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This isn't a bad product (but I would never use it on my hair), but there is absolutely nothing special about it and I think for $16 it's overpriced. The peach smell isn't bad, but there's something about it I really don't care for. There are other peach smelling products out there that smell better. I've found that my St. Ives body wash lathers better than this too.
This bottle is really cute and the product isn't bad, but it doesn't smell like peaches at all. It's kind of cheap smelling and more harsh than I'd like. I'm disappointed.
ewwie. ive had good luck loving all of the 3-in-1's ive purchased, but this one had to go back. i was hoping for the scent of a yummy ripe peach, but it smells nothing more than plastic. big disappointment.
This is one of the few times I've been disappointed by a philosophy product. It smells like drugstore hair conditioner - I'm thinking of Aussie 3-Minute Miracle, which I personally can't stand. I don't get any peach scent at all. Needless to say, I wish I hadn't spent $16 on this. Edit: I just bought some of BBW's Sparkling Peach products, and I have to say philosophy should be ashamed of themselves. Sparkling Peach is everything I wanted philosophy Peach to be and more. I can't see why philosophy can't come up with a rich, full-bodied peach fragrance at its price point.


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Osteoarthritis is a loss of or damaged joint cartilage (cushioning between the bones), and commonly affects knees and hips, but also the foot and ankle. It's a major cause of pain and disability affecting more than one in three people over 60 – though younger people get it too.
There is no cure for osteoarthritis, so treatment focuses on managing symptoms with painkillers, exercise and physical therapy. When pain and disability severely affects quality of life, joint-replacement surgery may be the best option.
There are about 50,000 knee replacements and almost 40,000 hip replacements carried out in Australia per year in recent years, with osteoarthritis being the main reason for the operations. Ankle arthritis is less common than knee or hip arthritis, and replacements are a lot less common, with around 300 per year for the last few years.
However, the surgery is expensive, recovery is long and painful, there are long waiting lists, and replacement joints don't last forever, so it's best to have these operations as few times as possible in your lifetime – which means delaying it as long as you can.
Recent research into the effects of shoes and orthotics shows promising evidence that simply changing your footwear can help prevent the further deterioration of arthritic knees.
Several studies have found that flexible, minimalist footwear (similar to shoes designed to provide an experience akin to barefoot running) appear to help people with knee arthritis by changing the way they walk, and therefore shifting the loading on the knee joint, which in turn reduces pain.
Some people swear by orthotics – though perhaps these should be custom-made, as there's little evidence that over-the-counter orthotics are effective for knee osteoarthritis. However, orthotics are helpful for foot and ankle arthritis.
This research on the role of footwear in the management of arthritis is still in its infancy, and more research is needed.
There are measures you can take to protect joints and minimise the painful symptoms of osteoarthritis:
8 May 2008 | Does glucosamine help relieve the pain of osteoarthritis? The latest research casts some doubt on the matter.
21 Feb 2014 | How to choose footcare products that work and shoes that are best for your feet.
20 Jun 2013 | As governments try to rein in health costs, identifying low-value medical procedures is a priority. We explain the issues for consumers, and tell you what you can do to ensure you get the best healthcare.
9 Mar 2012 | Given the recall of faulty hip replacement devices implanted in thousands of patients, we tell you what you need to know before surgery.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Alba Botanica • Very Emollient Bath & Shower Gel - French Lavender • Gels/Soaps
(14 reviews)
Average Rating. | 3.5 |
Would buy this product again. | 64% |
Ingredients |
*TOP REVIEWER* georgia21 on 5/29/2010 1:28:00 PM more reviews by georgia21
Age: 56 & Over Skin: Dry, Fair-Medium, Warm Hair: Red, Curly, Medium Eyes: Brown
This gel body cleanser foams up quickly and the lavender scent is mild. My skin is dry and sensitive and this body cleanser left it feeling itchy. A nice product, but not for me.
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*TOP REVIEWER* sugarlumples on 9/1/2007 11:20:00 PM more reviews by sugarlumples
Age: 25-29 Skin: Combination, Fair, Cool Hair: Brunette, Wavy, Fine Eyes: Blue
I hated the smell of this. I ordered it online without sniffing first and I ended up giving it away.
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mariacarolinacs on 3/18/2007 12:40:00 PM more reviews by mariacarolinacs
Age: 25-29 Skin: Combination Hair: Blond Eyes: Brown
I bought it on the HUGE pump bottle size, and I love that package! It's so easy to leave it on a shower shelf and pump it straight to the bath or to the sponge if I'm using it for a quick shower. I agree with some reviewers that the lavender scent is very subtle, but tha'ts what I like most. I can use it everyday and not get tired of the smell, wich I would call a "baby lavenderish". I think it's not "very emolient", but neither a drying product, it's just ok.
Not sure if I will buy it again, but just because it is so big, will last for a long time and I might want to try other scents from the same line.
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arielari on 1/14/2006 5:07:00 PM more reviews by arielari
Age: 18 & Under Skin: Normal Hair: Brown Eyes: Hazel
I got this as a gift and thought it was going to be a nice lavender scent...the lavender scent is very light! It was ok as a bubble-bath, but I couldn't smell lavender at all!
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always_smiling on 11/7/2005 4:41:00 PM more reviews by always_smiling
Age: 18 & Under Skin: Acne-prone Hair: Black Eyes: Brown
The Very Emollient shower gels are decent. Not as moisturizing as I thought they would be, however, they are gentle, cleansing, and sulfate free. The lavender fragrance is nice though and not overpowering at all.
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*TOP REVIEWER* flairgirl8 on 9/10/2005 11:37:00 AM more reviews by flairgirl8
Age: 30-35 Skin: Other Hair: Other Eyes: Other
The frech lavender scent is light and not overpowering. Cleans like any average bath gel. I bought this because it said it was very emollient but my skin felt dry and tight after cleansing with this.
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CloudsInMyBourbon on 8/18/2005 3:09:00 PM more reviews by CloudsInMyBourbon
Age: 25-29 Skin: Combination Hair: Brunette Eyes: Hazel
This is truly a very emollient shower gel (for me). The lavender scent is lovely (if you like lavender). This is one of my favorite shower gels, and really the only Alba gel I like.
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BethB on 8/9/2005 9:19:00 PM more reviews by BethB
Age: 36-43 Skin: Combination, Fair-Medium Hair: Brunette Eyes: Green
The lavender scent on this shower gel is true to the original, without any chemical undertones or sweetness to it. It lathers up nicely and rinses clean. Certainly more expensive than drugstore shower gels, but not as pricey as a department store brand.
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FallenStar841 on 7/31/2005 11:21:00 PM more reviews by FallenStar841
Age: 19-24 Skin: Oily Hair: Brunette Eyes: Hazel
I bought a large bottle of it and I really wish I hadn't. The lavender scent is ok, but then again I'm not a big fan of lavender. This stuff just doesn't lather well for me and it does not work at ALL for a bubble bath. I've pumped the bottle 8+ times under running water and still not very many bubbles appear the ones that do dissapear after about a minute. I've had my huge bottle for a while now and I can't wait to use it up. Today I actually went out and purchased Alba's Hawaiian Tropical Flower Bath Foam because I needed a bubble bath. Hopefully I have better luck with that.
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bobalina on 5/30/2005 5:50:00 PM more reviews by bobalina
Age: 25-29 Skin: Acne-prone, Fair-Medium Hair: Brunette Eyes: Hazel
This soap is so gooood. Calming, soothing, moisturizing, sulfate free...
Top Rated Gels/Soaps
Summers Eve - Feminine Wash
59 reviewsChagrin Valley All Products
66 reviewsL'Occitane Almond Shower Oil
30 reviewsIvory Moisturizing Body Wash
59 reviews


