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Before the birth of her daughter, Aurora, in 2016, Heather Huhman, host of the podcast Beat Infertility and founder of content-marketing firm Come Recommended, went through seven cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF), suffered four miscarriages and gave birth to stillborn twins, Eric and Alexis. As difficult and heartbreaking as the Washington, DC, woman's journey to motherhood was, she never stopped working—she had to foot the almost-$60,000 bill for all those fertility treatments.
Heather is not an anomaly. A survey by FertilityIQ, a fertility doctor and clinic evaluation website, found that 92 percent of women undergoing fertility treatments are employed. Of those, 68 percent work a full 40 to 50 hours a week.
One big reason? More and more women are postponing pregnancy until their mid-to late 30swhile they're furthering their careers—and this delay often makes fertility treatments necessary to start a family. But medical need isn't the only reason working women make up the majority of fertility-care patients: The high price of help forces many women to continue earning a paycheck while trying to conceive. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine reported that the average cost of one IVF treatment in the United States is $12,400, not including the extra medications a woman might need and the added fees for using an egg or sperm donor, or gestational surrogate.


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Study Finds Incontinence in Women Somewhat Common
Almost 25 percent of American women have a pelvic floor disorder, such as urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, or pelvic organ prolapse, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"This study showed that pelvic floor disorders are exceedingly common in women in the United States," says the study's lead author, Dr. Ingrid Nygaard, of the University of Utah.
And, though these disorders are prevalent, women do not always bring them up with their doctors, notes Dr. Nygaard. "Pelvic floor disorders are not talked about often, and women are often too embarrassed to bring them up."
Dr. Victor Nitti, of New York University, says, "I don't think there's any question that pelvic floor disorders are underreported. Some women are embarrassed, and some think they're a normal part of aging. Either way, it's not something women will often report spontaneously."
More than a Leak when Laughing
The new study reviewed data from almost 2,000 women over the age of 20 who had participated in the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
This study group is considered to be representative of the US population. None of the women included in the data analysis was pregnant at the time of the study.
The women were interviewed at home and underwent a physical exam in a mobile examination center.
Urinary incontinence was diagnosed based on scoring more than "three" on an incontinence severity index. Fecal incontinence was diagnosed if women reported having at least one monthly leakage of stool.
Pelvic organ prolapse was diagnosed if women reported feeling a bulge inside or outside of the vagina. (Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when one of the pelvic organs, such as the uterus, drops and presses on the vagina.)
Overall, the researchers found that 23.7 percent of women experienced at least one pelvic floor disorder. Almost 16 percent of the women reported urinary incontinence, 9 percent experienced fecal incontinence, and 2.9 percent reported pelvic organ prolapse.
Dr. Nygaard points out that this study looked at moderate to severe incontinence. She says it is quite common for women to leak small amounts of urine while laughing or sneezing, but that is not what was studied.
Older women were most likely to report a pelvic floor disorder, with almost 50 percent of those 80 and older reporting at least one pelvic floor disorder, compared to just 10 percent of women between 20 and 39 years old.
Having been pregnant increased the odds of pelvic floor disorders, and, with each pregnancy, the likelihood of incontinence or prolapse rose. Similarly, being overweight or obese also increased the risk of pelvic floor disorders, according to the study.
Muscle Strengthening, Medication Helps
Both Drs. Nygaard and Nitti say that effective treatments are available for women with pelvic floor disorders.
Dr. Nygaard recommends that women start with the most conservative treatment options, such as pelvic muscle strengthening and behavioral therapy.
Surgery, which can be effective for certain problems, is usually reserved as a last option, she explains.
"The most important thing women need to realize is that they're not alone. Pelvic floor disorders aren't dangerous and are treatable," says Dr. Nygaard.
Dr. Nitti adds: "If you have any symptoms related to any of these problems, and they bother you, you shouldn't be embarrassed to bring it to the attention of your health-care providers. All are, in one way or another, treatable, particularly at the early stages."
Always consult your physician for more information.
Online Resources
(Our Organization is not responsible for the content of Internet sites.)
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) - Prevalence of Symptomatic Pelvic Floor Disorders in US Women
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
December 2008
Study Finds Incontinence in Women Somewhat Common
More than a Leak when Laughing
Muscle Strengthening, Medication Helps
Facts about Urinary Incontinence
Facts about Urinary Incontinence
Urinary incontinence (UI) is the loss of urine control, or the inability to hold your urine until you can reach a restroom.
More than 15 million men and women in the United States experience incontinence. UI can strike at any age. Women over age 50 are the most likely to develop UI.
Urinary incontinence may be a temporary condition, resulting from an underlying medical condition. It can range from the discomfort of slight losses of urine to severe, frequent wetting.
Incontinence is not an inevitable result of aging, but is particularly common in older people.
It is often caused by specific changes in body function that may result from diseases, use of medications, and/or the onset of an illness. Sometimes it is the first and only symptom of a urinary tract infection.
Women are most likely to develop incontinence either during pregnancy and childbirth, or after the hormonal changes of menopause, because of weakened pelvic muscles.
The following are some of the different types of urinary incontinence:
urge incontinence - the inability to hold urine long enough to reach a restroom. It is often found in people who have conditions such as diabetes, stroke, dementia, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis, but may be an indication of other diseases or conditions that would also warrant medical attention.
stress incontinence - the most common type of incontinence that involves the leakage of urine during exercise, coughing, sneezing, laughing, lifting heavy objects, or other body movements that put pressure on the bladder.
functional incontinence - leakage due to a difficulty reaching a restroom in time because of physical conditions such as arthritis.
overflow incontinence - leakage that occurs when the quantity of urine produced exceeds the bladder's capacity to hold it.
The following are the most common symptoms of urinary incontinence. However, each individual may experience symptoms differently.
Symptoms may include:
The symptoms of urinary incontinence may resemble other conditions or medical problems.
Always consult your physician for more information.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Royal Ascot kicked off in style today with a host of royals including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge present.
The Duke and Duchess travelled in the second carriage with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.
Her Majesty was in the first carriage with Prince Andrew, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima (who sported one of her signature hats).
A terrific video of the procession. Princess Anne, The Earl and Countess of Wessex, Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice and Princess Alexandra were also there.
The quintessential racing extravaganza is an annual highlight on the royal calendar.
Her Majesty simply adores Ascot and looks forward to the week throughout the year. It is said she loves to see as many members of the family in attendance as possible.
'In her welcoming remarks to racegoers in this year's Royal Ascot program, the Queen calls the event "one of the sporting events that I have been fortunate to enjoy throughout my life." Signing it "Elizabeth R," she adds that even though racing has been taking place there for more than 300 years, and "much has changed, the horses remain the stars, thrilling us with their beauty, brilliance and courage. The quality and the depth of competition at the Royal Meeting has also continued to prosper."
The Cambridges made their debut at the event in 2016, in honour of the Queen's 90th birthday. They joined the monarch again in 2017.
The Duke and Duchess catching up with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima following their appearance at Garter Day yesterday.
Charles, Camilla and William mingle with guests.
Photos of Kate and Zara Tindall are always a treat during Ascot..
I've said before, Mike and Zara always come across as such an incredibly warm and fun couple to spend time with. We've seen wonderful interaction between Kate and Zara over the years at polo matches, family events and earlier this year during a family day out in Norfolk.
We saw an assortment of blue shades and floral prints from the royal ladies today. Kate and Her Majesty were very well coordinated.
The Duchess appeared to very much enjoy chatting with guests.
Day One of Royal Ascot is widely acknowledged to be among the best racing days anywhere in the world with three Group One races and Ascot's premier two-year-old race, the Group Two Coventry Stakes.
Over 300,000 people make the annual visit to Berkshire during Royal Ascot week, making this Europe's best-attended race meeting. It is a major event in the British social calendar.
The Queen watches on as her horse Choirboy wins the Royal Hunt Cup at Ascot, 17th June 1953.
There are three enclosures attended by guests on Royal Ascot week. The Royal Enclosure is the most prestigious of the three, with visits by the Queen and Royal family members.
Access to the Royal Enclosure is restricted, with high security on the day. First-time applicants must apply to the Royal Enclosure Office and gain membership from someone who has attended the enclosure for at least four years.
Guests can enjoy afternoon tea or avail of a fine dining experience by Michelin-Starred chefs such as Raymond Blanc OBE.
This year's classic race card design.
Not only is Royal Ascot a highlight on the racing calendar, it's also synonymous with sartorial elegance. Royal Ascot notes: "Our dress code is traditional, woven into the very fabric of our history. It was Beau Brummell, perhaps Britain's first fashion icon, who at the turn of the 19th century dictated the dress for men in the Royal Enclosure. His sense of style is still reflected in Royal Ascot fashions today. In 2017, Royal Ascot successfully welcomed the jumpsuit as an acceptable item of clothing for the Royal Enclosure. Ascot continues to recognise key trends in the ever-evolving world of fashion."
For her first Ascot appearance in 2016, the Duchess donned a white lace Dolce & Gabbana dress.
In 2017, the Duchess selected a white lace Alexander McQueen dress.
Over the years, we've often discussed at length, potential designers we would love to see Kate wear. Elie Saab has been at the very top of that list for many of us; it was quite the sartorial surprise to see Kate in one of his creations today. The Lebanese fashion designer took the fashion world by storm with his showstopping, romantic, whimsical collections. From bridal to evening wear to feminine daywear pieces, his outstanding designs have been worn by royalty all over the world.
Kate's Closet notes Kate wore separates by the designer. The Macramé Pussy Bow Top features a relaxed fit, short sleeves and macramé trim.
The matching skirt has a very 'princessy' feel to it and produces an almost sparkly effect in images. The look is from the Resort 2019 Collection.
The Duchess wore a custom version of Philip Treacy's Molded Slice Hat with rosettes from the Spring/Summer 2016 Collection.
Kate chose the hat in pink for Trooping The Colour 2016.
Kate's new metallic pumps are the Gianvito Rossi 105 pumps (with thanks to For The Royals) They are described as: "Gianvito Rossi's silver pumps demonstrate that jewelry isn't the only thing that can add a little shine to your outfit. Made in Italy from supple leather, this pair has sharp pointed toes and thin stiletto heels." They are available in a number of sizes at Net-A-Porter.
Accessories included Kate's Kiki McDonough Blue Topaz and Diamond earrings.
And a new metallic clutch by Elie Saab.
A closer look at Kate's side bun.
What do you think of Kate's Ascot look this year?


