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Francis Balázs Scholars Program — Scholar's Biographies
Balázs Scholars
(Video interviews with Balazs Scholars produced by Dakotta J.K. Alex.)
Károly Vass (2013-2014) finished his initial theological studies in 2010, and has been serving as assistant minister in his home congregation in Sepsiszentgyörgy while completing a master's degree in theology. Before committing to ministry, he studied economics at Babes Bolyai University. "I am," he says, "particularly interested in social ethics, but also in how Unitarian Universalist churches are organized, how religion is reflected in your daily lives, and how you welcome newcomers and share your values with them." Rev. Vass is joined this year by his wife Gyöngyi, a former teacher in the Unitarian kindergarten in Kolozsvár who runs the Sunday School program in Sepsiszentgyörgy, and their two children, a girl, Veronika, who will be two in October, 2013 and a boy, Benedek, three years old.
Adél Nagy (2012-2013), the 18th Balázs Scholar in recent years, finished her theological studies in 2005, and served two years as an assistant minster and teacher of religious education. She is now the minister in the in the village of Recsenyéd (population 130, of whom 98% are Unitarian). She also works with Unitarian children in their camps, programs and English classes. Adél says, "I am particularly interested in the organizational life and dynamics of UU congregations, community building, conflict resolution and pastoral care. In the States I am looking for ways and methods to revive congregational life outside the church building and beyond Sunday services."
Zoltán (Zoli) Kopándi-Benczédi (2011-2012) is the seventeenth Transylvanian Unitarian minister in recent years to study at Starr King School for the Ministry. Zoli finished his theological studies in 1991. He serves as the minister in Lupény-Vulkán, Déva and Vajdahunyad. He is joined by his wife Ildikó, a fashion and art stylist, and their son, Gusztáv. Zoli says that in addition to his studies at Starr King School, "My general interest is in the connection between church life and community development, particularly work done in multicultural environments. I am interested in everything from individual church's missions, to how new congregations are started, to congregational growth plans. And of course, to experience life in different congregational settings as a way of learning.
Levente Lázár (2010-2011) finished his theological studies in 1995. Together with his wife Rev. Erika Demeter they serve five congregations. They have been very involved in strengthening smaller, partnered congregations, and with renovating and building new churches. In 2004 they dedicated a new church building in Erdoszentgyorgy, and in 2005 celebrated the renovation of the 210 year old church in Csokfalva. They are organizing the dedication of a new church building in Szovata. Levente and Erica have a son, Levente and a daughter Réka. He is interested in the connection between science and religion and in people's belief systems, their relationships with God or the Transcendent, and with fulfilling spiritual needs.
Visit Levente's page on Facebook.
Róbert Bálint (2009-2010) is the minister in the village of Mészkő, the Alabaster Village where Francis Balázs served. He also serves the small Unitarian congregation of Csegez. In addition to his theological studies, he has completed a degree in sociology at Kolozsvár Babes Bolyai University. He has been involved in the Unitarian youth movement, and worked with local social and charity organizations. With others, he has started the Balázs Ferenc Historical Preservation Project, designed to preserve and promote Francis Balázs's spiritual and material heritage. He edits the monthly Transylvania Unitarian newsletter. His wife, Réka is bookkeeper for the Meszko congregation and is going to library school. They have two children.
Endre Nagy (2008-2009) served as minister at the Gyergyószentmiklós fellowship in the Szélyudvarhely District of Transylvania. At present he is working at a radio station in Marosvasarhely and performs with a folk band. His wife Éva received her PhD in Theater Arts and is a theater director, now teaching theater arts, some of the classes in English.
Béla Botond (Bélu) Jakabházi (2007-2008) is the minister in the villages of Nyaradgarfalva and Nyomát, 80 miles from Kolozsvár. For two years he was deputy minister in Marosvásárhely, then for one year a teacher of religious education. He is especially interested in the psychology of religion and in counseling. He is trained as a facilitator in Psychodrama. He is also interested in religious leadership, Buddhism and meditation practice. His grandfather has been in the ministry for 70 years and is the oldest practicing Unitarian minister in Transylvania.
Erika Orbán (2006-2007) has served as chaplain at the hospital in Sepsiszentgyörgy. She has been a minister of religious education and a hospital chaplain. She served full time as youth minister and dormitory counselor at the Unitarian high school in Kolozsvár in 2005-2006. Her fields of interest include pastoral care and building social networks in religious communities.
Zsolt Solymosi (2005-2006) is a religious educator, youth minister and dormitory counselor at the János Zsigmond Unitarian College, the 450-year old Unitarian high school in Kolozsvár. He also serves a small parish 70 miles from Kolozsvár. After returning from the States, he ran Transylvania Unitarian Radio for 3 years. He leads annual bicycle tour pilgrimages for high school students in the summer and also supervises youth camps for Unitarian children.
Csaba Tódor (2004-2005) is the minister of the Unitarian congregation in Homorodszentpál. His wife Éva, is a school teacher and musician, and they have three girls. Csaba says that with his wife and three girls, like the Virgin Mary, he is "blessed among women." He has studied at Manchester College, England and is working on a PhD focusing on funeral practices in Transylvania as compared to Western Europe. He is especially interested in systematic theology and psychology. He served as mentor to a Starr King student who spent a six months field placement in his village. He recently was hired as Activities Director at a Senior Home in Lokod.
Mária Pap (2003-2004), along with Kinga-Réka (Zsigmond) Székely (1999-2000), was one of the first two women in 40 years to graduate from the Kolozsvár seminary, where all Transylvanian Unitarian ministers receive their theological education. After her return to Transylvania, Maria became the first female district dean. "It is a great moment not just for me, but for the women in the church," she said. Maria served two congregations for many years, one in the village of Szentivánlaborfalva , and the other in the city of Kézdivásárhely . She and husband László have a daughter. Maria has started a French-speaking ministry on the web and has been to Africa to visit French start-up congregations. In 2012 Maria took a position as Secretary to the Bishop and László became Media Director for the Unitarian headquarters.
Lajos Lőrinczi (2002-2003) serves as Dean of the Székelykeresztúr district's 24 churches, and ministers to the villages of Csehétfalva and Tordátfalva, where many elderly people live. Csehétfalva was the home of Francis Balázs' parents. Lajos' wife, Tünde, with assistance from Lajos, translates theological texts into English. They offer a tour of Unitarian villages during the summer that consists of a week to ten day travelng by horse cart and staying at village houses.
Zsuzsa Bartha (2001-2002) is minister to the various small congregations of the northwest Diaspora, which have no full-time minister and meet in buildings belonging to other Protestant churches. She and her husband, Kari, live in Nagykároly in an area that has relatively few Unitarians. Kari works in private practice with his veterinary training. They have three sons. Zsuzsa is actively involved with a project to build a new playground for the children of Nagykároly, getting financial support from the US, the city government and raising money from the parents. She says that her time in the US taught her valuable lessons about community organizing. In 2012, she became the minister of the Unitarian Church in Koscord, Hungary which has its own church building.
Botond (Boti) Koppándi (2000-2001) served for a number of years in the village of Torockószentgyörgy, which is a favorite tourist area for visiting Hungarians and Americans. He now teaches homiletics at the Protestant Theological Seminary in Kolozsvar. He is pursuing a PhD program. He and his wife, Eva, have two boys.
Kinga-Réka (Zsigmond) Székely (1999-2000) serves as minister in the village of Homoródszentpéter. Now the mother of four young children, she's also the youngest member and only woman on the Consistory (board of trustees) of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church. She is the president of the National League for Unitarian Ministers. Her husband Csaba works in computers.
László Kiss (1998-1999) died of a heart attack after being seriously verbally abused by a Romanian official at a city meeting because he was Hungarian and Unitarian. He served as minister of the large Unitarian Church in Torda, and taught religious education classes to Unitarian public school students. His wife Matilda does administrative work for the church in the city of Marosvásárhely where she now lives with their two children.
Csaba Mezei (1997-1998) serves as minister in the Second Unitarian Church of Kolozsvár. He has translated American religious education materials into Hungarian. He has built up his church to over 600 members. One innovation that he has put into practice is based on his learnings from Starr King School. He now has lay people serving as "pastoral associates" who visit the people in the Church and report back to Csaba on those needing his personal attention. He and his wife Melinda, who works at the Unitarian headquarters, have three children.
Sándor Kovács (1995-96) teaches church history and history of religion at the Kolozsvár seminary. He received his PhD in early Unitarian history from the prestigious Szeged University in Hungary. He is translating, editing and publishing books. His wife Magdolna manages a Hungarian-language radio station. They have a son, Peter.
Sándor Léta (1994-95) serves as assistant minister to the Unitarian Bishop of Hungary at the Bela Bartok Unitarian Church in Budapest, a 450-member congregation of mostly former Transylvanian Unitarians. He also co-edits a newsletter for Unitarians in Hungary and has translated two theological books into English. He and his wife Erika have three daughters.
