text:
The East Midlands, which consists of several areas including Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and much of Lincolnshire, has an ancient history, rich culture, and breathtaking nature like the Peak District, Charnwood Forest with its volcanic rock and Sherwood Forest, not to mention relatively affordable average property prices and rents, making it rather easy to understand why the local population is growing, with more than 4.5 million people now residing here.
But while demand for property remains strong, a shortage of supply in both the East Midlands' letting and sales segments continues to present a huge challenge for the local market, as it does across many parts of the country, as reflected by the latest 2017 RICS UK Residential Market Survey.
"The scale of the challenge the government faces as it announces its new approach to housing [white paper] is clearly demonstrated in the results from our latest survey," said Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist. .
The supply-demand imbalance has continued to drive house prices upwards across many parts of Britain over the past 12 months, led by gains in Rutland, according to the latest monthly data from Office for National Statistics.
Rutland, not just the smallest county in the East Midlands but also in England, has seen residential property values soar by 20.7% to stand at £307,000 on average, which is above the £234,000 average house prices in England.
Other local areas to have also seen property prices and rents rise in recent years are the region's big cities Nottingham, Leicester and Derby, albeit at a slower rate compared with Rutland, supported by a strengthening local economy and the approval of HS2, the planned high-speed railway linking London, Birmingham, the East Midlands, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester.
Another draw for the area, especially for young professionals and families, are the comparatively low living costs. These are even lower than in the West Midlands, where Birmingham dominates.
With more investment going into the area, the economy in the East Midlands has been transformed almost beyond recognition, and continues to outperform other regional rivals.
According to a recent Briefing Paper on regional and local economic growth statistics, the East Midlands was the fastest-growing economy outside of London and the south-east between 2010 and 2014 (the latest figures available), and the indications are that the region's economy could strengthen further, especially as Nottingham, Derby and Leicester are now increasingly working together to attract investment.
An initiative called the Power of 3 (Po3) was set up by Invest in Nottingham, Marketing Derby and Leicester City Council last year and launched at MIPIM in Cannes to promote opportunities in the three cities, offering an idea of the insight that they had for the future.
Lorraine Baggs, inward investment manager at Invest in Nottingham, said: "Nowhere else in the UK has three cities so close together and such a large talent pool, which is really important to businesses.
"The three cities together are in an enviable position where they all fit in the 'high quality, low cost' bracket. That is very important for people looking to move to the region as an investment location."
The East Midlands will once again have a presence at MIPIN this year, which takes place 14th-17th March, but this time as part of a larger Midlands-wide delegation – featuring ten Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas.
The region will showcase more than £14bn worth of projects and investment sites to the annual exhibition's 23,000 attendees – from potential investors and developers to property agents and the media.
"The Midlands is coming together on an unprecedented scale at MIPIM to attract even more investment from around the world," said Sir John Peace, chairman of the Midlands Engine.
The region's presence is being coordinated by inward investment agency Marketing Birmingham, together with the Department for International Trade (DIT) and partners including Birmingham Airport and East Midlands Airport, automotive giant Jaguar Land Rover and the Midlands Enterprise Universities group.
Cllr Jon Collins, leader of Nottingham City Council, said: "Considered to be the 'heartbeat of the nation's economy,' the Midlands will propel Nottingham – and other regional cities – into the world's attention.
"We are happy to play a pivotal role by being part of the wider Midlands presence, showcasing Nottingham's development opportunities.
"Being part of the wider offer will help to promote the region and therefore bring benefits to the city."
Residential property prices here have now been increasing continually for three years, with the latest government figures revealing that the average price of a home in Nottingham is now £125,519 and in the county it is £161,507.
Estate agents say some suburbs are now more expensive than ever – with prices now even higher than before the 2008 collapse.
"The current housing market in Nottingham is extremely competitive and we are finding that there isn't enough housing stock to meet the current demands," said Rob Pitick, director at Nottingham-based Fairview Estates. "Some bargains can still be found and in some cases builders and investors are buying property that is a bit run down, doing them up then flipping them."
Rental properties in popular residential areas in Nottingham are in particular short supply, and reflecting on the current trend at the moment, Pitick (left) explained: "When a property comes to market it goes ever so quickly and even after the let agreed notice has gone up on our website, people still call in with a hope that the application may have fallen through."
He continued: "Investment in the region is still driving the market forward; Nottingham is undergoing significant improvements all over the city and new housing projects are being built around the fringes of the centre which is encouraging more people into Nottingham."
Property in places such as Edwalton and Beeston are proving particular popular, especially for young professionals with families, but it is the market in West Bridgford that is the stand out area at the moment, according to Pitick.
"West Bridgford continues to be as popular as ever with its trendy shops, bars and restaurants," he said. "Ultimately, the absolute driving force for this area is its array of desirable schools."
Pitick also highlights the southern part of the River Trent as being extremely desirable, especially areas such as Radcliffe on Trent, Cropwell Bishop, Plumptree and Bingham, "which offer lively market squares, good pubs and great Stilton cheese".
He added: "Prices in West Bridgford generally start from £250,000 and go almost as high as you like. And the same really goes for the other areas south of the River Trent.
"Rentals for two bedroom family homes in Bridgford start at around £750.00 per calendar month and can go as high as £2,000 for the more unique, high-spec properties."
In terms of affordable homes, Pitick says that Mapperley, Arnold, Sherwood and Carlton, all of which are within easy reach of Nottingham city centre, featuring a varied promenade of shops, bars and restaurants, and good schools, "are all gaining in popularity".
"In Mapperley, Sherwood, Carlton and Arnold, rents start at around £650 per calendar month for a typical family home, and can rise to around £850.
"The most recent house price index release revealed a 5.5% year on year price change for Nottinghamshire.
"We've seen really encouraging sales in 2017 to date and there seems to be a large number of buyers out there looking for the perfect property. I strongly feel that this trend will continue as the year progresses."
Residential property prices in Leicester are generally affordable at £156,400 – or seven times the average salary, according to a Home Truths 2016/17 report from the National Housing Federation.
Prices in Leicester compare favourably to Leicestershire on a whole, with the cost of a typical Leicestershire home now stood at almost £216,000.
The most expensive Leicestershire district is currently Harborough, while the least expensive area is Oadby and Wigston.
The local economy has remained far stronger than expected in the wake of the Brexit vote, and while there are uncertainties which could have an adverse impact on consumer confidence, underlying demand has remained strong in Leicestershire, and in particular in Leicester, while prices look set to rise in 2017, albeit at a slower rate of growth compared with last year.
"The housing market in Leicester has held up extremely well post Brexit with prices on average increased by 6% in 2016," said Geoff Splevings, local director at Connells in Leicester.
It has been a steady start to 2017, with the number of applicants registering with the Connells Leicester branch proving almost identical to 2016, and the company enjoyed what Splevings described as "an amazing Q1 last year".
Although Connells mainly operate in the middle market sector with the majority of their purchases coming from buyers looking to upsize and move up the property ladder, the company is now seeing investors coming back into the market following last year's change in stamp duty.
Reflecting on the current state of the local market, Splevings (right) said: "The Evington and Scraptoft areas of the city are consistently our most popular locations having a diverse mix of cultures and easy access to the city centre. However, all areas of the city and county are proving popular at the right price.
"On average our vendors achieve 97.6% of their asking prices when using Connells Premium Marketing Pack which includes professional photographs, floor plans, audio tour and even an EPC if one is required."
So far this year, there has been a significant number of new homes coming to the market place, including a site in Welford which is a highly regarded village location ideally situated to reach both Leicester city centre and Northampton within around 30 minutes.
The Miller's Lock development from Mears New Homes features a wide selection of new homes, with prices ranging from £280,000 to £575,000.
Buy-to-let investors as ever are attracted to Leicester's rental market which has been achieving some impressive yield returns in and around the city centre, with rents increasing on average by £100 a month over the past 12 months and taking on average two weeks to let, according to Splevings.
He continued: "Regarding rentals, demand for one bedroom apartments within the city centre is particular high at the moment and not just because of the students going to Leicester University. There has also been a high influx of professionals relocating to work within the insurance and banking sector with Hasting Direct among the large employers right in the city centre and Barclays based at the Meridian commercial park and Santander at Carlton Park, with both located south west of the city close to junction 21 of the M1.
"All in all Leicester is a thriving city which, in our opinion, will see growth in both house prices and the letting market in 2017."
Derby is the UK's most central city and is at the heart of the country's transport network, with a 'travel to work' population of more than million people.
There is a positive property market in Derby, especially in and around the city centre, with an average overall price of about £170,000 in the city.
Demand for property in inner Derby is driven mainly by local employment, including young people just starting out in their careers, with global aerospace giant Rolls-Royce, which has just secured a £1.35bn deal to supply engines that will power a fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircrafts, by far the largest single employer in the city with almost 13,000 employees.
A number of large-scale developments are either currently being built or in the construction pipeline, designed to fully modernise the city and promote economic growth.
Further afield, demand is also high on the outskirts of Derbyshire, including places like Belper, Ashbourne and Matlock, where the market has just enjoyed its busiest ever festive period, according to Paul Westmoreland, Harrison Murray's estate agency manager in the local region.
"During Christmas and into the new year it was very much business as usual, rather than the more traditional festive slump," he said. "In the first two weeks of January we did a month's work in 14 days and as a result had a very strong and encouraging instruction and sales month - something that is continuing."
Westmoreland (below) continued: "We have already seen like-for-like business compared to January 2016 significantly up in January 2017 - with new buyer registrations up by some 300% and viewings by 400%.
"Matlock and the Peak Park area have always had a steady market attraction. Roughly speaking, 50% of our buyers move into the area for the scenery, lifestyle and an abundance of walks, pubs and recreational enticements.
"The area we serve is of historic value and protected for the most part and this attracts people who commute also as there are good access roads and rail networks to take advantage of.
"Ashbourne resonates with more of the retired community and local people, but also provides a great gateway into the Peak District National Park, so is also good for tourism.
"As the largest town of the three, Belper supports a local workforce, commuters and people working in nearby Derby city."
One of the biggest challenges local estate agents, including Harrison Murray, currently face is a lack of housing stock to satisfy growing demand from buyers, according to Westmoreland.
"Last year we did see some drops in housing supply. This has seen pressure build on pricing for some types of property and we have used the 'offers over' approach where we know they will be highly sought after, and in most cases we have achieved higher than the expected market price.
"Pressure has so far this year increased and ultimately this will potentially lead to further increases in house prices."
Given that the local tourism sector is vibrant and vital, there are a growing number of short and holiday rental properties popping up on the market.
Westmoreland concluded: "We are in a strong tourism area, so whilst we have a good long-term rental market equally as strong is the holiday let/tourism market and demand has led to people converting garages into holiday let cottages. There is currently also a move to supply B&B from spare rooms of normally occupied houses.
"One could be very optimistic here but putting a sensible head on I think we will see a steady increase in activity and confidence throughout the year, with potential house price increases if there are not enough houses to meet demand."
*Marc Da Silva is Estate Agent Today and Letting Agent Today Features Editor. You can follow him on Twitter @propertyjourno


