No matter who wins the election on September 7, Australia's telecommunications networks will receive a long-overdue multibillion-dollar facelift funded by the federal government.
Australia has never topped global broadband rankings for speed and value. The OCED ranks us 25th in the world for fibre connections in its latest communications outlook report and Australia still has more dial-up internet connections than any other country in the OECD, apart from New Zealand.
While policy wonks and politicians claim broadband remains one area where the major parties offer voters a real choice, there are more similarities than many realise.There are differences - real time Location system, construction efforts, and using the Telstra copper network - but not as many as Labor politicians have been claiming during this campaign.
For example, Communications Minister Anthony Albanese claims towns will be ''divided by broadband'' and that ''planned [broadband] construction … will be cancelled''. While NBN Co under a Coalition government might change fibre-to-the-home installations to fibre-to-the-node in years to come, the Coalition no longer plans to halt construction and sell off the network like it did in 2010.
Earlier this year the Liberal Party adopted the very un-Liberal policy of publicly funding a government-managed and operated broadband network. This is because it can't unscramble Labor's omelet, and partly because it recognised votes were lost in 2010 when its broadband policy seemed to lack vision and did nothing to improve broadband speeds.
''It certainly was one of the things that affected us, definitely,'' says one Coalition frontbencher. ''Tony's [Abbott's] 7.30 Report interview was pretty bad. And the press conference with Andrew Robb and [former opposition communications spokesman] Tony Smith where they unveiled our policy was a debacle.''
The new broadband policy ''makes the best of a bad situation'' and the ''vast majority'' of Coalition members support it, he adds.The opposition's current communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, convinced Tony Abbott the party needed a better policy. It turns out that policy will cost $30 billion, but at least the party can argue against accusations of being troglodytes.
Turnbull says his plan can be delivered sooner and at less cost with ''everyone in the nation'' getting access to minimum speed of 25 megabits per second [Mbps] by 2016 and 100 Mbps to the majority by 2020.
Turnbull says he still believes the best model is private sector upgrades done with ''judicious levels of government subsidy to make sure uncommercial areas are dealt with''. However, he has to live with the facts on the ground and work out how to complete the network that has been started.
''The gap between the parties' [policies] would be regarded outside Australia as being relatively modest … what I have got to do … is completely depoliticise this thing,'' he says in an interview with Fairfax Media. ''Our job is to open all the books, rtls, lay it all out and say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is where we are. This is the business you own. This is the position you're in. Here are our options for sorting it out.'''
Turnbull's policy adopts Labor's plan to raise tens of billions of dollars through government bonds, which keeps the project off the budget, and spend that money building networks that are available to all service providers at the same prices. Both aim to separate Telstra so its retail operations cannot benefit from it also owning infrastructure and evenutally privatising NBN Co to recoup costs.
The Coalition's regional communications spokesman, Luke Hartsuyker, says both broadband policies are ''very very similar'' for the 7 per cent of Australia's population in regional areas that have been told to expect a fixed wireless or satellite connection.
''We will maximise the value of the assets that we inherit. We will not be junking the work that has been done on ideological grounds,'' he says.Albanese says the differences between Labor's NBN and the ''Coalition's lemon of an alternative couldn't be more stark''. He pointed to faster speeds, guaranteed upload speeds, free fibre installations and universal pricing.
''The Coalition's alternative relies on last century's copper, will be obsolete before it is finished, forces homes and businesses to pay as much as $5000 to connect directly to fibre, will result in regional Australians paying more for broadband than people living in the cities, and costs only 3 per cent less in terms of government investment than Labor's vastly superior NBN.''
There is certainty in Labor's policy that is missing in the Coalition's, partly because Turnbull wants to initiate three reviews if he becomes minister that could change his current rollout plans. Labor's NBN Co charges the same wholesale prices around the country, whereas the Coalition wants a regulated price cap that allows lower prices in viable areas. While Telstra's is settled under Labor's plan, the regulations surrounding NBN Co have stalled over concerns about cost and pricing into the future.
NBN Co has now grown to 1620 employees and spends about $1 billion a year in operating costs, including payments to Telstra. It had commitments worth $3.9 billion at the end of last financial year. The latest financial information has not been released by Albanese, even though guidelines for all government business enterprises, including Australia Post and Medibank Private, recommend corporate plans be submitted by July 31.
NBN Co has 33,000 households connected to its fibre, and 36,000 with fixed wireless or satellite connections, for a total of about 70,000. About 130,000 households have been ''passed'' by fibre, which means they can connect to the NBN, although apartment blocks remain a logistical nightmare. About 30 per cent of users are paying for the fastest speeds possible and downloading more than average households.
Fibre construction has started at 1.15 million more premises and Labor argues not all of these houses can be completed under the Coalition's plan, which expects just 2.8 million premises to be connected directly to fibre, including premises with degraded copper and 1.6 million future houses in new estates.
NBN Co announced in March it was three months behind schedule, but has not said if it expects to catch up by July 2014 when its target is to have 551,000 premises connected.Recently NBN Co has been criticised for contractors working with asbestos, claims of cost overruns and construction delays. Some of these issues are beyond NBN Co's control and not its responsibility - such as asbestos in Telstra's pits. The cost-overrun stories are based on unsourced industry figures claiming current contracts are too stingy and should be at least $5 billion more generous.
But there is genuine concern about the lack of skilled technicians available, exacerbated by government policies requiring NBN to install fibre in new housing estates. Estates are springing up around mines and regional towns, so NBN contractors are stretched across all states and working in remote places.
The lack of centralised training and registration in Australia's telecommunications industry that has led to under-skilled subcontractors working for Telstra and NBN Co and a high level of rework, according to Kevin Fothergill, training consultant at industry peak body CITT and TITAB.
''We have all the national training programs developed where competencies have been specified for all the various skill levels,'' he says. ''All the core material is in place. What is not in place is a viable telecommunications group training model and industry plan to have people trained and able to be deployed on a needs basis.''
It now appears the tenders for NBN construction work underpriced the cost of subcontractors. Most of the work has ended up in the hands of mega-companies such as Lend Lease, Downer EDI and Leightons that can afford to absorb losses or cross-subsidise from other projects.
This election, voters are being asked to choose between technology options and who they believe can better manage NBN Co, which is ultimately owned by the communications minister and the minister for finance.The obvious difference between the two policies is the choice between a direct-fibre connection into households or a fibre-boosted copper connection. Each choice comes with different construction costs and time frames. At the moment, voters can only rely on estimates produced by consultants and NBN Co, or the estimates produced by Turnbull's office.
Fibre into the home can already deliver download speeds of up to 100Mbps with upload speeds of up to 40Mbps and can be upgraded in the future. A fibre-to-the-node rollout by BT Group in the UK is advertising download speeds of up to 76Mbps and upload speeds of up to 17Mbps.
Senior research engineer at the Australian National University's College of Engineering and Computer Science, Bob Edwards, says speed is the main difference for consumers. He says there is little evidence that research labs around the world are working on applications that expect households to have speeds of 100Mbps or more.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
2013年8月14日星期三
2013年6月25日星期二
Austria cleaning industry makes real progress
In the Austrian cleaning sector there are currently 8,100 companies, employing a total of 52,000 people. The proportion of female employees is high, at 85 per cent and there is a distinct preference for workers who are over 45. Otherwise, employees range from 15 to 65. Manual workers account for 90 per cent of sector employees, with clerical staff making up the remaining 10 per cent.
The industry in Austria is still enjoying growth, despite the economic difficulties facing most European countries. In 2005 against 2000 it was 66 per cent; in 2008 against 2005, 75 per cent; and 2013 against 2008, 50 per cent. Contracts are often outsourced to third parties in the field of house cleaning and maintenance services. Where memorial, fa?ade and external building cleaning are concerned, however, outsourcing occurs only in the case of specialist cleaning. The greatest opportunities for growth are considered to be in the health and care sectors.
There are three large companies in the contract cleaning market - ISS Facility Services, Simacek and Dussmann-Service. Together they account for around 30 per cent of market share.
The largest challenge facing cleaning companies currently is finding motivated workers – there is a significant skills shortage in the sector. To counteract this there has been massive expansion of training schemes in recent years, and there is now a recognised standard for cleaning
training schemes. Another positive development has been the Austria-wide standardisation of requirements for final apprenticeship examination and master craftsman’s diploma.
This issues of sick leave, maternity rights and parental leave are also very challenging ones for employers. However relations between cleaning workers and their employers are generally very good because of the opportunities for staff from a migrant background to engage in German courses of more than four hours.
A new collective framework agreement was also finalised this year after more than 20 years of negotiation, and that includes much improved regulations covering the whole of real time Location system.
Despite the significant progress made by the industry in recent years, cleaning is still in principle a necessary evil in the eyes of many clients – its image and profile are still a long way from where they should be. There is much room for improvement in terms of results-oriented cleaning and also daytime cleaning.
Clients do have a very positive attitude towards paying a fair price for the services they receive when all the staff are properly trained. But there is still a great tendency to opt for the lowest tender both in the public and private sectors.
Initiatives by the industry association and cleaning companies have resulted in a number of successful public relations and advertising campaigns in the mission to improve the image of cleaning. Still the regulatory environment presents real obstacles, along with the issue of company taxation. Companies are also now expected to react proactively to the increasing awareness of environmental issues – the ‘greening’ of the industry.
The cleaning business can also not escape the fact that both public and private clients are being forced to economise, in which case it is not always possible to provide the best service. In these cases, the service has to be adapted accordingly.
When people in the Midtown neighborhood look to the east, they see the oceanfront being resurrected with new rides, Joe's Crab Shack and major condo hotel projects.When they gaze west, they see International Speedway Corp. positioning for a massive reinvention of the track's frontstretch grandstands and hundreds of surrounding acres.When residents in the city's center focus on their own streets, they have a few new signs of hope to grab onto, also.
There's the state-of-the art Midtown Cultural and Education Center that opened a year ago. A new cafe and ice cream shop have sprouted on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and a historic bar on that street has just started a new life as a renovated church.
Within the next few months, Daytona Toyota will start building its new $4.5 million body shop and used car center on a vacant car dealership site at the bustling corner of International Speedway Boulevard and Nova Road. Just behind that Toyota development, the first building in a new affordable housing complex on Keech Street is under construction.
Rodney Peters is with Because We Care, a company that has been providing in-home private duty home care to the senior community since April 2004. Their services include personal and companion care. Because We Care meets the client’s needs with the right caregiver so that the family’s loved one can remain at home for as long as possible. According to Peters, "Our caregivers assist a family member with the activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, transferring, feeding, grooming and toileting." They also prepare meals, provide light housekeeping, medication reminders and run errands.
Ana Marie Roesch is with George & Schwartz, an Atlanta-based contracting company that provides many services in demand by the commericial and property management industry as well as single family homes. Explained Roesch, "We have a Commercial Division that is highly skilled in the pressure cleaning of parking decks, garages and high rise office buildings and industrial buildings." Additionally they have a full service Residential Division that caters to apartment communities, condominium associations and subdivisions.
The industry in Austria is still enjoying growth, despite the economic difficulties facing most European countries. In 2005 against 2000 it was 66 per cent; in 2008 against 2005, 75 per cent; and 2013 against 2008, 50 per cent. Contracts are often outsourced to third parties in the field of house cleaning and maintenance services. Where memorial, fa?ade and external building cleaning are concerned, however, outsourcing occurs only in the case of specialist cleaning. The greatest opportunities for growth are considered to be in the health and care sectors.
There are three large companies in the contract cleaning market - ISS Facility Services, Simacek and Dussmann-Service. Together they account for around 30 per cent of market share.
The largest challenge facing cleaning companies currently is finding motivated workers – there is a significant skills shortage in the sector. To counteract this there has been massive expansion of training schemes in recent years, and there is now a recognised standard for cleaning
training schemes. Another positive development has been the Austria-wide standardisation of requirements for final apprenticeship examination and master craftsman’s diploma.
This issues of sick leave, maternity rights and parental leave are also very challenging ones for employers. However relations between cleaning workers and their employers are generally very good because of the opportunities for staff from a migrant background to engage in German courses of more than four hours.
A new collective framework agreement was also finalised this year after more than 20 years of negotiation, and that includes much improved regulations covering the whole of real time Location system.
Despite the significant progress made by the industry in recent years, cleaning is still in principle a necessary evil in the eyes of many clients – its image and profile are still a long way from where they should be. There is much room for improvement in terms of results-oriented cleaning and also daytime cleaning.
Clients do have a very positive attitude towards paying a fair price for the services they receive when all the staff are properly trained. But there is still a great tendency to opt for the lowest tender both in the public and private sectors.
Initiatives by the industry association and cleaning companies have resulted in a number of successful public relations and advertising campaigns in the mission to improve the image of cleaning. Still the regulatory environment presents real obstacles, along with the issue of company taxation. Companies are also now expected to react proactively to the increasing awareness of environmental issues – the ‘greening’ of the industry.
The cleaning business can also not escape the fact that both public and private clients are being forced to economise, in which case it is not always possible to provide the best service. In these cases, the service has to be adapted accordingly.
When people in the Midtown neighborhood look to the east, they see the oceanfront being resurrected with new rides, Joe's Crab Shack and major condo hotel projects.When they gaze west, they see International Speedway Corp. positioning for a massive reinvention of the track's frontstretch grandstands and hundreds of surrounding acres.When residents in the city's center focus on their own streets, they have a few new signs of hope to grab onto, also.
There's the state-of-the art Midtown Cultural and Education Center that opened a year ago. A new cafe and ice cream shop have sprouted on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and a historic bar on that street has just started a new life as a renovated church.
Within the next few months, Daytona Toyota will start building its new $4.5 million body shop and used car center on a vacant car dealership site at the bustling corner of International Speedway Boulevard and Nova Road. Just behind that Toyota development, the first building in a new affordable housing complex on Keech Street is under construction.
Rodney Peters is with Because We Care, a company that has been providing in-home private duty home care to the senior community since April 2004. Their services include personal and companion care. Because We Care meets the client’s needs with the right caregiver so that the family’s loved one can remain at home for as long as possible. According to Peters, "Our caregivers assist a family member with the activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, transferring, feeding, grooming and toileting." They also prepare meals, provide light housekeeping, medication reminders and run errands.
Ana Marie Roesch is with George & Schwartz, an Atlanta-based contracting company that provides many services in demand by the commericial and property management industry as well as single family homes. Explained Roesch, "We have a Commercial Division that is highly skilled in the pressure cleaning of parking decks, garages and high rise office buildings and industrial buildings." Additionally they have a full service Residential Division that caters to apartment communities, condominium associations and subdivisions.
2013年4月16日星期二
Has a crush on her yoga guru
When your city has the tallest building on the planet and the world’s richest horse race, you’re bound to attract some haters. Dubai is often dubbed a plastic fantastic, soulless Disney-esque playground. And when I walk through the world’s largest mall with its labyrinth of identikit stores and Arctic-style air-conditioning (Dubai has the world’s second largest carbon footprint per capita after Doha, according to the World Wildlife Fund) – I couldn’t agree more.
However, on the fringes of our perma-sunny city famed for its boozy brunches and excessive consumerism, there’s a growing spiritual community. We’re not talking trippy Goa-style hippies on scooters, but there’s an underground tribe of energy healer types who are quickly filling a gap in the market. Now you can do AcroYoga in Safa Park, African drumming in the desert, zone out at a gong meditation session or awaken your sensual energy with kundalini yoga.
I’ve become hooked on a form of power yoga. My previous attempts at committing to yoga were unfruitful – the idea of doing a Wild Thing pose was appealing but I was too impatient and my body strength was nil. Perhaps the truth was I wasn’t ready for a journey of self-realisation. Instead I continued to distract myself from myself – travelling to danger zones like Yemen and maxing out my credit card on shiny, new things at the mall.
But these days, I get strangely excited about twisting into a pretzel-like shape. Skinny Banker has noticed that I’m suspiciously cheerful early in the mornings. She also thinks I’ve lost the plot and dismissively says things like, “Enjoy your slow motion chanting!”
I don’t even bother to set the record straight. You see, I’m in the throes of a new love affair, the butterflies in the stomach phase. Although I have a sneaky feeling my newfound enthusiasm for yoga might also have something to do with my instructor. While male yoga teachers may have once conjured up images of scrawny guys in drawstring trousers, these days you have buff instructors with tattoos. Our teacher is in his late 30s and has a cheeky, boyish charm about him. And other women in the 9am class have sensed it too. There’s the super toned brunette (in her lululemon get-up) who flaunts enviable killer poses on her hot pink mat. While she slips effortlessly into an Upward Facing Bow (aka Urdhva Dhanurasana) most of us crumble to the floor in frustration.
During one session, while we attempt to do the Crane Pose, the sweaty-browed woman next to me gives me a pained look. Meanwhile Miss Lululemon is emanating a raspy panting sound, prompting us to giggle like school girls. During the moans and pants, our teacher zips around, lifting and adjusting different shaped legs. At one point, I exaggerate a yelp and collapse to the ground. The teacher rushes over and bellows, “Sarah, where’s your willpower? You can do much better than that!”
Despite his boot camp style put-downs, there’s something incredibly magnetic about him. He oozes willpower, a sense of strength and togetherness. His energy is light and baggage-free, unleashing a powerful aphrodisiacal effect, leaving yoga students wanting to connect with it. And yearning to be validated during the class, almost like seeking approval from a lover or a father. I tell my yogi friend about my new crush and she just smiles and says, “There’s a tendency to get attached to your yoga teacher, that’s why I have three.”
While I’m aware of the benefits of developing a healthy detachment to people (letting go is the first step to freedom and the so-called path to nirvana), I admit I struggle with the concept. “Why don’t you come with me to India next month?” asks my yogi friend. I start picturing myself on a beach in Goa discussing eco issues with a dreadlocked traveller. “I’m going to a spiritual retreat in Pune,” she adds. I suddenly imagine being woken up at 4am, chanting along to a sitar guitar, clad in a white robe and sipping rice milk for breakfast. “I’m going to the Osho ashram,” she reveals. I like Osho’s spiritual books, although during the 80s (before his wise guru image) he was a cult leader living in America with a harem of women and Rolls-Royce cars. “You’re not talking about one of those free-love communes, are you?” I cringe. It turns out that’s exactly what my friend is talking about. I think I need to go and lie down in the Corpse Pose!
