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Teach For America Spinoff Helps Alumni Gain Influence
A spinoff of the controversial Teach For America teacher-placement program has expanded rapidly in recent months, pursuing a goal both specific and dizzyingly broad: helping TFA's 32,000 alumni rise to civic-leadership roles.
Leadership for Educational Equity has grown from just a handful of staff members a few years ago to nearly 60 today. The Washington-based group, known as LEE, now boasts a $3.9 million annual budget. In 2011, it launched a series of national workshops for TFA alumni eyeing careers in policy and advocacy, and in 2013 expanded it to include community organizing.
The ambitions of LEE are bolder, though, than to serve as a development center of sorts for those alumni: The group also puts campaign muscle behind members who decide to seek elected office.
TFA founder Wendy Kopp "was prescient to say that if you're going to change education, you've got to change the politics of education and change people in leadership," said Patrick McGuinn, an assistant professor of public policy and education at Drew University, in Madison, N.J., who has studied new types of advocacy in K-12 education.
How successful LEE's bid to that end will be remains to be seen, especially given what critics and supporters alike say is a relatively vague mission. Persistent suspicions of a pro-charter school, anti-union bias that have dogged its parent organization have also spilled over to LEE's own work.
"There is skepticism about why they are so private," said Arnold F. Fege, a former director of public engagement and advocacy for the Public Education Network, which represented a coalition of community education funds before shutting down in 2012. "What are they advocating for?"
Offering Pathways
Spun off from Teach For America in 2007, LEE was designed to be more purposeful about developing TFA alumni's leadership goals beyond the classroom or the principal's office.
"The more time I spent talking with Wendy Kopp, I became convinced that [TFA's] leadership [development] wasn't as fully oriented towards advocacy and community organizing," said Michael Buman, a former partner at the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. who became the executive director of LEE in 2011. "I saw lots of amazing leaders who were passionate about change, but were civically disengaged."
Baltimore LEE member Jennifer Aguirre is a case in point. The Spanish teacher's quiet demeanor belies a core of hard determination that helped her become the first in her family to attend college, and once led her to raise $20,000 to pay for her students to visit Spain. (Leadership for Educational Equity essentially accepts as a member any current or former TFA participant, and it does not charge dues.)
Though deeply troubled by inequities in the Baltimore school system, Ms. Aguirre struggled to articulate her role in addressing them. She didn't want to go into school administration. She considered applying for a job with TFA providing professional development—a common steppingstone for corps members—but felt the program's teaching focus was too narrow.
LEE offered another leadership pathway. Through one of its fellowship programs, Ms. Aguirre won an internship at a Baltimore community-organizing group, The Intersection, itself run by a TFA alumnus. There, she says, she got a better understanding of what community members wanted to see from schools, such as stronger links to after-school jobs and programs for students.
That feedback has formed the basis of her subsequent ideas for a career path.
"It's a different set of skills [LEE] gives you—more policy-oriented," Ms. Aguirre said.
"You have people who know something's wrong," she said, "but they need to be given the resources needed and encouragement to step out of their comfort zone and try to tackle a huge problem."
Year Established 2007
Structure As a "social welfare" organization under section 501(c)4 of the tax code, Leadership for Educational Equity can engage in both educational and political activity.
Mission To propel Teach For America alumni who "share a commitment to ending the injustice of educational inequity" into leadership roles.
Membership Open to any Teach For America corps member or alumnus who requests it, and does not cost anything. In 2012, the organization had 19,000 members.
Personnel 57 employees as of 2012. The staff includes a former U.S. Department of Education acting assistant secretary and a former aide to U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., an ally of the Obama administration on K-12 policy.
Programming Most training is arranged by eight regional directors and responds to members' local needs. National workshops–which cover the basics of community organizing; policy and advocacy; and running for elected office–are more selective, typically reserved for members with a history of participation. The group also runs several fellowship programs, giving members the chance to intern with school boards, policy shops, communityorganizing groups, and campaigns.
Budget By 2012, its budget had grown to $3.9 million.
Elections In 2011, the organization spent $5,000 on small donations to five candidates' races. It supported about 60 candidates in 2012, spending a total of $40,000, and estimated spending $20,000 on 20 candidates in 2013.