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Dear Crafters,
Now let's get started!
Tonight the Art with Heart team are sharing our favourite retiring products and mine is definitely the Watercolour Wings stamp set and coordinating dies, Bold Butterfly framelits & Butterflies thinlits.
I have also used 3 of my favourite retiring colours; Island Indigo, Pink Pirouette, Rose Red, and I will miss them, however there are some new stunning colours to replace them. Yay!
The 1/8″ metallic gold ribbon is also retiring, so make sure you get some of that added to your shopping cart. I have used it on the Rose Red card above in horizontal stripes. I also added Versamark ink to the centre of the butterfly as well as sponged it around the edges of the Rose Red card, added some Gold embossing powder and heat set it for added shine. I used my Fine Tip glue pen to add to the dots on the butterfly, gold embossing powder and heat set!
My next card uses the same products but I have teamed it up with the stunning Painted with Love DSP which will also retire on 31st May. It has this amazing gold through it. This card is a pop through card, where the butterfly slides through the slit when you open it!
I sure will miss these products but I am looking forward to sharing some new items soon.
Thanks for visiting today.
Don't forget to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com to request your copy of a Catalogue or to ask about joining the Art With Heart team.
Now it's time to follow the blog hop to our next participant, the talented Rachel Palmieri.
If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the participants below.
Happy Hopping!


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Name at birth: Björk Gudmundsdottir
Björk is Iceland's most famous pop personality, the exotic and modern singer/songwriter who did the song "Human Behavior," a nightclub hit in 1993. At the age of 12 she had already released an album, and in the late '70s and early '80s she was part of Iceland's punk scene, ending up in the band Kukl and touring Europe. The lead singer for the Sugarcubes from 1988-92, Björk's unique voice helped propel the band to cult status in the U. K. and U.S. Her 1993 solo album, Debut was a hit with critics and spawned two singles. During the '90s she collaborated with DJs and remixers, who turned several of her songs into dance club favorites. Her albums include Post (1995), Selmasongs (2000, music from the movie Dancer in the Dark, in which Björk had a starring role) and Vespertine (2001).
Björk co-wrote the Madonna song "Bedtime Stories."
Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.


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How Partnership Income is Taxed
Filing Tax Returns
Estimating and Paying Taxes
Profits are Taxed whether Partners Receive them or Not
How Distributed Share is Established
Estimated Tax Payments and Self-Employment Taxes
If you are an active participant in running the Partnership business, aside from the income taxes, you are required by the IRS to pay "self-employment taxes" on the profits allocated to you. This self-employment tax covers your share of the Social Security contributions and Medicare programs.
The self-employment taxes differ between non-owner employees and partners. Employees only pay half, the other half is paid by the employer. Partners have to pay twice as much as regular employees because they have to pay both the employee and employer share of the taxes. Partners, however can deduct half of the self-employment contribution from their taxable income to help lower their taxes. This self-employment tax will be reported using a Schedule SE which is attached to their annual income tax return.
Expenses and Deductions
Incorporating Your Business May Cut Your Tax Bill
Keeping the profits or retained earnings the business can lower the corporate tax rates. If you decide to retain a certain amount of profit in the business at the end of the year, this retained profit will only be taxed 15 percent corporate rate as compared to individual tax rates of 25 percent. Incorporating can make a difference in reducing taxes.


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A statistical method we often overlook is the distribution curve. I think most of the time it is dismissed because people get nervous about using statistics if they are uncomfortable with math. While there are some advanced concepts around using a frequency curve, it can also be used visually as a simple tool to explain results.
A simple stats lesson….
Normal Bell Curve – roughly 68% of the population is within 1 standard deviation (measure of variation) of the average and 95% is within two standard deviations. Below is an example of IQ scores. The average score is 100 and 68% of the data is between 85 & 115.
While this visualization doesn't do a tremendous amount for us, this is what we assume when we think of populations, like customers and employees. And because of our limited statistical training we make a large number of assumptions based on averages. We love to look at average revenue: average revenue per employee, average revenue per customer, etc. This thinking also gets us looking into the outliers (that <5% that sits way out to the left or right of the chart). How much time do you spend on less than 5% of the business?
OK, so back to thinking of this in terms of running a business….
Let's map out our revenue per customer. I would be willing to bet it looks something like the following:
If this is the customer revenue distribution, if we use the average number in our analyzes we can quickly generate a number of wrong assumptions. First and foremost, our typical customer is larger than reality. It might lead us to think we are serving mid-sized businesses than more likely smaller market customers. I am also willing to bet our profitability per customer has a similar curve to it. In this case we are likely spending money on the wrong customers and aligning our better services to a lower profit generating customer (or more likely a profit destroying customer).
Do we need to use it in everything? Of course not, but it might help everyone once in a while to challenge our overuse of the mathematical average to reassess perspectives of our business. A great place to start is map out the customer base in terms of revenue (profitability is better, but takes a lot longer to do). It might just lead you to understand your customer (think customer segmentation) better.
Real life example…I was once part of a research project to understand discounting to one side of the outliers (<1% of the business). The outcome was to focus on reducing discounting to that <1% of the business. What I argued was to focus on the larger part of the business, where the same efforts would have resulted in millions more in terms of profits. It was a clear lesson is where to apply process improvement.


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Add Shakira and Gloria Estefan to the list of public figures riled by Arizona's new immigration law. The Latin pop stars join Barack Obama, Mexican president Felipe Calderon, the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco and even the LA archbishop, all of whom have spoken out against the controversial measures. On May Day, thousands of opponents took to the streets of US cities.
The law, which was signed by the state's Republican governor in late April, specifies that Arizona police can detain any person suspected of being in the United States illegally and check their immigration status. The law also criminalises the failure to carry immigration documents. Punishments include a maximum six-month jail sentence and $2,500 (€2,000) fine.
It is clear why the law has come into being. Arizona, a Mexican border state, has a dramatic illegal immigration problem and in 2008 was home to an estimated half-million illegal immigrants, according to the Pew Hispanic Center (the state's population is currently 6.5 million). But the new provisions are troubling many.
Critics contend that it will lead to rampant racial profiling. Only people of Hispanic appearance will be targeted by the police, they say. What's more, some legal observers suggest that the federal government alone, not individual states, has the authority to prosecute illegal immigrants.
The response has been vociferous. Before the law was signed, Obama called it "misguided" and directed the Justice Department to examine its legality. Calderon said it "opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement". Shakira and Estefan have both taken part in protests. And on his blog, LA archbishop Roger M Mahony said the law encouraged "German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques."
Now there are calls for a boycott of the state, including by San Francisco lawmakers, and the Mexican Foreign Ministry has advised Mexicans to exercise caution in Arizona.
It remains to be seen if the various challenges will make a difference, although the law has the support of about two-thirds of Arizona voters, a Rasmussen Reports poll found. It is due to take effect by August.
But as the fallout continues and the state's image takes a battering, some Arizonans are worried. Take the tourism industry. Putting aside whether San Franciscans will patronise the Grand Canyon and other destinations, there is the more significant question of Mexicans. A 2008 study by the Arizona Office of Tourism reported that approximately 24 million Mexicans travelled to Arizona in the year beginning July 2007, spending over $7.35m a day. In Santa Clara county on the border, they accounted for almost half of all sales receipts.
"We finally have what is beginning to look like an upswing for the travel industry," Kimberly Schmitz of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau told Monocle. "This is not helpful."