Drake knows that Beyonce's quite popular with the ladies. Popular enough, in fact, for him to pen a song called "Girls Love Beyonce" and sing-rap a line from Destiny's Child's "Say My Name." James Fauntelroy, one of hip-hop's go-to songwriers, appears to take over and sing the rest of the hook.
The release is one of two Drake tracks to hit the web late Monday. "No New Friends," which borrows a line from his own song "Started From the Bottom," features Lil Wayne, DJ Khaled and Rick Ross. (Drizzy also repeats the "no new friends" mantra on "Girls Love Beyonce"; it's like his post-lapsarian version of YOLO.)
"Girls Love Beyonce" offers a familiar Drake, the one wondering why he and his friends "get money and f--k hoes" instead of searching for love. "Where we get these values I don't know what to tell you," he says somberly.
Twitter reacted positively to the track, with many saying that Drake's on a hot streak that's lasted a few years. His recent songs, "5AM in Toronto" and "Started From The Bottom" were both well-received, with the latter being somewhat of a late winter/early spring rap anthem.
Drake has also done a good job in the keeping-them-honest department, stopping by Elliott Wilson's East Village Radio show to throw some barbs Chris Brown's way. "His insecurities are the fact that I make better music than him, that I'm more popping than him and that at one point in life the woman that he loves fell into my lap," Drake said, adding "I did what a real n---a would do and treated her with respect."
However, on the fringes of our perma-sunny city famed for its boozy brunches and excessive consumerism, there’s a growing spiritual community. We’re not talking trippy Goa-style hippies on scooters, but there’s an underground tribe of energy healer types who are quickly filling a gap in the market. Now you can do AcroYoga in Safa Park, African drumming in the desert, zone out at a gong meditation session or awaken your sensual energy with kundalini yoga.
I’ve become hooked on a form of power yoga. My previous attempts at committing to yoga were unfruitful – the idea of doing a Wild Thing pose was appealing but I was too impatient and my body strength was nil. Perhaps the truth was I wasn’t ready for a journey of self-realisation. Instead I continued to distract myself from myself – travelling to danger zones like Yemen and maxing out my credit card on shiny, new things at the mall.
But these days, I get strangely excited about twisting into a pretzel-like shape. Skinny Banker has noticed that I’m suspiciously cheerful early in the mornings. She also thinks I’ve lost the plot and dismissively says things like, “Enjoy your slow motion chanting!”
I don’t even bother to set the record straight. You see, I’m in the throes of a new love affair, the butterflies in the stomach phase. Although I have a sneaky feeling my newfound enthusiasm for yoga might also have something to do with my instructor. While male yoga teachers may have once conjured up images of scrawny guys in drawstring trousers, these days you have buff instructors with tattoos. Our teacher is in his late 30s and has a cheeky, boyish charm about him. And other women in the 9am class have sensed it too. There’s the super toned brunette (in her lululemon get-up) who flaunts enviable killer poses on her hot pink mat. While she slips effortlessly into an Upward Facing Bow (aka Urdhva Dhanurasana) most of us crumble to the floor in frustration.
During one session, while we attempt to do the Crane Pose, the sweaty-browed woman next to me gives me a pained look. Meanwhile Miss Lululemon is emanating a raspy panting sound, prompting us to giggle like school girls. During the moans and pants, our teacher zips around, lifting and adjusting different shaped legs. At one point, I exaggerate a yelp and collapse to the ground. The teacher rushes over and bellows, “Sarah, where’s your willpower? You can do much better than that!”
Despite his boot camp style put-downs, there’s something incredibly magnetic about him. He oozes willpower, a sense of strength and togetherness. His energy is light and baggage-free, unleashing a powerful aphrodisiacal effect, leaving yoga students wanting to connect with it. And yearning to be validated during the class, almost like seeking approval from a lover or a father. I tell my yogi friend about my new crush and she just smiles and says, “There’s a tendency to get attached to your yoga teacher, that’s why I have three.”
While I’m aware of the benefits of developing a healthy detachment to people (letting go is the first step to freedom and the so-called path to nirvana), I admit I struggle with the concept. “Why don’t you come with me to India next month?” asks my yogi friend. I start picturing myself on a beach in Goa discussing eco issues with a dreadlocked traveller. “I’m going to a spiritual retreat in Pune,” she adds. I suddenly imagine being woken up at 4am, chanting along to a sitar guitar, clad in a white robe and sipping rice milk for breakfast. “I’m going to the Osho ashram,” she reveals. I like Osho’s spiritual books, although during the 80s (before his wise guru image) he was a cult leader living in America with a harem of women and Rolls-Royce cars. “You’re not talking about one of those free-love communes, are you?” I cringe. It turns out that’s exactly what my friend is talking about. I think I need to go and lie down in the Corpse Pose!
Drake knows that Beyonce's quite popular with the ladies. Popular enough, in fact, for him to pen a song called "Girls Love Beyonce" and sing-rap a line from Destiny's Child's "Say My Name." James Fauntelroy, one of hip-hop's go-to songwriers, appears to take over and sing the rest of the hook.
The release is one of two Drake tracks to hit the web late Monday. "No New Friends," which borrows a line from his own song "Started From the Bottom," features Lil Wayne, DJ Khaled and Rick Ross. (Drizzy also repeats the "no new friends" mantra on "Girls Love Beyonce"; it's like his post-lapsarian version of YOLO.)
"Girls Love Beyonce" offers a familiar Drake, the one wondering why he and his friends "get money and f--k hoes" instead of searching for love. "Where we get these values I don't know what to tell you," he says somberly.
Twitter reacted positively to the track, with many saying that Drake's on a hot streak that's lasted a few years. His recent songs, "5AM in Toronto" and "Started From The Bottom" were both well-received, with the latter being somewhat of a late winter/early spring rap anthem.
Drake has also done a good job in the keeping-them-honest department, stopping by Elliott Wilson's East Village Radio show to throw some barbs Chris Brown's way. "His insecurities are the fact that I make better music than him, that I'm more popping than him and that at one point in life the woman that he loves fell into my lap," Drake said, adding "I did what a real n---a would do and treated her with respect."
2013年1月31日星期四
Owner of the Ravens Built His Success by Building Relationships
Inside the front door of the Baltimore Ravens’ chateau-with-shoulder-pads training center hangs an enormous portrait of the former owner who still hovers over the franchise and the city as surely as that oil painting over the big stone fireplace.
You have to look much harder, and down a hallway, to find a picture of the current owner, the one whose dollars financed that lavish building, the one who is quietly accompanying the Ravens to the Super Bowl here this week.
That man, Steve Bisciotti, 52, is as low-profile as the 8x10 picture of him at a news conference that hangs on an out-of-the-way wall at the Ravens’ facility. Bisciotti declined interview requests in the weeks leading to the Super Bowl, and spoke to reporters only after he arrived here Thursday.
So the conversation this week has been much more about whether the man in the oil painting, Art Modell, who took the Browns out of Cleveland and rebranded them the Ravens in Baltimore, will be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday than about Bisciotti’s first trip to the game as the primary owner of the team.
“I’m O.K. if I’m one of the least-known owners in sports,” Bisciotti was quoted as saying in the Ravens’ biography of him.
The last time the Ravens raised the Lombardi Trophy, it was in Modell’s hands in 2001. Only months before, Bisciotti had become a minority owner — Modell needed the infusion of cash to secure free agents for that team — with the promise that he could take majority ownership of the team in a few years. He stood unobtrusively in the back of a locker room in Oakland, Calif., as Modell beamed on national television about going to his first Super Bowl.
On Jan. 20, when the Ravens beat the Patriots to win the A.F.C. championship, most football fans finally got a glimpse of Bisciotti, the league’s second-youngest owner and perhaps its coolest: tanned; hair slicked back; wearing jeans, an open-collared shirt and a duster coat; gently rubbing the arm of Ray Lewis, who was draped over his back while wearing a Modell T-shirt.
“In a very positive way, he is engaged,” said Brian Billick, who was the Ravens’ coach when they won the Super Bowl in 2001. Billick was retained by Bisciotti when he took over and then was fired by him after the 2007 season. “He built his fortune on relationships and is very much about that. It’s not a ‘I’m in charge, do what I say’ mentality. It’s an ‘I don’t care if you’re the ball boy or the head coach, we’ve got to create partnerships here.’ He hires people he trusts and then keeps a purposefully, painfully low profile. He never wants to make it about him.”
Bisciotti grew up near Annapolis, Md., going to Orioles and Colts games — where he sat on the 10-yard line — with his older brother and sister, and with his father, Bernard. They would sometimes go to the Colts’ training camp, where Bisciotti asked players if he could try on their helmets. In the Ravens’ media guide, there is a picture of a young Bisciotti standing beside Johnny Unitas.
His father died when Bisciotti was 8, but Bisciotti’s mother, Patricia, is a huge fan of Baltimore sports teams and Notre Dame, and she fed her youngest son’s love of sports, although he played football only briefly in high school.
According to a profile in Forbes magazine, Bisciotti spent his high school summers building piers near Baltimore. But at 23, after he graduated from Salisbury State University, he started a staffing company in a basement with his cousin. It provided temporary employees — engineers — to the aerospace and technology industries.
Forbes reported that Bisciotti became obsessed with making enough money by the time he was 35 so his wife and children would not have to work if he, like his father, died young. According to the Ravens, the company he started, now known as the Allegis Group, is the largest privately held staffing concern in the country. Bisciotti is worth about $1.5 billion, according to calculations Forbes made last year.
In 2000, Bisciotti purchased a minority stake in the Ravens, then largely stayed hidden, trying to learn from Modell. That, Billick said, eased the transition for Ravens employees who might have been caught in a tense situation. Even after Bisciotti took full control of the team in 2004, Modell was a frequent presence, watching games from a suite at the stadium and practices from a perch on a golf cart.
“He treated him with dignity, compassion and made him feel he was still part of the organization,” the Giants owner John Mara said. “A lot of owners would not have handled it the same way. They would have loved to push the guy aside.”
Those at the Ravens who have worked with Bisciotti say he has a similar gentle touch with his employees. Billick said Bisciotti would go to the team’s training facility about once a week, but was just as apt to talk with the receptionist as he was with Billick or General Manager Ozzie Newsome. Bisciotti is not active in league matters, sometimes skipping meetings and sending the team president Dick Cass in his place. And he has stepped out of owners’ meetings, shutting the door behind him, to smoke one of his cigars.
The former Ravens kicker Matt Stover said he once heard Bisciotti say, “I know I don’t know football, therefore, I hire people who do,” a sentiment that Stover respected. Still, Bisciotti put his stamp on the Ravens when he made the unorthodox decision to hire John Harbaugh, a special-teams coach, to replace Billick. That reflected his real skill: making connections.
“He’s got a tremendous ability to have a good feel of people,” said the former Maryland men’s basketball coach Gary Williams, who has been a friend of Bisciotti — a passionate Terrapins fan — for 20 years. “That is a big part of his decision-making. One of Steve’s strengths is his ability to read people. I coached a long time, that’s as important as anything I did: getting a feel for people you’re recruiting, coaches you work with. I just watch that, it’s a big part of his organization.”
Bisciotti became a sounding board for Williams when he was coaching, but at basketball games Bisciotti is thoroughly a fan, screaming at officials from courtside. Forbes reported that he shuttles friends to Maryland games on a private jet.
“He’s a man’s man,” Billick said. “He’ll go drink for drink, cigar for cigar. You’re going to lose that battle, I promise you.”
But it is at Ravens games that the full snapshot of Bisciotti appears. He has attended preseason games in shorts and flip-flops, and his closest friends — many of them from his youth — mingle in his box with his mother and an occasional priest, a reflection of his strong Catholic faith and his support of religious charities.
“When you get to Steve’s level of success, he worked really hard, you’re really grateful for how far you’ve come, you’re really grateful for the people who helped you,” said Kevin Plank, a friend of Bisciotti’s and the founder of the Under Armour apparel company, which is based in Baltimore. “There’s that idea of sitting around with four buddies in a treehouse — ‘If you hit the lottery, what would you do? I’d buy a team and bring you guys to games, we’d still hang out on weekends.’ You’d say, ‘Yeah, right, you’d change.’ ”
You have to look much harder, and down a hallway, to find a picture of the current owner, the one whose dollars financed that lavish building, the one who is quietly accompanying the Ravens to the Super Bowl here this week.
That man, Steve Bisciotti, 52, is as low-profile as the 8x10 picture of him at a news conference that hangs on an out-of-the-way wall at the Ravens’ facility. Bisciotti declined interview requests in the weeks leading to the Super Bowl, and spoke to reporters only after he arrived here Thursday.
So the conversation this week has been much more about whether the man in the oil painting, Art Modell, who took the Browns out of Cleveland and rebranded them the Ravens in Baltimore, will be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday than about Bisciotti’s first trip to the game as the primary owner of the team.
“I’m O.K. if I’m one of the least-known owners in sports,” Bisciotti was quoted as saying in the Ravens’ biography of him.
The last time the Ravens raised the Lombardi Trophy, it was in Modell’s hands in 2001. Only months before, Bisciotti had become a minority owner — Modell needed the infusion of cash to secure free agents for that team — with the promise that he could take majority ownership of the team in a few years. He stood unobtrusively in the back of a locker room in Oakland, Calif., as Modell beamed on national television about going to his first Super Bowl.
On Jan. 20, when the Ravens beat the Patriots to win the A.F.C. championship, most football fans finally got a glimpse of Bisciotti, the league’s second-youngest owner and perhaps its coolest: tanned; hair slicked back; wearing jeans, an open-collared shirt and a duster coat; gently rubbing the arm of Ray Lewis, who was draped over his back while wearing a Modell T-shirt.
“In a very positive way, he is engaged,” said Brian Billick, who was the Ravens’ coach when they won the Super Bowl in 2001. Billick was retained by Bisciotti when he took over and then was fired by him after the 2007 season. “He built his fortune on relationships and is very much about that. It’s not a ‘I’m in charge, do what I say’ mentality. It’s an ‘I don’t care if you’re the ball boy or the head coach, we’ve got to create partnerships here.’ He hires people he trusts and then keeps a purposefully, painfully low profile. He never wants to make it about him.”
Bisciotti grew up near Annapolis, Md., going to Orioles and Colts games — where he sat on the 10-yard line — with his older brother and sister, and with his father, Bernard. They would sometimes go to the Colts’ training camp, where Bisciotti asked players if he could try on their helmets. In the Ravens’ media guide, there is a picture of a young Bisciotti standing beside Johnny Unitas.
His father died when Bisciotti was 8, but Bisciotti’s mother, Patricia, is a huge fan of Baltimore sports teams and Notre Dame, and she fed her youngest son’s love of sports, although he played football only briefly in high school.
According to a profile in Forbes magazine, Bisciotti spent his high school summers building piers near Baltimore. But at 23, after he graduated from Salisbury State University, he started a staffing company in a basement with his cousin. It provided temporary employees — engineers — to the aerospace and technology industries.
Forbes reported that Bisciotti became obsessed with making enough money by the time he was 35 so his wife and children would not have to work if he, like his father, died young. According to the Ravens, the company he started, now known as the Allegis Group, is the largest privately held staffing concern in the country. Bisciotti is worth about $1.5 billion, according to calculations Forbes made last year.
In 2000, Bisciotti purchased a minority stake in the Ravens, then largely stayed hidden, trying to learn from Modell. That, Billick said, eased the transition for Ravens employees who might have been caught in a tense situation. Even after Bisciotti took full control of the team in 2004, Modell was a frequent presence, watching games from a suite at the stadium and practices from a perch on a golf cart.
“He treated him with dignity, compassion and made him feel he was still part of the organization,” the Giants owner John Mara said. “A lot of owners would not have handled it the same way. They would have loved to push the guy aside.”
Those at the Ravens who have worked with Bisciotti say he has a similar gentle touch with his employees. Billick said Bisciotti would go to the team’s training facility about once a week, but was just as apt to talk with the receptionist as he was with Billick or General Manager Ozzie Newsome. Bisciotti is not active in league matters, sometimes skipping meetings and sending the team president Dick Cass in his place. And he has stepped out of owners’ meetings, shutting the door behind him, to smoke one of his cigars.
The former Ravens kicker Matt Stover said he once heard Bisciotti say, “I know I don’t know football, therefore, I hire people who do,” a sentiment that Stover respected. Still, Bisciotti put his stamp on the Ravens when he made the unorthodox decision to hire John Harbaugh, a special-teams coach, to replace Billick. That reflected his real skill: making connections.
“He’s got a tremendous ability to have a good feel of people,” said the former Maryland men’s basketball coach Gary Williams, who has been a friend of Bisciotti — a passionate Terrapins fan — for 20 years. “That is a big part of his decision-making. One of Steve’s strengths is his ability to read people. I coached a long time, that’s as important as anything I did: getting a feel for people you’re recruiting, coaches you work with. I just watch that, it’s a big part of his organization.”
Bisciotti became a sounding board for Williams when he was coaching, but at basketball games Bisciotti is thoroughly a fan, screaming at officials from courtside. Forbes reported that he shuttles friends to Maryland games on a private jet.
“He’s a man’s man,” Billick said. “He’ll go drink for drink, cigar for cigar. You’re going to lose that battle, I promise you.”
But it is at Ravens games that the full snapshot of Bisciotti appears. He has attended preseason games in shorts and flip-flops, and his closest friends — many of them from his youth — mingle in his box with his mother and an occasional priest, a reflection of his strong Catholic faith and his support of religious charities.