Funding Sources Since its inception, about 70 percent of the organization's budget has come from Teach For America. In 2012, TFA funding made up 53 percent of revenue. That spending is restricted to educational activities, such as membership outreach and training. Other revenue comes from foundation grants and individual donations.
At a national organizing workshop in Chicago hosted by LEE this past summer, Ms. Aguirre and several colleagues took part in a role-playing exercise designed to highlight some of the obstacles to effective community organizing.
They had been variously assigned to be organizers who were pushing for the expansion of a pre-K program or to portray a board president, a superintendent, and a union leader who opposed it.
The exercise was surprisingly authentic, resulting in pale faces and sweaty palms. The district officials' excuses about costs, lack of research, and competing priorities came quickly and glibly. The community organizers, with little time to prepare, failed to mount an effective rebuttal.
"I think we share a commitment to helping kids. We should revisit this discussion," said the teacher playing the board president, smiling wanly. It was a polite dismissal that deflated almost every argument the organizers tried to advance.
"I was so mad," Ms. Aguirre confessed after the activity ended. "I wanted to throw a chair."
And that's the point, explained LEE's vice president of organizing and advocacy, Joy Silvern. Organizing, she said, is about more than having a good idea. It's about knowing how to pull the levers of power: by having strength in numbers at a board meeting, by having a clear, consistent "ask," and by being prepared to respond to any and all objections.
Political Wing
Trainings such as the Chicago workshop are largely paid for by Teach For America, whose donations make up a majority of LEE's budget. The rest comes from private foundations and individual donors LEE doesn't disclose, and help to supports another prong of the organization's work: political activity.
Electoral work amounts to less than a third of LEE's budget, its officials say, but it has nevertheless fueled popular accounts of the organization, mostly critical. Such accounts accuse the group of supporting candidates who espouse a particular "corporate" brand of education policy focused on expanding charter schools and test-based accountability.
Critics point to prominent TFA alumni and LEE members, such as Bill Ferguson, a state senator in Maryland, who sponsored legislation that included an iteration of the "parent trigger." That policy permits parents to turn over the management of schools to outside operators.
LEE officials contest such depictions.
"We do not exist to propagate policy," said Mr. Buman.
The group's election-related support generally takes the form of in-kind contributions, such as candidate coaching or help in reviewing campaign materials.
Allison Serafin, one of two LEE-backed candidates who won a seat in Nevada's 2012 state school board race, said the organization's director of elected leadership, Mallory Hutchison, helped her avoid jargon in framing her campaign priorities. Among them: having all high school seniors to take a college-entrance exam so they have a credential with some currency after graduation.
"I tend to get really wonky," Ms. Serafin said. "Mallory was helpful in saying: 'What is the headline? What is going to matter to parents? Use language that someone can talk about at the dinner table; do not drop acronyms.' "
Electing Candidates
Ms. Serafin received assistance from LEE valued at $10,646, according to campaign-finance records. (The other LEE-supported candidate in the race, Alexis Gonzales-Black, received assistance valued at $9,114.)
But at no time did the organization try to steer Ms. Serafin in certain policy directions, she said.
To an extent, her candidacy remains something of an outlier. A majority of LEE-backed candidates have run for local, rather than state, offices and have received far smaller levels of support. They have won seats on neighborhood councils in Los Angeles and the District of Columbia, school-based councils in Chicago, and school board positions in several cities.
Jason Esteves, an Atlanta lawyer and a TFA alumnus, was one of four LEE-supported candidates to win a seat on that city's school board in the fall elections. He, too, said that LEE never vetted his policy positions. But he said that critics sought to use his affiliation with TFA, and by association LEE, as a wedge issue.
"There was a common thread of accusations of a privatization movement, which really annoyed me, because I emphasized that I believe that our public school system can thrive," Mr. Esteves said. "We can focus on our traditional schools and improve them."
LEE support for the Atlanta candidates totaled some $6,500 in in-kind contributions, records show.
A 'Strong Network'
The connection to TFA also appears to have given LEE-backed candidates access to an informal network that can fuel spending. Campaign-finance records from the Nevada state board races, for instance, turn up some of the same donors who have contributed to other endeavors affiliated with so-called "reform" priorities, including charter school expansion and teacher evaluations linked to student test scores.
