text:
If you've ever looked at a package of hamburger meat and wondered what exactly "85 percent lean" means, you might get your answer the next time you go grocery shopping.
As of Thursday, grocery stores will be required to label all packaged major cuts of meat and poultry, as well as ground meats, with detailed nutrition information.
The new rule from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service requires that all the major meat cuts be labeled — either with stickers or posters — with their total calories, fat calories, saturated fat levels, protein, cholesterol, sodium and iron.
U.S. & World
And in addition to that "85 percent lean" label, every package will also state what percentage of the product is fat.
Small businesses that grind meat will be exempt from the new rule as long as they list lean and fat information on packages and don't make other nutritional claims.
"It is not that the labels are different, it's that you will be seeing them on products you haven't seen them on before," the USDA's undersecretary for food safety, Elisabeth Hagen, told WebMD.
"So now you can actually look and say, 'OK, if I choose the ground turkey over the ground beef, or the porterhouse steak instead of going with a pork chop or some lean chicken breast, what is that going to mean to me in terms of the choices I make today and the choices I make tomorrow?'

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Do all mothers do this, or just Southern ones? To me, having to declare my Christmas wishes in late summer has its firm place on the seasonal calendar of my childhood with the other mainstays of spring cleaning, a week in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, in the summer, purchasing my Halloween costume from Wal-mart, and eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. I'm not the early bird that my mother is, or my Mama was (I don't remember anything about how my Nana shopped, although Mama surely acquired the habit honestly), but since I make most of the presents that I give to friends and family, right now there's a batch of spearmint and rosemary cold-process soap curing in the basement that, if it turns out well, will be Christmas presents for some, and this weekend's tomato sauce that I make and can will, if it turns out well, be Christmas presents for some others, so I'm no day-before-Christmas do-er, either.
So here, mother, and everyone else in the world, are some things that my husband and my daughter would like for Christmas:
The girls and I have been playing around with our small second-hand set of soft pastels enough to know that my Matt, a wonderful artist and a man who never buys himself ANYTHING nice, would probably really like himself an excellent set of soft pastels of his own:
Willow, too, of course, loves her art, and is as creative and natural an artist as any child could be. I consider it one of the most important responsibilities of my parenting to provide her with as wide a variety of enriching experience as possible, and to give her as many artistic tools and media as I can. How awesome would it be to have a few sets of these blank nesting dolls realistically painted by my Matt, a few sets "abstractly" painted by myself, and a few sets for the girls to paint, not to mention a few sets to keep naked?
I don't know what it is so appealing about lots of tiny little things. I'd say that it's just a kid obsession, but well...you've seen for yourself my relationship with buttons. As math manipulatives at home or just for playing with--dinosaurs! Or ocean creatures! Or vehicles! Or fruit!
Star Wars plus delicious treats, two things of which Matt highly approves:
The reason that I can always tell you in a heartbeat what I or anybody else wants is through my etsy Favorites or my wists. I like to keep track of crafty stuff I find online that appeals to me somewhat as a wish list, but also quite largely as inspiration--it's like my own little digital sketchbook, or scrapbook, of stuff to modify or emulate or think about or inspire. My etsy pumpkinbear favorites have all my favorite stuff from other etsy sellers, and my pumpkinbear wists have all my favorites of everything else.
What's the link to your etsy favorites and your wists?


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It's the day before the Superbowl and I am ready for action! Like any self-respecting New England Patriots season ticket holder (17 years and counting!), I cannot justify rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers. So I am throwing all of my rooting interest to the Arizona Cardinals.
Here's to Arizona being crowned champions of the National Football League!
Final score:
Arizona Cardinals 27
Pittsburgh Steelers 20


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In the Limelight was on display in the Special Collections Department from April 13 through June 30th. Featured were works from CEMA's growing performing arts collections. This exhibit included original scripts, photographs, graphic art and collectibles autographed by the likes of Cesar Chavez, Luis Valdez, and Jane Fonda.
On exhibit were works from El Teatro Campesino, considered the most influential Latino theater company in the country. Founded by Luis Valdez, El Teatro Campensino's first stage was the flatbed of a truck used for the benefit of hardworking laborers in the farmlands of California. The display featured a German poster announcing the Teatro's La Carpa de los Rasquachis. Also included was José Montoya's silkscreen of Zoot Suit, the first play by a Chicano playwright performed on Broadway.
UCSB alumni and celebrated playwrights Frank Chin (1965) and Philip Kan Gotanda (1974) were also on display. Chin is founder of the Asian American Theater Workshop, and playwright for Chickencoop Chinaman and Year of the Dragon. Gotanda's Fish Head Soup and Dream of Kitamura were among the plays highlighted.
Genny Lim's Paper Angels tells of the hardship endured by Chinese immigrants during their confinement on Angel Island. Elizabeth Wong's first draft of The Laundry is a hilarious teleplay for a Seinfeld episode, while her play script China Doll depicts the tumultuous life of Anna May Wong, the first Asian American actress to reach iconoclastic status.
Dan Guerrero's Gaytino! is an autobiographical comedy that engages the audience through decades of Chicano history and the gay experience from a unique and personal perspective.
Also displayed were historical photographs used by Velina Hasu Houston for her play, Tea, a story about five Japanese war brides, each married to an American soldier of a different race.
Rounding out the exhibit was Sojourner Kinkaid Rolle's Ayo's Journey, a multidimensional theater performance about the transatlantic slave trade, based on a 12-poem cycle.