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2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 Review
Related Video
Given the Internet era's dearth of secrets, I didn't expect any surprises when I wandered down to Chevy's outpost at the far north end of the Javits Center at the 2013 New York Auto Show. But down in those doldrums, way in the back, an outrageous Camaro was dreamily spinning on a turntable. With carbon-ceramic brakes, near-slick tires, and the 7.0-liter V-8 from the outgoing Corvette Z06, it looked like a fanciful SEMA-style concept. I asked a Chevy person what I was looking at and he replied, "That's the 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28. We're gonna build it." I'm not sure I believed him.
There's a slim argument that the 2014 Z/28 picks up the thread of the road-race specials of the late 1960s, but that first-generation car was defined by its high-revving, 302-cubic-inch engine. The new Z/28 also has a healthy free-spinning V-8, but this isn't an SS with a Z06 engine dropped between the front struts. The LS7 isn't really the main attraction here. As its $75,000 sticker price attests, the Z/28 aspires to greater feats than low elapsed times at the drag strip.
This, the new ne plus ultra of Camaros, is the most barbarically analog car on the street. It has the widest front tires on any production car, carbon-ceramic brakes that would stop a runaway Kenworth, and aerodynamic tuning that generates 150 pounds of downforce at 150 mph. And, oh yes, there's that 505-hp, 7000-rpm Howitzer under the hood.
Chevy chose to debut its new toy in Birmingham, Alabama, where the weather is fine and the 2.4-mile road course at Barber Motorsports Park showcases chassis-tuning competence—or the lack thereof.
Alabama normally expects 60-degree highs in February, but the Z/28 arrived during a cold snap, with temperatures in the 30s. That weather inadvertently underscored the Z/28's biggest on-road liability: its tires. I found myself going sideways up an on-ramp while merely trying to keep pace with our Chevy Tahoe photo vehicle.
The Z/28 wears Pirelli PZero Trofeo R tires, sized 305/30YR-19 at all four corners. (The car might cost a lot, but at least you can rotate the tires.) Pirelli says that the Trofeo R has a ten percent bigger contact patch than a merely superaggressive summer tire in the same size. Where did that ten percent come from? Fill in the blanks. No, literally—fill in any negative space with rubber, then carve out the barest facsimile of a tread pattern and you've got a Trofeo R.
Like a convicted murderer, the Trofeo R should be kept off the street. Pirelli barely even claims this is a street tire, characterizing the Trofeo R as a dry-track racing tire that you can drive to and from your favorite road course. Pavement that is wet or cold or not part of a racetrack is not exactly a high priority, as I learned on that on-ramp. I'm no tire engineer, but I suspect that when the temperature is below 40 degrees, you might get better traction by driving on the rims.
You'll want to stay current on your AAA membership, as the Z/28 carries no tire-inflation kit, except in Rhode Island and New Hampshire, where state law requires one. (New Hampshire's libertarian streak evidently doesn't extend to the right to be stranded by the side of the road.)
When they're in their element, warm and happy, these Pirellis grip with such adamant determination that they actually create a whole different problem—tire slippage. That's when the tires dig in so hard that the rims spin but not the tires. Bill Wise, who tuned the chassis electronics (ABS, traction and stability control, and Performance Traction Management), was one of the engineers who perceived the slippage during testing. The solution was media-blasting the wheels to get a better seal at the bead.
Pair these supergooey tires with Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes, and you have the ingredients for 1.5-g stops with no fade, ever. The 15.5-inch front rotors are gripped by six-piston calipers, and the 15.3-inch rear rotors use four-piston calipers. Fun facts: the Z/28's front tires are wider than the rears on a Porsche 911 Carrera S, and its rear brakes are bigger than the fronts on a 911 GT3.
Of course, the Z/28 also weighs a lot more than a 911, which is why it requires such outsize hardware. General Motors shaved pounds here and there—48 pounds via the nineteen-inch forged wheels and ethereal Pirellis, 21 pounds through the carbon rotors, and about 10 pounds with the removal of sound deadening and insulation. (IT'S PRETTY LOUD IN THERE NOW!) The rear glass is 0.3-millimeter thinner, netting a weight reduction that almost equals four iPhones. The standard sound system includes a single lonely speaker to bleat out the seatbelt chimes and the thwock-thwock sound of the turn signals. You know a Camaro is serious about performance when it surrenders its ability to crank Mötley Crüe.
Even after all this fettling, the Z/28 still weighs more than 3800 pounds—3820 pounds, to be exact, unless you want air-conditioning and a six-speaker stereo, which adds $1150 to the price and 31 pounds to the curb weight. This is, after all, a Camaro, built on an inherently beefy platform that will surely enjoy a Cadillac-style diet on the next go-around. But for now, GM is limited to the swap-or-strip-out approach to weight loss.
Interestingly, the Z/28 retains a rear seat because the car is lighter with one than without. "The rear seat is part of the structure, so when you remove it you have to compensate with bracing," says Al Oppenheiser, Camaro chief engineer. "You can easily end up with a car that's heavier than it was when you started." He's not naming any names, Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca.
Speaking of Mustangs, the Camaro Z/28 beats all of them around GM's Milford Road Course. It also beats all other Camaros. And the new Corvette Stingray. To give you an idea of the Z/28 chassis' capabilities, a Mustang Shelby GT500 goes into Milford's turn 1 at 158.5 mph. The Camaro Z/28 manages only 149.7 mph by the end of that straight, and yet it torches the GT500 by more than six seconds per lap.
I mentioned that the Z/28 foregoes the ZL1's Magnetic Ride Control suspension. In its place is a system that the Camaro team seems even more excited about. It's called DSSV, which stands for Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve, made by a company called Multimatic. Thus far, Multimatic DSSV has only shown up on race cars (for instance, in Formula 1) and the Aston Martin One-77. I thought magnetic-fluid dampers were pretty much the bee's knees of current suspension tech, but the wholly mechanical DSSV offers a couple of advantages. First, it's lighter. Second, the spool valve's ports can be fine-tuned to manage both big-hit impacts and longer-amplitude undulations. During development drives, GM engineers could sketch a graph of the vehicle-response curve they wanted to try, and within an hour Multimatic could machine new spools and put them to the test.
The 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 has no button that adjusts suspension settings. There is one setting, chosen by professionals, and you will shut up and like it. Hallelujah.
That default setting is stiff. In some cars, you can see the bumps but you don't really feel them. The Camaro Z/28 is the opposite. En route to the track, Alabama's pavement looks glassy smooth, but nervous jolts and jostles percolate up through the Recaros to inform you of everything that's happening down there on the pavement, a mere 3.5 inches below the catalytic converters. Compared with an SS, the front springs are 85 percent stiffer and the rears are 65 percent stiffer. To cope with the Z/28's 1.08-g cornering forces, bushings are all basically made of concrete—the rear upper-control-arm bushings are 400 percent stiffer.
With this bushel of information bouncing around in my skull, I don a helmet and ease out of pit lane to see how it all works at Barber. Earlier, Wise gave me a few acclimation laps in a Camaro 1LE, but he warned that the Camaro Z/28 would be a much different experience. "Give it at least a lap to warm up the tires," Wise said. "When they're cold they'll spin through second and third gears."
I gradually ramp up speed, moving through the Performance Traction Management system's five intervention thresholds as I do. The LS7 V-8 isn't as explosive here as it is in the much-lighter 2013 Z06, but it's still got plenty of torque to upset the rear end if you treat the throttle like an on/off switch. Caroming around Barber, I can feel the PTM cutting in here and there, modulating torque to the Torsen rear differential. I'm learning where I'm too early with the throttle, without spinning into the wall in the process. This isn't what you'd call a friendly car, but I appreciate that small gesture toward driver preservation.
Besides, there's no shame in leaning on PTM. The 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 is the first car I can recall where the manufacturer flatly declares that its performance-enhancing electronics are better than the best driver. Even Ferrari leaves a little room for human flattery, insisting that a pro driver can beat Race mode by turning everything off. But Wise says that PTM Mode 5 is the quickest way around the track, period. It's going to parcel out the absolute most power the tires can handle, every single time, lap after lap. Turn it off and you'll go slower.
I can vouch that Mode 5 gives you a long leash. As I'm diving into a corkscrew with an inadvisable combination of trail braking and steering lock, the rear end starts coming around. (You know what you don't get with 305-section front tires? Understeer.) While Mode 5 will prevent you from power-oversteering off the track, it appears that you're on your own in off-throttle situations. The rear Pirellis scribe the signature of a trail-braking slide before I get it reined in and complete a chastened lap.
That experience sows enough self-doubt to neuter my attack of Barber's blind uphill right-hander ahead of the timing tower. You can take this roller-coaster ascent at wide-open throttle, but you've got to have the car lined up perfectly before you crest the rise and the suspension unloads. I'm never that sure I've got it lined up.
For those who know their way around this track, the Z/28 offers two advantages at this particular spot. First, the aero package and its healthy downforce mean that at high speeds you actually have slightly better grip than you do in low-speed hairpins. Second, the suspension retains the ride-height sensors from the ZL1's magnetic system, so the car knows when it's launching airborne.
Why is that important? Because the ride-height sensors can enable "fly mode," wherein the suspension tells the traction-management system, "It's cool—you sense a loss of traction and want to cut power, but we're just flying through the air, good buddy. Keep piling on the juice so we don't slow down when we land." I mean, you don't want to dial back the power just because your car is no longer earthbound. That's pretty rock 'n' roll, Camaro.
Barber has a few constant-radius corners where I can push the limits of the Z/28's cornering abilities, which are completely neck-straining, stomach-punishing, and happily neutral. But I never quite master the brakes. Every time I'm going white-knuckle into a corner, certain that this time I've overdone it, the Z/28 simply hangs me against the shoulder belt with those 1.5-g Brembos, and it turns out that I braked too early. Again. Coming off the faster straights, I'm usually ready for the next corner about 100 feet before the turn-in point. I've never driven a car with brakes like this, and my brain is just not calibrated. My lap times are about six seconds slower than the pros', and I'll wager that most of that is attributable to my inability to figure out when to brake in a car that seems to throw the universe in reverse.
Lucky for GM, I've got an easy solution: If the Z/28 had 600 or maybe 700 horses working on the straights, the braking points might be out where my brain says they should be. I'm sure nobody has yet mentioned this, but the Z/28 could probably handle a little more power.
This is a curious machine, the Z/28. Who'd have thought that GM would emerge as the world leader in chassis tuning? This ultimate Camaro is the latest statement to that effect, loudly proclaiming that the masters of road-course wizardry work out of Milford, Michigan. First we had the Cadillac CTS-V, then the Camaro ZL1, then the C7 Corvette. Now a Camaro will beat a Lamborghini Murciélago around the Nürburgring.
The Z/28 is uncompromising in ways that will severely limit its appeal. It's also wonderful for all the same reasons. It's like a homologation special for a racing series that doesn't exist.
Hey, that gives me an idea. Who owns the rights to IROC these days?
2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28
- On sale: Now
- Price: $75,000
- Powertrain
- Engine: 16-valve OHV V-8
- Displacement: 7.0 liters (428 cu in)
- Power: 505 hp @ 6100 rpm
- Torque: 481 lb-ft @ 4800 rpm
- Transmission 6-speed manual
- Drive: Rear-wheel
- Chassis
- Steering: Electrically assisted
- Front suspension: Strut-type, coil springs
- Rear suspension: Multilink, coil springs
- Brakes: Vented carbon-ceramic discs
- Tires: Pirelli PZero Trofeo R
- Tire size: 305/30R-19 (102Y)
- Measurements
- L x W x H: 192.3 x 76.9 x 52.4 in
- Wheelbase: 112.3 in
- Track F/R: 66.1/64.7 in
- Weight: 3820 lb
- Est. Fuel Mileage: 15/22 mpg
- Performance
- 0-60 mph: 4.0 sec
- 1/4-mile: 12.3 sec @ 117 mph
- 60-0 mph braking: 97 ft
For Those About To 'Roc, I Salute You
Ezra and the Camaro go way back. In fact, the very first article he ever wrote for Automobile Magazine was about his first car, a 1985 Camaro IROC-Z. We're taking this opportunity to reprint it from the December 2001 issue.
My first car was a 1985 Camaro IROC Z/28. This is not the type of information you want to share among unfamiliar company, lest you care to lob the conversational serve that will be smashed back with the inevitable "IROC stands for Italian Retard Out Cruising" type of comment. Justified or not, the general public associates IROC ownership with a vast panoply of unsavory behavioral traits, from storing leftover SpaghettiOs in empty Cool Whip containers to passing out with a lip full of Skoal and waking up with tobacco juice in your mullet. I'd like to say that my IROC ownership was a defiant statement of disdain for societal snobbery, but the truth is that I was blissfully ignorant of the connotations of Camaro.
In fact, I probably only reinforced the IROC stereotype. My priorities at that stage of my life included determining exactly how far the 245/50VR-16 Gatorbacks would spin when the accelerator was floored from a standing start on a wet road (roughly a quarter mile, as the limited-slip differential had long since ceased to limit much slip). The transition from understeer to snap power oversteer was explored in the high-school parking lot, and substitution principles gleaned from algebra class were used to deduce that 4000 rpm in overdrive equated to . . . well, faster than Edwin Pierpont's '79 Camaro with the 400 small-block, which was really all that mattered. With the aid of an ancient Fuzzbuster that resembled a small microwave oven sitting atop the dash, I was able to reach these conclusions without ever receiving a traffic violation.
But despite my own fond memories, I am not immune to the influence of popular culture. These days, when I pull up next to an IROC in traffic, I find myself wondering how long the driver has been on parole. Well, that, and if he could beat a quarter-mile burnout in the rain.
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There is an important new paper that provides further peer reviewed evidence on the role of land surface processes in the climate system. It is
Eungul Lee, Thomas N. Chase,Balaji Rajagopalan, Roger G. Barry, Trent W. Biggs and Peter J. Lawrence: Effects of irrigation and vegetation activity on early Indian summer monsoon variability, 2008:Int. J. Climatol. (2008) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/joc.1721
"We examined the effects of land cover change over the Indian subcontinent during pre-monsoon season (March, April, and May – MAM) on early Indian summer monsoon (ISM) rainfall using observed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and July precipitation for the period of 1982-2003. MAM NDVI anomalies have increased in the Indian subcontinent and the increases are significantly correlated with increases in the irrigated area, not preceding rainfall. July rainfall significantly decreased in central and southern India, and the decrease is statistically related to the increase in the preceding MAM NDVI anomalies. Decreased July surface temperature in the Indian subcontinent (an expected result of increased evapotranspiration due to irrigation and increased vegetation) leads to a reduced land-sea thermal contrast, which is one of the factors driving the monsoon, and therefore weakens the monsoon circulation. A weak early ISM appears to be at least partially a result of irrigation and the resultant increased vegetation and crop activity prior to the monsoon."
The numerous paper that continue to be published which document a regional and global effect of land use/land cover change on climate indicate that this aspect of the human role in climate variability and change needs to be elevated in its importance in future climate assessments. Unfortunately, this topic was minimized in its importance in the 2007 IPCC report.


