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Italian Government Tourist Board North America
The Road of the Pilgrims
Ravenna -
Pesaro -
Macerata -
Urbino -
- Faenza
Food & wine
The road south from Venice (S.S. 309) is called the 'Via Romea' because it led the
pilgrims down to Rome in the Middle Ages from central Europe. It skirts the Venetian lagoon, crosses Millecampi
valley with its thousands of islets and takes us past Chioggia, over the River Po to
Mesola a strange circular village where the houses cling around the Este family's ancient hunting lodge (1583), set deep in the heart of this silent, melancholy delta
land which stretches as far as the eye can see, brightened up here and there by the colored sails of boats making
their way down to the sea along the canals, in a strange stillness which is broken only by the squawking of the
Pomposa Abbey
It is in this mysterious setting that
Abbey stands in splendid isolation: the magnificent building, with the
Basilica of S. Maria (8th-12th c.)
and the slender bell tower, adjacent monastery, refectory and dormitory was formerly the center of this ancient
ecclesiastical fief. And it was here that students of
Giotto and 14th c. painters from Bologna and Romagna worked on the frescoes, to produce the most
comprehensive display of Emilian Gothic painting that exists.
Passing through a number of well-known seaside resorts, such as
Lido delle Nazioni,
di Pomposa,
Lido degli Scacchi and the quaint town of
Comacchio near the buried
Etruscan city of Spina, Porto Garibaldi,
Lido degli Estensi and
Lido di Spina, we reach
Ravenna the ancient capital of the Western Roman Empire,
and the bridge between the Roman and the Byzantine worlds, a treasure house of splendid monuments that this short
account cannot even begin to do justice to. We must see the 6th c. Byzantine
of S. Vitale, the 5th c.
of Empress Galla Placidia, the 5th c. cathedral Baptistery, and
S. Apollinare Nuovo
embellished with unique mosaics
of the 6th-9th centuries.
Other examples of Ravenna's art are the cathedral with its cylindrical campanile,
the Churches of
S. Francesco,
S. Maria in Porto and
Giovanni Evangelista, the National Museum, the
Museo Arcivescovile, the
dell'Accademia, with Guidarello Guidarelli's famous funeral Statue (1525).
Then there is the tomb of
who died in exile in Ravenna in 1321, Theodoric's mausoleum - a massive polygonal tomb in the barbarian style,
and above all, the extraordinary
Basilica of S. Apollinare in Classe (5 kms away), with its huge solemn interior, and the raised sanctuary covered in magnificent
mosaics. South of the basilica, the ancient pine forest of Classis which so enchanted Dante and Byron runs down
to the seashore.
After the seaside resort of
Milano Marittima and the spa resort of
Cervia we reach
This popular tourist resort is also an ancient town with a turbulent history to which the extravagant
Malatesta family has left a legacy of innumerable
monuments. The Arch of Augustus is Roman - the oldest existing Roman arch in the world;
Leon Battista Alberti 's "Tempio Malatestiano"
is a jewel of Renaissance architecture, with
Giotto's crucifix,
Piero della Francesca's fresco, and
Agostino di Duccio's elegant reliefs embellishing its interior.
Noteworthy are the
Palazzo dell'Arengo,
Palazzo del Podestà, the
the Roman Bridge of Tiberius, and
Castle (1446). The towns along the coast read like a summer holiday brochure: resorts like
Riccione and
Cattolica (visiting
Gradara Castle, the setting for the tragic love story of
Paolo and Francesca
da Rimini immortalized in the sublime poetry of Dante's 'Inferno').
Gabicce Mare we drive down towards to
Pesaro, the birthplace of
and the venue for major international festivals (film, music, etc.). We shall see the
Piazza del Popolo, the 15th-16th c. Ducal Palace, the
Costanza Castle,
's house, the
Museo Archeologico
Oliveriano, and the municipal ('civic') museums (paintings, ceramics, etc.).
Roman settlement of
Fano, where
we can see the Arch of Augustus, the Renaissance oratorium and the Loggia
of S. Michele,
Palazzo della Ragione (1229),
Palazzo Malatesta, the municipal museum and art gallery.
Senigallia / Ancona
We shall follow the coastline to
Senigallia, with its square castle, Church of
S. Maria delle
Grazie and nearby
Chiaravalle Abbey
of Santa Maria della Castagnola, one of Italy's oldest Cistercian monasteries.
After Ancona we reach the
Conero Riviera, with the charming
Portonovo Bay,
Sirolo and
built high up overlooking the sea, Porto Recanati,
Loreto (one of Italy's
principal shrines containing the Holy House of Nazareth on which major Renaissance and Baroque artists worked),
and Recanati, steeped in memories
of the poet
Giacomo Leopardi.
Climbing up the
Potenza Valley, we reach
nestling in the hills. Let us see the
Palazzo dei Comune, the 16th c.
Loggia dei Mercanti,
Palazzo della Prefettura, the ancient University, the 18th c. cathedral and the 'Sferisterio', a grandiose neoclassical sports arena built in 1819-29 and now used as the venue for
the town's Opera Festival. Let's get off the beaten track for a while, and head north to the charming little town
of Cingoli, known as the 'balcony
of the Marches', and
Jesi where
Emperor Frederick II of Swabia and the composer
Pergolesi were born, where we can see the
Palazzo della Signoria built by
Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1486-98), the municipal picture gallery (paintings by
Lotto), the cathedral, and the 14th c. town walls.
via Fossombrone, we will stop at
one of the 'capitals' of the Italian Renaissance, ruled by the
Dukes of
Montefeltro, and the birthplace of two of the world's greatest artists:
Bramante (1444-1514) and Raphael
(1483-1520). We cannot leave without a visit to the magnificent Ducal Palace, built by
Luciano Laurana
(superb courtyard, and unmistakable 'torricini'
towers), housing the National Gallery of the Marches (works by
Melozzo da Forli,
Paolo Uccello,
di Gand,
Piero della Francesca, Raphael, Titian, etc.; tapestries, reliefs, and marquetry work of drawings by
Botticelli). Standing guard over the
Montefeltro region is the mighty
Fortress of S. Leo where the charlatan
Cagliostro died in prison.
Forlì / Faenza
From here we can go and see the
Republic of
San Marino, before descending to
Cesena, via
and Sarsina. Continuing along the
Aemilian Way, we reach
with its municipal painting gallery and museums and Romanesque Church of
Mercuriale, while 15 kms further on is
Faenza, famed for its ceramics, which reached the peak of its splendour in the 15th and 16th centuries;
let us visit the Renaissance cathedral (1474), the picture gallery and the extraordinary Ceramics Museum.
Food and Wine
• Emilia Romagna
To understand this region's cuisine, it is necessary to list some of the
native products like parmesan cheese (parmigiano-reggiano), egg pasta, Parma ham (prosciutto di Parma) and balsamic vinegar. Bologna is regarded as the gastronomic capital of Italy, and Emilia
is the only true home of pasta in the North: often lovingly hand-made, the dough is formed into
tortellini stuffed with
cheese and spinach, pumpkin or pork, and other fresh pastas served with ragù (meat sauce), cream sauces
orsimply with butter and parmesan. Modena and Parma specialize in boiled meats (bollito
misto) , such as flank of beef, trotters, tongue and spicy sausage; another
Modenese dish is
zampone - stuffed
pig's trotter. Romagna's cuisine is more Southern in orientation. While ingredients such as butter, cheese, mushrooms,
chestnuts and meat feature in Emilia, Romagna tends more toward onions, garlic and olive oil; the region is second
only to Sicily for the amount of fish caught in its waters. Typical wines:
and Sangiovese.
• Marche
The region Marche is a combination of sea, hills and mountains, cooking is deeply rooted in peasant tradition.
Pesaro, on the Adriatic sea, is famous for its
brodetto or fish soup. Also prepared along the coast, the
marchigiano made with fish dipped in flour, fried in a mixture of oil,
onion and parsley, and flavoured with saffron. Ingredients are different in other areas. Among the cheeses: the
pecorino di San Leo, made from sheeps
milk, the ricotta (a kind of cottage
cheese) from Urbino, the bazzott
(a local fresh cheese) from Fano. Another specialty is the
olive ascolane, big white olives filled with a mixture of cheese, egg, nutmeg, white meat chopped and
mixed with
mortadella and
salame, lemon peel and parsley, then dipped in beaten egg and bread crumbs and fried in oil. Typical
Rosso Conero,
Rosso Piceno, Verdicchio.
For more information:
Emilia Romagna Region
Marche Region
E.N.I.T. North America - Copyright ©1998-2013 - All Rights Reserved