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Ignorance is not bliss!
let us know if you find broken links, out-of-date or incorrect material on this page…. thanks!
This section includes books and publications related to prison and police detention, general policing, calls for institutional reform, personal accounts and much more.
Current Listing:
Brotherhood of Corruption
(Juan Anronio Juarez)
In this controversial publication, a cop breaks the silence on police abuse, brutality and racial profiling.
Unlocking the Truth
(Helen Shaw & Deborah Coles)
Campaigning pressure group, INQUEST describes the experiences of families bereaved by deaths in custody,from the time of death to the conclusion of the investigation and inquest.
|Publication Summary
|Chained to the Prison Gates
|This report by Laura Topham is a comparative analysis of two modern penal reformers, Pauline Campbell and Violet Van der Elst. Topham uses both primary and secondary research to provide better awareness of two of the most dedicated penal reformers of modern times.
|Children Behind Bars
|Every day children exiled to prison are exposed to abusive and neglectful treatment, yet their plight is hidden. This passionately argued book presents the shocking truth about the lives and deaths of children in custody.
|Eddie's Country
|Eddie Murray died in suspicious circumstances in a police cell in Australia's town of Wee Waa in 1981. He was 21 years old. His parents, Arthur and Leila Murray, embarked on a search for truth and fought for over 20 years to have the death of their son properly investigated.
|Enemy Combatant
|An ordinary man has endured an extraordinary fate – imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit and whose precise nature has never been determined. As far as the US government was concerned, it was enough to label him an 'enemy combatant."
|Finding Freedom
|Incarcerated in San Quentin at the age of 19 for armed robbery, Jarvis Masters was accused four years later of participating in a conspiracy that resulted in the death of a prison guard. Masters' commitment to non-violence leads him more and more into the role of peacemaker as he tries to put compassion into action.
|Inquests: a practitioner's guide
|'This team of experienced inquest and inquiry lawyers have provided a manual which is comprehensive, informative, discursory and eminently readable. Recommend to all who work in coroner law or who have an interest in any aspect of coroner or inquiry work.
|Gladiator Games
|On the eve of his release from Feltham Young Offenders' Institution in March 2000, Zahid Mubarek, a young British Asian man was attacked by his cellmate. One week later he died from his injuries. Tanika Gupta has dramatised the story of how this nineteen year old man met his death and who was responsible for his being shut up in a cell with a dangerous violent and racist cellmate.
|Live from Death Row
|The essays that Mumia writes here offer the reader an insight in the criminal justice system that you could only see if you are inside it. When reading this essays,the reader gets the feeling of depression, isolation, sadness and of despair that any person on death row might be feeling.
|Lucasville: Untold Story of a Prison Uprising
|In telling the story of one of the longest prison uprisings in U.S. history, in which hundreds of inmates seized a major area of an Ohio correctional facility, this chronicle examines the causes of the disturbance, what happened during its 11-day duration.
|Once a Jolly Hangman
|Alan Shadrake's hard-hitting new book cuts through the façade of official silence to reveal disturbing truths about Singapore's use of the death penalty. From in-depth interviews to meticulously researched accounts of numerous high profile cases.
|Police Brutality – An Anthology
|A collection of thirteen essays from a variety of sources examines one of America's most serious domestic problems, investigates its historical and sociological roots, and grapples for solutions.
|Policing Citizens
|The simple answer to the question, "what is policing?" is that policing is what officers do! Or is it? Waddington unravel the psyche of police men and women.
|Rubin Carter and the American Justice System
|This book is the most in-depth examination at the Carter case. Dr. Wice had unprecedented access to original court transcripts and interviewed everyone involved in the courtroom proceedings, including prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys and judges. A case as divisive as this naturally produces two distinct, mutually-exclusive groups.
|Stolen Time (Sunny Jacobs)
|Sunny spent 5 years in solitary confinement on Death Row before her sentence was eventually reduced to life imprisonment. After seventeen years of legal wrangling her sentences were quashed and she was given back her freedom.
|The Hounding of David Oluwale
|When the body of David Oluwale was pulled out of the River Aire near Leeds in May 1969, nobody asked too many questions of his death. A police charge sheet had 'UK' scored out, and his nationality replaced with a handwritten 'WOG'
|LIBERTY Guide to Human Rights
|Your Rights is Liberty 's guide to human rights and civil liberties in the UK . It is designed for people who want to know more about their legal rights and are not sure where to start.
|The Outsider: Autobiography of Keith Hellawel
|Keith Hellawell rose to become Chief Constable of Cleveland, and then West Yorkshire, and later, controversially, New Labour's much-feted and summarily dismissed "Drugs Czar". In this autobiography, he writes candidly about four decades of public service.
|The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Byron Case
|Using actual evidence from the trial of Byron Case, the author effectively moves through a very simple but highly logical process of deliberation that members of the jury should have undertaken. Through this, the author shows how doing so would have lead the jury to uncover numerous obvious failures of the prosecution to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
|Through the Eyes of a Lost Soul
|This collection of writings is a candid and vivid look into the mind, emotions, thoughts and experiences of one of Texas Death Row's most valiant, and on Amazon undervalued, political prisoners.
|The Colour of Justice
|This book is made up from some of the many transcripts of the Stephen Lawrence enquiry. The editor has picked out a selection of interviews and testimonies that make up this horrifying but riveting read about the senseless murder of the Black British teenager Stephen Lawrence.
|The Execution of Wanda Jean
|The Execution of Wanda Jean chronicles the life-and-death battle of Wanda Jean Allen, the first black woman to be put to death in the United States in the modern era.
|Unlocking the Truth
|Helen Shaw & Deborah Coles of pressure group, INQUEST describes the experiences of families bereaved by deaths in custody,from the time of death to the conclusion of the investigation and inquest.
|Untouchables – Dirty Cops,
Bent Justice & Racism in Scotland Yard
|This is the result of a 5 year investigation into Scotland Yard's most secretive & powerful unit, an undercover unit, charged with rooting out corrupt & racist cops, that went public in 1998 as 'the Untouchables.'
|Women on Death Row
|Texas and Oklahoma are amongst many States where the word mercy is barely ever used and, in one instance, it was suggested that an execution was allowed to take place to boost an election campaign. Unsurprisingly, African-Americans appear to get less consideration than their white counterparts when it comes to applying the ultimate penalty.
|Who Killed Jill Dando? (The case of Barry George)
|The case of the Crown vs. George has been compared to the American case of the People vs. (O.J.) Simpson, the ex-professional football player charged in the murders of his ex-wife her lover. If there are any parallels in the two cases, they certainly end with their verdicts: whereas Simpson was acquitted, George wasn't.
|Writing for their Lives
|Going well beyond graphic descriptions of death row's madness and suicide-inducing realities, writing for Their Lives offers powerful and harrowing accounts of prisoners rediscovering the value of life from within the brutality of the row.
In the Care of the State
(Dr Barry Goldson & Deborah Coles of pressure group, INQUEST)
Groundbreaking new book on child deaths in penal custody receives critical acclaim and a call for action in parliament.
INQUEST Skills Toolkit
The INQUEST Skills and Support Toolkit is a resource for families and friends dealing with the aftermath of a sudden bereavement. It is funded by the BIG Lottery Fund.
Dying on the Inside
provides a comprehensive examination of INQUEST's casework on the 115 women's deaths in prison between 1990 – 2007.
Learning from Death in Custody Inquests: A New Framework for Action and Accountability
This groundbreaking report highlights the serious flaws in the learning process following an inquest into a death in custody or following contact with state agents


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"He Will Help You," Friend, Jan. 2013, 46
Friend to Friend
He Will Help You
From an interview with Elder Ian S. Ardern of the Seventy; by Jan Pinborough, Church Magazines
Pray, he is there; speak, he is list'ning (Children's Songbook, 12–13).
When I was young, the missionaries came to my home in New Zealand and taught my family the gospel. One of the missionaries, Elder Maughan, noticed that I didn't have a bicycle. He had a very nice purple and white bike, and he promised to give it to me when he went home from his mission.
Elder Maughan kept his promise. A few months after Elder Maughan was transferred from our town, my family received a telegram. It said that Elder Maughan had put his bike on a train and that it would soon arrive for me!
I struggled learning to ride my new bike. I kept falling off, and I even bruised my lip. After a while my mother told me to come inside. "If you and I pray," she said, "you will be able to ride the bike." We prayed together, and I went back outside to try again. I fell a few times and wobbled a lot, but I was finally able to ride my new bike.
When I was older, I was called to serve a mission in France and Belgium. At the Missionary Training Center, I struggled to learn French. I realized that I could not do it by myself. I needed the Lord's help. I knelt down and pleaded for help. I still had to work hard, but I was able to learn French. Once again, the Lord came to my rescue.
You need never feel abandoned. In your moments of difficulty, there is always Someone who will listen. The Lord hears your prayers. You may still struggle, but He will help you, just as He helped me.


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A Compelling Government Interest in… Fabulous Drapes!
Libertarians often disagree with their non‐libby friends about the need for government‐mandated occupational licensing in fields like medicine. The idea behind such licensing is that the government has a compelling interest in protecting citizens and that licensing actually achieves that end. The evidence is not as cut and dried on the latter point as many people assume, but at least there's enough meat there to warrant a discussion.
Whatever you think about occupational licensing in the context of medicine, there's one field where the government's "compelling interest" — and ability to successfully execute on it — is particularly hard to defend: interior design.
In three U.S. states, government officials are, right now, "protecting" their citizens from bad Feng Shui, misguided uses of prints with plaids, gauche arrangements of bric‐a‐brac, and other crimes against fabulosity. No one in Florida, for instance, can call himself an interior designer lest he receives the official imprimatur of the state. The Institute for Justice has filed suit to overturn the licensing requirement. Imagine the harm to Floridians if they succeed.…
No. I can't imagine any either.
In this field, more than any other, the real reason for most occupational licensing becomes apparent: cartelization to protect incumbent businesses from competition.
UPDATE: Check out this video by ReasonTV about the interior design license laws around the country.


text: We have the best work week this week… today is like a Monday, yet tomorrow is Friday. And Hump Day was completely cut out! We scour the Interwebs to bring you random happenings and news… so you don't have to… Today on the Daily Dish: Samsung's Smartphone Pitch Fuels Mobile-Ad Boom by Sarah Frier – … Continue reading


text:
The "Scream" films have provided a pretty substantial cinematic body count since 1996, but four survivors have dodged Ghostface's blades for over 15 years: stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox and director Wes Craven.
A decade after the third film, the quartet reunite for "Scream 4" (opening today), and they say they're glad the franchise's concept – and their chemistry – has survived as well.
"I had fun playing Sidney and doing this film, as always," says Campbell, who reprises her role as the self-aware scream queen Sidney Prescott. "What's been fun for me is that I just think that she's the eyes of the audience in a sense, in that the audience is taken with her because they need one core character to really feel for in order for the horror and for the humor to work. So for me it's just been about being really straight and honest with her circumstances, and being true to them and playing to it in that way and letting everyone else sort of buzz around me and do a really fantastic job."
U.S. & World
Arquette says the "Scream" team's camaraderie extends behind the camera as well. "We've developed this family, and not only fellow actors and directors, but all of the crew," he says. "We've shared 15 years together – It has been ten years since we worked together, but there's a real family feeling and it really grounds it. When I see Sidney's character in the movie, there's a history there and you don't really have that opportunity in a lot of roles. And Courteney and I being married and having a kid – just everything. It exemplifies the reality and the honesty and that's really my favorite part of acting, when you can tap into stuff like that."
Cox – who met Arquette on the first film and later married him, though the couple has recently separated – says even years later the group dynamic "just felt very natural. First of all we've had ten more years of experience of acting, and so I was that much more confident. I'm now a mom and I'm just a different person – a different person feeling different things, but coming back to your family. You just know each other and you feel like you can just kind of get right back into it, and feel like you can be better than you were last time. I became closer with Neve than I did in the first three, and I just adore that girl."
"Wes was instrumental in us being together," adds Cox. "He's kind of our mentor in relationships and in growing up, and to come back and do it again is just really fun. I love playing Gale. Gale is just very campy and I love her relationship with Dewey and the fact that they're together is so funny. He's so earnest and she's so out to get ahead. It's just a very odd pairing, and so were we. Although we're not really – but we kind of are."
"Wes is incredible," agrees Arquette. "As much as a master as he is at it he's still a student of nature and human behavior. So it's been a great experience, really growing with each other and going through life's changes. It brings a real humanness to these movies and another layer because there are films within films, but then there's real life. They all really kind of intertwine."
"I don't think any of us just think of it as a horror film or a slasher film at all – It's a very interesting, complex, funny, smart drama," explains Craven, who agreed to tack on a fourth outing to restore some of the franchise's bloody luster. "We needed to bring it back up to par a little bit. I thought that 'Scream 3' was a little too goofy – too 'Scooby-Doo.' And we didn't have Neve as much as we did in this – she wasn't as available and was a little bit more in the background a lot of the time. So we all wanted to come back and do one. I'm sure that all of us felt that it had to be really, really good – and not to prove anything to anybody else, or even ourselves. It just deserved to be good, and the audience deserved it to be good."
"It's not something where we didn't give our all for it," adds Craven. "You don't get an opportunity to do that in life and come up with something that good that often, so it's a good feeling."
With such an off-camera lovefest happening behind the scenes – and the hope of blockbuster box office in theaters – the opportunity may come yet again. "I hope so," says Arquette, befor adding ominously: "You never know who lives or dies."