These scholars are the new religious leaders of Romania and Hungary. Using skills they enhanced at Starr King, in addition to serving as ministers of local churches, they also serve as translators for guest lecturers and meetings, participate in international conferences, work with youth, promote sustainable economic development in villages and help vitalize the Transylvanian Unitarian Church and Partner Church relationships. These Balázs Scholars bring insight and hope to their ministries and to their homeland. They're also raising and guiding a wonderful new generation of Unitarians.
Balázs Scholars Transylvania Immersion Program
Dakotta J.K. Alex (2011) is the third SKSM student to have gone on the Transylvanian Immersion. He directed and produced the video interviews on this page and the full-length documentary "The History and Modernization of the Unitarians in Transylvania". Dakotta, ethnically from India, is of Cochin or Malabar Jewish descent and still practices Reform Judaism today. He began his Master's of Divinity (M. Div.) at the Claremont Colleges, near Los Angeles and and is completing his M.Div. program at Starr King School for the Ministry and UC Berkeley with a concentration in applied ethics and social theory, and pursuing certificates in Islamic and Jewish Education from the Center for Islamic Studies and Center for Jewish Studies. Dakotta works as a corporate consultant for start-ups and has started a few start-ups of his own, check out his website here (http://www.dakotta.com).
For information about how you can help support the Balázs Scholars Program at Starr King School, contact Starr King School at 510/845-6232 or Arliss Ungar at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Will our future ministers have wisdom enough
to help their congregations grow and understand
better the world they live in? The Balázs
Scholarship brings every year to Starr King a
Transylvanian Unitarian minister to help him or
her acquire tools and knowledge that can make
a difference in the life of his or her congregation.
These are visions for the future. A future that
talks about Unitarian villages surviving the capitalist
and technocratic mentality, which has started
to invade our country. A future that talks about
leaders who would be able to help their communities
not just on theological issues, but in addressing
the different concerns of individuals and groups
in their struggle for faith and ethnicity. A future
where both Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist
congregations will gain in understanding and acceptance,
helping and sharing with each other in a process
of growth. This is a vision of the future built
today by the work and commitment of those who
keep the Balázs program alive.
-- Maria Pap
I see Starr King as the perfect workshop for
people who consider faith, education, compassion
and serving the community primary in their lives.
We shared knowledge there, our experiences and
our dreams at the school. I see a satisfied smile
on Francis Balázs' face. He walked
around continents to find his brothers and sisters
in faith. He found this school, an oasis where
the past is honored, the present is nurturing
and joyful, and the future of liberal faith is
-- Kinga-Reka Szekely
Everything I achieved here in Kolozsvar is
due to Starr King School and its professors, students
and board members. Thank you very much for giving
us Transylvanians such a great chance.
-- Sandor Kovacs
The Balázs scholars are ministers in
leading churches, and are in key positions in
Transylvania and Hungary. They have insights on
how to apply the theory they have learned, and
to share their Starr King experiences with the
larger world. Continued contact with people in
the United States and experience in economic development
will bring people together. These Balázs
scholars will foster more open-minded people,
less mistrust. We will not only survive, we will
--Zsuzsa Bartha


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It all started back in 2008 when Liquid Box sponsored the South Carolina Stingray hockey team, who won the national championship that year. While I sat in the seats watching the games that season, I was thinking how Liquid Box could help to interact with the crowd while also finding a fun and interactive way to involve local children in the games.
After spending hours penning down numerous ideas, the idea that kept sticking out was to build a souped-up, hotrod zamboni. Now by souped up, I mean installing a widescreen t.v., huge stero system, smoke machine, and 22 inch chrome rims complete with seats for the fans to ride in! Friends and family might have said my idea was crazy, but I was determined to make this dream a reality!
The process of searching for a zamboni was at times rough and time consuming, but after four months, voila! Zamboni found! There it was, sitting on a car lot in Philadelphia, with our name on it. Now that, my friends, is a miracle, as is the fact that my wife decided to stay married to me as I pulled my new purchase into the driveway. I like to think that all of the yelling and questions from my wife were really just her way of saying, "Great job, honey! I'm so thrilled you did this," …or not.
Soon thereafter, we began the deconstruction and design process with the tremendous help of many good friends and businesses. I could spend hours talking about everything that went wrong building this machine, but I perfer not to relive those moments…it is too painful. Rebuilding the motor was tough, so tough that when it was rebuilt and installed it wouldn't turn over. Great news. I decided the best option was to buy a second zamboni and switch the motor out. Buying that second zamboni wasn't as bad as the first one, and my wife even felt a little sorry for me about the trouble we'd had during the project. This time I only got the silent treatment, which honestly was pretty nice.
The zamboni was built with the help of many people and companies joining the effort, such as Deer Run Unlimited Welding and Metal Fabrication, Bryant Signs,Bouchilon, Wicked Concepts, and Liquid Box. There were a lot of setbacks and issues that came up during this project that could have ended it anytime. We truly believe it was God's intention for us to do good by producing this machine to give children in need a new and memorable experience, and to also promote a great Christian station WAY 100.9 f.m. that reaches out to the younger community in Charleston, SC, and other parts of America.
Who knows what is next, maybe a machine that drives around and shoots out a hot dog at 200mph for the RiverDog's baseball team, or something fun for the Charleston Battery soccer fans. Liquid Box's newest project is working on taking a certified car to the Bonneville Salt Flats to run flat out, possibly adding a blower motor to the engine just to speed things up…a little.
Until next time,

subset: commoncrawl


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To think that Tim Pawlenty's campaign went into a death spiral because he refused to confront Mitt Romney on "Obamneycare."
Now that Michele Bachmann is gone, practically the only person who mentions Obamacare is Romney. And he doesn't do it much. He might not even need to do it at all.
National Journal
National Journal


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Bridget Keegan Barber has eight years of professional planning experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. At PennPraxis Bridget has worked on a variety of projects including helping to create the Civic Vision for the Central Delaware and The Action…
Val Beulah is the Administrative Coordinator for PennPraxis. Prior to joining Praxis she worked in the PennDesign's Department of Architecture for 5 years as the Financial Administrative Coordinator. She loves the Lord and enjoys singing in three choirs and working at…READ MORE
Goodman has worked as a city planner and project manager for PennPraxis since graduating from PennDesign in 2007. His focus has been on projects that combine community engagement and public space design, including the Central Delaware Waterfront Planning Process, the Green2015…READ MORE
B.A., Middlebury College
M.S.W., University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., Social Welfare, University of Pennsylvania
Certificate in Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Faculty co-director, Cartographic Modeling Lab
Senior Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
Senior Fellow, Center for Public Health Initiatives
Professor…READ MORE
p-215 573-8719 f-215 573-9600
B.A., University of Pennsylvania;
M. Arch, University of Pennsylvania. FAIA, NCARB.
Steinberg is the founding director of Penn Praxis, the clinical consulting arm of the School of Design, and an adjunct assistant professor of city…
115 Meyerson Hall
210 South 34th Street
Philadelphia PA 19104
B.A., Haverford College
M.Arch.Hist., University of Virginia
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Aaron Wunsch currently teaches three core courses in Penn's…


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Sustainable Norcross got a boost last week when they were called out for their efforts at the Civic League for Regional Atlanta's What's Right with the Region! dinner.
Chairperson Connie Weathers, who has led the efforts of the citizen-based commission, and other city officials were on hand to receive the Regional Excellence Award, which singles out individuals, organizations and initiatives that meet a need in the community, according to a release from the City of Norcross.
Just three regional movers and shakers were singled out: Former Fayette County Commission Chair Jack Smith and StoryCorps Atlanta were also applauded.
"This award…is exciting not only for me personally, but for everyone in Norcross who rolled up their sleeves to achieve a common goal," she said in the release. "It's exciting what we have achieved in reducing our community's overall environmental impact. And there's still more in the works!" she said.
Last year, Sustainable Norcross led the city's successful effort to get the Green Communities Certification from the Atlanta Regional Commission at the silver level.
The 5-member citizen committee has hosted rain barrel making workshops, passed out flyers and monitored water quality in local streams, among other environmental efforts headed by tireless Weathers.


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Philip Hart, professor emeritus of religion, dies at 87
Philip Hart, a professor emeritus of religion, died Nov. 3, 2012 at age 87 after fighting Alzheimer's. He was married to his wife Jean for 59 years.
Spiders take down Hampton, 68-58, in physical game
Darien Brothers led the Spiders in scoring for the third straight game, and Richmond moved to 3-0 with a 68-58 home victory over the Hampton Pirates.
Injury causes quarterback role reversal
John Laub, the starting quarterback for the Spiders at the beginning of the season, broke his angle, giving sophomore Michael Strauss an opportunity to start.
APO's Teeter for Tots raises about $1,000 for Friends Association
Alpha Phi Omega's 18th annual Teeter for Tots fundraiser lasted a week with activities including an a capella sing-off, a dunk tank and see-saws.
UR students use fall break to explore city of Richmond
Fall Break in Richmond, sponsored in part by the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, allowed students to visit places like the James River, VMFA and Capitol.