“When you get to Steve’s level of success, he worked really hard, you’re really grateful for how far you’ve come, you’re really grateful for the people who helped you,” said Kevin Plank, a friend of Bisciotti’s and the founder of the Under Armour apparel company, which is based in Baltimore. “There’s that idea of sitting around with four buddies in a treehouse — ‘If you hit the lottery, what would you do? I’d buy a team and bring you guys to games, we’d still hang out on weekends.’ You’d say, ‘Yeah, right, you’d change.’ ”
2013年1月21日星期一
Obama's Destiny As The Next JFK Faces Second
As the sun rises on his second inaugural, President Obama is already a significant figure in American history. And he is poised to become a legend within the Democratic party.
He is the nation's first black president. He pushed a sweeping health care bill through Congress. And he got reelected. President Barack Obama is on a trajectory to be an inspiration to new generations of Democrats, in the mold of Kennedy and FDR.
Obama’s second term will be the crucible in which his legacy will either be burnished or brought down a notch.
"He had a legacy as something unique only in getting elected. He already had something," Robert Gibbs, the president's adviser and White House press secretary for the administration's first two years, told The Huffington Post.
"Regardless of what happened, he was always going to be something that was totally different," Gibbs said. "Now I think though he gets the real opportunity to add something other than election night in 2008 to that legacy."
But Obama’s second term will also put a spotlight on two tensions that are bound to grow. As the president begins to think about his place in history, he will be in unspoken competition with the man whose wife he defeated for the Democratic nomination in 2008, who may bid to succeed him in 2016. And second, some of the biggest policy challenges of the president’s second term are going to require him to take on his own base.
Going forward, whether Hillary Clinton, the outgoing secretary of state, decides to run will impact Bill's legacy. It would keep him firmly planted in the public spotlight, and give him his own historic achievement, as the first man to be both president and the spouse of a president.
Clinton will want to be known as the man who rescued the Democratic party from its doldrums, bringing it back from a swing too far to the left and making the idea of government action palatable again, while associating Democrats with economic growth.
"It's always a little controversial, because it's not classic liberal. But I do think he showed the Democratic party that there is a way of governing and campaigning that appeals to independent voters, even some conservative voters, and a way of putting a working majority together for Democrats," Joe Lockhart, Clinton's White House press secretary from 1998 to 2000, said in an interview with HuffPost.
Obama will want to be known as the man who brought the nation back from near disaster, expanded the Democratic party's reach and helped level the playing field for those who did not have power or resources, expanding opportunity for the lower and middle class.
There are three kinds of issues on the second term to-do list: first-term accomplishments that need to be followed through on, like health care; first-term failures that have become second-term initiatives, like immigration; and potential landmines to avoid and -- in the event they explode -- manage. This last category is most likely to include trouble on the foreign policy front, or the kind of scandal cum congressional probe that tends to bedevil second-term presidents.
Gibbs said implementing the health care bill, moving immigration reform legislation through Congress and passing substantive tax reform and entitlement reform deals are the keys to a successful second term for Obama.
"The onus is really on the administration to ensure [health care] is done correctly, because I think it is hugely important," Gibbs said.
Obama faces a Republican majority in the House that is determined to try to dismantle his signature achievement. A source close to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) told HuffPost that top Republicans believe there is bipartisan support to repeal key elements of Obamacare, including the Independent Advisory Payment Board, the medical device tax and the tax on health insurers.
Obama and his advisers also want to be known for keeping the country out of a second Great Depression. Economic growth is a key factor in his second term, and another downturn would not only bring great pain to many Americans, it would damage his reputation for the ages.
It is concern over the nation’s fiscal health that will drive the Obama White House toward its biggest showdowns with the progressive left.
For example, the White House sees energy as a huge economic factor, especially the potential for massively increased domestic production of oil and natural gas. But it is currently trying to figure out how to balance this domestic energy boom with environmental concerns.
Then there is the idea of tax reform. Obama appears to be changing the actual definition of the term from lowering marginal rates and closing loopholes to just doing the latter. But there will still be pressure on him to do both, since this concept has a lot of bipartisan support.
And then there’s entitlements. Gibbs has encouraged the administration to proactively propose changes to Medicare and Social Security, since "entitlements are going to be restructured at some point."
"Somebody needs to speak a little bit of truth to power to the Democratic party and say, 'Who do you want to restructure this?' Because if you keep saying no to anything, we will not always have a Democratic president and 55 Democratic senators. You know?" Gibbs said. "President Paul Ryan does entitlement reform a whole lot different, or president Marco Rubio does it a whole lot differently than President Barack Obama."
One starting point for Obama’s confrontation with his own base on entitlements is over using chained CPI to calculate annual increases in Social Security benefits. Chained CPI is a tool for measuring inflation that is more accurate than the current method but which would slow the rise of benefits. Obama offered to include it as a concession in talks with Republicans over the fiscal cliff in December, but it was not ultimately included.
Private conversations with administration officials indicate they will move again to support chained CPI, despite outcries from groups like AARP.
But every step that the president goes beyond chained CPI will bring him into another great tension of his second term: like with energy, entitlements is an issue with great impact on the country’s fiscal health, but it is also one that is causing great division and disagreement on the left.
And if Obama wants to compromise on these two big issues, he will have to weigh how much he wants to chip away at the monument to him that Democrats are already building in their minds.
He is the nation's first black president. He pushed a sweeping health care bill through Congress. And he got reelected. President Barack Obama is on a trajectory to be an inspiration to new generations of Democrats, in the mold of Kennedy and FDR.
Obama’s second term will be the crucible in which his legacy will either be burnished or brought down a notch.
"He had a legacy as something unique only in getting elected. He already had something," Robert Gibbs, the president's adviser and White House press secretary for the administration's first two years, told The Huffington Post.
"Regardless of what happened, he was always going to be something that was totally different," Gibbs said. "Now I think though he gets the real opportunity to add something other than election night in 2008 to that legacy."
But Obama’s second term will also put a spotlight on two tensions that are bound to grow. As the president begins to think about his place in history, he will be in unspoken competition with the man whose wife he defeated for the Democratic nomination in 2008, who may bid to succeed him in 2016. And second, some of the biggest policy challenges of the president’s second term are going to require him to take on his own base.
Going forward, whether Hillary Clinton, the outgoing secretary of state, decides to run will impact Bill's legacy. It would keep him firmly planted in the public spotlight, and give him his own historic achievement, as the first man to be both president and the spouse of a president.
Clinton will want to be known as the man who rescued the Democratic party from its doldrums, bringing it back from a swing too far to the left and making the idea of government action palatable again, while associating Democrats with economic growth.
"It's always a little controversial, because it's not classic liberal. But I do think he showed the Democratic party that there is a way of governing and campaigning that appeals to independent voters, even some conservative voters, and a way of putting a working majority together for Democrats," Joe Lockhart, Clinton's White House press secretary from 1998 to 2000, said in an interview with HuffPost.
Obama will want to be known as the man who brought the nation back from near disaster, expanded the Democratic party's reach and helped level the playing field for those who did not have power or resources, expanding opportunity for the lower and middle class.
There are three kinds of issues on the second term to-do list: first-term accomplishments that need to be followed through on, like health care; first-term failures that have become second-term initiatives, like immigration; and potential landmines to avoid and -- in the event they explode -- manage. This last category is most likely to include trouble on the foreign policy front, or the kind of scandal cum congressional probe that tends to bedevil second-term presidents.
Gibbs said implementing the health care bill, moving immigration reform legislation through Congress and passing substantive tax reform and entitlement reform deals are the keys to a successful second term for Obama.
"The onus is really on the administration to ensure [health care] is done correctly, because I think it is hugely important," Gibbs said.
Obama faces a Republican majority in the House that is determined to try to dismantle his signature achievement. A source close to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) told HuffPost that top Republicans believe there is bipartisan support to repeal key elements of Obamacare, including the Independent Advisory Payment Board, the medical device tax and the tax on health insurers.
Obama and his advisers also want to be known for keeping the country out of a second Great Depression. Economic growth is a key factor in his second term, and another downturn would not only bring great pain to many Americans, it would damage his reputation for the ages.
It is concern over the nation’s fiscal health that will drive the Obama White House toward its biggest showdowns with the progressive left.
For example, the White House sees energy as a huge economic factor, especially the potential for massively increased domestic production of oil and natural gas. But it is currently trying to figure out how to balance this domestic energy boom with environmental concerns.
Then there is the idea of tax reform. Obama appears to be changing the actual definition of the term from lowering marginal rates and closing loopholes to just doing the latter. But there will still be pressure on him to do both, since this concept has a lot of bipartisan support.
And then there’s entitlements. Gibbs has encouraged the administration to proactively propose changes to Medicare and Social Security, since "entitlements are going to be restructured at some point."
"Somebody needs to speak a little bit of truth to power to the Democratic party and say, 'Who do you want to restructure this?' Because if you keep saying no to anything, we will not always have a Democratic president and 55 Democratic senators. You know?" Gibbs said. "President Paul Ryan does entitlement reform a whole lot different, or president Marco Rubio does it a whole lot differently than President Barack Obama."
One starting point for Obama’s confrontation with his own base on entitlements is over using chained CPI to calculate annual increases in Social Security benefits. Chained CPI is a tool for measuring inflation that is more accurate than the current method but which would slow the rise of benefits. Obama offered to include it as a concession in talks with Republicans over the fiscal cliff in December, but it was not ultimately included.
Private conversations with administration officials indicate they will move again to support chained CPI, despite outcries from groups like AARP.
But every step that the president goes beyond chained CPI will bring him into another great tension of his second term: like with energy, entitlements is an issue with great impact on the country’s fiscal health, but it is also one that is causing great division and disagreement on the left.
And if Obama wants to compromise on these two big issues, he will have to weigh how much he wants to chip away at the monument to him that Democrats are already building in their minds.
2012年11月25日星期日
After Sandy's deluge, mold and dust are the threats
From his perch on top of his father’s house in Breezy Point, N.Y., Ken Court can see an array of health disasters in the making.
“There are asbestos roofs that have collapsed near the ocean,” says Court, a 52-year-old roofer. “There is a lot of dust. You see people walking around with masks on. You use the hand cleaners all day long.”
Breezy Point sits at the tip of the peninsula jutting into the waters south of Brooklyn where Jamaica Bay, New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean come together. Much of the close-knit, blue-collar neighborhood was destroyed when Superstorm Sandy hit three weeks ago – swamped in the storm surge, roofs ripped by flailing winds or burned to the ground in a six-alarm fire that took out block after block of homes.
Now it’s one of the last places left without power or clean water, with no ETA on when either will be restored. And as Court works day in and day out to clean up the mess, he sees long-term trouble wherever he looks.
"You should really wear masks. I remember that everyone in 9/11, when they went there to help, they got sick,” Court told NBCNews in a telephone interview.
Asbestos and other chemicals from the collapsed World Trade Centers created a pall of dust that persisted in lower Manhattan for months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Firefighters, police and other rescue workers are eligible for federal compensation for the illnesses they have developed since the cleanup – most recently 50 different types of cancer.
People who were in the area have higher death rates in general than similar populations, and were especially likely to develop respiratory diseases and asthma. Asbestos can cause a rare type of lung cancer called mesothelioma.
While the dust caused by the Sandy cleanup isn’t nearly as bad, Court isn't taking chances. Asbestos is only a problem if it is kicked up in dust and breathed in – but he’s seeing plenty of dust being generated as wrecking crews pile up and remove the debris. "Those corrugated roofs on the houses down by the ocean – they’re all asbestos,” he said.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene advises on its website that "While Sandy has not caused problems with outdoor air quality, indoor dust, mold, fumes from temporary heating sources and the use of strong cleaning products can be irritating to the eyes, throat, and lungs. Dust can also be produced by repair and debris removal. In addition, debris removal and repair work can lead to injuries of various types.”
What concerns Court most, however, is mold. His 79-year-old father, Rod, has emphysema and needs supplemental oxygen. “We got a foot of water up into the first floor. We are just ripping everything out and starting fresh,” said Court, who grew up in Breezy Point and who now lives in Port Jefferson Station on Long Island.
“Right now I have men ripping out the tile. We can’t take a chance with mold with my dad,” Court added. “Now that we took up the tile floor, it’s all wet under there and it’s black.”
Health officials say Court’s doing the right thing. Anything that might turn moldy should be removed or cleaned with a bleach solution. Mold spores can cause allergic reactions or asthma in people who are sensitive to them.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has done many studies on the health dangers that linger after hurricanes, but the CDC's parent agency, the Health and Human Services Department, is not making federal officials available to talk about Sandy's aftermath.
Despite the flooding that swamped water treatment plants, poured into subway tunnels and flushed raw sewage into rivers, most of New York City’s tapwater supply remained clean. But Breezy Point’s water pipes were damaged so badly that the water still isn’t safe to drink, according to local authorities.
“Breezy Point Cooperative is in the process of re-establishing its internal drinking water system and the City will meet with the Breezy Point Cooperative to ensure that it can safely and reliably provide potable water to its residents," the New York health department said in a statement.
“We measure Enterococcus,” he said. It’s found in the guts of warm-blooded animals, including people. “If you find it in the environment, you know it was recently in the body of a warm-blooded animal.” While enterococci are not themselves a big threat to health, if they’re in the water, so are other germs. These include anything that the people and animals in the area contribute to sewage, from hepatitis to parasites such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia that may cause diarrhea and stomach cramps.
One thing that people may fear is cholera, but cholera isn’t commonly found in New Yorkers, and so it’s very unlikely to be in the sewage or water.
“The most common illness that people get is gastrointestinal problems,” Juhl says. “They get nausea, diarrhea, cramping, skin rashes, eye infections -- that kind of thing.”
You don’t have to drink the water to get ill – people who touch the water can touch their eyes, mouths and noses and become infected. Juhl’s team sampled flooded basements in Queens and found the water was teeming with bacteria commonly found in sewage. They also found germs all over dried-out storm debris.
“There are asbestos roofs that have collapsed near the ocean,” says Court, a 52-year-old roofer. “There is a lot of dust. You see people walking around with masks on. You use the hand cleaners all day long.”
Breezy Point sits at the tip of the peninsula jutting into the waters south of Brooklyn where Jamaica Bay, New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean come together. Much of the close-knit, blue-collar neighborhood was destroyed when Superstorm Sandy hit three weeks ago – swamped in the storm surge, roofs ripped by flailing winds or burned to the ground in a six-alarm fire that took out block after block of homes.
Now it’s one of the last places left without power or clean water, with no ETA on when either will be restored. And as Court works day in and day out to clean up the mess, he sees long-term trouble wherever he looks.
"You should really wear masks. I remember that everyone in 9/11, when they went there to help, they got sick,” Court told NBCNews in a telephone interview.
Asbestos and other chemicals from the collapsed World Trade Centers created a pall of dust that persisted in lower Manhattan for months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Firefighters, police and other rescue workers are eligible for federal compensation for the illnesses they have developed since the cleanup – most recently 50 different types of cancer.
People who were in the area have higher death rates in general than similar populations, and were especially likely to develop respiratory diseases and asthma. Asbestos can cause a rare type of lung cancer called mesothelioma.
While the dust caused by the Sandy cleanup isn’t nearly as bad, Court isn't taking chances. Asbestos is only a problem if it is kicked up in dust and breathed in – but he’s seeing plenty of dust being generated as wrecking crews pile up and remove the debris. "Those corrugated roofs on the houses down by the ocean – they’re all asbestos,” he said.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene advises on its website that "While Sandy has not caused problems with outdoor air quality, indoor dust, mold, fumes from temporary heating sources and the use of strong cleaning products can be irritating to the eyes, throat, and lungs. Dust can also be produced by repair and debris removal. In addition, debris removal and repair work can lead to injuries of various types.”
What concerns Court most, however, is mold. His 79-year-old father, Rod, has emphysema and needs supplemental oxygen. “We got a foot of water up into the first floor. We are just ripping everything out and starting fresh,” said Court, who grew up in Breezy Point and who now lives in Port Jefferson Station on Long Island.
“Right now I have men ripping out the tile. We can’t take a chance with mold with my dad,” Court added. “Now that we took up the tile floor, it’s all wet under there and it’s black.”
Health officials say Court’s doing the right thing. Anything that might turn moldy should be removed or cleaned with a bleach solution. Mold spores can cause allergic reactions or asthma in people who are sensitive to them.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has done many studies on the health dangers that linger after hurricanes, but the CDC's parent agency, the Health and Human Services Department, is not making federal officials available to talk about Sandy's aftermath.
Despite the flooding that swamped water treatment plants, poured into subway tunnels and flushed raw sewage into rivers, most of New York City’s tapwater supply remained clean. But Breezy Point’s water pipes were damaged so badly that the water still isn’t safe to drink, according to local authorities.
“Breezy Point Cooperative is in the process of re-establishing its internal drinking water system and the City will meet with the Breezy Point Cooperative to ensure that it can safely and reliably provide potable water to its residents," the New York health department said in a statement.
“We measure Enterococcus,” he said. It’s found in the guts of warm-blooded animals, including people. “If you find it in the environment, you know it was recently in the body of a warm-blooded animal.” While enterococci are not themselves a big threat to health, if they’re in the water, so are other germs. These include anything that the people and animals in the area contribute to sewage, from hepatitis to parasites such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia that may cause diarrhea and stomach cramps.
One thing that people may fear is cholera, but cholera isn’t commonly found in New Yorkers, and so it’s very unlikely to be in the sewage or water.
“The most common illness that people get is gastrointestinal problems,” Juhl says. “They get nausea, diarrhea, cramping, skin rashes, eye infections -- that kind of thing.”
You don’t have to drink the water to get ill – people who touch the water can touch their eyes, mouths and noses and become infected. Juhl’s team sampled flooded basements in Queens and found the water was teeming with bacteria commonly found in sewage. They also found germs all over dried-out storm debris.
2012年11月1日星期四
Wireless devices answer the call for help
As a result of rising medical costs and an increasing number of patients with chronic conditions, many senior living facilities are seeking wireless monitoring solutions for managing patients' health in addition to life-safety. For all patients or residents, any change or decline in their condition needs to be detected as quickly as possible to allow for early intervention.