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Download: FLASHOUT 3D hack and cheat
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Craigslist asks for exclusive license to your classified ads, Google cracks down on knock-off apps, and Windows 8 gets released to manufacturing.
- Craigslist Now Asks for Exclusive License When Posting Craigslist made a change to its terms and conditions that establishes the company as the exclusive licensee and copyright owner of all classified ads that are posted on its site. This allows Craigslist to sue anyone if ads are copied, republished, or distributed elsewhere without their permission. [Baligu]
- Google Play Developer Policies Have Been Updated, We Like Where This Is Heading Google made a change to its developer policy that addresses new restrictions on imitation apps. Any knock-off apps are required to have different names and icons than the apps that they're imitating. This should hopefully help Android users easily determine what apps are real and what apps are fake. [Android Central]
- Releasing Windows 8 - August 1, 2012 Windows 8 has officially been released to manufacturing, which means that all development and testing of the upcoming operating system is complete and is now ready to be installed on OEM machines. [MSDN Blog]
- Available Now: Pocket's New Safari Extension, Plus Updates for Chrome and More Read it later service Pocket updated a slew of their products today with updates to their Chrome extension and web bookmarklet, as well as introducing a Safari extension and a Chrome web app. All of the updates and additions allow for easier and quicker methods for saving web pages for later consumption. [Pocket Blog]


