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Alaska Wild Salmon Harvest Clears 890,000 Fish
The famed Copper River district salmon fishery is running well ahead of forecast and as of June 10 appeared to be likely to have a robust regular commercial fishing schedule, with openers twice weekly averaging 24 to 36 hours, state biologists said.
"We were way ahead of the forecast (for sockeyes) for the first three openers," said Jeremy Botz, the state Department of Fish and Game's gillnet area management biologist at Cordova.
The projected harvest for the first three 12-hour openers, the last of which was May 28, was 410,000 sockeye and 8,000 Chinook salmon. The preliminary estimate on the actual harvest is 586,000 reds and 5,400 kings, plus some 7,000 chums. Except for the first period, weather conditions have been favorable for the fleet and the fourth opener on June 10 was under sunny skies with temperatures near 60 degrees.
Statewide, as of June 10, the preliminary cumulative statistics show a harvest of 1,250,000 salmon of all species, including some 600,000 reds, 607,000 chum, 43,000 kings and fewer than 1,000 silver and pink salmon respectively.
Beginning this season, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is updating the harvest estimates nightly, and posting them online at http://www.adfg.alaska.gov.
Beyond the Copper River district in Prince William Sound, which opened on May 16, the Coghill and Montague district drift fisheries opened on May 27. In the Coghill district, the preliminary harvest totals are fewer than 1,000 kings, some 241,000 chum and fewer than 1,000 sockeyes. While in the Montague district, harvesters have netted fewer than 1,000 kings and some 3,000 chums. The general seine area of Prince William Sound has recorded a catch of fewer than 1,000 kings, some 7,000 chums and fewer than 1,000 reds.
The commercial fishery in Upper Cook Inlet has begun, with a cumulative harvest of fewer than 1,000 Chinook salmon. The Bristol Bay fisheries opened June 3 for Egegik, the Naknek-Kvichak and Ugashik, with no reported harvests through June 6.
In Southeast Alaska, the harvest of king salmon stood at some 36,000 Chinooks. The westward and Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region fisheries have not yet opened.
In Seattle's famed Pike Place Fish Market, whole fresh Copper River king salmon are selling for $29.99 a pound and fresh Copper River king fillets for $43.99 a pound. Whole fresh Copper River sockeyes are $64.95 per fish and fresh Copper River sockeye fillets are $21.99 a pound. In Anchorage, FishEx is offering fresh Copper River sockeye fillets for $25.95 a pound and fresh Copper River king fillets for $38.95 a pound.
As usual with the Copper River fish, it was a case of first come first served, and they were going fast, keeping fishmongers very busy.
Prices have come down a bit with some, but not all, online retailers since the celebrated annual opener of the Copper River fishery. On May 29, 10th and M Seafoods in Anchorage was retailing whole kings for $26.95 a pound and king fillets for $32.95 a pound, and sockeyes were priced at $7.95 a pound for whole fish and $11.95 a pound for fillets. Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle meanwhile was offering whole Copper River kings for $35.99 a pound, king fillets for $35.99 a pound, whole Copper River sockeyes at $94.95 each and fillets for $28.99 a pound.
First of the season Copper River wild salmon were greeted with gusto in Seattle on May 17, with the Copper Chef Cook-off on the tarmac at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, after delivery of sockeye and king salmon from three seafood processors: Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Trident Seafoods and Copper River Seafoods. Pilots from Alaska Airlines carried a large king salmon provided by Ocean Beauty Seafoods for the cook-off down the red carpet after their jet landed.
In Anchorage May 16, Copper River Seafoods celebrated the start of the season with a gala of its own at the Bridge seafood Restaurant, but had to serve up gourmet entrees of last year's salmon when weather delayed the arrival of fresh fish.
Scott Blake, president and chief executive officer of Copper River Seafoods, was undeterred, noting that the demand for Copper River salmon is strong, with increasing interest from retail customers who want to know who is harvesting the fish they eat. With increased customer demand for frozen meal solutions, the company is also focusing on more new products in that line, he said.
About this time every year, the big question on the minds of commercial harvesters is what price per pound they will get for their investment of time and effort in Alaska's commercial wild salmon fishery. The only certainty is that in 2013, as in other years, the price will depend on the exchange rate on the Japanese yen and the Euro, the harvest of other wild fish producers, particularly in Russia and Japan, and the shape of farmed salmon markets. People need to be aware of what's happening with farmed salmon prices, how much canned salmon is carried over from last year's harvest, and the elusive general mood of people in the market, said Gunnar Knapp, a fisheries economist with the University of Alaska Anchorage's Institute of Social and Economic Research. Everyone always tries to manipulate expectations, he said.
If people think the demand for salmon is strong they are willing to pay a good price, but it people think it's weak, processors may say they had better take a deal while they can get it. "That's the game everyone always plays," he said.
In his analysis of Alaska salmon values in a recent salmon market bulletin for the Alaska seafood Marketing Institute, Andy Wink of the McDowell Group in Juneau noted that in the case of troll-caught Chinook salmon, fishermen receive a large share of the retail value, offset by trollers' low production volume.
In the case of frozen Bristol Bay sockeye fillets, fishermen received 40 percent to 50 percent of the first wholesale value, and with tall canned pink salmon, fishermen receive a smaller share of the retail value, but that is offset by seiners' high production volume.
Distributors ship, store, sell and occasionally process fish before selling to retailers or restaurants. Sometimes these are independent companies and sometimes the processor or retailer maintains their own distribution business, Wink noted.
Regardless of whether salmon are sold directly from a processor to a retailer or whether they are sold to distributors, all salmon products incur distribution costs and distributor mark-ups can range from pennies per pound to over a dollar per pound, depending on the product, he said.


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Every year Vinyl Frontier members ask for Christmas style samples and there are a few Christmas sample comps already out there, but with all due respect most of em aren't very good. So this year as a Christmas gift to all VIP members, group members, followers and subscribers I put together The Vinyl Frontier Christmas Special. 50 tracks of Christmas style samples: some rare some commercial some conventional some unconventional. Killer cover art done by Berto Vasquez. Free download link below. If you have a site group or blog of your own feel free to post or share...
Get It Here: Free Download
A small sample of the dopeness:
Subscribe to Vinyl Frontier on Youtube
follow Vinyl Frontier on Facebook

subset: commoncrawl


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It might've started with Family Ties and "At This Moment." Or maybe it was Friends' Ross and Rachel going on a break to the strains of "With or Without You." Somewhere along the way, we started associating great songs with the big TV moments they'd accompanied, and we're betting you do the same.
Since the fall season has already offered up some great iPod fodder, we're helping you get your groove on by compiling a list of recent TV tunes that struck us as awesome, complete with song and artist information in case you want to add them to your permanent collection.
Here's how it goes. First off, the usual warning: Spoilers abound. Second, you know we lurve Glee, but we kept the list to songs used as background rather than as musical numbers unto themselves. That said, there's nothing scientific behind our picks; we just went with what we thought was cool. If you disagree or have other suggestions, that leads us to our third point: Hit the comments section, because we really wanna know what TV songs you'd choose.
Let's get started! Peruse our TVLine Mixtape playlist, and then fill the comments with your favorite TV jams!
SERIES AND EPISODE | Revenge, "Destiny"
SONG TITLE | "Into the Black"
ARTIST | Chromatics
ALBUM | Kill for Love (2012)
WHY IT ROCKED | Boozy and bereaved, Daniel watched from afar as his former fiancée stood on her dock after a moonlight swim. Jack and Amanda lay in bed, neither sleeping, neither happy. At Cliffside, Charlotte railed against the indignity of her father's betrayal. And the lyric –"Once you're gone, you can never come back" – applied to all of them.
LINER NOTES | The song used in this scene is a cover of Neil Young's "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)."
SERIES AND EPISODE | The Mindy Project, "Pilot"
SONG TITLE | "Bad Girls"
ALBUM | Available now in single; slated for M.I.A.'s not-yet-titled studio album due in December
WHY IT ROCKED | If you can think of a better soundtrack for ditching a blind date, running barefoot through city streets when you can't get a cab, navigating a quick change, scrubbing in and delivering a breech baby, we'd like to hear it. (Side note: For reasons we can't quite pinpoint, the lipstick removal in particular is just. so. badass.)
SERIES AND EPISODE | Sons of Anarchy, "Stolen Huffy"
SONG TITLE | "The Lost Boy"
ARTIST | Greg Holden
ALBUM | n/a – though the song is available as a charity single benefitting the Red Cross
WHY IT ROCKED | Still hollowed out by Opie's death in the previous episode, SAMCRO gave him a quiet send-off. Drinks were raised. Tears were shed. Childhood photos were lovingly tucked into jackets. And as the chorus blossomed, Jax led the procession that put the troubled Son to rest.
LINER NOTES | Holden co-wrote the debut single "Home" for American Idol's Phillip Phillips.
SERIES AND EPISODE | Raising Hope, "Not Indecent, But Not Quite Decent Enough Proposal"
SONG TITLE | "White Night"
ARTIST | The Postelles
ALBUM | The Postelles (2011)
WHY IT ROCKED | It took them a few times to nail it – and even the so-called right time involved him admitting that he'd once had a momentary sumthin'-sumthin' with her mom — but the boppy music that cranked up when Sabrina accepted Jimmy's proposal gave us a good feeling that their new home will be a happy one. (Take that, Grandma!)
SERIES AND EPISODE | Bones, "The Future in the Past"
SONG TITLE | "Ho Hey"
ARTIST | The Lumineers
ALBUM | The Lumineers (2012)
WHY IT ROCKED | There's nothing to cement Brennan's return to the Jeffersonian (and Booth, of course) like a good, music-backed montage. When Brennan and Angela each figured out a piece of the Pelant puzzle, it looked like the criminal mastermind was going to go away for a really long time. (Turned out he did… as an extradited "Egyptian" – and therefore basically free — citizen.) Ah well. At least the song was solid.
LINER NOTES | If "Ho Hey" sounded familiar, it's likely because you heard it in ads for Blue Moon beer.
SERIES AND EPISODE | How I Met Your Mother, "Farhampton"
SONG TITLE | "The Funeral"
ARTIST | Band of Horses
ALBUM | Everything All the Time (2006)
WHY IT ROCKED | Guys, we met the mother! If ever a moment needed to be commemorated with a tune, this was it.
SERIES AND EPISODE | Elementary, "Pilot"
SONG TITLE | "Young Blood"
ARTIST | The Naked and the Famous
ALBUM | Passive Me, Aggressive You (2011)
WHY IT ROCKED | Most the songs on our list were picked because they provided a background for a hugely emotional moment. This one was picked because we thought it was a cool song and because a TVLine editor happened to be running in Central Park as Lucy Liu was shooting her fleet-footed scenes alongside the reservoir earlier this year.
SERIES AND EPISODE | New Girl, "Re-Launch"
SONG TITLE | "All Alright"
ARTIST | Fun.
ALBUM | Some Nights (2012)
WHY IT ROCKED | Nick's sweet reassurance to an out-of-work Jess ("C'mon, I can't do anything and look at me! I'm… kinda fine"), her giggled admission that she'd confused "shot girl" for "cigarette girl" and his easy arm around her shoulders were perfectly backed by the pop confection.
SERIES AND EPISODE | Parenthood, "The Talk"
SONG TITLE | "Towards the Sun"
ARTIST | Alexi Murdoch
ALBUM | Towards the Sun (2011)
SONG TITLE | "Names and Races"
ARTIST | Foreign Fields
ALBUM | Anywhere But Where I Am (2012)
WHY THEY ROCKED | As if the drama needed more help tugging on our hearts… These two acoustic numbers put a soft edge on a tough subject, the first while Jasmine and Crosby were talking to Jabbar about racism and the second as the worried parents watched their son sleep.
SERIES AND EPISODE | Grey's Anatomy, "Going, Going, Gone"
SONG TITLE | "Without You"
ARTIST | One Two
ALBUM | The version used in the show was the acoustic single; you can find another version on the band's Best Friend EP (2012)
WHY IT ROCKED | "Death changes everything," Mer said. "This song makes us want to hug our person very tightly," we say. RIP, Mark.Follow @kimroots