Those contributors include Alan Fournier, who helps finance the New Jersey chapter of StudentsFirst, the advocacy group founded by former District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, and Charles Ledley, a donor to Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee.
"There's a strong network of people who are supportive of TFA alums, regardless of what their policy or visions are for the respective school systems," Mr. Esteves said.
In essence, the issue boils down to one of self-selection: Even if LEE itself is politically neutral, it supports candidates who by definition must take policy stands. And those who reach out for its help may well favor a certain approach after being immersed in TFA's philosophy, Mr. McGuinn of Drew University said.
"At some point, this spinoff organization and TFA have to decide, 'Well, are we just about nurturing TFA leaders whatever their policy agenda is—or are we going to only support those who embrace the principles we do?' " he said.
LEE's proponents, meanwhile, wonder whether the group's electoral work could jeopardize the bipartisan support that its parent organization has enjoyed on Capitol Hill and in statehouses.
"Teach For America alums lean Democratic, ... so it becomes a political problem," said Andrew J. Rotherham, an education consultant at Bellwether Education Partners and a policy analyst who served as an education aide in the Clinton administration.
"I think the theory of leadership development is really smart, and calibrated to have a lot of impact," he said, "but all anyone talks about is the electoral part."
It's partly a testament to the breadth of LEE's work that such debates seem irrelevant to many of the Baltimore teachers who participated in the organizing workshop in Chicago last summer.Reginald Benbow, a Baltimore teacher, has attended LEE's organizing workshop and another LEE program that helps develop African-American elected leaders.
"I tend to think LEE tries hard to be nonpartisan," he said. "A lot of the people who have presented have been elected Democrats or in the school reform movement, but the overall message has been very general and open."
Mr. Benbow, now in his third year of teaching, is one of the LEE members helping push forward the Baltimore chapter's organizing work. In the six months since the Chicago workshop, he and colleagues have hosted 13 house meetings—an organizing tool designed to gather information from local constituents and hone an agenda for change.
Action Plans
A consensus on pushing for more community schools in Baltimore has emerged from the meetings. Such schools knit together health and support services for students alongside academics, and there's an opening for them now as Baltimore prepares to spend $1 billion in bond revenue to renovate schools.
"My school was built in 1918, we're having these facility problems," Mr. Benbow said—including a flood and two fires last week —"so, I had a house meeting for teachers at my school. ... Basically, people wanted to see lots of technology in the new building, they wanted it to have space to integrate the community, to still have a green space, because it is a green school."
Members' next step is to conduct research on community schools, and to develop an action plan to promote the idea to the district and other city offices, said Taylor Stewart, the LEE regional organizing director for Baltimore.
"We've seen [the teachers] really understand the process that organizing is founded in relationships.It can be slower work, but they are seeing that what they want to do is possible," she said.
As for Ms. Aguirre, who leaves teaching this year, she's leaning towards taking a position in immigration policy. But she doesn't rule out the possibility of one day running for public office.
"I've always told myself that seeing the supports I would have and the insights I've gained about the education system, I would love to go back to Houston and run for city council or state senator," she said. "I would love to represent the Latino community in that position."
If so, she's certain to have LEE backing her.
Vol. 33, Issue 17, Pages 1, 10-12Published in Print: January 15, 2014, as TFA Alumni Groomed for Leadership Roles
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We're happy to announce the addition of Drew Fuller to the IS eyewear family. Born in Aspen Colorado, Drew now lives in Salt Lake City
where he spends his free shred time tearing up Park City. Drew has an action packed winter ahead of him full of contests, photo shoots
and overall extreme boarding. He's filming with Mack Dawg this season so expect to see big things from Drew in the near future.
Welcome to the team!
Drew joins heavy hitters Devun Walsh, Mikey Leblanc, Wille Yli-Luoma, Chris Dufficy, Kale Stephens and Tadashi Fuse on the IS Eyewear snow team!
Check out the link below for some shots of Drew from a recent Rossi slash TWS trip to Cooke City, Montana.

