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Schwalbe Racing Ralph 275 Performance Tire - Road Bike Shop
Road Bike Shop
Product Search Results For "Schwalbe Racing Ralph 27.5 Performance Tire"
|Maxxis Ardent Race Tire - 27.5
The Ardent tire from Maxxis is one of the company's best-selling slabs of rubber, in no small part because of its incredible versatility on virtually any type of terrain. Recognizing the potential in the tread pattern for even greater speed, however, engineers got to tweaking it and ended up...
Price: $75.00
|Schwalbe Racing Ralph Cyclocross Tire - Tubular
Just like its mountain bike counterpart, the Schwalbe Racing Ralph Cyclocross Tubular Tire is the best tire out there for racing. However these are tubulars where the others are clinchers. But once you get these babies in the mud and up hill and down dale, you'll be wondering why it took you so...
Price: $144.95
|Schwalbe Racing Ralph HT Cyclocross Tire - Tubular
When summer draws to a close and cold weather becomes the norm, we, like many of you, get giddy with anticipation for 'cross season. And while thick, sticky mud is part of the game, many of us, especially out West, are typically graced with drier conditions. For those days when full-on mud tires...
|Schwalbe Racing Ralph Tire -27.5in
The Schwalbe Racing Ralph Tire is turning three. This marks the third generation of the Racing Ralph, a tire that we've all become familiar with on race day because of its ability to move us forward quickly. Ralph's speed comes from Schwalbe's PaceStar compound. It has an easy-rolling base layer...
|Schwalbe Racing Ralph Tire -29in
The Schwalbe Racing Ralph Tire is exactly what it sounds like: a racing tire. This thing is built for pure speed, and -- when Schwalbe blew it up to 29er size -- it may be the fastest cross country tire on the market. This isn't a jumbo passenger jet, though, it's a fighter jet, and its...
Price: $92.00
|Schwalbe Racing Ralph TL Ready Tire - 26in
As its most successful race tire, the Racing Ralph TL Ready 26-inch Tire, uses Schwalbe's lauded tread pattern, PaceStar compound, and TL casing to satisfy the weight weenies. That the tread pattern is designed for flat-out speed means that it loses a little ground to the Rocket Ron when it comes...