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Puppet agent is the application that manages configurations on nodes. It requires a Puppet master server to fetch configuration catalogs from. (For more info, see Overview of Puppet's Architecture.)
For details about invoking the Puppet agent command, see the puppet agent man page.
This page describes how Puppet agent behaves on Windows systems. For information about Linux, OS X, and other Unix-like operating systems, see Puppet Agent on *nix Systems.
Not all operating systems can manage the same resources with Puppet; some resource types are OS-specific, and others may have OS-specific features. See the [resource type reference][] for details.
Puppet agent runs as a specific user (defaulting to
LocalSystem) and initiates outbound connections on port 8140.
By default, Puppet agent runs as the
LocalSystem user. This lets it manage the configuration of the entire system, but prevents it from accessing files on UNC shares.
Puppet can also run as a different user. You can change the user in the Service Control Manager (SCM). To start the SCM, choose "Run…" from the Start menu and type
You can also specify a different user when installing Puppet. To do this, install via the command line and specify the required MSI properties (
PUPPET_AGENT_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD, and
Puppet agent's user can be a local or domain user. If this user isn't already a local administrator, the Puppet installer will add it to the
Administrators group. The installer will also grant Logon as Service to the user.
By default, Puppet's HTTPS traffic uses port 8140. Your OS and firewall must allow Puppet agent to initiate outbound connections on this port.
If you want to use a non-default port, you'll have to change the
masterport setting on all agent nodes, and ensure that you've changed your Puppet master's port as well.
When running as a service, Puppet agent logs messages to the Windows Event Log. You can view its logs by browsing the Event Viewer. (Control Panel → System and Security → Administrative Tools → Event Viewer)
When running in the foreground with the
--debug, or
--test options, Puppet agent logs directly to the terminal.
When started with the
--logdest <FILE> option, Puppet agent logs to the file specified by
In addition to local logging, Puppet agent will submit a report to the Puppet master after each run. (This can be disabled by setting
report = false in puppet.conf.)
In Puppet Enterprise, you can browse these reports in the PE console's node pages, and you can analyze correlated events with the PE event inspector.
In a normal Puppet site, every node should periodically do configuration runs, to revert unwanted changes and to pick up recent updates.
On Windows nodes, there are two main ways to do this:
Since the Windows version of the Puppet agent service is much simpler than the *nix version, there's no real performance to be gained by running Puppet as a scheduled task. All users who want scheduled configuration runs should run the Windows service.
By default, the Puppet installer will configure Puppet agent to run as a Windows service and will automatically start it. No further action is needed. Puppet agent will do configuration runs at a set interval.
The Puppet agent service defaults to doing a configuration run every 30 minutes. You can configure this with the
runinterval setting in puppet.conf:
# C:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\puppet\etc\puppet.conf
runinterval = 2h
If you don't need an aggressive schedule of configuration runs, a longer run interval will let your Puppet master server(s) handle many more agent nodes.
Once the run interval has been changed, the service will stick to the prior schedule for the next run and then switch to the new run interval for subsequent runs.
The Puppet agent service defaults to starting automatically. If you'd rather start it manually or disable it, you can configure this during installation. To do this, install via the command line and specify the
PUPPET_AGENT_STARTUP_MODE MSI property.
You can also configure this after installation with the Service Control Manager (SCM). To start the SCM, choose "Run…" from the Start menu and type
You can also configure agent service with the
sc.exe command. To prevent the service from starting on boot:
C:\>sc config puppet start= demand
[SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS
(Note that the space after
start= is mandatory! Also note that this must be run in cmd.exe; this command won't work from PowerShell.)
To restart the service:
C:\>sc stop puppet
C:\>sc start puppet
To change the arguments used when triggering a Puppet agent run (this example changes the level of detail that gets written to the Event Log):
C:\>sc start puppet --debug --logdest eventlog
Some sites prefer to only run Puppet agent on demand; others use scheduled runs, but occasionally need to do an on-demand run.
Puppet agent runs can be started locally (while logged in to the target system), or remotely via Puppet Enterprise's orchestration tools.
On Windows, you can start a configuration run with the "Run Puppet Agent" Start menu item. This will show the status of the run in a command prompt window.
You must be logged in as an administrator to do this. On Windows 7/2008 and later, Windows will ask for User Account Control confirmation when you start a configuration run:
If you want to run other Puppet-related commands, you must start a command prompt with administrative privileges. You can do this with either the standard
cmd.exe program, or the "Start Command Prompt with Puppet" Start menu item added by the Puppet installer.
On Windows 7 or 2008, you must right-click the start menu item and choose "Run as administrator:"
This will ask for UAC confirmation:
To run Puppet agent remotely on any number of systems, you should use Puppet Enterprise's orchestration tools. For info, see the Puppet Enterprise manual page on triggering Puppet runs.
Open source Puppet users can install MCollective and the puppet agent plugin to get similar capabilities, but Puppet Labs doesn't provide standalone MCollective packages for Windows.
Puppet agent on Windows doesn't support the deprecated Puppet kick command.
You can prevent Puppet agent from doing any Puppet runs by starting a command prompt with elevated privileges and running
puppet agent --disable "<MESSAGE>". You can re-enable it with
puppet agent --enable.
If Puppet agent attempts to do a configuration run while disabled — either a scheduled run or a manually triggered one — it will log a message like:
Notice: Skipping run of Puppet configuration client; administratively disabled
(Reason: 'Investigating a problem 5/23/14 -NF'); Use 'puppet agent --enable' to re-enable.
Puppet agent should be configured with puppet.conf, using the
[agent] and/or
[main] section. For notes on which settings are most relevant to Puppet agent, see the short list of important settings.


text:
Press Release: Occupy Oakland Say Oakland Police Violate Their Own Policies
Yesterday, the Oakland Police deployed hundreds of officers in riot gear so as to prevent Occupy Oakland from putting a vacant building to better use. This is a building which has sat vacant for 6 years, and the city has no current plans for it. The Occupy Oakland GA passed a proposal calling for the space to be turned into a social center, convergence center and headquarters of the Occupy Oakland movement.
The police actions tonight cost the city of Oakland hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they repeatedly violated their own crowd control guidelines and protester's civil rights.
With all the problems in our city, should preventing activists from putting a vacant building to better use be their highest priority? Was it worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent? -more-