subset: commoncrawl


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| 17.9°C Dublin
BARCELONA captain Carles Puyol is still hoping to reach 100 appearances for Spain despite acknowledging he is almost certain to miss this summer's European Championships due to a knee problem.
Barca announced yesterday that Puyol will undergo an arthroscopy on May 12 after feeling discomfort in his right knee following Saturday's 4-0 defeat of Espanyol and that is set to sideline the centre-back for around six weeks.
That means the 34-year-old is definitely out of Barca's final Primera Division game at Real Betis at the weekend and he will also miss coach Pep Guardiola's last game in charge - the Copa del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao on May 25.
His participation at Euro 2012 is also extremely doubtful with Spain opening their campaign against Italy on June 10 before going on to play the Republic of Ireland and Croatia in Group C.
However, while he admits it is highly unlikely he will be going to the Euros, Puyol, who has earned 99 caps for Spain and helped his country win Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup, is not ready to hang up his international boots just yet.
He said: "My plan right now is only to undergo the operation and recover as soon as possible. I'm sure that things are going to turn out well and very soon I will be back playing again.
"I don't know if it was my last European Championship but I do know that I want to retire on the pitch and not on the operating table.
"I'm only thinking about recovering and returning to 100%. If then I can return to play with the national team I would love to reach that number (100 caps)."
Asked about the possibility of him going to Ukraine and Poland as part of Vicente Del Bosque's squad this summer, Puyol added: "I would love to but it looks very difficult. I have to wait and see what the doctors find, but I think that it's impossible.
"There will be players in better condition than me to play.
"Those who are best are the ones who have to go. It would be unfair on the other players. In Spain there are good centre-backs and we don't have to worry about anything."
On the prospect of missing both the Copa del Rey final and Euro 2012, Puyol said: "It's frustrating to miss these two competitions. The cup final is the nicest game of the year because of the atmosphere.
"If this had happened when I was younger it would've been worse but I see things in a different way now I'm 34. I hope to help from off the pitch and enjoy this final."
Del Bosque will announce his provisional squad for Euro 2012 on May 15 which will then be whittled down when the final 23-man party is confirmed on May 27.


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Event Registration
Find Your Village in Portland, ME - March 24, 2018
Get ready to Find Your Village with January Harshe in Maine!
This is will be an empowering day where we will come together for inspiration, validation, and support. Our hope is that you leave feeling loved and a strong sense of solidarity with one another.
Registration will open at 9:30am and we will begin at 10am (10:15am Standard Momma Time). This is when you will receive a gift bag with some of January's favorite items!
January Harshe, founder of Birth Without Fear and Take Back Postpartum, will speak about her journey through pregnancy, six unique births, and the beautiful chaos of postpartum and motherhood. She will also speak about body positivity and self care.
Our Harmony Circles have been life changing, validating, and unifying experience for all who have attended our past events. This is where we will come together with a warm cup of herbal tea or coffee and share, listen, and support. This is how wisdom is passed on and healing happens.
*Lap children are more than welcome to this event.
**Pictures may be taken, but video recording will not be allowed.
***Schedule subject to change.
****All ticket sales are final. No refunds. Transfers allowed up to 30 days prior to the event.


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Arsene Wenger backs Nicklas Bendtner to win over Arsenal fans
Arsene Wenger "believes" in Nicklas Bendtner and wants the striker to win over the Arsenal fans with his performances.
Last Updated: 25/09/13 7:13pm
Bendtner is set to start Wednesday night's Capital One Cup tie at West Brom and Wenger believes he will get a warm welcome from the travelling fans if he proves he can still cut it at the top level.
If the Dane, who has spent three loan spells away from the club, plays against Albion, it will be his first start for the Gunners since March 5, 2011.
"Fans forgive you everything as long as you produce the performances on the football pitch," Wenger said.
"That's what people want. I think our fans have a positive attitude towards Bendtner and they will be behind him.
"Only you can create that with your performances."
Good reaction
After loaning Bendtner to Birmingham, Sunderland and then Juventus, Wenger tried to sell the Denmark international to Crystal Palace in the transfer window, only for the deal to fall through.
But rather than sulk, Bendtner has reacted well, according to Wenger.
"He has responded with a good attitude in training and with good, hard work," the Frenchman said.