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I am in need of images, and I would like your help.
I am currently in the midst of writing an introductory textbook on Buddhism in the United States, contracted by Bloomsbury Academic. As an introduction, the book explores the history of American Buddhism from colonial contacts in Asia and the establishment of the first communities in the nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century expansion and diversification of Buddhist traditions in the US through to the present. The book will be divided into three parts dealing with history, lineages and traditions, and topical and methodological issues including art and practice, race and privilege, and modernity and globalization. Much of the discussion is being framed by the metaphor of convergence and digergance, that is, how have different cultural discourses and movements converged in Asia and the West thus giving rise to specific Buddhist discourses and communities (e.g. Buddhist modernism) while at times diverging into new lineages or movements.
It's a fairly ambitious project. It's consuming a not-insignificant part of my life.
Ideally, the book would have images galore of Buddhist sites from across the continent. Of course, I can only do so much (or have only done so much picture taking in my own travels across the country). And this is where you come in. If you would like to contribute images, it would be much appreciated.
How can you help? Join this Flickr group and add your images. I'm mostly interested in images of locations, of temples or churches, retreat centers and monasteries, ceremonies and celebrations. Images of people are okay, but getting permissions can be tricky. The book focuses on the United States, but it does make reference to other parts of North America; so if you have some amazing images of Gampo Abby, for example, feel free to add them.
Adding an image to the Flickr group in no way obligates you to have the photo used in the book. If I (or my editor) want to use the picture, we'll contact you directly before it goes to press, sometime down the road, to get all necessary permissions. Beyond that, the book will have a companion website at Bloomsbury where I'll link back to the Flickr group. So this group will have a life of its own regardless of whether or not any images show up in the printed book.
Leave a comment with any questions. And thanks in advance. Many bows.
"3:30 A.M. I'm over in the Orderly Room. I couldn't sleep. I put my coat on over my pajamas and came over here. Al Aspesi is G.Q. He's asleep on the floor. I can stay here if I answer the phone for him. What a night. Mrs. Fedder's analyst was there for dinner and grilled me, off and on, till about eleven-thirty. Occasionally with great skill, intelligence. Once or twice, I found myself pulling for him. Apparently he's an old fan of Buddy's and mine. He seemed personally as well as professionally interested in why I'd been bounced off the show at sixteen. He'd actually heard the Lincoln broadcast, but he had the impression that I'd said over the air that the Gettysburg Address was 'bad for children.' Not true. I told him I'd said I thought it was a bad speech for children to have to memorize in school. He also had the impression I'd said it was a dishonest speech. I told him I'd said that 51,112 men were casualties at Gettysburg, and that if someone had to speak at the anniversary of the event, he should simply have come forward and shaken his fist at his audience and then walked off — that is, if the speaker was an absolutely honest man."
J.D. Salinger, "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" (1955)
Let's be perfectly clear: there are riots in the streets. And it's a shame that good, honest folk are having their property destroyed. But whatever is destroyed can be replaced. The same cannot be said of Mike Brown. Or Amadou Diallo or Oscar Grant or Trayvon Martin or Eric Garner or the seemingly endless line of young black men and women who have lost their lives at the hands at those meant to "protect and serve." I've wanted to say something about all of this. And all I can think to do is shake my fist at this country and walk off.
Today is December 8, a day when many Buddhists celebrate the enlightenment of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni. Enlightenment is nothing more than the removal of ignorance and delusion. And if we can't wake up from the delusion of how our privilege and power — how our own actions — cause systemic and personal suffering, then I don't know why we're celebrating Bodhi Day in the first place.
It seems to me that the advice of the Buddha was not to change how you think about things so that you're happy and content with them as they are, but rather to see things as they are.
That might be the most important thing you read all week. Really read it. Really let it sink in. Sit with it, for god's sake.
It's from this excellent post by Richard Payne, a reflection on the ongoing reflections about mindfulness in non-Buddhist contexts, in this case, education. There are a host of companies the world over now who are advocating for mindfulness in education (I am patiently waiting for someone to raise the Lemon test, but I'm not holding my breath). Without getting into the details of that whole discourse and debate, I think this one sentence sums up my frustration with Buddhist platitudes more generally. Never-ending not-really-Buddha quotes meme-ified across the web constantly make reference to how the world is an illusion, suffering is a matter of how you look at things, "there is no spoon," etc., all of which, it seems to me, misses this most basic of points.
A few posts back, I mentioned that I had some writing goals for the summer. Here's an update.
But first, I'd like to reflect on something. The inspiration for this goal setting came from @mittensprings and, more generally, things like AcWriMo (Academic Writing Month) which challenges folks to set writing goals for a period of time and be held accountable via the internets. Most of what I've read regarding these things usually includes a word count. You'll notice my goals have no word counts. I'm lousy at that. Someone's selling some little bit of software that allows you to track your word counts, and it includes revisions which would be extremely helpful in my case. But breaking down my writing productivity into word counts doesn't make sense for me. I'm more able to gauge my ability to get stuff done by actually, well, getting stuff done, i.e., finishing a project. Academic writing, for me, is long and complicated and doesn't make a lot of sense along the way. I write drafts and outlines and chop things up into numerous copies of files and stitch them together in awkward ways and leave smart-ass notes to myself that I (usually) remember to delete before letting others read the draft which almost always gets completely gutted a least a couple times before I finally feel happy with it. I'm content measuring progress in terms of drafts and completed projects, not individual word counts.
Which brings me to what I have to report regarding this summer's goals.
A conference paper. And 3. A journal article. I'm lumping these together because they're intimately connected. First, of the journal article, not only did I finish the damn thing, I sent it off to a journal. It is now in proverbial peer-review land. So I am in proverbial "let's not think about it" land. The conference paper, in hindsight, was a lame-ass goal to make for myself. The paper I'm planning on presenting is a shortened version of the one I just submitted to the journal. Which means "writing" in this case is more "editing," a task in itself but, c'mon Scott. Really?
On the other hand, I had a really good idea for another paper based on the same body of research. I did some initial research and analysis and drafted an outline of that one. I'd like to believe that I can squeeze in some writing on that between now and mid-August, but the remaining book chapters and conference preparation are higher priorities. So we'll see.
So. That's the update. How goes your own summer research and writing?
It seems improbable to me that Danny Fisher has a day job given how frequently he posts things to the internets (including Lethal Weapons clips to my Facebook posts). Earlier today, he posted this to Twitter.
"New Amazon terms amount to 'assisted suicide' for book industry, experts claim." http://t.co/frfvX549TY
— Rev. Danny Fisher (@RevDannyFisher) June 26, 2014
The article, about Amazon changing terms of service to publishers around the world, includes this aside:
Authors will suffer as publishers claim that paying large advances is increasingly risky and, of course, authors are traditionally paid less on print books if publishers concede high discounts. On ebooks they are paid a proportion of net receipts so higher terms for Amazon will result in less money going to authors," said Solomon… The changes, she said, "highlight one wider, and growing, trend across all publishing and bookselling. Namely, that the author is the only 100% essential component in the creation of a book.
On a not-at-all unrelated topic, I received a lovely email from the editor of my book the other day. It included not only her own very encouraging and supportive feedback but the feedback of an anonymous peer reviewer which was also quite helpful. Let me tell you. When you're in the middle of a large project, deep in the weeds, it's easy to get lost, to feel like you're not at all sure you're saying things that make sense or merely talking out of your ass. So it was good day.
Also in not-unrelated news, for most of my professional academic career, I've served on a variety of committees — as an editor, advisor, peer reviewer, and so forth. I have been the man behind the curtain who herds all the cats to pull off a conference or symposium (often with amazing help and support from others). It's generally the kind of work that goes unnoticed (unless it's done poorly). I can attest from both sides of that fence — as the creator of scholarly content and one of the invisible folks who makes it possible for scholarly content to see the light of day — all persons are important. All forms of work are valuable.
Think back to the last really great book you read. Fiction or non-fiction. It wasn't just the author who created it. And it wasn't just a bookseller (local independent, online MegaCorp, or brick and mortar MegaCorp) who got into to your hands. A dozen or more people are responsible for that book being both really good and in your hands. Now think of the last book you read that was genuinely crap. And not crap because of the tangible details but crap on technical levels — being poorly copyedited, badly researched, full of factual errors. Yes, the author made some mistakes. But so did the editors and a dozen other people whose jobs it is to make sure the book isn't crap.
That's what you're paying for. It's not unlike the movies, really, except that the dozens of people who are responsible for making a movie happen all get their names in the credits. Perhaps we should starting doing that with books, too.
This isn't to say that the publishing industry — especially academic book publishing, lord knows! — is not without its flaws. There are plenty of ways to critique and improve upon the publishing model, including some valid and wholly revolutionary ideas. However, let's not kid ourselves. Really good writing can arise spontaneously and be self-published. But it's not as common as our culture — obsessed as it is with individual genius — would have you believe. (Kerouac's On the Road scroll would still be a scroll without some help from an editor.) No, really good writing is most often a collaborative affair, especially if there's only one author listed.
Which is really my long winded way of saying thank you, thank you to all the editors and other folks working behind the scenes whose names never appear in the credits. Much appreciation.
Wilson is right (as is Silk) that the Washington Post map is wrong.
I don't think we should throw it away, though. Or, at the very least, I don't think we should thumb our noses at it and say "their methodology is flawed, to hell with it." Rather, and I say this as a teacher, I think we should use it as an opportunity to discuss the limits of our knowledge and our assumptions. After all, you only ever get answers to questions you ask, and to the extent that this survey was designed by asking questions about institutions (or congregations), it necessarily reflects that bias.
But let's not assume that we're bias-free just because we can so easily see the bias in others. Wilson does a great job of critiquing the methodological flaws in this survey as they pertain to the specific case of Buddhism, including that by relying on institutional affiliation the survey necessarily misses those who practice Buddhism but don't belong to an organization while simultaneously relying on institutional membership data that might be inflated. On the other hand, surveys (such as the 2008 and 2012 Pew surveys) that rely on self-identification may underestimate numbers of Buddhists because not all persons who practice Buddhism self-identify as such or openly reject the label. These folks (see Tweed's "night stand Buddhists" and "Buddhist sympathizers") are a potentially large population who, because they eschew these two standard ways of "counting" religious adherents, are notoriously hard to quantify. Wilson, however, makes the startling claim that "[t]hese missing Buddhists almost certainly comprise the majority of people practicing Buddhism in America. So at the very best, these maps represent the relative sizes of minority religious institutions in each state rather than the actual relative number of Buddhists, Muslims, and so forth."
I'd be very curious to know how he supports this claim that the "majority" of US Buddhists fall into a category that is nearly impossible to quantify.(1)
More to the point, the continual advocacy for these "missing" Buddhists in the literature on US Buddhism is itself a sort of bias. It presumes that individual practice, absent of any institutional affiliation or self-identification, is as important or more important than traditionally defined Buddhist institutions or lineages. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I'd argue that neither of these positions is more important; they're just two aspects of what it means to do Buddhist practice in the US. Sometimes, it can be very useful to know the "relative sizes" of "institutions." After all, what is an institution if not a sangha?
Finally, I almost hate to do this, but I must. While I agree with the majority of Wilson's concerns about this survey, he uses this critique to bring us back to his regionalism approach to the study of US Buddhism. "To practice Buddhism in California may be a different thing than to practice it in South Carolina," he writes. Yes, absolutely. But I would go further. To practice Buddhism in Ukiah is most certainly a different thing than to practice Buddhism in Alturas. (I consider Jeff a colleague and a friend, and he once said to me that he thought we should go even more hyper-local in our approach. It's in that spirit that I'm writing this, to point out that the spirit of religious tolerance and experimentation in California is hardly universal in my home state.)
In 2008, by a slim margin, California voted to ban same-sex marriage (a ban since overturned). This came as a shock to folks who mistake "Hollywood" for "California." To those of us living here, we know very well that the Golden State is anything but homogenous. In places like Alturas — located in a part of the state so conservative it's tried to succeed from California and form its own state with southern Oregon — Proposition 8 passed by as wide a margin as it failed in San Francisco. Alturas, by the way, is just 300 miles away from Abhayagiri Monastery, but it may as well be 3000 miles away in terms of a place where diversity in general is celebrated.
Which brings me to a set of questions. Is flawed data necessarily useless? Or can we use flawed data pedagogically? When the 2008 Pew Report came out, many of us used it as an opportunity to reveal the flaws in our thinking about "American Buddhism" especially as it pertained to the real majority of US Buddhists (cough Asian Americans cough).(2) Can we use this set of flawed data in a useful way, to expose the limits of our thinking about states and regions? Does it make sense to talk about "California" Buddhism? On the flip side, can we locate patters of practice or belief across state lines? For example, both Dallas County, Texas, and Santa Barbara County, California, voted for Pres. Obama by the same percentage in the last election. Are these two metropolitan locations more similar to each other than they are to neighboring counties in their own states? Why or why not? Looking at the county-by-county map of US Buddhist institutions (even if that inaccurately reflects individual persons) are there similar patterns between, say, Contra Costa County, California, and Fulton County, Georgia (both of which have the same range of reported "congregations" according to this survey)? There may be. There likely aren't. But in the absence of a different type of data — ethnographies of Buddhist communities in both locations — we just don't know and shouldn't presume to know.
In short, we've got a lot to learn and a lot of unanswered questions. Stop reading this; go out there and find some answers.
Tangential aside 1: Say what you will about the Pew Reports, but I think it's worth noting that their 2012 report on Asian American religion used "religious commitment" as a category rather than membership. This had its own flaws (as a measurement based on a set of questions that included rates of attendance at worship services but did not include whether or not folks had a home altar), but I think it's a good first step toward better accounting of religious/spiritual practice and, potentially, could be used as a way to get an accurate number of this category of "missing" Buddhists. Maybe. It's something to think about, anyway.