text:
At first glance, Rhimes's latest series Scandal, which debuted with a short, seven episode season last spring and returned for a full, triumphant second season in the fall, seems cut from the same cloth, a Grey's Anatomy in the beltway, minus the doctor slant. High-powered DC fixer Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is the person you call when you're in the middle of a PR disaster. Along with her team--smooth-talking lawyer Harrison (Columbus Short), high-strung investigator Abby (Darby Stanchfield), creepy tech guy and leg-breaker Huck (Guillermo Díaz), and new hire Quinn (Katie Lowes)--she massages the truth, spins the message, and keeps dirty little secrets tightly under wraps, employing methods that are just this side of legal--and which sometimes cross that line, to the repeated consternation of her foil in the US Attorney's office, David Rosen (Joshua Malina). The pilot also sets up the show's requisite central couple. Before she went into business on her own, we learn, Olivia worked on the campaign, and later in the White House, of the current president, Fitzgerald "Fitz" Grant III (Tony Goldwyn), with whom she had an affair. She left in order to put a stop to the affair, but when the two are reunited in the pilot--after Olivia is called in to quash rumors that Fitz has been sleeping with a White House aide--it's clear that the spark is still very much there. As Olivia investigates the aide story over the course of the first season, she and Fitz move back and forth from recrimination to yearning, from "no, we mustn't!" to "yes, we can," in the process running afoul of Fitz's ambitious wife Mellie (Bellamy Young), and his dirty-dealing chief of staff, Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry).
The familiar Rhimes tics are all here. The characters are all the very, very best at what they do and prone to announcing this at the drop of a hat, the emotions are always turned up to 11, epic speeches are delivered with clockwork regularity, and supposedly professional adults behave like high school students in thrall to their raging hormones. If we've grown accustomed to doctors and lawyers who behave like soap opera characters, however, there's something quite jarring about porting these tropes to the corridors of power, which can make the Scandal pilot rather hard to swallow. Not that a president would never take a mistress, or that TV isn't prone to taking even the most interesting settings and telling stories in them that revolve largely around who's sleeping with whom. But what Rhimes has done with Scandal is something much more audacious--she's turned the White House into the setting of a romance novel, and the president into its hero (which is to say, its object). Like all romance heroes, Fitz is focused, one hundred percent, on his heroine. He's the sort of character who says things like:
You own me! You control me. I belong to you. You think I don't want to be a better man? You think that I don't want to dedicate myself to my marriage? You don't think I want to be honorable, to be the man that you voted for? I love you. I'm in love with you. You're the love of my life. My every feeling is controlled by look on your face. I can't breathe without you. I can't sleep without you. I wait for you. I watch for you. I exist for you. If I could escape all of this, and run away with you...That's some serious, Edward Rochester-level shit there, and it is more than a little ridiculous to put it in the mouth of a character who is allegedly the most powerful man in the world. But Scandal leans into that ridiculousness, doubles down on it when it situates all power in its political system within the bond of marriage. When Olivia joins Fitz's campaign, her first piece of advice is that he and Mellie seem like a cold couple, and that making their marriage seem viable on screen is crucial to his success. "[Voters] put George W. in office because he and Laura seemed like a fun couple to have a beer with," she says, in brazen defiance of the fact that no one in the entire history of her political career has ever thought such a thing about Laura Bush. In reality, what American voters mainly seem to want from their first couples is that they not be the Clintons--that his philandering, and her ambitions, stay on the down low. It was only once the Obamas reignited the myth of Camelot that presidential marriages became a story again, and Scandal takes that newfound preoccupation and spins it into a political system in which it is the only thing that matters. Fitz can get things done, as a candidate and later as a president, because he and Mellie seem like a strong couple. When their bond weakens, so does his power.
The result is a political system that more closely resembles a royal family than a democracy. Though the show offers comparisons like Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings (in one of the few overt acknowledgments of a fact that the characters are clearly always cognizant of, that Olivia is black while Fitz and Mellie are white), its central triangle is actually more reminiscent of Diana, Charles, and Camilla. The second season even features a presidential pregnancy plot, whose handling feels eerily prescient of the media circus that surrounded the royal baby this summer--the baby is even dubbed "America's Baby" by the voracious media. At least, that is, until you realize that in the world of Scandal, the political elite, just like the British royal family, are merely another variety of celebrities, engaged in what is essentially a lifelong reality show. When Mellie hears Olivia's critique of her and Fitz's marriage during the campaign, she stages a "spontaneous" breakdown during a campaign event with Fitz, tearfully telling a crowd of listeners that the reason she's been so distant is that the stress of the campaign caused her to miscarry a pregnancy (a miscarriage that, of course, never happened). In the real world, no one would believe that such an outburst had really been unrehearsed, and Mellie would be seen as calculating and manipulative. But in the world of Scandal, the voters are romance readers. If they believe the performance--if it makes them go "awww" and hope that those crazy kids can make it work--then you'll get their vote.
As different and unusual a choice as this is, what it ultimately comes down to is that Scandal puts all its eggs in the romance genre basket, and if that's not the sort of story that appeals to you--for the most part, it doesn't appeal to me--then the show's first season will quickly rub you the wrong way. "What kind of a coward was I, to marry her and not wait for you to show up?" Fitz asks Olivia shortly after they meet. That's a very romance novel thing to say, but to me it just makes Fitz seem either unreal or unappealing. No matter how utilitarian or unloving, a marriage is still a marriage--a shared life, full of intimate moments and secrets. A man who can just wish away twenty years of successful, albeit cold, marriage doesn't come off as terribly sympathetic in my book (certainly not when you consider that said marriage has also given him two children; but then, Scandal tends to ignore the older Grant children, who have never even been seen). But the show clearly intends for me to take this line as deeply romantic (and, to its credit, works hard on both the acting and production levels to sell that viewpoint), and to engage deeply with the Olivia/Fitz romance. If you're not rooting for them to somehow find a way to be together despite their impossible situation, the first season doesn't leave much space for you.
Which is why Scandal's second season comes as such a shock. It is essentially Rhimes piling high the tropes and conventions that have made her super-successful, dousing them with gasoline, and lighting a match. The hints planted in the first season about the real reason Olivia left the White House and the dirty secrets that lie in her own past come to fruition when it's revealed that she was part of a conspiracy to steal the election for Fitz, which was followed by a cover-up in which several people died. As David Rosen and members of Olivia's own team investigate this cover-up from different directions, and as Olivia and Cyrus Beene, who was also part of the conspiracy, race to conceal evidence of their wrongdoing, Rhimes methodically dismantles the assumptions that lie at the core of all of her work--assumptions about love, about her characters, and about who we're expected to root for. Rhimes shows are characterized, as I've said, by outsized emotions and big speeches that extoll the characters' virtues. Scandal is the show that takes those big feelings and bigger words and asks: what if those emotions are twisted and unhealthy? What if those big words are nothing but spin? What if the characters who we've been told are heroes are just selfish, clueless cowards?
"That man was born to be a leader. He was born to do this. Anything else would diminish him and deprive this country." Cyrus tells Olivia. "Some men aren't meant to be happy; they're meant to be great." But if there's greatness in Fitz, the show is slow to let us see it. He is, after all, a man who ascends to the highest office in the land and then immediately turns around and complains that it prevents him from being with his girlfriend. And while marriage, and love, are the source of power in Scandal, that love is more often corrupting than it is nurturing. Fitz and Olivia's love brings out the worst in them. It undermines Olivia's judgment, her frequently referenced "gut" which unerringly points her towards the right choice, and causes her to betray herself and her principles when she agrees to steal the election in order to give Fitz what he wants. It turns Fitz into a whiny brat, who crawls into a bottle when he and Olivia are on the outs--as it turns out, depriving him of happiness is not the way to bring out his greatness. This is love as an addiction, one that reveals its sufferers' weakness and ugliness; even when they're together, Olivia and Fitz are toxic as often as they are loving--Fitz, for example, has a nasty tendency to treat the word "no" as an invitation. Cyrus, meanwhile, deeply loves, and is loved by, his journalist husband James (Dan Bucatinsky), but their marriage is rife with lies and manipulations, as the two of them hold James's investigation into the vote-fixing conspiracy, and Cyrus's promise of an adopted baby, over each other's heads. The only relationship that seems healthy and honest, between David Rosen and Abby, is also the one that is most easily destroyed, when Olivia, deciding that Abby represents a security leak, plays on her friend's history of spousal abuse to sow doubts in her mind about David.
That act of manipulation is one of several that cast a pall on the alleged bond between Olivia and her people. Among TV writers, Rhimes is far from alone in elevating the team--that found family of people from different and often difficult backgrounds who come together for a common cause--above all other bonds, and in extolling the values of loyalty and friendship that bind it together. But as the show's second season draws on, it increasingly seems to suggest not only that that loyalty might be misplaced--as in the case of Olivia breaking up David and Abby for her own purposes--but that what the characters think of as loyalty is actually dysfunction and codependency, that Olivia's team are loyal to her not because they've freely chosen to be, but because they desperately need her to define them and give their lives meaning. The more we learn about the team, the more obviously damaged they seem--Abby's brittle strength conceals a self-loathing bred by years of abuse, Huck is a psychopath with a proclivity for torture and murder who hangs all hope of his salvation on Olivia, Quinn is one of the victims of the vote-fixing scheme who has nothing left in her life but the guilty generosity of the woman who destroyed it, and Harrison, who crows about being a "gladiator in a suit," is driven by the near-crippling fear that, in reality, he's just as powerless as everyone else. Though the characters all view Olivia as their savior, as the season progresses the show increasingly seems to suggest that far from saving them, Olivia has, however unwittingly, trapped them in bonds of obligation and dependence--as when Abby, despite learning about Olivia's manipulation of her, steals evidence from David because she knows that it could hurt Olivia.
None of this, of course, would work if Scandal were not impeccably well-made and a hell of a lot of fun to watch. The plot, which rollicks along like the better seasons of 24 (and is often just as absurd), is compelling and beautifully constructed. The show is stylishly shot and edited, its frequent use of still photographs and split-screens amplifying the tension of its storytelling without ever becoming hectic or confusing. Though the character work occasionally leaves something to be desired--Quinn, for example, feels more like a plot point than a person; the decision, in the second half of the second season, to make her Huck's enthusiastic wetworks trainee feels like a last-ditch effort to make her interesting, rather than something organic to the character--where it truly matters, Scandal gets the job done. In particular, the show wouldn't work if Washington and Goldwyn didn't have terrific chemistry, not just as lovers but as partners. Goldwyn can sell overheated speeches like the one above, as well as the less savory aspects of Fitz's obsession with Olivia. But the reason that Scandal's handling of their relationship is so deliciously ambiguous is that for every overwrought, dysfunctional scene between them, there's another, quieter exchange in which Fitz and Olivia come off like an old married couple and a great partnership, in which it is easy to imagine what a great First Lady Olivia would make for Fitz.
But if it was perhaps to be expected that Scandal would put the effort into making its central couple appealing to the audience, putting a similar effort into the show's two most marginal, antagonistic characters was less predictable, and ends up paying great dividends. As David Rosen, Malina plugs into his Sorkin-honed schlubbiness, squawking "I am the law!" at Olivia's casual flouting of it and him, and growing increasingly frustrated as she runs circles around him and his investigation of her. Another show might have made David into a caricature, but Scandal instead reveals more and more of his dignity even as Olivia chips away at his professional standing, using him to suggest that Olivia and her team's obsession with the appearance of strength misses out on the reality of it. When a seemingly defeated David uses his facade of weakness to outsmart Olivia at the end of the second season, it's both a triumphant moment and a worrying one, signifying that he may have learned too much from his former enemy. Even more interesting is Mellie, who is both the castrating, harpy wife that her story casts her as, and so much more than that. If every other character on the show is spun around by love, Mellie is immune to it. What she wants--what she had with Fitz before Olivia turned up--is a partnership, two people striving towards a common goal, in this case power, and she is genuinely puzzled and distraught by the way that love seems to destroy Fitz and Olivia. In her own way, Mellie is the most honest character on the show (for a value of "honest" that takes into account the fact that she habitually lies to three hundred million people when she assumes her doting, devoted First Lady persona), the only one willing to say what she feels and what she wants, who is then frustrated because the more romantic characters on the show dismiss her words as cold and calculating.
Despite all this, what's most intriguing about Scandal's undermining of its own tropes is that I'm still not entirely convinced that it's intentional. The show plays its tropes with such a straight face that, though it seems impossible that we're not intended to see how toxic they are, there's rarely anything in the show that confirms this interpretation. The cues that tell us to root for Olivia and Fitz's reunion, for example--the music, the lighting, the dialogue, and of course the actors themselves--are never allowed to let up, even when the things that Olivia and Fitz do to themselves and each other cross the line into abuse. And when Harrison tries to convince Abby not to leave after she finds out about his and Olivia's interference in her relationship with David, he delivers a classic Rhimes speech:
She had a reason! I don't know what it is. I don't need to know. She asked me to do something; I did it. You know why I did. There's a problem, you fix it. You and David Rosen were a problem. You know who we are, you know what this is, and don't pretend you don't. We do what needs to be done and we don't question why. You put the personal to the left. It doesn't matter who gets hurt. It doesn't matter what gets broken. If it's not the thing that needs fixing, it does. Not. Matter. You want to cry about your feelings, huh? Really? Here? You don't get to have feelings. That's the job. Gladiators don't have feelings. We rush into battle. We're soldiers. We get hurt in a fight, we suck it up and we hold it down. We don't question.It seems impossible that we're meant to watch this scene and not think that Harrison is either a blowhard or seriously messed up. His speech encapsulates how much of Olivia and her team's shtick is empty posturing. Throughout the series, they swoop onto the site of the latest PR disaster, barking orders, frantically placing calls, and assuring everyone around (including, it often seems, themselves) that they're the only ones who can save the day. Harrison's speech throws a light on how much of that behavior is simply self-aggrandizement--to which end he's willing to valorize even blind loyalty to people who manipulate and lie to you (or who ask you to hurt your friends). But the delivery, and Abby's reaction, are completely straight-faced, and in line with a million other speeches in other Rhimes shows (and in other shows in general) which do seriously extoll these virtues. It still seems possible to me that Scandal wants me to root for Olivia and Fitz to get together, for her team to remain loyal to her, for more and more characters to recognize Olivia's awesomeness and give in to it, even though the show as it is written has in fact convinced me of the opposite. (In reality, I find Olivia sympathetic enough that I don't want bad things to happen to her, and I want her and Fitz to be together because clearly they're not fit for anyone else's company. But I also want them to go off where they can't bother or hurt anyone and leave Mellie to be president, and for Abby, Huck, Quinn, and Harrison to disentangle themselves from their boss and find healthier, more rewarding relationships.) When Cyrus, in the second season finale, lambastes Olivia for her determination to have a future with Fitz (which at that point extends to ignoring credible threats to her life), and insists that "Life is not a romance novel," it's not at all clear to me whether he's delivering the show's mission statement, or protesting too much.
And then there is the simple fact that, even if she is engaged in a wonderfully subversive act of trolling her audience, Rhimes may not be able to keep it, or the show's quality, up for much longer. Already at the end of the second season there are signs of material fatigue--the overarching plot of the season's second half is weaker and less purposeful than the first, and the constant back and forth between Fitz and Olivia as they veer from vowing to stay together no matter what to breaking up forever has already started to become tedious. Grey's Anatomy is famous for having two generally beloved seasons and then collapsing into a still-satisfying but increasingly ridiculous mess, and Scandal, which already rates pretty high on the ridiculousness scale, is obviously in danger of falling into that trap. So it's possible that I'm recommending Scandal just as it's about to go sour, and that in a few months I'll go back to admiring Shonda Rhimes but not liking anything she does. For the moment, however, Scandal is one of the most intriguing shows on TV. It's certainly one of the most fun.