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All News Releases By Date
The Performance Operating Company Fined for Violating the Clean Water Act
Release Date: 09/05/2012
Contact Information: Dave Bary or Jennah Durant at 214-665-2200 or firstname.lastname@example.com
(DALLAS – September 5, 2012) The Environmental Protection Agency has fined the Performance Operating Company, LLC, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, $3,250 for violating federal Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) regulations at two of its oil production facilities.
A June 28, 2012, EPA inspection at the company's North Kane Tank Battery in Osage County, Oklahoma, found the facility's SPCC plan had inadequate or no facility diagram, no listing of type of oil and storage capacity layout of containers, and the plan did not discuss nor implement appropriate containment and diversionary structures and equipment. The inspection also revealed the field drainage system, oil traps and skimmers were not regularly inspected and oil not promptly removed. The fine for the violations at the North Kane Tank Battery was $1,750.
A second EPA inspection on June 28, 2012, found the company's #4A SWD facility in Osage County had no SPCC plan as required by federal regulations. The fine for the absence of an SPCC plan was $1,500.
As part of an Expedited Settlement Agreement with the EPA, the company has provided certification that all identified deficiencies have been corrected at both facilities.
SPCC regulations require onshore oil production or bulk storage facilities to provide oil spill prevention, preparedness and countermeasures to prevent oil discharges. The SPCC program helps protect our nation's water quality since a spill of only one gallon of oil can contaminate one million gallons of water.
Additional information on SPCC regulations is available at: https://www.epa.gov/oilspill
More about activities in EPA Region 6 is available at https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/region6.html
Search this collection of releases | or search all news releases
View selected historical press releases from 1970 to 1998 in the EPA History website.


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Robert Cooper/killer of Al Kite Jr Aug 15, 2018 21:22:12 GMT via mobile gray and andersoncooper like this
Robert Cooper/killer of Al Kite Jr
Robert Cooper/killer of Al Kite Jr
f1guyus: God she was hot. Sept 13, 2020 1:30:08 GMT
rkz: Hello everyone. Hope ou're all doing well. Haven't really posted since 2018. Any developments I should know about? Did we ever find out if anyone on this baord was JJD? Sept 13, 2020 17:12:24 GMT
f1guyus: Smart Alec Sept 14, 2020 1:02:40 GMT
nowhereman: CBK totally was Sept 14, 2020 2:24:38 GMT
nowhereman: can't confirm it, but he went completely silent the day JJD was taken into custody. Recent activity before that. I think he was last logged in after the arrest, but there is a lag before you would "time out" Sept 14, 2020 2:25:58 GMT
cherylh: It would be great if the investigators or law enforcement would confirm JJD's participation. Sept 14, 2020 18:36:34 GMT
f1guyus: Actually Why? Sept 15, 2020 1:54:22 GMT
cherylh: It would be interesting to look back at his posts. Sept 15, 2020 22:48:29 GMT
artbe4words: It has been said by others that CBK asked many questions about DNA and then later would delete his questions. I heard he deleted a lot of his comments. It did appear he was trying to lead people down a trail that had nothing to do with the truth too. Sept 16, 2020 23:51:38 GMT
f1guyus: I would love to think that Joe spent his golden years thinking about getting rolled up by the "samples" he spread around. Sept 17, 2020 1:43:11 GMT
warren: I think about that too. But its not the police I worry about knocking on the door, but one of those samples I spread around all growed up. Sept 17, 2020 17:04:44 GMT
elir: my understanding is that cbk did delete comments , but to be fair other members have done that as well. some,upon leaving the sub, have asked me to delete all of their posts.it is odd but not as uncommon as one might think. Sept 19, 2020 18:19:39 GMT
mtf65: elir, did kNr and Trick delete posts? Sept 23, 2020 1:17:18 GMT
elir: I havent checked for them but many members have deleted their posts, I have deleted some of my own posts. Sept 23, 2020 3:46:23 GMT
steelbike: It would be interesting to find out that the ToT and KnR poster(s) had been JJD because of the things that they had insinuated. Sept 23, 2020 8:53:28 GMT
goldrusher: Enjoying this cooler weather. Autumn is my favorite season. Sept 23, 2020 11:16:45 GMT
steelbike: Mine too. Sept 23, 2020 11:46:32 GMT
steelbike: 🎃 Sept 23, 2020 11:54:05 GMT
goldrusher: Hope all is well with you steelbike Sept 23, 2020 13:23:29 GMT
steelbike: Thanks goldrusher, I hope the same for you. Sept 23, 2020 22:12:26 GMT


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I have decided to play a Ranger, i pick all ranged ablity's and powers. i will be a bad ass with a longbow. I have yet to make up a background but my race is a half-orc,which will make is interesting to play. Going to have to grow a beard and wear a hooded cloak in town. I will still keep Arn... I will find a game for him trust me. I will be the first time i have played a ranger so it wiill be fun.
On a heavier note i am having surgery tomorrow to put a fistula in my arm so i can have hemo-dyalsis
Well its july 8th and i'm looking for a game to play,D&D game.i love to roleplay and make believe. sounds funny but it's nice to get away from things, real life can get boring and down right sucky. So i must find some friends online to play.... i've found openrpg and Maptools for playing D&D online, never done it before but will give it a try. I made up a charactor, it's a figher eladrin some kind of new elf in 4E,the sound like a cool race being able to teleport.... it's called fey step.


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David Henderson
Duration: 84 minutes
Format: PAL
Region: 2 & 4
First Pasture Price: £15.15
Status: In Stock
Far too many lambs are lost unnecessarily during the first few days of life. This programme illustrates the techniques that can be used by shepherds in both lowland and hill situations to reduce losses to a minimum.
The techniques shown are presented by David Henderson with the help of experienced shepherds and students and shows useful and practical information for both farmers and smallholders, whether they be beginners or more experienced shepherds.
This detailed lambing programme includes vital information on the management of the ewe during pregnancy, feeding during pregnancy, vaccinations, the importance of colostrum and feeding requirements, advice on the lambing pen and post lambing accommodation and care.
David Henderson also examines vulnerability issues of newborn lambs including infections and loss of heat and energy, hypothermia, how to take a lamb's temperature, how to treat lambs above and below six hours old, intraperitoneal injection of glucose, the use of warming boxes and after-care. Castration, assisted lambing and fostering and medical risks are also discussed in some detail.
David's experience includes work as a shepherd, veterinary surgeon, lecturer and past president of the Sheep Veterinary Society.
For quick reference of all farming dvds available within the shop, visit the Farming DVDs A-Z page.


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Joan Higginbotham
NASA astronaut
Personal data
Born 3 August 1964 in Chicago, Illinois. She enjoys body building (weightlifting), cycling, music, motivational speaking.
Received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, in 1987, a Masters of Management from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1992, and a Masters in Space Systems from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1996.
NASA experience
Joan Higginbotham began her career in 1987 at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, as a Payload Electrical Engineer in the Electrical and Telecommunications Systems Division. Within six months she became the lead for the Orbiter Experiments on Space Shuttle Columbia. She later worked on the Shuttle payload bay reconfiguration for all Shuttle missions and conducted electrical compatibility tests for all payloads flown aboard the Shuttle. She was also tasked by Kennedy Space Center management to undertake several special assignments where she served as the Executive Staff Assistant to the Director of Shuttle Operations and Management, led a team of engineers in performing critical analysis for the Space Shuttle flow in support of a simulation model tool, and worked on an interactive display detailing the Space Shuttle processing procedures at Spaceport USA (Kennedy Space Center's Visitors Center).
Higginbotham then served as backup orbiter project engineer for Space Shuttle Atlantis, where she participated in the integration of the orbiter docking station into the space shuttle used during Shuttle/Mir docking missions. Two years later, she was promoted to lead orbiter project engineer for Space Shuttle Columbia. In this position, she held the technical lead government engineering position in the firing room where she supported and managed the integration of vehicle testing and troubleshooting. She actively participated in 53 space shuttle launches during her 9-year tenure at Kennedy Space Center.
Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in April 1996, Joan Higginbotham reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. Since that time, she had been assigned technical duties in the Payloads and Habitability Branch, the Shuttle Avionics and Integration Laboratory, and the Kennedy Space Center Operations Support Branch, where she tested various modules of the International Space Station for operability, compatibility, and functionality prior to launch. She worked in the Astronaut Office CAPCOM (Capsule Communicator) Branch in the startup and support of numerous space station missions and space shuttle missions. She was also assigned to the Robotics Branch. Her last assignment was as the Lead for the International Space Station Systems Crew Interfaces Section. Joan is assigned to the crew of STS-116 where her primary task will be to operate the Space Station Remote Manipulator System.