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Annie, Don't Get Your Gun
The question of whether women should be drafted forces society to think more deeply about both war and feminism
0ne of my favorite possessions, which I picked up a few years ago at a flea market, is a copy of the December 21, 1942, issue of Lift. At $1.00, it cost me ten times what it would have cost my mother, who graduated from high school that year, or my father, who was soon to enlist in the Navy. Recently, as my generation has begun to face the possibility of a peacetime draft registration that would include both sexes, I have found that my issue of Lift, once no more than a period piece, has gained a timely poignance. In its portrayal of a nation obsessed with war, and with the roles men and women should play in war, it suggests a number of disturbing comparisons with our present situation.
The sacrifices necessary to war pervade not only most of the articles but many of the advertisements in Life's 1942 Christmas issue. "Please don't call long distance this Christmas!" Bell Telephone requests. "It may be the 'holiday season'—but war needs the wires." An ad for the United States Rubber Company portrays a young mother explaining to her infant son that his father has been lent to his country "so that in the years to come, young mothers everywhere . . . will be able to say 'Merry Christmas' to their sons." The magazine's cover story, "Lonely Wife," is a photo‑essay whose text offers advice to wives of servicemen. Move into a smaller place, but make sure "your husband is the master when he returns on furlough." Take an evening course in camouflage. "Volunteer work is another good outlet." The males who remain at home are "wolves" to be kept "at bay"; in one photograph pretty Joan, the Lonely Wife, enterprisingly keeps a potential wolf's hands occupied by having him help wind her knitting yarn. Another photo, of five women playing cards, is captioned: "Company of other women, of little interest when husbands are around, is now appreciated by Joan." She is last pictured in church kneeling in solitary prayer before a war shrine, beseeching the Lord "to take into thine own hand both him and the cause wherein his country sends him."
Life's vision of a nation united in war—so different from the only American war I remember, Vietnam, during which my older brother's registration as a conscientious objector brought me nothing but relief—is also that of a society comfortably and securely stratified according to what we now popularly call role models. An ad for the New Haven Railroad shows a soldier in his berth contemplating "a dog named Shucks, or Spot, or Barnacle Bill. The pretty girl who writes so often. . . that gray‑haired man, so proud and awkward at the station . . . the mother who knit the socks he'll wear soon." One of the few light‑hearted articles in Life's Christmas issue is a feature on Las Vegas gamblers, which straight-facedly observes, "Keno is a woman's game. Like old‑fashioned lotto or moviehouse bingo, it requires little intelligence."
0ur society's ambivalence about drafting women derives from a certain amount of progress: we no longer hold an (insulting) consensus about what distinguishes women from men.' Since President Carter announced his intention to register nineteen‑ and twenty‑year‑old women for the draft, however, the debate seems to have taken on an unfortunate rigidity. If you are a "feminist," you may deplore registration and the draft, but you must concede that if men are to be drafted then women should also be drafted. (You are permitted some leeway in determining whether women should actually enter combat.) Only if you are a "non‑feminist," however, are you allowed the privilege of questioning the wisdom of doubling the number of potential warwagers. Yet to frame the debate in such terms is to take an occluded view of what feminism can be.
Most of the debate has focused on three issues: whether women, as people who do not have full rights in this country, should be subject to a draft; the physical differences between men and women and the possible differences in their performance in combat; and last, what weight should be given to traditionally sacrosanct notions of motherhood and femininity. President Carter, who would belong to the "feminist" camp, put his position on the first issue craftily: "Equal responsibilities deserve equal rights." The responsibilities would come first—in life, as in that sentence. And in the April Atlantic, James Fallows argued that if women are not drafted, "their claim for equal treatment elsewhere becomes less compelling." Others have spoken of acceding to women's registration as a way to justify and ensure the passage of the ERA. Nevertheless, in recent polls which tell us that more men than women believe that women should be required to engage in combat, one occasionally senses not support for, but a backlash against, the women's movement. Isn't there, perhaps, a certain eagerness to send women off to be killed, as if to say, What do you think of your liberation now? But the objection to "equal responsibilities first" may, in the end, conceal a prescription for anarchy: should minority groups or the poor be subject to a draft before gaining full rights?
The issue of women in combat is made problematic by the increasingly narrow definition of combat and the increasingly technological aspects of war. But the arguments against women in combat are overwhelming: lower endurance, weaker musculature, and, most compellingly, vulnerability to sexual assault. Modern warfare, after all, still requires considerable strength if not in every situation, in an unpredictable mix of occasions on which women would be at a perilous disadvantage. Women are as likely as men to be taken prisoners of war, and although no form of torture can be dismissed, women would certainly be more vulnerable to one torture—rape—than men. If the likelihood of rape has been belittled by some, even less attention has been paid to the related problems of pregnancy and childbirth in such a situation.
A recent article in Newsweek concluded, ambiguously, that registration could not be considered "egalitarian" unless "women take part in combat. The country could choose to move in that direction, but that would mean overcoming centuries of cultural tradition and accepting the very real physical limitations of women." Our society may have to "accept"—i.e. accommodate itself to—the notion that women should be able to serve as traffic cops, or plumbers, or jockeys; but in the case of international combat, who is being asked to "accept" a woman's physical limitations? A particularly gallant Soviet soldier? Or the woman herself?
The remainder of the debate has focused on the special place of women, particularly as symbols of motherhood, in our society. (One observer found little room for argument. In a recent interview with U.S. News & World Report, sociologist and military personnel expert Nora Scott Kinzer revealed that "we are brought up with a myth that women are nicer than men, that they are the keepers of the hearth and the mothers." The myth that women are the mothers will, I suspect, die hard.) President Carter originally called for the registration of those from eighteen to twenty-six, and then narrowed his request to include only nineteen‑ and twenty‑year‑olds. Of his several reasons for this, one was that fewer people in the younger age group have family responsibilities. James Fallows, who supports Carter's recommendation, allows that "it is troubling to think of women in combat, or of mothers being drafted, and a sensible draft law would have to recognize such exceptions." It is troubling to think of women in combat, or of nursing mothers being drafted; but after the child is no longer physically dependent on the mother, what justification remains for distinguishing between the responsibilities of parents? If the rights and responsibilities of men and women are not only equal but identical, why should women be the baby‑sitters first? Well, perhaps there's something to be said for drafting women: it might impress upon us the need for a responsible day‑care system.
Such valid feminist questions are not the only issue, however. As journalists inform us repeatedly of how capable our 150,000 women troops are—how skilled, how strong, how necessary to America's preservation—their understandable zeal to applaud the advances women have made in the most male of institutions has at times overshadowed our knowledge of the horrors of war itself. In The New Republic, Lisa Myers wrote of women not merely accepting, but winning, the right to be drafted. In the same issue, Deborah Shapley unfacetiously suggested that assigning women to combat, as to firefighting and police work at home, would "follow a great American tradition" of "women in all sorts of exciting and dangerous jobs." War isn't hell, sisters—it's fun.
Feminists who opposed the draft during Vietnam find themselves accused of cowardice and inconsistency if they oppose a draft now. President Carter has been disturbed (he said) that so many considered a draft inevitable when he proposed registration; but since he coupled this proposal with a military threat to the Soviets, one would have to be extremely shortsighted not to expect both a draft and the serious possibility of war. The suggestion. that a military solution to our over-dependency on foreign oil would be dangerous to the entire world, and morally shoddy, is one that can respectably be made by both sexes. And it is arguable by both sexes that a peacetime draft, whatever its social justifications, could ironically perpetuate the notion of war's "inevitability." Some "non‑feminists" believe that the image of a female soldier being brought home in a body‑bag is somehow more hideous than that of a male soldier. But it is hard for anyone to argue that a woman's life is more sacred than a man's, and so if the image seems particularly horrific it serves at least to illustrate how millennia of war have hardened us to the reality of young lives lost—lives that happened to be male.
I'll go a step further, admittedly onto boggy ground. The perception of war as natural, even inevitable, is historically a male one. If the world had always been composed solely of women—a prospect as dull as it is impossible—we might not have invented war, or at least not developed it into the world's costliest technological art. We will never know, of course. Women who are currently heads of governments may be as comfortable with the rhetoric of the Cold War as their male counterparts, but such women came to power by adhering to masculine traditions of how power ought to be wielded. That is less an observation about the God‑given nature of power than it is about the masculine corner on the market of ideas.
But now women have a little more power as a class. And many of them would tell me that to distinguish between masculine and feminine temperaments is to endanger the progress that women have made. I have no certain evidence—although we may eventually be provided it—that the lesser aggressiveness or physical expression of hostility in women is a biological trait. It is indisputably a socialized trait. But the crucial fact at our disposal is that only a handful of women have fought in combat in all of human history. The explanation for this fact is both that it was a predictable corollary to the discrimination against women in most endeavors, and that war has been specifically a man's game. Only men, after all, can be accused of unmanly behavior if they object to war. It seems to me that in 1980, women interested in effecting a human liberation might have a piece of history in their hands waiting to be molded. What if they gave a registration and none of us came?
I am not the first person to make an argument along these lines: that feminism and pacifism can be profitably linked. The idea is as old as Lysistrata. In 1938 Virginia Woolf attempted, in her long essay Three Guineas, to answer a question put to her by a man: How are we to prevent war? Interestingly, Woolf 's tentative answer involved not the powers thatbe, but those who traditionally held no power. Because women comprised an unofficial "Society of Outsiders," she felt they owed their government nothing in wartime: "not to fight with arms," "to refuse in the event of war to make munitions or to nurse the wounded," and "not to incite their brothers to fight, but to maintain an attitude of complete indifference." She justified this last, most controversial assertion by claiming that indifference garners more attention than hot-blooded partisanship. She also claimed that as a man cannot appreciate a woman's maternal instinct, "it is a fact that she cannot understand what instinct compels him . . . . As fighting thus is a sex characteristic she cannot share, so it is an instinct she cannot judge."
Modern feminists would have trouble accepting that position. Some would answer that parenthoodfor everybody is as trumped‑up an "instinct" as courtly love. Others would answer that the paternal instinct, equal to the maternal, has been unrightfully quashed by society. But does it necessarily follow that fighting cannot be a sex characteristic? Nature doesn't keep a scoreboard. The logic that asserts such differences are impossible is one with the logic that makes women deny their lesser physical strength. We are not lesser human beings, after all, if we're shorter or don't enjoy playing with tin soldiers. In any case, some of us—myself included—would disagree with Woolf that we have no right to dissuade our brothers from fighting.
What is absolutely timely in Three Guineas, however, is Woolf's understanding that women have traditionally abetted war by supporting it once begun‑by behaving like Joan, the Lonely Wife, who knitted socks and sewed parachutes. Women have helped perpetuate the male assumption that war is inevitable. How are we to prevent war? In answer, Woolf decided to offer one symbolic guinea to each of three causes: one to provide women with formal education, not just tutoring at home; one to help women enter the professions; and a third guinea "to assert the rights of all...to the respect in their persons of the great principles of justice, equality and liberty."
While this may sound like familiar and tattered rhetoric, the conditions Woolf put on the gift of her guineas were far from conventional. She would support an education of women, but of a different sort: "not the arts of dominating other people; not the arts of ruling, of killing, of acquiring land and capital." Women needed to enter the male‑dominated professions to gain financial self‑sufficiency, and the attendant likelihood that they would then be heard. But women outside the professions should still, Woolf felt, be paid for their services. "Is the work of a mother, of a wife, of a daughter, worth nothing to the nation in solid cash?" she demanded.
Finally—and this point is especially compelling—she cautioned that women must not indiscriminately follow the example of men trapped in professionalism; they must earn sufficient money and properly apply their power, but must not become pugnacious and greedy. For the professions, she wrote, tend to "make the people who practice them possessive, jealous of any infringement of their rights, and highly combative if anyone dares dispute them...and do not such qualities lead to war?"
It seems a far‑fetched reaction to a call for draft registration, perhaps, for me to reiterate Woolf's question. But I think it is an explosive question for the new generation of women who are both draft‑eligible and professionally inclined. To be man's equal, must we share his wardrobe. of three‑piece suits and military uniforms? It. may be understandable, but is certainly regrettable, that "equality" in so many cases means conformity to the male habit. To earn the right to speak our minds, must we agree that we've always been "highly combative," or that we ought to let them teach us how to be? Too often we've been told that to be dedicated professionals, we must eagerly sacrifice all for our jobs and neglect our children (if our offices allow us time to give birth at all). Now, to be dedicated citizens—and feminists—we must accept the male notion of citizenship as including compulsory military service. We are not nearly assertive enough, I think. If we were, we would balk at the all‑encompassing view that equality means identicality—and that identicality, to return to the clothing metaphor, means that both sexes wear pants, not skirts.
Women's registration is having a tough time in Congress. That enlisted women soldiers now train for quasi-combat situations, however, and in increasing numbers, may make the objections to women's registration eventually seem academic. On a recent forum on women in war at Harvard Law School, Undersecretary of the Air Force Antonia Chayes, who hopes and expects to see women employed in every aspect of the military, put the point bluntly. In another generation, she said, the objections to women's registration "will all seem rather quaint."
Even if Congress refuses Carter's proposal this time, lawsuits have already been threatened against the government to argue that a solely male draft is unconstitutional. Yet the point is not to protect women, but to devote our energies to preventing any war, particularly between superpowers, in the nuclear age. And women, still the Society of Outsiders, can be specifically instrumental in that prevention. Today I will offer a fourth guinea to the Society to Prevent Woman's Indiscriminate Imitation of Man. For such imitation, which is not synonymous with citizenship, will liberate neither sex from the next "inevitable" war.