text:
New Brunswick is Canada's only bilingual province. Almost 30 percent of the population speaks French as a first language. Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton are some of the most important cities of New Brunswick. It is one of Canada's Maritime Provinces, situated in northeastern parts.
This program targets prospective immigrants having skills and required experience. For this purpose, NBPNP issues New Brunswick Provincial Nomination Certificate to eligible applicants. This certificate is essential for foreign nationals, who are willing to apply for Canadian permanent residence. The actual processing time is relatively faster than other Canadian immigration programs. Following are the immigration categories, under which candidates may send their applications to NBPNP.
Things You Will Find In This Page
New Brunswick is receiving applications under this sub-category from individuals, willing to start a business in the province. However, it is necessary to make a legitimate investment in a legitimate business.
Applications under this sub-category are acceptable from individuals with proper work experience in New Brunswick Province. Such applicants must have close family ties within New Brunswick Province.
Besides, some other streams, New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program (NBPNP) is also offering an Express Entry Labour Market Stream. For this particular stream, NBPNP is planning to use the federal Express Entry immigration selection system. This is necessary to fulfill New Brunswick's demographic and labour market needs. Express Entry Labour Market Stream works under an "Expression of Interest" setup.
New Brunswick is receiving applications under this sub-category. For this purpose, individuals who hold an offer regarding a permanent or full-time job offer can apply. It is mandatory to get this job offer from a New Brunswick employer.
According to an announcement, government of New Brunswick is starting a new pilot program, known as "Succession Connect". Applicants, willing to settle in New Brunswick can succeed an established business through this pilot program.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Divinity of Crime: How spirituality can strengthen the resilience of criminal organizations
Date of Award
Summer 8-2017
Document Type
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
International Crime and Justice
First Advisor
Yulia Zabyelina
Second Reader
Serguei Cheloukhine
Third Advisor
Jana Arsovska
This thesis conducts a systematic analysis of open source data that discusses ideational factors of resilience in criminal organizations. It does this by looking at the role of spirituality – referred to as an individual's moral or ethical codes influenced by cultural, ethnic, and religious values – and its effects on an organization's durability, impenetrability, and adaptability. To understand spirituality as a factor of resilience in criminal organizations, it is delineated into four Dimensions of Spiritual Influence (DoSI). They are (1) trust, (2) spiritual neutralization, (3) strategic arenas, and (4) the logistical use of spiritual institutions. In order to analyze the role of spirituality as an element of resilience within criminal organizations, this thesis employs a systematic analysis of open source data and literature in order to collect, review, and analyze the existing secondary literature. These themes are applied to four criminal organizations in order to create a better understanding of the extent of spirituality's influence on these organizations. The criminal organizations analyzed are (1) Jewish organized crime, (2) the Cosa Nostra, (3) the Vory v Zakone, and (4) La Familia Michoacana/Knights Templar. This analysis highlights the potential influence spirituality can have on an organization's resilience against disruption by law enforcement and rival criminal organizations.
Recommended Citation
Vegvari, David R., "The Divinity of Crime: How spirituality can strengthen the resilience of criminal organizations" (2017). CUNY Academic Works.


text: Harry (Thiago Leucz Astrizi) wrote: > Yes, I have plans to ask for help in the brazilian Python mailing list > when I finish to prepare the C source code for this project. Then I > expect to receive help to translate the python modules for this new > language. There's a lot of work to do. There are only a few modules that you really need to do this for for beginners. Trying to convert the entire stdlib, let alone other stuff on pypi, strikes me as foolish. ... > Yes, I know. To a more "serious" programmer, it's essential to have a > basic understanding in english and would be better for him to start > with the real Python. But my intent is not to substitute Python in > Brazil, but to create a new language that could be learned easily by > younger people for educational purposes. My intent is to show them how > a computer software works. But surely I will warn my students that to > take programming more seriously, it's important to learn how to > program in some other language, like the original Python. But thanks > for the advice. If possible, and I presume it is, make your interpreter dual language. Source code in .py files is parsed as now (and module compiles to .pyc). Source in .pyb (python-brazil) is parsed with with your new parser, and get a brazilian equivalent of builtins, but use the same AST and bytecode. Bytecode is neither English nor Brazilian ;-). This would give your students access to the whole world of Python modules and allow those who want to move to normal English-based international Python to do so without obsoleting their existing work. Terry Jan Reedy PS. Since this thread is not about developing Python itself, it would be more appropriate on the python-ideas list if continued much further. PPS Once unicode identifiers were allowed, I considered it inevitable that people would also want native-language keywords, especially for younger students. So I expected a project like yours, though I expected the first to be in Asia. I think dual language versions, if possible, would be the way to do this without ghettoizing the national versions. But as I said, a general discussion of this belongs on python-ideas.


text:
CAIRO (AP) " An Egyptian administrative court has upheld a decision by the Interior Ministry banning a Libyan student from returning to the country because he is gay.
The student, who was not named, was barred from returning to Cairo from abroad in 2008 and had appealed the decision hoping to continue his studies at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport.
A judicial official says the ministry has the right to issue bans in such cases on grounds of protecting public interest, religious and social values. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Same-sex relations are not explicitly prohibited under Egyptian law, but homosexuality is a social taboo and courts can prosecute gays on charges of debauchery and performing indecent public acts.