"blu" highlights cultural commentary in weekend show
A non traditional play about a Latino family struggling with the death of a son named Blu, and the challenges of gang life, poverty, and a father in jail.
Parents Weekend 2012 features football and fair weather
Parents Weekend left seniors nostalgic and underclassmen, and their parents, ready for the years that will follow, including more football after a close loss.
Becca Wann returns after winning gold at FIFA U-20 World Cup
After spending the summer training and competing for the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, Wann arrived in Richmond on Sept. 10 to rejoin her UR teammates.
Media critic urges Richmond audience to challenge reality TV narratives
Jennifer Pozner, formerly of Extra! magazine, spoke to students about the dangers of too much reality television.
Women's soccer wins first game in home opener against Wildcats
After falling in its first four games of the 2012 season, Richmond's women's soccer team defeated Villanova, 3-1, in its first home contest.


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The roar of motorcycles will fill the air as Thunder in the Valley once again takes over the region today through Sunday.
Ongoing activities will be held in downtown Johnstown, Windber, Richland, Greenhouse Park and Ebensburg.
Information: www.johnstownthunder.com.
Concert series
Tuesday Noon Recitals will conclude this week at First Lutheran Church, 415 Vine St., downtown Johnstown.
Robin Malloy of Indiana will play classical and contemporary works on the Steinway grand piano in the chapel.
Malloy has a degree in music education from Penn State and a master's degree in music performance from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
She teaches piano and organ students and has held numerous positions as a church organist and music director.
A complimentary lunch will follow the recital at 12:30.
Another recital series will resume in October.
Information: 536-7521 or www.firstlutheran.info.
Young actors
"13 the Musical" will be onstage through July 7 at Cresson Lake Playhouse, 279 Shapiro Road, Loretto.
Curtain times are 8 tonight and Saturday, Tuesday through June 30 and July 5-7 and 2 p.m. Sunday and July 1.
The middle-school musical is about growing up.
Tickets are $17 for adults and $12 for students ages 18 and younger.
Information: 472-4333 or www.cressonlake.com.
CD celebration
A CD release party featuring Johnstown-based acoustic duo Walt & Jackie will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Warehouse at Boulevard Grill, 165 Southmont Blvd., Johnstown.
Walt Churchey and Jackie Kopco are known for playing popular cover songs, but their debut album, "Bare," is a full-length collection of original music that showcases each writer.
CDs will be available Tuesday.
Information: www.waltandjackie.com or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Artful fundraiser
Come As You Art, the sequel to the fundraiser Art Defines You, will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday at Art Works in Johnstown, 413 Third Ave. in the Cambria City section.
Guests are asked to come as a favorite piece of art, artist, movie star or performer.
Costumes are not required, but there will be prizes for the most artful costumes.
Professional artists will paint or sketch their renditions of the night, which will be bid during a silent auction.
There will be food stations, beverages and a live band.
Tickets are $30 for individuals and $50 per couple.
Information: 535-2020 or email email@example.com.
Bandshell blast
AmeriServ Free Summer Concerts at Roxbury Bandshell will continue Sunday at the bandshell along Franklin Street in Johnstown.
Felix and the Hurricanes will sing the blues at 5, and Who's Your Daddy will perform alternative country at 6.
Cool jazz
Jazz Along the River series will continue with Harold Betters Quartet at 6 tonight at St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church Pavilion, Fifth Avenue and Power Street in the Cambria City section of Johnstown.
Betters, who is from Pittsburgh, is known as Mr. Trombone and plays a rhythm-and-blues style of jazz.
Ethnic foods such as haluski, stuffed cabbage, pierogi, kielbasa and sauerkraut, as well as hot dogs, hot sausage, hamburgers and gobs will be available for purchase beginning at 5.
Admission is free, and the show will go on rain or shine.
Outdoors concert
Civic Concert Band will perform as part of the free Summer Concerts on the Green at 7 p.m. Wednesday on the grounds of Community Arts Center of Cambria County, 1217 Menoher Blvd., Westmont.
Those who attend should bring a blanket or lawn chair for seating.
Information: 255-6515 or www.caccc.org.
Historic heritage
South Fork Area Heritage Days will be held today through Sunday throughout South Fork Borough.
Historic exhibits will be on display in the community room next to South Fork Public Library, 320 Main St.
Music will include classic rock, polka, Celtic folk and rock.
Food vendors will be located at Wesley United Methodist Church parking lot, 511 Church St.
Admission is free.
Basket benefit
A YWCA basket party will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at Laugh 'n' Learn Daycare, 1001 Broad St., Johnstown.
An $8 admission includes lunch, dessert, 25 tickets for bidding and door prizes.
Information: 254-4570.
Man in black
Encore performances of "Ring of Fire," the life of Johnny Cash set to music, will be presented through July 1 at Mountain Playhouse, Jennerstown.
Showtimes are 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays and
3 p.m. Sundays.
Tickets are $12 to $20.50 for preview, $17 to $35 for matinees and $22 to $39 for evenings.
Information: 629-9201, option 1, or MountainPlayhouse.org.
Book bargains
Inclined to Read, the Friends of the Cambria County Library bookstore, is holding a paperback sale through June 30 in the lobby of Cambria County Library, 248 Main St., downtown Johnstown.
Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.
Information: 536-5131.
To the hop
A record hop will be held at 6 p.m. Sunday at the Grand Ballroom at Windber Recreation Park, Route 160, Windber.
A car and motorcycle cruise-in will begin at 4, and food and soft drinks will be available.
Music for each dance will be provided by Vintage Jukeboxes.
The record hops are sponsored by Windber Area Visioning Experience.
Admission is $5.
Scientific laughs
"Stunt Lab: Flexible Comedy Show" will be presented at 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday at Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center, 411 Third Ave. in the Cambria City section of Johnstown.
Comics Mark Hayward and Jonathan Burns will show the audience their "scientifically tested" comedy.
Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door.
Information: (412) 254-6258 or www.markandjonathan.com.
Mount weekend
An Alumni Weekend 2012 will be held today through Sunday at Mount Aloysius College, Cresson.
Tonight, the golden graduate reception will be held at the Wolf-Kuhn Gallery in the main building, with an Hawaiian luau from 6:30 to 11 in the Ihmsen Hall breezeway.
Comedian Bill Boronkey will perform at 7:30 at Alumni Hall, with an Elvis impersonator at 8.
A bonfire will begin at 9:30 on Ihmsen lawn, with the first annual Mountie Jam at 10.
On Saturday, breakfast will be held from 7:30 to 9, with an all-alumni meeting from 8:15 to 9:15 in the McAuley Hall meeting room.
Golfers can tee off at 7:30 a.m. at the Summit golf course, and a nature walk will be held on campus from 8 to 9.
Campus tours leave hourly from the St. Aloysius statue at 9, 10 and 11.
Seminars include self-defense from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the Cosgrave Student Center and service and health promotion: A unique fit in higher education from 1 to 2 p.m. in the main building, Room 322.
A special panel discussion "Mount Aloysius College – Past, Present and Future" will be held from 2 to 3:30 at the Wolf-Kuhn Gallery.
Two game times will be held from 2:30 to 3:45 Saturday – the H-O-R-S-E Game in the Health and Fitness Center and the "Roomywed Game" in the McAuley meeting room.
Mass will be celebrated at 4:30 at Our Lady of Mercy Chapel, and the recognition dinner will be held from 6 to 7:30 at Cosgrave Student Center.
On Saturday night, there will be a choice of a ballgame at the Blair County Ballpark, the Rise Band show at Cosgrave Center or a movie night at McAuley Hall.
Activities end Sunday morning with a continental breakfast.
Information: 886-6319 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Church benefit
A $2,000 Money-rama will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday at Our Lady of Mount Carmel pavilion, 136 Hilltop Road, Lilly.
A chicken dinner will be served from 1 to 3 p.m., with snacks from 3 to 5.
There will be beverages, door prizes, DJ music and chances to win money.
The donation is $20.
Information: 886-2375 or 937-7053.
Nature's call
Junior Ranger Nature Discovery Days will be conducted from 10 a.m. to noon each Saturday through July 28 at the picnic area at Johnstown Flood National Historic Site, Sidman.
The free events are for children ages 7 to 10, and a parent or guardian must accompany each child.
Children should bring their own lunch.
Reservations are required, and there is a limit of 12 children per Saturday.
Information: 495-4643.
Performance venue
Mike Dillon & Friends will perform from 8 to 10 p.m. Sunday at the Venue of Merging Arts, 305 Chestnut St. in the Cambria City section of Johnstown.
Dillon is a professional vibraphonist from Philadelphia who is involved in Les Claypool's Fancy Band, Garage A Trois and the Dead Kenny G's.
He will perform with Matt Miller and Dave DiStefano.
Admission is $12.
Information: 410-2245.
Flood tours
"Journey Around Lake Conemaugh" van tours will be held at 10 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m. daily through Aug. 26 at Johnstown Flood National Memorial, South Fork.
The one-hour tours will begin at the visitors center and travel to the north and south abutments of the South Fork Dam, as well as the clubhouse building.