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It has been my experience, as I've been feverishly flipping through teen blog after teen blog (instead of studying), that Bloglovin is somewhat obnoxious, asking you again and again, would you like to follow this blog? You don't follow this blog. Do you want to? Do ya- do ya- do ya??
I don't plan on making it that obnoxious on my site. But my thoughts were, Man, I gotta get myself on Bloglovin!
Mission success.


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by David Crane defrev at gmail.com November 21, 2007 FERFRANS Specialties, manufacturer of the select-fire FERFRANS SOAR series AR-platform 5.56mm NATO/.223 Rem. weapons and new Fast Acquisition Sight (FAS) combat optic, is developing a semi-drop-in gas-piston/op-rod system for AR-15/M16-variant carbines and subcarbines/SBRs (Short-Barreled Rifles). In fact, the company has sent us photos of a prototype 6" test weapon (displayed below) …Read More »
Tag Archives: magpul industries corp
DefRev Exclusive Follow-Up: MagPul PDR Concept Drawings and Fact/Spec Sheet
by David Crane defrev at gmail.com Just to follow up on our previous article on the MagPul PDR (Personal Defense Rifle), we've got another DefenseReview exclusive for you. Below are some concept and comparison drawings of the new, developmental PDW (Personal Defense Weapon), as well as a PDR fact sheet/spec sheet. They were sent to us by Rich Fitzpatrick at …Read More »
DefRev Exclusive! MagPul PDR (Personal Defense Rifle) 5.56 PDW (Photos!)
by David Crane [email protected] All photographic images contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com, and they are the exclusive property of DefenseReview.com. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. All photos were shot with a 7.2-megapixel Sony Cyber-shot digital camera (Model #: DSC-P150). May 17, 2007 DefenseReview Exclusive: First Look at the MagPul PDR 5.56 PDW Concept! Back in …Read More »
MagPul Masada Adaptive Combat Weapon System (ACWS) Makes Its Debut
by David Crane david at defensereview.com All photos contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com and are the exclusive property of DefenseReview.com. They are not to be reprinted or disseminated in any fashion without the express written permission of DefenseReview.com. January 24, 2007 The MagPul Masada Adaptive Combat Weapon System (ACWS) a.k.a. MagPul Masada Rifle / Carbine, made by …Read More »
SHOT Show 2007: DefRev Quick Hits 1
by David Crane david at defensereview.com All photos contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com, are the exclusive property of DefenseReview.com, and are not to be reprinted or disseminated in any fashion without the express written permission of DefenseReview.com. O.k., we're back from SHOT Show 2007 (and an extended business trip). There were lots of cool new tactical goodies …Read More »
New Magpul Device for Pistol Mags: SHOT Show 2005 Pics
by David Crane [email protected] Magpul Industries Corp. has come out with a new AR-15/M16 floorplate replacement part that aids in pulling magazines quickly from mag pouches. It's called the Magpul Ranger, and it essentially accomplishes the same thing as the Magpul 5.56 NATO in a lower-profile configuration. Magpul Industries also has a pistol mag version of the Magpul Ranger, which …Read More »
Bushmaster Tactical-Config .308 (7.62x51mm) Rifle/Carbine
by David Crane [email protected] Bushmaster Firearms, Inc. has a pretty neat tactical-config AR-15/M16-based rifle/carbine in .308 (7.62x51mm) caliber that deserves mention, called (appropriately enough) the Bushmaster .308 Rifle. Charles Cutshaw's written an excellent article on it for the January 2005 issue of "Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement" (GWLE). The Bushmaster .308 Rifle/Carbine was designed to take metric FAL magazines, …Read More »
Magpul Industries Corp. Introduces the MSS(Modular Stock System) at Shot Show.
Ya' just gotta' give it up to someone that can invent a better mousetrap. Rich Fitzpatrick of Magpul Industries Corp. appears to have done just that. Fitzpatrick is an ex-Marine who's never much liked the M4′ carbine's collapsible buttstock. He's always felt it's a bit too flimsy, doesn't offer quite enough adjustment, and generally sucks ergonomically, thus providing a less-than-ideal …Read More »


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Public Works
The Department of Public Works, with many areas of responsibility, helps keep the city of Lynchburg moving each day. The skilled and professional staff provide services such as trash collection, snow and ice removal, maintenance of City streets and sidewalks, manages the City's traffic lights and street signage, just to name a few. To report a problem in any of these areas, you may do so online or call (434) 856-CITY.
Administration Building
1700 Memorial Avenue
Lynchburg, VA 24501
(434) 455-4450


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If I can wake each morning with a prayer of gratitude in my heart, and close each day with the same, I know I am living well.
If I can acknowledge all the blessings and gifts that come my way, now, yesterday and tomorrow, it blows away the cobwebs of fear and grief and confusion and despair, and my life feels sweeter and richer than never before.
If I can plant the seed of hope in the garden of my soul, and nourish it with love and compassion, and fertilise it with forgiveness, and water it with the sweet cleansing rain of faith, trust and belief, then I will witness how it flourishes and grows and reaches its roots deep into my heart and every cell of my being, and blossoms in the winter of my yesterdays lost and blooms on the horizon of tomorrow, with the gift of divine grace and beauty, until my spirit soars like an eagle high above the mountains of the Sierra Madre.
If I can remember that each step I take is supported by a thousand ancestors, then I need never fear being alone, abandoned or forgotten. No matter where the path leads.
If I understand that everything happens for a reason it colours my experience with the understanding that all challenges we face are an opportunity to learn and grow, to heal what we have ignored, to love harder, live more passionately, to serve more gracefully, to reach out and join hands with those who need a friend, and to take the hand of those who reach out to us. To embrace life, to embrace one another, build bridges where the way is blocked, and honour this wonderful earth, our Mother, our home.
I have awoken with a fire in my belly, a good fire, one that speaks of life, a beacon in the dark, and if I place it on a high enough peak perhaps you can see it, perhaps it can light a flame in your heart, and when you feel its warmth, then you may be able to light one too, to pass it on, for each of us can be a light in the dark for someone else, and someone else, and someone else, until there is a chain of golden light shining far and wide connecting us one to another. Encircling us in our connection not our disparity, healing not dividing, loving not hating.
If I remember that it is not personal, that the universe is not out to punish me or anyone, that I have not offended god, I have not been bad in a previous life, but that the nature of existence for every inhabitant of this incredible planet: human, animal, plant, mineral, follows the natural order of birth, life and death. At least in the physical and material sense. Then I see that it is not a matter of justice or injustice, it just is. And our spirit sings the song of our soul long before we understood that we had chosen to come here, and our story will echo in the hearts of those we touch long after our job here is done, like a whisper to those who come after us for generations to come. When we become the ancestors who guide the way.
I had the honour and privilege this week of sharing a beautiful and profoundly moving ceremony dedicated to honouring our ancestors and those who have passed, sitting in circle with our dear sister and brother from Mexico and friends old and new to celebrate el Dia de Muertos – The Day of the Dead.
In a teepee, in a field, under the stars, surrounded by pigs, the call of the owls disturbed by this unexpected nocturnal intrusion piercing the quiet, we gathered together to pray.
In the centre the fire unites us, one to another, and carries our prayers back in time to those who have departed, melting the boundries of life and death. To be able to acknowledge the gift our ancestors have given us, through the living of their lives, generation after generation, their stories flowing in our veins if not our memories, their successes, their failures, their struggles, their joys, to be able to thank them, to weep for them, is a truly humbling experience. One that is not merely about mourning, but celebrating and honouring. And more than that, it is about remembering, even those we didn't know for they live in us, and feeding them with love.
The altar was resplendent in offerings of flowers, favourite foods, candles, fruits, interspersed with pictures of loved ones. Sacred songs were shared, and beautiful, healing prayers offered to Grandfather fire, with Mother Earth, the stars, the moon, and each other as witness to this moment of beauty. A moment in time in which all our stories weave together across space and time, one unique moment never to be repeated, where we become one with each other and all that is the great mystery of life. To be able to make a prayer of gratitude, to give thanks before and above all else is, I have discovered , one of the most powerful medicines I know. I realise prayer, is not merely for demanding what I want or feel I need when the chips are down or when the horse has bolted, but is a doorway to connect with something which unites and inspires, and transcends the material, the mundane, the profane, and gives voice to the person I aspire to be.
So, if I may, on this beautiful, mysterious, misty morning, I'd like to share my morning prayer with you:
To all our relations, those who have walked before us, and those who will come after, to our allies and guides who walk with us in invisible realms, Thank You.
Thank you for my life. Thank you for my health. Thank you for guiding me and giving me strength and inspiring me each day.
Thank you for my beautiful family, my husband, my mother, my children, my friends far and wide, I pray that you watch over them, keep them well, protect them, give them strength when they feel weak, inspiration when they are lost, and keep the flame of hope alive always in their hearts. I pray they feel loved when they are alone, and that they see and know the beauty of their spirit.
Thank you for all the support and prayers with which I have been blessed, and I pray that I have the grace and humility to truly accept them. And that I may find a way to honour them in return. I give thanks for the ceremonies that have been held in my honour and for those who prayed for me there. I thank you. Deeply from the bottom of my heart.
I give deep thanks for the friendship of our brothers and sisters from Mexico, for the journey shared, for their love and prayers, I pray for them, for their healing and protection of their land and their home. Long may our friendship continue. I pray I may return soon.
Thank you for the healings I have received, for all the medicines that I work with, conventional and alternative. For those that are part of my healing journey. For the abundance of food I have to eat. For my home, my shelter, my haven.
Thank you for my feline friends, who sit with me, make me laugh and drive me mad with little "gifts".
Thank you for showing me the joy in life that once had become hidden from view, which, despite the greatest of challenges, has exploded like a dazzling firework in the darkest night sky, reinstating a profound sense of wonder and awe.
Thank you for teaching me that a life well lived is the best medicine, and that we can be the alchemists of our own healing, that we can chose to be extraordinary, that life is not about merely existing or surviving but about Thriving with a capitol T.
Teach me to be compassionate and forgiving. Not to judge or criticise neither myself or others too harshly.
And remind me to sing and laugh and dance each and every day, if not literally, then let my spirit dance with wild abandon wherever I may find myself.
Thank you for giving me my voice, and for daring me to use it when my instinct would have me hide away and retreat to my cave.
Thank you for helping me to see and to understand why I am here, for giving me meaning and restoring purpose, for showing me how I may continue to be of service in gratitude for the life I have been given.
I pray that we may all remember the song that the stars were singing when we were born, that tell us who we are, how precious we are, and how brilliantly we can shine.
I dedicate this prayer to you, with respect, with gratitude and with love.
Blessed Be.