text:
I'm guessing it does. Because with all the societal expectations we've internalized, and roles we've been playing, we've been trained to live in a way that constrains us, leaves us doubting ourselves, and keeping us small.
But here's the secret: the people you admire? the ones you think are cool? They didn't get that way by sitting in a corner being passive, quiet, and accommodating; they got there by being unapologetically themselves.
But how do you uncover who you are and what you really want when you're conditioned to put others first? …when you apologize for taking up space? …when you watch your great ideas get claimed by the bros in the office?
If you've seen all the TED talks, watched Oprah's Super Soul Sunday conversations,
read all the best-selling self-help books, and listened to the podcasts,
but the dots still aren't connecting, you've come to the right place.
I'm Deb Cooperman, and I've been there. I get that longing for a deeper, richer life that you're feeling.
And I know that finding your way through the sea of possibilities and responsibilities is only a fraction of the things you're up against. (Not to mention the circumstances and challenges of needing to be a grown up.)
You're also dealing with years of conditioning, societal expectations, patriarchy, influences from pop culture, social media, advertising, and diet and self-help industries that often play into your deepest fears and insecurities.
You're more powerful than you think though. You might forget. You may be second-guessing yourself. You might be thinking: "If I just read this book, or take that course, or work with this guru, or go to that conference…" everything will fall into place.
You might be wondering if the road-not-taken would have made you happier, and afraid you might have to throw everything overboard in order to get back to your elemental you-ness (the you aren't even sure still exists).
It is. You're still there.
And I've got something
that can help you
get free and find it again.
spaceIT'S WRITING.
"Whaaat? Writing?" you say. Yeah, writing. But it's not the kind of writing you did in grade school or high school. There will be no topic sentences, transitional phrases, or outlines. There will no grammar to worry about, and nothing to pretty up for public consumption. This is writing just for you.
It's also not Morning Pages, or a 3-step solution to life-changing goal setting strategy.
And while it's similar-ish, it's also not the diary and journal writing you're currently doing either. Or that you used to do. Or that you kinda feel like you should be doing, but you're not, because: do you really need one. more. thing. on your self-improvement to-do list?
This writing is different.
It's a creative, reflective practice that will help you write your way free.
Free of the layers of expectations; the years of putting others first; those negative voices that seem to be on constant loop in your head. I'll teach you how to spill your heart and soul on the page; to uncover, discover, and recover YOU beneath all that crap you've internalized that, my darling, was NEVER you.
And even if you think you can't write, trust me: you can. I have yet to meet a woman who has been through my programs or workshops who has been unable unlock the door and start getting her heart on the page.
I will help you find the road in. A road to reconnect you to your powerful, inner Wonder Woman; to help you uncover/rediscover what matters most to you (when so much about the world conspires to fit you into some kind of "acceptable" norm), and then, if you want to, help you start forging a path forward. To WRITE YOUR WAY FREE.
To learn how we can work together, check out the work with me page.
Want to know more about me? My professional background? What Yoda, India.Arie, Jon Stewart, Mr. Rogers, Lorelai Gilmore, and Jackie Kennedy's former Social Secretary have to do with my life? You can find the deets here.
If you'd like to receive my insiders notes, I'd love to have you. I won't inundate you; promise. I know many of us are on total email overload, so you'll just get occasional inspirational missives, rants, questions, tips, and suggestions to help you write your way free. You'll also get insider scoops on programs I'm offering. (Bonus: You can continue to get my notes, but shut off program emails after they start up. Magic.)
Pop your name and email address here or click on that banner below, and you'll be the first to get my new Write Your Way Free audio interview series (a preview of my upcoming podcast) – conversations with amazing women who are getting free, and writing themselves into new and more authentically powered lives. You'll also get a copy of Start Writing Your Way Free, my ebook designed to … well, get you started on writing your way free … or to help you deepen your existing practice.


text:
Price: $5.20
Quantity: 1 available
Book Condition: Very Good
4to - 27 x 21 cm.; 128 pp. A Kenworth Activity book # B-3008. From the cover: "Description and authentic line drawings of forty wild flowers of spring, summer and early autumn." Each description / drawing concludes with a fill-in-the-blank type of activity. The book conludes with two poems by Friesner. The interior is clean with a solid binding. The covers show some mild edge wear and soiling. Previous owner's bookplate on the inside of the front cover.
Title: Wild Flowers To Know . . .
Categories: Childrens - General,
Publisher: Buffalo, New York., Kenworthy Educational Service: 1968
Binding: Softcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Item: 1.00 Item
Seller ID: 15957
Keywords: Wild Flowers Botany Children Science Activity Book Trillium Buttercup Violets Phlox


