. And James Bond never had to file a complaint with human resources.
The first episode is, maybe to grab the young-guy audience, heavier on the sexplay and lighter on the laughs. But two or three episodes in, the characters and dynamics come together, and the show really begins to kill. Literally and figuratively, but mostly figuratively.
Chuck is still around but Better Off Ted looks like it will not be with us much longer. If you want your action parody and office sitcom all in one, Archer may well be the spy you'll love.


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Christmas Traditions...and Christmas Ideas!
|Bertram Ross and his partner, the late, great and brilliant composer/lyricist John Wallowitch.
The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart." -- George Matthew Adams
Actions usually speak louder than words, but communicating your feelings now is the most direct way to connect with others.
This means we all will be more EMOTIONAL over the next few days! And there's no point trying to fight it.
Today's interactive Gemini Lunar Eclipse is stimulating my 5th House of Love and Creativity. VERY LUCKY FOR ME! The Full Moon Lunar Eclipse won't affect everyone the same way, though.
This blog begins with a picture of Bertram Ross and John Wallowitch. John and I share a birthday. I thought of him, and still do, as a spiritual soul-mate.John had another spiritual soul mate, Irving Berlin. Bertram and John lived in the same neighborhood. And one Christmas eve, Bertram and John, went over to Berlin's home and stood outside and sang White Christmas and Always...and left.
The following year, a few friends joined them...and they even saw the figure of Irving Berlin peering through the curtains on the second floor. The following year, the number of people joining them more than doubled...and Berlin even welcomed everyone into his home! The year after that, the numbers had grown even more and not only was everyone welcomed in, but there was wine for everyone! As the years went on, even when Berlin was upstairs and not seeing anyone, the Pied Piper of Berlin, John, and his followers were welcomed in. They knew that Mr. Berlin upstairs could still hear them.
After Berlin passed on, he left his home to the Luxembourg Embassy. They continued this tradition. Over the past five years of Bertram and John's lives,
I was honored to be part of this tradition.
|with Cynthia Crane and John Wallowitch
I first discovered John when I first moved to New York. He had a Manhattan Access Cable show that, without meaning to be, I think, was one of the campiest things I had ever seen. The production values were non existent.
It was a single camera, general lighting, and John just sitting at the piano. Every once in a while, a hand would emerge within camera range and drop a dollar or two in the tip jar.
I called in one night as Carol Channing! He thought it really was Carol and began to cry. I used to call in every other week. After a while, he caught on that it really wasn't Carol but still played along nonetheless! I couldn;t believe it when I finally met him. Love and miss you, John, but I'm celebrating you tonight!
When John died in 2007, New York seemed palpably dimmer, and he is greatly missed by his legions of friends, family and fans around the world, who adored him both onstage and off. Anyone who counted him as a friend (as I did) would vouch for the fact that he was a kind and attentive friend, a wicked and razor-sharp wit with few equals, in addition to being a monstrously talented and prolific composer/performer.
His songs were recorded by world famous singers (Tony Bennett, Shirley Bassey, Blossom Dearie, Shirley Horn and many others). He was often (and quite proudly) compared to one of his great idols, Noël Coward. Like Coward, John wrote both the words and the music to most of his songs. In one of his more brilliantly wry bits of wordplay, in his song, "Cosmetic Surgery," John wrote:
"In a matter of weeks
With the modern techniques
For improving physiques
They have altered their beaks
And they've lifted their cheeks
And now everyone speaks
In society's cliques
Of the changes that science has wrought
Of the changes that money has bought!"
I, like most people, get nostalgic this time of year. The magic of music brings friends and family together especially during caroling season.....
My partner, Danny, and I are kicking off the holiday season with our own Christmas caroling party tonight. Of course, my favorite Christmas "Carol" is you know who! This particular "Carol" has always spread joy and continues to do so!
Ken Kleiber has created a Christmas tradition of putting out a Christmas show every year including Carol Channing, Charo, and yours truly.
It is also on Manhattan Access but SHOULD go national. Thank God for You Tube so that many others can enjoy these.