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Breast cancer is one of the most common cancer among women in US. Based on 2009 statistics, more than 200,000 were diagnosed with this cancer and 40,000 died due to it.
Before talking about turmeric and breast cancer let me talk a bit about breast cancer. When body cells divide uncontrollably, tumors are formed. If the cells forming the tumor are normal, the tumor is benign and if not it is cancerous. Cancers are named after the organ from where they originate. Breast cancer usually originates in breast tissues and can subsequently spread to surrounding tissues and other organs. There is no specific cause for breast cancer although genetics, ethnicity age, diet can all be contributing factors.
Some of the symptoms of breast cancer include lump under the armpits, a pea-sized mass in the breast, clear fluid or bloody discharge from the nipple, change in the breast shape and size, redness around the nipple or breast etc. Once the diagnosis has confirmed the presence of breast cancer, treatment can involve radiation or chemotherapy, surgery, hormone therapy or a combination of other drugs.
If you are facing any of the above symptoms, I would suggest tovisit a doctor immediately for proper check-up.
Turmeric & Breast Cancer
Laboratory studies have established that curcumin – the chemical compound in turmeric – does offer anti-cancer benefits. It can cause cancer cell death, therefore preventing their proliferation. I have already discussed a few of these in my previous articles. Of the different cancers, curcumin is said to offer the best effects for bowel cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer and stomach cancer cells.
I am summarizing results of some interesting studies pointing towards how turmeric can help in preventing breast cancer and also helping the ones who already have it.
Cancer Inhibition
Research found that curcumin worked against transcription factors. These are like master switches that regulate genes required to form tumors. When transcription factors are shut off, some of the genes that cause the growth and attack of cancer cells are inhibited.
Stops spread of cancer
Studies find that regular use of turmeric may lower incidences of lung, colon, prostate and breast cancer. Apart from preventing formation of tumors, curcumin can even help when breast cancer is already present by slowing down its spread to the lungs. The studies were conducted on mice which were injected with breast cancer cells from humans. The resultant tumors were then removed in order to stimulate a mastectomy. One group of the mice were the control group and they received no treatment, the 2nd was given Taxol a cancer drug, the 3rd group was given curcumin and the 4th group received a treatment of both Taxol and curcumin. After 5 weeks, the mice in all the groups were tested. Breast cancer had spread to the lungs of just 50% of the pure curcumin group and 22% of the Taxol plus curcumin group. However, in the other 2 groups, lung tumors had developed in 95% of the first (no treatment) group and 75% of the 2nd Taxol-only group.
A study in Munich as found that curcumin can prevent metastasis. It is well tolerated and can be used for both primary and secondary treatment of cancer. Both prostate and breast cancer can cause chronic inflammatory reactions and the tumor cells produce protein cytokines (CXCL1, CXCL2) and pro-inflammatory modulators. Turmeric has been able to decrease the expression of both these proteins and can reduce the metastatic potential of breast cancer cells. Controlled clinical tests are required before confirming curcumin's benefits for humans.
Preventing cancer re-occurrence
Cancer stem cells often escape treatment and sometimes even after effective remission, cancer can re-occur due to these dormant stem cells forming new colonies. Most existing treatment like chemotherapy and radiation target active cancer cells and not stem cells. Hence, research has been going on, on different therapies to destroy stem cells. The effects of curcumin and piperine on breast cancer are being researched. Piperine is the active ingredient in black pepper. Combined together in food or dietary supplements, piperine and curcumin seem to be able to target and kill breast cancer stem cells. They also do not have toxic side effects and can be safely used. This combination seems to be more effective on non-estrogen sensitive breast cancer.
Turmeric in Diet
In Asian countries, the incidences of breast cancer are believed to be low since turmeric is used widely in Asian cuisine. Studies have been conducted in Atlanta, Georgia on the impact of curcumin, which is the active ingredient in turmeric, on breast cancer. Pre-clinical breast cancer models were studied and promising results have emerged on the ability of curcumin to inhibit tumorigenesis (formation of tumors) and cancer cell proliferation. Curcumin is able to target vital genes that are responsible for apoptosis, angiogenesis, metastasis and cell cycle. The study reveals the therapeutic and chemopreventive abilities of curcumin in breast cancer models.
Sometimes breast cancer can be used by exposure to pesticides like DDT or endosulfane. Studies have been conducted on how a combination of genistein and curcumin tow natural products from soybeans and turmeric respectively can inhibit growth of MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Pesticides will always be present in our diet or the environment and it is not possible to completely avoid exposure to them. The results find that including soybeans and turmeric in our diet may prevent hormone-related cancers like breast cancer, caused due to exposure to such pesticides.
Turmeric Dosage
The dosage of turmeric depends on the medical condition and the supplement used. It is not recommended for children. For adults, the normal dosage is 400-600mg a day of standardized curcumin powder. The dosage for cut root, tincture, dried powdered root and fluid extracts are different. Turmeric can be combined with bromelain to improve its absorption rates and anti-inflammatory effects. 8g per day of curcumin for a limited period has been well tolerated in treatment of cancer as a prophylaxis and in women with a breast cancer family history.
The best way to include turmeric is to include it in your regular diet as a spice etc. You can find several recipes using turmeric over web and on this portal.
Turmeric used for cooking is absolutely safe for everyone to consume. The safety of curcumin used as supplements is still being investigated. Large doses of curcumin are required to treat cancer. Sometimes, taken over a long time, this could cause skin problems, indigestion, nausea or vomiting. To put things in perspective, these are very minor side effects as compared to potential side effects of anti-cancer drugs.
Anyone with diabetes, gall bladder problems or are pregnant or breastfeeding must avoid turmeric supplements. Turmeric can also react adversely with anti-coagulant drugs and medications to reduce stomach acid. It has been suggested that curcumin and piperine may inhibit action of chemotherapy or some cancer drugs. Hence, consult your doctor if you plan to include turmeric as a treatment for breast cancer.

subset: commoncrawl


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- Black Star Rising - http://rising.blackstar.com -
Will Google Become Your Next Stock Photo Agency?
Posted By John P. Chapnick On January 5, 2007 @ 6:55 am In Stock Art and Photography | 5 Comments
As we all know, the Big Three stock agencies are in a period of turmoil, with the emergence of microstock, photo-sharing, crowdsourcing and other changes seriously cutting into their profit margins — as well as the earnings of professional stock photographers.
In this environment, I guess it's only natural to expect the disruptive innovations to become more and more dramatic. Which, I suppose, is why a number of people have told me recently that they think Google will ultimately gobble up the entire stock business.
Frankly, I doubt it.
True, Google Images reaches the largest number of prospective buyers in the world. Google indexes copyrighted images and allows users to search the Web for image content. Google Images currently indexes more than 1.1 billion images.
Keywords are based on the following:
Because of its ease of use, the everyday user often gravitates to Google Images to grab images for everything from high school projects to cookbooks — usually without regard to copyright. Ad agencies, design firms and PR agencies also "borrow" Google Images for preliminary mockups of advertisements and brochures.
However, experienced photo buyers know not to use Google Images. The search engine typically directs them to lesser quality images and presents perplexing copyright issues.
Image theft, of course, is one of the biggest threats to the income of the professional photographer — and nowhere are images easier to steal than through Google. While software programs such as Google Grab and Google Internet Ripper are available for the purpose of snagging all of the free pictures a user wants, what's to hack? Most people just right-click and download images to their hard drive.
In sum, Google Images is not likely to emerge as a competitor to stock agencies anytime soon, because
[tags]photography, photo blog, Google Images, john chapnick[/tags]
5 Comments To "Will Google Become Your Next Stock Photo Agency?"
#1 Comment By jihyj On December 28, 2007 @ 10:44 pm
#2 Comment By jihyj On December 28, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
dude if you want to get a life start now and go take your first good picture you dumb ass pussy ass bitch
#3 Comment By iluvrock On December 28, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
u need to shut up he is very good your just mad that you prabaly couln't comprehend it ! you bujie a** ni**a
#4 Comment By Shiva – Malaysia Thru the Lens On October 19, 2009 @ 5:42 am
hehehehe... and try to sell it.
#5 Comment By Europhoto On October 11, 2010 @ 1:05 pm
Remember HAL from Kubrick'S 2001 A Space Odyssey?
What will Google do to those they fear?
Google will do nothing FOR us. There can be some crumbs falling from their table down to us but you actually can be happy when they don't harm you.
Are you aware (and some of the writer here are very well aware of this issues and have written about the 'your online identity') of what it could do to you?
Just ignoring you and your business because you blockhead insist on taking pictures instead of writing (blogging) is already killing your business. Now they sell adwords etc (is that seen as bakshesh or just bribery)
Cheers folks
Article printed from Black Star Rising: http://rising.blackstar.com
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Copyright © 2010 Black Star Rising. All rights reserved.


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Up Coming Events
Town House Book
The cost is $10.00 with all proceeds going toward the
Please include $4.00 for postage and packaging if the book is to be
Click here for more information
This site provides a reference for information on the town and its government. We hope you will find it helpful and informative. We realize many residents may find it a challenge to conduct business with the various town offices, especially since some of them have limited hours. You can use this site to best determine who to contact for your specific needs, when they are available, and how to best contact them.
"This institution is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
If you wish to file a Civil Rights program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, found on line at
Free Emergency Alert App
Recommended by the Worcester County
Click here for more information
Tyler Nickerson's Documentary
Restoration of the Town House
i t e O v e r v i e w
About Our Town A brief overview of North Brookfield and the history of the town
How Do I…?Answers to some frequently asked questions about town operations
Key Dates Calendar of town events, official meetings, and key dates for residents
Community References to organizations in the community


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Industrial Age Antiques was founded by John Norton, an antiques lover who also happens to be an expert in chemistry—so perhaps it's no surprise he has a soft spot for scientific wares such as this Test Tube Set and Rack.
This product is brand-new. Its unique, contemporary design and construction is inspired by past vintage designs.
Enjoy 10% off your first order*


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The senses circulate at Cumbre Tajin.
Music drifts in layers, traditional, contemporary, three-piece acoustic, pre-colombian in traditional outfits, darkened faces weathered by agricultural rhythms; marching bands with majorettes, midnight popstars, shaman floutists dancing…
On 80 foot poles…
As humans spin descending upside down…
A physical ode to fallen angels…
Ritualized on the hour.
Tents with massages, temescals in daylight, the baking of bread.
Eclectic art and traditional crafts, technology and timelessness.
The circle of life breathing infinite variety as culture reinvents and reinvigorates itself at the birth of spring.
Expression coexisting with contradiction, sharing the space of affirmation. The human condition reflected in visual poetry, circular encounter, and sonic history.
Children flying on bungees, men spinning to the earth, abuelitas with baskets of flowers, masked men in dresses, federales with batons, walking on water in bubbles, touching and tasting the arts of centuries, visions from afar, nourished from near, smiles, laughs, shouts, songs, a parade of witnesses, each participating in the next step.
Cumbre Tajin is a timeless bubble of intersecting circles and cultures
A land of dances past, present, and future; a rupture in the fabric of daily life
A window into harmonic co-existence, a temporary autonomous zone of joy and possibility affirming the traditions of the local and the dimensions of the global.
Cumbre Tajin is located near Papantlan, Mexico in the state of Veracruz and is an annual festival that falls on the Spring Equinox. The festival is a fluid mix of indigenous and contemporary perfoming and healing arts. The Carpetbag Brigade brought the performances The Vanishing Point and Volcanito there in 2010


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Original recipe yields 4 servings
Amount per serving ({{servings}} total)
Based on a 2,000 calorie diet
Ready In
Pretty good. It has a unique taste and we all enjoyed it. Left overs were tasty too!
This was really good. I seasoned the food to taste. Next time i will use more sause. My children wanted more for there pasta. I will make this again
Very good recipe! It was a nice change from regular spaghetti with meat sauce!