text:
Covering Youth Violence, a guide for journalists—Informes sobre la violencia juvenil
This is a guide for your coverage of youth violence. It will walk you through reporting strategies, offer examples of reporting, and ask you to consider how you can do your best for an issue that touches so many lives today.
Why do we need a guide?
Because the work you do, shapes the world, as we know it and because we don't always think through the impact of our reporting. There's a price to pay for that.
When we focus only on the victims in our daily stories, we may create compelling stories. But we also may re-enforce stereotypes. We can give the impression that crime somehow falls from the skies in only certain neighborhoods and every youngster in these neighborhoods is part of the problem.
When we ignore the stories of those fighting to improve their neighborhoods, we re-enforce hopelessness and a notion that it doesn't pay to speak out and stand up for your neighborhood.
When we write about crimes only, we ignore the context for them and more importantly, what can be done.
This is an effort that has grown out of work by journalists and community groups in Chicago where youth violence is a stain that is not easily erased. But there are many working to do so.
So, please share your thoughts, suggestions, and stories and make this your guide.
email@example.com, office, 312 369 7782; cell, 773 595 8667
Covering the story:
Focus your reporting
- Examine crime statistics.
Narrow the numbers to tell stories about communities, about kinds of youth, about kinds of weapons.
2. Cover violence as a public health issue.
- What social-political-community forces are most important?
- Schools, housing, jobs, immigration-related issues?
- Availability of guns? Role of gangs and neighborhoods, police, courts
- What changes in neighborhoods are taking place.
3 Police, Courts, Juvenile Detention Centers and Prisons
- What changes in how they treat youths and crime?
- How do they operate? What do experts say?
- How well are they funded and staffed?
- What are the alternatives for detention and prison. What is the recidivism rate for young offenders?
- Profile the youths in detention and being released from prison
- How well do the police do in solving crimes? What is the clearance rate? Here's a story that quickly shows the importance of the clearance rate in dealing with homicides: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8918235
- What are good measures for crime? Homicides tell us about one part of the violence scenario. What about all violent crimes? What about shootings? What about drug deaths, guns seized, hospital admissions as a result of violent crimes?
- Can you track and compare crimes and crime rates across various parts of the city?
Creating your stories….
- Narrow your reporting to describe individuals and scenes, but tell us about the larger picture
- Tell complex stories with one or two individuals in these systems
- Take your readers, audience, listeners to witness and see how police, courts, juvenile detention facilities operate. Stay on one angle and follow-up frequently.
- Create a narrative that makes the story personal and human.
- Tell the story of one event through different eyes – the emergency room physician, the high school principal, the probation officer, the county coroner, the funeral home director, the family, friends, relatives
- Describe the life on a street – at a school – a location where youth crime occurred
- Follow one person through the system
- Describe the trauma created for the victims and those caught up in the crime. Explain the psychological and physical impact of violence and fear and of repeated violence.
- Use google maps and ushahidi (http://www.ushahidi.com
- or see click fix http://www.seeclickfix.com/ digital tools) to chart crime-related issues to visualize the impact of the issue on a community.
- Here's a way, using storify, to use social media and data and other online sources to tell a community story: http://storify.com/homicidewatch
- Tell us about the community and what problems youths face: poverty, unemployment, collapse of public housing, school dropout rates, access to public facilities, access to social work agencies.
- Don't nurture despair or focus solely on overwhelming situations and leave your community/story without offering solutions. Consider the complexity you are reporting.
- Who are the heroes in the hood?
- What programs seem to work?
- Who is spending money on youth violence and what has been its impact?
- What are other communities, cities, states and the federal government doing?
- Can you include NGOs and community groups in writing blogs or podcasts?
- How do organizations cooperate? What is their funding? What do they say about their success, failures, expectations?
- Consider how you can use youth media, community or crowd sourcing, bloggers and blog aggregators. How can you map your reporting? What audio-visual presence are you creating?
Examples of stories and reporting strategies
On analyzing the larger issue:
Alex Kotlowitz' story on CeaseFire, 2008, New York Times, notice how he goes back forth from scenes to individuals to bigger questions and how he doesn't answer the major question.
Dealing with victims of violence and telling their stories
From the Dart Center at Columbia University, +1 (212) 854 8056
Covering Children and Trauma
Interviewing Children from the Dart Center
When Crime is Just the Beginning of the Story, from Nieman Reports
Trauma lingers. Return to those who have endured violence to explain the impact on their lives. Chart the emotional toll felt by a family, a street, a school, a neighborhood. Notice how this video and photos that won the Pulitzer Prize did this:
Here's an interview with a clinical expert on the impact of violence from a Chicago blogger:
On Gangs and strategies to stop violence
from reporter Julie Reynold, on CeaseFire's impact nationally
An evaluation of CeaseFire
A reporting and documentary effort on the gangs of Central California
See the Interrupters, the movie on CeaseFire. What reporting tools, suggestions, insights can you glean from this movie?
How do gangs operate? What are their territories? What is the impact of the gang, drug business, trafficking, gun sales, robberies? Is there a different between black and Latino gangs? Can you draw a map of gang territories?
Here's a story that lays out the dimensions of the gangs sprawl in Chicago. What more do you need to report on?
Here's a good example – by a college journalist – of telling the story of a young Latino gang member. Notice the attention given to what neighborhoods he can visit and the forces that pull at him.
FINAL – Pilsen Project – Gang Profile – Ade Emmanuel – 1428
For over five years, Newsday reporter Sarah Garland produced stories exploring Latino gangs in the suburbs or Long Island. She came to the conclusion that contradicted to federal officials' description of their levels of brutality and sophistication. Her conclusion: the gangs were not transnational operations but largely a local phenomenon carried out by youths who had little contact in their home countries with such gangs. She linked the youths' problems, she wrote to the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) in an explanation about her reporting, to "residential segregation and educational inequality, violence towards Latinos and a criminal system that elevates punishment over rehabilitation and prevention."
Here is how the IRE described her reporting
Journalist Sarah Garland investigates how two of the most dangerous Central American gangs have made their way into the suburbs of Long Island. Garland also tells the story of several young people whose lives have been affected by gangs or gang violence. Her five-year investigation involves conversations with police, gang members and school officials. That information reveals a different opinion than that of the Department of Homeland Security, who believes the gangs to be a problem on the level of Al Qaeda.
(you need to be a member to access this)
Here are examples of videos and stories made by youth media groups in Chicago on violence.
here is a public service announcement that talks about using a gun:
And here is one of the more powerful videos done by high school students in Chicago;
Focus on a factor in crime: unemployment, drug, guns, lack of services. Make that your focus and examine the ways it touches lives, communities, services.
Here's an example from the Washington Post of such an effort:
Who are the youths? Exploring local records, following a trend.
The Washington Times in 2010 in a series, "A Horrible Answer," examined youths involved in violence who are wards of the city. They found that one out of five homicides in the city involved a youth under the care of the city's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Service. Until their reporting, there had been no exploration of the role of these youths in such violence. The stories led to the dismal of the department's director.
Linking generations. Telling a story over time.
We should always look for context in our stories. How has this situation changed?What links one generation to another? What forces a break in the chain of events? Here's a very well-reported and written effort that tells the story of one youth in Chattanooga and the forces bearing down on him, his family and community.
On the role of the media in covering violence
On the stereotypes the media can provide
From the Joyce Foundation and John Jay College Center on Crime Reporting
On Gun violence:
Their conference on gun violence and links:
Check out the power point (in the conference) from U of Chicago expert on violence on what anti-gun strategies work with youth. What strategies can you document in your neighborhood and community?
See also the Crime Report for story ideas, approaches, links
For tips and guidance on covering crime:
Covering Crime and Justice
The Center for Media, Crime and Justice
As part of their series they interviewed someone in prison for a gun crime. Notice how it gives a human face to the situation:
And here's the reporters notebook on how he went about doing the story. Notice the problems but also his findings and how he moves on:
This is a series from the Grand Rapids Press on gun crimes. Notice the use of a map to show where the crimes occur and his use of police and other sources to detail the situation. Consider tagging along with police in a high crime area to describe how they react to what they face.
This story looks at the Chicago Housing Authority and gun violence and the impact of the teardown of the housing units on crime.
This Chicago Reporter story raises questions about sending youths involved in gun crimes to prison and also asks why there are cases where no guns are indicated despite the convictions.
From the Detroit Free Press, 2004, Crime in Detroit, 7 part series, One of the stories looks at how a family tries to solve a crime on its own; Another gives a very personal look at a homicide detective's day – notice the literary, almost novel like writing.
This is an excellent, award-winning, in-depth study by the Philadelphia Inquirer of school violence. Notice how their webpage includes studies and reports, blogs and reader reactions and how they update the articles. They also include videos from school security cameras and provide students and teachers' views on the violence.
The Path of a Bullet, Long Beach Press Telegram, 1999, notice here how they mix a cinematic, compelling portrait of the people touched by crime by a theme about the cost of a 22 cent bullet. Again, an innovative approach that bring you to the scene. http://dartcenter.org/content/path-bullet-1
This is the profile of an emotionally trouble youth. The message likewise is how the system failed to help him and failed to keep account of his problem.
Higher arrest levels for black youths.
Amid city officials' talk of putting more police on Chicago's streets and in high crime neighborhoods, the Chicago Reporter looked at what the presence of more police might mean. It concluded that more police could put more black youths in "jail for low-level crimes at a rate disproportionate to teens of other races."
It analysis of court statistics showed that black teens were four times more likely to face misdemeanor charges than the combined number of white and Latino youth. Black youths were also three times more likely to be convicted on the charges.
Among youths arrested on charges of soliciting unlawful business, five were white and 99.2 percent of those arrested were black, according to the article.
Documenting youth violence in photos and videos;
Covering violence: Berkeley Media Studies
Here is a law review article that looks at get-tough policies towards youths and their impact. How can you update and localize the issues raised here?
Here's an award-winning visual and written project from the Los Angeles Time that looks at the impact of violence from gangs
Looking beyond problems to solutions
What are the key factors you can identify that impact youth violence and what can be done about them? Guns, drugs, lack of youth services? Here is a story that examines the impact of financial cutbacks on programs that serve youths. The first second article, in Spanish, uses similar information but has a focus on the Latino community.
Suggestions for better coverage: Thinking Big from various sources
1. Let youth talk
- Encourage young people to speak for themselves, promoting youth-created media to give them the opportunity to do so. Agencies that provide media training for their leaders, for example, can include young people served by the agency as spokespersons.
- Demand more context in reporting about crime. Ask newspapers and broadcast outlets to devote more resources to covering crime, drawing on sources other than police and prosecutors to look for root causes and to connect individual events to larger public policies. For example, public health sources can help interpret data and speak about prevention efforts. When reporters and editors do a good job, tell them.
- Encourage communities to ask the deeper questions: who benefits when young people are portrayed as selfish, irresponsible, and violent?
- Demand that other youth issues—health care, education, employment, leadership, youth organizing, child abuse—receive as much coverage as crime.
- Be a critical consumer of news coverage. Don't be swayed by sensationalistic reporting. Challenge the myths of rising youth crime and school violence. Examine statistics and determine the facts. If you see crime coverage that draws erroneous conclusions, speak out.
- Tap into the potential of youth as a political force. Youth organizing can help youth create a critical mass to challenge media stereotypes.
- Look for solutions other than incarceration for youth crime. Journalists covering youth crime have an opportunity to publicize such solutions by interviewing youth advocates and even youth themselves.
This was taken from…..http://www.mcknight.org/hotissues/framing_youth.aspx
2. Expand your sources, contacts, views, voices
(see source at end)
"Reporting on the social and health effects of urban violence without falling victim to stereotypes or clichés is just plain hard. In Thursday's post, I looked at some of the history and context for looking at violence as a public health issue. In this post, some veteran journalists share their tips for reporting on violence and the communities where it is pervasive." http://www.reportingonhealth.org/blogs/covering-urban-violence-public-health-problem
- Find a guide. They can be social workers, health workers, community activists, even mothers, says journalist Celeste Fremon, who has spent years reporting on gangs and violence in Los Angeles, most notably in her book about Homeboy Industries.
- "Find a guide, and then you'll gradually form relationships of your own," Fremon told our National Health Journalism Fellows at a recent seminar in Los Angeles.
- "You go to the community's mothers. You talk to the kid on the bike who's circling the crime scene. You go to the experts who are community members. They're so rarely asked, they'll give you a narrative if you're willing to sit down and talk to them," Fremon said. "I use what I've got – I'm middle aged white lady but I'm a mom. I tell my students, bring who you are. That interest you express in them is huge."
- Do not use law enforcement members as your guides to a community, at least at first. Distrust of police will extend to you, said Michael Robinson Chavez, a Los Angeles Times photojournalist who worked with reporter Scott Gold on the Times series "Promise and Peril in South L.A.," http://projects.latimes.com/south-la-gangs/
- which touched on this long-troubled community's health challenges. "We had to be really cognizant of what part of the city we were in and who we were with," Chavez said.
- Spend considerable time in the community. "Don't just come for a quote for your story," says Olis Simmons, executive director of Youth UpRising, a youth leadership group in Oakland. Chavez agreed,
- saying that the time he and Gold were given to work on the Times series was invaluable in convincing people that they wanted to do more than stereotype their community.
- Scrutinize youth services and violence prevention organizations with the same rigor you would use to report on the finances and effectiveness of other institutions on your beat. Too often, journalists give these nonprofits a free ride. In fact, they compete fiercely for limited funds and aren't always effective as they say they are, said Patrick Boyle, editor of the trade publication Youth Today, which covers the youth services field. Here's a good example of this kind of scrutiny, from the Times series.
- Boyle requires reporters to request IRS 990 forms, which provide information about expenses, income and salaries, for all organizations they cover. Often, the reporters encounter resistance. "These are do-gooder organizations. You start asking hard questions and you get a reaction: 'we're not used to this.' We ask for 990s because you never know."
- Boyle also urges reporters to examine these organizations' results. "With anti-gun, youth violence prevention, drug prevention, gang prevention work, it's extremely difficult for these programs to show measurable effect. Their subjects move around, very mobile, they move away, go to jail, drop out of school."
- "Ask for the measurement tool. And ask about who's doing the measuring," Boyle said. In many cases, the social service organizations are poorly evaluating their work or not evaluating it seriously at all.
Taken from:
3. Put your reporting into a broader context, greater balance, more solution-focused. (source listed at end)
- Expand sources beyond police and courts. Health departments and coroner's offices are good sources of homicide data. Hospital admission data, though not always available for a breaking story, can help reporters put crime and its consequences in perspective. Other social agency employees and community residents have information about neighborhood life pertinent to crime stories. Reporters need to cultivate these sources the same way they cultivate the local beat cops.
- Provide context for crime in regular reporting. In almost every area of news — sports, business, politics, entertainment — general information is integrated with spot reports and the news makes sense of events for audiences by placing them in a larger context, if not in the same article, then with additional graphics or sidebars or standing reports. Stories on crime and youth could be treated with equal depth and breadth.
- Bolster enterprise and increase investigative journalism. This recommendation requires adequate investment in the practice of journalism. Reporters need the time and resources to cultivate sources, investigate leads, and identify the connections between seemingly isolated events. They need support for understanding the patterns in a community so that they recognize when an event is important and interesting, not just interesting.
- Balance stories about crime and youth with stories about youth in general. News organizations must pull back their lens to get a broader picture of what else young people are doing. When it comes to youth, violence is as prominent in the news as education. This exaggerates the rate of violence, particularly since 52 million young people go to school but only 125,000 are arrested for violent crimes each year. What issues affect them? What other newsworthy activities are they engaged in?
- Conduct periodic audits of news content and share the results with readers and viewers. Newspapers and television newsrooms should periodically pause to examine their content. An audit would look beyond the evening ratings and sales numbers to ask the question: If the only information our readers and viewers got were from our news, what would they know about youth and violence? What wouldn't they know? Assess whether the news gives readers and viewers enough information to deliberate their community's problems.
- Examine the story selection process, and use restraint when necessary. Who qualifies as newsworthy in the newsroom? Who doesn't? Of course, news outlets cannot stop telling unusual stories, but they need not tell every one, thereby overwhelming readers and viewers with a cumulative misrepresentation, especially when it means there is not room for less sensational but more important news. Is perceived victim "worthiness" the unspoken criteria for whether a murder is selected for the news? Reporters should ask themselves: Who qualifies as a worthy victim in my newsroom? Who doesn't? If reporters limit themselves to reporting what just happened without considering how that crime fits into larger patterns, the news is doomed to be distorted.
http://jjpl.org/Publications_JJ_InTheNews/JuvenileJusticeSpecialReports/BBY/m edia/exec.html
Here's an exercise.
This is a story about a Chicago youngster nearly beaten to death when mistaken for someone from a Latino youth gang. What more do you need to add to this daily story? What is your plan for a follow-up? Tomorrow? Next month? What can you do to bring this story alive using maps, social media, storify?
en español
From the Dart Center
The Spanish-language version of the Dart Center's 40-page guide to help journalists, photojournalists and editors report on violence while protecting both victims and themselves.
A Spanish-language tip sheet on covering disasters.
Entrevistando Víctimas y Familias
A Spanish-language tip sheet on interviewing victims and families.
Consejos Para Entrevistar a Niños en Situaciones Traumáticas
A Spanish translation of "Interviewing Children" by Ruth Teichroeb, a tip sheet on protecting children from further trauma when interviewing them about a traumatic event.
Ser Testigo: Periodistas y Fotografos Respondan a la Tragedia
A Spanish-language version of a multimedia presentation for journalism educators on how collaboration with photographs' "protagonists" is the key to making powerful and responsible images.
Covering violence: Berkeley Media Studies
see also this link to their handbook on covering violence:
A final word
Why better media coverage matters
1. Public perception of violent crime is largely a function of media coverage of crime, especially youth crime. Many adults have little contact with youth and most never directly experience youth crime. This leaves them to base their impressions of youth and youth crime on external sources such as word of mouth, public officials, and, in particular, the media.
2. Media coverage does not reflect a sufficiently thorough or, in many cases, accurate understanding of youth or youth crime. Most stories about young people depict them as troubled or, more likely, as trouble for society; stories about youth typically associate youth with violence, whether as victim or instigator. Far too much coverage focuses on infrequent but heinous cases, without any context.
3. After extensive reporting on gangs in Phoenix, the New Times in 1999 took a look at the work done by the Arizona Republic. It concluded that the reporting was "uneven and often police-driven;" that the newspaper had not printed an in-depth look at gangs in 10 years, that it gave greater coverage to deaths as a result of domestic violence and children drowned than the total number who died as a result of gang violence.
From the Nieman Reports:
This issue is devoted to covering violence and children. And this article in the issue offers good recommendations on what the news media can do differently.
Here are the recommendations from one article from this report:
- Create a local violence database that lists violent incidents accumulated from a variety of sources, including law enforcement (police reports), criminal justice (coroner reports, restraining orders) and public health (hospital discharge data, emergency room data). Link this to a geographic information system component so that reporters and editors can more easily identify crime trends. Include a story-mapping component in the database so that reporters and editors can see, at a glance, what stories have been published in which categories.
- Hire a violence reporter who is trained in computer-assisted reporting, has a science or medical reporting background, and is familiar with epidemiological methods.
- Establish a violence-prevention reporting team with an editor, violence reporter, police reporter and features reporter. Assign part-time to this team a medical/health reporter, science/technology reporter, education reporter, political reporter, business reporter and graphics editor.
- Organize the team around the violence-prevention reporter who monitors the local, state and national databases as well as public health research. This reporter presents the information to the team, which decides on how to develop stories based on the data. The police and court reporters continue to do their traditional coverage, augmented by what they can retrieve from the database with the help of the violence reporter.
- Eliminate short briefs. They offer no context or useful information.
- For every violent incident reported (high-profile or common), add information as text or a graphic to put each reported violent incident in the context of local violent incidents. Include relevant risk factors, such as the type of weapon, relationship of victim to perpetrator, whether alcohol or other drugs were involved, whether the perpetrator and victim have families. Include as much initial information about consequences as possible: What happens to the families? What is the cost of incarceration?
- For each violent incident reported, do follow-up stories to address the consequences of the violent incident that affect the immediate families and the community. Include stories and information drawn from public health resources, in addition to law enforcement and criminal justice sources. Add information about economic and psychological consequences of crime to family and community as well as information about public health research into particular violence issues. These stories would appear in the weekly violence newspaper section, or as a feature on television news.
- Newspapers can publish a weekly page that focuses on solutions to crime and violence. This weekly page would include:
- A column about the week's most prominent violent incidents, placing them in perspective and explaining why they received the most attention. This can be written by the newspaper's ombudsman or violence reporter, and in it the writer can also explain how the community is working to prevent such crimes, if they are preventable, or why they are not. If the community is not working to reduce preventable crimes, find a community that has had success doing so.
- A graphic status report on violent crime within the community and how this compares with the national goals set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or local goals set by the community.
- A feature written by the violence, medical/health, science/technology, political, education or social services reporters that focuses on one aspect of a particular type of violence. The story would include solutions, attempted solutions, or the status of previously reported attempted solutions to prevent violence in the community.
- Design a local morbidity and mortality section for the news organization's Web site. Make the newspaper's local violence database available. Report deaths and injuries from all causes. Include obituaries. This becomes not only a vehicle for reporting on violence, but the data reviewed and included in this section would also enable reporters to spot trends in other types of death, including diseases such as hepatitis, AIDS, cancer, stroke, etc., and to do stories if the changes are statistically significant.
- Publish an annual report on "health of the community" to compare rates of violence in the community with national goals to reduce rates of violence in "Healthy People 2000," published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Source: From the Casey report on youths, crime and news media
Please send me your advice, your reporting, your comments. Let's work together.
Steve Franklin, Community Media Workshop, office 312 369 7782, cell 773 595 8667,
Written by Steve on August 2, 2011
Filed Under: Community Campaigns, News Coverage
Tags: black and Latino news media, Ceasefire, covering crime, covering youth violence, crime in Chicago, Dart Center for Reporting on Trauma and Violence, guide to covering crime, guide to reporting on youth violence, reporting on youth violence, una guia sobre violencia juvenil por periodistas, youth violence in Chicago
December 29, 2011 at 9:47 am
Fantasticly written write-up, if only all bloggers created a similar written content just like you, the net would be a more suitable place.