Reservations are encouraged, but not required.
Tours are included with park admission.
Information: 495-4643.
Railroad tours
A van tour of the Portage Railroad will start at 1 p.m. Saturday beginning at the visitor center at Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, off the Gallitzin exit of Route 22.
The tour follows the entire route of the Portage Railroad from the canal basin in Hollidaysburg to the canal basin in Johnstown and is three hours.
Visitors will learn how the railroad was built and hear the compelling stories of the men and women who built and operated what was the most important route westward from 1834 to 1854.
In many places, the route will follow the exact path of the old Portage Railroad and will take visitors to the Skew Arch Bridge, the reconstruction of Engine House 6, the historic Lemon House and several historic culverts.
A Heritage Hike of the Historic 6 to 10 Trail will start at 11 a.m. Sunday beginning at the visitor center.
This nine-mile hike led by a park ranger over moderately difficult terrain will show visitors remains of the Portage Railroad.
The hike will last about five hours and will be led rain or shine.
Hikers should bring water and a snack, wear good walking or hiking shoes and prepare for the weather.
Both tours are free, but reservations are required.
Information: 886-6150 or www.nps.gov/alpo.
Summer music
The gospel ensemble Joyful Notes will perform as part of the free Summer Music on the Square concert series sponsored by the Pennsylvania Consort at 2 p.m. Sunday at the gazebo at Pitt and Penn Streets in downtown Bedford.
Information: 733-2301 or email email@example.com.
Sunday concert
Me & Mr. Jones will perform at 7 p.m. Sunday on the Diamond in Ligonier as part of a free series of Sunday band concerts.
This two-man show features Josh Rutter and Carl Jones, who will entertain with a variety of music from the '50s through today.
Donations are welcome, and those who attend should bring their own seating.
Information: (724) 238-4200.
Abstract art
"Along Came a Spider," an exhibition by Scott Miller of Westmont, will be on display through July 2 at Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center, 411 Third Ave. in the Cambria City section of Johnstown.
Information: 536-5399 or www.bottleworks.org.
Summer art
Allied Artists of Johnstown's summer exhibit will be on display through June 30 at Community Arts Center of Cambria County, 1217 Menoher Blvd., Westmont.
Information: 255-6515.
Somerset art
The 25th annual Somerset County Artists Association juried exhibition will be on display Tuesday through Aug. 3 at Laurel Arts, 214 S. Harrison Ave., Somerset.
An open house will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. June 29.
Information: 443-2433 or www.laurelarts.org.
Slave quilts
A collection of slave quilt collages by Penelope Wilson of Hollidaysburg will be on display through June 30 at the Bedford County Arts Center at the Anderson House, 137 E. Pitt Street, Bedford.
Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays.
Information: 623-1538 or email email@example.com.
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Click here to subscribe to The Tribune-Democrat e-edition.


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AC drives expand diagnostics, voltage range, DC bus option to save energy
Rockwell Automation extends power range of its Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 755 AC Drives. New high-power drives provide users with expanded application flexibility, additional voltages and common DC bus option for energy savings.
Building on the foundation of the Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 755 high-power models, Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE: ROK) extended the power range of its PowerFlex 755 AC drives to 900 kW / 1,350 hp and added 600 / 690 V ratings. The new drives, said to be well-suited for a variety of heavy industrial applications, provide users with increased application flexibility, advanced diagnostics and a common dc bus option.
"We've expanded the horsepower range and added new features to bring the benefits of the PowerFlex 755 family – advanced diagnostics, a convenient roll-out design and control options – to a broader range of motor control applications," said John Cherney, global product manager, Rockwell Automation. "This helps heavy industrial users reduce costs through enhanced flexibility, reduced downtime and low meantime to repair."
The common dc bus option allows users to connect the PowerFlex 755 AC drive to a common dc-bus configuration, which takes advantage of different drive cycles to share energy. In this configuration, a dc bus acts as a common energy source that feeds energy from a generating load to a motoring load. Managing energy from a shared source increases overall system performance and reduces losses – ultimately improving the application's energy efficiency, the company said.
Like all PowerFlex 755 drives, this latest frame size includes an embedded Ethernet port and five option slots, so users can tailor it to the application. Option modules include I/O, feedback, safety, additional communications and an auxiliary power supply. A convenient roll-out design allows easy access to the drive for fast installation and maintenance. The drive's converter and control pod can remain in the unit while the inverter is rolled out, so control wiring can remain connected.
In addition to the extended power range, a firmware upgrade for all PowerFlex 755 drives will contain the following new features and benefits:
• Interior permanent magnet motor control – Delivers increased application flexibility and high energy efficiency.
• "Stop Dwell" feature – Helps prevent a motor from coasting to a stop. Ideal for converting applications, it allows users to preconfigure the motor to perform a controlled stop to protect valuable motor investments.
The next version of Rockwell Software RSLogix 5000 software, planned for later this year, will include an automatic device configuration feature. Rather than manually configuring a replacement drive, this feature allows Logix controllers to automatically configure the drive upon installation. Users can quickly and easily replace drives without programming – ultimately improving uptime while reducing time and money spent on installation.
Rockwell Automation said it is the world's largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information. It is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., and employs about 21,000 people serving customers in more than 80 countries.
The company will feature the drives at its Automation Fair. www.automationfair.com.
- Edited by Mark T. Hoske, CFE Media, Control Engineering, www.controleng.com
See the Motors and Drives Channel
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A collection of news and information related to Steve Allen published by this site and its partners.
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Conan O'Brien Hosts Final 'Tonight' Show, Thanks Fans
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Barney Martin, Seinfeld's dad, dead at 82Story | Mar 24, 2005 | 1:47 PMLOS ANGELES -- Barney Martin, a former New York City detective who went into show business and became best known for playing Jerry Seinfeld's father Morty on the comedian's hit television series, has died. He was 82. Martin died of cancer Monday at his...
Steve Allen, TV innovator, author, composer, dies at 78Story | Nov 1, 2000Steve Allen, the zany comedian and witty social commentator whose career zipped at warp speed from one occupation to the next--from hosting the original "Tonight" show to lecturing about morality to composing thousands of songs--has died in Encino at...
Audrey Meadows, Alice in 'The Honeymooners,' DiesStory | Feb 5, 1996Audrey Meadows, revered as the feisty Alice Kramden opposite Jackie Gleason's garrulous bus driver Ralph in television's comedy classic " The Honeymooners," has died. Meadows died of lung cancer at 8:50 p.m. Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,...


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- What's Hot on Games.com
- Poker Texas Holdem Deluxe
- Plants Vs. Zombies
- Slot Buster
- Just Words
Games.com News. CityVille, FarmVille, CastleVille games news
Guacamelee Review: Una magnífica aventura
Real Racing 3 hints and tips straight from the workshop
March Madness Facebook Game Face-off 2013: Final Round!
If EA wins 'Worst Company in America' again, I don't want to live on this planet anymore
Top Free Games
Just Words
Games.com Exclusive: If you love SCRABBLE you'll love the wonderful word game fun of Just Words. Play Just Words free online…
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Play two face down cards and the five community cards. Bet any amount or go all-in.
Solitaire: Classic
Play Solitaire, one of the most addicting games online, for free on Games.com. Build in the same suit from Ace to King until…
Letter Garden
Spell words by linking letters, clearing space for your flowers to grow. Can you clear the entire garden?
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Save Borb Bay from calamity!
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The Book of Treasures takes you into a mysterious library and an exciting adventure.
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Travel around the ancient Mediterranean and collect all 7 powers of Poseidon to raise Atlantis from the depths of the sea!
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Come to our drop-in computer help class!
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Upcoming Classes
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- Wednesday, July 23, 2014Ocean View, Ocean View General Floor Area
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In late summer 2008, I found myself in Mumbai living in a Hindu temple and doing about four and a half hours of yoga every day. It was a very solitary existence in the city balanced between yoga, eating, sleeping, and reading. With no Internet in my room (I had a little USB card but it worked extremely poorly), I was by and large cut off from the rest of the world when not in yoga class. Thus it was all the more strange that one week when I met the Spaniard.
I would typically wake up at 6.40am and rush down the stairs to make the 6.45am class start; living in the same building as the classroom had its advantages. After breakfast I would usually shower and nap for an hour to let the local breakfast restaurants clear out a little bit before I myself would venture out to get something to eat. Afternoons, being unbearably hot and thus best spent inside, would be spent reading books, programming, or otherwise snoozing. Three more hours of yoga in the evening, and then a quick dash to get some late dinner and then off to bed. It was a really pleasant and simple life.
After a couple of weeks of this, though, a new student appeared in some of my classes. A lanky, tall guy with a big bushy beard, with legs that just did not want to bend in the way he wanted them to. He struck me as German, or perhaps American, and I had little interaction with him. He would scoot out of class as soon as we were done, and I wouldn't see him until the next day. But then one day, we bumped into each other in the elevator and struck up a conversation — we were neighbours. He was not from either of my guessed nations, but was indeed Spanish, from Gránada.