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301 North Market Street
Suite 500
Dallas, Texas 75202
Office: (972) 559-5800
Fax: (972) 559-5881
RCFL Locations
Click the links below to link to each RCFL's web site.
|Service Area Descriptions
|Service Area
|21 counties in Northern Illinois
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In The News
5/1/2012: NEW! Case Acceptance Guidelines — As of May 1, 2012, the NTRCFL has issued a new set of Case Acceptance Guidelines. Click here to read more.
04/13/2011: North Texas RCFL Supported Successful Child Pornography Prosecution — Dallas resident Timothy Honnoll, 39, plead guilty in federal court to receiving child pornography, and will serve eight years in prison along with a lifetime of supervised release. The North Texas RCFL provided digital forensics support to the investigation which was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. According to a press release issued by the FBI's Dallas Division, 600 images and 180 videos of child pornography were found on Honnoll's computer and related storage media.
Upcoming Training
There are no upcoming classes at this time.


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Many of the experts mentioned the possibility of energy we can get the free energy generator magnetic and it continues to be questioned, whether it's possible or not to apply to see the resources that are now very limited and can cause more pollution in the earth. We must look for alternative options to still be able to maintain the current energy by trying to use other energy options, while if we look around us then in fact there are so many that we can use to try to find new energy sources that could be an alternative option for us so we are not dependent on one or more of the energy which would have limited resources.
So whether you want to save on your energy costs with an environmentally friendly way? If so you have several options. We know some alternative energy options that are often used by others is by using solar power system is the choice of the most popular alternative energy. As for specific areas, generating electricity with wind turbine system is a realistic solution. This is caused by lack of sunlight can be a source of energy, so we have to find other solutions. However, besides the two energy sources mentioned earlier, there are potential new sources of energy that has emerged. This energy source is the free energy generator magnetic which is now being promoted as an alternative energy future. The experts stated that after the initial fee is paid, you will receive that energy and that energy will be free to be used as energy in life. Usefulness of magnetic generator is that once the generator is turned on, it will continue to produce more energy than we consume and the generator that will do it for onwards during generatos still in good condition. Condition of perpetual motion is known as over-unity. Continue reading


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Harnessing Petaflop-Scale Multi-Core Supercomputing for Problems in Space Science
The particle-in-cell kinetic plasma code VPIC has been migrated successfully to the world's fastest supercomputer, Roadrunner, a hybrid multi-core platform built by IBM for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. How this was achieved will be described and examples of state-of-the-art calculations in space science, in particular, the study of magnetic reconnection, will be presented. With VPIC on Roadrunner, we have performed, for the first time, plasma PIC calculations with over one trillion particles, >100× larger than calculations considered "heroic" by community standards. This allows examination of physics at unprecedented scale and fidelity. Roadrunner is an example of an emerging paradigm in supercomputing: the trend toward multi-core systems with deep hierarchies and where memory bandwidth optimization is vital to achieving high performance. Getting VPIC to perform well on such systems is a formidable challenge: the core algorithm is memory bandwidth limited with low compute-to-data ratio and requires random access to memory in its inner loop. That we were able to get VPIC to perform and scale well, achieving >0.374 Pflop/s and linear weak scaling on real physics problems on up to the full 12240-core Roadrunner machine, bodes well for harnessing these machines for our community's needs in the future. Many of the design considerations encountered commute to other multi-core and accelerated (e.g., via GPU) platforms and we modified VPIC with flexibility in mind. These will be summarized and strategies for how one might adapt a code for such platforms will be shared. Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. DOE by the LANS LLC Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Bowers is a LANL Guest Scientist; he is presently at D. E. Shaw Research LLC, 120 W 45th Street, 39th Floor, New York, NY 10036.
Accelerate Climate Models with the IBM Cell Processor
Ever increasing model resolutions and physical processes in climate models demand continual computing power increases. The IBM Cell processor's order-of- magnitude peak performance increase over conventional processors makes it very attractive for fulfilling this requirement. However, the Cell's characteristics: 256KB local memory per SPE and the new low-level communication mechanism, make it very challenging to port an application. We selected the solar radiation component of the NASA GEOS-5 climate model, which: (1) is representative of column physics components (~50% total computation time), (2) has a high computational load relative to data traffic to/from main memory, and (3) performs independent calculations across multiple columns. We converted the baseline code (single-precision, Fortran code) to C and ported it to an IBM BladeCenter QS20, manually SIMDizing 4 independent columns, and found that a Cell with 8 SPEs can process more than 3000 columns per second. Compared with the baseline results, the Cell is ~6.76x, ~8.91x, ~9.85x faster than a core on Intel's Xeon Woodcrest, Dempsey, and Itanium2 respectively. Our analysis shows that the Cell could also speed up the dynamics component (~25% total computation time). We believe this dramatic performance improvement makes the Cell processor very competitive, at least as an accelerator. We will report our experience in porting both the C and Fortran codes and will discuss our work in porting other climate model components.
Geospace simulations on the Cell BE processor
OpenGGCM (Open Geospace General circulation Model) is an established numerical code that simulates the Earth's space environment. The most computing intensive part is the MHD (magnetohydrodynamics) solver that models the plasma surrounding Earth and its interaction with Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind flowing in from the sun. Like other global magnetosphere codes, OpenGGCM's realism is limited by computational constraints on grid resolution. We investigate porting of the MHD solver to the Cell BE architecture, a novel inhomogeneous multicore architecture capable of up to 230 GFlops per processor. Realizing this high performance on the Cell processor is a programming challenge, though. We implemented the MHD solver using a multi-level parallel approach: On the coarsest level, the problem is distributed to processors based upon the usual domain decomposition approach. Then, on each processor, the problem is divided into 3D columns, each of which is handled by the memory limited SPEs (synergistic processing elements) slice by slice. Finally, SIMD instructions are used to fully exploit the vector/SIMD FPUs in each SPE. Memory management needs to be handled explicitly by the code, using DMA to move data from main memory to the per-SPE local store and vice versa. We obtained excellent performance numbers, a speed-up of a factor of 25 compared to just using the main processor, while still keeping the numerical implementation details of the code maintainable.
Benchmarking NWP Kernels on Multi- and Many-core Processors
Increased computing power for weather, climate, and atmospheric science has provided direct benefits for
defense, agriculture, the economy, the environment, and public welfare and convenience. Today, very large
clusters with many thousands of processors are allowing scientists to move forward with simulations of
unprecedented size. But time-critical applications such as real-time forecasting or climate prediction need
strong scaling: faster nodes and processors, not more of them. Moreover, the need for good cost-
performance has never been greater, both in terms of performance per watt and per dollar. For these
reasons, the new generations of multi- and many-core processors being mass produced for commercial IT
and "graphical computing" (video games) are being scrutinized for their ability to exploit the abundant fine-
grain parallelism in atmospheric models. We present results of our work to date identifying key computational
kernels within the dynamics and physics of a large community NWP model, the Weather Research and
Forecast (WRF) model. We benchmark and optimize these kernels on several different multi- and many-core
processors. The goals are to (1) characterize and model performance of the kernels in terms of
computational intensity, data parallelism, memory bandwidth pressure, memory footprint, etc. (2) enumerate
and classify effective strategies for coding and optimizing for these new processors, (3) assess difficulties
and opportunities for tool or higher-level language support, and (4) establish a continuing set of kernel
benchmarks that can be used to measure and compare effectiveness of current and future designs of multi-
and many-core processors for weather and climate applications.
Hybrid parallelism for Weather Research and Forecasting Model on Intel platforms
Multi-core and upcoming many-core CPUs have dramatically increased computing density in datacenters and parallelism available to HPC applications. Currently, large clusters are employed to carry out weather and other simulations of unprecedented size. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model is widely used and a new version has been recently launched. The software successfully runs on a number of Intel® architectures including new Intel® processors that provide new opportunities for leading performance and scalability for NWS applications. However, it is a challenging task to utilize available computing power efficiently. In part, it is because increased density puts additional stress on cluster interconnect and memory interfaces. We present one of approaches how these obstacles can be came over by evaluating hybrid MPI-plus-OpenMP parallel programming model used in WRF, showing detailed study of how different workloads perform and highlighting benefits of approach under consideration.
Accelerating the Computation of Theoretical Spectro-Polarimetric Signals; Comparative Analysis Using the Cell BE and NVIDIA GPU for Implementing the Voigt Function.
Rapid calculation of the Voigt profile is critical for high performance in computational models for spectro- polarimetric analysis. This makes the Voigt function an ideal candidate for exploiting accelerator technologies. We have implemented the Curtis and Osborne rational polynomial approximation to the Voigt function in two architectures; the Cell Broadband Engine and a Graphics Processing Unit. We present a comparative analysis in two areas of relevance, the programming model and the possible speed up factor if these technologies were incorporated into a complete model.
Chemical Transport Models on Accelerator Architectures
Heterogeneous multicore chipsets with many layers of polymorphic parallelism are becoming increasingly common in high-performance computing systems. Homogeneous co-processors with many streaming processors also offer unprecedented peak floating-point performance. Effective use of parallelism in these new chipsets is paramount. We present optimization techniques for 3D chemical transport models to take full advantage of emerging Cell Broadband Engine and graphical processing unit (GPU) technology. Our techniques achieve 2.15x the per-node performance of an IBM BlueGene/P on the Cell Broadband Engine, and a strongly-scalable 1.75x the per-node performance of an IBM BlueGene/P on an NVIDIA GeForce 8600.
Using GPUs to Meet Next Generation Weather Model Computational Requirements
Weather prediction goals within the Earth Science Research Laboratory at NOAA require significant
increases in model resolution (~1 km) and forecast durations (~60 days) to support expected
requirements in 5 years or less. However, meeting these goals will likely require at least 100k dedicated
cores. Few systems will exist that could even run such a large problem, much less house a facility that could
provide the necessary power and cooling requirements. To meet our goals we are exploring alternative
technologies, including Graphics Processing Units (GPU), that could provide significantly more computational
performance and reduced power and cooling requirements, at a lower cost than traditional high-performance
computing solutions.
Our current global numerical weather prediction model, the Flow following finite-volume Isocahedral Model
(FIM, http://fim.noaa.gov), is still early in its development but is already demonstrating good fidelity and
excellent scalability to 1000s of cores. The icosahedral grid has several complexities not present in more
traditional Cartesian grids including polygons with different numbers of sides (five and six) and non-trivial
computation of locations of neighboring grid cells. FIM uses an indirect addressing scheme that yields very
compact code despite these complexities. We have extracted computational kernels that encompass
functions likely to take the most time at higher resolutions including all that have horizontal dependencies.
Kernels implement equations for computing anti-diffusive flux-corrected transport across cell edges,
calculating forcing terms and time-step differencing, and re-computing time-dependent vertical coordinates.
We are extending these kernels to explore performance of GPU-specific optimizations.
We will present initial performance results from the computational kernels of the FIM model, as well as the
challenges related to porting code with indirect memory references to the NVIDIA GPUs. Results of this
investigation should benefit the design our next-generation isocahedral weather and climate models.