Open question 2: It's possible that Asian American Buddhists are included in Wilson's category of "missing" Buddhists. But he doesn't explicitly say this, so I'm not sure. I'd be curious if this is what he means, and I will admit that when I first read this piece I assumed his "missing" Buddhists were a reference to the "spiritual but not religious" crowd — an assumption that might be wrong. And I'd be happy to be wrong.
Inspired by another "not that kind of doctor," I have decided that this will be a summer of writing. And accountability. Hold me to it, internet hive mind.
To wit. I've officially got a book under contract. It's not the book I thought I'd be writing this summer, but, hey, it's a book. And I'm excited about it. And I know that once the fall term starts, I'm going to wake up and it'll be May again. So I want to get as much stuff done as possible this summer. Which looks like this:
Since word counts are supposedly a good way to track progress toward those ends, the above would work out to roughly 3500 words a week. Give or take. Knowing that some work has already been done. In some cases, I'm revising drafts not writing from nothing.
Two of the four chapters are already on their way to completion. Together with stuff I've already finished for the book, that'll give me six chapters, almost half-way there.
I've already got a paper accepted to a conference in August. So I sort of need to actually write it. And the journal article has been rattling around in my head for some time now; the subject is my ongoing music project, so the paper itself shouldn't be too difficult to get done. And, importantly, I don't want to completely loose sight of this project while I'm working on the unrelated book.
I'm unsure of the blog post goal. I know there's value in doing non-academic writing. I also know that I don't always have anything worth saying (which, regrettably, doesn't always stop me), so I'm not sure how or if to quantify that one. Thoughts?
These goals pale in comparison to the other doctor's goal. I am in awe of her. I am also mindful of other professional and family obligations I've got, so I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment. That would be lame.
So it's okay to say a prayer before a government meeting. This was not news to me. I am not surprised.
First, this is a quick and dirty post about why I'm not a fan of quick and dirty writing. Daniel Burke, religion writer for CNN, declares that today's US Supreme Court "ruling upsets #Hindus #Jews #atheists, #Buddhists, #AlmostEveryReligiousMinority." My first reaction to his tweet was, "Not me." I want to be clear. I want to be clear. It does bother me, but not that much. My lack of irritation is a result of an awareness of context, which I'll get to. Burke's tweet is deliberately provocative. The linked article has a completely different headline, and whereas Americans United for Separation of Church and State is quoted and "Groups from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism to the Hindu American Foundation decried Monday's decision," these two statements do not warrant the conclusion that there is some mass of non-Christians out there seething and carrying torches and pitchforks.
Second, let's be clear about something. While I agree with Kagen, when Burke writes "She suggested that the five justices who formed the majority — all of whom are Catholic — don't understand what it's like to belong to a minority faith in America," and that "they are members of the country's largest church, Roman Catholicism" — that's just wrong. As to the first point, Catholics are indeed a "minority" religion in this country. Lest we forget, out of forty-four US Presidents, how many have been Catholic? JFK's speech defending his Catholicism may seem like a long time ago to people with no sense of history; but it wasn't that long ago. And note that no one's been able to replicate his results. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church might be big, but this statement that it's the "largest church" is misleading. It implies that there are more Catholics in this country than other Christians. This is wrong. Very wrong. Christians, as a whole, make up nearly 75% of the population, and only 23% of the population is Catholic. By definition, Catholics are a minority. Glossing over the diversity of approaches to Christianity is part of the problem. It presumes that just because they all fall under the category of "Christian" that they all adhere to some similar set of beliefs or approaches to religion. It essentializes and reduces complexity to sound bites. (Ahem, note that Justice Sotomayor dissented. And she's Catholic.)
Oh, and by the way, calling attention to the Justice's religious identities suggests that they are motivated not by their commitment to the US Constitution but by their religious beliefs which reinforces the idea that people are guided not by individual conscious but by group-think. Now, this may be true in the cases of the majority decision today. I have no idea. But, then again, neither do you. Until one of them says something like "They didn't bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship. Let's get real, let's go back and learn our history," we don't know what motivated them apart from what they wrote in today's decision. Which I haven't read. Because I haven't had time. I suspect most of us won't ever actually read it, but we can't assume that people are motivated by sinister religious forces without evidence. To assume people are motivated by sinister religious forces without evidence is prejudicial.
Third, why is surprising? Have we forgotten what country we live in? Here. Let me remind you of this:
Here's the deal. A Hindu chaplain is being heckled by an evangelist Christian. That's a messed up thing to do, to be sure. But let's be clear about this. A Hindu chaplain is leading a prayer in front of the US Senate. Why? Because every session of Congress opens with a prayer. This isn't some little town-hall meeting in the middle of upstate New York no one's ever heard of. This is the United States Senate.
Also, that line about the Koran I tossed out up there. It came from this guy, an Alabama state judge. It's an actual quote. From a judge. Who was elected to his seat by citizens of the state of Alabama. It's maddening.
In this context, is today's ruling so surprising? Given our country's history, is it really so out of place?
This does not mean that we should just accept this and let it go. Far from it. I want to be perfectly clear here. I agree with Kagen's assessment of a hypothetical Muslim speaking before the town hall. I agree that prayer shouldn't be in public meetings. But I also firmly believe that in order for us to get from here to there, we need to move past reductionist and reactionary commentary that is divorced from larger considerations of culture and history. I recognize that there is an impulse to comment on everything as soon as it happens, that the news cycle feels compelled to throw up stories all over the web or in print as soon as they happen — the "nowness" of news. But the problem with the now is that it often comes as the cost of perspective. We loose sight of the big picture by being focused on the minutia. There is a way to react to current events without loosing sight of the broader scope of history (I hope that this post is evidence of that). And by doing so, we can elevate the discussion from the realm of "group A is pissed off at group B" to the realm of, hey, life's messy and complicated and some people are hurt by it; let's come together and make things better so that people stop getting hurt.
I'm writing a book. Well, I'm actually writing two books, sort of, but I'm not ready to talk about any of that right now. Mostly, I want to talk about failure.
In the process of looking through notes of projects past for one of these books I'm working on, I came across the second revision of my dissertation. Following my grad school career, I re-wrote, almost from scratch, my dissertation for publication twice. It was twice rejected. Following the second rejection, I decided it was time to let that one go and move on to other things. I was as happy as one can be with the dissertation; I was less happy with my re-writes. I had the sense that I was cramming too much into them. The immediate years following graduation were an awkward time for me, academically, and while I know I produced some good work then (or at least did some good research that lead to better work down the road), I don't think those dissertation revisions were my best work. Not by a long shot.
Nevertheless, skimming over some of the stuff I wrote for that second revision, I had that moment of, "huh, there's some interesting bits in here. I wonder if I could revisit this, spruce it up, and see if I can resurrect it from the dead." That thought was short-lived. I then looked at the peer review feedback I got when it was rejected and was reminded how much work would be required to do the resurrecting. Pro tip: once you've let a project go, don't go back and read the negative criticism. It'll just depress you.
I'm a believer in failure. By that I mean that I think there's some value in working your ass off on something, putting it out there, and then falling on your face. You might learn something. You might discover what you're capable of and what you're not. You might be able to take some of that and pour it into another project.
But let's be honest. It also blows.
I really have no sense of what being a "success" in this field would look like. I recognize that, from a certain point of view, I have some sort of success. If anything, I have a job, which is a lot more than some of my friends and colleagues can say, trapped in adjunct hell. But does "having a job" count as success? Shouldn't there be a book out there with my name on the cover? How about tenure? Or, on those rare instances when Buddhism pops up in the news, would those who get reporter phone calls be considered successes? What about keynote speeches at flashy x-Buddhist conferences? This kind of stuff can drive a person crazy, and I'm fairly convinced that being driven crazy is an occupational hazard. Not one unique to academia, to be sure, but it seems to be an important part of being an academic to the extent that the filed is defined by intellectual output and achievements that are all relative, arbitrary, subjective, and unevenly applied. Success, whatever it might mean, is fuzzy.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that since one's success is based on sometimes unknown or arbitrary criteria including intellectual output, and since intellectual output is accomplished by some fuzzy combination of personal effort and the vagaries of the publishing world, when you fail, if you're like me, it's hard not to let that failure in some way define you.
I've read such confessional literature as this from folks in other fields — mostly creative or artistic — confessions that speak to the way in which failure turns into self-doubt. In my case, this manifests itself as an inability to get stuff done, turning into a proverbial deer in headlights while sitting before the blank page. Whatever successes I've had in my career, they are crowded out by voices born of failures and rejections.
I really want to be clear here that I'm not writing this as a confessional, per se, and I'm really really not writing it looking for sympathy. I'm not feeling particularly "woe is me" today, nor do I need the support or encouragement of "the Internet" to see me through the next bought of writer's block. I'm mostly writing this to reflect on how weird this career of mine is, and to put into words something that I'm sure is a shared experiences, even if it's not expressed by people very often. An academic career is weird in that you are judged by your intellectual output, and as such there's a pretty clear connection between one's sense of self and how one makes a living. If I assembled boxes for a living, and made some particularly crappy box one day, whatever. (No disrespect to box workers.) If I write a particularly bad book (which I did, apparently, twice), then I'm an idiot. And I suspect that a lot of folks in my field have this experience, that despite our usual type-casting as arrogant, pedantic, asshats, we are at times not only wrong, not only spectacular failures, but we know it. And it sucks.
And when that happens, there's only one thing to do. Get back to work.
The internet is outraged.
There's always something. Perhaps it's a celebrity that has said something sexist. Or a minor public intellectual who's made a bad joke or used a racist slur. I don't know. But I do know this: first and most importantly, it's okay it be pissed off and to call people out on their bad behavior; secondly, it probably won't change anything.
Of the first point, because it's worth stressing so as to avoid a slew of angry comments and hate mail, when people say and do stupid things, they should be called out on it. A lot of the time, people either don't know that they're behaving like assholes or they think they can get away with it; either way, they're never going to learn unless it's pointed out to them. So, carry on Twitter. Carry on.
Of the second point, I'm reminded of a YouTube video I was pointed to earlier this week. It was made by a guy who's spent some time in Buddhist academia (as well as Buddhist monasteries), and his overall point in the video seems to be that people are sort of jerks. To use his term, frauds. That is, they lack personal integrity and behave like pompous, fatuous blow-hards despite the idealizations that academia is supposed to be a place of open dialogue and critical thinking. (Or, conversely, they behave like small-minded ignorant dolts despite the fact that Buddhist monastics are supposed to be, I don't know, enlightened or something.) The video was not particularly revelatory to me because (a) well, duh; and (b) pointing out how individual people can be less-than-perfect idealized version of the people we want to be is easy. Proverbial shooting fish in a barrel easy. There are always going to be people who behave badly. That's the nature of game. (And the game, by the way, is samsara.)
So what are you gonna do about it? The answer to that question has to do with making a crucial distinction between personal bad behavior and systems of institutional discrimination. The former is good old fashioned prejudice, prejudice that can come in the form of cultural chauvinism, sexism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, racism, ableism, and so forth. This kind of personal prejudice is easy to spot because it comes up in everyday, personal interactions we have with other people. Someone makes a "dumb blond" joke. Hello casual sexism! Someone uses the word "gay" to refer to something they don't like. Oh, hi there heteronormativity! It's good to call these things out, and it's a worthwhile hobby to catalog and note our inherited and uncritically accepted biases and predispositions. I have no doubt of that.
But I also have no doubt about the fact that if we want to change the system that allows for these biases and prejudices to persist, unchecked and unchallenged, we also need to address precisely that: the systems that undergird them. There is a difference between personal bias and institutional discrimination. Here's an example.
For about a century, little black kids and little white kids went to different schools in the US. This was justified by the logic of "separate but equal," a legal (i.e., institutional) system put into place by the US Supreme Court in 1896. It was undone by a 1955 Supreme Court case called Brown v. Board of Education. When his state's schools were told to desegregate, the governor of Arkansas said, basically, "Hell no." Now, it's easy to see his individual behavior as reflecting personal prejudice. No question about that, and we'd be right to say, "Hey, Mr. Faubus, you're a closed-minded racist idiot. Please stop." President Eisenhower had a different tactic. He sent federal troops to Arkansas to protect the rights and freedoms of African American citizens who wanted to go to an all-white school.
Now, here's the thing. I don't really know anything about Pres. Eisenhower. But I'm willing to bet that, given the facts of when he was born and where he was raised, he probably had personal opinions about people of color that would not have jived with our early twenty-first century sensibilities. I'm willing to bet that he never used the term "person of color" but probably did use all sorts of other words that start with the letter "n" to refer to African Americans. But you know what? I don't care. I don't care what his personal beliefs or individual attitudes were because when push came to shove, in the case of Little Rock, Arkansas, he defended a law that was explicitly designed to deconstruct a system of institutional racism.
That's the distinction between personal and institutional discrimination. It's a worthwhile project to be outraged and to catalog instances of personal prejudice only insofar as, in the aggregate, they reflect larger systems of institutional inequality and imbalances of power. But also know that if you want to undo those systems of power, complaining about individual stupidity isn't going to do much without simultaneously actually working toward undoing institutional systems of power and inequality.
How do you undo institutional systems of power and inequality? That's complicated. And because it's complicated is why no one blogs about it. The fact of the matter is that you undo them either through large-scale revolution or though smaller acts of resistance. Large scale revolution isn't something I can advocate (but only because I'm opposed to literally bashing people's heads in even for the Greater Good). And smaller acts of resistance tend to be just that: small and largely ignorable by larger systems of communication. Maybe you're working for a local community activist group. Or donate time and money to some charitable cause. Or serve on the board of your community and, when some prejudiced blowhard proposes some new policy that you know will have negative consequences for already marginalized people, you stand up and say "Hell no." That one act of resistance, even if no one but your fellow board members notice, can mean everything.
And I know that some of you reading this have had that experience. And to you I say, thanks. Keep up the good fight.