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(1) Every licensee shall maintain records in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles and practices in a manner which will enable the commissioner to determine whether the licensee is complying with the provisions of this article. The record-keeping system of a licensee shall be sufficient if he makes the required information reasonably available. The records need not be kept in the place of business where regulated consumer loans are made, if the commissioner is given free access to the records wherever located. The records pertaining to any loan need not be preserved for more than two years after making the final entry relating to the loan, but in the case of a revolving loan account such two-year period is measured from the date of each entry.
(2) On or before February 15 each year, every licensee shall file with the commissioner a composite annual report in the form prescribed by the commissioner relating to all regulated consumer loans made by him and showing in detail the actual financial condition and the amount of the assets and liabilities of such financial institution. The commissioner shall consult with comparable officials in other states for the purpose of making the kinds of information required in annual reports uniform among the states. Information contained in annual reports shall be confidential and may be published only in composite form.


text:
Mean-spirited but common, plant thieves will cut your blooms, remove front-stoop pots, or even dig trees up from your yard. Learn how to foil them.
What one thief might consider trash can be your treasure. Create this simple container for your car, and safely hide your valuables in (almost) plain site.
In the days of old, when spies passed messages to each other, they used many hidden messages. One of these methods was to hide the information in a dot of plastic or microfilm about the size of a pin head, and then end a sentence with it. [more]
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text:
Galileo navigation signals and frequencies
Galileo receivers receive the signals broadcast by the Galileo satellites and process them to compute position. Through this processing, the receivers extract measurements giving an indication of the distance from the user to the satellite.
They also decode the Galileo navigation data, which contain fundamental pieces of information for computing the user position such as the position of the satellites and the satellite clock errors as determined by the Galileo ground segment and up-linked regularly to the Galileo constellation.
The frequencies used by the satellites are within the 1.1 to 1.6 GHz band; a range of frequencies particularly well suited for mobile navigation and communication services.
Each Galileo satellite will broadcast 10 different navigation signals making it possible for Galileo to offer the open (OS), safety-of-life (SOL), commercial (CS) and public regulated services (PRS).
A distinction is made between signals containing navigation data (the data channels) and signals carrying no data (pilot channels). In the diagram this is highlighted by plotting the data channels and the pilot channels in orthogonal planes, a means of indicating that the signals of the data and pilot channels are shifted by 90 degrees in phase, which allows for their separation in the receivers.
Galileo signals have codes
All the satellites transmit at the same frequency, that is, the Galileo signal at L1 is broadcast at 1575.42 MHz from any satellite. To allow the receivers to distinguish which satellites the signals are coming from and to allow the receivers to measure the time it took the signal to travel from the satellite to the receiver (the basic measurement used for position determination), a code is added to the signal. This code is different for each satellite and its design is one of the many arts involved in making a good satellite navigation system.
A long code would allow tracking of very faint signals, such as those received inside a building, but it would be very difficult to acquire because a receiver acquires the signal by searching for the delay of the received code and for a long code there are more possibilities than for a shorter code.
Shorter codes are good for achieving fast acquisition but may lead to false acquisitions of satellites when a receiver confuses the signal between two satellites. This is because the capability of a receiver to distinguish between two different codes is inversely proportional to the length of the codes.
The code is like a key. When a receiver attempts to acquire a satellite signal, it compares the code of the received signal with a local replica stored on the receiver. When the two codes match, the receiver channel is open, otherwise the receiver tries with another code corresponding to another satellite till it succeeds.
However, not all the elements of the code need to match precisely and it is sufficient if the two codes are close enough. This means that the more complex the keys are, that is, the longer the codes, the more difficult it is to confuse keys, and therefore to mix up satellites.
Why so many different Galileo signals ?
In the end, a good engineering compromise has been found, but since those compromises may not satisfy all type of users (an indoor, static user may like long codes, while outdoor, fast-moving users would prefer short codes), the solution has been to provide alternative codes with different characteristics on the various Galileo signals. This is one of the reasons why there are so many signals.
In GPS only one signal is available, which does not allow the kind of optimisation performed for Galileo. This will be overcome with the GPS modernisation programme, where more GPS signals will be made available.
Another reason for having so many signals in Galileo is to allow the receiver to estimate the ionospheric delay error. This error is due to the delay that the navigation signals suffer when they travel through the ionosphere. This delay makes the distance from the satellite to the user, as measured by the receiver, appear longer than it actually is and if not corrected would lead to large positioning errors. Fortunately, this delay is proportional to the frequency of the signal, with lower frequency signals experiencing a longer delay than higher frequency signals. Therefore, by combining measurements to the same satellite at two different frequencies it is possible to produce another measurement where the ionospheric delay error has been cancelled out. This cancellation becomes more effective as the separation between the two frequencies increases. This is the reason why Galileo services are generally realised using pairs of signals.
The open services are realized by using the signals at L1, E5a and E5b, whether data or pilot. Several combinations are also possible, such as a dual frequency service based on using L1 and E5a (for best ionospheric error cancellation) or single frequency services (at L1, E5a, E5b or E5a and E5b together) in which case the ionospheric error is removed using a model, and even triple frequency services using all the signal together (L1, E5a and E5b), which can be exploited for very precise, centimetric applications.
The safety-of-life services are based on the measurements obtained from the open signal and use the integrity data carried in special messages designated for this purposed within the open signals. The safety-of-life service is like a data channel within the open signals.
The commercial service is realized with two additional signals in the 1278.75 MHz band plus also the capability to include commercial data within the open signals.
The Public Regulated Service is realized by two signals, one in the 1575.42 MHz band and the other in the 1278.75 MHz band. These signals are encrypted, allowing the implementation of an access control scheme.
Finally, the distinctive shape of the spectrum of the signals is due to the special modulation adopted for Galileo. This modulation has been chosen to avoid interference with other satellite navigation systems within the same band, which is indeed the case of GPS at L1. The modulation adopted is called BOC(1,1), meaning Binary Offset Carrier of rate (1,1). This kind of modulation allows GPS and Galileo signals to occupy the same frequency while avoiding mutual interference. This makes building receivers that use both GPS and Galileo simpler, because GPS and Galileo use the same frequency.


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***Announcement: It would mean so much if you supported...
I really don't care! [ON HOLD]74876
- by Hannah1999
- Rating:
- Published: 22 Mar 2014
- Updated: 22 Apr 2014
- Status: In Progress
Please read to find out ;)
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Practice in accordance to state practice act and principles of veterinary medical ethics
Leverage evidence-based medicine and continue pursuit of education to deliver quality patient care
Devote yourself to the culture of preventive care and Optimum Wellness Plans
Adopt and positively impact new veterinary standards and guidelines
Deliver medical and surgical treatments with formulary approved pharmaceuticals, supplies, and equipment, in accordance with Banfield's Medical Quality Standards
Partner with clients as an advocate for the pet to plan follow-up visits, provide home-care instructions, and education to ensure the lifelong health of their pets
Maintain relevant, comprehensive medical records with the support of practice systems, including Banfield's database, PetWare, designed to obtain data for population research
Foster an effective veterinary support team by communicating medical standards, ethical practices, and your veterinary knowledge and experience
Exemplify the Mars Five Principles — Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency, and Freedom
State Veterinary Board License and must be in good standing for the state in which they intend to be hired, prior to their start date.
Additional Licensing:
A State Controlled Substance (SCS) License may be required by the state in which you intend to work. If you do not already hold an SCS, Banfield encourages you to obtain this license after your start date as the practice may reimburse this cost.
Once an associate has obtained their SCS, Banfield will apply and pay for your DEA License.
New associates will be required to take their state USDA Accreditation class by the time they reach the 12-week mark from their hire date.
Valid through: 11/16/2020