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Next month, in April, an extremely pivotal bill is going to be up for debate in the Canadian parliament. It's Bill C-279, which will add gender identity and gender expression to the list of statuses protected under the Canadian Human Rights Code, and amend the pertinent sections of the Criminal Code in regards to anti-transgender violence, assault, and harassment.
Currently, transgender Canadians have no such protections, and may be discriminated against on the basis of their gender by employers, businesses, shelters, institutions (public or private) and individuals without any legal consequence. Effectively, I can be turned down for a job, barred from entering a restaurant, denied admittance to a shelter or hostel, or forced to comply with male dress-codes at public institutions without my having any recourse. If I am harassed, assaulted or murdered on the basis of my being trans, this does nto qualify as a hate crime. I am in the position of having to depend simply on the mercies of a legally empowered majority to choose not to exercise their right to openly discriminate against me.
This is not okay.
I find myself increasingly frustrated by the amount of energy the LGBTQ rights movement expends on issues such as marriage, adoption or DADT. It seems like a rather explicitly classist mentality to prioritize the ability of those already comfortably situated as full participants in society to pursue middle-class, nuclear family privileges while others do not yet even have the basic level of protections required to be able to seek employment, or at least receive assistance from institutions like emergency shelters. While we celebrate the ability of gay and lesbian Canadians to marry one another, transgender Canadians are forced into homelessness or survival sex work because they do not have the assurance that they won't be laughed out of a job interview simply for being something other than binary and cisgender, and do not even have the assurance of being able to seek income assistance without their identity being denigrated, mocked, invalidated, and exposing themselves to the risk of public or personal humiliation.
How many trans people (including myself) have been openly and loudly misgendered at the welfare office? How many trans women have been kicked out of women's shelters on the basis of being "really men" and forced to humiliate themselves and risk violence or sexual assault trying to be accommodated by men's shelters? How many have been turned away from food banks on the basis that they don't have "proper" identification? How many of us, exposed to this bigotry, humiliation, invalidation and risk simply stop trying to seek work or assistance, and end up falling between the cracks of the system, all because nobody can even be bothered to acknowledge this crucial gap in Canadian human rights law? And what good are marriage or adoption rights when you don't even the basic necessities to take care of yourself, let alone a family?
Bill C-279 has received virtually no media attention whatsoever. A considerable majority of my friends here in Canada, most of whom likely consider themselves allies of the trans community and supporters of our rights, have never even heard of this bill. A considerable majority of Canadians have absolutely no idea that trans people are NOT protected from direct discrimination. And when cis Canadians are informed of this problem, they often act momentarily appalled, only to completely forget about the issue a couple hours later, and file it back under "somebody else's problem". In complete honesty, I'd like to ask any cis Canadians reading this: Did you even know about Bill C-279 before now? If you did know of it, did you remember its name, and know that it is being debated in a couple weeks? Did you know that transgender Canadians can legally be turned down for employment or shelter simply on the basis of their gender identity or gender expression? Were you even aware there was a problem? Have you ever seen this discussed on the news? Did you know this was an issue during the last election, and that the original bill (that would have passed, prior to the Tories claiming a majority through their rigged election) had been killed by the dissolution of the previous parliament? Have you done anything about this?
This bill has been ignored. And if it continues to be ignored, it will not pass. Please try not to read that in a Gandalf voice. I'm trying to be serious (yes, it's very difficult). Stephen Harper believes he has a mandate to allow the majority of Canadians, the most privileged and comfortably situated Canadians, to speak for all of us. Democracy cannot be a majority deciding on the rights of a minority. Were that the case, there would never been any civil rights progress at all. And trans people are absolutely a small minority. The only way we have ANY chance of achieving this basic and fundamental level of protection, being treated as fully equal members of our society, is by TALKING ABOUT IT. We need this to be heard. It needs to be understood by the Canadian people our parliament claims to represent that there is an entire class of Canadians who do not presently have legal protections for their basic, inalienable human rights. It needs to be understood by the Canadian people that we currently live in a nation where overt, institutionalized discrimination is still tolerated.
I have long believed that a culture, society or nation is judged not by the affluence of its most privileged, but by how it takes care of its most vulnerable. What does it say about our nation that there are still a class of human beings who can be openly hated, ridiculed and denied their rights on the basis of an unchosen, innate, harmless condition of their identity? What does it say about us that we choose to allow our most vulnerable to be kicked to the curb, and we choose to ignore it, choose not to even speak about it? Choose to allow bigotry and discrimination fall beneath the threshhold of our notice? Choose complacency in the denial of Canadians' human rights?
But more than an abstracted, ethical, socio-political issue, this is an issue that affects individuals. Actual living, breathing, human beings who only wish to be treated with a basic level of respect, tolerance and decency, who only wish to be accepted as participants in human society. As was said by a friend of mine at a Transgender Day Of Remembrance rally at Berri Square in Montreal, we aren't seeking any special rights or considerations. Most of us simply want to get jobs, pay taxes, perhaps have families, participate in public life, and just live our lives. When equal rights for trans Canadians are denied, it is not simply an issue of law, or an issue of our abstract, theoretical notions of gender. It isn't about what is or isn't a man or woman, or how far we should extend human rights law, or about urban Canada vs. rural Canada, progressive Canada vs. conservative Canada, secular Canada vs. Christian Canada, or social justice vs. "family values". It is about what happens to actual human beings. Human beings whose rights are being denied, identities being invalidated, ability to participate in our society being hopelessly compromised, ability to live without fear of assault or harassment being taken away, and pursuit of simplest forms of happiness, fulfillment and life's rewards being rendered untenable, impossible. Real living, breathing Canadians being denied their chance at anything resembling a full, rewarding and safe life by the complacency of an uninformed public.
Real living, breathing Canadians like my friend Sonya. She can't find work because her identification doesn't match her presented gender. Her identification doesn't match her presented gender because she has not yet had lower surgery, required to obtain an updated gender marker on one's birth certificate. She hasn't yet had lower surgery because she can't afford to see a psychiatrist for her required assessment and approval. She can't afford to see a psychiatrist because she does not have work, and lives on the pittance offered by Quebec's income assistance. Do you see the problem here? And this is to say nothing of those transgender Canadians who don't even wish to undergo SRS.
Or real living, breathing Canadians like my friends Catherine and Emily, who have to work tirelessly to sustain struggling independently owned businesses in order to scrape by because nobody will hire them. Or my other friend named Emily who despite her staggering and beautiful intelligence has had her bright academic future derailed by the negative preconceptions that exist even amongst the educated towards those who don't quite fit into our expectations about gender. Where once she would have been assured an eventual tenure-tracked position, her future now hangs in anxious uncertainty, and her ability to earn (deserved) respect from her peers has been hamstringed by the potential to see her as a "tranny" first, and gifted thinker second. Or real Canadians like Kaitlyn Borgas, once a prominent and rising star chef in the upper class Vancouver restaurant circuit, forced into unemployment and poverty, her once weighted name dragged through the mud and now attended by derisive, snide giggling and hateful gossip, subjected to insensitive and insulting newspaper columns, ending up sending out scores of resumes to jobs for which she was grossly overqualified, only to not even be called in for an interview, as her family struggled to survive. Real Canadians like Saige, a woman I knew from the Vancouver trans community who ended up taking her own life last year due to simply being unable to cope living in such a hostile environment. Real Canadians like Shelby Tracy Tom, murdered in the Downtown Eastside after needing to turn to sex work to survive. Real Canadians like Kimberly Nixon, rejected from her position at Vancouver Rape Relief for being transsexual and therefore not a "real" woman and not able to "understand" the experiences of other women who had experienced rape or sexual assault. Her case against Vancouver Rape Relief was won in a case heard by the human commission , but overturned in appeal, on the grounds that although Vancouver Rape Relief did not dispute rejecting her on the basis of being trans, they were perfectly entitled under the law to do so.
And countless other cases of direct, overt discrimination against Canadians, with real, lasting consequences, all being enabled and approved by the law. A law in our country saying "yes, you are allowed to discriminate against this class of human beings. Go ahead. You have our blessing."
And real Canadians like myself.
Hello! I'm Natalie! I'm a transgender Canadian. I was born in Victoria and raised in Chester, Nova Scotia. I'm 27, and live in East Vancouver, and enjoy linguistics, feminism, neurobiology, Doctor Who, My Little Pony, poetry, comics, fashion, post-punk, goth and shoegaze rock music, "experimental" literature and contemporary art. I have a mom named Susan in England, and a dad named Alex in Montreal. I have two brothers in Alaska and North Carolina. I like to go to skeptic-related events, and have a bunch of friends here in Vancouver through the skeptic and trans communities, respectively. I love Thai and Indian food, studied poetry at the Evergreen State College, and I really love dogs. And bats. And sloths. And otters. My favourite books are Don Quixote and The Unconsoled. My favourite band is The Velvet Underground. My favourite poets are Paul Celan and Robin Blaser. I have a stuffed Totoro on my dresser.
I am unemployed, and live on income assistance. I have been unemployed for a very very long time. I scrape by with assistance from food banks (all of which require submitting to leering stares in the crowded line-ups, submitting identification that says "M", ticking the box on their form that says the same, signing those forms with my birth name, etc.). After enough incidences of not even being considered for a job interview after employers noticed that little "M", eventually I stopped feeling it was even worth bothering. It is only through an extremely unlikely series of fortunate coincidences that I now find myself writing for a blog network that pays me in return for my work, that this pay does not exceed my "earned income" credit under my "persons with persistent multiple barriers" status at the Ministry Of Housing And Social Development (earned by submitting to the classification of myself as suffering from Gender Identity Disorder- having to bend the truth and claim this was a barrier in terms of its effects on my mental health, despite the fact that I am now happier and healthier than I have ever been, rather than that it is a barrier in terms of the discrimination I face in the hiring process), and am moving into a cheaper apartment, the combined effect of which will finally allow me to make ends meet (though not end my reliance on food banks).
Bill C-279 would have direct benefits for my life. It would make things immensely easier for me, to finally know that I am supported and recognized by my government, that they acknowledge my gender and that I deserve equal protection under the law. It would not stop the current of bigotry against which I need to constantly swim upriver just to survive, to hold on to hope, to maintain my confidence and sense of empowerment in a world that at all times assails me with the message that I should be ashamed for being the disgusting, sinful, abomination and joke that I am… but it would significantly slow it, and at least remove the tacit approval of that dehumanization by our democracy. It would not end transphobia and cissexism, but it would at least send a message that such bigotry is not condoned and blessed by our nation's representatives, laws and ideals.
This bill is not an ethical abstract. It is something through which we can directly, concretely work towards ending the appallingly inhumane treatment of transgender people in this country. Real Canadians, like Sonya, Catherine, the Emilies, Kaitlyn, Saige, Shelby, Kimberly and myself.
But it will not pass if people don't know. As long as it's considered simply a theory, and the various MPs who will make the decisions, and the voters in their ridings, can view trans Canadians as simply some kind of faceless abstract, as long as they're able to ignore the real human consequences, affecting real human beings, as long as it's ignored, or discussed quietly and silently behind closed doors, as long it is goes completely unmentioned by the media, it will not pass. Our lives will continue on in needless difficulty. Our rights will continue being denied. Members of our community will continue to give up, continue to be pushed out on the streets, continue to be laughed out of job interviews, continue to be forced into sex work, continue to turn to addiction as the only possible comfort, continue to fall through the cracks of our system, continue to die. Our government will continue to approve. And they will do this on behalf of a complacent public. A public who are happy to ignore that their friends, daughters, sons, children, sisters, brothers, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, mothers, fathers, parents, co-workers, roommates and fellow Canadians are suffering and being denied equal rights. A public who will allow people to die, and choose not to act.
We cannot, must not, let this happen. If we do not do everything we can to let this be heard, let it be talked about, and let people understand that Canadians are being denied their human rights, then we are a part of it. We have participated in it. We have let down the vulnerable in our country, and we have let down the ideals on which this country was built.
We owe it not only to trans people to ensure that this law passes, but we owe it to the principles of a free and democratic society. We cannot and must not be complacent in overt, institutionalized discrimination, bigotry and the consequential suffering, violence and death. It is our responsibility, and the time to stand up and say that transgender Canadians, all Canadians, deserve equal rights and protection from bigotry is now.
If we fail in this, we do not deserve to call ourselves a democratic nation.
At the very least, should this bill be blocked by Harper and his Conservative "mandate", our nation should be made aware that his party opposes the principle of universal, inalienable rights. That they have directly and knowingly stood on the side of bigotry and intolerance, and said it is acceptable to deny a class of Canadian citizens their status as equal under the law.
So please, share. Talk. Shout. Make this known.
Suggested actions include writing your MP, especially if he or she is a moderate or socially-progressive Conservative. You can also sign this petition or start a new one of your own. I'd also STRONGLY recommend contacting your local media to inform them of this story, ask if they were aware of it, and if so ask why they haven't covered it. Make Facebook statuses and tweets. Do whatever you can to get people informed and talking.