text: NB If you are not coming to Copenhagen - see how to "Help From Home" section below. Solidarity! ------------- COP15: Call for Indymedia / Alt-media for Copenhagen - Be The Media! This is a call for participation in the Indymedia / Alt-media reporting of the massive Cop15 Climate Conference in Copenhagen, and the protests, actions and meetings around it. There less than 20 days until the Cop15 starts (7th-18th December), and the majority of protests will occur in the last week of the conference (see below). Denmark is a very small country and the experienced activists are working hard, but they are very few compared to the thousands of people who will come to Copenhagen. People are needed to help. So far the international indymedia co-ordination is just gathering speed, so this is a call for people to get involved - both people who may plan to come to Copenhagen, and those who stay at home and who can also help amplify the messages. **COME TO COPENHAGEN: If you are coming to Copenhagen there will be an open access media centre with computers to use: The House of Solidarity: Solidaritetshuset, Griffenfeldtsgade 41 (see google map: http://tiny.cc/cop) Please let us know if you are coming and what kind of reporting you plan to do - email the mailing list: cop15-mediacenter a lists.aktivix.org (or join it if you wish to be kept up to date or help out, share reporting etc) https://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/cop15-mediacenter (list archive available to members only, open to join list) There is also a wiki which has been started to co-ordinate here: https://systemausfall.org/wikis/guerrilla-is/COP15 You can also email Indymedia DK at imc-denmark a lists.indymedia.org (open public archive list) **PUBLISH: Upload reports from copenhagen to the http://indymedia.dk website (Nb the website will soon be upgraded to include many new features, including video and audio players, and a mobile version available on web enabled mobile phones, including mobile publish). Climate IMC (http://climateimc.org) is also planning to cover the protests and pull together as much of the reporting as possible - they put out a call here: http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-climate-organising/2009-November/1116-of.html **TAG + SHARE CONTENT: If your website, blog or indymedia website has an RSS feed of Cop15 coverage then please let us know so that it can be included in coverage. If you are uploading your content anywhere else, please TAG it with "cop15imc" so that your media can be included in an aggregation of content. If you plan any video or audio streaming then also please let us know! You can add your info, or other sources that you know about here: https://systemausfall.org/wikis/guerrilla-is/cop15rss **MOBILE REPORTING: If you are going to use your mobile phone to publish pictures or video or use Twitter, again, please TAG your media with #cop15imc (NB other tags that are being used in connection with cop15 include: #cop15 #climatejustice #cja #climateaction and others like #350ppm #hopenhagen and surely more will appear) The Indymedia.dk website will have a mobile version available for the start of cop15 at http://mob.indymedia.dk where you can read the latest news on your phone as well as submit short reports and pictures directly to the website. **HELP FROM HOME: If you are not coming to Copenhagen then your help is still needed. You can help by being online to participate in information gathering, translating articles, recommending links, writing features, amplifying and spreading the coverage across other websites etc If you see good Cop15 coverage / articles / photos / video on other indymedias or alternative websites, you can recommend the link here: http://indymedia.dk/other_medias/new To participate during Cop15, come to https://irc.indymedia.org/ and join the #cop15 channel. More information will come soon about how to join in and help out. You can also join the imc-climate-organising list here: http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-climate-organising We hope to hear from you soon! Be the media! Solidarity, Cop15 International IMC Reporting Group on Indymedia dk ---------- SEE ALSO: EVENTS: http://www.indymedia.dk/articles/1309 http://www.climate-justice-action.org/mobilization/action-calendar/ GUIDE TO COPENHAGEN; ACCOMODATION, TRAVEL ETC http://www.climate-justice-action.org/practical-info/copenhagen-info/ MAP: http://maps.google.dk/maps/ms?hl=da&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=110184864820337772851.0004721cd3e3063d58abf&ll=55.678746,12.589989&spn=0.090594,0.308647&source=embed (also available via http://tiny.cc/cop ) ---------