If you are not up to coming to Rockland County tonight, treat yourself to an early Christmas present and go to the Metropolitan Room in NYC to see Craig Pomranz's new Christmas show in the decorated Christmas cabaret room. This is his first annual Christmas show!
The last NY show this year. Craig will prove that time and tide wait for no man, as horologically he explores the tick tock of love and how the clock rules the heart with songs as diverse as Stephen Sondheim's "Night Waltz" and Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time." As Herman Hupfeld said "the fundamental things apply as time goes by," add some Holiday cheer in music and from serious to deliriously silly, and from start to finish, this is a party you won't want to miss..with one of the dreamiest voices in the music industry, a voice reminiscent of Johnny Mathis, Chet Baker and Little Jimmy Scott.
Direct from his Los Angeles engagements Craig Pomranz brings "Love and the Clock" in The First Annual Craig Pomranz Holiday Show!
There are also a few book that I highly recommend this year for Christmas . They cover different realms of writing and they ALL were written by friends of mine. They are in no particular order of importance. But I have enjoyed them all. The first is a work of fiction by my friend Ed Navis called Jerusalem Hill.
Psychiatric nurse-turned-business professional Anderson Stevens left the hectic life of a consultant to become the Executive Director at the Crestview Institute, the country's most posh and expensive psychiatric hospital.
When his life-long friend Ryan dies suddenly, Anderson is accused of the murder. Faster than he could say "Lithium," he's committed to the infamous New Jersey state hospital, Jerusalem Hill. Heavy sedation and shock treatments force Andy to embark on an epic hair-raising and emotional journey through his disturbing past in which he must face the music of his demons and develop new strengths so he can escape from the Hill and clear his name.
|Ed Navis
Ed Navis started his professional life as a nurse clinician in an inner city psychiatric emergency service, and became a human capital strategist in 1984 when he realized that there were crazy people in corporate America, too. He's written two business books (PeopleThink and Confessions of an HR Professional: Secrets for Getting Your Foot in the Door), and a collection of essays about the illogical (If the World Made Sense, Men Would Ride Sidesaddle).
Ed lives in Little Falls, NJ. Jerusalem Hill is his first novel.
OR Order it HERE
I also HIGHLY recommend Was That A Name I Dropped? by Paul Brogan. Paul has known EVERYONE in Hollywood. It is an incredible memoir accounting an incredible journey! What a great documentary this would make!
Paul Brogan grew up in picturesque Concord, New Hampshire, a city that might have been an appropriate setting for a Norman Rockwell painting.
From an early age he dreamed of going to Hollywood and working in the movies. The images that flickered on the huge movie screens, as well as from the television console that sat in the living room seemed to beckon to him. That road to his dreams, however, was fraught with many detours and demons that threatened to derail not only his hopes but his life as well. "Was That a Name I Dropped?" tells in chilling detail a true story about growing up gay and battling depression so deep that suicide seemed like the only option available.
Paul's road to Hollywood is colorful and filled with memorable moments and characters. After being brutally raped at 18, Paul relied more and more on a fierce determination and refusal to listen to the naysayers who told him he had to simply "settle for."
He didn't listen and his story, filled with interesting anecdotes about the many celebrities he encountered on his journey, gives hope to everyone who wants to make their own dream come true.
Filled with stories about his friends and acquaintances including Doris Day, Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Carol Channing, Eileen Fulton and Jim Bailey among others, "Was That a Name I Dropped?" will leave the reader smiling, laughing and holding back tears as they join Paul on his journey. Order it HERE
An INCREDIBLE biography that is a very fun read is Sam Irvin's Kay Thompson: from Funny Face to Eloise. You won't be able to put it down!
Kay Thompson's larger-than-life story is an effervescent toast to show business with a shot of Auntie Mame and a twist of The Devil Wears Prada.
A multi-threat entertainer and a world-class eccentric, Kay Thompson was the mentor/best friend of Judy Garland, the vocal guru for Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne, and the godmother/Svengali of Liza Minnelli (who recreated Thompson's nightclub act in her 2009 Tony Award–winning event, Liza's at the Palace).