According to a study conducted by IMS Research, more than 50 million wireless health monitoring devices will ship for consumer monitoring applications during the next five years. Such devices offer personalized care for a variety of health scenarios, including fall risks.
Falls are a major health risk. It is estimated that one in three persons over the age of 65 is likely to fall at least once a year. Personal emergency response systems can help by providing a "panic button" device that a senior can press if an accident occurs. However, a 2008 study by the British Medical Journal found that 80% of people over the age of 90 who wore monitoring devices never pushed the alert button after a fall, either because they didn't want to bother anyone or were unable to do so. If a fall goes undetected, the results can be devastating for both the patient and the senior living facility. Remaining on the floor, even for a few hours, can lead to problems such as dehydration, low body temperature and skin sores due to pressure. Additionally, senior living facilities can face the loss of revenue, lawsuits and license revocation if falls go undetected.
To prevent undetected falls, senior living facilities are now looking for solutions that feature a built-in accelerometer that measures movement and orientation, and can automatically sense falls. When a fall is detected, it sends an alert where it is deemed appropriate, such as a caregiver or nurse station. With automatic alerts, caregivers are able to act more quickly to provide assistance. In addition, automatic detection allows a trend to be developed over time that may indicate an increase in instability over time. If the system also determines the location of the resident, a pattern of difficulty with certain locations or time of day may emerge.
Of course, it is everyone's goal to prevent falls before they happen. Most falls are associated with one or more identifiable risk factors such as weakness, confusion and certain medications. Research has shown that identification and attention to these risk factors can significantly reduce fall rates. Companies such as AFrame Digital have introduced technology that is designed to detect changes so medical personnel and caregivers can be alerted before a fall happens.
AFrame's MobileCare? Monitor system, a wrist watch-like device, wirelessly communicates a user's motion and location data to a cloud-based monitoring and alerting system. The AFrame system's capabilities include emergency call, impact detection, location tracking, along with activity and vitals tracking and trending. The solution uses ZigBee wireless technology, provided by Digi International, to connect to the network, and the iDigi Device cloud to make system management easy.
Additional sensors can be added as needed to detect environmental changes, like humidity or motion, and or health changes for vitals tracking using weight scales, pulse oximeters, glucometers and blood pressure cuffs. This data is automatically pulled in to the system for real-time analysis and trending.
According to a study conducted by IMS Research, more than 50 million wireless health monitoring devices will ship for consumer monitoring applications during the next five years. Such devices offer personalized care for a variety of health scenarios, including fall risks.
Falls are a major health risk. It is estimated that one in three persons over the age of 65 is likely to fall at least once a year. Personal emergency response systems can help by providing a "panic button" device that a senior can press if an accident occurs. However, a 2008 study by the British Medical Journal found that 80% of people over the age of 90 who wore monitoring devices never pushed the alert button after a fall, either because they didn't want to bother anyone or were unable to do so. If a fall goes undetected, the results can be devastating for both the patient and the senior living facility. Remaining on the floor, even for a few hours, can lead to problems such as dehydration, low body temperature and skin sores due to pressure. Additionally, senior living facilities can face the loss of revenue, lawsuits and license revocation if falls go undetected.
To prevent undetected falls, senior living facilities are now looking for solutions that feature a built-in accelerometer that measures movement and orientation, and can automatically sense falls. When a fall is detected, it sends an alert where it is deemed appropriate, such as a caregiver or nurse station. With automatic alerts, caregivers are able to act more quickly to provide assistance. In addition, automatic detection allows a trend to be developed over time that may indicate an increase in instability over time. If the system also determines the location of the resident, a pattern of difficulty with certain locations or time of day may emerge.
Of course, it is everyone's goal to prevent falls before they happen. Most falls are associated with one or more identifiable risk factors such as weakness, confusion and certain medications. Research has shown that identification and attention to these risk factors can significantly reduce fall rates. Companies such as AFrame Digital have introduced technology that is designed to detect changes so medical personnel and caregivers can be alerted before a fall happens.
AFrame's MobileCare? Monitor system, a wrist watch-like device, wirelessly communicates a user's motion and location data to a cloud-based monitoring and alerting system. The AFrame system's capabilities include emergency call, impact detection, location tracking, along with activity and vitals tracking and trending. The solution uses ZigBee wireless technology, provided by Digi International, to connect to the network, and the iDigi Device cloud to make system management easy.
Additional sensors can be added as needed to detect environmental changes, like humidity or motion, and or health changes for vitals tracking using weight scales, pulse oximeters, glucometers and blood pressure cuffs. This data is automatically pulled in to the system for real-time analysis and trending.
2012年10月9日星期二
To catch a thief, with monitoring software
If you have ever had a laptop or smartphone stolen, you probably found yourself fantasizing about capturing the thief red-handed. I know I did when I lost my smartphone last year.
I used the Lookout mobile security service to locate where the phone was on a map and made it "scream" a few times. But I didn't want to knock on a stranger's door all by myself and ask if they had my phone, and the battery had died by the time I could take someone with me. I just wasn't sure I was ready for a confrontation based on approximate GPS location tracking.
But some device recovery services let you spy on whoever snatched your laptop or phone. For instance, LoJack for Laptops allows investigators to watch what a thief might be doing with the device, checking e-mail, conducting Google searches, and so on -- activities that in most cases can lead police straight to the device. Apparently, even thieves can't resist the urge to log on to social-networking sites.
"When they get to a password prompt, to get through they reinstall Windows," said Geoff Glave, a senior product manager at Vancouver-based Absolute Software, which makes LoJack for Laptops. "But the app is there and turned on when they brag on Facebook about stealing a cool laptop."
Curious to see how the monitoring worked, we got a loaner Dell Latitude E6430 laptop from Absolute Software that has the program on it. I had a colleague hand it off to her brother to play thief with it. He used it for a short while one night and by the next morning Absolute had identified him, figured out where he lives, who his family members are, what school he attends, and other sensitive data that must have surprised him.
Though victims generally aren't privy to details about what a thief does with the stolen device, Absolute Software shared the report with me so I could see exactly how the program snoops and what investigators do to track down the thief. The first thing our fake thief did was connect to the Internet over a Wi-Fi hot spot and get on eBay. This revealed an e-mail address ending in ".edu," and it was easy to figure out which college he goes to based on that. He also accessed a Yahoo e-mail account, which revealed his first name.
The investigators cross-referenced the information using a database called Accurint. And based on Wi-Fi connections, they were able to see that our "thief" had taken the laptop from his home to another address about seven blocks away at one point. All in all it can be a couple of hours worth of work, if it even took that long, an investigator told CNET.
Our "thief" could have reformatted the device, but once he connected to the Internet a program hidden on the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) called the "Computrace Persistent Module" would phone home to the servers at Absolute Software and the monitoring capabilities would be revived. A password on the laptop would force a thief to reboot the computer in Safe Mode or via a USB and reinstall Windows. But then the Persistent Module, which comes preloaded on certain Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo notebooks, would still ultimately spring into action. Our "thief" tried to delete the Computrace software from the laptop but was not able to.
In a real-world scenario, the victim would need to file a police report before Absolute Software would kick into gear. The software can capture keystrokes and screens, as well as track a device via GPS (Global Positioning System), but it doesn't turn on the Web cam. "The Web cam doesn't tell us anything," Glave said. "It could be an innocent person at the other end, and there's no name" associated with a live image. Plus, the company wants to avoid anything that could be perceived as wiretapping, he added.
There's always the possibility that whomever is being monitored didn't actually steal the computer and is innocent. If investigators determine that to be the case, for instance the person being monitored appears to have purchased it on Craigslist, the company can display a message on the screen that warns that the computer is stolen and asks for it to be returned.
The use of surveillance software to snoop on people can pose problems in some cases. The Federal Trade Commission recently settled charges with some rent-to-own computer firms that were accused of spying on customers using software that captured keystrokes, screenshots, and photos. The software was designed to be used to track down the computer in the case that the customer got behind on payments, but the FTC accused the companies that used it of engaging in unfair business practices.
I used the Lookout mobile security service to locate where the phone was on a map and made it "scream" a few times. But I didn't want to knock on a stranger's door all by myself and ask if they had my phone, and the battery had died by the time I could take someone with me. I just wasn't sure I was ready for a confrontation based on approximate GPS location tracking.
But some device recovery services let you spy on whoever snatched your laptop or phone. For instance, LoJack for Laptops allows investigators to watch what a thief might be doing with the device, checking e-mail, conducting Google searches, and so on -- activities that in most cases can lead police straight to the device. Apparently, even thieves can't resist the urge to log on to social-networking sites.
"When they get to a password prompt, to get through they reinstall Windows," said Geoff Glave, a senior product manager at Vancouver-based Absolute Software, which makes LoJack for Laptops. "But the app is there and turned on when they brag on Facebook about stealing a cool laptop."
Curious to see how the monitoring worked, we got a loaner Dell Latitude E6430 laptop from Absolute Software that has the program on it. I had a colleague hand it off to her brother to play thief with it. He used it for a short while one night and by the next morning Absolute had identified him, figured out where he lives, who his family members are, what school he attends, and other sensitive data that must have surprised him.
Though victims generally aren't privy to details about what a thief does with the stolen device, Absolute Software shared the report with me so I could see exactly how the program snoops and what investigators do to track down the thief. The first thing our fake thief did was connect to the Internet over a Wi-Fi hot spot and get on eBay. This revealed an e-mail address ending in ".edu," and it was easy to figure out which college he goes to based on that. He also accessed a Yahoo e-mail account, which revealed his first name.
The investigators cross-referenced the information using a database called Accurint. And based on Wi-Fi connections, they were able to see that our "thief" had taken the laptop from his home to another address about seven blocks away at one point. All in all it can be a couple of hours worth of work, if it even took that long, an investigator told CNET.
Our "thief" could have reformatted the device, but once he connected to the Internet a program hidden on the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) called the "Computrace Persistent Module" would phone home to the servers at Absolute Software and the monitoring capabilities would be revived. A password on the laptop would force a thief to reboot the computer in Safe Mode or via a USB and reinstall Windows. But then the Persistent Module, which comes preloaded on certain Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo notebooks, would still ultimately spring into action. Our "thief" tried to delete the Computrace software from the laptop but was not able to.
In a real-world scenario, the victim would need to file a police report before Absolute Software would kick into gear. The software can capture keystrokes and screens, as well as track a device via GPS (Global Positioning System), but it doesn't turn on the Web cam. "The Web cam doesn't tell us anything," Glave said. "It could be an innocent person at the other end, and there's no name" associated with a live image. Plus, the company wants to avoid anything that could be perceived as wiretapping, he added.
There's always the possibility that whomever is being monitored didn't actually steal the computer and is innocent. If investigators determine that to be the case, for instance the person being monitored appears to have purchased it on Craigslist, the company can display a message on the screen that warns that the computer is stolen and asks for it to be returned.
The use of surveillance software to snoop on people can pose problems in some cases. The Federal Trade Commission recently settled charges with some rent-to-own computer firms that were accused of spying on customers using software that captured keystrokes, screenshots, and photos. The software was designed to be used to track down the computer in the case that the customer got behind on payments, but the FTC accused the companies that used it of engaging in unfair business practices.
2012年9月18日星期二
An Expat's View
The anniversary of 9/11 affects all Americans, including those who live abroad. I lived in New York City. I now live in Tartu, Estonia, a university town in northern Europe. And so, I also think about this day, and what it means Eleven years have passed, but the effects are so real, and so is the love I feel for all those affected.
On this September 11, I am sitting in the third floor of Tartu's central public library. I see the passing streams of cars. Beyond the rows of tall oak, standing like palace guards at attention, marking the entrance to a parkway lining the western bank of the Emaj?e River. My body is in Estonia. But expatriation is never complete. Go as far as you can, and still a part of yourself remains in your native country. Where your grandparents and great-grandparents are buried, you were born, where you first learned to walk and speak, where you first fell in love and where you first suffered heartbreak -- you can never fully leave such a place.
America is big. Perhaps too big. I cannot feel so much for every part of it, or even most parts. But on this day, I think of that one city in America that means so much to me. Gotham. The Big Apple. Sweet New York City.
I was not there on that traumatic day. I only saw the before and the after. I remember when I first came to live there, how vast it all seemed, a megalopolis, a galaxy rather than a city. How Manhattan was a forest of stone, steel and glass, with skyscrapers reaching heavenwards with infinite striving. And on the streets below, so much life and humanity, moving at least twice as fast as how I lived in California. In that relatively small space, people from every kind of background, every race and ethnicity, every religion and political viewpoint, every kind of story of joy and sorrow. That richness of human life will always impress me even more than Manhattan's Promethean cityscape.
I remember learning to live there, finding my way about in the city. Forming friendships, some of which will survive, I think, for the whole course of lives. I think of the churches I visited, the places where I prayed. Of the little Greek Orthodox church, in a parking lot in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Of how I passed those two towers everyday on my way to work, thinking nothing of them, assuming they would always be there. We always mistake the contingent for the perpetual. And after work, often going to the bookstore at WTC 5, spending a few hours reading and thinking. I mostly read about Central Asia. Ironically, perhaps, the book I remember most was a volume on minerals in Afghanistan.
I remember, too, my first girlfriend. It was in New York City that we met, and came to know each other. That is the main reason I am grateful to that metropolis. I cannot disentangle my memories of bustling Manhattan, of its parks and bookstores and museums and cafes, from my memories of her, of the time we spent together.
I left for California, to pursue my own plans. They did not transpire as I had thought. Human plans never do. But perhaps they were for the best. In any case, we were no longer together, but I kept in touch with her and other friends.
I was asleep on the morning of September 11. I was living in a graduate student house in Berkeley. My neighbour, who was also my friend, classmate, and karate instructor, banged on my door, exclaiming "America is under attack!" I stumbled to the next room, cognitive dissonance mixed with morning drowsiness, to see the news. I saw the footage. Both towers had already fallen. I knew there would be immense damage. I could not believe, however, that they simply disappeared. They were like mountains, as far as I remembered them. And I heard Afghanistan mentioned in connection with them, but not because of lapis lazuli or any other kind of precious stone.
I was worried, of course, for all of my friends in New York. Especially those I had worked with, at a Fortune 500 company a few blocks from the towers. Especially her, because she worked there. I knew she often got out of the subway stops near WTC. I called, and like so many others, could not get through.
I found out later that she, and everyone else I knew, had escaped bodily harm. I visited New York City again, two or three years later. I saw Ground Zero. My eyes confirmed for themselves that that whole complex was gone. Nothing left but a gaping, hollow space. The Greek Orthodox church was gone, too.
I also saw my friends and acquaintances again. I asked one of them what was different now. He said most things stayed the same, but people were quieter. People just didn't speak as loud anymore.
And I met her, too. I was glad to see her. But she had changed. She had seen terrible things on that day. I had always been able to make her laugh. But she could not. For a time, laughter was banished from her heart. And that was far more chilling to me than any architectural destruction.
So much else in America changed, as well. American conservatism changed. It used to be far more hospitable to the idea that the West is a tradition joined with others. All religions may not be equally true, but the numerous expressions of sacredness around the globe deserved some kind of respect. My college was a small, liberal arts Catholic college that is very much part of the American conservative intelligentsia. One of the visiting speakers was Erik von Kuehnnelt-Leddihn, a charming, learned and eccentric Austrian cosmopolitan aristocrat who was part of the founding of American conservatism at National Review. He spoke about his travels through the Muslim world. A devout and orthodox Catholic, he was still open and perceptive to the humanity in this other world. His words painted such a vivid and intriguing picture, that I became interested in understanding Islamic history and thought. And that wasn't such a strange interest to have, as a conservative before 9/11.
I saw American conservatism slowly morph into something else. I do not buy into idealistic "religion of peace" political correctness, but neither do I believe in paranoia, or suspicion, or chauvinism. But I saw my political home succumb, over time, to nationalism. And so, I became homeless to an extent, although neither my principles nor my physical location changed.
On this September 11, I am sitting in the third floor of Tartu's central public library. I see the passing streams of cars. Beyond the rows of tall oak, standing like palace guards at attention, marking the entrance to a parkway lining the western bank of the Emaj?e River. My body is in Estonia. But expatriation is never complete. Go as far as you can, and still a part of yourself remains in your native country. Where your grandparents and great-grandparents are buried, you were born, where you first learned to walk and speak, where you first fell in love and where you first suffered heartbreak -- you can never fully leave such a place.
America is big. Perhaps too big. I cannot feel so much for every part of it, or even most parts. But on this day, I think of that one city in America that means so much to me. Gotham. The Big Apple. Sweet New York City.
I was not there on that traumatic day. I only saw the before and the after. I remember when I first came to live there, how vast it all seemed, a megalopolis, a galaxy rather than a city. How Manhattan was a forest of stone, steel and glass, with skyscrapers reaching heavenwards with infinite striving. And on the streets below, so much life and humanity, moving at least twice as fast as how I lived in California. In that relatively small space, people from every kind of background, every race and ethnicity, every religion and political viewpoint, every kind of story of joy and sorrow. That richness of human life will always impress me even more than Manhattan's Promethean cityscape.
I remember learning to live there, finding my way about in the city. Forming friendships, some of which will survive, I think, for the whole course of lives. I think of the churches I visited, the places where I prayed. Of the little Greek Orthodox church, in a parking lot in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Of how I passed those two towers everyday on my way to work, thinking nothing of them, assuming they would always be there. We always mistake the contingent for the perpetual. And after work, often going to the bookstore at WTC 5, spending a few hours reading and thinking. I mostly read about Central Asia. Ironically, perhaps, the book I remember most was a volume on minerals in Afghanistan.
I remember, too, my first girlfriend. It was in New York City that we met, and came to know each other. That is the main reason I am grateful to that metropolis. I cannot disentangle my memories of bustling Manhattan, of its parks and bookstores and museums and cafes, from my memories of her, of the time we spent together.
I left for California, to pursue my own plans. They did not transpire as I had thought. Human plans never do. But perhaps they were for the best. In any case, we were no longer together, but I kept in touch with her and other friends.