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Haida Tattoos - The Haida are renowned around the world for the beauty and complexity of their art and images. The bold lines of the Haida designs make them uniquely suited to be reproduced as tattoos. And for good reason - the art with which the Haida are synonymous today, the totems poles, carvings and prints - are largely derived from ancient tattoo designs that the Haida used to depict Clan Crests. The Haida were once one of the most heavily tattooed indigenous people in the world, and were one of very few groups in recorded history to tattoo in color, using red as well as black.
Haida crests chronicled important mythological events in the family or clan's history - usually when an ancestor encountered a spiritual being in a supernatural context. Oftentimes, stories related to these events were told and retold, in turn setting the specific family or clan apart from others while defining their social position among Haida society.
When tattooed upon the body or carved onto an object, crests served as title to the animal or geographic feature depicted on it as well as to its spirit. Thus, the right to a crest, the right to use the emblem, was more valuable than the particular physical object itself. Individuals who were freshly tattooed were presented by their families to the community at a ceremonial potlatch. Crests were symbols of power & prestige & their owners were given the right to pass them on to their heirs.
Check out an
amazing early Haida "Tattoo Kit" located at Smithsonian Institution
Find out more about traditional Haida tattooing practices and cultural history
Read excerpts about Haida tattooing from James Swan's 1870's journal.
Below you will find a gallery of inspirational images that will help you in your quest of creating the perfect Haida tattoo.


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millstone around (one's) neck(redirected from a millstone around our necks)
millstone around (one's) neck
A heavy burden. I wish I hadn't bought that house—the mortgage is a millstone around my neck.
millstone around one's neck
A heavy burden, as in Julie finds Grandma, who is crabby, a millstone around her neck. The literal hanging of a millstone about the neck is mentioned as a punishment in the New Testament (Matthew 18:6), causing the miscreant to be drowned. Its present figurative use was first recorded in a history of the Quakers (c. 1720).
a millstone around your neckBRITISH, AMERICAN or
a millstone round your neckBRITISH
COMMON If something is a millstone around your neck or a millstone round your neck, it is a very unpleasant problem or responsibility that you cannot escape from. The country's inefficient telephone company has been a millstone round the government's neck. Long-term illness can make you feel like a millstone around your family's necks. Note: Millstone is often used on its own with this meaning. There is the continuing millstone of the country's enormous foreign debt. Note: A millstone is one of a pair of very heavy round flat stones which are used to grind grain. Jesus referred to children in Matthew 18:5 by saying, `Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.'
a millstone round your necka very severe impediment or disadvantage.
A millstone was a large circular stone used to grind corn. The phrase alludes to a method of executing people by throwing them into deep water with a heavy stone attached to them, a fate believed to have been suffered by several early Christian martyrs.