His English was as good as my Spanish; which is to say workable, but not great. We would speak in our respective languages, and have slow, painful conversations about motivations for coming to India, what we did, and what we imagined doing in the future. And then we discovered a remarkable thing:
He had lived in Nanjing studying Asian art history for four years. His Mandarin Chinese was really, really good. Much better than his English. Mine was, similarly, better than my Spanish.
And so it came back to pass that this tall hippie-ish looking Spaniard (full disclosure: I didn't look much better. I didn't bring a razor and was too lazy to go buy a new one) and a Canadian guy would hang out in restaurants in Matunga, Mumbai, chattering happily away in Mandarin Chinese. The looks from the locals ranged from "oh, that must be english or something" to "what the hell kind of language is that?"
It's a long way away from being a lingua franca, but for one week in metropolitan India, Chinese helped bridge a cultural gap that might have otherwise gone unfilled.[Read Rest of Article]
|Myths and truths about Chinese criminal law (great article)
|China's middle class under great pressure
|Off'l Press: Bursting China Housing Bubble 'Necessary Choice'
|China NBS: Price Pressures Build, Inflation Target Difficult
|How to Think about China
|3G in china
|The Myth of One China
|Obama's 'deal' with China is oversold
|Chinese women like diamonds
|Is Jim Chanos Right About A China Real Estate Bubble?
|Beijing's hutong heirs grow greedy
|U.S. Waiting for China on Iran Issue (gonna be a long wait)
|Analysis: Three simple lessons in Chinese for Julius Malema
|China's Market. Too Hot? Too Cold? or Juuuust Right?
|China is a nation of 'money worshipers'
|A trade war with China isn't worth it
|More on China's overcapacity issue
|China's top four social networks: RenRen, Kaixin001, Qzone, and 51.com
|Unsafe ingredient in some flours
|President Hu warns Chinese officials against temptations of beautiful women, power
|80 percent of napkins in restaurants unsafe
|Quit trying to blame China for American decline
|Deadlines and Delays: Chinese Revaluation Will Still Not Bring American Jobs
|Peking University gives the boot to Women's Law Center
|Beijingers richer but unhappier
|Still way too soon to gamble on the potential US decline
|A flawed American political model aids China
|Colour photos from Beijing from 1946.
|China, Concubines and Google
|Journalists' E-Mails Hacked in China
The big news in recent days, of course, has been Google shutting off their Chinese internet service and redirecting all traffic to their Hong Kong servers. In general, they've been getting pilloried for this decision — nobody seems to buy Sergei Brin's argument that this is about persecution such as that faced by his father in Russia decades back. Why didn't they worry about this in 2006 when they first came to China? Nobody can find anything good coming out of this situation.
|Google.cn: R.I.P or good riddance
|Congress On China: Google Gets A Big Wet Kiss. Microsoft Is "Enabling Tyranny"
|Why Google should stay in China
|Disingenuous piece on Google China (all of the examples he states came to light because of Google IN China):
|Opposing view: Google's big mistake
|Analysis: Google-China flap déjà vu for Microsoft
|The Google Shuffle and the Hong Kong Twist
|Brin Drove Google to Pull Back in China
|Google Isn't China's Problem. Press Freedom Is.
|Baidu is just a bad company
More general links on China's economy, the RMB, and the other big case this week, the Rio Tinto case (where a complete and utter lack of transparency alarmed more than a few people):
|Property prices to see steady climb
|ANALYSIS-China's influence silences Asia on yuan peg
|Volvo Seeks to Wean China Officials From Audis to Boost Sales
|The Chinese legal system and the Stern Hu case
|Stern Hu's trial and its legal and economic implications – Weekly editorial
|Life in Chinese prison (Rio Tinto)
And finally some other stuff, including the huge drought facing much of the country since last autumn (which we weren't allowed to talk about until about a week ago because nobody wanted to be a buzz kill for the National Day celebrations last October or for Spring Festival this February.
|What's it like being black in China?
|Now that Spring festival is over, we're allowed to talk about this:
|Beijing to sweeten stench of rubbish crisis with giant deodorant guns
|Shanghai restricts sale of knives during Expo
|People, people everywhere in China, and not enough to work
We'll start out by looking at the RMB valutation debate raging on in the US. On the US, the "RMB is hugely undervalued" drums are being beat in Washington, and have a surprising ally in Paul Krugman, a normally quite rational and thoughtful person. The first article in this list by James Fallows, somebody whose thoughts on China are usually dead-on, and always worth reading.
|How to think about the RMB, "currency manipulation," and trade war (James Fallows)
|Has Paul Krugman gone completely insane?
|The Chinese are not the source of our problems, …
|Paul Krugman's China (RMB) fallacy
Next, a bunch of articles on Google's departure from China:
|China state media accuses Google of political agenda
|What a Google China exit would mean
|China appears to be preparing for Google departure
|Google denies 'exit China' rumor
Understanding China:
|Behold China (Good content, nutty presentation)
|Too few deciphering the Chinese puzzle
|If You Want to See Entrepreneurs, Go to China
|What Won't Work With China, And What Might
General Interest stuff:
|How Richies are influencing Chinese political policy (and tax debate)
|What Chinese Censors Don't Want You to Know
|Beijing Becomes 3rd-Busiest Airport, Beating Chicago
|China's Reverse Price Wars
|Land price record broken twice in day
|More attempted measures to cool Beijing's housing market.
|How to manage your reputation online in China (hint: $$)
|China orders journalists to retrain in communist theory
|Soaring drug abuse in China's south
|South Africa expects influx of Chinese prostitutes for World Cup
Interesting China reading for March 8th, 2010.
|Fascinating old Chinese menu from 1935
|Goldman betting that Chinese Yuan is no longer undervalued, warns of shrinking surplus
|Hackers of Google systems stole source code-
|In spite of an urgent need to cut emissions, fossil-fuel consumption in China is soaring
|Questions for the author of "Driving in China"
|Violent crime rate in China rises for first time in 10 years
|Rumours of a Chinese bubble are great exaggerated
|China's English Teaching Boom may be about to burst
|Lies, Damned Lies, and Chinese Statistics
|Understanding (or not) China's financial transactions
|China Warns Hong Kong
|Foreign Firms bet on Larger Chinese consumption
|Defying Global Slump, China Has Labor Shortage
|China pledges to ensure fair, high quality education in decade ahead
|Yang Yahui, cause of death: a glass of water
I've been really busy with my new job here and haven't been writing as many blog articles as I'd like, but I have still been coming across lots of interesting things I'd like to share with people.
So, I'm going to start an Interesting Reading / Links type of blog post. Almost entirely centred around China and Tech (if not Tech in China). I hope to get back to regular blog-article writing soon.
- [link] Apple Supplier United Win Technology's factory in Jiangsu suffers more labour troubles, with 62 workers poisoned by n-hexane
- [link] Recent government changes to house buying rules that make it harder for foreigners to buy will not affect the local market in Beijing
- [link] "Research without Google would be like life without electricity," one Chinese scientist said. What would life without Google in China be like?
- [link]
For those of you who continue to doubt, more evidence that MySpace is in terminal decline
- [link] Americans continue to freak out about China
- [link] "China's local governments, which ran up huge debts during the record-breaking lending spree of the past year, are now feeling the pinch as authorities in Beijing tighten credit."
- [link] How Chinese football matches are rigged:
- [link] How ready is the US for cyberattacks? (Hint: not)
- [link] China is misread by bulls and bears alike
Like a few other cultures in the world, modern China comes with thousands of years of tradition behind it. As with those others, it sometimes struggles to find a way to make that tradition and history mesh well with modern life (most often by simply jettisoning the former). However, every once in a while, you'll see an example of how the Chinese will take a tradition and … get a little carried away with it. The results are as breathtakingly brilliant as they are horrifying.
The first example I came across was in late 2006, early 2007, when I read about the practice of minghun, or ghost marriages. Essentially, having an unmarried son in traditional China is bad enough — having him die without being married is nearly unbearable for some, so they endeavour to find him a bride. Various members of the clergy will offer to help the family find a family recently bereaved of a daughter whose horoscope is compatible with that of their son, and then arrange to have the couple 'married' and then buried together, so that they may enjoy a happy (and apparently quite frisky, according to academic Ping Yao) afterlife together. In some cases, the family of the male will compensate the family of the female for the hassle.
And that's where the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese comes in and things start to get carried away. Normally, families will rely on networks of friends and relatives to find these deceased single women to marry to their deceased sons. But in some cases, there are none to be found, or those found are too long dead to be appropriate for the deceased son. Suddenly there appears a market for brokers who will help expand the search and find an appropriate bride, for a fee of course.
Now, in order to earn that fee, sometimes brokers will start bending the rules. For those cases where they truly cannot find an appropriate corpse, some will find themselves resorting to grave robbing. Knowing that a newer corpse will do better than an older corpse, some will stake out funerals, wait until the evening, and then nip the fresher corpse in return for a higher fee.