"He had nearly gone somewhere else and in the end he stayed because it didn't work out and we needed him here.
"Now he can convince everybody. We are open minded, we believe in his qualities.
"I personally believe in his qualities. It's just down to attitude and fighting spirit.
"When he has that, Nicklas can be an unstoppable striker. He gets his chance. Our job is about that. Take your chance."


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We previously announced that action star Jason Statham (The Transporter) would be starring in Heat, and it looks like director Simon West (Con Air) is also on board. Around the time of Statham's attachment, Brian De Palma (Scarface) was expected to direct, but now the remake looks to pair West and Statham once again; the director/actor duo have previously worked on The Mechanic and The Expendables 2. When next they meet, it will be for Heat, a remake of the 1986 film starring Burt Reynolds as a bodyguard taking odd jobs to support his gambling addiction in Vegas. Hit the jump to see how West and Statham plan on putting a modern spin on the film.
Statham will step into the shoes of Reynolds by taking the starring role in Heat, an adaptation of the William Goldman novel (Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the 1986 film). The re-teaming of West and Statham isn't the only reunion as Cory Yuen, who directed The Transporter, will join Heat as the fight choreographer and action director. Here's the synopsis from the modernized version of Heat, which will start production in February:
This tightly-wound action-thriller, tells the story of Nick Escalante (Statham) whose compulsive gambling has led him to the streets of Vegas, where he takes odd jobs providing "security" to support his addiction. His professional and personal lives collide when his friend is brutally beaten forcing him to take on the mob.
West is currently in pre-production on two projects: Dust and Glory, a 1950s adventure romance centering on car races that took place on Australia's toughest terrain, and Thunder Run, a computer-generated 3D action thriller that stars Gerard Butler, Matthew McConaughey and Sam Worthington, and tells of the capture of the Iraqi capital by American forces at the onset of the Iraq War in April of 2003.


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It has been a long wait for a follow up to 2005's Kosi Comes Around, Stefan Kozella's first proper release in album format. Touted as his Sgt. Pepper's, Amygdala is, as you would expect after eight years, an entirely different creature from its predecessor. Whereas Kosi Comes Around's 'Don't Feed the Cat' and 'Brutalga Square' resided in the realm of dancefloor-threatening techno, Amygdala has left the club, queued for a minicab, piled indoors, switched on the mood lighting and begun the slow but steady spiral into the morning after the night before.
The album begins with the first of eight collaborations, 'Track ID Anyone?' featuring Caribou, announces its arrival with two voices declaring "the pills should be kicking in right about now" before an authoritative female voice declares "we need to eat, we need to sleep and we NEED music", at which point the unmistakable touch of Dan Snaith emerges amidst a droney melody. By the time 'Nices Wolkchen' featuring Apparat kicks in, the upbeat pop of the previous track fades into almost threatening melancholy. With vocals provided by such well-known and distinctive contributors, Amygdala begins with a great deal of familiarity and it is almost without noticing that you are drawn into the album proper with 'Royal Asscher Cut'.
This third track perfectly demonstrates the traits in which the album as a whole holds in abundance, in the main its ability to absorb and drift over you completely. Much of Amygdala seems to exist just out of focus - as soon as you try to concentrate on a track your mind slips and it is not until said track ends that you find it has been wandering. It possesses the idiosyncrasy which comes hand in hand with anything Koze produces, and with it the ability to shape-shift and be two things at once. The first of Matthew Dear's contributions, 'Magical Boy', is woozy, funky and mechanically driven, moving your body whilst your head nods off. Dear's vocals in both songs mirror the pervading mood and its after-party feel, being both introspective and in typical Koze fashion, rather silly. In 'Magical Boy' he sings "when I'm climbing lemon trees of feeling/time on my hands when I'm running out of faith/there's a fire when I am falling out of place/years of soaring wisdom slap me in the face", whilst in 'My Plans' he asks "why do my plans always change/and why does this make me laugh/when I notice the world is falling apart/I will run a bath".