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Feb 24, 2008
Feb 17, 2008
Important Stuff
B. All three of my kids have been sick for the last week. It started with Sammy getting a fever on the plane ride home. It's been downhill ever since. High Fevers, (104) coughs, congestion, puke and snot, missed sleep, excessive whining and tears. It's been a slightly he!!ish week. I blame the germy little cousins we saw in Florida**. All of them.
Next: In preparation for listing our house on the market, we're sprucing things up around here a bit. While we were out of town, we had our hard wood floors refinished. Yesterday Doug started the process of replacing the kitchen counter tops. Tomorrow, I'll be painting trim all day. It's loads of fun, but we can't do it all ourselves.
That why I'd like to share this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with you!!! If you're a professional home "stager" or decorator, you're cordially invited (for a limited time) for a
FREE, week long visit to the beautiful New England seashore!!!*** Room and Board will be provided, as well as Minivan usage and Professional Tour Guidance. All in exchange for a small smackeral of decorating advice and assistance.
Act NOW! This offer wont last!!!
Fourthly; Here at the Dub house, we have a *general/flexible* "No T.V. except for Sunday Shows on Sunday" rule. Doug thinks 'Nature Shows' are the exception. I think Nature Shows are ALL about s.e.x and violence and that Cooking Shows, Home Decorating Shows, Hallmark Channel Movies, Fox News and Musicals should be the exception. What do you think?
That's all for now. If I think of any more important stuff, you'll be the first to know.
*I made "Florida" orange to make you think of Florida Orange Juice. See how clever and subtle I am?
**I didn't change the color of this "Florida" because you're supposed to be focused solely on my miserable life right now. Not your beverage preferences. You're so selfish.
***No purchase necessary. Airfair, travel expenses, liquor costs, Valium, ear-plugs, and spending money not included. Professional Tour Guide is not actually a Professional. Must be 16 years or older, non-creepy, willing to also babysit while you're here, (just for an evening!?!) and a U.S. citizen to qualify. Actual decorating expertise not all that important.
Feb 14, 2008
One way or another, it's all about dressing up.
I'm pretty sure it was Christina who made the suggestion the day before V-day. A friend of Malia, (Or was she a friend of Joanna?) I envied her petiteness and the fact that she could pull-off white blonde hair in a pixie cut with funky glasses. Anyway, she suggested we hold a Halloween Party...the very antithesis of the gooey/lovey/hearty-farty affairs planned by many of our more lucky-in-love neighbors.
We agreed immediately and plans (and phone-calls) were made. First, we had to decide on costumes. Luckily, my closet was filled with thrift-store finds including a vintage lace old lady dress with matching shoes (my costume), a florescent green disco dress with matching hooker boots (worn by Rama) and various polyester work shirts with patches baring names like Steve and Ric. (Worn by other roommates.) Once arrangements were made and costumes settled on, we decided we need to increase the number of invited guests.
(Before the party)
Now, The Glenwood was layed out with all the guys apartments on one side, and all the girls apartments on the other. We, of course, went immediately to the guys apartments and started knocking on doors of complete strangers. The guys who had plans were getting ready to leave or were already gone, but we were surprised to find so many stragglers. Guys with no dates, sitting around either alone or with a roommate, watching t.v. in the dark.
We burst into their apartments and invited them to the party starting in only an hour.Malia's costume was a string Christmas lights and after Ang and I gave our pitch, she'd ask politely, "Mind if I light up?" and proceed to plug herself into the nearest outlet. A lot of total strangers showed up that night. One guy even called the next day to thank us for inviting him.
For me the highlight was when the Accordian Player showed up to serenade the party with love songs. He'd been hired as a singing telegram and since the recipeint was at the party, he was redirected to our apartment.
I don't remember many of the details after that, but I know the party was a success. It became a tradition and for the next few years. While I had roommates, we had a Halloween Party to celebrate Valentines Day.
(This was one held at the Old Mill and hosted by Anna, Michelle and I. We invited the pizza delivery guy and he came back and joined us after getting off work.)
I have to admit, I do miss those Halloween parties but I'm pretty happy with the upgrade. I love having a perma-Valentine. Afterall, I got delicious French Toast in bed this morning (with vanilla ice cream, syrup, strawberries, apple sauce and spray whip all in little custard cups on the side.)
Tonight for dinner it'll be my turn to cook and I'm going to make Four Cheese Pasta, French Bread, and something gooey and chocolatey for dessert. But of course, not everyone has a significant other to help them celebrate the holiday of all things heart shaped. If that's the case, I highly recommend you consider Halloween as an alternative. Because after chocolate truffles, the next best treat in the world is Candy Corn!
Happy Holidays!
Feb 10, 2008
Happy Birthday to ME!
That's right, this year I celebrated my birthday with a week long trip to Disney World accompanined by 3 out of 4 of my siblings and all their kids!!!
"Wow!" you say, "They go on a lot of trips!"
"We live life to the fullest!" I say, "And with the maximum amount of student loans!"
Alright, so we actually didn't go to D-world just for my birthday. We ACTUALLY went for the D.S. Call Don't-Call-Me-A-Call-Girl Annual (Sometimes semi-annual or every-other-annual) Family Reunion!
And it just happened to coincide with my 30th birthday.
I believe the reasoning went something like this:
Older (Allegedly Wiser) Siblings: "It's the off-season! It won't be crowded at all!!!"
The reality was more like this:
Naysaying Sister: "It's the week of Mardi Gras and Carnival! All of Louisiana and Brazil are here this week!"
But despite the crowds, it was a great week, filled with sunshine, family, and FUN visiting the various Disney attractions.
And it really is a great place to celebrate a birthday. I got to wear a birthday button so all the employees wished me happy birthday all day long. I even got two free treats! (One Frozen Lemonade and one Mickey Supreme!)
And I'm actually happy to be 30. Don't get me wrong, I had a great 29th year, but there's nothing all that special about being in your late 20's. Thirty on the other hand...thirty is SOMETHING! (I'm not sure what yet, but I'll let you know.)
So that's the story of how my whole family flew to Orlando to celebrate the start of my fourth decade on earth. And why I've been MIA for awhile. And how to properly celebrate a significant birthday. And how to get free ice cream on a stick.
I think we've all learned something here today.
I know I have.
C-you real soon!


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I've just spent the day trying to read SuperLab data output files into SPSS. I used Dataviewer to first merge the output of several participants - that's a great feature! While I can read the resulting merged output file into Excel, save into .xls and then read it into SPSS from the .xls format, this is not preferred since I cannot then control the field sizes and end up with SPSS files that aren't compatible with each other. With a few changes though, the text files can be read in. It would be great to incorporate these changes into the next version of SuperLab.
In a text editor, I had to do a global change to remove all the quotation symbols.
SPSS only allows a single text delimiter - in the output files, some text is delimited by quotes, and some isn't.
RECOMMENDATION: SuperLab should not put quotes around any of the text it spits out - the tab delimiters are enough.
In a text editor, I did a 'SAVE AS' with the line feeds in UNIX format. SuperLab is generating Mac format line feeds - SPSS can't understand them, so when I try to read in the text file, it generates thousands of variables.
RECOMMENDATION: SuperLab on the mac should generate UNIX line feeds. SPSS and all Mac programs can handle them.