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By Duncan Sutherland – Exclusive to Heavy Oil Investing News
Market news
Ouch! For our Canadian investors in commodities, times have certainly been better.
The TSX has been dragged downward by mining and energy concerns this week, and investors are understandably worried. Some see it as a natural part of a cycle, others as a taste of what is to come. What should be kept in mind are entropy and relativity. Late '07-early '08, in comparison to most other years, has been a period that saw a huge boom for those involved with commodities, especially hydrocarbons. Relative to oil prices in the 1990s, barrels have been much more expensive, resulting in almost unprecedented returns to investors. With that in mind, entropy has reasserted itself.
No serious investor assumes that his/her investments will continually improve without any risk. Similarly, it would be "unserious" to assume that the events of the past week represent an all-time high. Unless you believe that your stocks and trust units are destined to become worthless, it might be a better strategy to hold on to them for the time being. (Note: If you are heavily exposed to the ventures, holding on is a less attractive strategy).
Keep in mind, people still use oil. We do not have any easily adaptable alternative fuels. Companies that have invested multiple billions of dollars in heavy oil and oil sands projects want to see returns on that money.
Watch out for Hurricane Ike. The storm is headed for the Texas Gulf Coast, and refineries have already begun pre-emptive shutdowns. Though Gustav was relatively mellow when it crossed energy infrastructure, hurricanes are inherently unpredictable. Upgrader hopes that everyone in the storm's path is prepared.
Company news
Chevron (NYSE:CVX) has concluded an agreement with the Government of Saudi Arabia to extend its concession in the Saudi portion of the Saudi-Kuwaiti Neutral Zone. (Fun fact: The area was believed to have so little economic worth that ibn Saud, and Britain's man in Kuwait did not even bother to assign it when the border was established). However, the area has since been found to hold significant oil reserves, including the two billion barrels of oil in Chevron-operated fields. Chevron will continue to produce roughly 600,000 bpd (260,000 heavy) in conjunction with the Saudi state oil company.
Valero (NYSE:VLO) was forced to suspend operation of its heavy oil cracking unit at the Corpus Christi refinery due to damage sustained during a fire. Reuters is reporting that the repairs should take about a week, and reduce output by "80,000 barrels per day" of gasoline and 7,500 barrels per day of distillates.
Tullow's (LSE:TLW) Ugandan exploration continues to go gangbusters, with another great drilling result near Lake Albert.
In Focus: Canada's federal election
Well, it appears that we canucks are to once again decide who is fit to lead the country. One of the first articles I wrote for this site was about the implications of a Conservative or Liberal approach to the oil sands. Hopefully, it isn't horribly dated, but check it out here. I have been trying to track down the Honourable Messrs. McGuinty and McCallum for details on how Liberal Party Leader Stéphane Dion's Green Shift plan would treat less carbon-intensive oil sands production. The Conservatives have yet to reply to my original interview request, so hopefully more will be forthcoming.
In essence, the Conservatives want a status quo for the oil sands. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an Albertan himself, and the development of the resource has been very good to that province. Ironically, Newfoundland (another oil producing province) is not particularly fond of the Honourable Mr Harper's party.
New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton has begun the campaign with a flight over the oil sands, saying his party would introduce a moratorium on new licences for producers. The NDP is hardly in danger of winning a majority, and does not currently hold any seats in Alberta, so expect some fierce anti-oil company rhetoric.
Though polls seem to indicate a likely Conservative government, the Liberals may be able to achieve a minority government of the kind that has recently characterized Canadian politics. One important 'X' factor will be the relative importance of economic and environmental issues when Canadians enter the ballot box. Random and uncontrollable events have a way of impacting elections disproportionately. One such event was the recent death of hundreds of birds that landed on an oil spill in Alberta earlier this week, reminding voters that the country's oil industry is not an unalloyed good.


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Letters to the Editor: 06.22.07
Top sports coverage
Thank you, Caller-Times, for all the coverage given to the Moody baseball team and a thank you too, to radio station 93.5 on the play-by-play given by Adan Chavez Jr., and assisted by Raul Martinez for us old folks who cannot follow the teams. We enjoy it on the radio. That included Carroll and Sinton. But the Best of the Best, the Caller-Times coverage. Caller-Times always gives good coverage. I know that!
flo Martinez
It is with a heavy heart and great sadness that I write this letter. I'd like to express my condolences to the family of Dr. Paul Vowell of Texas A&M University- Kingsville.
Dr. Vowell played a major part in creating the criminology program at TAMUK and taught many of us in his time at TAMUK. He was instrumental to me and many others during my time as an undergraduate as well as a graduate student at TAMUK.
Dr. Vowell was an inspiration to many of his students, as he did not begin his college education until later in life. During his studies at Mississippi State University Dr. Vowell was able to earn his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in a total of seven years, all while maintaining an "A" average.
Dr. Vowell was a good man who threw himself into his work and strived to do everything he could for the Psychology, Sociology, and Criminology Department at TAMUK. Dr. Vowell was a major contributor to the Criminology program. This is a sad day for the university and our community; we have lost a good man and a great educator.
Personally, Dr. Vowell was my instructor and advisor but, more importantly, he was my friend; he will be greatly missed.
Jerard George
Wasted water
Congratulations to Eric Moller on his letter to the editor June 14. He has done his homework again on the water releases from Lake Corpus Christi.
The good citizens of Corpus Christi have to understand that the Mary Rhodes Pipeline has been over-rated as far as protecting their needs for water.
The water releases from the lake have been such a waste of our precious water supply. In 2001 when the lake was at its lowest levels, we started the grass-roots organization, "Save the Lake, Your Water Supply." We had the state of Texas listening to us and questions were raised about the releases that the state representatives wanted the facts and truths about. We showed these folks that there was a way to save some of the water for times of need, but it was dropped and they didn't follow through.
Corpus Christi is growing and new businesses are popping up everywhere and they all need water. What is Corpus Christi going to do when the Mary Rhodes pipeline breaks down and that water doesn't make it from Lake Texana?
Citizens of Corpus Christi, please listen to Mr. Moller; he has been watching the water releases and levels for years. This man knows what he is talking about. I think he should run for public office; maybe he could wake some of your City Council up.
Sharon Moore
Not fair
The recent stories surrounding the new shopping center have stirred much controversy. I think ths subject should be carefully examined. First, it would not be fair to other business owners who were not afforded the same tax incentives. Is this the kind of growth that Corpus Christi needs?
Do we even know what kind of businesses are going to be located in this shopping center? Are they going to be little retail stores? Boutiques that pay just above the minimum wage with no insurance benefits for their employees, or are they going to big businesses that have competive pay scales along with great benefits that allow the average citizen to get ahead? While I am not against growth, these questions need to be addressed and answered before the city moves to commit.
If the city does decide to go forward with this project, it had better be ready to give the same incentives to others seeking tax relief.
Remember, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
No more Wal-Marts; enough, already. Is this really the best city leaders can do?
Ray A. Madrigal
A clean sweep
Here in Area 2, we were asked to set our brush out through Sunday, June 3. As usual, people do not collect brush cuttings on their property to put out on a Sunday, and much was out for a week or more.
Pick-up was on June 19 after two weeks, during which there were some gusty winds and the piles dried out considerably.
At one time, the brush crew had someone who used a broom and picked up the finer pieces, leaving the street clean.
There are now, on a short street, three piles of debris at the curb which will surely wash into the gutters and drains when it rains next.
If we can't do the job right, then we should require all households to put out only heavy brush.
This of course will anger the citizens sufficiently to demand we get someone who will do the job properly.
I recognize that there is a lot of brush from the spring flush and that it is a big job to do, but it occurs every spring and should be done right.
Fred Allon
Bush feats
I rarely say anything good about George W. Bush, but he has actually done some good things for his country.
Possibly the best thing he's done for our country is that for the last five years or so, his total disdain for government has shown one and all that Republicans and especially neo-cons can't govern worth a damn.
After running as a compassionate conservative, George W. Bush has shown the world exactly what that means: nothing. Katrina, No Child Left Behind, etc., have shown without a shadow of a doubt that there is no such thing as a compassionate conservative.
After claiming he would be an adult, and would oversee a humble foreign policy, the CEO president has invaded two countries and indulged in nation- building like we've never seen before. Then when he's criticized for his blind ambition, he pouts like a spoiled child.
No one has ever said George W. Bush isn't stubborn, or rigid. Because he kept staying the course against overwhelming odds that said he was entirely wrong with almost every decision, this decision-maker cast his party in the role as the inevitable losers in the 2006 elections.
All 10 candidates ran from this man named George W. Bush. Mr. Bush has almost singlehandedly dismantled the Republican party. Thanks, George, we could have never done it without you.
Gary Maricle
(Albuquerque, TX)
Tiger roar
As a baseball enthusiast, it was a blessing for me to have been a part of the "cardiac" kids-of the Carroll Tigers baseball team. Having the team miss the opportunity to be the District 27-5A co-champions, and then coming back to reach the Region 4 finals made its accomplishment truly outstanding. The fact is that Carroll did not only beat four teams in the playoffs, before losing to Harlingen in the finals, but came back to win each time after losing the first game of the series. In most cases, victory came in the final inning of the games. It was incredible. I doubt that this situation will ever repeat itself, and in a way, I hope not because it could be harmful to the heart.
Congratulations to the Tigers for all their hard work, determination and perseverance, and to Coach Yeager and the rest of the coaches for a job well done. Special thanks go to Mr. Van Matre, principal, and board members, Mrs. Rubio and Mr. Hargis for their encouragement and support during the season and the playoffs. Carroll High School and the community in general should be very proud of the 2007 Carroll Tigers baseball team. Go Tigers!
Manuel Narvaez
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RAW Flask
Although they operate in two very different worlds, both Hennessy and G-Star are resolute in their passion for perfection and the use of raw materials. This shared vision inspired the collaboration between the prominent French cognac house and the super specialist denim brand to design an exclusive edition of the Hennessy V.S Flask Sleeve – an essential fashion accessory that perfectly accommodates a small bottle of Hennessy V.S cognac.
This G-Star and Hennessy crossover product, the RAW Flask, is a special edition item, not available in stores. It was on display for the fashion elite to view during the G-Star RAW Runway Show at the September 2010 edition of New York Fashion Week. The customized RAW Flask consists of a bottle of Hennessy V.S cognac, packaged in a specially designed denim cover and holder.
RAW Ferry
Eighty years after its maiden voyage in 1927, G-Star gave th ... Continue reading
RAW Defender
G-Star denim and Land Rover vehicles share a common philosop ... Continue reading
RAW Flask
Although they operate in two very different worlds, both Hen ... Continue reading