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|J. R. Ackerley
Portrait of J. R. Ackerley by Howard Coster
Portrait of J. R. Ackerley by Howard Coster
4 November 1896
London, England
4 June 1967 (aged 70)
London, England
|Writer and editor
Joe Randolph "J. R." Ackerley[1] (4 November 1896 – 4 June 1967) was a British writer and editor. Starting with the BBC the year after its founding in 1927, he was promoted to literary editor of The Listener, its weekly magazine, where he served for more than two decades. He published many emerging poets and writers who became influential in Great Britain. He was openly gay, a rarity in his time when homosexuality was forbidden by law and socially ostracized.
Ackerley's extramarital half-sister was Sally Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster.
Family and educationEdit
Ackerley's memoir My Father and Myself, begins: "I was born in 1896 and my parents were married in 1919." Registered at birth as Joe Ackerley, he later took the middle name Randolph after an uncle. As an adult, he published under his first two initials and surname.[2] His father Roger Ackerley was a successful fruit merchant known as the "Banana King" of London. (Roger was first married to an actress named Louise Burckhardt, who died young in 1892, probably of tuberculosis, and before they had children).[3]
His mother was Janetta Aylward (known as Netta), an actress whom Roger met in Paris; the two returned to London together. They had an intermittent relationship and three years later in 1895, she gave birth to a son, Peter, then Joe a year later, and Nancy in 1899. According to Joe's maternal Aunt Bunny, Peter's birth, and likely all of them, were "accidents." She told him, "Your father happened to have run out of French letters that day," (when Peter was conceived).[4] His father set up a household with his mother starting in 1903, after which the children saw him more regularly.[5] His business did very well and the family had a "butler, a gardener, and, evidently, a very good table."[5]
Ackerley was educated at Rossall School, a public and preparatory school in Fleetwood, Lancashire. During this time, he discovered he was attracted to other boys. His striking good looks earned him the nickname "Girlie," but he was not very sexually active as a schoolboy. He described himself as
"a chaste, puritanical, priggish, rather narcissistic little boy, more repelled than attracted to sex, which seemed to me a furtive, guilty, soiling thing, exciting, yes, but nothing whatever to do with those feelings which I had not yet experienced but about which I was already writing a lot of dreadful sentimental verse, called romance and love."[6]His father gave him a generous allowance and never insisted that he follow him into business.[5]
Failing his entrance examinations for Cambridge University, Ackerley applied for a commission in the Army and went off to the First World War. After the war, he returned and attended Cambridge but never wrote much about it.
In October 1929 his father Roger Ackerley died of tertiary syphilis. Shortly afterward, Ackerley found a sealed note from his father addressed to him, which concluded:
"I am not going to make any excuses, old man. I have done my duty towards everybody as far as my nature would allow and I hope people generally will be kind to my memory. All my men pals know of my second family and of their mother, so you won't find it difficult to get on their track."
Ackerley thus discovered his father had had a second family for more than 20 years. Roger would visit his daughters three or four times a year when supposedly traveling for business, and sometimes when out to walk his first family's dog. His mistress, Muriel Perry, served as a nurse during the First World War and was busy with her career; she seldom saw their three daughters: Sally and Elizabeth, twins born in 1909, and Diana, born in 1912; all were cared for by a Miss Coutts.[5] The birth of the youngest was never registered;[5] but they were all given their mother's surname. Ackerley described the lives of his half-sisters in his 1968 memoir: "They had no parental care, no family life, no friends." For years, the girls thought his father Roger was their much-loved "Uncle Bodger", who occasionally brought them gifts and money.[5]
Joe looked after his father's second family without telling his mother, who died in 1946. For years, Ackerley was obsessed with his relationship with his father, both because of the tension of the son's covert homosexuality and what he described as his father's domineering personality. In his memoir, My Father and Myself (1969), which one reviewer termed the "mystery" of the son on the track of his father, Ackerley speculated that his father had some homosexual experiences as a young guardsman, but never proved it. In trying to understand his father's life, he grappled with his own.
In 1975 Diana Perry, then Diana Petre, published a memoir called The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley. The term "secret orchard" was Roger's for his second family, used in one of his final notes to his son Joe.
World War IEdit
As World War I had begun, Ackerly was accepted immediately as a Second Lieutenant and assigned to the 8th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, part of the 18th Division, then stationed in East Anglia. In June 1915 he was sent to France. The following summer he was wounded at the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916. He was shot in the arm and suffered shards of a whiskey bottle becoming imbedded in his side from an explosion. After lying wounded in a shell-hole for six hours, he was rescued by British troops and sent home for sick-leave.
He soon volunteered to go back to the front. As he had been promoted to captain, when his older brother Peter arrived in France in December 1916, Ackerley was his superior officer. He later wrote that the cheerful Peter saluted his brother "gladly and conscientiously."[7] In February 1917, Peter was wounded in action on a dangerous assignment. Though he got back to the British lines, Ackerley never saw his brother again, as he was killed on 7 August 1918, two months before the end of the war.[8] Peter's death haunted Ackerley all his life; he suffered from survivor's guilt.[9] In May 1917 Ackerley led an attack in the Arras region where he was wounded, this time in the buttock and thigh. While he was waiting for help, the Germans arrived and took him prisoner. As an officer, he was assigned to an internment camp in neutral Switzerland, which was relatively comfortable. Here he began his play, The Prisoners of War, which expresses the cabin fever of captivity and his frustrated longings for another English prisoner. Ackerley was not repatriated to England until after the war ended.
After the war, Ackerley attended Cambridge. He moved to London after graduation, where he continued to write and enjoyed the cosmopolitan capital. In 1923 his poem was included in a collection of young British writers, so he began to get recognition.
He met E. M. Forster and other literary bright lights, but was lonely despite numerous sexual partners. With his play having trouble finding a producer, and feeling generally adrift and distant from his family, Ackerley turned to Forster for guidance. Forster arranged a position as secretary to the Maharaja of Chhatarpur, whom he knew from writing A Passage to India. Ackerley spent about five months in India, which was still under British rule. He developed a strong distaste for the several Anglo-Indians he met. Ackerley's comic memoir Hindoo Holiday explores some of his experiences. The Maharaja was homosexual, and His Majesty's obsessions and dalliances, along with Ackerley's observations about Anglo-Indians, account for much of the humor of the work.[citation needed] During these months, he developed sexual relationships with the 20-year-old Narayan and 16-year-old Sharma, servants of the maharaja. In England, Prisoners of War was finally produced in 1925, to some acclaim. Its run began at The Three Hundred Club on 5 July 1925, then transferred to The Playhouse on 31 August. Ackerley enjoyed his success, returning to London to carouse with its theatrical crowd. Through Cambridge friends, he met the actor John Gielgud, and other rising stars of the stage.
In 1928, Ackerley joined the staff of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), then a year old. He worked in the "Talks" Department, which arranged radio lectures by prominent scholars and public figures, and helped create the new organization, which had extensive influence on British literary and cultural life. In 1935 Ackerley was selected as Literary Editor of the BBC's magazine, The Listener, and his work with it was the mainstay of his career; he served in this position for more than two decades until 1959. During this time, he discovered and promoted many young writers, including Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Christopher Isherwood. Ackerley was one of Francis King's two mentors (the other being C. H. B. Kitchin).
Later lifeEdit
From 1943, Ackerley lived in a small flat at Putney overlooking the Thames. Almost all his significant work was produced during this period. He had a stable job at the BBC and ended the unsatisfying promiscuity of his younger years. What remained was his search for what he called an "Ideal Friend". Ackerley took financial responsibility for his sister Nancy, who was unstable, and his aging Aunt Bunny. In 1946 (the year his mother died) he acquired an Alsatian named Queenie, a dog that became his primary companion of the next 15 years. These were his most productive years, when he revised Hindoo Holiday (1952), completed My Dog Tulip (1956) and his novel, We Think the World of You (1960), and worked on drafts of My Father and Myself.
Ackerley left the BBC in 1959. He visited Japan in 1960 to see his friend Francis King; he was very taken with the beauty of the scenery and even more with Japanese men.
On 30 October 1961 Queenie died. Ackerley, who had lost a brother and both parents, described it as "the saddest day of my life."[10] He said: "I would have immolated myself as a suttee when Queenie died. For no human would I ever have done such a thing, but by my love for Queenie I would have been irresistibly compelled."[11] In 1962, We Think the World of You won the W. H. Smith Literary Award, which came with a substantial cash prize, but this did little to stir him from his grief. (He thought Richard Hughes should have won, and also thought little of the award's previous recipients.[12])
In the years after Queenie's death, Ackerly worked on his memoir about his father and drank too much. His sister Nancy found him dead in his bed on the morning of 4 June 1967. Ackerley's biographer Peter Parker gives the cause of death as coronary thrombosis.[13]
Toward the end of his life, Ackerley sold 1075 letters from Forster, dating from 1922, for which he received ₤6000; as he said, it was "a sum of money which will enable Nancy and me to drink ourselves carelessly into our graves."[14] Ackerley did not live long enough to enjoy the money but, together with the royalties from his existing works as well as several published posthumously, it allowed Nancy Ackerley to live in relative comfort until her death in 1979.
Ackerly was openly gay after his parents' deaths, having realized his homosexuality while interned in Switzerland during World War I.[15] Ackerley plumbed his sexuality in his writings. He belonged to a circle of notable literary homosexuals who flouted convention, specifically the homophobia that kept gay men in the closet or exposed openly gay men to legal persecution.[16]
While never finding the "Ideal Friend" he wrote of so often (at least in human form), he had a number of long-term relationships. Ackerley was a "twank," a term used by sailors and guardsmen to describe a man who paid for their sexual services. He described the ritual of picking up and entertaining a young guardsman, sailor or labourer. Forster warned him, "Joe, you must give up looking for gold in coal mines."[17]
His memoir serves as a guide to the sexuality of a gay man of Ackerley's generation. W. H. Auden, in his review of My Father and Myself, speculates that Ackerley enjoyed the "brotherly"[18] sexual act of mutual masturbation rather than penetration. Ackerley described himself as "quite impenetrable."[19]
- The Prisoners of War (first performed 5 July 1925), a play about Captain Conrad's comfortable captivity in Switzerland during World War I. Conrad suffers most from his longing for the attractive young Lieutenant Grayle. Ackerley claimed to prefer the title The Interned to The Prisoners of War.[20]
- Hindoo Holiday (1932, revised and expanded 1952), a memoir of Ackerley's brief engagement as secretary to an Indian Maharaja in the city of Chhatarpur, which he called Chhokrapur (meaning "City of Boys") as a joke in the book.
- My Dog Tulip (1956), an account of living with his dog Queenie. Her companionship enabled him to give up seeking casual sex. The dog's name was changed to Tulip in the title when the editors of Commentary, who had purchased an excerpt, became concerned that using her name of Queenie might encourage jokes about Ackerley's sexuality. The book was adapted as an animated feature released in 2009 and starring Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave and Isabella Rossellini.
- We Think the World of You (1960), Ackerley's only novel; it explores a middle-class intellectual man (based closely on himself) and his working-class London family. It includes a fictionalized account of Ackerley's experience with his dog Queenie (called "Evie" in the book). It explores the frustrations of the relationship between the homosexual narrator and Evie's former owner, who was (mostly) heterosexual. The novel was adapted as a motion picture by the same name in 1988, which starred Alan Bates and Gary Oldman.
Works published posthumously:
- My Father and Myself (1968), a memoir of Ackerley's life and relationship with his father. Together with a 1975 memoir by his half-sister Diana Petre, it was the basis of the 1979 TV movie Secret Orchards, about their father's two sets of children.
- E.M. Forster: A Portrait (1970), short biography of the writer.
- Micheldever and Other Poems (1972), poetry volume.
- The Ackerley Letters (1975), edited by Neville Braybrooke.
- My Sister and Myself (1982), selections from Ackerley's diary, edited by Francis King. Most material refers to Ackerley's relationship with his sister Nancy West (née Ackerley).
Other worksEdit
- Ackerley edited and wrote the introduction to Escapers All (1932), 15 first-person accounts of World War I POW camp escapees (published by The Bodley Head).
- In the United States, his books have been reissued and are published solely by New York Review of Books Classics.
Legacy and honorsEdit
- His sister Nancy Ackerley Davis endowed the annual J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography, which was awarded beginning in 1982.
- "If you look like a wild beast, you are expected to behave like one." (My Dog Tulip)
- "To speak the truth, I think that people ought to be upset, and if I had a paper I would upset them all the time; I think that life is so important and, in its workings, so upsetting that nobody should be spared." (Letter to Stephen Spender, December 1955.)
- "If there is good to be said of me, others must report that." (Notebook for My Father and Myself)
- "'The fair sex? And which sex is that?'" (Captain Conrad to Mme. Louis in The Prisoners of War)
- ↑ Parker, Peter, Ackerley: The Life of J. R. Ackerley, p. 7. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989
- ↑ Parker, Peter, Ackerley: The Life of J. R. Ackerley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989, p. 7
- ↑ Parker, p. 10.
- ↑ Ackerley, J. R., My Father and Myself,, p. 65. New York Review of Books Classics, 1999 ed.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 W.H. Auden, Review: "Papa Was a Wise Old Sly-Boots", Review of Ackerley's My Father and Myself, New York Review of Books, 27 March 1969, accessed 4 April 2012
- ↑ Parker, p. 16.
- ↑ My Father and Myself, p. 75.
- ↑ My Father and Myself, p. 97
- ↑ My Father and Myself, p. 97.
- ↑ Ackerley quoted in Parker, p. 380
- ↑ Ackerley quoted in Parker, p. 379
- ↑ Parker, p. 391
- ↑ Parker, p. 431
- ↑ Ackerley quoted in Parker's Ackerley, p. 431.
- ↑ Miller, p. 107
- ↑ Parker, pp. 101–123
- ↑ Parker, p. 115
- ↑ My Father and Myself, p. xiv.
- ↑ My Father and Myself, p. 180.
- ↑ The Ackerley Letters, edited by Neville Braybrooke, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, p. 112
- Miller, Neil (1995). Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. New York, Vintage Books. ISBN 0-09-957691-0.
- Murray, Stephen O. "Ackerley, Joseph Randolph", Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. Dynes, Wayne R. (ed.), Garland Publishing, 1990. p. 9
- Parker, Peter, Ackerley: The Life of J. R. Ackerley. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1989.
- Stern, Keith (2009). "Queers in History". BenBella Books, Inc.; Dallas, Texas. ISBN 978-1-933771-87-8.
Archival ResourcesEdit
- J. R. (Joe Randolph) Ackerley Collection, 1924-1983 (187 items) is housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin.
- W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman Collection, 1929-1976 is housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin.
- Peter Burton papers, circa 1960-2008 are housed at the Cornell University Library.
- Sir John Collings Squire Papers, 1910-1958 (15.5 linear ft.) are housed at the Charles E. Young Research Library at the University of California, Los Angeles.
- Roy Broadbent Fuller Poetry manuscripts, 1965-1969 (ca. 50 items) are housed at the Columbia University Libraries.
- E. M. Forster Collection, 1908-1971 is housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin.
External linksEdit
- J. R. Ackerley on glbtq.com
- My Dog Tulip Movie Official Website
- My Dog Tulip IMDb page
- New York Review of Books Classics
- Secret Orchards IMDb page
- We Think the World of You IMDb page
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text:
A new discovery could rewrite the history books on the Milky Way. According to a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, our galaxy absorbed a smaller satellite galaxy several million years ago. But more than that, it was a celestial event that culminated in the meeting of each galaxy's central black holes. The ensuing collision resulted in a cataclysmic event that blasted a swath of old stars straight out of the core region at hypervelocity speeds.
The theory, put forth by Kelly Holley-Bockelmann of Vanderbilt and Tamara Bogdanović of Georgia Tech suggests that our galaxy has had a violent past — and it may not have been the only encounter like it over the course of its history.
A Fermi problem
Holley-Bockelmann and Bogdanović started to suspect something after studying Fermi Bubbles — two giant lobes of extremely energetic diffuse gamma-ray light that are bursting from the center of the galaxy straight above and below the galactic plane.
"Right now, each lobe is about 25,000 light years across," Holley-Bockelmann told io9. "Scientists know that gamma-ray light comes from the most energetic physics known, but we still don't completely understand what made these bubbles."
The astronomers suspect that particles erupted from the galactic center at nearly the speed of light, and then slammed into the ambient interstellar gas — a high-speed collision energetic enough to make just this kind of gamma ray.
But two clues in particular helped the team figure out what drove the Fermi Bubbles.
"The first clue was that the edges of these bubbles are super sharp, which made us think that whatever made the Fermi Bubbles was a very abrupt event," said Holley-Bockelmann. "By taking the current size and running the clock backwards, we could figure out that the Fermi Bubbles were made a few million years ago.
This was the second clue, she noted, because it matched the ages of the new stars formed at the galactic center — which made the researchers believe that both were caused by the same culprit.
"Ultimately, we suspected that gas was disturbed by a passing satellite galaxy, and some of the gas made stars, while the rest funneled into the supermassive black hole," she said. "The Fermi Bubbles can be thought of as the explosive 'burp' of the supermassive black hole after a gas-rich meal."
The galactic satellite infall event
And what a meal it must have been. After collaborating with Meagan Langto, Pau Amaro-Seoane, Alberto Sesana, and Manodeep Sinha, the researchers were able to piece together a chronology of events.
Things started to unravel for the smaller satellite galaxy about 13 billion years ago when it — and the medium-sized black hole lurking within it — fell towards the center of the Milky Way galaxy. As it wound its way deeper into our galaxy and towards its galactic core, it was gravitationally stripped of its stars and dark matter until it became a mere skeleton of its former self.
Then, a few million years ago, the shredded satellite finally reached the galactic center.
"But by this time it was just the black hole and a shroud of stars and dark matter," Holley-Bockelmann told us. "Still, it was massive enough that as it plunged through the final few hundred light years, it perturbed the gas that was calmly orbiting the galactic center, compressing some of it to form a burst of new stars, and driving the rest of it to fuel the supermassive black hole, which shortly after let out an explosive Fermi Bubble 'burp'."
And that's when things started to get even more interesting.
The middleweight black hole sunk so close to the Milky Way's center that it became intricately bound to its supermassive black hole, thus becoming a binary black hole.
"Once the two black holes made a binary, they started zooming around each other in a high speed orbital dance that flung out thousands of stars that veered near couple," she noted.
And it was this relativistic black hole dance that caused our galaxy to fling out scores of its old stars from the core's vicinity. The forces involved must have been incredibly intense for this to happen; the Milky Way's supermassive black hole weighs about four million solar masses and is about 40 light seconds in diameter — only nine times the size of our sun.
The researchers say that those stars should still be racing through space, about 10,000 light years from their original orbits.
Out with the old, in with the new
And interestingly, this satellite infall event may help to explain not just the Fermi Bubbles, but also why the galactic core region is relatively devoid of old stars. Models predict that the density of old stars should increase with proximity to the center. But our galaxy has very few old stars within several light years of the black hole.
In addition, the galactic center contains the three most massive clusters of young stars in the galaxy (including the Central, Arches, and Quintuplet clusters). These are stars that should burn out relatively quickly on account of their extreme brightness. The only reasonable explanation, say the researchers, is that there must have been a relatively recent burst of star formation in the region.
And indeed, Holley-Bockelmann and Bogdanović are suggesting that the galactic merger triggered a brief epoch of strong star formation. In their paper, the authors admit that the theory is "not beyond reproach," but that it does a good job explaining all these galactic anomalies.
Moreover, these infall events may not be rare across cosmological timescales. Their simulations indicate that infall events could happen once every one billion years.
"This implies that there may have been other bursts of hypervelocity star ejections, which can seed a population of 'intragroup stars' farther out in the halo of the Galaxy," they noted in the study.
Looking ahead, Bogdanović and Holley-Bockelmann plan to publish a paper about these hypervelocity stars in particular.
Their paper, "Can a Satellite Galaxy Merger Explain the Active Past of the Galactic Centre" has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Images: Top: an artist's illustration of a satellite galaxy falling into the submassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy (Julie Turner, Vanderbilt University). Interior images NASA; JPL via Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Chandra X-Ray Telescope.