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Huggins-Stengel Field houses memories of springs past
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The doors at Huggins-Stengel Field are still open. Literally. You can walk right in, sit right down and let your mind roll on. It rolled backwards Monday morning, back to when baseball wasn't so locked down, locked up and lock-jawed, when a reporter could pass through two doors opened wide, see through to the opposite side of the Mets' Spring Training clubhouse and need little more than his name, his face and a typewriter to qualify as "authorized personnel."
Different doors are in place these days and, truth be told, they are not open wide. They are unlocked, though, and a reporter -- and anyone else, presumably -- can enter the same building and, for a few moments, take in what there is before someone says "Can I help you?" Insecure in today's credential-and-lanyard world -- sure. But it was a comfortable change.
By the time the fella said hello Monday, some of the baseball artifacts in the entrance way had been recognized and assessed by the unannounced visitor -- a glass-enclosed wooden locker and its contents appeared genuine. Was it Gehrig's, Yogi's, Koosman's? A bat too new to have been used by a big leaguer or a wannabe, stands unprotected. Next to it, a properly tattered and faded cap that gave away its vintage with embroidery on the back. The Babe didn't wear embroidery, did he? Nor did Joe D, "Say Hey" Willie, Mickey, Seaver or "Doc" Gooden.
They all lockered there, though. They all dressed, showered and laughed there. So it's a pretty cool place for a guy with an eye for nostalgia even though its interior bears scant resemblance to what it had been for the great Yankees team, the two most accomplished Mets teams and some more recent Orioles teams too.
A photo of Cal Ripken hangs just inside the door. The welcoming man noted that "Carl Ripken played here." Perhaps the extra R stood for Ripken's Remarkable streak.
The Yankees used the complex from Ruth's time through 1961. Manager Miller Huggins put his stamp on the camp. Stengel's Mets took over in their first year, 1962, after the Yankees had moved to Fort Lauderdale. Mets film archives have grainy, black and white footage of the first gathering of the Mets that shows Huggins-Stengel clubhouse in the background with the likes of Richie Ashburn, Charley Neal and Frank Thomas -- no, not that Frank Thomas -- running by. A photo inside the front door of the current building shows Stengel's 1953 Yankees seated in the clubhouse.
The Orioles used Huggins-Stengel when they were essentially Spring Training homeless after they had pulled out of Lauderdale.
The building now houses offices for TASCO, Teens Arts, Sports and Cultural Opportunities, a program operated by the city's recreation department. The field where Mantle and Darryl Strawberry hit spectacularly long home runs now is used by a high school team.
Floating walls were used to change the former clubhouse into offices and work areas. The natural dark wood visible when the building was used only for baseball remains. Current workers say the scent of cigar smoke sometimes can be detected. The residue of Ralph Houk? And they mention those eerie stories. Perhaps the characters in Derek Jeter's references to the ghosts, winter at Huggins-Stengel.
Memories of reality remain despite all the renovations. The three-tier chain link fence that surrounded much of the two-field acreage has been replaced by a shorter, less imposing fence, so the challenge of hitting a baseball 450 feet and over a 15-foot barrier is no more. But Strawberry took Bob Forsch over the barrier -- to center field, no less -- in a morning "B" game in 1985. It was after that home run that Lenny Dykstra christened his teammate "Awesome Strawsome."
And Darrell Johnson, the former Red Sox and Mariners manager who later scouted for the Mets, swore Mantle routinely hit batting practice pitches into a lake 100 feet beyond the right-field fence in the early '50s. Johnson was the Yankees' No. 3 catcher at the time, behind Yogi and Elston Howard. He had time to monitor Mantle's in-the-cage swings. "But everyone watched when Mickey got in the cage then," Johnson said.
Ruth probably hit 'em just as far, but no one was around in the '70s to tell of them. His locker still was around, though. It stood between two doorways. And, as the stories go, DiMaggio preferred not to use it. Years later, Herbie Norman, the Mets' clubhouse guy, contacted Pete Sheehy, the Yankees' clubhouse guy from Ruth through Reggie, and determined Mantle has used that locker. It was assigned to Keith Hernandez for his four Mets camps. Few hits were left in that cubicle for Orioles personnel.
Across the room from Hernandez's locker was where Mookie Wilson sat and wondered aloud whether his vision would be compromised after a rundown drill throw had shattered his glasses and imbedded pieces of a lens in his eye in '86. Nearby was the locker Dwight Gooden used as a frightened, 19-year-old in 1984. A year later, he owned the place, proudly driving his blue 'Vette -- with "Doc" stenciled on the windshield -- to camp. Parked next to it one day were the wheels of Doug Sisk with a wonderful bumper sticker affixed. It read "This is not an abandoned car."
Hernandez's locker was close to the manager's office, twice identified as "Gil's office" by Seaver when he returned to the Mets in 1983. Gil Hodges was 11 years gone by then, but Seaver sensed a presence.
George Bamberger was the manager in the springs of 1982 and '83. He used his office as a stage; he loved to tell stories. After making the first cuts of the Mets camp in '82, he told one of his favorites that had occurred years earlier when he was managing the Brewers. A young pitcher from Latin America didn't respond well when, in late March, he was assigned to the Minor Leagues.
"I told him 'Son, you've got great stuff. You're going to help us win. You just need some more time to polish what you have,'" Bamberger said. "Then the kid reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a knife. 'You cut me, I cut you.'
Hondo was Frank Howard, 6-foot-8, 315 pounds of body guard wrapped in niceness. A remarkable man. He could have been a story every day. He hit Fungo fly balls with such stunning might that he had to move against the backstop or lose eight of every 10 fly balls he hit.
Howard occasionally stayed behind when the team played road games to work the outfielders. After a half-hour of foul-line-to-foul-line Fungo chasing on a March day in 1982, Joel Youngblood objected to what he considered borderline abuse. He removed his glove and cap, placed them on the outfield lawn and headed for the clubhouse. He'd had enough. Then he heard from Howard: "Young man, you might want to think twice about leaving. We're not done yet."
Forty minutes later, Youngblood trudged off the field, spent. Hondo congratulated him and said "See you tomorrow."
Other threats existed. In 1981, Dave Kingman, Doug Flynn and Youngblood occasionally brought dogs to camp. Flynn had a happy sheepdog named Woody that everyone enjoyed. Youngblood had a German Shepherd that wasn't so popular. And Kingman, appropriately, had a menacing Doberman.
Showered players didn't wrap themselves in towels in those days. They walked immodestly to their lockers. But never when Kingman's pet was in the clubhouse.


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The following outline summarizes how the genetic algorithm works:
The algorithm begins by creating a random initial population.
The algorithm then creates a sequence of new populations. At each step, the algorithm uses the individuals in the current generation to create the next population. To create the new population, the algorithm performs the following steps:
Scores each member of the current population by computing its fitness value. These values are called the raw fitness scores.
Scales the raw fitness scores to convert them into a more usable range of values. These scaled values are called expectation values.
Selects members, called parents, based on their expectation.
Some of the individuals in the current population that have lower fitness are chosen as elite. These elite individuals are passed to the next population.
Produces children from the parents. Children are produced either by making random changes to a single parent—mutation—or by combining the vector entries of a pair of parents—crossover.
Replaces the current population with the children to form the next generation.
The algorithm stops when one of the stopping criteria is met. See Stopping Conditions for the Algorithm.
The algorithm begins by creating a random initial population, as shown in the following figure.
In this example, the initial population contains
20 individuals. Note that
all the individuals in the initial population lie in the upper-right quadrant of the
picture, that is, their coordinates lie between 0 and 1. For this example, the
Initial range in the Population
options is
If you know approximately where the minimal point for a function
lies, you should set Initial range so that the
point lies near the middle of that range. For example, if you believe
that the minimal point for Rastrigin's function is near the point
0], you could set Initial range to
[-1;1]. However, as this example shows, the
genetic algorithm can find the minimum even with a less than optimal
choice for Initial range.
At each step, the genetic algorithm uses the current population to create the children that make up the next generation. The algorithm selects a group of individuals in the current population, called parents, who contribute their genes—the entries of their vectors—to their children. The algorithm usually selects individuals that have better fitness values as parents. You can specify the function that the algorithm uses to select the parents in the Selection function field in the Selection options.
The genetic algorithm creates three types of children for the next generation:
Eliteare the individuals in the current generation with the best fitness values. These individuals automatically survive to the next generation.
Crossover are created by combining the vectors of a pair of parents.
Mutation children are created by introducing random changes, or mutations, to a single parent.
The following schematic diagram illustrates the three types of children.
Mutation and Crossover explains how to specify the number of children of each type that the algorithm generates and the functions it uses to perform crossover and mutation.
The following sections explain how the algorithm creates crossover and mutation children.
The algorithm creates crossover children by combining pairs of parents in the current population. At each coordinate of the child vector, the default crossover function randomly selects an entry, or gene, at the same coordinate from one of the two parents and assigns it to the child. For problems with linear constraints, the default crossover function creates the child as a random weighted average of the parents.
The algorithm creates mutation children by randomly changing the genes of individual parents. By default, for unconstrained problems the algorithm adds a random vector from a Gaussian distribution to the parent. For bounded or linearly constrained problems, the child remains feasible.
The following figure shows the children of the initial population, that is, the population at the second generation, and indicates whether they are elite, crossover, or mutation children.
The following figure shows the populations at iterations 60, 80, 95, and 100.
As the number of generations increases, the individuals in the
population get closer together and approach the minimum point
The genetic algorithm uses the following conditions to determine when to stop:
Generations — The algorithm stops when the number of generations reaches the value of Generations.
Time limit — The algorithm stops after running for an amount of time in seconds equal to Time limit.
Fitness limit — The algorithm stops when the value of the fitness function for the best point in the current population is less than or equal to Fitness limit.
Stall generations — The algorithm stops when the average relative change in the fitness function value over Stall generations is less than Function tolerance.
Stall time limit — The algorithm stops if there is no improvement in the objective function during an interval of time in seconds equal to Stall time limit.
Stall test — The stall
condition is either
average change or
weighted. For
geometric weighted,
the weighting function is 1/2n,
where n is the number of generations prior to the
current. Both stall conditions apply to the relative change in the
fitness function over Stall generations.
Function tolerance — The algorithm runs until the average relative change in the fitness function value over Stall generations is less than Function tolerance.
Constraint tolerance — The Constraint
tolerance is not used as stopping criterion. It is used to
determine the feasibility with respect to nonlinear constraints. Also,
max(sqrt(eps),ConstraintTolerance) determines
feasibility with respect to linear constraints.
The algorithm stops as soon as any one of these conditions is met. You can specify the values of these criteria in the Stopping criteria pane in the Optimization app. The default values are shown in the pane.
When you run the genetic algorithm, the Run solver and view results panel displays the criterion that caused the algorithm to stop.
The options Stall time limit and Time limit prevent the algorithm from running too long. If the algorithm stops due to one of these conditions, you might improve your results by increasing the values of Stall time limit and Time limit.
The selection function chooses parents for the next generation based on their scaled values
from the fitness scaling function. The scaled fitness values are called the
expectation values. An individual can be selected more than once as a parent, in
which case it contributes its genes to more than one child. The default selection
Stochastic uniform, lays out a line in which each
parent corresponds to a section of the line of length proportional to its scaled
value. The algorithm moves along the line in steps of equal size. At each step, the
algorithm allocates a parent from the section it lands on.
A more deterministic selection option is
which performs two steps:
In the first step, the function selects parents deterministically according to the integer part of the scaled value for each individual. For example, if an individual's scaled value is 2.3, the function selects that individual twice as a parent.
In the second step, the selection function selects additional parents using the fractional parts of the scaled values, as in stochastic uniform selection. The function lays out a line in sections, whose lengths are proportional to the fractional part of the scaled value of the individuals, and moves along the line in equal steps to select the parents.
Note that if the fractional parts of the scaled values all equal
0, as can occur using
Top scaling, the selection
is entirely deterministic.
For details and more selection options, see Selection Options.
Reproduction options control how the genetic algorithm creates the next generation. The options are
Elite count — The number of individuals with the best fitness values in the current generation that are guaranteed to survive to the next generation. These individuals are called elite children. The default value of Elite count is 5% of the population size, rounded up.
When Elite count is at least 1, the best fitness value can only decrease from one generation to the next. This is what you want to happen, since the genetic algorithm minimizes the fitness function. Setting Elite count to a high value causes the fittest individuals to dominate the population, which can make the search less effective.
Crossover fraction — The fraction of individuals in the next generation, other than elite children, that are created by crossover. Setting the Crossover Fraction describes how the value of Crossover fraction affects the performance of the genetic algorithm.
Because elite individuals have already been evaluated,
does not reevaluate the fitness function of elite individuals during reproduction.
This behavior assumes that the fitness function of an individual is not random, but
is a deterministic function. To change this behavior, use an output function. See
EvalElites in The State Structure.
The genetic algorithm uses the individuals in the current generation to create the children that make up the next generation. Besides elite children, which correspond to the individuals in the current generation with the best fitness values, the algorithm creates
Crossover children by selecting vector entries, or genes, from a pair of individuals in the current generation and combines them to form a child
Mutation children by applying random changes to a single individual in the current generation to create a child
Both processes are essential to the genetic algorithm. Crossover enables the algorithm to extract the best genes from different individuals and recombine them into potentially superior children. Mutation adds to the diversity of a population and thereby increases the likelihood that the algorithm will generate individuals with better fitness values.
See Creating the Next Generation for an example of how the genetic algorithm applies mutation and crossover.
You can specify how many of each type of children the algorithm creates as follows:
Elite count, in Reproduction options, specifies the number of elite children.
Crossover fraction, in Reproduction options, specifies the fraction of the population, other than elite children, that are crossover children.
For example, if the Population size is
the Elite count is
2, and the
Crossover fraction is
0.8, the numbers
of each type of children in the next generation are as follows:
There are two elite children.
There are 18 individuals other than elite children, so the algorithm rounds 0.8*18 = 14.4 to 14 to get the number of crossover children.
The remaining four individuals, other than elite children, are mutation children.