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Our aquatic fitness barbells provide resistance for rehabilitation, fitness and strength training. They are made from polyethylene closed cell foam and are fully sealed and smoothed to provide durability and comfort. Other features include:
Fully sealed bar to provide additional flotation and cleanliness. Soft black foam covered grip. Available in 6 sizes.
The smaller the hand buoy, the lighter the resistance. The smaller buoys are recommended for rehabilitation, the medium size are recommended for aquatic fitness and the larger buoys are recommended for strength training.
Model 20 Hand Buoys (pair): Heavy weight (resistance), recommended for aquatic exercise and strength training. 6 inch wide disc. 5 inch wide hand grip.
Note: Chlorine attacks plastic. It makes it brittle. We suggest rinsing with clear water before storing.


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Best Beach Vacations in December
December brings to mind bone-chilling weather and the hassle of holiday time, so why not plan to head to the beach? There are plenty of options around the Caribbean and Hawaii - perfect winter escapes that are still relatively close to home. Here's a list for the best beach vacations in December.


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Reiki classes in New Orleans
New Orleans, LA
Reiki Home Study Courses in English and SpanishHealing Today has provided Reiki classes and attunements to hundreds of students since 1999. We are happy to now offer home study courses with the same quality of service our students have come to expect. These low cost courses include course material, distant attunement, and certification. Total cost for Reiki 1 is only $49. Reiki Training is available in English and Spanish for all levels including Reiki Master.Please visit website for more info.http://healingtoday.com/homestudy.htmReiki Cursos de Estudio en CasaPara más informacion por favor visite nuestra pagina web:http://healingtoday.com/esp.hs.htmClases de Reiki en Espanolhttp://healingtoday.com/clases.esp.usa.htm
Alternative Medicine
September 10 2014 on Oodle
Healing Today Let me know if you have any questions. – Healing Today
Ask a question or leave a comment...
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Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs
Charles Lowe, Purdue University, and Terra Williams, Arizona State University
The web teaches us that we can be part of the largest public ever assembled
and still maintain our individual faces. But this requires living more of our life
in public. On the Web, the notion of a diary has been turned inside out: weblogs
are public diaries. It is likely that the neat line we draw between our public and
private selves in the real world will continue to erode, grain by grain.
(Weinberger, 2002, p. 177)
Given that students have access to the Internet, weblogs can easily replace
traditional classroom uses of the private print journal. While weblogs are normally
public, free tools such as Blogger can be used for private, expressive writing.
Students need only choose "no" when Blogger asks if they want a public
blog site, keep their site's location on the web secret, and exchange the URL
only with the teacher, resulting in a private electronic writing space where they
can be free to express the personal. However, to use blogs merely as a tool for
private journaling is to privilege our understanding of journals as private writing
spaces without considering the benefits of weblogs as public writing. Whether as
researchers investigating a topic, pundits championing a cause, or expressivist
writers exploring their feelings about themselves and others, students can also
easily share a journal, not just with a teacher, another class member, or the
entire class, but potentially with any interested reader on the Internet.
Consider Sebastian Paquet's personal knowledge publishing, "an
activity where a knowledge worker or researcher makes his observations, ideas,
insights, interrogations, and reactions to others' writing publicly in the
form of a weblog" (2002). For instance, academics bloggers Jill Walker, John
Lovas, and Dennis Jerz use their weblogs to share ideas about their specific fields
of interest, as well as the personal:
Each of the examples above can serve as good models for student blogging.
Weblogs as personal knowledge publishing parallels Susan McLeod's description
of journals as a way to
help students explore and assimilate new ideas, create links between the
familiar and the unfamiliar, mull over possibilities, [and] explain things to the
self before explaining them to others. The analog for this kind of student writing
is the expert's notebook—the scientist's lab book, the
engineer's notebook, the artist's and architect's sketchbook (the
journals of Thomas Edison and Leonardo da Vinci are prototypical examples). (2001,
p. 152)
In our classes, students use their blogs for a wide range of writing, much like
a combination of a commonplace book and a diary put together. Blog entries
McLeod's definition, though, along with other discourse on journals in
composition, restricts journal writing to the completely private or the immediacy
of the classroom. Weblogging, as a publishing phenomenon which allows
anyone—even those with little technical expertise—to maintain a website
and regularly write online, promises to complicate journaling with the introduction
of the public. As two teachers who have used weblogs in our classrooms for the past
two years, we have found that by extending the discourse to a large community
outside of the classroom, our student bloggers regularly confront
"real" rhetorical situations in a very social, supportive setting.
Sharing journals within the writing classroom is not a new concept. Well before
weblogs became popular, Chris Anson and Richard Beach (1995) encouraged teachers to
extend the principles behind the dialogue journal to peer dialogue journals, where,
working in pairs or groups of three, students share journals entries. Like weblogs
can, peer dialogue journals provide students "with the social interaction and
motivation to extend their writing" not available through private journal
writing (p. 65). However, as Anson and Beach caution, the logistics of sharing
print texts could make it difficult to coordinate and exchange dialogue journals in
the classroom. As an alternative, they suggest emailed peer dialogue journals,
"interactive environments" that can create "a strong sense of
community in which students can assume an active role as a participant" (p.
76). Though they make sharing more logistically sound, emailed peer dialogue
journals still keep sharing within the walls of the classroom.
Because of the benefits of social interaction, most writing teachers would agree
that students sharing their writing—making their writing public—is
important. For example, in their introduction to Public Works: Student Writing
as Public Text, Emily Isaacs and Phoebe Jackson note Kenneth Bruffee's
contribution to our understanding of the importance of public writing: Bruffee
emphasizes the value of the social nature of public writing, a condition he
identifies as common in nonacademic settings. In his work, Bruffee argues
strenuously for students to go public with their writing to receive feedback, on
the grounds that public writing in classrooms deemphasizes teacher authority and
promotes student-writers' abilities to see themselves as responsible writers
and to view writing as a social activity. (2001, p. xii)
Such principles inform our understanding of peer response and are now integrated
into process theory. Writing teachers commonly use small group or full class
workshops as the means for students to share their writing. By making their writing
public in class, students begin to take responsibility for/ownership of what they
have to say rather than handing it directly over to a teacher-reader-grader.
Writing teachers have also extended this notion to electronic discourse. Many use
email as a way for students to share drafts or configure electronic writing spaces
in course management systems. Teachers even create journal spaces in Blackboard or
WebCT discussion boards.
These electronic spaces are not quite private; however, they are not quite
public, either. For instance, Blackboard and WebCT, with their emphasis on content
delivery and teacher administration functions, are classroom-only gated
communities. Institution-maintained course management sites may have WWW addresses
and contain links to other Internet sites, but as they move through the
password-protected virtual hallways, students easily realize such online class
spaces are not the information superhighway. Instead, they are only one way streets
that pull content without contributing to the larger discourse which is the web.
Within password-protected classroom spaces, these student writers are safely
sequestered from the discourse community of the Internet.
Many common writing class practices, like the use of Blackboard and WebCT,
reflect a restricted definition of public, a rhetorical situation with which
students are all too familiar after years of writing for English classes: that of
the classroom, a place in which the grade and the teacher are largely what matter.
Recognizing this, teachers often try to expand the audience that students write for
by asking them to articulate imagined or simulated rhetorical situations for
writing projects, such as "write in the manner of the 'Talk of the
Town' essays found at the beginning of each week's New Yorker
magazine" (Bishop, 2004, p. 183). Or, teachers may ask students to choose a
publication and write an article in which the subject matter, voice, and style are
congruent with what might be found in that publication. The problem with such
artificial rhetorical situations is that ultimately, the real audience is still the
teacher—and students know this. As a consequence, some teachers have students
work with real audiences outside of the class. Students write for class newspapers
or zines and do service learning activities where the final product is shared with
an organization or community
We believe, as Catherine Smith does, that students "take real-world
writing more seriously when it is done on the web, where it might actually be seen
and used" (2000, p. 241). Many students today regularly email friends and
family, converse via instant message daily, participate in multiplayer online games
with people from around the web, and surf Internet sites much as earlier
generations read magazines and newspapers. Students see the web as a public,
playful place different from the writing spaces they typically work in within the
classroom. Recognizing this, some composition teachers now assign individual
hypertexts or group hypertext projects such as webzines, hoping to tap into the
students' sense of play and familiarity with online environments in order to
stimulate investment in and engagement with their writing.
Student hypertext projects expand the concept of the public audience to include
the entire web. Yet, weblogs as a social, public genre can have equal if not more
appeal to a generation who enjoys seeing the private made public on Survivor
and MTV's Real World, while also fulfilling the pedagogical goal of
expanding audience outside of the classroom. When students hesitate to share their
texts publicly—given the association of the word "journal" with
the word "private"—an exploration of weblogging will clarify for
them that a weblog is a public way of sharing ideas. Each semester, we introduce
our students to weblogs by asking them to visit weblogs.com and by engaging them in
discussion of articles such as Rebecca Mead's "You've Got Blog:
How to put your business, your boyfriend, and your life on-line" (2000).
Through these activities and after a little time gaining experience as bloggers,
students come to see weblogs as a fun communication medium in which they can and
want to participate as writers and readers.
Weblogs, as an electronic publishing tool, also offer significant practical and
pedadogical differences and advantages over student hypertext assignments for both
writing teachers and students alike. In light of the following comparisons, writing
teachers may appreciate Pat Delaney's (2002) "analogy of the
Dreamweaver and ftp-ed webpage as 'paper making' and blogging as
'writing on pre-made digital paper'":
Using Delaney's "digital paper," we've found that
blogging and reading blogs prepares students to write online. Weblogs can serve as
an alternative to hypertext assignments, or even make hypertext assignments more
effective. In our experience, students sometimes get carried away with the
eye-candy of website design—images, fancy layouts, Marcomedia Flash—at
the expense of working on the alphanumeric part of their texts. Working with
weblogs privileges writing: students are more invested in the writing that goes
into end-of-the-semester hypertext projects when they've been writing for the
web all semester. They learn rhetorical strategies for writing online before moving
on to work with graphics. They also learn about how to make effective
hyperlinks—a crucial part of website design and blogging. Thus,
students spend more time developing their texts, rather than working mostly on
graphics and choosing the "perfect" background. These texts likely end
up being more rhetorically sensitive than without the intervention of the blog.
As writing teachers, we typically feel it our duty to protect our students, to
create safe writing spaces where students can enjoy greater risk-taking.
Traditional print journal writing, used as a private writing space, typically
embodies this notion. It is no wonder that teachers fear having students post
personal reflections, drafts, reading responses, and other writing assignments and
exercises to the public Internet, preferring instead the locked doors of a
Blackboard or WebCT site. For example, Charles Moran's
experience with Web publishing has made [him] consider a rather frightening
possibility: that computer technologies, as we are presently using them, move all
of us in our first-year writing courses toward the production and publication of