text:
Martyr Julian of Constantinople and those with him
The Martyrs Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexius, Demetrius, Photius, Peter, Leontius, Maria the Patrician, the Protospatharios ("Sword-Captain") Gregory and Others suffered for holy icons in the year 730 under the Iconoclast emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741). The emperor deposed the holy Patriarch Germanus (715-730) from the patriarchal throne and sent him off to prison, raising up onto the patriarchal throne the iconoclast Athanasius (730-753).
By decree of the emperor, all icons were to be confiscated from homes and churches and then destroyed. At Constantinople from the time of the holy Emperor Constantine the Great (324-337) there was over the so-called "Copper Gates" a wonderworking icon of the Savior, made of copper.
The emperor and heretical Patriarch Anastasius gave orders to seize this icon. The gathered crowd became outraged at this sacrilege. In the crowd was the Patrician Maria, a woman of illustrious family, who with many others rushed to the ladder and pulled it from the wall to keep the soldier from touching the icon. The ladder came down, and the soldier standing on it fell to his death. This occurred on January 19, 730. The Protospatherios ("Sword-Captain") Gregory and the nun Saint Theodosia (May 29) also took part in the defense of the icon.
Learning of this, the emperor executed a multitude of the faithful, the names of whom are known only to the Lord. The Protospatherios Gregory also received a martyr's death. Some of the Orthodox are known, however: Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexius, Demetrius, Leontius, Photius and Peter, who were locked up in prison and kept there for about eight months, each day receiving 500 blows. In these torments they remained alive by the power of Christ and bravely endured their sufferings.
By order of the emperor they were burned with a red-hot iron and their heads cut off. Saint Maria the Patrician, who had not been locked up in prison, learning about the executions, voluntarily accepted a martyr's death. The bodies of the martyrs were buried in a coastal area near the church of the holy Martyr Theodore, and were discovered incorrupt 139 years later.