text:
Mrs. Stermer's English Homepage
I am a member of Team 8 Gold.
School Email Account: firstname.lastname@example.com 716-677-3530 ext. 4500Other Team 8 Gold teachers include:Mrs. Gianadda -- science
Mr. Matla -- math
Mr. Papke -- social studiesMs. Nagowski -- special education*For the majority of day-to-day assignments, students are given paper copies of materials and extra copies of the materials are provided as needed. For any major assignment in class, we are using Google Classroom. All handouts for these assignments are posted in Classroom. Students also complete these larger assignments in Classroom.


text:
We are tracking all known communities of practice and every known published profile of xAPI. The most evident challenge we have today is figuring out what a complete profile is and getting all profiles to meet that criteria.
Published Profiles
- CMI 5 (tracking interactions in eLearning Courses)
- Video (tracking video interactions) This differs from the Video CoPs work; these efforts need to be aligned.
- Checklists (tracking completion of a collection of items)
- Attendance (tracking a person attended an event)
- Bookmarklet (tracking saving pages on the web)
- Virtual Patient (tracking interactions with a simulated patient)
- SCORM to xAPI (translating SCORM courses to xAPI)
Communities of Practice (CoP) drafting profiles
- Augmented Reality No activities to note.
- Badges Profile published for earning an open badge
- Chinese Continued work on xAPI Vocabulary aligned to Chinese.
- CMI 5 The current CMI 5 spec is being implemented by a number of early adopters, community is looking for more early adopters to begin implementation.
- SCORM No news is good news. There is a document mapping xAPI to SCORM published.
- eBooks Profile work is ongoing.
- Healthcare Published virtual patient profile. Drafted sample statements and data requirements table.
- Simulations No activities to note.
- Social Collaboration Drafted LinkedIn vocabulary mapping for xAPI.
- Video CoP Drafted use cases and requirements.