'documents' that will live in the public sphere, and away from more or
less private writing that will help us compose our lives. (Moran, 2001, p. 40)
Moving journal writing to the web using weblogs where Internet surfers can read
and link to student writing potentially opens our students' texts to the
unknown outside of the classroom, but our experience with student blogging has
shown that "less private writing" may equally help writers to compose
their lives, albeit in a social, more public way. And even though this speculation
about the positive aspects of public writing may disrupt established thoughts on
what should be public and private, it is not out of line with collaborative process
views. Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford (1990) note that the solitary writer image
permeates "the theory and practice of teaching writing" (6).
Composition has traditionally privileged dialectic and Platonic perspectives on
invention in writing (LeFevre, 1987, pp. 49-50). The scholarship often depicts the
writer, working alone, drawing on deeply divined personal truths or engaging in
inner dialogue as the means of creating knowledge. While composition theory
and practice now recognizes the importance of collaboration and social interaction
more than it did twenty or even ten years ago, we still suspect that our
field's expressivist heritage may lead many writing teachers to put the
private unnecessarily in front of the public, partially because writing teachers
are themselves more comfortable with the private. As a consequence, many writing
assignments include opportunities for deep, personal reflective writing that is not
possible within the public eye. But what is the tradeoff for that kind of writing
opportunity for students? Isn't it possible that the paradoxical situation of
creating a risk-free space in which to enable risk-taking has led compositionists
to forget a primary purpose of privacy, which is to provide a comfortable writing
space, comfort which can also come from community?
Regardless, despite the fact that publicly posting to the web may limit some
instances of deeply personal expression, we want to encourage writing teachers to
be aware of their possible biases for private writing spaces when thinking about
weblogs. In her 1987 report on a computer-mediated graduate course, Linda Harasim
highlights some of the new options in education that computers have opened,
suggesting that computers can, in some cases, be more effective than the
traditional classroom (1997, p. 118). Below, we show that using weblogs in our
classrooms has been more effective for at least some of our students because it has
increased participation: our quieter students who typically don't
participate in face-to-face discussions are participating in weblog discussions.
Making a similiar claim, S.R. Hiltz's early research in online learning
concludes, "[W]e believe that one important requirement for realizing the
promise of new educational technologies is to use them to create new learning and
teaching environments that are more effective and exciting for at least some kinds
of materials rather than merely trying to replicate the traditional classroom
electronically" (1986, 104).
Differing in important ways from other genres traditionally used in the writing
classroom and on the Internet, weblogs are, as Mark Federman explains,
an instance of "publicy" - the McLuhan reversal of
"privacy" - that occurs under the intense acceleration of instantaneous
communications. Our notion of privacy was created as an artifact of literacy -
silent reading lead to private interpretation of ideas that lead to private
thoughts that lead to privacy. Blogging is an "outering" of the private
mind in a public way (that in turn leads to the multi-way participation that is
again characteristic of multi-way instantaneous communications). Unlike normal
conversation that is essentially private but interactive, and unlike broadcast that
is inherently not interactive but public, blogging is interactive, public and, of
course, networked - that is to say, interconnected. (2004)
Compare this to Jill Walker's observation on jill/txt, that
"the traditional solitude of writers is so different from the companionship
of blogs." Or pioneer edublogger Will Richardson's conclusions about
his K-12 literature class where blogging "stimulate[d] debate and motivate[d]
students to do close reading of the text" (2003, p. 40). Each of these is an
instance of "publicy" that fits very nicely with Bruffee's social
constructionist views of writing. For instance, Bruffee (1984) explains that
"if thought is internalized public and social talk, then writing of all kinds
is internalized social talk made public and social again. If thought is
internalized conversation, then writing is internalized conversation
re-externalized" (1984, p. 641). Blogging, then, with its networked, informal
conversational style, is less thought, and more externalized public and
social talk.
From a Bruffean perspective, then, weblogs can facilitate a collaborative,
social process of meaning making, leading us to believe that weblogs as an instance
of "publicy" enable a comfort zone, a social environment where anxiety
about the teacher and of school writing is reduced, while also drawing on other
benefits of writing publicly.
When I first looked over the syllabus for the class before the first day of
school and I saw the word 'blog' all over the place, I was like what???
I had never ever heard of the word blog… So I got a little nervous, but I
realized that I probably wasn't the only one who didn't know what a
blog was, so I decided not to freak out and keep a positive outlook on the class.
Now, 3 weeks into the class, I love blogging! It's really cool! I really like
how you can read what other people wrote, and other people can comment on what you
wrote so you get some feedback from your class mates. It's also a really good
way of communication and you get to know people in a sort of different way, other
than meeting them face to face.
Another student wrote:
What I have enjoyed most about blogging is that even though we have certain
topics to expand upon, I can post my own thoughts and feelings in a relaxed
environment. As I have already stated in a previous blog, being in relaxed
environment when you write is probably one of the best things for your writing. You
can always write how you feel about the desired topic that you have to blog
In "Digital spins: The pedagogy and politics of student-centered
e-zines," Jason Alexander's (2002) introduction talks about how
"staged" audience is in first year composition. Alexander points out
that even just sharing papers among students on the Internet is not enough, and
goes on to problematize posting to the web, suggesting that students realize that
their only real audience is fellow students and the teacher. However, we
would say that by using weblogs in our classrooms, we've turned ownership
over to students and given them a real audience. In life outside of the classroom,
much like on the Internet, writers will not always know who their audiences are
when they write. A report, memo, letter, or fax might cross the desks of numerous
people that the writer has never met during the course of a workday. Risk is part
of writing, and our students experience that risk within a very supportive
community of writers. When we first began teaching with blogs, Charlie recalls
being apprehensive himself about putting course syllabi, feedback on drafts, and
other teacherly responses up on the web for everyone to see, even though he had
been posting to an academic blog for almost six months. But we both feel now, that
the shared meaning we and our students have gained from blogging our courses makes
it all worthwhile. Imagine. Classes within and among institutions could interact
through the use of weblogs as more institutions integrate student blogging into the
curriculum (see, for example, the University of South Florida's
First-Year-Writing Program's Writing Blogs site).
We hope that researchers and practitioners will take our exploratory,
experienced-based musings and extend the dialogue on weblogs in the classroom,
opening themselves to the many possibilities of publishing to the web now that
blogging makes practically anyone a web author. Maybe others will come to feel, as
we do, that there is something exciting about the way that weblogs facilitate
sharing and build community by putting more of our lives online.
Alexander, Jonathan. (2002). Digital spins: The pedagogy and politics of
student-centered e-zines. Computers and Composition, 19, 387-410.
Anson, Chris & Beach, Richard. (1995). Journals in the classroom: writing
to learn.
Norwood: Christopher-Gordon Publishers.
Ballenger, Bruce. (2004). The curious researcher: A guide to writing research
papers. (4th
ed.). New York: Pearson Longman.
Benda, Jonathan. (2001). Field trips to virtual public squares? Purposes,
audiences, teachers, and student-written web pages. In Emily Isaacs and Phoebe Jackson (Eds.), Public Works: Student Writing as Public Text (pp. 61-68). Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook.
Bishop, Wendy. (Ed.). (2004). On writing: A process reader. New York:
Bruffee, Kenneth. (1984). Collaborative learning and the conversation of
mankind. College English, 46(7), 635-52.
Delaney, Pat. (2002, July 12). Forests and forests of digital paper.
homoLudens. Author.
Retrieved March 3, 2004, from http://interactiveu.berkeley.edu:8000/PatD/2002/07/11.
Ede, Lisa & Lunsford, Andrea. (1990). Singular texts/plural authors:
Perspectives on
collaborative writing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.
Elbow, Peter. (1998). Writing Without Teachers. (Anniv. ed.). New York:
Oxford Press.
Federman, Mark. (2004, December 26). Blogging and publicy. What is the
Author. Retrieved January 21, 2004, from http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/blogger/2003_12_01_blogarchive.html#107184093362428431.
Harasim, Linda. (1997). Teaching and learning online: Issues in
computer-mediated graduate courses. Canadian Journal of Educational Communication,16(2), 117-135.
Hiltz, S.R. (1986). The "virtual classroom": Using computer-mediated
communication for university teaching. Journal of Communication, 36(2), 95-104.
Humphery, Theodore. (1999). Literature on-line: the best of all possible worlds?
Currents in electronic literacy, 1. Retrieved January 21, 2004, from http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/spr99/humphrey.html.
Isaacs, Emily J. and Phoebe Jackson. (Eds.). (2001). Public works: Student writing as public text. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook.
Jerz, Dennis. Literacy weblog. Retrieved March 3, 2004, from http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/index.jsp.
LeFevre, Karen (1987). Invention as a social act. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.
Lovas, John. A writing teacher's blog (Jocalo's Blog). Retrieved March 3, 2004, from http://faculty.deanza.fhda.edu/jocalo/.
McLeod, Susan. (2001). The pedagogy of writing across the curriculum. In Gary
Tate, Amy Rupiper, & Kurt Schick (Eds.), A guide to composition pedagogies
(pp 149-164). New York: Oxford University Press.
Mead, Rebecca. (2000, November 13). You've got blog: How to put your
business, your boyfriend, and your life on-line. rebeccamead.com. Author. Retrieved
January 21, 2004, from http://www.rebeccamead.com/2000_11_13_art_blog.htm.
Moran, Charles. (2001). Public and private writing in the information Aage. In Emily J. Isaacs and Phoebe Jackson (Eds.), Public works: Student writing as public
text (pp. 35-43). Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook.
Paquet, Sebastian. (2002, October 1). Personal knowledge publishing and its uses in research. Seb's OpenResearch. Author. Retrieved January 21, 2004,
Richardson, Will. (2003). Weblogs in the english classroom: More than just chat.
English Journal, 93(1), 39-43.
Smith, Catherine. (2000). Nobody, which means anybody: Audience on the world
wide web. In Sibylle Gruber (Ed.), Weaving a virtual web: Practical approaches
to new information technologies (pp. 239-249). Urbana: NCTE.
Walker, Jill. jill/txt. Retrieved March 3, 2004, from http://huminf.uib.no/~jill.
---. (2003, November 6). solitude. jill/txt. Author. Retrieved March 16,
2004, from http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/writing/solitude.html.
Weinberger, David. (2002). Small pieces loosely joined: a unified theory of
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Writing Blogs. University of South Florida. Retrieved March 13, 2004,
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Note: This article is licensed under a copyleft Attribution-Share Alike Creative Commons license.
On this:
However, to use blogs merely as a tool for private journaling is to privilege our understanding of journals as private writing spaces without considering the benefits of weblogs as public writing. Whether as researchers investigating a topic, pundits championing a cause, or expressivist writers exploring their feelings about themselves and others, students can also easily share a journal, not just with a teacher, another class member, or the entire class, but potentially with any interested reader on the Internet.
Whether this is done needs to be a student's choice. I don't think a writing class should require students to journal write publically. I think a writing class can easily and wonderfully use blogs, yes, but always it must be the writer's choice on what is public outside of class.
The only exception would be a course description that clearly stated up front that the course was one in public writing, and ultimately I believe that course must be an elective.
Also, if students do choose to make their blogs public, I think some reading and discussion of the possible implications of that would be in order.
Charlie and Terra write:
"In our classes, students use their blogs for a wide range of writing, much like a combination of a commonplace book and a diary put together. Blog entries include:
* Reading responses;
Articles and items of interest that they find on the web that are related to classtexts about