Which leads some extreme people to just start murdering women to get the freshest corpse possible and the highest price. Sure, they'll target prostitutes, the mentally handicapped, the infirm, and other easy targets at first, but even those will get hard to come by and it's only a matter of time before they're arrested after abducting somebody off a city street at night.
I more or less forgot about this over the years, however, and it was only recently that I came across another example that made me put it all together and brought back memories of the ghost marriages. The second incidence came from a news report about arrests at a funeral.
Again, centering around burial traditions, it was noted that many people in poorer parts of the country believe that the larger the send-off you give somebody into the afterlife, the more the deceased is honoured. Families will thus try to ensure that as large of a crowd as possible will attend the funeral.
When mere appeals to people's decency or sentiments doesn't work, you start bribing people to show up, perhaps with free booze and food, or by making important people attend the proceedings.
But when even that fails, once again, the enterprising business mind comes to the rescue: why not hire strippers to perform at the funeral. It's never hard to find farmers who are willing to hang out somewhere for a few hours when there are hot naked women to be had.
This, in fact, led to the formation of funeral stripper troupes, and subsequently government "funeral misdeed" hotlines. Thus, the arrests in Jiangsu province (interestingly enough, also in 2006, although the news has just come around again) of five people involved in organising these funeral strippers.
Now, before you decide to berate me for looking down on the Chinese or otherwise laughing at their silly traditions and beliefs, please note that my intention is exactly the opposite — to show how the magical combination of a massive population (1.4 billion and counting), thousands of years of history, and a mercantilist / entrepreneurial spirit I have not seen elsewhere in the world can, on extremely rare occasions, come together to produce brilliantly bizarre results. You can say a lot about China, but you can never, ever say it's boring.
Further reading:
- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1296184.ece
- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/world/asia/05china.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_marriage_(Chinese)
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5280312.stm?lsm
- http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55/054.html
- http://mrjam.typepad.com/diary/2008/05/the-tale-of-the.html
- http://jfh.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/3/207
A local photographer of Malaysian/Singaporean origin by the name of Stefen Chow (no, not Steven Chow) once uttered what I find to be a brilliant way to understand China and its history:
If you want to understand the first 3000 years of China's history, go to Xi'an.
To understand the last 300 years, go to Beijing.
For the last 30 years, go to Shenzhen.
(paraphrased slightly).
That really about sums it up.[Read Rest of Article]
While I'm not particularly keen on spending much time posting or talking about Chinglish and bad slogans and signs here in China – there are already plenty of sites on the Internet that do this much better than I – on a recent walk home from having some business cards made, I ran into a number of particularly comical signs, all in the span of a few hundred metres, and all quite chuckle-worthy.
The day started off somewhat surreally as I walked past a local Chinese restaurant, only to have the restaurant name supplemented by "MYSQL". Buy one bowl of noodles, get an ACID-compliant transactional engine for free?
It turns out that the name of the restaurant is 明月三千里, or míng yuè sān qiān lǐ. Hence, the MYSQL. Still, good fun:
Next, I walked past a massage parlour that advertised "Cupping and scrape measles". Cupping, or báhǔoguàn (拔火罐), is a reasonably common treatment here in China, which provides topical relief on the skin for various ailments. Scraping, or gūashā (刮痧), is another frequently used treatment for heatstroke and other discomforts involving scraping the back of the neck or upper back. Unfortunately, there is no direct translation like cupping, so when you take the two characters separately, the first gives you scraping, the second gives you "acute ailment", such as measles or some other virus. Hence, some great sign fun.
Not that it's a hugely common problem here in China, but I guess the maintainers of this little garden next to a scrool, across the road from the parlour, wanted to make sure that nobody would use their cute little park as a public toilet (there is actually a public toilet about 20m away). Hence this sign asking exactly that:
With the huge fire of the Mandarin Hotel building next to the new CCTV complex on the east Third Ring Road due to unauthorised fireworks, construction sites all around the city are now being extra careful to point out that fireworks are illegal in the city now that Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is over. This one reminds readers that fireworks are illegal inside the 5th ring road:
And finally, I went to meet a friend for some lunch, and walked past a DVD store with this gem in the window:
Evidence suggests they meant to use the word "painting", which would also be incorrect. The sign asks you not to write any graffiti on their windows. This is in Sanlitun, a big party area on Friday and Saturday evenings, with huge crowds of drunken foreign kids from 10pm until late.[Read Rest of Article]
When visiting the USA last summer for some business, the Beijing Summer Olympics were but 3 weeks away, and the hysteria in the West was at a frenzy: The Chinese are going to take over the world proclaimed seemingly every other news source. Radio shows were filled with people talking about the coming Chinese threat, and how the American way of life was at threat due to the waking dragon 4000 miles to the west. Even in Canada, during my visit there, there was a hefty amount of anxiety about the new world order and how things would never be the same.
One of the nice thing about events such as the Olympics, however, is that they focus the attention for only a short period of time, and talk of China in the West seems to have receded to more normal levels, especially as navel-gazing increases while governments try to solve the messes in their own backyards.
The question I am most frequently asked now is: How is the economic crisis affecting China? Is there evidence of a huge slowdown there? Like most things in China, it's hard to say: there are few statistics offered by anybody, and those that are offered tend to be heavily manipulated and untrustworthy.
So, without any official data, lets look at the available anecdotal evidence:
- Newspapers are full of stories of factories closing left and right, especially in the industrial heartland of the Pearl river Delta in Guangdong Province. People are going home en masse to the provinces, and not planning on going back.
- Politicians are suddenly going out of their way to be seen as friendly to farmers. With so many farmers newly returned to the countryside and not as willing to tolerate a lousy feudal existence, the recent drought plaguing the entire northeast of the country is getting serious attention from all levels of government. Most of the unrest and protests in the country occur in smaller towns and villages, and keeping those people happy will be a priority for the Party.
- In the big cities, real estate prices are markedly down. In Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and other major cities countrywide, real estate has fallen from 2500$ – 3500$ USD per square metre (purchase price) to well below 2000$ USD/m2. Worse, people who have placed deposits on apartments at the higher prices are demanding money back from developers who, desperate to fill the their units, are selling the remaining ones at hefty discounts.
- Rents in Beijing are down at least 15%, if not more. At the high end, in apartments that cater to foreigners, rents have sometimes even dropped dramatically. I saw one new building here in the east 2nd ring road that was advertising 1BR units (about 90m sq, or 1000 sq f) for 1200$ USD not six months ago, and is now as low as 700-750$ USD per month. Even in the cheaper, lower glamour units that cater more to locals, rents that were 4000 RMB (575$ USD) per month are now going for, at most, 3400 RMB (490$ USD).
- Food and restaurant prices are markedly up over the last two years, much more so than one would easily attribute to normal inflation levels.
- The Chinese stock markets are down – way down – from late 2007 levels, often by over 70%. Locals who used to spend money completely recklessly because the stock markets would make it all back are much more cautious now. A recent 30% surge in the market already seems to be fading.
- For an "on the street" measure, Yoga studios are hurting. Memberships, which were selling out at well over 8000 RMB a year (1150$ USD or so) are now heavily discounted into the 5500 RMB (< 800$ USD) range and you don't see as many students being driven up in their chauffeured black Audis as before.
- And at an even more "on the street feeling" level, fireworks during this year's Spring Festival – the Chinese Lunar New Year – were the lowest in the three years I've seen them. Whereas, two years ago, the first night of spring festival was an insane war zone from 6pm until 3am, this year, it was mildly exciting from 8pm until 1am, but by 1.30am, most of it had died out and I was able to get a good night's sleep without much interruption. This is a slightly tongue in cheek measurement, as much of the reduction could be attributed to the novelty of fireworks simply wearing out. 2007 was the first year in over 15 years that the central government allowed fireworks.
Evidence that goes against an economic slowdown exists to some degree too, however, and must be noted:
- Retail spending appears strong. Statistics all point to it being quite robust, and anecdotal evidence shows many of the local shopping malls and department stores doing booming business many days of the week. Whether people are purchasing as much or just browsing more is hard to tell, and there definitely is a lot more heavy discounting in the retail chain.
- Car registrations here in the country's capitol continue to accelerate. In the first 45 days of the year, there were nearly 70.000 cars licensed with the city government, or well over 1500 a day.
Talking to people, more and more conversations do seem to involve the words jīngjìwēijī (经济危机), or economic crisis, and most Chinese people I know remain as frugal as they've always been, so it's quite wise that the central government avoided any tax breaks or cash handouts to the locals, as they would simply save it and inject almost nothing into the economy.
Are things slowing here? Definitely? Is the crisis going to be a major disaster for the country and government in particular? Much harder to tell.
A note on the picture above: one of the questions I ask myself about China is why do they constantly design crappy buildings or (in this case) plazas/squares that don't handle things like drainage (or wind, cold, rain, etc) properly.
The answer: it's significantly cheaper to just hire people to squeegee away the water than to pay the extra to money solve these problems at design/construction time. This applies in so many situations.[Read Rest of Article]
Winters in Beijing are noted for being both cold and long, with late-January and early-February promising the most bone-chilling cold temperatures and blustery winds.