Whilst the overall feel of the records remains throughout, the collage of genres constantly changes, as if different friends keep taking control of the stereo, flitting back between Kozella's present and his past. 'My Plans' and Kings of Convenience cover 'Homesick' bear the hip hop tinge of Koze's early years, with the former in particular covered by the ghostly finger-prints of J Dilla, whilst 'Marilyn Whirlwind' looks back more recently to Kose Comes Around with a diaphragm-busting lashing of bass. 'Ich Schrieb' Dir Ein Buch 2013', the second to last track meanwhile signals the arrival of sunrise, wedding vocals from Hildegard Knef's 1975 track of the same name with a House beat and a massively distorted 'Aint no Mountain High Enough'.
Amygdala is a thoroughly immersive album, possessing so many layers that it seems to change upon each listen. It is perhaps closer to a Back to Mine imprint than a Sgt. Peppers, but goes further as it is not only the perfect soundtrack to a post-club morning, but almost is one in itself.
7Alex Baker's Score


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DIYStyle Happy New Year!
Our TGIF Gifts contest has come to an end, and so has 2008. It has been an incredible year for the Creative Chicks of DIYStyle (and our resident male, Matt our video producer). We want to wish all of our DIYStyle followers Happy Holidays and especially a creative and style filled Happy New Year.
And it's time to announce our final winner in the TGIF Gifts contest. The lucky winner is……..Helen! Thanks for your comment about how you started sewing……..sounds like many of us learned to sew making doll and Barbie clothes. Your Sulky package will be sent soon. A big thank you to all who entered. We loved reading your posts, and will definitely use your ideas in planning our shows for 2009.
We have some new things to reveal in 2009 at DIYStyle, and to keep on top of our latest antics, you can subscribe to the RSS feeds for both the vodcasts and blogs. And……..there are several new DIYStyle patterns from McCall's coming in the New Year too………we'll give you the scoop on that very soon (a new design goes on sale in January……whoo hoo)!


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Do you feel as though you have searched high and low for help but find no answers? Have you gone from chiropractor, to MD and to specialists with no results? We specialize in difficult cases and want to meet you. You will understand your roadmap to wellness and be a co-partner in health. Imagine the synergy of caring and intelligent care with your own desire to get well. Results you can feel and measure.
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BREAKING NEWS: Sports Poster Warehouse has put two more great posters on sale!
$5 or 33% off of the NFL STAR POWER Football Superstars Poster.
And $10 or 50% off of NFL Football 75th Anniversary Commemorative Poster Art Print (1920-1994).
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Playing with Fire
Movie Details
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Videos & Photos
Movie Info & Cast
- John Cena
- Keegan-Michael Key
- John Leguizamo
- Tyler Mane
- Brianna Hildebrand
- Christian Convery
- Finley Rose Slater
- Judy Greer
- Dennis Haysbert
- Daniel Cudmore
Did You Know?
- Nickelodeon Movies' third and last film of 2019, after Wonder Park (2019) and Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019).
- Jake Carson: To the rambunctious kids running around inside the fire station, "This is not a playground!"
Atom User Reviews
Soooo fun. Great for the whole family. My 8 year old boy and 15 year old daughter loved it. I laughed out loud mybe 10 times and got watery eyes several times. A postive loving ending.
Iove is at great
Key, Leguizamo, Greer, and Haysbert actually look like their having a good time and investing their acting talent in this silly story without flinching. No one's phoning it in. John Cena is just a little too cartoony in his straight-laced character and somehow manages to make "normal" feel over-the-top.
Playing With Fire strikes strictly predictably beats. Key and Leguizamo, comic talents who are wildly overqualified for this sort of thing, work hard, very hard, to infuse the tired material with laughs. But they're mostly hamstrung by their one-note characters
The film is bland and predictable, underestimates kids' abilities to understand story and humor, and relies way too much on sight gags that are clichéd and overdone.


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Parents seething over "requirement" that children get a flu shot in order to attend preschools and day-care centers
Steve Watson
Friday, Oct 17, 2008
Hundreds of concerned parents participated in demonstrations outside the New Jersey Statehouse yesterday in protest of the State's decision to mandate flu vaccinations for young children.
Protesters also turned out to support a bill that would allow for conscientious objections to forced vaccinations, arguing that medication should be the choice of the parent not the government.