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March 3, 2015
Saturday, June 1, 2013
It's official in Bamberg. One of the best tight end prospects in the nation is ready to be a Gamecock.
Kevin "KC" Crosby hasn't even started his senior year of high school, but after receiving nearly fifty scholarship offers already, he wanted to close the book on this stressful chapter of his life.
He came into Saturday choosing between South Carolina, Alabama and Florida, but in the end, his original favorite won out.
"They were my first offer as a freshman," Crosby said. "They've been there from the beginning, and as the recruiting process has gone on they've shown me a lot of love. That's where I feel like I fit in the best up there, and I feel like I can excel in their program in academics and on the field."
Crosby said he didn't really make his final decision until Friday night after praying on it for awhile.
His dad, Bamberg-Ehrhardt Head Coach Butch Crosby, said the family was getting calls from teams clear up until 11:00 p.m. Friday night.
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or email@example.com.


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Afghanistan Topics
Democracy Now! has regularly covered the Afghanistan War since it was launched Oct. 7, 2001. Over the years, we have interviewed dozens of independent journalists, civilians living in the conflict zones, scholars, veterans, and antiwar activists.
- The coming weeks hold critical significance for the US occupation of Afghanistan. The Senate is expected to vote on the Obama administration's $128 billion request to fund war operations in Afghanistan and Iraq for the coming fiscal year. Next week, the Obama administration will unveil a report on whether US benchmarks for success in Afghanistan are being achieved. It's widely believed President Obama will receive a military...September 15, 2009 | Story
- The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has submitted a long-awaited review of the Afghan war. The New York Times reports although McChrystal's assessment doesn't call for sending more US troops, it effectively lays the groundwork for such a request in the coming weeks. The assessment comes on the heels of the deadliest month for US troops in Afghanistan since the US invasion nearly eight years ago....September 01, 2009 | Story
- The Pentagon is canceling its contract with the private public relations firm The Rendon Group to produce background profiles of journalists seeking to cover the war. One journalist profiled was Nir Rosen, who got a hold of his profile. The Rendon Group reported to the Pentagon that Rosen's reporting in Afghanistan was "highly unfavorable to international efforts." The Rendon Group profile also mentioned Rosen's appearance on Democracy...September 01, 2009 | Story
- The US Army in Afghanistan has admitted it pays a private company to produce background profiles on journalists covering the war. The Pentagon has been on the defensive ever since the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes revealed this week that journalists were being screened by the Washington-based public relations firm, the Rendon Group, under a $1.5 million contract with the military. Documents obtained by the paper reveal journalists were...August 28, 2009 | Story
- In Afghanistan, election authorities are preparing to publish the first partial results from last week's presidential election, but the small sample of ten percent may do little to resolve a dispute over the outcome. The August 20th election was marred by fraud, intimidation, violence and low turnout in many areas. The Electoral Complaints Commission says it is looking into at least 250 allegations of misconduct. We go to Kabul to speak...August 25, 2009 | Story
- US military commanders have reportedly told the US special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, that they need more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. Last week, President Obama defended the expansion of the war, calling it a "war of necessity." We speak with Harvard professor Stephen Walt, who argues that the President's "safe haven" argument for expanding the US military presence in Afghanistan should be...August 25, 2009 | Story
- Millions of Afghans are voting in presidential and provincial elections today amid tight security and threats of violence from the Taliban. There are also widespread concerns about corruption, with reports of voting cards being openly sold and of candidates offering large bribes. We speak to independent journalist Rick Rowley in northern Afghanistan and get analysis from radio host and author Sonali Kolhatkar. [includes rush transcript]August 20, 2009 | Story
- One of Afghanistan's most feared warlords has returned to Afghanistan just days before its presidential election. General Abdul Rashid Dostum is one of several warlords who have allied with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is seeking a new term. Karzai is hoping Dostum's return will help attract ethnic Uzbek voters. Dostum's return to prominence in Afghanistan comes despite his role overseeing a 2001 massacre at...August 18, 2009 | Story
While President Obama defended his escalation of the war in Afghanistan on Monday, in Britain, America's closest ally, antiwar sentiment is growing. This week, the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 surpassed 200. Yesterday in central London, protesters read the names of the 200 British soldiers, as well as the names 200 Afghan citizens killed in the war. The demonstration in Whitehall was led by former British MP...August 18, 2009 | Story
- A new documentary premiering tonight on HBO provides a harrowing look at today's Afghanistan, where violence and corruption continue to ravage the country. It's called Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. It tells the story of Ajmal, a young Afghan journalist, translator and coordinator working for American journalist Christian Parenti. In 2007, Ajmal was kidnapped by Taliban forces, along with Italian reporter Daniele...August 17, 2009 | Story
Show for Mar 05, 2015
Justice Dept. Seeks Overhaul of Ferguson Police over Systemic Racial Bias
Ferguson Mayor Fires Officer But Silent on Police Chief's Fate
Justice Dept. Confirms No Civil Rights Charges for Officer Darren Wilson
Rebel Attack Kills Dozens in Aleppo
U.S., Iran Claim Progress as Nuclear Talks Pause
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Wounded in Knife Attack Linked to Military Drills
GOP Senate Fails to Override Obama Keystone XL Veto
Christie Admin Accused of Forcing Lenient Exxon Settlement for Environmental Damage in New Jersey


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Football tournament at the AoL
by Foundation of Light
Academy hosts charity corporate five-a-side tournament.
Local businesses are being given the fantastic opportunity to take part in a five-a-side football tournament at Sunderland's state-of-the-art Academy of Light training headquarters.
The Foundation of Light is calling on local businesses to don their football kits and boots for charity and sign up for the Foundation 5's Corporate Football Challenge.
The annual tournament sees 10 teams compete in two groups of five, with the top two qualifying for the semi-finals. The winning team will not only collect the top prize of tickets for Sunderland's Barclays Premier League clash with Chelsea in November, they will also be presented with the 'Corporate Challenge Trophy' to be displayed at their workplace.
The runners-up will receive medals and vouchers for the action packed Delta Force Paintball in Cramlington.
Teams can enter a squad of eight players, with rolling substitutions, only for £150 +VAT per team - which equates to just £22.50 per player. Places are very limited and the closing date is 30th October 2012.
Wes English, Foundation of Light Business Development Manager said: "This event not only gives businesses the chance to raise morale and boost team spirit but to actually play on the same pitches that the Sunderland first team use for training. On top of this, all proceeds from the event go to supporting community education and sporting programmes across the area, so by taking part they'll be giving back to the community too."
To book a team onto the event contact Wes on 0191 5515386 or email firstname.lastname@example.com


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State Rental Assistance Program
Elderly set-aside: reserved for senior citizens aged 62 or older.
Homeless set-aside: reserved for homeless families with children, graduates of transitional housing programs, and households that are currently participating in a DCA-administered temporary housing assistance program and facing homelessness due to termination of funding.
Family set-aside: reserved for households on the S-RAP waiting list.
Disabled set-aside: reserved for disabled head of households or spouse.
Project-based set-aside: reserved for project-based assistance for special initiatives under the State Rental Assistance Program that may include collaborations with the Division of Youth and Family Services and may include other special populations
Income Limits: Seventy-five percent of the participants admitted to the program must be extremely low-income families (30 percent of area median income as defined by region and household size), in accordance with the income guidelines published annually by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The remaining applicants shall not exceed 40 percent of low-income limits (by county) as defined in accordance with the HUD guidelines.
Voucher Limits: The rental subsidy under the State Rental Assistance Program will be for up five years; less, if a Housing Choice Voucher becomes available
A rental subsidy under the State Rental Assistance Program for Elderly and disabled will be unlimited.