I was asleep on the morning of September 11. I was living in a graduate student house in Berkeley. My neighbour, who was also my friend, classmate, and karate instructor, banged on my door, exclaiming "America is under attack!" I stumbled to the next room, cognitive dissonance mixed with morning drowsiness, to see the news. I saw the footage. Both towers had already fallen. I knew there would be immense damage. I could not believe, however, that they simply disappeared. They were like mountains, as far as I remembered them. And I heard Afghanistan mentioned in connection with them, but not because of lapis lazuli or any other kind of precious stone.
I was worried, of course, for all of my friends in New York. Especially those I had worked with, at a Fortune 500 company a few blocks from the towers. Especially her, because she worked there. I knew she often got out of the subway stops near WTC. I called, and like so many others, could not get through.
I found out later that she, and everyone else I knew, had escaped bodily harm. I visited New York City again, two or three years later. I saw Ground Zero. My eyes confirmed for themselves that that whole complex was gone. Nothing left but a gaping, hollow space. The Greek Orthodox church was gone, too.
I also saw my friends and acquaintances again. I asked one of them what was different now. He said most things stayed the same, but people were quieter. People just didn't speak as loud anymore.
And I met her, too. I was glad to see her. But she had changed. She had seen terrible things on that day. I had always been able to make her laugh. But she could not. For a time, laughter was banished from her heart. And that was far more chilling to me than any architectural destruction.
So much else in America changed, as well. American conservatism changed. It used to be far more hospitable to the idea that the West is a tradition joined with others. All religions may not be equally true, but the numerous expressions of sacredness around the globe deserved some kind of respect. My college was a small, liberal arts Catholic college that is very much part of the American conservative intelligentsia. One of the visiting speakers was Erik von Kuehnnelt-Leddihn, a charming, learned and eccentric Austrian cosmopolitan aristocrat who was part of the founding of American conservatism at National Review. He spoke about his travels through the Muslim world. A devout and orthodox Catholic, he was still open and perceptive to the humanity in this other world. His words painted such a vivid and intriguing picture, that I became interested in understanding Islamic history and thought. And that wasn't such a strange interest to have, as a conservative before 9/11.
I saw American conservatism slowly morph into something else. I do not buy into idealistic "religion of peace" political correctness, but neither do I believe in paranoia, or suspicion, or chauvinism. But I saw my political home succumb, over time, to nationalism. And so, I became homeless to an extent, although neither my principles nor my physical location changed.
2012年9月10日星期一
A big smile can advanced a life
For the endure 37 years, Dr. James L. Strawn has been allowance humans smile. He opened a dental convenance on Seventh Street in Fort Pierce in 1975 and two years after congenital a apartment of offices at Midway Road and 25th Street. But, this mild-mannered, aggressive man has spent a lot of time alfresco of his appointment practicing dentistry.
During the endure two years, James and others accept been alive appear establishing a chargeless dental dispensary for those who can’t allow dental care. His eyes became a absoluteness in March 2012 with the admirable aperture of the HANDS Dental Clinic. The ancestor organization, HANDS of St. Lucie County, is a 501(c)(3) alignment committed to accretion bloom affliction admission for low assets association and was organized in 2008. James spends time alfresco of his clandestine convenance to advance for HANDS, as able-bodied as added projects, to accommodate chargeless dental affliction to able patients.
James isn’t a new-comer to volunteering. Twenty two years ago, he accustomed Project Christmas Smile. He believed that no one should deathwatch up Christmas Day with a toothache. Over the years, Project Christmas Smile has morphed into a tri-county effort. “We now accept 7 locations, including the dental dispensary at Indian River Accompaniment College, to accommodate abundant bare dental affliction to the underserved associates of the Treasure Coast,” says James. “This is a one day accident area 30 dentists action chargeless dental care, mostly to adults.” He aswell participates in a agnate accident alleged Give Kids a Smile Day captivated in February.
Twelve years ago, James accommodating the alpha of a dental dispensary for the St. Lucie County Bloom Department. “After aperture the clinic, I formed with several added dentists, and we volunteered our time to accommodate dental affliction to those who couldn’t allow it,” says James. “But, because this dispensary answerable baby fees and took Medicaid, six years later, it was able to activate hiring dental practitioners.” The dispensary was adapted to a children’s alone dispensary and the allegation for volunteers dwindled.
Because of his accomplished accord with dental programs for low assets residents, James saw the allegation to authorize a year-round dispensary that offered chargeless dental care. He approached the HANDS lath of directors. “They agreed that establishing a dental dispensary would be beneficial,” says James. “They see a lot of humans on the medical ancillary who accept dental problems, but they didn’t apperceive area to advanced them.” The St. Lucie County Lath of County Commissioners donated an added 1,000 aboveboard anxiety to abode the dental clinic.
Once the HANDS Dental Dispensary was accustomed by the board, James was able to get advice from others. “Henry Schein, a medical supplier, advised the dispensary at no charge,” says James. “Then, they put calm an accessories amalgamation and got a lot of it donated. What they didn’t get donated, they gave to us at cost, and they installed everything. They aswell gave us accompaniment of the art medical annal software. We anguish up with a top cleft facility, and we didn’t accept to exhausted the bushes like I anticipation we would be doing.”
The HANDS Dental Dispensary opened in March with four advance dentists, but now they are up to 10 dentists. Each dentist about volunteers two half-days a month. They aswell accept three specialists who advance to see patients in their clandestine convenance offices area they accept specialized equipment. James says that they aswell accept some dental hygienists who volunteer, but they allegation more.
This accomplished July, the HANDS Dental Dispensary provided $25,000 in chargeless dental affliction to 74 patients. “Our ambition is to mostly get humans out of affliction and to amusement their actual dental needs,” says James. But, he tells a adventure of one man who was abashed to smile. “His teeth were so bad that he just didn’t wish to accessible his mouth. We removed his teeth in the foreground and gave him a fractional bridge. A anniversary later, he went out and got a job. We don’t just get humans out of pain, we advice them advanced their lives.” A big smile and a hug goes to Dr. Strawn for putting smiles on people’s faces.
During the endure two years, James and others accept been alive appear establishing a chargeless dental dispensary for those who can’t allow dental care. His eyes became a absoluteness in March 2012 with the admirable aperture of the HANDS Dental Clinic. The ancestor organization, HANDS of St. Lucie County, is a 501(c)(3) alignment committed to accretion bloom affliction admission for low assets association and was organized in 2008. James spends time alfresco of his clandestine convenance to advance for HANDS, as able-bodied as added projects, to accommodate chargeless dental affliction to able patients.
James isn’t a new-comer to volunteering. Twenty two years ago, he accustomed Project Christmas Smile. He believed that no one should deathwatch up Christmas Day with a toothache. Over the years, Project Christmas Smile has morphed into a tri-county effort. “We now accept 7 locations, including the dental dispensary at Indian River Accompaniment College, to accommodate abundant bare dental affliction to the underserved associates of the Treasure Coast,” says James. “This is a one day accident area 30 dentists action chargeless dental care, mostly to adults.” He aswell participates in a agnate accident alleged Give Kids a Smile Day captivated in February.
Twelve years ago, James accommodating the alpha of a dental dispensary for the St. Lucie County Bloom Department. “After aperture the clinic, I formed with several added dentists, and we volunteered our time to accommodate dental affliction to those who couldn’t allow it,” says James. “But, because this dispensary answerable baby fees and took Medicaid, six years later, it was able to activate hiring dental practitioners.” The dispensary was adapted to a children’s alone dispensary and the allegation for volunteers dwindled.
Because of his accomplished accord with dental programs for low assets residents, James saw the allegation to authorize a year-round dispensary that offered chargeless dental care. He approached the HANDS lath of directors. “They agreed that establishing a dental dispensary would be beneficial,” says James. “They see a lot of humans on the medical ancillary who accept dental problems, but they didn’t apperceive area to advanced them.” The St. Lucie County Lath of County Commissioners donated an added 1,000 aboveboard anxiety to abode the dental clinic.
Once the HANDS Dental Dispensary was accustomed by the board, James was able to get advice from others. “Henry Schein, a medical supplier, advised the dispensary at no charge,” says James. “Then, they put calm an accessories amalgamation and got a lot of it donated. What they didn’t get donated, they gave to us at cost, and they installed everything. They aswell gave us accompaniment of the art medical annal software. We anguish up with a top cleft facility, and we didn’t accept to exhausted the bushes like I anticipation we would be doing.”
The HANDS Dental Dispensary opened in March with four advance dentists, but now they are up to 10 dentists. Each dentist about volunteers two half-days a month. They aswell accept three specialists who advance to see patients in their clandestine convenance offices area they accept specialized equipment. James says that they aswell accept some dental hygienists who volunteer, but they allegation more.
This accomplished July, the HANDS Dental Dispensary provided $25,000 in chargeless dental affliction to 74 patients. “Our ambition is to mostly get humans out of affliction and to amusement their actual dental needs,” says James. But, he tells a adventure of one man who was abashed to smile. “His teeth were so bad that he just didn’t wish to accessible his mouth. We removed his teeth in the foreground and gave him a fractional bridge. A anniversary later, he went out and got a job. We don’t just get humans out of pain, we advice them advanced their lives.” A big smile and a hug goes to Dr. Strawn for putting smiles on people’s faces.
2012年9月3日星期一
My journey across West
Dear readers, Few of my friends who had access to some of my travel journals insisted I post some of them as they make interesting read and offer some wonderful travel insights. I don’t know if there’s any truth to that but I will leave that to your judgment. I will try to post my journal entries on this particular adventure and add a little commentary in the coming weeks. I am sorry that this may not interest you; I suspect however it may be of extreme interest to others. The journal entries contain time, dates and details of the time I was writing them. They also contain my dialogues with some of the people I met, my endless thoughts and the questions I often pose to myself whenever I am faced with contingencies. So you should find as many questions and few answers as you read them. This is the Pilot of the episodes. I always thought it would be a great adventure to venture into the wilds of West Africa, to explore the deep isolated communities, cultures, people, cities, food, music and country in general. I finally made up my mind November of 2011.
My backpack weighed about 5 pounds. The contents were: hiking boots, casual clothing, towels, sandals, Survival kit, books, notepads, socks, first aid kit, travel documents and some other miscellaneous. I didn’t put very much plan into this adventure not because I was careless but because I didn’t want to. I actually didn’t feel like heading out until the morning I decided to leave. I suddenly became so sick and tired of Accra that I just wanted to go away. Spontaneity; it’s my leap in the dark. It reveals my spirit and the ability to survive in my new environment. True adventure comes from spontaneity. What is the point of life if we have to plan everything to the last detail without leaving any room for wonder and curiosity? It was nothing but curiosity that led me to venture into the remotest parts of West Africa. What is it like out there? How does the food taste?
The first entry above reveals how unprepared I was. I arrived at the lorry station late. I didn’t even think for a minute about the time I could make it pass the border. My ipod, map and books were my consolation. I could entertain myself with them at anytime and anywhere so didn’t bother much about how long I was going to wait to cross the border.
My plan was to head out West towards Ivory Coast and then continue towards the border with Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal and through to Gambia. I could then try to catch a yacht or any means possible to The Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Return back to Senegal and continue East through Kayes to Bamako. I will continue further East to Burkina Faso and then onwards to Niger. I will then come South through Northern Nigeria all the way South and then head out west to Benin, Togo and then finally back home. But this isn’t as easy and accessible as I had thought. But as it turned out, the unplanned rather gave birth to more fun and adventure as I went along.
It was a frustrating night at the Elubo border waiting to cross into Ivory Coast the following morning. The sanitation at our side of the border is terrible. There was dirt everywhere, even inside the border posts. Shouldn’t border towns be as clean and well kept as the capital? Border towns are your first impression of a country. Unfortunately that was not the case in Elubo. Hopefully the area has been demarcated these days and all the structures leveled down as they did in Aflao.
A Ghanaian Gestapo immigration officer prevented me from taking photos of the Tano River as I make my final walk out of Ghana. He was very aggressive and threatened to confiscate my camera if I go ahead. I complied as I didn’t want any brouhaha with those gestapos. I obliged to his orders because I was ignorant of the regulations of the area. He didn’t offer any explanation; neither did I bother to seek one due to his unwelcoming manners. They normally would round up non-Ghanaians and extort money from them. We shouldn’t treat other ECOWAS citizens in that manner if we don’t expect their side to reciprocate. The ECOWAS treaty must be respected and regulations observed. The harassment by GIS must stop. At least we can lead the way by treating other nationals humanely.
I arrived in Elubo around 10PM after about 6 hours on the road. I met 3 Ivorians on the bus from Kaneshie who were also traveling to Abidjan. Sherif is an interesting fellow in his early thirties, Michelle and Maggie, siblings, attractive, in their mid twenties. They turned out to be very helpful.
Sherif could not understand one word in English, Michelle however is articulate in English so she served as the interpreter. Michelle is of middle height, fair, attractive and blossom. She speaks calmly but with intense expression. She was smart and articulate. We conversed very often whilst en route to Elubo. They all were very interested in my adventure, especially Sherif. Sherif became more interested after he learned I have traveled through the Middle East as he has. We were both familiar with some unique landmarks and areas. So our friendship began on the basis of our interests.
My backpack weighed about 5 pounds. The contents were: hiking boots, casual clothing, towels, sandals, Survival kit, books, notepads, socks, first aid kit, travel documents and some other miscellaneous. I didn’t put very much plan into this adventure not because I was careless but because I didn’t want to. I actually didn’t feel like heading out until the morning I decided to leave. I suddenly became so sick and tired of Accra that I just wanted to go away. Spontaneity; it’s my leap in the dark. It reveals my spirit and the ability to survive in my new environment. True adventure comes from spontaneity. What is the point of life if we have to plan everything to the last detail without leaving any room for wonder and curiosity? It was nothing but curiosity that led me to venture into the remotest parts of West Africa. What is it like out there? How does the food taste?
The first entry above reveals how unprepared I was. I arrived at the lorry station late. I didn’t even think for a minute about the time I could make it pass the border. My ipod, map and books were my consolation. I could entertain myself with them at anytime and anywhere so didn’t bother much about how long I was going to wait to cross the border.
My plan was to head out West towards Ivory Coast and then continue towards the border with Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal and through to Gambia. I could then try to catch a yacht or any means possible to The Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Return back to Senegal and continue East through Kayes to Bamako. I will continue further East to Burkina Faso and then onwards to Niger. I will then come South through Northern Nigeria all the way South and then head out west to Benin, Togo and then finally back home. But this isn’t as easy and accessible as I had thought. But as it turned out, the unplanned rather gave birth to more fun and adventure as I went along.
It was a frustrating night at the Elubo border waiting to cross into Ivory Coast the following morning. The sanitation at our side of the border is terrible. There was dirt everywhere, even inside the border posts. Shouldn’t border towns be as clean and well kept as the capital? Border towns are your first impression of a country. Unfortunately that was not the case in Elubo. Hopefully the area has been demarcated these days and all the structures leveled down as they did in Aflao.
A Ghanaian Gestapo immigration officer prevented me from taking photos of the Tano River as I make my final walk out of Ghana. He was very aggressive and threatened to confiscate my camera if I go ahead. I complied as I didn’t want any brouhaha with those gestapos. I obliged to his orders because I was ignorant of the regulations of the area. He didn’t offer any explanation; neither did I bother to seek one due to his unwelcoming manners. They normally would round up non-Ghanaians and extort money from them. We shouldn’t treat other ECOWAS citizens in that manner if we don’t expect their side to reciprocate. The ECOWAS treaty must be respected and regulations observed. The harassment by GIS must stop. At least we can lead the way by treating other nationals humanely.
I arrived in Elubo around 10PM after about 6 hours on the road. I met 3 Ivorians on the bus from Kaneshie who were also traveling to Abidjan. Sherif is an interesting fellow in his early thirties, Michelle and Maggie, siblings, attractive, in their mid twenties. They turned out to be very helpful.
Sherif could not understand one word in English, Michelle however is articulate in English so she served as the interpreter. Michelle is of middle height, fair, attractive and blossom. She speaks calmly but with intense expression. She was smart and articulate. We conversed very often whilst en route to Elubo. They all were very interested in my adventure, especially Sherif. Sherif became more interested after he learned I have traveled through the Middle East as he has. We were both familiar with some unique landmarks and areas. So our friendship began on the basis of our interests.
2012年8月27日星期一
College community to benefit
Nursing students at Okanagan College will be among those learning more about the cultural significance of the pow wow as the College prepares to host the Fourth Annual Youth Exhibition Pow Wow Sept. 20 in Kelowna.
“The students are so excited to be attending, they’re beyond excited,” said Practical Nursing Instructor Dana Susheski. “Aboriginal cultural understanding has become an increasingly significant part of the province’s mandated curriculum, so opportunities like this are really valuable.”
Anthropology Professor Beryl Amaron is holding two pow wow seminars, one in Penticton on Sept. 19 with Elder Arnie Baptiste, and one in Kelowna Sept. 18 with Elder Richard Jackson Jr.
Jackson, a member of the Lower Nicola Band who has also been acting as Master of Ceremonies for the Youth Exhibition Pow Wow since its inception, said while many people have seen pow wows, few non-Aboriginal people understand their meaning.
“The word pow wow means ‘Gathering of Nations’ and represents unity,” Jackson Jr. said.
Once the singing starts, every nation gathers around their drum to sing the same song at once, each in their own language. The result reflects the unity of all things – from the physical world to the spiritual world.
“The drum groups perform songs that reflect who they are,” he said. “It’s very empowering. Unity is what it’s all about.”
This year’s Youth Exhibition Pow Wow will also feature a brand new drum handcrafted by local artist Kathleen Bray. The drum is made from cedar, moose hide, and antler horn. Bray designed the drum and has given it to the College’s Aboriginal Club.
“The drum shows respect for our four-legged animals, who gave their life to make the drum. The frame and the drumstick represent our plants and trees, and the feather represents the winged ones,” said Bray.