writing, for example;
* Research responses (akin to the double-entry journal as defined by Bruce Ballenger in The Curious
* Personal explorations on topics ranging from Ten Things I Really Like About Myself to favorite
family traditions and pet peeves; and
* Off-topic blogs/journals. Our students, of course, have an open invitation to submit off-topic
blogs/journals. Off-topic posts have included a lament about a flea-infested apartment, a link to an
article about the Sims Online, a link to downloadable Esheepand Theyre so cute! comments
and various day-in-the-life-of-a-college-freshman blogs.
Here's what I wonder. All of these are good ideas, and blogs make it easy enough to post stuff to the WWW. But these aren't particularly new ideas -- public writing. We've been using that argument about the Internet in general for as long as it's been around. We used that in talking about file sharing, about using email discussion lists (Mike Day's "Tapping the Living Database" leaps to mind.), in our earlier writing about the benefits of online discussions and bulletin boards. The Isaacs/Jackson text on the benefits of public writing was put together well before blogs burst onto the scene.
So I guess the question is, what's the advantage of blogs in all this? Do they make it public writing easier or better or different than having students use email list, newsgroups, public bbs's, WWW pages, and so on?
An off-the-cuff response... few people write "college essays" when they leave college. But many people blog outside of academia.
Thomas Jefferson's veiw of higher education as a tool for creating the next generation of leaders prepared those future leaders for membership in an educated elite. Education is more democratized now, and more people who don't have classical training in rhetoric (and so forth) are in positions of power, and are using different forms of discourse. I wouldn't advocate ditching all the traditional forms and using, say, text messaging or computer games as texts in the composition classroom. Still, students in college who turn first to the Internet as a source of information probably benefit from being taught to write for the Internet, if only so they can see how easy it is to post a mistake or a half-understood truth.
I used to teach my freshmen how to make a web page, but we got caught up in the design stage. Blogs permit us to get right into authoring hypertext, bypassing concepts such as how to FTP files, or how to lay out a page. (They can get to that later, in more advanced classes.) And blogs are different from email lists, newsgroups, and bbs's because those aren't as public. (Okay, Google does search newsgroup archives, but remember what happened when DejaNews suddenly stopped making its archives available... Google might possibly do that again tomorrow.)
Blogs are just the latest development, and of course they aren't the be-all and end-all of the evolution of rhetoric, so you're right to ask a tough question, Nick.
I'm very conscious of what happens when one forces a student to blog publicly... I feel students should have a wide choice of topics -- in part, becuase nobody wants to read "forced blogging" ("The answers to the questions in chapter 9 are...").
I'm curious about your reasons for thinking that required public writing should be an elective only? Is is an ethcial issue? After all, there are other course tracks in many universities where students are required as part of their degree work to do things outside of the safety of the classroom. K-12 student teaching and engineering internships are two that come to mind.
I can't speak for Nick, but the cases that come to my mind revolve around the confessional, personal stories that one often finds in a freshman comp course. I can also imagine problems from some students who have restraining orders against individuals to whom they'd rather not publicize their whereabouts.
I personally try to address this by showing students multiple examples of times somebody blogged (or uploaded e-mailed or IMed) something they later regretted.
Right. Terra and I acknowledged above that "many writing assignments include opportunities for deep, personal reflective writing that is not possible within the public eye." For those that feel this is a must, then public blogging is not the right venue. Of course, one would hope that writing teachers are rhetorically savvy enough to recognize when their assignments are not "public" friendly :)
As for the restraining order idea, well, I'm not really in favor of students using anything more than their first names--even better, a screen name--on their blogs. Anonymity provides a degree of privacy while the words are still public.
Charlie, I guess I'm leary of required public writing, public beyond the classroom, because it reminds me of that thing you sometimes hear parents say to their kids on a forced trip: "You're gonna go and you're gonna like it. Now shut up and get in the car."
That's not to say you or anyone else conducts their class that way, with that tone. But I do think one of the important things in teaching writing is for students to come to see themselves as the author(itie)s of their own work. I need to assign writing for the class to have something to do -- even if it's simply to say write some pages by next week. But if I insist students share their writing beyond the class, even it it's not confessional writing or especially personal, then I've taken that decision out of their hands.
So I don't do that. So were I teach again and use blogs, I'd want a private blog default, with students having the option to make their blogs public.
I think it's especially useful too in an age of Alexa and Google and Technorati and other archiving tools. I want students to be free to be, well, stupid for lack of a better word. Free to say dumb and embarrassing things. But I don't want to force those things, along with the good stuff, to be public. Students can choose to go public with any of their writing, but I can't bring myself to require it.
Unless the course description makes clear that its purpose is to do public writing and students then opt in. That's it, I believe in opt in.
Sorry I'm joining this late -- hectic workload this summer and limited internet connections :)
It wasn't our intention to suggest that blogs are better than other available technologies, but maybe our piece came across that way.
My students post everything to the class weblog in one form or another blogging or commenting to someone else's blog. And with the comments and blogs links along the right side of the main page of the class weblog, we can see who's blogged recently all the time and we can see comments all the time. I have access to this stuff from anywhere all the time. I like having all of my students' writing, questions, comments, responses, etc. housed in one spot where everyone can find them. I have never had a student who doesn't appreciate this very same feature.
With the amount of writing and communicating my students do, a listserve is just too clunky--multiple assignments and threads with multiple posts by each participant at all times of the day, seven days a week for an entire semester. I'd have a hard time keeping up with all that email, and I know my students would, too. Ick. Now I'm imaginging trying to keep up with the amount of email traffic I'd have if I converted everything my students do on the blog to a listserve.
Another consideration for me is spam I run anti-spam software and so do my students and that stuff isn't always reliable. A bad suject line gets labelled as spam and no one reads it or it gets lost. And my students get so much email as it is they're away from home for the first time, trying to keep up with their families and pals at other schools it seems like a good idea to get them out of their email for a while and out into other parts of the cyberworld.
I can't speak for anyone else's students, but mine have a hard time getting their email accounts set up the way they want them sometimes. Lots of them have their email set to automatically download to their home computers. And if they're doing that, than they only have access to the class listserve material on their home computers. What happens if they go home for the weekend? All that class listserve stuff isn't at their fingertips. I know that's kind of a minor issue, but I've run into I'm at home and my work is on my computer at school problems. Having everything on the course weblog tends to eliminate this.
How is using weblogs different than something like a website? I'm thinking of websites as static, rather than interactive the way my course weblog is. I like webpage projects... but I'm using the course weblog as an interactive community space. I think individual webpages are limiting in terms of community interaction.
I'm also thinking of how easy it is to teach my students to navigate the course weblog and post to it. Teaching students to create their own webpages takes time that I'd rather spend writing and discussing writing. I think teaching students to use and navigate our class weblog is just as easy (and less clunky) as teaching them to use Blackboard. I know my students have continusously appreciated not having to wait on blackboard to get to their class stuff. The class website is just so much more user-friendy than Blackboard.
I don't really want to echo Charlie and my article too much, but I also like that the course weblog is public. That space is different than a gated blackboard space. My students know that their writing is On The Web. They know it from the first day of class. They also know, by looking at the course website and the syllabus and by my introductory remarks about the class that
1. I don't require personal writing, typically. Any personal writing on the course weblog is welcomed, but they always need to keep in mind that anyone stumbling onto the course weblog could potentially read it.
2. They're publishing their work to the Web under whatever username they choose, so there is a failsafe anonymous feature to blogs. In f2f classes, this makes life very interesting because they know each other by name in class, but sometimes have no idea which name/face goes with which username. So sometimes, their writing to the course weblog is anonymous even to each other.
3. Posting to the course weblog is a requirement, just like posting to a blackboard or listserve would be in another class. Perhaps this is a shut up and get in the car type situation. But how is this different than requiring students to write/keep personal-writing-type journals in their composition classes? As a composition student, I'd have dropped a class like that in about ten seconds. The fact of the matter is that a student who doesn't like the idea of posting work to the WWW can drop the class and get into another one easily enough. Each course has its own requirements, which appeal to some students and not to others. I'm pretty sure that designing a course that appeals to every potential composition student is impossible. Finally, I'm very approachable and easy-going and you'd have to be a blockhead not to see that from the very first day of class. I'm willing to work around public writing issues that students have on an individual basis--my students know this. I've really never had a problem with a student not wanting to post work to the course weblog.
I like that my students can give our class URL to Mom and Dad whenever they want, if they want. They can share it with their friends, and they can see when someone discovers our class website. This public-ness has its own set of problems, but I think you can find problems just about anywhere. I don't think classroom blogging and the public-ness of it is for everyone. Me I'm willing to deal with the potential problems because I really like the results I'm getting from my students and I like their enthusiasm about the way the course is set up on the web.
Also -- I like being able to share what my students are doing with my colleagues. If I were using blogs through blackboard (if you really get creative, it is possible to do something like a community weblog on blackboard), ya'll would have a harder time accessing what we were up to.
This is sort of a drop in the bucket. There are lots of technology tools a person could use for teaching and I'm not familiar with all of them. I'm not convinced that I have to create an argument for why blogging is better than each and every one of them any more than I'd want to argue about why one peer response workshop format is better or worse than any other one, especially if I haven't experimented with all of them.
The debate has centered on requiring vs. "not" public blogging as part of course assignments. I have a very practical question; one which I'll probably be asked by my colleagues as I introduce this phenom. How is blogging factored into course grades, if posts are under an assumed name? -- Cheryl
Hi, Cheryl, here's the way I do it in my classes: I encourage my students to blog under a pseudonym if they don't want their real names on their posts (which would eventually be cached by Google and would show up if someone searched for their names), but the student must share the pseudonym with the other members of the class. This way, the other students know that "PinkSnowboardStar" is really Lucy Blackburn, but no one else does.
A nuts-and-bolts question for those of you who use "course blogs": Do you establish a blog through one of the free blogging sites and then have students post comments? Do you use the blog sites to create "group" blogs that allow multiple users to write entries? Do you have individual students establish their own blogs and then link them to a central course site?
Still having trouble with trackbacks: here's an entry on this essay from my personal blog:
i didn't really have time to read the arctile or even skim over it. However, it seems that the article talks about how public blogging can be good in the classroom for academic use and for personal use just to socialize and receive feedback from others. I think blogging could be useful in the classroom and is good for expressive writing.