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The Brown Symposium is presented by Southwestern University on an annual basis. Open to the public without charge, the symposium is funded through an endowment established by The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, Texas, for professorships at the University. The symposia are designed to enhance the effectiveness of the work for which the endowed professorships were established. Each symposium presents topics in one of the broad areas of study represented by the chairholder.
How do we measure prosperity?
To measure how prosperous or well off a nation is, economists add up the dollar value of all goods and services produced (and consumed) in a given year. This measure is called Gross National Product (GNP). Thus, well-being is judged on the basis of acquisition of material things, consumption, production, and wealth--things that can be measured monetarily [both its weakness and its (empirical) strength]. Economic thinking tells us that the higher a country's GNP per capita is, the higher its standard of living is. Similarly, more consumption or more income/wealth implies the better off one should be and feel. This leads to the conclusion that increasing economic growth is the best political policy for government to pursue.
Recent studies in economics, neuroscience, psychology, and sociology, however, indicate that consuming more or earning more does not necessarily lead to greater happiness. In America, such evidence is ignored or does not seem to be apparent to most people. Moreover, critics argue that GNP ignores environmental and human assets (natural capital), i.e., qualitative distinctions are lost in GNP's measurement of quantity.
Furthermore, GNP itself is misleading, because it only counts monetary exchanges. For instance, negative events that reduce well-being or create "ill-being," such as an auto wreck or hurricane, actually increase GNP, because of the medical expenses, repairs costs, etc., incurred. Here's an example where both wealth and "illth" are created, but only wealth creation gets counted. Finally, quality of life may improve even if GNP is not increasing. Clearly something is not being captured by our traditional GNP measure. One critical omission is social or quality of life indicators like family, literacy, type of employment, environment, leisure time, sense of community, etc.; all of which clearly affects one's well-being and overall satisfaction with life, but is not necessarily reflected in GNP.
Recently, a small, but growing, number of researchers have created a new field of inquiry that is not in any economics textbook---the "economics of happiness or well-being." The 2006 Brown Symposium will focus on the latest theoretical research and findings on well-being from the fields of economics, neuroscience, psychology, and sociology. This symposium's intent is to encourage us to go beyond measuring well-being indirectly in terms of dollars or total consumption and to look deeper and assess societal and individual happiness by focusing on and measuring satisfaction or quality of life. Such emphasis will help lead to alternative, national well-being measures that give a more representative picture of how happy people are. In addition, we hope to encourage governmental policies that take well-being into account, rather than solely focusing on economic growth.
GNP was developed during World War II to measure and monitor a country's total economic activity. In the 1990s, GNP was replaced with Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which essentially excludes economic activities generated by US citizens and corporations overseas.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill is another example of where a great boon to GNP growth is misleading, because of the billions spent to clean up the devastated environment.


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Bridge House/Grace House hosted its 18th annual "Women of Substance Luncheon" and silent auction at the Audubon Tea Room in May to honor three outstanding women who are renowned leaders in the community as well as recognize other exceptional supporters of Bridge House/Grace House.
The three Women of Substance awards were bestowed upon: Charmaine Neville, who, along with her band, has been committed to performing charity concerts and special appearances despite her worldwide fame and busy schedule; Jan Ramsey, founder of OffBeat magazine, who has served as a longtime friend of the music and arts of New Orleans and is dedicated to safeguarding and developing the city's rich culture; and Mary von Kurnatowski, a successful artist, businesswoman and proud mother who ardently supports such organizations as the Tipitina's Foundation, of which she's the founder, Dress for Success and the American Heart Association.
Andree Batt, Denise Thornton and Carey Yacoubian co-chaired the event's silent auction, which boasted fabulous lots to the guests' delight, such as an hors d'oeuvres reception for 125 provided by Emeril's at the Soren Christensen Art Gallery and an original piece by artist Lynette Collins Walker. Bridge House/Grace House also raffled a Harley Davidson motorcycle to one lucky guest.
In a special performance, Charmaine Neville opened the event by singing "Amazing Grace," which was an unforgettable highlight of the evening. For the luncheon itself, attendees dined on a gourmet meal featuring potato and leek vichyssoise for starters, Louisiana Gulf shrimp in a tasso cream sauce over grits and, for dessert, crème caramel with fresh berries.
Event at a Glance
What: "Women of Substance Luncheon," benefiting Bridge House/Grace House
When: Friday, May 10
Where: Audubon Tea Room