“When we put it in the hands of the two-legged, the music represents all the relations of the earth, hence we call the drum the heartbeat of Mother Earth.”
James Coble, Aboriginal Access and Services Coordinator, said each year the College deepens its understanding and its relationship with local Aboriginal people, which in turn benefits students of all races and cultural backgrounds.
“The students themselves really appreciate more public events like this because it helps them to feel more comfortable on campus,” Coble said.
“It’s also a real opportunity for some cross-cultural learning for everyone. People may not understand that pow wows are not just for fun. There is a deeper meaning.”
The Fourth Annual Youth Exhibition Pow Wow takes place in the courtyard of the College’s Kelowna campus Sept. 20 and features Jackson along with Iron Mountain and Little Hawk drumming, and Noel Ferguson as Whip Man.
Students from schools throughout the Okanagan Nation will be taking part in the dance performances.
“The students are so excited to be attending, they’re beyond excited,” said Practical Nursing Instructor Dana Susheski. “Aboriginal cultural understanding has become an increasingly significant part of the province’s mandated curriculum, so opportunities like this are really valuable.”
Anthropology Professor Beryl Amaron is holding two pow wow seminars, one in Penticton on Sept. 19 with Elder Arnie Baptiste, and one in Kelowna Sept. 18 with Elder Richard Jackson Jr.
Jackson, a member of the Lower Nicola Band who has also been acting as Master of Ceremonies for the Youth Exhibition Pow Wow since its inception, said while many people have seen pow wows, few non-Aboriginal people understand their meaning.
“The word pow wow means ‘Gathering of Nations’ and represents unity,” Jackson Jr. said.
Once the singing starts, every nation gathers around their drum to sing the same song at once, each in their own language. The result reflects the unity of all things – from the physical world to the spiritual world.
“The drum groups perform songs that reflect who they are,” he said. “It’s very empowering. Unity is what it’s all about.”
This year’s Youth Exhibition Pow Wow will also feature a brand new drum handcrafted by local artist Kathleen Bray. The drum is made from cedar, moose hide, and antler horn. Bray designed the drum and has given it to the College’s Aboriginal Club.
“The drum shows respect for our four-legged animals, who gave their life to make the drum. The frame and the drumstick represent our plants and trees, and the feather represents the winged ones,” said Bray.
“When we put it in the hands of the two-legged, the music represents all the relations of the earth, hence we call the drum the heartbeat of Mother Earth.”
James Coble, Aboriginal Access and Services Coordinator, said each year the College deepens its understanding and its relationship with local Aboriginal people, which in turn benefits students of all races and cultural backgrounds.
“The students themselves really appreciate more public events like this because it helps them to feel more comfortable on campus,” Coble said.
“It’s also a real opportunity for some cross-cultural learning for everyone. People may not understand that pow wows are not just for fun. There is a deeper meaning.”
The Fourth Annual Youth Exhibition Pow Wow takes place in the courtyard of the College’s Kelowna campus Sept. 20 and features Jackson along with Iron Mountain and Little Hawk drumming, and Noel Ferguson as Whip Man.
Students from schools throughout the Okanagan Nation will be taking part in the dance performances.
2012年8月20日星期一
Around the world in 218 days
When I go on a vacation, it is usually for one or two weeks and takes me to a great resort or on a cruise to a small corner of the world. When St. George residents Robert and Joanna Taylor went on vacation, they saw the world — literally. Picture making your home on a luxurious cruise ship for seven straight months as you circle the Earth — now that is a vacation.
In celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary, the Taylors wanted to do something big. Because they love cruising and they were “getting old,” they decided to do “one last big one.” They met with their travel agent Kim Rubel and planned out every detail. They chose a ship with Holland America Lines that was not too big and not too small. They sailed on the Amsterda, which holds just less than 1,400 people. The vessel’s small size allowed them to get to know the ship well, and after a short time the ship felt like home.
The Taylors started cruising in 1980 and thought their first ship was “wonderful, but the ships now are incredible.” Now, they look back at that first old, tiny ship they set sail on in 1980 and are pleased with how cruising has progressed. Joanna enjoys everything that goes on in the ship and can often be found relaxing while reading an interesting book from the ship’s well-stocked library. Robert likes the food and exploring the exotic ports.
“There was a great variety of food on the ship, which never got boring,” he said. They had the same wonderful waiter for the entire trip and when they were in Indonesia, he was able to bring his family on board for a visit and the Taylors enjoyed meeting them. The service on board was incredible. “They worked so hard to take good care of us,” Joanna Taylor said.
Onboard, they had the opportunity to make friends from all over the world. They even ran into some people they had previously cruised with.
“People with seemingly nothing in common somehow connect on ships and become friends,” the Taylors said.
The stage entertainment on the ship was good, but what they really enjoyed was when Holland America brought on entertainment from the regions they were sailing to, including Australia, China and Indonesia. “Their costumes were beautiful and their performances were spectacular,” they said.
An employee of the Days Inn on Industrial Highway, who Lower Pottsgrove police said last week was being investigated for an alleged theft at the hotel while he was off duty, has “confessed” to taking money rom a cash drawer there, department criminal investigator and Ofc. Christopher DiPiano reported.
Jason Norwood, 33, whose address was listed only as Pottstown, was said by DiPiano to have fled the area, but was taken into custody by the Pottstown Police Department several hours later on unrelated charges. It was during a later interview that Norwood discussed his role, according to the police report, and was charged with theft.
He was arraigned Aug. 11 by District Justice Edward Kropp Sr. and remanded to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville; a preliminary hearing was to be set for later this month.
In celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary, the Taylors wanted to do something big. Because they love cruising and they were “getting old,” they decided to do “one last big one.” They met with their travel agent Kim Rubel and planned out every detail. They chose a ship with Holland America Lines that was not too big and not too small. They sailed on the Amsterda, which holds just less than 1,400 people. The vessel’s small size allowed them to get to know the ship well, and after a short time the ship felt like home.
The Taylors started cruising in 1980 and thought their first ship was “wonderful, but the ships now are incredible.” Now, they look back at that first old, tiny ship they set sail on in 1980 and are pleased with how cruising has progressed. Joanna enjoys everything that goes on in the ship and can often be found relaxing while reading an interesting book from the ship’s well-stocked library. Robert likes the food and exploring the exotic ports.
“There was a great variety of food on the ship, which never got boring,” he said. They had the same wonderful waiter for the entire trip and when they were in Indonesia, he was able to bring his family on board for a visit and the Taylors enjoyed meeting them. The service on board was incredible. “They worked so hard to take good care of us,” Joanna Taylor said.
Onboard, they had the opportunity to make friends from all over the world. They even ran into some people they had previously cruised with.
“People with seemingly nothing in common somehow connect on ships and become friends,” the Taylors said.
The stage entertainment on the ship was good, but what they really enjoyed was when Holland America brought on entertainment from the regions they were sailing to, including Australia, China and Indonesia. “Their costumes were beautiful and their performances were spectacular,” they said.
An employee of the Days Inn on Industrial Highway, who Lower Pottsgrove police said last week was being investigated for an alleged theft at the hotel while he was off duty, has “confessed” to taking money rom a cash drawer there, department criminal investigator and Ofc. Christopher DiPiano reported.
Jason Norwood, 33, whose address was listed only as Pottstown, was said by DiPiano to have fled the area, but was taken into custody by the Pottstown Police Department several hours later on unrelated charges. It was during a later interview that Norwood discussed his role, according to the police report, and was charged with theft.
He was arraigned Aug. 11 by District Justice Edward Kropp Sr. and remanded to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville; a preliminary hearing was to be set for later this month.
2012年8月16日星期四
Ecuador grants cover to WikiLeaks architect Julian Assange
The accommodation by the Latin American nation to analyze the WikiLeaks architect as a political refugee is a allegorical addition for the active ex-hacker. But acknowledged experts say that does little to advice him abstain displacement to Sweden on animal advance allegations.
Instead, with British admiral asserting they won't admission Assange safe admission out of the country, the case has done abundant to annoyance the two nations into an all-embracing faceoff.
"We're at something of an impasse," advocate Rebecca Niblock said. "It's not a catechism of law anymore. It's a catechism of backroom and diplomacy."
The silver-haired Australian attempt to all-embracing bulge in 2010 afterwards he began publishing a huge accession of American adept and aggressive secrets — including a division actor U.S. Admiral cables that afford a acrid ablaze on the backroom affairs of U.S. diplomats. Amid the ferment, two Swedish women accused him of animal assault; Assange has been angry displacement to Sweden anytime since.
The bizarre adventure took its latest aberration on Thursday, if Ecuadorean Adopted Abbot Ricardo Patino appear that he had accepted political cover to Assange, who has been holed up central the small, littoral nation's admiral back June 19. He said Ecuador was demography activity because Assange faces a austere blackmail of biased case at the easily of U.S. officials.
That was a nod to the fears bidding by Assange and others that the Swedish sex case is alone the aperture artifice in a Washington-orchestrated artifice to accomplish him angle balloon in the United States — something acknowledged by both Swedish authorities and the women involved.
Patino said he approved to defended guarantees from the Americans, the British and the Swedes that Assange would not be extradited to the United States, but was rebuffed by all three. If Assange were extradited to the U.S. "he would not accept a fair trial, could be advised by appropriate or aggressive courts, and it's not doubtful that atrocious and aspersing analysis could be applied, that he could be accursed to activity in prison, or the afterlife penalty," Patino said.
Ecuador's accommodation was acquiescently accustomed by the 41-year-old Assange, who watched as it was appear in a reside televised account appointment from Quito. In a account he accepted Ecuador's "courage."
Pro-Assange demonstrators aggregate alfresco the Edwardian-era admiral building, and bankrupt into acclaim if the account filtered out assimilate the street.
"It accept to accept been a boxy accommodation for Ecuador because they had pressure," said Alejandra Cazas, an 18-year-old British-Bolivian citizen. "Now they accept to watch out that he arrives to Ecuador safely."
But British Adopted Secretary William Hague said Britain will not acquiesce Assange safe admission to Latin America. "There is no acknowledged base for us to do so," he said.
He said Assange was capital in Sweden to acknowledgment allegations of "serious animal offences" and that the displacement had annihilation to do with the plan of WikiLeaks or with the United States.
Supporters who accept visited Assange say he is active central a tiny appointment at Ecuador's embassy, a baby accommodation of 5 or six apartment central a beyond architecture which aswell houses Colombia's embassy.
Assange has a bed, admission to a buzz and a affiliation to the Internet. "It's not absolutely the Hilton," said Gavin MacFadyen, a adherent who has met with Assange at the embassy.
The adept repercussions connected Thursday with an absurd battle amid Sweden and Ecuador.
In a mark of its acrimony over the cover ruling, the Swedish Adopted Admiral said it had summoned Ecuador's agent to accuse about the decision. The country's adopted minister, Carl Bildt, said in a bulletin acquaint on Twitter that "our close acknowledged and built-in arrangement guarantees the rights of anniversary and every one. We durably adios any accusations to the contrary."
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa did not assume to be in any affection for accommodation either, announcement a cheep that read: "No one is traveling to affright us."
The affair already seems to accept frayed adept ties amid the U.K. and Ecuador. Britain's antecedent agent to Ecuador, Linda Cross, ancient beforehand this year and had been due to be replaced this ages by Patrick Mullee. But his accession has been delayed.
Ties could affray added if Britain decides to accomplish a abstruse 1987 law that gives the U.K. the appropriate to access the admiral to arrest Assange — but a lot of acknowledged experts alleged such a development absurd and potentially dangerous.
If Britain agitated out such a move "it would abuse their admiral bounds about the world," as it could leave them accessible to reprisals, said Niblock, who practices at London law close Kingsley Napley.
Many Britons accept memories of the affecting arena in 1980, if British appropriate armament soldiers access into the Iranian Admiral — at Iran's appeal — to chargeless hostages captured by gunmen who had torn into the architecture six canicule earlier.
Hague insisted Britain had no plan to force access into Ecuador's mission. "There is no blackmail actuality to storm an embassy," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, acknowledged experts and adept historians were abuzz with assorted absurd scenarios for Assange's escape from Britain — conceivably hidden in a adept car or banned in an colossal adept bag.
Some accept speculated Britain could abjure the adept cachet of Ecuador's admiral — a move which would finer bisect affable links amid the two nations, but acquiesce badge to airing central and arrest Assange.
Britain's adopted admiral said diplomats would abide discussions with Ecuador aimed at absolute the case, but Hague warned that he accepted the adept stalemate to continue.
"This could go on for absolutely a ample time as things stand," he told reporters. "There is no time absolute for absolute this."
Instead, with British admiral asserting they won't admission Assange safe admission out of the country, the case has done abundant to annoyance the two nations into an all-embracing faceoff.
"We're at something of an impasse," advocate Rebecca Niblock said. "It's not a catechism of law anymore. It's a catechism of backroom and diplomacy."
The silver-haired Australian attempt to all-embracing bulge in 2010 afterwards he began publishing a huge accession of American adept and aggressive secrets — including a division actor U.S. Admiral cables that afford a acrid ablaze on the backroom affairs of U.S. diplomats. Amid the ferment, two Swedish women accused him of animal assault; Assange has been angry displacement to Sweden anytime since.
The bizarre adventure took its latest aberration on Thursday, if Ecuadorean Adopted Abbot Ricardo Patino appear that he had accepted political cover to Assange, who has been holed up central the small, littoral nation's admiral back June 19. He said Ecuador was demography activity because Assange faces a austere blackmail of biased case at the easily of U.S. officials.
That was a nod to the fears bidding by Assange and others that the Swedish sex case is alone the aperture artifice in a Washington-orchestrated artifice to accomplish him angle balloon in the United States — something acknowledged by both Swedish authorities and the women involved.
Patino said he approved to defended guarantees from the Americans, the British and the Swedes that Assange would not be extradited to the United States, but was rebuffed by all three. If Assange were extradited to the U.S. "he would not accept a fair trial, could be advised by appropriate or aggressive courts, and it's not doubtful that atrocious and aspersing analysis could be applied, that he could be accursed to activity in prison, or the afterlife penalty," Patino said.
Ecuador's accommodation was acquiescently accustomed by the 41-year-old Assange, who watched as it was appear in a reside televised account appointment from Quito. In a account he accepted Ecuador's "courage."
Pro-Assange demonstrators aggregate alfresco the Edwardian-era admiral building, and bankrupt into acclaim if the account filtered out assimilate the street.
"It accept to accept been a boxy accommodation for Ecuador because they had pressure," said Alejandra Cazas, an 18-year-old British-Bolivian citizen. "Now they accept to watch out that he arrives to Ecuador safely."
But British Adopted Secretary William Hague said Britain will not acquiesce Assange safe admission to Latin America. "There is no acknowledged base for us to do so," he said.
He said Assange was capital in Sweden to acknowledgment allegations of "serious animal offences" and that the displacement had annihilation to do with the plan of WikiLeaks or with the United States.
Supporters who accept visited Assange say he is active central a tiny appointment at Ecuador's embassy, a baby accommodation of 5 or six apartment central a beyond architecture which aswell houses Colombia's embassy.
Assange has a bed, admission to a buzz and a affiliation to the Internet. "It's not absolutely the Hilton," said Gavin MacFadyen, a adherent who has met with Assange at the embassy.
The adept repercussions connected Thursday with an absurd battle amid Sweden and Ecuador.
In a mark of its acrimony over the cover ruling, the Swedish Adopted Admiral said it had summoned Ecuador's agent to accuse about the decision. The country's adopted minister, Carl Bildt, said in a bulletin acquaint on Twitter that "our close acknowledged and built-in arrangement guarantees the rights of anniversary and every one. We durably adios any accusations to the contrary."
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa did not assume to be in any affection for accommodation either, announcement a cheep that read: "No one is traveling to affright us."
The affair already seems to accept frayed adept ties amid the U.K. and Ecuador. Britain's antecedent agent to Ecuador, Linda Cross, ancient beforehand this year and had been due to be replaced this ages by Patrick Mullee. But his accession has been delayed.
Ties could affray added if Britain decides to accomplish a abstruse 1987 law that gives the U.K. the appropriate to access the admiral to arrest Assange — but a lot of acknowledged experts alleged such a development absurd and potentially dangerous.
If Britain agitated out such a move "it would abuse their admiral bounds about the world," as it could leave them accessible to reprisals, said Niblock, who practices at London law close Kingsley Napley.
Many Britons accept memories of the affecting arena in 1980, if British appropriate armament soldiers access into the Iranian Admiral — at Iran's appeal — to chargeless hostages captured by gunmen who had torn into the architecture six canicule earlier.
Hague insisted Britain had no plan to force access into Ecuador's mission. "There is no blackmail actuality to storm an embassy," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, acknowledged experts and adept historians were abuzz with assorted absurd scenarios for Assange's escape from Britain — conceivably hidden in a adept car or banned in an colossal adept bag.
Some accept speculated Britain could abjure the adept cachet of Ecuador's admiral — a move which would finer bisect affable links amid the two nations, but acquiesce badge to airing central and arrest Assange.
Britain's adopted admiral said diplomats would abide discussions with Ecuador aimed at absolute the case, but Hague warned that he accepted the adept stalemate to continue.
"This could go on for absolutely a ample time as things stand," he told reporters. "There is no time absolute for absolute this."
2012年8月5日星期日
Japan nuclear bulb workers face stigma
A growing amount of Japanese workers who are risking their bloom to shut down the bedridden Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear ability bulb are adversity from depression, all-overs about the approaching and a accident of motivation, say two doctors who appointment them regularly.
But their cerebral problems are apprenticed beneath by fears about developing blight from radiation acknowledgment and added by something actual and personal: Bigotry from the actual association they approved to protect, says Jun Shigemura, who active a advance aggregation of about ten psychiatrists and psychologists from the National Defense Medical College who accommodated with Tokyo Electric Ability Co. nuclear bulb employees.
They acquaint therapists they accept been harangued by association displaced in Japan's nuclear adversity and threatened with signs on their doors cogent them to leave. Some of their accouchement accept been taunted at school, and -to-be landlords accept angry them away.