She went to school with Tennessee Williams, auditioned for Henry Ford, got her first big break from Bing Crosby, trained Marilyn Monroe, channeled Elvis Presley, rejected Andy Warhol, rebuffed Federico Fellini, got fired by Howard Hughes, and snubbed Donald Trump.
She coached Bette Davis and Eleanor Roosevelt; she created nightclub acts for Marlene Dietrich and Ginger Rogers; and when Lucille Ball had to sing on Broadway, Kay was the wind beneath her wings, too.
Kay's legion of fans included Queen Elizabeth of England, King Juan Carlos of Spain, and Princess Grace (Kelly) of Monaco. Danny Kaye masqueraded in drag as her; Noël Coward and Cole Porter wrote musicals for her; and The Beatles wanted to hold her hand. She was a charter member of the Rat Pack, costarred in a whodunit with Ronald Reagan, and directed John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Gala.
The dame cut a wide swath through the arts. After conquering radio in the 1930s she commandeered MGM's vocal department in the 1940s, where she revolutionized the studio's greatest musicals with her audacious arrangements, from The Harvey Girls to Ziegfeld Follies.
In the 1950s she became the highest-paid cabaret attraction in the world with her groundbreaking act "Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers," featuring her young protégé—and secret lover—Andy Williams.
In a stunning feat of reinvention, Thompson next became the bestselling author of Eloise (first published by Simon & Schuster in 1955), chronicling the mischievous adventures of the six-year-old mascot of The Plaza, spawning an industry that is still going strong today.
Then Kay took the silver screen by storm as the "Think Pink!" fashion magazine editor in Funny Face, stealing the film right out from under Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire.
The Thompson saga swells from small town wannabe to international headliner, dissolving into self-destruction and madness—the storyline usually reserved for a rags-to-riches potboiler—yet with unexpected twists, outlandish turns, and a last-minute happy ending that, even by Hollywood's standards, is nothing short of preposterous. But that is Kay Thompson. Fascinating. Frustrating. Fabulous! Order it HERE
Riveting! It took me right back to the 80s here in New York.
This story is about two brothers raised by their widowed mother. Jacob and Noah couldn't be more different than if they'd been born to two different sets of parents, and though Jacob is openly homosexual while Noah is straight that's not the only differences between these two young men. Noah is a hard worker, dedicated to taking care of his family while Jacob is more laid back and just takes life as it comes. Still while he loves his brother and has no problem with his life choices, Noah is tired of their mother always comparing him to Jacob as if he's the golden child.
When Jacob decides to move to New York with his partner and Noah stays behind to care for their mother a world of excitement, adventure, and unknown danger opens up for him, but what will it ultimately cost him and what lessons will both brothers learn along the way?
This novel was the perfect view of the life of a homosexual male trying to make it in a world that's hard on everyone, but the temptations can sometimes have a deadly price to pay in the end. It's also the story of brothers and their differences as well as how losing someone you love, someone that has always been there for you and accepted you for who you are, can change your entire life, some changes of which are not always for the better.
The story is wonderfully written and you could feel the character's emotions. It teaches you that changing is not always easy, and at times it is best to be yourself and realize who you are and embrace it rather than try to live a lie. I highly recommend this book, Gregory G. Allen has a way of writing that keeps you interested long after you've finished the book. (Source: Great Minds Think Aloud Book Club) Order it HERE
There you have it! ALL your shopping directly through my blog!
Gretchen Reinhagen first hit the professional music scene at the tender age of five, fronting for her father's band at the Cape Cod nightclub, The Farm, singing a cover of Karen Carpenter's "Sing" as well as that classic standard "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Yes, Gretchen delighted employees and their families at The Farm's annual staff holiday party, and a Christmas ham was truly in the making. The highlight of the evening for keyboardist Bill Deechan, was when Gretchen turned to him mid-song and said "TAKE IT!" The highlight of the evening for Gretchen was standing outside with Dad between sets, searching the skies for Santa's sleigh.
WIKIPEDIA and the websites of the entertainers in this blog are THE MAIN SOURCES OF THIS BLOG. NO COPY WRITE INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!