text:
Ben "Macklemore" Haggerty has quickly become an unlikely and conscious voice in hip-hop. His name may seem new, but this is really Haggerty's second wind, and he's using his newfound platform to speak out -- but also to have some fun. Speaking by phone from his native Seattle, Haggerty picks up in an exaggerated British accent, briefly maintaining the persona of his British alter ego, Sir Raven Bowie, the spandex-clad star of Haggerty's viral hit "And We Danced." Yes, Macklemore can be as silly as he is serious, and it's that dichotomy between party tunes and introspection that have a younger demographic enamored with him.
From throwing out the first pitch at his beloved Mariners' games to unabashedly repping the Seahawks in his music videos, Haggerty supports the people who supported his ascent. But one can only go so far in his hometown. Rather, the 29-year old rapper has now found baffling success, selling out dates on his "The Heist World Tour" both here and overseas, and with his independently-released #2 Billboard debut The Heist, selling a more-than-modest 78,000 copies in its first week.
"Overall, the music is spreading and it's a direct reflection of people connecting with it," Haggerty says.
It seems like fans have been resonating at that. From a social standpoint, Haggerty seems to be one of the most aware artists at the moment, a Generation Z version of advocates like Atmosphere and Immortal Technique. His themes tend to eschew some of the most selfish points of Western culture as he denounces consumerism on the sneakerhead-specific "Wings," and shares a raw firsthand account of robotripping and prescription drug abuse on "Otherside."
It's that openheartedness that's captured the attention of Haggerty's diehard following, but it wasn't until he was inspired by the same-sex marriage debate that he finally fell into the national spotlight. Though he's been rapping for thirteen years, it wasn't until his single "Same Love," a song that openly advocates same-sex marriage, that he found himself atop a rightful soapbox with apt listeners. It may seem like his timing is immaculate, given the context of the presidential elections drawing near, but that's not the case.
"I'm never going to force a social issue because I feel pressured to do it or somebody tells me to do it," Haggerty explains. "If you're aware and you're reading, there's always stuff to write out."
Yet it wasn't always this way for Haggerty. Though he's always written and performed as Macklemore, it was a battle with addiction, his call to sobriety, and subsequent collaboration with producer Ryan Lewis that brought him to the all-time high he's at now withThe Heist
. "People don't take three years to go off and experiment with drugs and not put out music," he explains.
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And it's this second chance that's likely kept Haggerty humbled. Unlike some of his peers, there's no inflated sense of self-worth about him. In fact, his personal outlook on his trajectory, regardless of how sudden it has been, is quite the opposite. "Any sort of pedestal is false. It's created by us, it's not real. The minute that I start thinking of myself on some artificial pedestal is the minute that my art suffers."
Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis are scheduled to perform Saturday, October 28, at Club Red in Tempe.


text:
This seminar is a 4 hour introduction to the healing program that is Path of The Goddess. This pathway assists you in reconnecting back with you, healing into wholeness and unleashing your full potential, so that you may step into your soul mission and create a relationship and life of fulfilment and purpose.
The five main areas we delve into within this program include:
1. SOUL PURPOSE: connecting to the very reason we are here and manifesting that for a life of fulfilment
2. AWAKENING THE DIVINE FEMININE ESSENCE: Reconnecting back to your creative, intuitive, sensual feminine powers that have the ability to ignite your passion, joy, connectedness in relationships and life and your manifestation power.
3. SOUL VOICE: Finding your voice again, and the power to express your truth, wisdom and your soul message. Opening this pathway for free, authentic expression.
4. EMBODIMENT: Feeling at home within your body and comfortable in your own skin. Healing the relationship to your body and re-creating the relationship with your body as a vehicle for your soul expression. Helping you to feel free, unhindered in your physical expression and body movement with free-flowing energy in your body. Learning to love your body as the temple it is and to see the physical as a sacred expression of your soul.
5: SELF-LOVE: Knowing how to nourish yourself on every level from cell to soul. Learning what supports and nurtures you so that you fall in love with who you are. This is the key to receiving love and attracting the love you desire.
Soul Alignment: Wholeness, Fulfilment and Flow
This deep and transformational work in sacred feminine embodiment is the catalyst for an awakening into your whole, authentic, empowered self that brings you into 100% alignment with your soul, allowing you to create the relationships and life you desire.
I'm sure if you listen deeply enough, and quiet the busyness of your mind, you can hear a quiet longing. This longing is for something more.
More LOVE & INTIMACY.
More JOY & FULFILMENT.
More EMPOWERMENT & EXPRESSION.
More PEACE & STILLNESS.
More PASSION & ENERGY.
More SUCCESS with less effort.
More supportive and authentic SISTERHOOD.
More, more, more…
Our ego has wants and desires, but if we go underneath the mind, you'll hear the longings and desires of your heart. These whispers lead you to your soul.
These whispers are the experiences your soul needs in order to grow, evolve and fulfil it's mission in this lifetime.
Are you listening? And if not, why not?
If you don't listen to those whispers, either it's because you're disconnected and can't hear them, or patterns of disempowerment, unworthiness or fear are getting in the way of you truly listening and loving yourself.
When we stop listening, we become unhappy. We then try to fill the void with external situations such as relationships, food, addictions, sex, fame, recognition, work and other external distractions and temporary highs. Our life may be fairly ok, yet we feel something is missing.
Life stops flowing, there's certainly no magic, and you know that you are not on your path or living your potential.
The ONLY solution…
Go within, listen and honour those whispers, and slowly but surely awaken the fire within to create the magical life your soul is destined for.
The Inward Embodied Journey
The inward journey is CRUCIAL as many women today have become accustomed to looking after everybody else or putting their work first and then becoming burnt out from living in an empty, disconnected from self, outward-focused, action-orientated, masculine state.
This is part of the reason the majority of women are:
- Tired and burnt out or having adrenal issues
- Unfulfilled and feel like something is missing
- Experience PMS and/or fertility/reproductive issues
- Relationship issues (unable to attract the right partner or issues within your current relationship)
- Not living your potential or purpose
- Have done much personal development yet still don't feel whole
Once you are connected with you, you are connected to your soul desires and longings, the whispers that guide you in your life and in your evolution. From here, you begin to communicate your boundaries, saying no to that which no longer serves you, and yes to the experiences that lead you towards the life your heart desires. This empowerment allows you to live life on your terms.
No longer do you settle for less than you deserve in ANY area of your life, but you have the empowerment to lovingly speak your truth, express your desires, and make choices which nourish your soul on every level.
On this journey, I have had many moments which have turned into days, weeks, months and now years of living each day with beautiful feelings. These moments inspire my poetry and here is something I wrote that encapsulates the Path of The Goddess journey…
In Silence, I Go Within
In silence, I go within. I feel every cell of my body. I acknowledge how long since it's been since love has flowed in the home of my body. Seeking love externally from others for so long. Craving, deeply desiring to be loved, to be held and filled with love. And I now give this to myself.
In silence, I go within. I feel every cell of my body. I feel the pain and the ecstasy that lies within. Without judgment I feel it all and allow it to be and to release under my loving embrace. I soften and open to all that I feel within. I dive into realms that I have not previously been brave enough to feel. And I keep diving, deeper and deeper into the toxicity that lies deep within my cells. Bringing the light of my heart to those dark, sludgy places. Cleansing them out with my loving light and awareness. I breathe deeply out and release all that no longer serves me.
In silence, I go within. I feel every cell of my body. I feel into the essence that I am made up of. I am the Mother of all creation, the creator of worlds. I feel deeply the earth and all life within my being and hold all life now sacred within me. I flow with divine nectar through my loins and allow this vibrancy to light the world. I am that I am; the divine goddess.
Tamika Hilder, Founder of Path of the Goddess
Self Love, Self-Worth & Choosing You
Until we connect to the love that we are within, we seek it externally and we give our power away in order to receive it.
Our society is filled with adult women walking around with unhealed inner children who are seeking love, approval and acceptance, until they learn how to give that love themselves and to realise the love they are.
This journey allows you to connect to all the unloved places within and to love them unconditionally into wholeness.
It allows you to source the love you seek from within and to feel the love within. Once you feel the love within, you're able to love yourself unconditionally. This brings about a profound healing and sense of peace within. It then moves your psychology from the immature feminine to the mature feminine and eventually to the divine feminine.
Through self-love and with self-worth as your foundation, you put yourself and your needs first, and you begin to nurture, nourish and honour yourself. This creates a change in how others see you and treat you. Attracting in relationships which truly honour you starts with you honouring yourself.
Not only does this self-love create deeper and more loving relationships but allows you to flourish in your life through attracting and having the worth to say yes to life's greater opportunities.
Healing Into Wholeness
The cathartic and transformational practices assist you in fully healing your past, and clearing layers you are not even aware of, but that are hindering or limiting you on some level.
No matter what has occurred in your past, or no matter what you are carrying from ancestral programming or the collective, it CAN be healed so you can move on. Once the past is healed, we cease to repeat patterns in our present and this allows us to create the future we truly desire.
Soul alignment is a process of healing and clearing past limiting programs. This brings greater alignment within us and greater access of our true potential.
This healing and feminine mastery program allows you to clear out the past, release blocked emotion and trauma, clear the blocks and any other limiting programs from within your cellular memory. This work can have physical healing effects as the changes often happen from the inside out.
A Sacred, Intimate Relationship
The level of connection and intimacy you have with yourself, is the level of connection and intimacy you will be able to have with another.
The deeper you know yourself, the deeper intimacy (into-me-you-see) is able to be experienced.
The Path of The Goddess is founded in helping you to awaken your divine feminine essence. As a woman, wishing to experience a relationship with the masculine, polarity is crucial to keep the spark alive and to maintain and a loving connection on all levels within the relationship.
Women who have moved into their masculine either out of protection or simply from living in a patriarchal society and focusing more on their drive at work, may find it hard to attract a man that wants to support, adore and love her as her invisible wall of independence actually pushes the very thing she desires away from her.
Men are attracted to femininity. They are seeking the polarity of the feminine essence and this is what allows a man to be effortlessly drawn to you and to want to be that masculine presence in your life.
IF YOU ARE SINGLE and looking for love, this work will help you to attract in a partner that meets you at that soul level.
IF YOU ARE IN A RELATIONSHIP this work will assist you in deepening the love and intimacy you already have or moving on from a relationship that is no longer serving you.
Either way, more love will be available to you through this work.
After 15 years of healing work and learning and teaching in the personal development work, I have not come across any other body of work or method that brings women home to knowing who they are, experiencing their own sacredness and divinity and then experiencing that in a loving partnership. This is truly sacred, beautiful work.
Due to thousands of years in a patriarchal society, there are few who truly understand the divine feminine energy let alone embody it.
In this half day event, you'll discover:
- Tamika's 14 year healing journey of waking her own inner Goddess, and how she turned trauma into wholeness and the birth of this work.
- Where the suppression of the divine feminine began and the result on our planet, relationships, health, money and power.
- What is required to evolve in your psychology from the immature feminine, to mature feminine to the divine feminine
- The 5 core relationship wounds that prevent and block love
- Your healing pathway to evolve into your greatest potential and to have all that your heart desires
- Experiential practices to heal the divine wounds, and awaken your sacred feminine essence
By the end of the day you will understand why the feminine energy is the key to….
- Bringing you into wholeness
- Ending the healing journey once and for all
- Having you finally "get" that you are enough as you are
- Increasing your income and abundance
- Deepening and experiencing true emotional intimacy and authenticity
- Allowing you to manifest with greater power and ease
- Receiving all you desire
- Healing burn out and fatigue
- A level of fulfillment most women don't even know is possible
- Attracting your King or transforming your current relationship
- Your ascension and enlightenment for those on the spiritual path
- And birthing a new world!
This is the key for YOUR future evolution as a woman.
Feminine consciousness is birthing a new paradigm on Earth
The feminine consciousness has been suppressed within both men and women for the last few thousand years on this planet. Qualities such as creativity, intuition, love, unity, compassion, collaboration, feeling and heart have been seen as less valuable in comparison to masculine qualities such as mind, logic, action, willpower, competition, linear structured planning, and physical strength.
The mind without heart is not balanced and we see this imbalance playing out in unsuccessful relationships, within the self and on Earth.
The result of the imbalance has resulted in emasculated men or men who abuse their power, women who have become more like men, or who are suppressed and disempowered.
This imbalance between masculine and feminine is the cause of the destruction occurring on and within the Earth. The feminine naturally wants to nurture her surroundings. The disconnection to the feminine has resulted in leaders who care not about creating a healthy eco-system for all species to live in harmoniously, but has led to a planet that is slowly dying. It is up to us to create change.
Our solution is to reconnect back to our feminine nature and to allow the feminine wisdom to lead creating solutions that are based in love, unity, collaboration and the highest good for all living beings. The world needs a new kind of leadership. I feel the feminine consciousness whether channeled through a man or a woman has the answers to a sustainable future and therefore am very passionate about this work.
We are expecting a large turnout being a free event, so please book early as we only have limited seats.
Tamika Hilder is the founder of Path of The Goddess and teaches seminars, workshops and retreats world wide. She is a leading authority on the topic of feminine mastery and has been an intuitive coach, teacher, writer and mentor for over thirteen years.
Tamika's professional qualifications include: NLP, Life Coaching, Prenatal Psychology, Medical Intuition, Genome Healing, Hypnotherapy, Psych-K, Metaphysics, Kundalini Reiki and has personally studied Tantric Sacred Sexuality and Ancient Womb and Feminine Mysteries.
Her personal experience was of turning trauma into wholeness, fear into empowerment, suppression into liberation and darkness into light. Her embodied experience allows her to connect to a broad range of women and assist them in connecting with their true essence in order to fully shine and create the life they soul is destined for.