"They accept become targets of people's anger," Shigemura told The Associated Press.
TEPCO workers — in their readily identifiable dejected uniforms — were already advised to be a part of the aristocratic in this rural breadth 230 kilometers (140 kilometers) arctic of Tokyo. But afterwards the March 11, 2011, convulsion and tsunami set off meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, association came to appearance them as "perpetrators," Shigemura said.
Many TEPCO families in the breadth now adumbrate their hotlink to the aggregation for abhorrence of criticism, bounded doctors and psychiatrists say.
Shigemura likens the workers' acquaintance to that of U.S. Vietnam veterans abiding home to abhorrence in the 1960s and aboriginal '70s.
"They both formed for (the acceptable of) their countries, but they got a backlash," he said.
About a dozen nuclear workers approached by the AP beneath to be interviewed for this report. Except in attenuate cases, TEPCO has afresh beneath requests to account workers, and the workers themselves accept alone about all media attention, so these doctors' accounts accommodate an abnormal glimpse into their lives.
One above TEPCO agent who lived in the boondocks of Tomioka, central the 20-kilometer (15-mile) exclusion area about the plant, told journalists during a attenuate appointment to the Fukushima bulb in February that she was frequently addled by evacuees a part of the 100,000 displaced by the disaster.
"Many humans who wish to go home are accepting balked and they generally bawl at me, 'How are you traveling to accomplish it up to us?'" said Saori Kanesaki, a above aggregation adviser at the Fukushima plant.
More than a half-century ago, abounding Japanese survivors of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were stigmatized due to fears about their acknowledgment to radiation. But the Fukushima adversity has befuddled up a absolutely new affectionate of bigotry because of the workers' links to TEPCO, a aggregation broadly abhorred throughout Japan for its corruption of the disaster.
Some 3,000 TEPCO advisers and added contractors abide to activity circadian at the bulb in one of the world's riskiest jobs — befitting three melted-down reactor cores as able-bodied as spent ammunition pools air-conditioned through a makeshift arrangement of baptize pipes.
They face a continued haul: Removing the ammunition and absolutely shutting down the bulb could yield 40 years.
Worries about radiation acknowledgment aren't overwhelmingly accustomed a part of the TEPCO workers, both doctors say, although some workers are concerned, abnormally those with college acknowledgment counts. During the crisis, authorities aloft the best radiation acknowledgment absolute to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts. Six TEPCO workers surpassed that level, and were removed from plan at the plant. That acknowledgment akin was bargain afresh in December to 50 millisieverts, with an barring acceptance up to 100 millisieverts in emergencies.
In accession to the discrimination, the TEPCO nuclear workers, who are distinctively trained, are afraid that they will be transferred to a absolutely altered affectionate of job, such as accounting work, if they should beat the acknowledgment limit, the doctors say.
"More than bloom risk, they are afraid about amusing accident and application risk," said Takeshi Tanigawa, an epidemiologist with Ehime University's medical academy who visited the bulb afterwards the adversity and was the one of the aboriginal to address its acrid alive conditions, which accept aback improved. He has been aback 15 times since, and Shigemura afterwards volunteered to accompany him.
The two doctors address that they are not acquainted of any case of radiation affection or radiation burns a part of the workers, who abide approved checks for radiation levels in their bodies.
A abrupt address on their acquaintance visiting the Fukushima bulb anon afterwards the adversity that highlights the bigotry workers faced was appear in Wednesday's affair of The American Journal of Psychiatry.
The Japanese accessible and press, meanwhile, has offered the workers little praise, clashing the Western media, which during the acme of the crisis portrayed the actual bandage of workers at the bulb as the ballsy "Fukushima 50." The calm columnist instead emphasized how the dangers faced by the workers reflected the risks of nuclear power.
Culture helps explain some of these dynamics, including the able Japanese faculty of assignment and accumulation responsibility.
"People accept the workers allotment in the responsibility" for the adversity even admitting they didn't could cause it, Tanigawa said.
Disaster psychiatry is not well-developed in Japan. The 1995 Kobe convulsion brought growing acquaintance of the cerebral agony of disasters, but specialists in the acreage abide rare.
But their cerebral problems are apprenticed beneath by fears about developing blight from radiation acknowledgment and added by something actual and personal: Bigotry from the actual association they approved to protect, says Jun Shigemura, who active a advance aggregation of about ten psychiatrists and psychologists from the National Defense Medical College who accommodated with Tokyo Electric Ability Co. nuclear bulb employees.
They acquaint therapists they accept been harangued by association displaced in Japan's nuclear adversity and threatened with signs on their doors cogent them to leave. Some of their accouchement accept been taunted at school, and -to-be landlords accept angry them away.
"They accept become targets of people's anger," Shigemura told The Associated Press.
TEPCO workers — in their readily identifiable dejected uniforms — were already advised to be a part of the aristocratic in this rural breadth 230 kilometers (140 kilometers) arctic of Tokyo. But afterwards the March 11, 2011, convulsion and tsunami set off meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, association came to appearance them as "perpetrators," Shigemura said.
Many TEPCO families in the breadth now adumbrate their hotlink to the aggregation for abhorrence of criticism, bounded doctors and psychiatrists say.
Shigemura likens the workers' acquaintance to that of U.S. Vietnam veterans abiding home to abhorrence in the 1960s and aboriginal '70s.
"They both formed for (the acceptable of) their countries, but they got a backlash," he said.
About a dozen nuclear workers approached by the AP beneath to be interviewed for this report. Except in attenuate cases, TEPCO has afresh beneath requests to account workers, and the workers themselves accept alone about all media attention, so these doctors' accounts accommodate an abnormal glimpse into their lives.
One above TEPCO agent who lived in the boondocks of Tomioka, central the 20-kilometer (15-mile) exclusion area about the plant, told journalists during a attenuate appointment to the Fukushima bulb in February that she was frequently addled by evacuees a part of the 100,000 displaced by the disaster.
"Many humans who wish to go home are accepting balked and they generally bawl at me, 'How are you traveling to accomplish it up to us?'" said Saori Kanesaki, a above aggregation adviser at the Fukushima plant.
More than a half-century ago, abounding Japanese survivors of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were stigmatized due to fears about their acknowledgment to radiation. But the Fukushima adversity has befuddled up a absolutely new affectionate of bigotry because of the workers' links to TEPCO, a aggregation broadly abhorred throughout Japan for its corruption of the disaster.
Some 3,000 TEPCO advisers and added contractors abide to activity circadian at the bulb in one of the world's riskiest jobs — befitting three melted-down reactor cores as able-bodied as spent ammunition pools air-conditioned through a makeshift arrangement of baptize pipes.
They face a continued haul: Removing the ammunition and absolutely shutting down the bulb could yield 40 years.
Worries about radiation acknowledgment aren't overwhelmingly accustomed a part of the TEPCO workers, both doctors say, although some workers are concerned, abnormally those with college acknowledgment counts. During the crisis, authorities aloft the best radiation acknowledgment absolute to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts. Six TEPCO workers surpassed that level, and were removed from plan at the plant. That acknowledgment akin was bargain afresh in December to 50 millisieverts, with an barring acceptance up to 100 millisieverts in emergencies.
In accession to the discrimination, the TEPCO nuclear workers, who are distinctively trained, are afraid that they will be transferred to a absolutely altered affectionate of job, such as accounting work, if they should beat the acknowledgment limit, the doctors say.
"More than bloom risk, they are afraid about amusing accident and application risk," said Takeshi Tanigawa, an epidemiologist with Ehime University's medical academy who visited the bulb afterwards the adversity and was the one of the aboriginal to address its acrid alive conditions, which accept aback improved. He has been aback 15 times since, and Shigemura afterwards volunteered to accompany him.
The two doctors address that they are not acquainted of any case of radiation affection or radiation burns a part of the workers, who abide approved checks for radiation levels in their bodies.
A abrupt address on their acquaintance visiting the Fukushima bulb anon afterwards the adversity that highlights the bigotry workers faced was appear in Wednesday's affair of The American Journal of Psychiatry.
The Japanese accessible and press, meanwhile, has offered the workers little praise, clashing the Western media, which during the acme of the crisis portrayed the actual bandage of workers at the bulb as the ballsy "Fukushima 50." The calm columnist instead emphasized how the dangers faced by the workers reflected the risks of nuclear power.
Culture helps explain some of these dynamics, including the able Japanese faculty of assignment and accumulation responsibility.
"People accept the workers allotment in the responsibility" for the adversity even admitting they didn't could cause it, Tanigawa said.
Disaster psychiatry is not well-developed in Japan. The 1995 Kobe convulsion brought growing acquaintance of the cerebral agony of disasters, but specialists in the acreage abide rare.
2012年7月29日星期日
Social accord and ethics: a humanist's appearance
Thank you for agreeable me to abode you today. The affair is not a ablaze one and I accept to accept that I am bound by my about abridgement of experience.
Social accord absolutely came into the accessible alertness afterwards the riots in the British comminute towns in 2001. The British government asked some arch academics to abstraction the humans active in these towns, and to broadcast a cardboard that would explain why there was so abundant amusing unrest.
The address that was produced, alleged Accompaniment of English Cities, ashore the angle of amusing accord in the actual altitude of people. It batten about active conditions, safety, health, admission to application opportunities and equality. Following the England riots endure year, as able-bodied as a host of accepted agitation in the Middle East that still continues today, the focus has absolutely narrowed down on the altitude that humans lived in – the accessible acceptance getting that this was why this agitation happened. This assay was helped by the afterlife of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian artery bell-ringer who set himself on blaze in beef of the aggravation and abasement he accomplished at the duke of a borough administrator and her assistants.
We are actuality to analyze a altered departure – the abstraction that amusing accord will be congenital and abiding if we are a nation of acceptable ethics. I do not anticipate that I assume too abundant if I say that we all accede that there are aggregate belief that we all charge to strive for, together.
However, we should not attending at belief in abreast of actual conditions. We charge both if we are to body a absolutely adamant society. I charge not acknowledgment the asperity and abjection statistics for you to realise that too abounding South Africans reside in abhorrent conditions. I aswell do not charge to allocution about the aggressive animal and concrete abuse, the abandon we affectation appear anniversary added and humans from added countries, and ancestral astriction to argue you that acceptable belief is something we are aswell actual abbreviate of.
We are aggregate actuality in anamnesis of Beyers Naude, who was a man of the bolt but amuse acquiesce me to adduce from a humanist certificate to appearance you what I accept to be the affectionate of ethical belief we should strive for. The conference of our Constitution enjoins us to accept it as the absolute law of the country, so as to: Heal the capacity of the accomplished and authorize a association based on autonomous values, amusing amends and axiological animal rights;
Lay the foundations for a autonomous and accessible association in which government is based on the will of the humans and every aborigine is appropriately adequate by law;
Improve the superior of activity of all citizens and chargeless the abeyant of anniversary person; and
Body a affiliated and autonomous South Africa able to yield its applicable abode as a absolute accompaniment in the ancestors of nations.
In essence, the Constitution asks us to do two things: account and attending afterwards anniversary other. It sees a alliance amid belief and bigger actual altitude as the way to accomplish accord in all our diversity.
The Constitution is a absurd certificate if we are traveling to abort to assurance and account anniversary other. Animal rights beggarly annihilation if there is no account for them, or for anniversary added as people. This angle goes to aggregate that we do. There is no account in a domiciliary that is bedeviled by abuse. Men, there is no account if we abide to appearance women as altar for our ascendancy or animal gratification. How can we body assurance in an ambiance area corruption, both in the clandestine area and in government, is rife? Do we absolutely account the rights of our accouchement if we abort them in something as elementary as authoritative abiding that they accept acquirements material? Racism continues to anticipate us from dupe anniversary other. We cannot activate to anticipate that we are a adamant association if we amusement humans of a altered animal acclimatization like dirt. We are not a adamant association for as continued as we abort to account the rights of even the humans we do not like. Amends is aswell actual important. Are we a just society? I’m not just talking about petty abomination – how committed are we all to authoritative appropriate the wrongs of the past?
Social accord absolutely came into the accessible alertness afterwards the riots in the British comminute towns in 2001. The British government asked some arch academics to abstraction the humans active in these towns, and to broadcast a cardboard that would explain why there was so abundant amusing unrest.
The address that was produced, alleged Accompaniment of English Cities, ashore the angle of amusing accord in the actual altitude of people. It batten about active conditions, safety, health, admission to application opportunities and equality. Following the England riots endure year, as able-bodied as a host of accepted agitation in the Middle East that still continues today, the focus has absolutely narrowed down on the altitude that humans lived in – the accessible acceptance getting that this was why this agitation happened. This assay was helped by the afterlife of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian artery bell-ringer who set himself on blaze in beef of the aggravation and abasement he accomplished at the duke of a borough administrator and her assistants.
We are actuality to analyze a altered departure – the abstraction that amusing accord will be congenital and abiding if we are a nation of acceptable ethics. I do not anticipate that I assume too abundant if I say that we all accede that there are aggregate belief that we all charge to strive for, together.
However, we should not attending at belief in abreast of actual conditions. We charge both if we are to body a absolutely adamant society. I charge not acknowledgment the asperity and abjection statistics for you to realise that too abounding South Africans reside in abhorrent conditions. I aswell do not charge to allocution about the aggressive animal and concrete abuse, the abandon we affectation appear anniversary added and humans from added countries, and ancestral astriction to argue you that acceptable belief is something we are aswell actual abbreviate of.
We are aggregate actuality in anamnesis of Beyers Naude, who was a man of the bolt but amuse acquiesce me to adduce from a humanist certificate to appearance you what I accept to be the affectionate of ethical belief we should strive for. The conference of our Constitution enjoins us to accept it as the absolute law of the country, so as to: Heal the capacity of the accomplished and authorize a association based on autonomous values, amusing amends and axiological animal rights;
Lay the foundations for a autonomous and accessible association in which government is based on the will of the humans and every aborigine is appropriately adequate by law;
Improve the superior of activity of all citizens and chargeless the abeyant of anniversary person; and
Body a affiliated and autonomous South Africa able to yield its applicable abode as a absolute accompaniment in the ancestors of nations.
In essence, the Constitution asks us to do two things: account and attending afterwards anniversary other. It sees a alliance amid belief and bigger actual altitude as the way to accomplish accord in all our diversity.
The Constitution is a absurd certificate if we are traveling to abort to assurance and account anniversary other. Animal rights beggarly annihilation if there is no account for them, or for anniversary added as people. This angle goes to aggregate that we do. There is no account in a domiciliary that is bedeviled by abuse. Men, there is no account if we abide to appearance women as altar for our ascendancy or animal gratification. How can we body assurance in an ambiance area corruption, both in the clandestine area and in government, is rife? Do we absolutely account the rights of our accouchement if we abort them in something as elementary as authoritative abiding that they accept acquirements material? Racism continues to anticipate us from dupe anniversary other. We cannot activate to anticipate that we are a adamant association if we amusement humans of a altered animal acclimatization like dirt. We are not a adamant association for as continued as we abort to account the rights of even the humans we do not like. Amends is aswell actual important. Are we a just society? I’m not just talking about petty abomination – how committed are we all to authoritative appropriate the wrongs of the past?
2012年7月25日星期三
A Fun Cine Tie-in Co-created by Graeme Devine
Paranorman is a cast new cine hitting theaters next ages from Laika, the aforementioned assembly aggregation that brought us the blur Coraline a few years back. It is the adventure of a adolescent amusing outcast alleged Norman who has the adeptness to see and allocution to ghosts. While the the blow of the apple seems agreeable on abstention Norman for getting a bit on the odd side, it turns out that his affiliation to the afterworld will end up getting the affair that saves his boondocks from peril.
You can apprentice abundant added about Paranorman from the movie's amazing website, which is beautifully advised and contains a ton of alternate agreeable and abaft the scenes features. Especially of agenda is how the creators of the blur acclimated 3D printers to achieve the apparatus for the characters in the cine afore agilely activation aggregate application stop-motion techniques. I’m usually absolutely aloof in business websites for movies, but this one’s special. Trust me, analysis it out.
So anyway, as air-conditioned as Paranorman looks as a movie, the added accordant account is that a cast new iOS bold has been appear as allotment of the business effort, and it’s in fact absolutely good. It’s alleged Paranorman: 2-Bit Bub [ Free ], and focuses on one of the movie’s borderline characters Bub, a ghost-dog who is breach in two pieces due to a car active him over (an beastly accomplishment van, no less).
Because Bub has a affection for mischief, he finds himself in a bind afterwards digging up and gnawing down on some basic he apparent in the bounded graveyard. Problem is, those basic accord to a accumulation of angered zombies, and they wish them back. So Bub sets out to aggregate all the missing bones, and you advice him do this by casting Bub and adhering him to rings advance out in anniversary of the game’s 30 levels which lets you admission areas area the basic are residing.
It’s simple but engaging, and with altered kinds of rings to affix to that accept altered properties, things can get absolutely catchy as the bold goes on. Your achievement on anniversary akin is graded on a 3-star scale, and earning a abounding 3 stars on a akin will alleviate a abundant affiche from the cine as a reward.
One of the a lot of absorbing aspects of 2-Bit Bub is that the bold was a accord accomplishment amidst several altered developers, a lot of noticeably Graeme Devine, architect of GRL Games. As you’re allegedly aware, Graeme is a adept developer who’s had a duke in some allegorical franchises over the accomplished few decades, from The 7th Guest all the way to the Quake and Halo properties.
So, as anybody who follows forth with Graeme’s activities knows, he is consistently active with assorted projects acutely at all times. We asked Graeme how he got complex in such a activity with so abundant traveling on in his own life. Since the action flat Laika has antecedent ties to stop-motion archetypal The Nightmare Afore Christmas, that’s allegedly all it took.
“The business aggregation Wieden Kennedy went to my talks at GDC Austin endure year. Normally, I wish to achieve my own thing, get on with Dance City etc., but I do accept a seven bottom alpine bronze of Jack from Nightmare Afore Christmas in my active room… so they affectionate of had me at "do you wish to plan with Laika"?”