New Jersey's health department has indicated that it is strongly opposed to such legislation, stating "Broad exemptions to mandatory vaccination weaken the entire compliance and enforcement structure".
New Jersey's policy was approved last December by the state's Public Health Council and is taking effect this fall, reports the Daily Texan.
Children from 6 months to 5 years old who attend a child-care center or preschool have until Dec. 31 to receive the flu vaccine, along with a pneumococcal vaccine.
Watch a CBS short on the protests:
Ralph Fucetola JD, trustee of the Natural Solutions Foundation, a non governmental educational body, insisted that there is a universal right to vaccine exemptions.
"It is so important to remember that this harm that is caused by vaccines is a foreseeable harm. The insurance industry foresees the harm, and will not insure the pharmaceutical industry against this harm. Yet we as parents as being forced to give these dangerous substances to children in exchange for alleged free public education. This is simply wrong." Fucetola said.
Watch Fucetola's speech:
Ralph Fucetola also referred to a case we reported on in Prince George's County, Maryland, last November, where parents of more than 1600 children were told they could be put in jail for failing to get their kids vaccinated. At the time a local Fox News affiliate reported, "A new law was passed last year requiring children from 5th through to 10th grade to have the vaccine," which was a total lie.
The non-complying parents were not charged not under vaccination laws (because there aren't any) but under truancy, neglect or child in need of supervision laws, which state that the parent is culpable after 30 days of a child's unexplained absence from school.
The school itself triggered the truancy violation by unfairly kicking the kids out of school, and failing to inform parents about vaccine waiver forms. A state prosecutor involved in the case then admitted that there is no law that mandates any vaccine.
This trick will continue to hoodwink Americans into taking all manner of dangerous and untested vaccines, the number of which rises every year, until they realize that there is no law that forces them to take any vaccine.
(Article continues below)
More recently, large Pharmaceutical companies, unable to sell the "benefits" of vaccinations to make enough profit out of them, have increasingly turned to state legislatures and attempted to pay off Governors and other officials to curry favor and force young children to take vaccines such as the flu shot and the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
However, pharmaceutical giants have faced a fierce backlash from concerned parents and religious organizations.
We previously exposed Merck's role in one such crony deal with Texas Governor Rick Perry which saw a resulting media campaign fool parents into thinking that the HPV vaccine had been made compulsory by law for all young girls.
Without consulting and doctors, scientists or medical experts, Perry, who has various close ties to Merck, issued an executive order requiring girls to be vaccinated against HPV. Several Texas lawmakers subsequently petitioned for a reversal of the decision without success.
Almost immediately following Perry's announcement, newspapers and TV stations began to report that it was "the law" that parents had to have their child vaccinated. This reflects a national and international hoax that is repeatedly being perpetrated shortly before school terms begin each year.
There is no law in America, aside from those applying to medical workers, that says any citizen or their children have to take any vaccine whatsoever, no matter what any executive order, requirement, mandate or policy dictates.
As in the case of all other vaccines, Perry's executive order merely stated that the vaccine is "recommended," yet the mass media drumbeat constantly conditions people to believe that if they don't take their shots they will be kicked out of school, arrested and thrown in jail.
Until this is drilled home with parents we will also keep seeing relatively unchallenged moves to pass legislation to make mandatory all vaccines recommended by the CDC for all children, including infants and toddlers.
This article was posted: Friday, October 17, 2008 at 12:27 pm


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Firefox Accounts coming to the Marketplace
This month we'll be turning on Firefox Accounts integration on the Marketplace and turning off support for Persona.
All Firefox Marketplace users have to do is use the same email address to create an account on Firefox Accounts. On the backend, we'll match up the account by email and everything will be the same.
If you are on Android, Desktop or Firefox OS 1.1 - 1.4 device you'll see the web based flow, which looks something like below:
If you are on Firefox OS 2.1 or greater (coming at the end of the year), you'll see the "native" phone flow.