So, it has been with no small amount of surprise this week that the weather has been hovering around 9-11C (that's around 50F in 'mericun units), with nighttime temperatures barely breaking freezing any more.
Snow? Not even a dream any more in Beijing. Locals will tell you of a time 10-15 years ago when it would snow regularly here in the capitol during winters, but this year we didn't even get the 1cm dusting that we've seen in the last couple of years.
As an absolute lover of both winter and snow, it's been pure torture to watch all my friends in England upload photos of all the snow there, as well as the crazy-record amounts on the east coast of the US and Canada. Drat![Read Rest of Article]
Every twelve to eighteen months, the police here in China will swoop into one of the staples of the Beijing shopping scene – the cheap (read: pirated) CD/DVD store – and seize all of the merchandise within. Evening news programs will crow about the continuing victory of law and order, their cameras zooming in on the sullen faces of the shop owners as oficers carry box after box of their stock out to be destroyed.
Look a bit more closely, however, and you'll see that this, like so many other things here in China, is a carefully choreographed show. It is not a coincidence that these raids occur in the weeks immediately preceeding the visit by an American trade representative with a laundry list of Hollywood's complaints, or right before major international events, such as the Summer Olympics.
Without fail, however, the stores are operational again in a few weeks with "legitimate" merchandise, and with the regular materials maybe a month or two later. Locals and expats alike who enjoy reduced fare offerings will patiently ride it out and resume watching movies when they return. You see quickly that, in a free market without the West's strict and particular intellectual property copyright laws, people are unwilling to pay the 10-20$ USD that a film or audio CD will cost them.
All the better reason, industry and trade officials will argue, to encourage countries such as China to join international organisations and start abiding by the same copyright regimes that they adhere to. When asked about the alarming decline in CD and DVD sales currently seen in the West, the ease with which anybody can download content from BitTorrent networks, or the unprecedented power Apple wields over the entertainment industry with its iTunes store, they'll cough nervously. Ask about the increasingly desperate measures such as file-sharing lawsuits that far too often snare octogenarians or primary schoolers, and you can expect a rapid change in subject.
Looking elsewhere, it only gets worse. In October 2007 Madonna, a money-making brand-name machine, declined to sign a new contract with Warner Brothers, instead opting to sign with Live Nation, a tour promtions company (other big name artists such as U2 and Jay-Z have also signed with them). The move sent shockwaves through the industry, but was merely the latest manifestation of a trend that as already well under way. Here in China, rare is the musician or band that makes any money from CD sales and rarer is the one who expects to. Instead, all understand that the road to making money is though touring and merchandise. Other famous Western acts such as Radiohead or, more famously, Nine Inch Nails, are experimenting with alternative distribution mechanisms and making profits off things such as signed and numbered box sets and low-price online downloads.
Indeed, You see the music industry fighting tooth and nail against any changes that give the consumer more choice; purchasing only individual tracks instead of an entire album, being able to use puchased media on any number of personal devices instead of restricting them to just one, or somehow integrating music listening to the online experience (what's that, you want to put a song on your YouTube video of your cat Chairman Meow attacking a ball of yarn? Not without paying you won't!)
Ultimately, as it is when any industry fights a tectonic shift as this, it is a losing battle. More and more bands will gradually defect and start trying to make a living in the new world. Eventually, to the great dismay of the others, one of the big record labels will jump ship, and the others will either follow or die. The new world of music will involve some officially free content as well as up-sells and touring.
Well enough, one might say, but what about the movie industry? There's no touring there to make up for a decrease in theatre ticket revenues. But there are a number of other important factors to consider. Already, merchandising is a hugely profitable enterprise, and there's no reason not to expect this to continue – kids love their Little Mermaid underwear. Secondly, there are large numbers of people who will pay for higher quality content than the average movie rental or iTunes download. With all of the hi-def TVs in use in the USA, some people will pay for access to better quality versions of their favourite films.
Perhaps the most devastating argument, however, against the status quo in the movie industry is the subtle shift occurring in Hollywood: TV is starting to get good. So good, in fact, that many people await the return of their favourite Television shows far more than they anticipate the arrival of the latest movie blockbuster, which has a high likelihood of being bad and costing a lot of money to go see. With the advent of TiVo-like devices, people no longer even have to be a slave to the schedules of the networks. They can watch their shows whenever they want. And if a show is bad, they'll very quickly abandon it, encouraging Hollywood to develop better content.
No industry is safe. It gets harder and harder to make any money writing books. Most computer book authors I meet are thrilled to make enough to make a down-payment on a small car. Why purchase a book to learn a new programming language when there are hundreds of free tutorials online, all of which are likely to be more concise and useful. Few and very (very) far between are the Steven Kings of the world. At least in this industry there is recognition of the change at hand, and every possible avenue to survive is being explored – observe the relative success of Pearson and O'Reilly's Safari book network. As Microsoft is learning, people are also increasingly unwilling to pay a premium for software when all they really want to do is surf the web. Equally few are the software companies making much money any more.
The problem is not that people are not willing to pay for things. It's just that they want to have a sense that they're getting good value for their money. Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, the decline in audio CD sales can partly be attributed to the broad perception that a lot of the acts coming out of Hollywood these days are poor, at best. Yet, sales for DVDs of TV shows are doing roaring business, as the Top 100 rankings on amazon.com will quickly attest. Even here in China, where dubbed Korean soap operas dominate the airwaves, post-viewing DVD sales are significant. And one must not forget that iTunes continues to make Apple Computer – and Hollywood – bundles of money.
Some aspects of intellectual property are likely to remain reletively safe. As much as they rail against the huge number of fakes and rip-offs, luxury good manufacturers are probably not losing that much to piracy. People absolutely can tell the difference between a fake and the real thing, and enough people are still willing to pay for the prestige of the real deal (global economic meltdown aside). A real Burberry scarf is actually a lot nicer than a fake, and the people buying the fakes would certainly not be buying the real thing if there were suddenly no other choice.
But for music and film, which have enjoyed something of a Golden Age for the last half century or so, the glory days are over. They are running out of time to adapt, and this far don't seem to be doing very well.
And so, as in so many other things, whereas some see the Chinese as rebels and rabblerousers, if you look closer, you'll see that they just might be ahead of the curve.[Read Rest of Article]
Not having particularly large numbers of Christians, for most of Asia Christmas is not an official holiday. Everybody trundles off to work at 8am in the morning like any other day, banks and government services remain fully operational (if completely unhelpful) and few – if any – people have trees or other decorations in their homes – gifts and the like are rare.
As such, it has been interesting to see how Christmas is becoming a bit of a "thing" here in Beijing, and entirely unlike what one would expect. Nearly every mall, shop, and restaurant has some sort of decoration, ranging from tinsel snowflakes to cutouts of Shèngdàn Lǎorén (Santa Claus), to big signs proclaiming 圣诞节快乐 (Merry Christmas). While old people tend to not care and are usually more than barely aware that the holiday is passing, the younger generations (and therefore the commercial enterprises who depend on their dollars) seem to be quite into the whole thing, with groups of coworkers sharing cakes at the office or going out for meals with little Reindeer antler hats on.
One aspect of it all is that Beijing becomes something of an expat ghost-town for the holidays. Many people leave to go back to their home countries, and those who live here tend to hunker down in their little expat enclaves such as Shunyi or Wangjing. What's left are the (typically younger) foreigners who either couldn't leave because of work, or decided simply not to bother. The expat restaurants and bars all begin the annual business "dry season" which usually lasts until the arrival of spring (and, coincidentally enough, actual rain).
Thus, it was with some surprise last night that, as a few of us went out for drinks at Q Bar, home to some of Beijing's finest mixed drinks, traffic in the city was a complete mess. Any place that had bars and clubs was a complete madhouse, and even big shopping areas were all quite packed. Yet, only those places that catered to the locals were full – expat places such as Sanlitun and the like were still completely deserted.
What was going on was that all the locals were going out and partying. But instead of doing presents or any sort of family thing, it was more along the lines of New Years partying, with countdowns to Christmas tree lightings, party hats and streamers, and otherwise drunken revelry. No arguing here about how the holiday has lost its spiritual meaning and roots here – it never had any in the first place. For the Chinese, it's just another way to participate in some of the things that Westerners like, but do it in their own unique way, and have a blast at the same time.
Here is a video from the local Chinese YouTube rip off (called YouKu):
In another uniquely Chinese way, many of those restaurants and shops will be sporting those same Christmas decorations until well into the summer. It is not unusual for me to be having Sweet and Sour Pork somewhere in July, with a big bearded Santa watching over me.[Read Rest of Article]
Well, after a good six weeks of traveling to many different places (Singapore, Hong Kong, New York City, Maine, and finally Seattle), I'm back in Beijing now. I had originally planned to avoid coming here on account of how difficult the visa situation was supposed to be, but after some research, it turned out to be quite trivial to get a full year tourist visa (with the caveat that I have to leave every two months and then come back). But with all the pre-Olympic-hullabaloo, I was still nervous about coming back here during the middle of the games—what would things be like?