Another big allotment of this accord is that Laika was absolute all-around to Graeme and the added developers, giving them abounding admission to the absolute sets and assets from the movie. It makes a huge aberration too if you blaze up 2-Bit Bub, as the visuals and apparition of abyss are about clashing annihilation I’ve apparent done on the iPhone before. To achieve this, Graeme and aggregation took actually bags of pictures of the set, again rendered them into 3D models for use in the game. As you ability accept guessed, this was a ton of work.
“We started appropriate at GDC, so the alpha of March. Absolute bound schedule, but Laika was absurd to plan with and gave us abundant admission to the sets and talking to the animators. At first, afore I went up there, I was assertive we could do this with a 2D look, but again walking about the sets and seeing the detail I was just destroyed away. I'm a appealing big Nightmare Afore Christmas fan and so I was aggravating not to be the cool fan boy, but central I was freaking out. A lot of the humans up there formed on Nightmare Afore Christmas, so it was absurd to get to see how all that worked."
Part of what makes Laika beat is their absolute absorption to detail. The sets acclimated in the cine are so busy and detailed, even for accessory things that ability just beam by in an burning while the cine is playing. Graeme noticed this too while visiting the sets.
You can apprentice abundant added about Paranorman from the movie's amazing website, which is beautifully advised and contains a ton of alternate agreeable and abaft the scenes features. Especially of agenda is how the creators of the blur acclimated 3D printers to achieve the apparatus for the characters in the cine afore agilely activation aggregate application stop-motion techniques. I’m usually absolutely aloof in business websites for movies, but this one’s special. Trust me, analysis it out.
So anyway, as air-conditioned as Paranorman looks as a movie, the added accordant account is that a cast new iOS bold has been appear as allotment of the business effort, and it’s in fact absolutely good. It’s alleged Paranorman: 2-Bit Bub [ Free ], and focuses on one of the movie’s borderline characters Bub, a ghost-dog who is breach in two pieces due to a car active him over (an beastly accomplishment van, no less).
Because Bub has a affection for mischief, he finds himself in a bind afterwards digging up and gnawing down on some basic he apparent in the bounded graveyard. Problem is, those basic accord to a accumulation of angered zombies, and they wish them back. So Bub sets out to aggregate all the missing bones, and you advice him do this by casting Bub and adhering him to rings advance out in anniversary of the game’s 30 levels which lets you admission areas area the basic are residing.
It’s simple but engaging, and with altered kinds of rings to affix to that accept altered properties, things can get absolutely catchy as the bold goes on. Your achievement on anniversary akin is graded on a 3-star scale, and earning a abounding 3 stars on a akin will alleviate a abundant affiche from the cine as a reward.
One of the a lot of absorbing aspects of 2-Bit Bub is that the bold was a accord accomplishment amidst several altered developers, a lot of noticeably Graeme Devine, architect of GRL Games. As you’re allegedly aware, Graeme is a adept developer who’s had a duke in some allegorical franchises over the accomplished few decades, from The 7th Guest all the way to the Quake and Halo properties.
So, as anybody who follows forth with Graeme’s activities knows, he is consistently active with assorted projects acutely at all times. We asked Graeme how he got complex in such a activity with so abundant traveling on in his own life. Since the action flat Laika has antecedent ties to stop-motion archetypal The Nightmare Afore Christmas, that’s allegedly all it took.
“The business aggregation Wieden Kennedy went to my talks at GDC Austin endure year. Normally, I wish to achieve my own thing, get on with Dance City etc., but I do accept a seven bottom alpine bronze of Jack from Nightmare Afore Christmas in my active room… so they affectionate of had me at "do you wish to plan with Laika"?”
Another big allotment of this accord is that Laika was absolute all-around to Graeme and the added developers, giving them abounding admission to the absolute sets and assets from the movie. It makes a huge aberration too if you blaze up 2-Bit Bub, as the visuals and apparition of abyss are about clashing annihilation I’ve apparent done on the iPhone before. To achieve this, Graeme and aggregation took actually bags of pictures of the set, again rendered them into 3D models for use in the game. As you ability accept guessed, this was a ton of work.
“We started appropriate at GDC, so the alpha of March. Absolute bound schedule, but Laika was absurd to plan with and gave us abundant admission to the sets and talking to the animators. At first, afore I went up there, I was assertive we could do this with a 2D look, but again walking about the sets and seeing the detail I was just destroyed away. I'm a appealing big Nightmare Afore Christmas fan and so I was aggravating not to be the cool fan boy, but central I was freaking out. A lot of the humans up there formed on Nightmare Afore Christmas, so it was absurd to get to see how all that worked."
Part of what makes Laika beat is their absolute absorption to detail. The sets acclimated in the cine are so busy and detailed, even for accessory things that ability just beam by in an burning while the cine is playing. Graeme noticed this too while visiting the sets.
2012年7月10日星期二
Park address gets new playground
After appliance the aforementioned amphitheater for 20 years, the Brittany Lane Apartment Co-Operation will body a backup this week, but still needs added assets to do so.
To bless the apartment complex’s 20th anniversary, a new amphitheater is getting congenital on Saturday, July 14. As the lifespan of playgrounds is about 15 to 20 years, the accessories was no best acceptable for the accouchement active in the apartment co-operation.
“When Brittany Lane was built, not as abundant anticipation went into families and the bulk of children, but we accept grown,” Brittany Lane Apartment Co-Operation Association Liasion Ayanna Inniss said. “We accept 90 accouchement active in the address and the amphitheater accessories absolutely was not able for the bulk of kids that we had, and did not yield into appliance the toddlers at all, it was added for the earlier kids. It was well-used and admired by the kids, but it was absolutely time for something new.”
The old amphitheater was beatific to the Emanuel Foundation in Calgary breadth it will be refurbished and repainted and acclimated in a developing country. Its problems aria in aspects of it not affair Canadian assurance standards and getting clumsy to be acclimated by baby children.
However, the new amphitheater will break these issues through account taken from the co-op’s “Playground Design Day,” breadth accouchement fabricated assets of what they capital to see in the new playground.
“There will be two spaces, one amplitude for the 5 to 12 year olds and a abate amplitude for the 2 to 5 year olds,” Inniss explained. “There will be basement areas, garbages, recycling, planters. One of the issues with our address is that it’s disconnected into three cul-de-sacs that aren’t affiliated by sidewalks, so as a result, the kids play in the parking lot. The achievement is that we’re traveling to put sidewalk about the absolute amphitheater so that they can bike central the play breadth and accept a bike arbor there to esplanade there.”
To armamentarium the new amphitheater equipment, the address activated for a admission through the American non-profit alignment KaBOOM!. Their authorization is to focus on authoritative abiding there are play areas accessible to accouchement abreast their homes and to abetment areas that can’t allow to body playgrounds on their own.
The address had been aggravating for nine years to get allotment for a new playground, but as they’re not a accommodating organization, it was difficult to authorize for any grants. They aswell accustomed no allotment from the county, alfresco of a admission from Coun. Roxanne Carr for a association garden, due to the amphitheater getting on clandestine land.
“We begin out in the end of April that there was a funder accessible in the Edmonton area,” Inniss said. “We begin out afterwards KaBOOM!’s appliance date and alleged and said ‘No, you accept to accede us.’ We alleged Washington, D.C., which is breadth they’re headquartered, and they gave us the befalling to abide our appliance and we won that bid. Foresters is our allotment partner.”
Three circuitous benches and the garden were aswell congenital to allure the absorption of added residents. The circuitous benches had tiles contributed by canton association while the body of the amphitheater itself will aswell be done volunteers from the community, which will body stronger ties to the community, according to Inniss.
However, fundraising is still at a arrears of $17,000 admitting a BBQ adopting $700 over this accomplished weekend, and 30 added volunteers are bare to advice with architecture on Saturday. Added of these assets are bare by the annex to pay for and body the amphitheater afterwards absolute abetment from the county.
The body begins at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday and is planned to run for six hours afore the award is cut at 2:30 p.m., while alertness and training will yield abode the day prior. It will be accessible for use 72 hours afterwards the body is completed. Volunteers can annals to advice with architecture at bit.ly/brittanylane. Donations can be beatific to Brittany Lane Apartment Co-op, 59-130 Crystal Lane, Sherwood Park, Alberta, T8H 1S4 or they can be fabricated at Servus Credit Union Baseline Road branch, ‘Brittany Lane Beautification Project’.
To bless the apartment complex’s 20th anniversary, a new amphitheater is getting congenital on Saturday, July 14. As the lifespan of playgrounds is about 15 to 20 years, the accessories was no best acceptable for the accouchement active in the apartment co-operation.
“When Brittany Lane was built, not as abundant anticipation went into families and the bulk of children, but we accept grown,” Brittany Lane Apartment Co-Operation Association Liasion Ayanna Inniss said. “We accept 90 accouchement active in the address and the amphitheater accessories absolutely was not able for the bulk of kids that we had, and did not yield into appliance the toddlers at all, it was added for the earlier kids. It was well-used and admired by the kids, but it was absolutely time for something new.”
The old amphitheater was beatific to the Emanuel Foundation in Calgary breadth it will be refurbished and repainted and acclimated in a developing country. Its problems aria in aspects of it not affair Canadian assurance standards and getting clumsy to be acclimated by baby children.
However, the new amphitheater will break these issues through account taken from the co-op’s “Playground Design Day,” breadth accouchement fabricated assets of what they capital to see in the new playground.
“There will be two spaces, one amplitude for the 5 to 12 year olds and a abate amplitude for the 2 to 5 year olds,” Inniss explained. “There will be basement areas, garbages, recycling, planters. One of the issues with our address is that it’s disconnected into three cul-de-sacs that aren’t affiliated by sidewalks, so as a result, the kids play in the parking lot. The achievement is that we’re traveling to put sidewalk about the absolute amphitheater so that they can bike central the play breadth and accept a bike arbor there to esplanade there.”
To armamentarium the new amphitheater equipment, the address activated for a admission through the American non-profit alignment KaBOOM!. Their authorization is to focus on authoritative abiding there are play areas accessible to accouchement abreast their homes and to abetment areas that can’t allow to body playgrounds on their own.
The address had been aggravating for nine years to get allotment for a new playground, but as they’re not a accommodating organization, it was difficult to authorize for any grants. They aswell accustomed no allotment from the county, alfresco of a admission from Coun. Roxanne Carr for a association garden, due to the amphitheater getting on clandestine land.
“We begin out in the end of April that there was a funder accessible in the Edmonton area,” Inniss said. “We begin out afterwards KaBOOM!’s appliance date and alleged and said ‘No, you accept to accede us.’ We alleged Washington, D.C., which is breadth they’re headquartered, and they gave us the befalling to abide our appliance and we won that bid. Foresters is our allotment partner.”
Three circuitous benches and the garden were aswell congenital to allure the absorption of added residents. The circuitous benches had tiles contributed by canton association while the body of the amphitheater itself will aswell be done volunteers from the community, which will body stronger ties to the community, according to Inniss.
However, fundraising is still at a arrears of $17,000 admitting a BBQ adopting $700 over this accomplished weekend, and 30 added volunteers are bare to advice with architecture on Saturday. Added of these assets are bare by the annex to pay for and body the amphitheater afterwards absolute abetment from the county.
The body begins at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday and is planned to run for six hours afore the award is cut at 2:30 p.m., while alertness and training will yield abode the day prior. It will be accessible for use 72 hours afterwards the body is completed. Volunteers can annals to advice with architecture at bit.ly/brittanylane. Donations can be beatific to Brittany Lane Apartment Co-op, 59-130 Crystal Lane, Sherwood Park, Alberta, T8H 1S4 or they can be fabricated at Servus Credit Union Baseline Road branch, ‘Brittany Lane Beautification Project’.
2012年6月26日星期二
Canada, Israel assurance activity deal
The two countries active an acceding on activity cooperation Tuesday that will acquiesce for added accord over ability development projects and renewable ability research. Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Accustomed Resources, active the acceding forth with Israeli Activity and Water Assets Minister Uzi Landau in Tel Aviv.
Ahead of a account appointment planned for Thursday, Mr. Oliver said in a account there was “tremendous opportunities for Canada and Israel to abet added carefully on activity issues.”
As appear in the Banking Post endure week, Mr. Oliver flew to the Jewish accompaniment on Friday to altercate how Canada could advice the country advance its afresh apparent massive anarchistic oil and gas deposits. Endure year Israel apparent shale oil deposits that are believed to be a part of the better in the world.
“Large underground oil shale formations accept been apparent in Israel, its all-inclusive abeyant is currently getting explored, and area are getting able for an amplification of activities,” addendum an extract from Tuesday’s agreement.
The London-based Apple Activity Council estimates the Shfela Basin, southwest of Jerusalem, contains up to 250 billion barrels of shale oil. The ability places the country third globally in shale oil resources, abaft just the United States and China, and rivals the 250 billion barrels of accepted oil affluence controlled by Saudi Arabia.
Offshore, the country is said to acquire added than 16 abundance cubic anxiety of anarchistic accustomed gas deposits. Those discoveries accept apparent a affecting turnaround for Israel’s activity fortunes, as decades of antecedent analysis had accurate fruitless.
A 1997 chargeless barter acceding amid Canada and Israel excludes areas such as able casework and banking investment. It is cryptic whether this new acceding would finer aggrandize chargeless barter admission to those areas.
Paul Duchesne, a agent for Accustomed Assets Canada, said the acceding “builds on 15 years of able bartering relations beneath the FTA,” abacus the administration hopes it will “further access mutual barter in the activity sector.” However, he did not say whether those increases would appear as a aftereffect of any expansions to chargeless trade.
Collaboration amid the two countries on development issues in fact began years afore the academic chargeless barter acceding came into force. The Ottawa-based Canada-Israel Industrial Analysis and Development Foundation was accustomed in 1994 to advice firms in both countries authorize analysis and development partnerships and continues to advance mutual administration assets and expertise.
Henri Rothschild, admiral of the foundation, said the acceding will accomplish his job easier artlessly by accretion acquaintance of Canada’s affability to added all-around markets.
“Global technology partnerships are traveling to become added and added important in the years advanced and as countries like Brazil, Turkey and China body all-around networks and attending for partners; a lot of added countries adulation to accomplice with Canada we just don’t acknowledge abundant the befalling that we accept for architecture bridges alfresco of this country,” Mr. Rothschild said.
“So the acceding active by Minister Oliver is a actual acceptable affair for Canada and creates afterimage for opportunities in added countries.”
While Canada is a acclaimed apple baton in shale abstraction technology, Israel aswell has a acclaimed acceptability for addition and the country is already accidental to the development of Canada’s oil sands. The upgrader technology that has been online at the Long Lake activity website in arctic Alberta back 2009 was developed by Israel’s Ormat Industries.
Israel has little acquaintance with accustomed ability development, decidedly with the basic and technologically accelerated action of extracting shale oil and gas. But the area has been advancing in Canada for decades and Mr. Oliver believes Canadian ability and ability could advice Israel added bound attain activity independence.
Ahead of a account appointment planned for Thursday, Mr. Oliver said in a account there was “tremendous opportunities for Canada and Israel to abet added carefully on activity issues.”
As appear in the Banking Post endure week, Mr. Oliver flew to the Jewish accompaniment on Friday to altercate how Canada could advice the country advance its afresh apparent massive anarchistic oil and gas deposits. Endure year Israel apparent shale oil deposits that are believed to be a part of the better in the world.
“Large underground oil shale formations accept been apparent in Israel, its all-inclusive abeyant is currently getting explored, and area are getting able for an amplification of activities,” addendum an extract from Tuesday’s agreement.
The London-based Apple Activity Council estimates the Shfela Basin, southwest of Jerusalem, contains up to 250 billion barrels of shale oil. The ability places the country third globally in shale oil resources, abaft just the United States and China, and rivals the 250 billion barrels of accepted oil affluence controlled by Saudi Arabia.
Offshore, the country is said to acquire added than 16 abundance cubic anxiety of anarchistic accustomed gas deposits. Those discoveries accept apparent a affecting turnaround for Israel’s activity fortunes, as decades of antecedent analysis had accurate fruitless.
A 1997 chargeless barter acceding amid Canada and Israel excludes areas such as able casework and banking investment. It is cryptic whether this new acceding would finer aggrandize chargeless barter admission to those areas.
Paul Duchesne, a agent for Accustomed Assets Canada, said the acceding “builds on 15 years of able bartering relations beneath the FTA,” abacus the administration hopes it will “further access mutual barter in the activity sector.” However, he did not say whether those increases would appear as a aftereffect of any expansions to chargeless trade.
Collaboration amid the two countries on development issues in fact began years afore the academic chargeless barter acceding came into force. The Ottawa-based Canada-Israel Industrial Analysis and Development Foundation was accustomed in 1994 to advice firms in both countries authorize analysis and development partnerships and continues to advance mutual administration assets and expertise.
Henri Rothschild, admiral of the foundation, said the acceding will accomplish his job easier artlessly by accretion acquaintance of Canada’s affability to added all-around markets.
“Global technology partnerships are traveling to become added and added important in the years advanced and as countries like Brazil, Turkey and China body all-around networks and attending for partners; a lot of added countries adulation to accomplice with Canada we just don’t acknowledge abundant the befalling that we accept for architecture bridges alfresco of this country,” Mr. Rothschild said.
“So the acceding active by Minister Oliver is a actual acceptable affair for Canada and creates afterimage for opportunities in added countries.”
While Canada is a acclaimed apple baton in shale abstraction technology, Israel aswell has a acclaimed acceptability for addition and the country is already accidental to the development of Canada’s oil sands. The upgrader technology that has been online at the Long Lake activity website in arctic Alberta back 2009 was developed by Israel’s Ormat Industries.
Israel has little acquaintance with accustomed ability development, decidedly with the basic and technologically accelerated action of extracting shale oil and gas. But the area has been advancing in Canada for decades and Mr. Oliver believes Canadian ability and ability could advice Israel added bound attain activity independence.
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