text: Adventure Riding Southern Laos. Great 9 days away with Mike Hohman and Steve C Canyon Steve C Canyon took some time off work at Moto Lao to join us on this epic ride. He had an eipic 450 KM in two days himself meetinig us at Muang Nong.. Good and big effort.. No easy quick way.. He did as much dirt as possible.. The video is taking in parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, remote areas of Attapue province along the Xekeman river. Lake Nong Fa as well as trails being reclaimed by the jungle along the Lao Cambodian border... We were looking for some adventure.. not just the paved roads or wide dusty tracks.. Which is getting harder to find in Laos. You have to go further and further away :-( Where found adventure where we least expected it.. If you can't view the video due to FB or music copyright.. copy the link to your Youtube app or if blocked in your region due to music copy right watch on a PC or Mac.. The pics and video contributed by all on the ride. More to come shortly under the Laos Ride Report Section.. Cheers Brian


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Add a few recent SEC actions against hedge funds that include a hedge fund manager running a $37 million Ponzi scheme; a former director in a compensation scheme that netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed income; co-founders of a Chicago-area investment firm misleading investors and supervisory failures resulting in penalties of more than $1 million; a private fund manager and his investment advisory firm taking more than $17 million in losses in a Ponzi-like scheme.
And now add to that two even more recent cases: a hedge fund manager over the course of several years invest the majority of a fund's assets in a private business owned by the manager's affiliated company; and a manager who used his hedge fund as a ruse to misappropriate over $550,000 from a retired schoolteacher, and you get the math of why SEC hedge fund oversight will continue to intensify. Given many of the enforcement actions in the past two years are the result of fairly egregous conduct, the SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy's most recent Investor Bulletin is still instructive, not simply for investors, but also, for the hedge funds who serve them.
The bulletin warns investors about continued hedge fund-related misconduct in the markets while mentioning these cases as examples of why investors need to take precaution before making hedge fund investments. While there's nothing surprising about precautions and recommendations that include
- a need for investors to understand a hedge fund's investment strategy and its use of leverage and speculative techniques before making the investment;
- a need for investors to evaluate a hedge fund manager's potential conflicts of interest and take other steps to research those managing the fund;
the bulletin highlights the need for registered advisers to hedge funds to pay particular attention to conflicts of interest when making investment decisions, particularly when determining how investment opportunities are allocated. Advisers also have to be wary about engaging in principal transactions when managing hedge funds — for example, engaging in rebalancing or other types of cross trades. Among others, they should concern themselves with the valuations assigned to particular securities, and calculations of all fees and other income sources.
For hedge fund advisers, these bulletins, whose primary aim is educating the investing public, are another way to take a deeper look for potential conflicts that may lead to violations and to understand the emphasis SEC examiners and regulators will place on such conflicts.


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Like other homes in the downtown and surrounding areas, many residences have taken advantage of the sixteenth-century structures that in successive reconstructions have been incorporated into the walls and spaces of the old manors. It was determined that this property was located in lands belonging to the Regina Angelorum Convent. This property remained a possession of the Catholic Church and outbuildings to the Haitian Invasion of 1822, when the Dominicans left the island. The property remained indefinite, and it was not until the Annexation to Spain (1865), when it was disposed to subdivide and take advantage of the abandoned structures of the Convent to establish homes for individuals. The house is linked in the last third of the nineteenth century to the master builder Martín Febrillet, considered by society then as an honest artisan whom lived until his death in the house opposite the renowned Casa del Tapao, known for creating legends and traditions, sited on Padre Billini and 19 de Marzo. In 1877, friar Roque Cocchia, a delegate and apostolic vicar, and the Presbyterian philanthropist and educator, Francisco Xavier Billini, were responsible for raising funds to pay for the restoration works to be done in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo. A good friend of Father Billini and one of the best builders in the city, Febrillet paved the Cathedral with marble, including the chapels and adornments, which he quoted at 600 pesos, which paid the purchased residence. Febrillet built the cobblestone on calle de las Atarazanas, in 1887. Likewise, he worked efficiently on the sewer system merging this street with the calle de San Francisco, which went downstream by the San Diego slope. These works were also brilliantly performed by Febrillet.
The house where Febrillet lived, marble tiles are still preserved in white and gray colors, the same type as those used in the Cathedral and other churches restored by the master builder. As a result of the restoration and upgrading works, this residence has been turned into a splendid hotel facility, consisting of four bedroom suites, lounges and service quarters. It features a beautiful patio with comfortable seating areas and planters hosting towering palms and a striking mango tree, among other ornamental plants which provide a tropical feel complemented with delicate décor, in a lovely ambiance designed by Patricia Reid. The unique setting forms part of the high-quality accommodation Casas del XVI, running on several residences of the Colonial City.