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SXSW Releases Official Schedule for 2015 Music Festival
The 2015 edition of the SXSW Music Festival is just one month away!
The 2015 edition of the SXSW Music Festival is just one month away!
Saturday dawned clammy with rain showers at South by Southwest, which made for humid going as it warmed up on the last day of this year's festival.
Remember when Jimmy Kimmel's 'Lie Witness News' went to Coachella last year? Well, the skit is back.
Everyone knows you don't mess with Texas. They have flags that tell us that. T-shirts. Bandanas. You don't mess with Texas. Well, no one told 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' favorite Cousin Sal. Or, more likely, someone did, and he decided to run with it.
This year's SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas featured former CIA agent Edward Snowden. Snowden was not on site, but here you'll see HOW he appeared and what he spoke about to the standing room only crowd.
Two people died and 23 were injured after a car driven by a drunken driver slammed into a crowd at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Tex., early this morning.
My co-workers know I'm no fan of Grumpy Cat. It's ridiculous. But hey, I find a lot of other stupid things funny. What I DO find funny, is the massive line of people who showed up to meet this stupid internet sensation in Austin, TX for South By Southwest.
As Prince blew minds and brought the funk at La Zona Rosa, the Smashing Pumpkins closed out SXSW 2013 with their own exclusive Austin showcase, performing at the Red Bull Sound Select Stage for a crowd of 350. As mxdwn.com reports, Billy Corgan and the gang turned in a career-spanning set, mixing such classics as 'Cherub Rock' (watch above) and 'Tonight, Tonight' with cuts from last year's 'Oceania.'
Prince closed out SXSW 2013 with a nearly three-hour set comprising hits, surprise covers and typically quotable stage banter, according to numerous sources lucky enough to get in. Backed by the latest version of his New Power Generation -- now with 12-piece horn section -- the Purple Yoda held the stage at Austin's La Zona Rosa until 3AM, stringing together a main set and six encores, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer.
There's no way anyone can check out everything that happens at South by Southwest. It's impossible. Even if you moonlighted as the world's greatest superhero, you wouldn't be able to check out every single thing that goes down at one of the year's most buzzed-about music fests
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl delivered the keynote speech at SXSW 2013 earlier today (March 14), covering a wide range of topics during his hour-long chat, including Nirvana, his 'Sound City' documentary and his surprising love for the Psy YouTube hit 'Gangnam Style.'
Iggy and the Stooges came, they saw and they conquered Austin's South by Southwest Wednesday night (March 13). The band, who are currently ramping up to the release of their 'Ready to Die' album, played both new songs and classics at Austin's Mohawk club.


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Prices and availability are subject to change from the time and date that you print this page.
3/4/2015 11:21:03 PM. For Customer Service, please call
Crate and Barrel Exclusive
Outlet Item. Available for Shipping Only.
The Story
Joyful combinations of cheerful graphics and eclectic collages celebrate high-spirited gatherings, small and grand. Mix, stack and overlap the dynamic patterns of Paola Navone's Party collection into a patchwork of party. Snippets of geometric motifs, solids and a glimpse of watermelon play out in a bright, abstract mix.


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Book your room at Hotel Ascot
Waterfront hotel with an outdoor pool
This Rimini hotel is set on the beach a short distance from Beach Village Water Park, Fiabilandia, and Riccione Swimming Stadium. Local attractions also include Riccione Stadium and Multiplex le Befane.
Hotel Features
In addition to a restaurant, Hotel Ascot features an outdoor pool. Other amenities include a poolside bar and a bar/lounge.
Room Amenities
Flat-screen televisions come with satellite channels. Guestrooms also feature complimentary wireless Internet access, climate control, and safes.
Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
The hotel offers a restaurant. Guests can unwind with a drink at one of the hotel's bars, which include a poolside bar and a bar/lounge. A complimentary breakfast is offered. Public areas are equipped with complimentary high-speed wireless Internet access.
This beach hotel also offers an outdoor pool, a rooftop terrace, and tour/ticket assistance. Onsite parking is available (surcharge).
- 24-hour front desk
- Babysitting or childcare (surcharge)
- Total number of rooms - 63
- Number of floors - 7
- Bar/lounge
- Concierge services
- Elevator/lift
- Tours/ticket assistance
- One meeting room
- Multilingual staff
- Garden
- Poolside bar
- Restaurant
- Pool sun loungers
- Self parking (surcharge)
- Number of buildings/towers - 1
- Free breakfast
- Free WiFi
- Beach/pool umbrellas
- Rooftop terrace
- Outdoor pool
- Television in lobby
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi
Self parking (surcharge)
Room Amenities
- Balcony
- Climate control
- Minibar
- Private bathroom
- Hair dryer
- Shower only
- Desk
- In-room safe
- Rollaway/extra beds available
- Satellite TV service
- Flat-panel TV
- Room service (24 hours)
- Connecting/adjoining rooms available
- Cribs/infant beds (surcharge)
- Free WiFi
Where to Eat
Guests are offered a complimentary continental breakfast.
Onsite venue - This restaurant specializes in Italian cuisine and serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
24-hour room service is available.
Nearby Activities
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Sailing nearby
- Windsurfing nearby
- Bicycle rentals nearby
- Hot springs nearby
Hotel Policies
Check-in time ends at midnight
Check-in time starts at noon
Check-out time is 10 AM
Payment types
Pets allowed, Only dogs and cats are allowed, Maximum number of pets per room 1
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on hotel policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
- A tax is imposed by the city: EUR 2.50 per person, per night. This tax does not apply to children under 14 years of age.
- Self parking fee: EUR 10 per day
- Pet fee: EUR 5.00 per pet, per day
- Crib (infant bed) fee: EUR 10.00 per day
We should mention
Cash transactions at this property cannot exceed EUR 999.99, due to national regulations. For further details, please contact the property using information in the booking confirmation. The property has connecting/adjoining rooms, which are subject to availability and can be requested by contacting the property using the number on the booking confirmation.


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Contact Us |
Site Map |
Customer Care |
Privacy Policy
© University of Washington 2015. All rights reserved.
UW Game At Boise State Slated For Fri., Sept. 4
The Washington football team's season-opening game at Boise State will be played on Friday, Sept. 4, and will air on ESPN television.
Dawgs Welcome 24 Newcomers In 2015 Class
UW coach Chris Petersen completed his second recruiting class today as the Huskies received National Letters of Intent from 22 future Dawgs to go with two newcomers who have already enrolled at the UW.
The Details: �Methodical� Process Lands �Good Players, Good Kids�
The Details: �Methodical' Process Lands �Good Players, Good Kids'


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SASSI is an Autism Support Group for parents/guardians of children or young people with an autistic spectrum disorder. All are welcome whether there has been a diagnosis or there is one pending. We offer a social opportunity to talk to parents in the same situation and an opportunity to talk informally to a variety of professionals. There is a formal talk on a variety of subjects suggested by parents. We meet every month in a primary school hall; the location changes each time.
We hold fund raising and activities as well as social events for adults and children. We have close links to Autism West Midlands and the National Autistic Society.
Committee Update!
At The Wilson Arms, Knowle, 7.30pm.
Goodbye and thank you
Goodbye and thank you to Tom Bradshaw for etting up and maintaining the SASSI website. He is going travelling for a year so we will be changing the site soon. Please look at our Facebook page for details of future meetings for the time being.
Kevin Baskerville on Anxiety Issues and ASD Stress Bucket
Kevin Baskerville will be running a session about Anxiety Issues and ASD Stress on Wednesday, January 15th at Widney Junior School, Solihull.
Troubled Aspie Teens
Alex Evans from Optimism in Autism will be running the session 'Troubled Aspie Teens' at Kingshurt Academy CTC on Thursday, February 27th
Strategies at home and school from SISS
This session will be run at Sharman's Cross Junior School on Tuesday March 18th.
For more info, check our facebook page, or contact Jan Bradshaw - 0121 770 6267 email@example.com
Asperger's into Volunteering
Do you have Asperger syndrome? Are you over 18 years old? Not in education or employment? Want to use your talents and interests? Want to do something worthwhile? Want to gain work experience? Want to develop your self-awareness and confidence?
Yes? Then volunteering could be for you!
We have great links with organisations in Solihull seeking volunteers in a wide range of activities.
Let us help you find an ideal opportunity.
To find out more contact: Maureen Shepherd Email: email@example.com
Text or phone: 07789 935212
Or visit www.solihull-sustain.org.uk/volunteering
Please click on one of the links if you would like to download the SASSI Accounts and the Annual Report from the chair.
Dimensions - Our comment on the Draft Care & Support Bill report & Social Care Charter reopened
19th March 2013. Today the Joint Committee for Draft Care and Support Bill presented their report.
Commenting on the Committee's report on the Draft Care and Support Bill, Steve Scown, Chief Executive Officer of Dimensions said:
"The report highlights the number of ways in which the proposed reforms to social care must be improved so that people who are vulnerable receive high quality support at the right time, in the right place and in the right way for them. With the most significant reform in decades, there is a great opportunity to transform an outdated, reactive, process-led system into a social support network that works in partnership to deliver support that is personal and actively focused on what people can do not what they can't. But this requires a complete shift in commissioning culture, social care delivery and earlier and better engagement of people requiring support and their loved ones.
People we support with learning disabilities and autism have told us how important having choice and control over their lives is to them and articulated this in a charter they produced. They want to have a voice, to have control over their support funding, be able to participate in the community and enjoy greater independence."
To mark the publication of this report, we are re-launching our Social Care Charter which has now been re-opened to the public.
We had lots of support on the charter in 2012 and earlier this year - if you didn't get involved last time read our charter in full and make your pledge today!
Head to our Facebook and Twitter pages to join the conversation and share your views.
Face2Face - Are you the parent of a child with a disability or special need?
Face2Face offers emotional support to parents of children who have been recognised as having a disability or special need.
We link parents of disabled children with local parent befrienders. This can be at the time of diagnosis, or during any time of stress.
We have recently launched a new service, a parent's group aimed at parents of children with emotional, social and behaviour related difficulties, such as Autistic Spectrum Disorders, ADHD, OCD, challenging behaviour. The group will be facilitated by the Face2Face Co-ordinator and 2 befrienders, giving parents the chance to discuss the problems they face, as well as an opportunity to meet others in a similar situation in a relaxed, informal environment.
The group meets at Chapel Fields Children's Centre, Lyndon Road, Olton, B92 7QF from 10.00 until 12.00, on the following dates:
May 14th, June 11th and July 9th 2013
There will be crèche facilities available, advance booking will be required. A buffet lunch will be provided.
For more information or to reserve a place, please contact:
Joanne Bussey, Face 2 Face Co-ordinator
Telephone: 0121 444 8584, Mobile: 07772 010 685
E mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Face2Face foundation training programme
To help us meet the needs of the high number of referrals we are receiving and help to support more parents of children with special needs in Solihull we will be running another Face2Face foundation training programme, starting after February half term. The course consists of one day per week for 10 weeks (school hours, term time only, expenses paid), delivered within a quality, structured and monitored scheme. They are currently recruiting parents who would like to become volunteers.
Any parents who have a child with special needs in Solihull, who is 2 years post diagnosis (or post realisation of difference if there is no diagnosis), who would have a lot to offer other parents travelling a similar journey to them, please contact:
Joanne Bussey
(Face2Face Coordinator for Solihull)
Telephone: 0121 444 8584
Mobile: 07772010685


text:
Timeless: The Multiple Countdown Timer & Stopwatch with Style goes 2.0 with its latest update, adding an updated design that molds well with the upcoming iOS7 release. The update also increases the app's performance rate of up to 60% faster and implements an option that allows users to countdown seconds.
If that's not enough to make you curious about the 99 cent version, they have also released a new free version that features 2 timers, 2 color themes, and 2 notification sounds.
BEGIN COUNTDOWN! (Not sure what for though…maybe Christmas? Yes! Christmas!)