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Egypt is one of the most important countries in the world, geopolitically speaking. With a history spanning some 7,000 years, it is one of the oldest civilizations in the world, sitting at the point at which Africa meets the Middle East, across the Mediterranean from Europe. Once home to its own empire, it became a prized possession in the imperial designs of other civilizations, including the Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantine to the Islamic and Ottoman Empires, and subsequently the French, British and Americans. For any and every empire that has sought to exert control over the Middle East, Asia or Africa, control over Egypt has been a pre-requisite. Its strategic location has only become more important with each subsequent empire.
For the British to control India - their prized imperial possession - dominance over Egypt was a necessity. With the construction of the Suez Canal, Europe became increasingly dependent upon Egypt as a transport route for trade, energy and warfare, making Europe's domination of the world increasingly dependent upon their domination of Egypt, particularly for the French and British. For the modern American Empire, which designates all of planet Earth as being under its hegemony, Egypt remains one of the most important countries over which to exert influence: with its strategic location to some of the world's most prized energy resources, to the maintenance of the Canal route for the benefit of transport and trade - not least of all for America's European allies - and due to Egypt's ability to exert influence across Africa, the Middle East, the Arab/Muslim world as a whole, and indeed, across the so-called 'Third World' as a whole.
In the past two and half years, Egypt has been experiencing an unprecedented revolutionary struggle. Egypt's Revolution represents a popular uprising against a domestic dictatorship, the denial of liberties and freedoms, the repression of workers and dissidents, against a global socio-political and economic system (which we commonly refer to as 'neoliberalism'), and against the American Empire and its many institutional manifestations. Any revolution within Egypt is inevitably a revolution against the American Empire. An uprising - not only against a long-time dictator and his authoritarian imitators who followed - but against the most powerful empire the world has ever known is a powerful symbol to the rest of the world, most of which has known the terror of living under domestic tyranny, and the reality of living under America's global hegemony.
A good example can go a long way.
This series examines some of Egypt's recent history as it relates to Empire, and as it has built up to Egypt's unfinished Revolution.
Egypt and the State-Capitalist Imperial Order
The development of the Egyptian working class, labour activism and nationalism was intimately tied to the expansion of Western imperial expansion and domination over Egypt and much of the rest of the world. In the early 19th century, Egypt was increasingly an autonomous state under the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Muhammad Ali who initiated a process of state-sponsored industrialization. In 1819, his regime constructed European-style factories for military production, agricultural processing and textiles. By the early 1830s, there were 30 cotton mills on operation, employing roughly 30,000 labourers, who were largely recruited from among the landless peasants.[1]
Egypt's attempt to industrialize followed the examples set by Britain and other European powers - as well as the United States - by imposing protective measures, tariffs on foreign goods and other subsidies for domestic industry in order to allow the country to compete against the heavily protected industries of the European and American economies. Egypt was not the only major country to pursue such a strategy, as India and Paraguay also attempted major state-led industrialization programs. In 1800, Egypt's GNP was around that of France, higher than both Eastern Europe and Japan, and Paraguay also had comparable economic weight. They were attempting to industrialize, wrote Jean Batou, "in order to avoid dependency and underdevelopment."[2]
Resistance to these industrialization projects was strong on the part of Britain and other industrial Western powers, which wanted these countries to be in subservient positions to their own. The Europeans - and especially Britain - pressured these countries to "open up" their economies to "free trade" competition with the heavily-protected industrial goods of the West. The result, of course, was that they could not compete on an even basis, and European industrial goods gained the major advantage, forcing these countries to focus on raw goods for export to the rich nations.
In Egypt, a great deal of resistance was also expressed by the new working class, and in the 1830s, the state-led industrialization programs began to decline. Following the death of Muhammad Ali in 1849, few of his industrial programs remained, "and Egypt was well on its way to full integration into a European-dominated world market as supplier of a single raw material, cotton." If Egypt had succeeded in its industrialization programs, some have suggested, "it might have shared with Japan [or the United States] the distinction of achieving autonomous capitalist development and preserving its independence."[3]
In the latter half of the 19th century, Egypt made an attempt at increasing its industrial potential, though this time relying primarily upon foreign capital from European powers. The most important example of this was with the foreign financing that led to the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869, which "resulted in the development of the export sector of the economy and its necessary infrastructure," and in turn, the development of a permanent working class.[4]
Great Britain was the first major power to undergo an industrial revolution, with other European empires and the United States soon to follow. Countries that underwent industrialization did so with heavy state involvement in the form of subsidies and protective tariffs and trade measures, allowing domestic industries and goods to gain a competitive advantage over those of other nations around the world. The global trading system - as an outgrowth of the development of the modern state-capitalist system - became a central facet in the construction and expansion of empire.
The imperial powers - predominantly in the North Atlantic region, the United States and Western Europe, with the later addition of Japan - had to maintain their own influence over the world by ensuring that the rest of the world did not follow their examples of industrialization, and thus, be able to compete with them for regional and global influence. Thus, industrialization - or 'development' - in the 'core' countries necessarily required de -industrialization - or underdevelopment - in the rest of the world, the global imperial 'periphery.'
The period between 1770 and 1870 marked "the first phase of the underdevelopment process" for many countries and regions in the world. In 1770, "the present Third World probably had a real income and an industrial product per capita comparable to those of the rest of the world." Multiple countries attempted state-led and protected industrialization processes in the early nineteenth century - notably Egypt and Paraguay, though lesser efforts at state-led industrialization were made in what are modern-day Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia and Brazil, with more isolated and less state-involved efforts in Mexico and Colombia. By 1870, however, the gap had widened significantly between the industrial powers (Western Europe, North America and Japan), which exported manufactured goods, and the rest of the world, which largely focused on exporting commodities needed for industry.[5]
The "specialization" of economies in the Global South - the 'Third World' - made them dependent upon the export of raw materials to the rich, powerful countries, and thus, kept them in a subservient position within the global order. This has been referred to as the "Great Divergence" between the powerful countries and the rest of the world, where the powerful countries industrialized themselves and de-industrialized others.[6] In short, the powerful countries became - and remained - powerful by virtue of their ability to undermine and disempower the rest of the world, pushing them away from independence and autonomy into a position of dependence on the 'core' economies.
In 1870, roughly 70% of Egypt's exports were cotton, and by 1910-14, this had risen to 93%. In 1882, the British occupied Egypt, at which point the country was essentially ruled over by Lord Cromer, "a devout believer" in the 'free market' (for every country except Britain). Cromer's rule of Egypt (1883-1907) coincided with many of the "formative" years for the Egyptian working class, as labour became increasingly exploited in sectors dominated by European capital.[7] Out of a total population of 11 million, Egypt had approximately 350,000 male workers in the 1907 census, with 100,000 in transport and 150,000 in commerce. Thus, by the early 20th century, "Egypt had a modern working class concentrated in its two largest cities and ready to make itself heard."[8]
Anarchism and a Radical Working Class in Egypt
Added to the increased domestic formation of a working class, a large presence of foreign workers was brought into Egypt to provide the necessary skills for building the country's infrastructure. Waves of immigrant workers came from Europe, notably Italy and Greece. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, many of these migrant workers brought with them to Egypt the emerging ideologies and philosophies of resistance and revolution which were spreading among the European working classes, notably socialism and anarchism. Italian workers began forming anarchist groups within Egypt, and others soon followed. Egypt's anarchists quickly established close connections with anarchists in Greece and Turkey, and were developing connections with groups in Tunis, Palestine and Lebanon.[9]
From the 1880s onward, anarchist groups within Egypt - still primarily European in membership - were forming educational groups and starting publications around the country. As the domestic Egyptian labour movement grew, so too did the influence of anarchists, notably anarcho-syndicalists. While still largely Italian in makeup, the anarchist community in Egypt became increasingly multi-ethnic, with the increased presence of Greeks, Jews, Germans, and several Eastern European nationalities. Arab Egyptians became increasingly involved in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, specifically within the working class, and notably among the cigarette workers, printers and service employees.[10]
The first major strike in Egypt took place in 1899 among the Cairo cigarette rollers. More strike activity took place in the following years, incorporating both foreign and domestic workers within the country. The primary issues for workers were the long hours, low wages, minimal benefits and oppressive management. Since almost all of Egypt's large employers were foreign, and the country was under foreign (British) occupation since 1882 (to 1922), "the struggle of Egyptian workers for economic gains converged with the nationalist movement seeking to end British rule."[11] Thus, resistance to domestic tyranny within Egypt inevitably required resistance to imperial hegemony over Egypt by outside powers.
Anarchists in Egypt created the Free Popular University (UPL) in Alexandria in 1901, "with the aim of providing free evening education to the popular classes... and drew widespread support from across the full range of Alexandrian society." Classes were given on subjects from the humanities to the sciences, to discussing workers' associations and women in society, with discussions given in a number of different languages, including Italian, French, and Arabic. As anarcho-syndicalists began building ties with the indigenous Egyptian workers, international (or 'mixed') unions were formed between domestic and foreign migrant workers in Egypt, which helped contribute to the 1899 cigarette rollers strike, among other actions.[12]
During World War I, Britain decided that Egypt was now a 'protectorate,' and over the course of the war (1914-18), the British "oversaw a policy of clamping down on all political activities, interning nationalists, surveilling or deporting foreign anarchists and closing down newspapers."[13] In 1919, there was a popular uprising against the British - called the 1919 Revolution - in which nationalists called for the British to leave Egypt and for independence. Workers participated in the form of strikes, demonstrations and clashes with police. Anarcho-syndicalists also played a part in supporting the protests and strikes of the 1919 Revolution.[14]
Ultimately, the British agreed to grant Egypt 'formal' independence by 1922, but in the decade and a half that followed World War I, the major political issues revolved around the negotiation of a treaty with Britain and the establishment of a parliamentary regime. The Wafd party, founded in 1918, would quickly become the "embodiment of the Egyptian national movement," holding a great deal of popular support, winning all of the elections until 1952, but it was largely used as a party through which to co-opt the more radical labour and anti-imperialist elements within Egyptian society. The Wafd encouraged union organization, but only under its umbrella, not independently. When a treaty with Britain was reached in 1936, the Wafd began to lose some of its influence as new political organizations formed, such as the precursor to the Muslim Brotherhood. Labour struggled for more rights, seeking to pass legislation that would, among other things, allow for independent unions. World War II, however, came with the imposition of martial law, but also with increased industrial development within Egypt, and thus, a growing working class.[15]
Between the end of the war and 1952, Egypt "saw the appearance of an active left inside and outside the workers' movement, a new political scene characterized by new mass organizations and issues, and renewed nationalist struggle including guerrilla action against British forces." In 1952, Gamal Abdul Nasser and the 'Free Officers' orchestrated a bloodless coup, abolished the monarchy and the parliament and installed a nationalist military government under the leadership of Nasser. The coup quickly resulted in the repression of the militant labour movement, bringing workers under the control of the government.[16]
The development and evolution of Egypt's working class has been intimately tied to the development and evolution of Egypt's relations with the Western imperial powers and their imposition of a global state-capitalist order. The struggle of workers continued over the following decades, providing a major impetus behind the conditions that led to the start of Egypt's unfinished Revolution in 2011, where the conditions of workers remain tied to the imperial imposition of a state-capitalist order.
In the next part of this series, I examine the relationship between Arab Nationalism - as propagated by Nasser - and the American Empire's efforts to exert its influence over the Middle East and much of the rest of the world.
Andrew Gavin Marshall, BFP Partner Producer, contributing author and analyst
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, with a focus on studying the ideas, institutions, and individuals of power and resistance across a wide spectrum of social, political, economic, and historical spheres. He has been published in AlterNet, CounterPunch, Occupy.com, Truth-Out, RoarMag, and a number of other alternative media groups, and regularly does radio, Internet, and television interviews with both alternative and mainstream news outlets. He is Project Manager of The People's Book Project and has a weekly podcast show with BoilingFrogsPost
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Article Notes
[1] Zachary Lockman, "Noted on Egyptian Workers' History," International Labor and Working Class History (No. 18, Fall 1980), pages 1-2;
Joel Benin, "Formation of the Egyptian Working Class," MERIP Reports (No. 94, February 1981), page 14.
[2] Jean Batou, "Nineteenth-Century Attempted Escapes from the Periphery: The Cases of Egypt and Paraguay," Review - Fernand Braudel Center (Vol. 16, No. 3, Summer 1993), pages 279-280, 291-292, 294-295.
[3] Zachary Lockman, "Notes on Egyptian Workers' History," International Labor and Working Class History (No. 18, Fall 1980), page 2.
[4] Joel Benin, "Formation of the Egyptian Working Class," MERIP Reports (No. 94, February 1981), page 15.
[5] Jean Batou, op cit., pages 282-283.
[6] Jeffrey G. Williamson, "Globalization and the Great Divergence: terms of trade booms, volatility and the poor periphery, 1782-1913," European Review of Economic History (Vol. 12, 2008), pages 357, 379.
[7] Joel Benin, op. cit., page 15.
[8] Zachary Lockman, op. cit., page 2.
[9] Anthony Gorman, "Diverse in Race, Religion and Nationality... But United in Aspirations of Civil Progress: The Anarchist Movement in Egypt 1860-1940," in Steve Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt (eds), Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism and Social Revolution (Boston, Brill, 2010), pages 3-6.
[10] Ibid, pages 8-10.
[11] Zachary Lockman, op cit., page 3.
[12] Anthony Gorman, op. cit., pages 18-23.
[13] Ibid, page 26.
[14] Zachary Lockman, op. cit., page 4; Anthony Gorman, op. cit., page 26.
[15] Zachary Lockman, op. cit., pages 4-6.
[16] Ibid, pages 6-7.