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ACA: More good, than bad
Seven million Americans have signed up for health coverage. That indeed is a good thing!
Copyright 2014: Houston Chronicle | April 2, 2014 | Updated: April 2, 2014 7:40pm
Photo By Carolyn Kaster/STFPresident Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, gestures as he speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 1, 2014, about the Affordable Care Act. The deadline to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act passed at midnight Monday night. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Now that the 2014 enrollment deadline for the private insurance purchasing exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act has passed, it's heartening to note that the law has met its initial goals, with no help from Gov. Rick Perry and friends, of course. Every Republican officeholder in Texas, as well as a few anxious Democrats, has declared as an article of faith that so-called Obamacare is an abject failure, an affront to the free enterprise system, possibly a socialistic scheme inspired by failed European governments. They have done everything within their power to sabotage whatever benefits the law might bring to their fellow Texans, and that obstinacy includes refusing Medicaid expansion in a state where nearly one out of four residents has no insurance coverage.
The ACA's only value, as far as most Republicans are concerned, is as campaign fodder for sweeping victories in this fall's elections. And they may be right; polls show, after all, that most Americans continue to view the law in a negative light.
What they're not right about is the impact. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, whatever its challenges may be, more than 7 million Americans have enrolled for health insurance coverage, according to the White House. As long they pay their premiums, they can visit their doctor for check-ups, make an appointment when they're sick, no longer have to allow chronic conditions to fester because they know they can't afford treatment. Never mind that other developed nations got there long before we did; it's an accomplishment worth applauding.
In addition, more than 8 million uninsured people are now eligible for Medicaid (though not in Texas). Three million young people remain on their parents' health-care plans. More than 100 million Americans have received preventive-care services at no cost, while millions more no longer have to worry that they'll be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions.
In Texas, the state with the largest number of uninsured - some 6 million - the results were a bit more modest. As of March 1, close to 300,000 residents had signed up for coverage, although a last-minute surge was likely to get that number slightly closer to the original target of 629,000 enrollees set by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (In Massachusetts, by the way, 96 percent of residents have insurance coverage.)
The rocky rollout and the lingering hostility is similar to what happened in 1965, when Medicare and Medicaid went into effect. As Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker points out, Medicare, which provides health coverage for all Americans over age 65, was immediately popular, while Medicaid, which covers the poor of all ages, met with resistance.
The first year, only 26 states agreed to participate. The program didn't include all 50 until 1982, when Arizona finally joined.
The political bomb-throwing will continue, although it's hard to imagine Americans ever agreeing to a repeal of the ACA, any more than they would want to see Medicare and Medicaid repealed. It's hard to imagine, also, a certain Texas governor conceding that he mighthave been wrong, long after the new law has become the core element of the American health-care system.