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At Dept, we nurture raw talent, support each other and coach you to be the best you can be. But that's just us in a nutshell. Who are you?
Open positions
Life @ Dept
Dept is built on a diverse mix of personalities. Working together, testing ourselves, getting better every day. Working at Dept is not about having your own festival or weekly bootcamp sessions (although yes, and yes). It's about giving you the space to do what you're good at and giving you the room to get even better. Dept loves people that take responsibility, not orders.
Dept Cares
Dept is made up of thinkers & makers. Not only when it comes down to work, but also when it's about ideals. Of course, we already do great stuff for awesome projects likes Justdiggit, SOS Kinderdorpen and Doctors Without Borders.
We help them in generating more impact. Moreover, we recycle leftover food from our lunches, separate our trash properly and car share when we can.
But we want to do more. More from personal belief. Because although we already make amazing stuff, we also see what's left to improve: climate change, poverty, proper education, fair food and much more. That's why we offer the opportunity for sustainable initiatives to help solve these issues. Such as 'fair-trade' food, less plastic, battling loneliness and so on.
And our enthusiasm is catching on! Within our own #DeptCares plan a growing number of sustainable and social initiatives are coming to life. We know, these are all small steps, but every step is one towards a better and healthier world. And the more Depsters participating, the bigger our impact.


text:
Civil War
Virginia played a key role in the American Civil War. As the region's story teller, Blue Ridge PBS has worked to share Virginia's involvement with its viewers.
Beginning in 1996, Blue Ridge PBS produced a 10 part series on a variety of subjects dealing with the American Civil War. Topics include: Railroads during the Civil War, Jackson in the Shenandoah, the life and Legacy of Robert E. Lee, the siege at Petersburg, the Battles of Manassas, and much more. The series is hosted by nationally noted Civil War historian, author, and Alumni Distinguished Professor of History James I. Robertson Jr.
For the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, Blue Ridge PBS produced the Emmy nominated 3 hour documentary, Virginia in the Civil War: A Sesquicentennial Remembrance. Divided into nine sections, the program was designed for use in the schools. The project was produced in conjunction with the Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and the Virginia Tech Center for Civil War Studies. It was hosted by James I. Robertson Jr. and William C. Davis.
Your gift will be doubled,
thanks to a matching grant
from The Secular Society.
To update credit card info you
have on file with Blue Ridge PBS,


text:
January 12th, 2012
in Traffic Technology International January 2012
It's not every day that something moves out of a niche and enters the mainstream traffic market, yet that's exactly what machine vision cameras have done. And the best thing, writes Louise Smyth in her Machine Vision Analysis, is that this might only be the start of things to come. In this article Adimec assesses whats needed for a machine vision camera to conduct license plate recognition.
Advances in digital camera technology enable more sophisticated intelligent traffic management and enforcement systems to better meet governments' objectives to improve road safety, increase traffic flow, and enforce traffic laws with fair payments. The latest camera technology improves system performance to: minimize detection time in case of accidents, increase the detection rates in cases of violations, and minimize overall costs from police time and traffic jams. These systems also need to maintain reasonable costs and prove their efficacy to gain adoption by government decision makers.
License plate recognition (LPR) is one of the more common needs in traffic systems. There are several performance
and system parameters to consider which can be easily solved through the appropriate camera considerations.
LPR requires a crisp, clear image of a license plate to withstand dispute upon issuance of any penalties. This means
obtaining an image whenever a car appears, regardless of lighting conditions, weather conditions, the color
of the license plate, or the car speed. An IR flash light can be used to illuminate the license plate since it is not visible for people and the license plate material is reflective at 800nm. Cameras that have significant sensitivity at this wavelength allow for the desired image quality without a complicated and costly work around.
Blooming and smear are challenges with outdoor vision systems. Bright spots can originate from headlights, reflections off license plates, the sun at certain times of the year, or sun reflecting on the tarmac. Image processing in the system cannot correct these defects so blooming and smear must be managed in the camera to ensure that the license plate is not obscured in the original image data.
Typically at least two good images need to be obtained on a car traveling up to 250km/h (155 mph). With a controlled test, an existing two megapixel traffic camera with a frame rate of 60 fps could still obtain a usable image for a car traveling at 360km/h. The fast frame rate needs to be also combined with high resolution. Highresolution cameras mean that fewer cameras can be used to see more of the road which simplifies the system and reduces the costs. Typically at least one megapixel resolution is required to limit a maximum of one camera per lane.
There are special considerations for the camera connectivity with regards to optical fit, electrical fit, and functionality, regardless of whether it's a system upgrade or a brand new system.
Ghost images can appear if IR lighting is used in combination with a visible light block filter. The simplest way to prevent ghost images and lens artifacts from interfering with the system performance is to utilize a supplier that also has the expertise to properly integrate the filter and lens with the camera.
It is desirable to have the large, multilane processing part of the imaging system in a different location from the camera, such as next to the road rather than close to the cameras above each lane. This requires the use of rugged cables that can transmit large amounts of data over long distances. CoaXPress is the preferred interface that meets all of the requirements and allows for use of existing analog coax infrastructure. The specific functionality required depends on the system design. External triggering is important as images are required exactly when a car drives by, which is unpredictable. Since there is no second chance when the car is gone, effective automatic exposure control is often vital to have properly exposed images.
Adequate color processing with incorporated auto white balance ensures accurate representation of the colors, important for regions where license plates are different colors.
The needs of intelligent transportation systems are different from those of traditional machine vision, and therefore both markets have significantly different camera requirements. Utilizing cameras that are optimized for traffic applications can simplify the overall system design and increase performance while also reducing costs.