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Sonam Wangcuk - winner of Magsaysay award
Written specially for Vikalp Sangam
Congrats to Sonam Wangchuk for his richly deserved Magsaysay Award.
The Vikalp Sangam had the opportunity to visit SECMOL, Sonam's expression of his ideas on education. This is a video of our visit: A Visit to SECMOL:https://youtu.be/odcy-
Becky tells us about what they do at SECMOL (the Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh), and Sonam Wangchuk, shares his take on education through local innovation http://www.vikalpsangam.org/
(Read about the school - SECMOL)
At the Sangam itself, Sonam Outlines the Ladakh Vision Document https://youtu.be/n9ACwBUSpt8 an effort which outlines a sustainable economics model for the region.
Contact the videographer
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Senate Moving To Revamp La.'s Teacher-Evaluation System
Louisiana's contentious teacher-evaluation program would be suspended and revamped under the provisions of numerous bills currently under active consideration by the legislature.
On the table last week were a spate of bills, already approved by the Senate Education Committee, that collectively would require wholesale changes in the way the evaluation program operates.
"There's been an overwhelming response from some of the teachers that [the program] is not working," an aide to the committee said.
The legislature adopted the evaluation program in 1988 as part of the Children First Act, a set of education reforms pushed by Gov. Buddy Roemer. Under an agreement be4tween the state and the two major teachers' unions, teachers received salary increases totaling $485 million in exchange for the implementation of evaluations.
But the evaluations, which were put into place for the first time this year, have drawn strong criticism from the unions as unfair and flawed.
In response, Mr. Roemer and Superintendent of Education Wilmer S. Cody in March announced that they would throw out this year's evaluation results and recommend that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education make changes in the program. The two officials called for eliminating evaluations for first-year teachers, using similarly certified assessors to evaluate teachers, and improving teacher orientation to the evaluation process. (See Education Week, March 20, 1991.)
The Governor's proposals may be rendered moot, however, by the bills before the legislature, all of which are thought to have a good chance of passing.
Suspension Already Approved
The separate measures under consideration last week would:
Eliminate the categories of teaching certification under the evaluation program and the renewel10lal of teaching certificates based on the results of the evaluations.
Call for unspecified revisions in the program.
Create a pilot program for teacher evaluations conducted at the local level.
Require the development of a special method for evaluating teachers who determine whether students should be placed in special-education classes, and the use of such an instrument first in a pilot program.
Require bese to contract with outside consultants, such as the Southern Regional Education Board, that are experienced in developing and implementing teacher-evaluation programs before revising the program in Louisiana.
The latter two bills have already passed the full Senate by unanimous votes and are awaiting consider4ation in the House. The other bills were introduced last Wednesday, but were not immediately put to a vote.
In addition, a resolution suspending the evaluation program for a year passed the Senate last week by a vote of 31 to 5 and has been referred to the House Education Committee.
On the House side, comparable bills have been introduced, according to an aide to the House Education Committee, but members are letting the Senate take the lead on the issue. The House panel will schedule hearings on the bills soon, the aide said.
Mr. Roemer still is "very committed to the program staying on track," said his education adviser, Claudia Fowler. "He does not want the program diluted to the point where it's ineffective."
Ms. Fowler said that Mr. Cody already has enlisted five consultants to help revise the program, and that additional consultants are not needed.
Vol. 10, Issue 36
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With over 50 years' combined experience, DN Design has worked with many leading corporate companies and Ad agencies. Clients include Irish Hairdressing International, DIOR, IDL/Pernod Ricard, Guinness, Irish Rail, Britvic, Aviva, U2/Principal Management and Aer Lingus.
DN Design welcomes any challenge and has never failed to deliver even on the most creative and imaginative ideas.
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The Trump Administration has shown zero tolerance for immigrants who crossed the border illegally. Due to the new legislation, the government has separated more than 2700 children from their parents – an act which has sparked public outcry from both Republicans and Democrats.
Today, we'll be taking a closer look at how this problem got started, what damage has been done, and if there's an end to this madness.
Why Is The Government Separating Families?
Before we begin addressing this issue, it's important to understand that not every family that crosses our borders is subject to this treatment. Only people how don't have the proper documents and haven't made the move through legal channels are being detained, prosecuted, separated, and kicked out of the country.
How Do Families Get Separated?
Parents who have crossed the border and have either been caught in the act or have committed some crime on US soil are sent to a federal jail. As children can't be detained in a federal jail, they're separated from their parents and placed in a detention center.
This scenario is horrific and nerve-wracking that an illegal immigrant from Honduras committed suicide in federal jail upon separation from his child!
What Made This Horrific Act Possible?
To be clear, this legislation is nothing new as it has been in law for decades. That being said, it's worth mentioning that the Trump Administration has decided to strictly enforce it, with strong emphasis on family separation at the borders.
With the number of illegal immigrants increasing in the country at exponential rates, the Trump Administration has put its foot down and has begun the mass separation and deportation of families seeking asylum.
What Happens to the Kids Post-Separation?
The legislation dictates that all the children separated from their parents must be sent to an OPR facility within 72 hours of being caught. From then, they're sent to short-term foster care where they're detained for days or weeks. During this time OPR workers identify the child's closest relative who can take the child home while the parents face legal consequences of this decision.
Is There An End In Sight?
Unfortunately, no! While public outcry may have deterred previous governments from taking such extreme measures, the Trump Administration refuses to cater to public opinion. We hope that cooler heads prevail and that there's an end to this madness!
About Free Rein Report:
We're a news outlet that aims to bring the facts to the people. We provide quick updates on the US economy, business news, and latest political events. Feel free to contact us for any queries or questions!


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The UFC has been very quiet as of late when it comes to their women's featherweight division, however that is about to change.
The organization has booked Cris Cyborg vs. Megan Anderson for the 145-pound title at UFC 214 on July 29 in Anaheim, California. The UFC is expected to make an official announcement in the coming days.
The current UFC featherweight champion will be stripped of her title, after refusing to defend her belt and announcing a move back down to bantamweight. She became the inaugural champion after defeating Holly Holm by way of unanimous decision back in February.
Cyborg (17-1, 1 NC) is currently the number one ranked featherweight fighter in the world.. The Brazilian hasn't fought since her September victory over Lina Länsberg. She was provisionally suspended by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in December, though after a two-month investigation, she was granted a retroactive therapeutic use exemption for Spironolactone, a physician-prescribed diuretic. She did not receive any sanctions from USADA or the UFC. This upcoming fight will be the first time she fights at 145 pounds in the UFC.
Anderson (8-2) became Invicta's interim featherweight champion when she defeated Charmaine Tweet in January. She was named Invicta's official 145-pound champion after then-champion Cyborg, vacated the title in March.
UFC 214 takes place on July 29, 2017 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.


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People often ask how I've maintained my girlish figure for so long. If you saw me, no bulging stomach droops over the belt. No fat arms hang from the biceps. Genes count, and I attribute a lot of success to my parents. They passed me genes which never allow a 10 pound overweight condition. (By the way, my parents never looked overweight.) That's about as scientific as it gets.
Now that I've reached a senior citizen age, nothing has really changed. I look trim. I drink alcoholic beverages and eat rich food. I sometimes overindulge, eating fatty and other high caloric foods. Sometimes I notice the waist on my trousers get a bit tight, and have to notch out the belt. My arms develop a muscular fat of a wannabe body builder. My facial cheeks puff, as does my backside cheeks. No, I'm not using steroids.
A bell rings, alerting me that I have reached the extra 10 pound overweight limit. I march in front of a mirror and confess I look like Porky Pig, complete with ears atop my head. Eventually a gatekeeper appears, holding up a sign, saying I'm not allowed to enter into the overweight domain. He cautions me to slow down on eating. I listen, preferring my clothes to wear from use, not ripped stitches. An automatic switch flips, waking my metabolic genie who says, 'I'm back. I'll take it from here.'
Truthfully, the pounds didn't dissolve by themselves. It started with my wife pointing out, 'You're overweight. The seams on your pants are ready to split.' Her underlining warning means I'd have to buy a new wardrobe. Her silent warnings were, 'How much mortgage money do you plan to spend on new clothes?' or 'I can't stand your fat ass. I'm looking for a younger man.' Simultaneously, my inner voice speaks about practical measures. 'Have you priced clothes lately?' Or my armchair medical voice warns. 'You're vulnerable to Onset Diabetes.' With my full attention gained, weight control becomes my main priority.
I dusted off my weight reduction remedy. Read More