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TV's "Real Housewives of New York"… LuAnn de Lesseps, Alex McCord, Cindy Barshop, Kelly Bensimon, Ramona Singer, Sonja Morgan and Jill Zarin speak onstage at the 9th Annual TV Land Awards at the Javits Center on April 10, 2011 in New York City.
The Real Housewives of New York City have just embarked on their fourth season, and we know that Alex McCord has an eccentric hubby, Bethenny Frankel broke off from the franchise to become her own reality star, and Kelly Bensimon loves to be seen with beautiful people, but who were they in real, ordinary life before Bravo took over? They must have been someone before they were a charicature of themselves! Here is a rundown about the key real-person facts of each of our favorite (or, not…) ladies in NYC.
Alex McCord
"I've always had opinions, but now people know it."
Profession: Designer.
Alex takes charge on design projects like the renovation of Manhattan's oldest camera store, Willoughbys. She also is an avid philanthropist in New York City, of course.
Side Projects: She's a Model and Author! Alex recently signed with New York Model Management. McCord and her hubby wrote a child-rearing book, Little Kids, Big City — which was an irony considering their tykes run around like monkeys injected with Coke Zero all day.
Family: Hubby, Two sons, Two Cats & a Brooklyn Brownstone. Alex is married to red-head standout, Simon van Kempen, who formerly managed hotels and just recently started a social media company. They have two sons, Francois, 8 and Johan, 5. The Brooklyn-based fam has two cats.
LuAnn de Lesseps
"I thought I had it good before, but I'm just getting started."
Profession: Author (Like Every Housewife,) Wannabe Singer, "Manners Commentator"
Now that she's no longer so busy being a stately, well-mannered, countess (whatever the heck that means), she has time to be an aspiring author and really bad singer. Ex-Countess Lesseps released an etiquette book in 2009, Class With The Countess, but then she admitted she didn't actually write it. Smart. She also has a column with highly esteemed magazine OK! called "What Would the Countess Do."
She also tried a whack at singing — why not? She began her dabbling in music with the dance single, Money Can't Buy You Class. We bet that's what she really thinks. She also appears on TV shows like Joy Behar and Larry King Live as a "manners commentator," but we think the shows just see it is a farce.
Side projects: See profession above.
Family: Single Mom of Two With New Boyfriend
Formerly the wife of Ferdinand de Lesseps of Suez Canal royalty (he allegedly cheated on her), LuAnn has taken to new boyfriend, Jacques Azoulay, the CEO of Gabriella Wines Importer and Distributor. She's been busy spending time in the Hamptons with the new beau and her children, Victoria and Noel.
Jill Zarin
"Good or bad, I know who I am, and I own it."
Profession: Marketing For Zarin Fabric Warehouse
Jill is married to Bobby Zarin, who owns the home furnishing and fabric warehouse on the Lower East Side in NYC. Jill is in charge of the company's marketing.
Side Jobs: Jill Zarin Enterprises, Real Estate and Hosiery Business
Jill, who went to Simmons College, has started her "brand," which entails Jill Zarin Home (a bedding line,) her TV career, public speaking career, book tour, and charity work. She published an advice book with her mom and sister, Secrets of a Jewish Mother. With over 20 years of hosiery experience, Jill will be launching SWEEZ COUTURE in Spring 2011.
Family: One Daughter, One Son, Upper East Side
The Zarins live on the Upper East Side and until they sold it in 2009, had a summer house in the Hamptons. Jill has a daughter, Allyson, from a previous marriage and a son.
Ramona Singer
"If people can't handle the truth, it's really not my problem."
Profession: Owner of RMS Fashions
Ramona's company buys excess goods from manufacturers and resells them to discount stores.
Side Jobs: Jewelry Line, Skin Care Line, Winemaking
The Fashion Institute of Technology graduate started a jewelry line, True Faith jewelry, which is sold on the Home Shopping Network and she also developed a skin care line, TruRenewal. The infamous pinot grigio afficinado has teamed up with a "75-year-old Italian wine company," to make the "Ramona Pinot Grigio." Believe it.
Family: One Daughter, Manhattan
Ramona and her hubby Mario have one daughter, Avery, who just went off to college. They live in Manhattan.
Kelly Bensimon
"I'm living the American Dream, one mistake at a time."
Profession: Former model, equestrian and magazine editor.Current social climber (fact.)
Side Jobs: Author, Costume Jewelry Line.
Bensimon wrote The Bikini Book,American Style and In The Spirit of the Hamptons. She contributes to Hamptons and gotham. Charity work. Has designed a costume jewelry line which is sold on the Home Shopping Network.
Family: Two Daughters with Ex Husband. Bensimon plits her time between NYC and East Hampton with Sea and Teddy, her daughters with her ex, famous photographer Gilles Bensimon.
Sonja Morgan
"I have a taste for luxury, and luxury has a taste for me."
Profession: Former Hostess
Before morgan married to the multi-millionaire Morgan family (ex-hubby was great-grandson of J. Pierpont Morgan,) she was a restaraunt hostess turned manager.
Side Jobs: Screenwriter, Climbing Out of Debt
Sonja is working on a screenplay that she calls a "Candance Bushnell society novel"…and just filed for bankruptcy, claiming to be $19.8 million in debt. That's a side (or full-time) job of sorts?
Family: One Daughter.
With whom she decorates, gardens, skiis and visits France.
Cindy Barshop
"I have everything I've ever wanted, and it's all on my own terms"
Profession: Founder, Completely Bare
Here's a real professional. Barship astarted the nationwide beauty chain and hair removal spa, Completely Bare.
Side Jobs: Renovation, Enjoying Her Seldom Free Time
Cindy has a real serious business going, but when she has the time she is working on renovating her West Village digs, spending time in the Hamptons, and eating well in NYC.
Family: Single Mom of Two Girls

subset: commoncrawl


text: After setting up a hunting team to hunt for clients in the beginning of the year, Wipro has now created a team of farmers'. Its mandate is to cultivate the accounts won by the hunters by deepening ties with the clients. "It is the job of the hunting team to win clients, but it is the farming team which will extract the most out of them and grow them further," T K Kurien, CEO of IT business told Business Standard.


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WEBSITE OF THE DAY: Photoshop Troll
If yesterday's post left anybody thinking that the humble Photoshop operator gets a bum rap, then I think today's might go some way to showing that at least they have a sense of humour. And revenge can be very, very sweet too.
At photoshoptroll.com our artistic hero plays with people's pixels in the most mischievous ways.
He's even set up a spoof site to draw people in, and once they've submitted a photo for some "free Photoshop work", all hell tends to break loose.
This really is a joy to read through, particularly if you've ever had to do any work for an overly demanding client or somebody who just doesn't get how hard it can be to do clever things with digital pictures.
The skills on display are impressive too, as is the attention to every possible potential comic detail, especially when you considering he's doing all the work strictly for the LULz.
Photoshop Troll, we salute you.
If you have a useful, funny, or just plain weird website that you want to tell us about, drop us a line using our feedback form.