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Common-Core Tests to Take Up to 10 Hours
Districts will get 20 days to administer
New tests being designed for students in nearly half the states will take eight to 10 hours, depending on grade level, according to guidance released last week.
The new information comes from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, one of the two big groups of states that are building tests in mathematics and English/language arts for the Common Core State Standards.
The guidance answers one of the big questions that had been hanging over the tests: Given their promises to measure students' skills in a deeper, more nuanced way, partly through the use of extended performance tasks, just how long will the tests take?
The other group of states designing tests, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, has already come out with time estimates for its tests. Students in those 24 states will face testing times of seven to 8.5 hours. Now that PARCC has issued its test-time projections, educators in 22 other states and the District of Columbia know how much time students will need to take those exams.
In a flurry of documents issued March 5, PARCC defined not only the time needed to take the math and English/language arts tests, but also the window of time available to administer them.
Schools and districts will have 20 days to give the PARCC performance-based assessment, which occurs after about three-quarters of the school year and focuses on more in-depth, extended exercises. They will have another 20-day window to administer the end-of-year computer-based component, which occurs after 90 percent of the year. Those two components will make up a student's summative score.
In addition, the consortium released an online planning tool that schools and districts can use to gauge their technological capacity to administer the computer-based tests.
The heart of PARCC's information about testing times and windows is contained in its "guidance" document. Among the key highlights of its testing plan are:
Performance-Based Test
English/language arts: Three tasks will be assigned, for which students will have to read one or more texts, answer several short comprehension and vocabulary questions, and write an essay based on evidence from what they read. The three tasks will be a research simulation, a literary analysis, and a narrative task.
Math: Each grade level will have short and extended-response questions focused on conceptual knowledge and skills as well as the math practices of reasoning and modeling.
End-Of-Year Assessment
English/language arts: Students will read four to five texts, both literary and informational, and respond to short-answer comprehension and vocabulary questions for each.
Math: It will be composed primarily of short-answer questions focused on conceptual knowledge, skills, and understandings.
Testing Sesions: Nine total
English/language arts: Three sessions for the performance-based component, two for the end-of-year one.
Math: Two sessions for the performance-based component, two for the end-of-year part.
Estimated Time On Task:
The amount of time students will have to complete both the performance-based and end-of-year components in math and English/language arts:
Grade 3: 8 hours
Grades 4-5: 9 hours, 20 minutes
Grades 6-8: 9 hours, 25 minutes
Grades 9-10: 9 hours, 45 minutes
Grades 11-12: 9 hours, 55 minutes
PARCC documents say that typical students will need those amounts of time, but that "all participating students will have a set amount of additional time" to take the tests. That will "provide them with ample time to demonstrate their knowledge" and "reduce the need to provide increased time as an accommodation."
The documents sidestep the issue of exactly how much "additional time" will be given to students, and under what conditions. But they say that students with disabilities and those learning English will be given even more time, if it's called for in their individualized education programs. Policies governing what accommodations are given to those students are under development.
Testing Window:
For students: Five to nine days
For schools and districts: Up to 20 days for the performance-based component of the test, and up to 20 days for the end-of-year component. Schools may administer the tests in narrower windows of time if they have the capacity to do so.
PARCC documents say that testing times and windows could change, in the wake of research and field-testing, but that "major changes are not anticipated."
Vol. 32, Issue 24, Page 10Published in Print: March 13, 2013, as Common-Core Tests to Take Students Up to 10 Hours
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Vintage Glass Cup/Saucer Thumbprint Star Burst Cut Glass Lot CS 9109
Our items are sold for the Estate or the family of the Estate. Wendell Keefer Estate Sales in Fontana California sell's thousands of items online.
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Editor's Note: This is the sixth installment of a six-part series on threats to the independent life insurance distribution channel, running in each issue of Life Insurance Selling through the remainder of 2012. To read previous installments, use the links below.
- Part I: Facing up to a graying producer workforce
- Part II: The impact of a universal fiduciary standard
- Part III: Competing against alternative distribution channels
- Part IV: The dangers of ignoring the middle market
- Part V: Combatting consumer apathy
- Part VI: Emerging technology and the future of distribution
"Multi-channel approach."
Get used to the term, because you are going to hear it over and over again in the coming years, as life insurance carriers and agents use the phrase to describe how they seek to reach customers across a variety of interactive channels — with a website, via a smartphone app, on social media, through video conferencing, using a live support call center, or talking in person.
Many of today's and even more of tomorrow's tech-savvy consumers are or will be demanding instant, constant access to information, service and purchasing ability across a variety of devices and platforms.
A LIMRA study released in October 2012 found that 61 percent of consumers who researched individual insurance or annuity products looked online, which is a significant increase over the 38 percent who did so back in 2006.
"With two-thirds of Americans conducting searches online, it is not surprising that the number of people seeking information about life insurance and annuity products online has increased more than 60 percent in the last six years," said LIMRA Technology Research Director Mary Art in a news release announcing the study's findings. "However, despite the popularity of online sources, more consumers (69 percent) sought information from agents, brokers and advisors, who are often viewed as the most valuable and influential information sources."
Art said companies need to understand that one size does not fit all when it comes to reaching and educating consumers about products and services. "Using a multi-channel approach will reach a broader audience in the ways they want to collect information and will most likely lead to more sales," Art said.
The carriers are aware of this.
As customers grow ever more accustomed to the digital experience, life insurance carriers are taking steps to improve and increase their digital channel capacity and dramatically shorten what has traditionally been a very lengthy underwriting process. They are also going to get better at collecting and analyzing information about their customers, and these digital customer records are going to make it easier for carriers — either on their own or with the help of their agents — to upsell and cross-sell customers. By utilizing advanced analytics technology, they can mine customer data and search for trends. A good demographic profile of a customer allows a carrier to target that customer with products and services tailored to his or her specific needs. And identifying customers and niches that are the most profitable allows carriers to identify other high potentials and tailor messages to them.
Anyone who wants to sell to the ever-growing wave of digitally savvy consumers needs to be able to accommodate a customer wanting to switch modes of interaction according to preference. Consumers may start researching online, which might lead them to a smartphone app. They might finish with questions for a live call center rep or be referred to an agent in their area. And let's not forget about how social media fits into the picture. Producers who can successfully navigate the compliance issues associated with social media (which more producers are realizing isn't as daunting a task as originally feared) and make effective use of common social networking tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter give themselves the opportunity to reach potential customers in a setting where they are increasingly looking for help.
Life insurance has traditionally been about community and building relationships, and that's what social media is all about. Life insurance agents have always been social networkers, educating clients, investing in creating long-term relationships and growing their businesses through referrals long before social media existed. Social media is a logical tool for producers to embrace, as people share details about what's happening in their lives freely via outlets like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. When they get married, have a child, change careers or move, they post it. These are great triggers for life insurance discussions, and producers have an opportunity to use this information to initiate a discussion. Finding out more about your customers via social media is just part of a natural evolution to be where your customers are.
Producers need to "buy in"
At a breakout session ("Building Your Business with a Better Process") during the National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies (NAILBA) annual meeting in Orlando in November, in a room largely comprised of brokerage general agents (BGAs) and carriers, a speaker noted that carriers today are embracing new technologies designed to simplify and speed up the life insurance underwriting process. Consumers expect it. The trick is getting agents to buy in.
The challenge, as one speaker put it, is for BGAs to work to get their agents comfortable with these newer technologies like electronic signatures and electronic policy delivery. Show them how easy it is to use and how it speeds up the process, and agents tend to become quick converts.
That breakout session featured speakers associated with LIDMA, the Life Insurance Direct Marketing Association. In a related breakout session at NAILBA 31, LIDMA's Pat Wedeking cited a LIMRA/LIDMA survey finding that roughly 1 in 4 life insurance policies sold today are purchased without face-to-face interaction with an agent. Wedeking and fellow session speaker Byron Udell of AccuQuote said they see buying habits trending this way but reiterated that it doesn't mean agents are out of the loop on these sales — they just aren't meeting the client in person. They talk to the customer over the phone. "Nobody can buy without talking to us," Udell said.
Big impact for middle market
ING's Dan Mulheran, during an interview for this series earlier this year, said he certainly sees increasing use of technology in life insurance distribution. Most of it is focused on the middle market, "as we are not likely to find mass affluent or affluent people buying this way." He notes that ING has a couple of different approaches to technology that have helped that company penetrate the middle market.
"One approach is through ING's Specialty Markets channel. This channel engages independent direct marketing companies. Through web, print and other mass advertising, these organizations generate leads for their captive agents to make contact with Americans who need life insurance, mostly term," Mulheran says. "These distributors make wide use of technology, with most of their sales and processing being done electronically. Applications and signatures are gathered electronically. And, ING is now piloting the electronic delivery of policies.
"Technology has brought big improvements to the economics of distribution. This model has agents at their computers and on the phones, interacting with consumer leads of people who are likely to buy. The technology support allows the paperwork and back and forth normally associated with an insurance sale to be cut down significantly. This model is greatly helping us reach middle market consumers," Mulheran said.
Fewer handshakes, more clients
It is clear more and more consumers are using online resources to shop for life insurance, but it's also clear that the agent still has a key role in helping consumers finalize decisions and close the deal.
Producers who want to remain in the loop will have to adjust to closing sales over the phone, via Skype or similar video conferencing technologies, or via live web chats. A study of experienced financial advisors released in November by LIMRA and McKinsey & Company predicts the use of Skype/video technology will quadruple over the next four years, while the use of social media will more than double.
Again, the message is that savvy producers will embrace these technologies to keep up with the modern consumer.
As for the possibility of "live" producers becoming obsolete at the hands of automation? Not so fast, says Don White Jr., CLU, ChFC, AEP, CEO of Treasure Coast Financial Services in Stuart, Fla.
"This whole idea that people are ever going to go to the Internet and buy life insurance — I think there's always going to be a few," says White, who was interviewed for this six-part series while attending the MDRT annual conference earlier this year. "But you know the truth is, I just bought a new car. I did look on the Internet initially, just to sort of get a feel for what was out there. At the end of the day, I bought a car. But where did I buy it? At my local dealership. I'm using this analogy because I really believe that it is truly, ultimately how most life insurance will continue to be sold. People may look for it on the Internet; they may get a pretty good feel for it there. But when they start looking at it, their chances of pulling the trigger themselves with life insurance is way different than Progressive. I can see people pulling the trigger on a Progressive automobile policy. It's a commodity."
But with life insurance, people need advice. How do they know how much coverage they need? What type of policy is right for them? White likes to use the analogy about the money printing machine in the closet — if you had a machine that could print out $1,000 every week, would you insure that machine for theft and fire? How much would you insure that machine for? The answer, White says: "You'd insure it for as much as you possibly could." People are stumped to provide that answer, White says. "How do you quantify that? Do you multiply it by 50? 100? 200? Well, how many weeks do we have?"
At the end of the day, White says he absolutely believes the old adage that life insurance must be sold. "There is always going to be a need for people to have somebody help them make these very difficult life decisions," White says, "and to be able to give them the reason for insuring the machine in the closet — and how to do it, and what to insure it for."
For more from this series, see:
Combatting consumers' life insurance apathy
The dangers of ignoring the middle market