The short answer is that it's a bit more annoying here, but not ultimately not all that different. Security measures that have been in place for years but were never seriously enforced before are suddenly being checked rigorously. I awoke in a panic this morning when I realised that I slept through most of yesterday and didn't make it to the local gong an ju – public security office – to register. So I ran there this morning and started chatting with them and they were all smiles and then told me to come back later because they couldn't get to the government website anyway.
Traffic definitely is better than it was before—Banning half the cars from the road is, it seems, an awesome way to improve traffic and air quality. There are dedicated lanes for the Olympics here and there which make the occasional mess of traffic still, but overall, the roads are deserted compared to what they were merely two months ago.
Air has been harder to measure. The first two days after I arrived were very cloudy, humid, and overcast, so it didn't seem that nice out. A nice round of thunderstorms, yesterday, however, cleared nearly everything up, and today one can see the mountains surrounding the city (which I didn't notice when I first moved to China until after nearly three weeks of living here!).
Oddly enough, compared to some of the DSL I was experiencing in the USA, the Internet here is stunningly fast and reliable. Sure, some sites are blocked, but that's what SSH proxies were invented for, and I've pretty much got everything I want at my fingertips, with great speeds to boot.
My favourite thing about being back? The food. It's awesome eating here. Lots of vegetables (even the meat dishes), lots of fruit, and the occasional ice cream here and there to help with the heat and humidity. I've already hit up the good Szechuan restaurants, and will keep working on all my regular smaller places before leaving again next week.
One thing I found interesting is that, despite the obvious pride at doing so well at the Olympic games and winning so many gold medals, many Chinese people I talk with are pretty sardonic about the whole thing, recognising that governments can pretty much buy as many gold medals as they're willing to spend money on…
So, here's to hoping that by the time I come back from India, China has returned to being the same old crazy and fun place that it's been to live in. I can't wait.[Read Rest of Article]
There are lots of ways in which a website can be annoying. Favourite methods include: rotating and blinking animated GIFs (or worse, Flash), popup advertising windows, unexpected background music files, or just plain all around atrociously ugly page design. (I've been quite guilty of this in the past!)
But until you've lived in China, or at least spent some time browsing around websites here on the mainland, there's probably one way to annoy the living bejeezus out of people that you've never thought of.
To demonstrate, simply visit any Chinese website, such as the Bank of China or something else such as Chinaren. Don't worry if you can't see the characters, they're not important for this experiment. (Windows XP users can add them by going to Control Panel /International and installing the Asian Font Pack, while Vista and Mac users will have all these fonts installed already).
Once you have one of these pages up in your browser window, click on a link or two. Click on some more links on those pages. Try to get back to where you came from. Within minutes, you'll have at least a dozen browser windows littering your desktop, or at best, for those Firefox users with the correct settings, dozens of tabs.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this was specific to a few sites with particularly bad design. And you'd be totally wrong. This is completely endemic here in local website design, and is how the locals think that the "Internets" should work. Indeed, there is almost no concept of forward or back button usage any more, and it is not uncommon to see users with well over twenty browser windows littering their desktop at any given time. While Windows users can at least expect the Task Bar to group similar windows, Mac users just end up using the mouse to move the windows out of the way until needed later, or until they just close the browser application completely.
Ultimately, the problem becomes such that, if you want to fix the site design to not do things this way, you will confuse your user. When they click to go to a new page, and they then subsequently finish visiting it, they will close the browser window and proceed to go looking through their other browser windows until they find the one from whence (they hope) they came.
The only thing I can say? At least blatent ripoffs of other sites on the internet don't seem to have felt compelled to introduce this behaviour into their clones. For everybody else, it's going to take a while to change this design.[Read Rest of Article]
Living in China for the last few months has been surprisingly hassle-free Internet-wise. In the living room here I've got a 768k DSL connection, and the government blocking of sites has not been too big of a deal, given that I often don't do much more than read digg.com or check email.[Read Rest of Article]


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posted by Rebecca Keenan | 0 Comments
This evening, after a long day of sightseeing, I headed to the Schanzenviertel area of Hamburg to have some dinner and check out some of the bars there.
It's a good area for nightlife and for food, and it's got a much more laid back feel than the Reeperbahn. Plus there are lots of funky little boutiques and alternative stores in the area if you fancy a bit of shopping before dinner.
I ate at a place called Presse on Susannenstrasse this evening and had the big bowl of pasta you can see here. It was very reasonably priced and the staff were really friendly. I sat inside but there were lots of people sitting at the tables outside too, chattering away.
From there I made my way to Schulterblatt, another busy street in the Schanzenviertel area. There are lots of bars and restaurants along this street too, but I stopped off at Bedford where they do a huge selection of drinks. They've got a really busy outdoor seating area, which is a great place to sit with a drink and enjoy the atmosphere of this popular neighbourhood.
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diphth/haemophilus/pertussis/tetanus/polio (generic name)
- Addiction
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- Falls Prevention
- Financial Planning
- Fitness
- General Safety
- Health Care Basics
- Healthy Living
- Hearing Loss
- Heart Health
- High Blood Pressure
- Life Transitions
- Lung Health
- Medications
- Memory
- Men's Health
- Nutrition & Weight Management
- Osteoporosis
- Pain Management
- Preventive Health
- Sexual Health
- Sleep
- Stomach & Digestive Health
- Stress & Anxiety
- Stroke
- Women's Health
What is this medicine?DIPHTHERIA TOXOID, TETANUS TOXOID, ACELLULAR PERTUSSIS VACCINE, DTaP; HAEMOPHILUS INFLUENZA TYPE B CONJUGATE VACCINE; INACTIVATED POLIOVIRUS VACCINE, IPV (dif THEER ee uh TOK soid, TET n us TOK soid, ey SEL yuh ler per TUS iss vak SEEN, DTaP; hem OFF fil us in floo En zuh tahyp B CON ju gate ed vak SEEN; in ak tuh vey ted poh lee oh vahy ruhs vak SEEN, IPV) is used to help prevent diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, haemophilus influenza type b, and polio infections.
What should I tell my health care provider before I take this medicine?They need to know if you have any of these conditions:
- blood disorders like hemophilia
- fever or infection
- immune system problems
- neurologic disease
- take medicines that treat or prevent blood clots
- seizures
- an unusual or allergic reaction to Diphtheria Toxoid, Tetanus Toxoid, Acellular Pertussis Vaccine, DTaP; Haemophilus influenzae type b Conjugate Vaccine; Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine, IPV, other medicines, neomycin, polymyxin b, albumin, polysorbate 80, foods, dyes, or preservatives
- pregnant or trying to get pregnant
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How should I use this medicine?This vaccine is for injection into a muscle. It is given by a health care professional.
A copy of Vaccine Information Statements will be given before each vaccination. Read this sheet carefully each time. The sheet may change frequently.
Talk to your pediatrician regarding the use of this medicine in children. While this drug may be prescribed for children as young as 6 weeks for selected conditions, precautions do apply.
What if I miss a dose?Keep appointments for follow-up (booster) doses as directed. It is important not to miss your dose. Call your doctor or health care professional if you are unable to keep an appointment.
What may interact with this medicine?
- medicines that suppress your immune function like adalimumab, anakinra, infliximab, rilonacept
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What should I watch for while using this medicine?Contact your doctor or health care professional and get emergency medical care if any serious side effects occur.
This vaccine, like all vaccines, may not fully protect everyone.
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- seizures
- unusually weak or tired
Side effects that usually do not require medical attention (report to your doctor or health care professional if they continue or are bothersome):
- bruising, pain, swelling at site where injected
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Where should I keep my medicine?This vaccine is only given in a clinic, pharmacy, doctor's office, or other health care setting and will not be stored at home.
Remember, keep this and all other medicines out of the reach of children, never share your medicines with others, and use this medication only for the indication prescribed.


text:
DARRINGTON, Wash. -- Volunteers are determined to keep helping with the search effort with many spending every spare moment in the slide area.
Sometimes what seems like the smallest tasks turn out to make a big difference.
Three brothers from the Seattle area traveled to Darrington to lend a hand doing a very mundane task. In the search effort in the landslide area, chainsaws are perhaps the most important tool.
Governor Jay Inslee on Sunday mentioned how important the local loggers are to the search efforts.
"The personnel out there, through Herculean effort again using a lot of volunteers who are loggers who understand how to build roads through difficult conditions," Inslee said. "We've been able to use their expertise to build access roads."
"It's so critical for them to have fresh, sharp blades, to get their work done," said John Schwartz.
Schwartz and his brothers, Rob and Steve, knew they could help with that. They're not professionals, but they wanted to give the pros a break today.
"So probably for us, it might take 8 or 10 minutes per chain," Schwartz said.
In a 6-hour day, the Schwartz brothers knocked out about 40 chains.
"With the work they're doing up here, they go through them very quickly," he said. "We have cars parked at two different park-n-rides spread up and down the 405 corridor."
But now they are here. They are but just a small part of the rescue operation. But to the loggers and firefighters working at the slide, they are an invaluable part of the team.