text:
NEWTON's HOME PAGE
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Vacuum Energy and Universe Expansion
Name: George Status: student Age: N/A Location: N/A Country: N/A Date: N/A
This question is essentially about the nature of "vacuum energy." If virtual particles pop in and out of existence based on the rules of quantum uncertainty, why is not the energy of the vacuum being progressively depleted given that space is expanding and the conservation laws say that energy cannot be created? I would like to add that I understand virtual particles mutually annihilate so the net energy balance remains zero, in the vicinity of a black hole, one such particle can be absorbed and another set loose outside the event horizon, therefore, creation ex-nihilo?
Hi George,
I sense a little confusion in the question you're asking, so maybe restating your question might help. If I understand you, it sounds like you are asking "if the universe is expanding and the total energy in the universe is constant, then is the average energy density of the universe declining?" --- which when stated that way, the answer would be yes for macroscopic systems. When you consider very small systems (where quantum effects dominate), it is a little harder to define boundaries, but the law of conservation of energy still applies. I am oversimplifying a bit here, so let me know if you are asking about a specific detail regarding quantum/relativistic details.
Hope this helps,
Burr Zimmerman
Click here to return to the Physics Archives
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Update: June 2012


text: 'I'm the original voice of Siri'By Jessica Ravitz, CNNUpdated 1658 GMT (2358 HKT) October 15, 2013Just Watched'I provided the voice of Siri'replayMore Videos ...'I provided the voice of Siri' 02:04Story highlightsSusan Bennett says she is the voice of the original U.S. version of Siri on Apple's iPhoneApple won't comment, but other sources -- including an audio forensic expert -- confirm this Recordings from 2005 were used for Siri; hearing herself six years later was a surpriseHow CNN's Jessica Ravitz, who had never used Siri, found Bennett is also shockingSandy Springs, Georgia (CNN)For the past two years, she's been a pocket and purse accessory to millions of Americans. She's starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel. She's provided weather forecasts and restaurant tips, been mocked as useless and answered absurd questions about what she's wearing. She is Siri, Apple's voice-activated virtual "assistant" introduced to the masses with the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011.Behind this groundbreaking technology there is a real woman. While the ever-secretive Apple has never identified her, all signs indicate that the original voice of Siri in the United States is a voiceover actor who laid down recordings for a client eight years ago. She had no idea she'd someday be speaking to more than 100 million people through a not-yet-invented phone.Her name is Susan Bennett and she lives in suburban Atlanta.Apple won't confirm it. But Bennett says she is Siri. Professionals who know her voice, have worked with her and represent her legally say she is Siri. And an audio-forensics expert with 30 years of experience has studied both voices and says he is "100%" certain the two are the same.Just WatchedMeet the woman behind Siri's voicereplayMore Videos ...Meet the woman behind Siri's voice 02:33PLAY VIDEOJust Watched'Siri' gets flood of interview requestsreplayMore Videos ...'Siri' gets flood of interview requests 02:14PLAY VIDEOJust WatchedDistraction: Baby talks to SirireplayMore Videos ...Distraction: Baby talks to Siri 01:02PLAY VIDEOJust WatchedSiri 'crushes it' with comedy routinereplayMore Videos ...Siri 'crushes it' with comedy routine 02:05PLAY VIDEOBennett, who won't divulge her age, fell into voice work by accident in the 1970s. Today, she can be heard worldwide. She speaks up in commercials and on countless phone systems. She spells out directions from GPS devices and addresses travelers in Delta airport terminals. Until now, it's been a career that's afforded her anonymity. But a new Apple mobile operating system, iOS 7, with new Siri voices means that Bennett's reign as the American Siri is slowly coming to an end. At the same time, tech-news site The Verge posted a video last month, "How Siri found its voice," that led some viewers to believe that Allison Dufty, the featured voiceover talent, was Siri. A horrified Dufty scrambled in response, writing on her website that she is "absolutely, positively NOT the voice of Siri," but not before some bloggers had bought into the hype.And there sat Bennett, holding onto her secret, laughing and watching it all. For so long she'd been goaded by others, including her son and husband, to come forward. Her Siri counterparts in the UK and Australia had revealed their identities, after all. So why not her? It was her question to wrestle with, and finally she found her answer."I really had to weigh the importance of it for me personally. I wasn't sure that I wanted that notoriety, and I also wasn't sure where I stood legally. And so, consequently, I was very conservative about it for a long time," she said. "And then this Verge video came out ... And it seemed like everyone was clamoring to find out who the real voice behind Siri is, and so I thought, well, you know, what the heck? This is the time." The Siri surpriseThe story of how Bennett became this iconic voice began in 2005. ScanSoft, a software company, was looking for a voice for a new project. It reached out to GM Voices, a suburban Atlanta company that had established a niche recording voices for automated voice technologies. Bennett, a trusted talent who had done lots of work with GM Voices, was one of the options presented. ScanSoft liked what it heard, and in June 2005 Bennett signed a contract offering her voice for recordings that would be used in a database to construct speech. For four hours a day, every day, in July 2005, Bennett holed up in her home recording booth. Hour after hour, she read nonsensical phrases and sentences so that the "ubergeeks" -- as she affectionately calls them; they leave her awestruck -- could work their magic by pulling out vowels, consonants, syllables and diphthongs, and playing with her pitch and speed.These snippets were then synthesized in a process called concatenation that builds words, sentences, paragraphs. And that is how voices like hers find their way into GPS and telephone systems. "There are some people that just can read hour upon hour upon hour, and it's not a problem. For me, I get extremely bored ... So I just take breaks. That's one of the reasons why Siri might sometimes sound like she has a bit of an attitude," Bennett said with a laugh. "Those sounds might have been recorded the last 15 minutes of those four hours." But Bennett never knew exactly how her voice would be used. She assumed it would be employed in company phone systems, but beyond that didn't think much about it. She was paid by the hour -- she won't say how much -- and moved on to the next gig.The surprise came in October 2011 after Apple released its iPhone 4S, the first to feature Siri. Bennett didn't have the phone herself, but people who knew her voice did. "A colleague e-mailed me [about Siri] and said, 'Hey, we've been playing around with this new Apple phone. Isn't this you?'"Just WatchedTips for using Siri replayMore Videos ...Tips for using Siri 04:32PLAY VIDEO15 of Siri's best jokes 15 photos15 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosSiri, you must be kidding – The developers at Apple have baked some wit into Siri's otherwise robotic responses. Here are 15 of her most clever, and cringeworthy, jokes.Hide Caption 1 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 2 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 3 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 4 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 5 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 6 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 7 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 8 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 9 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 10 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 11 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 12 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 13 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 14 of 1515 of Siri's best jokes 15 photosHide Caption 15 of 15EXPAND GALLERYBennett went to her computer, pulled up Apple's site and listened to video clips announcing Siri. The voice was unmistakably hers. "Oh, I knew," she said. "It's obviously me. It's my voice."Seeking proofIt certainly does sound like Bennett. But proving who supplied the voice of Siri isn't easy. It's not like Steve Jobs sent Bennett a thank-you note, or a certificate to hang on her wall. There are others who vouch for her. But the tech world -- and specifically the text-to-speech, or TTS, space -- is a complicated business, one that's shrouded in secrecy and entangled in a web of nondisclosure agreements. Bennett is not bound by such restrictions, which is why she's talking. But the industry has a vested interest in keeping their voices anonymous."The companies are competing to create the best-sounding and functioning systems. Their concern is driving revenues," said Marcus Graham, CEO of GM Voices. "Talking about the voice talent, from their perspective, is likely seen as a distraction."Bennett's attorney, Steve Sidman, can't breach attorney-client privilege to share documents and contracts, but since he began representing Bennett in 2012 he's been intensely aware of her connection to Siri."I've engaged in substantial negotiations -- multiple, months-long negotiations -- with parties along the economic food chain, so to speak, that involved her rendering services as the voice of Siri," he told CNN. "It's as simple as that." And then there's Graham, of GM Voices, a man who has built a career around providing voiceover talent for interactive voice technologies. Graham won't divulge details about any deals he made back in 2005. But he has worked with Bennett for 25 years, has recorded "literally millions of words with Susan" and has installed her voice with clients across the globe. He knows her voice as well as anyone, and he doesn't hesitate when asked if she and Siri are the same. "Most female voices are kind of thin, but she's got a rich, full voice," he said. "Yes, she's the voice of Siri. ... She's definitely the voice." A '100% match'In October 2005, a few months after Bennett made those recordings, ScanSoft bought and took on the name of Nuance Communications. Nuance is the company widely accepted to have provided to Apple the technology behind Siri. When CNN contacted Nuance to try and confirm Bennett's identity as a voice of Siri, a Nuance spokeswoman said, "As a company, we don't comment on Apple." Apple, too, declined to comment. So CNN took the investigation one step further by hiring an audio forensics expert to compare Bennett's voice with Siri's.Ed Primeau, of Rochester Hills, Michigan, has been doing this work for three decades. He's testified in courts, analyzed "hundreds, if not thousands" of recordings and is a member of the American Board of Recorded Evidence. He spent four hours studying our "known voice" -- in this case Siri -- with the unknown voice of Bennett."I believe, and I've lived this for 30 years, no two voices are the same," he said, after finishing his analysis of the Siri voice and Bennett's. "They are identical -- a 100% match."To reach his conclusion Primeau created back-to-back comparison files, lifted and listened to consonants and reviewed deliveries. He took the hiss off the Siri sound, created in recording from a phone, and dropped it into Bennett's file. After studying Bennett's normal speaking voice, he was about 70% certain of the match. But once he had audio of her saying the same words as Siri, he knew his work was done. Even so, he said he asked a colleague for a second opinion."I understand the importance of accuracy," Primeau said. "Rest assured: It's 100% Susan."How CNN got this storyThis isn't the sort of story I'd naturally go after. Technology is far from my beat. In fact, the first time I ever spoke to Siri was on my work phone -- the kind that's plugged into a wall jack and has a tangled cord attached to the handset. Just WatchedTracking down the voice of SirireplayMore Videos ...Tracking down the voice of Siri 02:17PLAY VIDEOBennett was a voiceover artist I was interviewing for a CNN special project on the world's busiest airport -- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International -- scheduled to come out next month. I was tracking down the airport's voices, and she, a voice of Delta terminals, was one of them. In the course of our phone conversation, I asked her to rattle off some jobs she's had over the years. She gave me a quick and general rundown and then added that she's done a lot of IVR work."IVR?" I asked. "Interactive voice response," she answered. "The sort of thing you hear on a company's phone system."For reasons I can't explain -- I was still struggling to understand my first iPhone -- I blurted out, "Hey, are you Siri?" She gasped. And then I gasped. "Oh my God," I said. "You're totally Siri, aren't you?" What followed was a short, panicked flurry of non-denials and non-confirmations, and a promise from me that I wouldn't do or say a thing. That was months ago. About two weeks ago, after the confusion over the Verge video, Bennett reached out to me. She was ready to speak as herself and set the record straight. 'My career as a machine'As a child, Bennett's favorite toy was a play phone-operator system, a big red block with a receiver and lines she could patch in to help imaginary callers make their connections. Years later, while singing jingles, she was tapped to be the radio and TV voice of First National Bank's "Tillie the All-Time Teller," the first ATM machine. Though that was about 40 years ago, she can -- and does -- still break seamlessly into the high-pitched song. "I began my career as a machine many years ago," Bennett said. "I'm sure that you hear my voice at some point every day." But the way she is heard was a surprise even to her.Music and singing had always been a part of Bennett's life. At Brown University, she sang in a jazz band and also with another group at the Berklee School of Music. After graduating, she toured as a backup singer with Burt Bacharach and Roy Orbison. Today, she and husband Rick Hinkle -- a guitarist, composer and sound engineer -- still play in a band, mostly at private events. She fell into voiceover work by chance in the 1970s when she walked into Atlanta's Doppler Studios for a jingle job and the voiceover talent was a no-show. The studio owner looked around and said, "Susan, come over here. You don't have an accent. Go ahead and read this." She did, and a new career path was born.Bennett wasn't always accent-free, though. She was born in Vermont and grew up all over New England. Her voice -- dropped Rs and all -- was "SNL"-skit ready. Can she imagine Siri as a New Englander? "Neva! Neva!" A stint in upstate New York helped her lose the accent. By the time she arrived in Atlanta in 1972, with her first husband, former NHL player Curt Bennett of the Atlanta Flames, she was ready to fight off the Southern twang. She fell in love with Atlanta and, after that marriage ended, stayed. Even though her voice can be heard everywhere, she's enjoyed being out of the spotlight. "You have a certain anonymity which can be very advantageous," she said. "People don't judge you by how you look ... That's been kind of freeing in a lot of ways." 'Part of history'Bennett works in a sound-proof recording booth in her home, a tin of lozenges at the ready. Her voice is transmitted to the world, while she -- if she so chooses -- sits in her jammies, or more likely her Zumba clothes. Auditions are done by e-mail. She can grocery shop and go unrecognized. It's not as though her natural speaking voice, heard out of context in the produce aisle, sparks reactions. So the idea of coming out as the voice of Siri was one she pushed aside. It probably wouldn't have even occurred to her if not for the goading of others, including her 36-year-old son -- whom she, and he, jokingly refers to as "Son of Siri." "Her voice has been everywhere throughout my life. I'd call my bank while I was in college in Colorado, and it was my mom telling me I had $4," said Cameron Bennett, a photographer in Los Angeles.He first found out she was the voice of Siri while watching an iPhone 4S commercial on TV. There, on the screen, was director Martin Scorsese talking to his mother. When Cameron bought the phone himself, she began barking at him through its GPS feature, prompting him to yell, "Mom, stop!""She's part of history," he said. "It was funny trying to explain to her how big it was. She uses her cell phone for 8% of what it can do." When Bennett upgraded her phone and first talked to ... well, herself, she says she was a little horrified. It was weird, to say the least. But she was blown away, she said, to play a part in such a technological feat. Being the voice of Siri, though, doesn't mean she's immune to the sorts of frustrations others sometimes have with the technology. "But I never yell at her -- very bad karma," Bennett said. That said, she knows not everyone is as gracious: "Yes, I worry about how many times I get cursed every day." Now, though, with iOS 7 she is passing the telephonic torch to a new Siri. Bennett would be lying if she said she wasn't a bit disappointed, but in her field of work she's learned to expect evolution -- and even revolution.As technology improves, and the concatenation process becomes less robotic and more human, Bennett thinks anything will be possible."I really see a time when you'll probably be able to put your own voice on your phone and have your own voice talk back to you," she said. "Which I'm used to, but maybe you aren't." More from TechDresses defy gender stereotypesWill.i.am apuesta por la moda sostenibleMobile World Congress 2015: Five glimpses of the futureMore from 'Je Suis Juif': Do Jews and France have a future together?From Selma to Ferguson and back: Has anything changed?Voice of Siri: How her life has changedPowered by Livefyre