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There are some things that just seem to go together. Fish and chips. Wills and Kate. And Sir Paul McCartney in his home country, kicking off London's 2012 Olympics.
And that's just what he'll do. The Telegraph reported this weekend that the former Beatle will ring in the fortnight-long ceremonies with what will assuredly be a rousing performance.
Whether or not it can compete with Beijing's dizzying ceremonies is yet to be determined, though McCartney seems to be in good hands.
Sports Connection
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Stephen Daldry ("The Reader") and Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionare") will be headlining the creative team, Daldry serving as the overall creative director, with Boyle working as the artistic director for the opening ceremony.
The actual program has yet to be decided.
The Telegraph also reported that both The Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin declined to perform.
For those hoping for a mini-Fab Four reunion, prepare to be disappointed—Ringo Starr will be touring in the U.S. during the Olympics, NME said.


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Notify all employees instantly
Let residents know that they should choose another route
Invite your customers to a sale
Let parents know, that they have to pick up their kid
Notify participants on time
Inform residents and businesses
Clear asset of SMS-info service is its usability, because almost everyone has access to a mobile phone or a mail account. Using this service, we are again closer to our residents and this is a big benefit for village itself and for everyone to whom it matters.
We have tried your SMS-info system on trip in Saint Petersburg. I have to say that service works perfectly and surely makes work of a guide easier. Tourists were receiving messages instantly, no matter if they were at an airport, or in an exhibition hall, or on a hockey match… It is a great tool in case of a multi-day air or bus trips where tourists have free time and it is necessary to inform them about unpredicted changes. Not only guide valued this service, but tourists too.


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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Richard Adams, an early mover in the push for same-sex marriage both at the altar and in the courts, has died.
Attorney Lavi Soloway says Adams died last Monday at his Hollywood home at age 65 after a brief illness.
In 1975 Adams and Tony Sullivan received a marriage license from a county clerk in Boulder, Colo., along with five other same-sex couples.
They then applied for permanent residency for Sullivan, an Australian.
The men received an official letter from U.S. immigration that not only rejected their marriage and petition but used an anti-gay slur.
Adams' attempt to overturn that decision was the first federal lawsuit seeking gay marriage recognition, according to the Advocate magazine and the Los Angeles Times, the first media outlets to report his death.
(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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Michael Zavros
Bad dad
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Read label text
'As a self-portrait, Bad dad is an extension of my broader practice,' says Michael Zavros.
'In the painting I have cast myself in the role of Narcissus in a contemporary evocation of the ancient Greek myth, and as something of a cautionary tale. In January I returned home from the Bulgari Art Award residency in Italy where I visited the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, and spent time with Carravagio's Narcissus. Locked in a circle, his reflection enveloped by a creeping darkness, the unusual composition inspired my Archibald entry. In Bad dad the doomed anti-hero doesn't spurn the affections of a lover for his own reflection. Rather he rejects paternal care and the trials of domesticity.
'The colour-saturated, abandoned inflatable pool toys (an homage to Jeff Koons) serve as a portrait of my three children in their absence; missing but always with me, like the perfect pop song you can't get out of your head, the one with the happy riff but sad lyrics. I need them more than they need me.'
Born in 1974, Zavros studied at Queensland College of Art. He has exhibited in Australia and internationally and his work has been collected by most major Australian museums. He has won numerous art prizes including the 2010 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and the 2012 inaugural Bulgari Art Award. This is his fifth time in the Archibald Prize.