Please do what YOU can to be more aware that words and actions DO HURT...but they can also heal and help!
Follow me on Twitter If you've seen one of my appearances/shows, add your thoughts to my guestbook at www.RichardSkipper.com
Tomorrow's's blog will be...YOU TELL ME...I'M OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS!
Thank you, to all the mentioned in this blog!
I love you Carol!!
Here's to an INCREDIBLE tomorrow for ALL...with NO challenges!
Now, GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE ELSE TOMORROW!
Become A Facebook friend of mine!
DR. CAROL CHANNING and HARRY KULLIJIAN FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
Richard Skipper, firstname.lastname@example.com


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What Should We Do With These Massive Stockpiles Of Horn And Ivory?
In light of the global demise of elephants and rhinos, many countries have made a symbolic gesture of commitment by destroying their ivory stockpiles. China, the United States, Kenya, France, the Philippines, Gabon and Hong Kong have all taken part. While some see this as a celebratory gesture, it is contested by others. The price tag for a kilo of ivory on the black market is worth over $1800 USD, which makes your average elephant worth about $18,000. A kilo of rhino horn can fetch $65,000 USD, making the average rhino worth $130,000.
Imagine how much one country's stockpile may be worth. When the U.S. destroyed it's six-ton stockpile, it was like destroying approximately $9,800,000 USD. Could that money have been sold to China, raising money for conservation? Or would it have simply fueled demand, bringing a quicker end to our imperiled elephants? There are arguments on both sides.
Reasons to destroy:
- Ivory and horn left intact has the good chance of finding its way back onto the market, perpetuating the demand and adding to the poaching.
- It sends a powerful statement to the world that it is NOT a commodity. There is no worth.
- It also sends the message that a country will not tolerate the trade.
- Storing ivory and horn is a security burden to most countries.
Reasons to keep:
Saving horns and ivory allows records to be kept on genetics, both for historical purposes as well as for DNA evidence used in court cases.
- If legalization occurs, it can be sold to raise money for conservation.
- It can be used to train wildlife sniffer dogs in airports to help control trafficking.
- In general, destruction of ivory will make it more scarce, spiking the demand
What do you think? Take the poll here.


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Montreux European Duck Down Pillow
Matouk's Montreux Pillow combines high quality duck down sourced from Europe's finest farms and 100% Cotton percale to create 600 fill power pillows that ensure a restful night.
- European Duck Down, 600 Fill Power, min. 80% down.
- 100% Cotton percale shell.
- Purified using Alpine Water.
- 3-Chamber Option Available.
- Made in Liechtenstein.
Care: Machine Wash Cold on Gentle Cycle in Front Load Machine. Do Not Use Bleach or Fabric Softener. Tumble Dry Low Heat.
What is a 3-chamber pillow? How is it different from a regular sleeping pillow? Three-chamber pillows are constructed to furnish maximum support. These pillows combine the fluffiness and softness of down and the support and elasticity of feathers. An inner chamber is filled with pliable, flexible feathers that offer excellent support, while outer chambers are filled with plush down for extraordinary softness. Three-chamber pillows are a superb option for the person who wants the comfort of down, but also require the additional support of a firm pillow.
|Free Shipping
|Eligible for Free Ground Shipping on orders of $100 or more
|Allow Giftwrapper
|Short Description
In Fall 2016, Matouk introduced their line of down comforters and down pillows. This was a natural next step for a company that has excelled in the bedding business, and whose quality is held in esteem. The Matouk Down Collection is handcrafted in Liechenstein from down that is carefully collected from Europe's finest farms. The down then enters a meticulous cleaning process involving pristine water, an environmentally conscious facility that uses solar power and biodegradable detergents. Available in choice of firmness and weight, Matouk's down pillows and down comforters can also be made in custom sizes. For those who prefer down alternatives Matouk has also created a line of lofty, soft, and warm down free comforters and down free pillows equal to the natural feel of down. Each piece is finished with the finest of fabrics and tested to be sure of nothing but exception.
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