The Firefox Accounts work has probably been one of the most challenging projects I've managed in my short time managing projects Mozilla for a few reasons:
- the Marketplace supports every version of Firefox OS from 1.1 up to 2.2 and beyond
- the Marketplace is available as packaged iframe app, a packaged app and a website
- the Marketplace has payments which are in a Trusted UI which is different and has to support all the above
- testing packaged apps is really hard and painful due to signing certificates (really, its horrible)
- the number of Firefox OS phones bricked this week in testing this is around 6 and counting
- we've got a hard deadline to try and get it in for Firefox OS 2.1
You take all this together and the two things I've learned these last weeks:
- there are some really awesome people at Mozilla working hard on this
- we've got to make this easier somehow, if its hard for us and this burden is slowing all development down
The bug for Firefox Accounts integration is 1007956 if you want follow along. In the meantime you should go sign up for a Firefox Account, you can use it for Firefox Sync, soon the Marketplace and more after that.


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Madden NFL 19
Available now
What's new with Madden NFL 19
Build an all-star roster with Madden NFL 19 Ultimate Team
Earn Coins: Win Head-to-Head matchups and complete Solo Events to purchase packs.
Acquire players: Who and what you pull from packs can improve your team.
Upgrade your team: Upgrade players on your MUT roster through Player Upgrades feature and applying training.GET MADDEN POINTS
Game details
Achieve your gridiron greatness in Madden NFL 19 with more precision and control to win in all the ways you play. Prove your on-field stick-skills with more control over every step, in game-changing moments through the introduction of Real Player Motion. Take control over how you build your dynasty powered by all-new strategic team building tools and the first ever custom draft class editor in Franchise. Dominate the competition with all new ways to build and progress your NFL stars from the past and present in Ultimate Team.
4K: 4K Ultra HD not available on the Xbox One or Xbox One S consoles.
HDR: HDR functionality available with supported games and TVs.
Xbox One X Enhanced: Enhanced features for Xbox One X subject to release of a content update. Games information at xbox.com/enhanced.
Additional information
- Publisher
- Electronic Arts
- Developer
- Tiburon
- Genre
- Sports & Recreation
- Platforms
- Xbox One
- Release date
- Hall of Fame Edition: 7 August 2018
- Standard Edition: 10 August 2018
Standard Edition
Madden NFL 19 gives you game-changing control on and off the field. Real Player Motion transforms the way you play Madden delivering you gameplay control with precision and intent. Create and share custom Draft Classes, design your game strategy, progress your players and execute your game plan with all new positional archetypes in Franchise. In Madden NFL 19 Ultimate Team, train your favourite players to fit your roster and lead your team to glory in all new ways to compete.
Hall of Fame Edition
Get the Madden NFL 19: Hall of Fame Edition today and achieve your gridiron greatness with:
- Your Choice of 1 of 5 Elite Hall of Fame Legends
- 7 Gold Team Fantasy Packs
- 1 Madden NFL 19 Cover Athlete Elite Player
- 1 Uniform pack: Madden Legends Blue & Madden Elite Red
- 1 Training Pack
Enjoy unlimited play of EA games on Xbox One*
Download and play 40+ EA games as much as you want by signing up for an EA Access membership. Plus enjoy exclusive trials of new EA games before they're released, and a 10% discount on EA digital purchases on Xbox One.
Just R 48,50 a month or R 299,00 a year. Cancel anytime.


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Due to current health and safety measures, all wineries are accepting visitors by appointment only
Plan a trip to PureCru Napa Valley on our interactive winery map:
Our downtown Napa tasting room boasts a fun casual atmosphere. We have a verity of tasting options including flights, private tastings, as well as wines by the glass or bottle.Music in Tasting Room: rotation selection
Wine clubs are a great way to stay connected to your favorite wineries.
To join the wine club, visit www.purecruwines.com or call 707-603-2943.
The offer listed below is valid for all Napa Valley residents age 21 and over.
2 for 1 tasting for Napa Valley residents (proof of residency required). 10% discount on all wine purchases.
Once a year the rarest new Napa Valley wines become available under one roof at Premiere Napa Valley. Wineries throughout the Napa Valley are given one task to participate: create a one-of-a-kind wine for this event to be purchased by one lucky bidder. This event is only open to select members of the wine trade and the successful bidder is the sole owner of this unique wine.
PureCru Napa Valley
Cases: 5
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2014
Release Date: July - 2018
Appellation: Napa Valley
To purchase this wine or check on availability contact:
The Metz Group
Dallas PA