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Now passengers flying cross-country between JFK and LAX, SFO or SEA, will enjoy even more benefits in Economy Comfort. Sure you'll get extra legroom, up to 50% more recline, and Priority Boarding, but you'll also be able to enjoy a complimentary premium Luvo™ sandwich wrap and frozen Greek yogurt bar. Grab a drink (beer, wine or spirits), then cuddle up with a pillow and blanket while blocking out distractions with your sleep kit. And when you wake, your electronic devices will be fully charged, thanks to the personal power outlets at every seat, in addition to the USB outlets throughout the cabin.
Enjoy the comforts of our international service on the coast-to-coast trek between New York's JFK and Seattle, San Francisco or Los Angeles—now with even more benefits in Economy Comfort.
Choose from seven daily weekday flights between New York's JFK and Los Angeles, six daily flights between JFK and San Francisco, and three daily flights between JFK and Seattle.
Transcontinental seats vary from aircraft to aircraft, but whichever seat you're in, rest assured you'll travel well on your cross-country journey.
Enjoy the added comfort and convenience of our international BusinessElite service across the U.S. On board, find an elevated experience featuring Westin Heavenly® In-Flight Bedding, Tumi amenity kits, personal entertainment and power outlets. And before you go, take advantage of our Delta Sky Priority® experience.
You can now take advantage of our flat-bed seats in BusinessElite on more than half of flights between New York's JFK and Los Angeles. Settle in for the long haul with 180º recline, direct aisle access and added storage. By the end of 2015, you'll enjoy this industry-leading offering on our entire transcontinental fleet.
All transcontinental flights offer Economy Comfort seating near the front of the cabin with up to 4 inches of additional legroom. Whether you need a little extra time to board or want some extra recline, see why Economy Comfort is worth it. Plus, cross-country fliers can now enjoy even more benefits, like a pillow, blanket and power outlet at every seat.
From complimentary Starbucks® coffee to BusinessElite meals specially created by Chef Michael Chiarello, you can savor more choice and selection on transcontinental flights. Plus, enjoy a little vino variety on board with our Winemaker Series, a curated pairing of two vintages that rotate every two months.
We're raising the bar with exquisite three-course menus, including an antipasto plate, entrée and dessert course, from Napa Valley-based Chef and Restaurateur Michael Chiarello. Plus, enjoy the perfect pairing with California-grown wine selections from Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson.
As part of our exclusive transcontinental EATS menu, enjoy a special selection of food for purchase, including fresh, all-natural bites from Luvo. The EATS menu is available between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m. If you'd like to pre-order a meal before you fly, you may place an order 48+ hours in advance of your flight.
From complimentary entertainment selections to Wi-Fi on board 3,400 daily flights within the U.S., you'll enjoy plenty of perks to pass the time.
With our industry-leading "Delta Studio," kick back and enjoy complimentary movies and on-demand TV shows in Economy, plus free HBO® and Showtime selections and new release movies in Economy Comfort. Additionally, you'll find complimentary, ergonomically designed Billboard earbuds standard with every seat. Plus, take advantage of new in-flight streaming of on-demand entertainment to your personal electronic device.
Browse complimentary copies of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today in BusinessElite.