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Got this e-mail from JJ moments after Shaun Suisham (!) converted the game-winning field goal in overtime: "Well, that wasn't fun." Pretty much sums up the final 40 minutes or so because at halftime, with the Steelers leading 13-0, I figured Pittsburgh was just getting warmed up and Buffalo was in the process of checking out.
Instead, the Steelers' defense had trouble getting off the field in the second half, and the Bills finally got some traction out of the Patriots' blueprint for matriculating the ball down the field. It's easy to point to the final three periods as proof that the Steelers' defense is fatally flawed, but here's the thing: there's only one Tom Brady. And even though Ryan Fitzpatrick had some success completing short passes, that's exactly what this defense is designed to do.
It wasn't pretty, but it worked. And let's be honest: a lot of weird stuff had to happened for the Bills to even have a chance to tie the game late in the fourth quarter. For the second consecutive week there were some questionable penalties against the Steelers (and I'm not even talking about the Deebo roughing-the-passer call) and a that'll-never-happen-again freak catch-and-run by Fred Jackson. Pretty sure hot routes to the running back wasn't Chan Gailey's recipe to scoring TDs going into this game.
But unlike last year, the Steelers have found ways to overcome penalties and poor play. Eking out an overtime win against a 2-8 outfit isn't how you'd draw it up, but as Mike Tomlin says all the time, "You don't get style points." (And I'll be honest: the Bills are the best 2-8 team in NFL history.)
Whatever. Pittsburgh's 8-3 and will play for the division lead next Sunday night. In the meantime, onto the high(low)lights:
* After watching the Steelers offense plod through their opening possessions in recent weeks against the Pats and the Raiders, it was nice to see them march down the field on their first drive against the Bills — mostly on the ground — control the clock, and punch it into the end zone on a Mendenhall touchdown.
That all went out the window in the third quarter, but credit to the offense for regrouping in time to make some big plays down the stretch. None bigger, perhaps, than Big Ben's 3rd and 17 scramble for 18 yards — on a bad wheel, no less (note: no word on if Ben's toes are broken — still waiting official word from Bill Cowher) — following an iffy holding call on Chris Kemoeatu that negated a 42-yard Mendenhall run a few plays earlier.
A year ago, Roethlisberger probably gets sacked for a 15-yard loss and Greg Warren snaps the ball over Daniel Sepulveda's head into the end zone on the next play.
* By the way: Shaun Suisham's new nickname is Skinny. As in: Skinny Skippy. He was 4 for 4, all beyond 40 yards. The 41-yard game-winner was obviously huge, but you could make an argument that his 48-yarder in the fourth quarter — after Manny Sanders dropped a HUGE pass that would've moved the sticks — was even bigger.
It's amazing how quickly things change: in August, Suisham was a journeyman who struggled with consistency and Jeff Reed had a legit case for a long-term deal that paid him like one of the league's best kickers. Three months later, Suisham has Jeff's job. And if Reed were still on the team I'm pretty sure there's no way he converts four times Sunday.
(Sorta related: we whinge all the time about coaches being way too conservative when it comes to jettisoning dead weight on the roster. There are a lot of things we can accuse Tomlin off — piss-poor clock management tops the list, I think — but it's not that. Essex has been replaced by Foster, Randle El has given way to Sanders, and Skinny is the new Skippy.)
* I don't watch the defensive backs on every snap (or, hell, every series), but I feel safe in writing that Ike Taylor is having a Pro Bowl season. And William Gay, who had a 2009 effort against the Pats two weeks ago, was solid Sunday, particularly when he replaced an injured Bryant McFadden opposite Taylor in the second half. In fact, Gay was in tight coverage on the Troy pick near the Steelers' goal line.
Related: I love Anthony Madison, special teams ace, but I'd prefer to never seen Anthony Madison, sub-package defensive back, on the field.
* It'll be interesting to see what the NFL Gestapo decides to do with James Harrison. He was flagged for leading with his helmet on a hit to Fitzpatrick (and watching the replay, there's no way officials don't call that … at least against Deebo because I saw the Dolphins' Kendall Langford do virtually the same thing against the Raiders' Bruce Gradkowski during the four o'clock games).
But here's the deal: Deebo is a "repeat offender" and the league has threatened to suspend players who repeatedly break the rules. So would they suspend Harrison for the Ravens' game?
Common sense says no, which means that Harrison is screwed. At this point, nothing surprises me. Upside: the 2010 Steelers are all about overcoming adversity. So we'll see.
In the interim, I'll take the W. And before I forget: a very special thanks to Stevie Johnson for extending Thanksgiving through the weekend. I owe you one, dude.


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Welcome, Students!
Located in the basement of William T. Young Library, the Hub @ WT's provides study space and IT help in one convenient location. The Hub features over 200 Windows computers as well as a Mac lab for student use, plus Mac video editing suites with Final Cut Pro available. The Hub offers flexible, comfortable furniture for students to arrange to meet their group study needs, including rolling cubicle walls and whiteboards. In addition, the Hub features snack and beverage machines in Grub@ the Hub. Photos below courtesy of UK IT. More photos are posted to the Hub's flickr site and the Hub's Facebook page.
Study Space
Wireless Access
Mac and Windows Labs
Grub @ the Hub


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The drama of starbirth (w/ video)March 16th, 2011 in Astronomy & Space / Astronomy
This very detailed false-colour image from ESO's Very Large Telescope shows the dramatic effects of very young stars on the dust and gas from which they were born in the star-forming region NGC 6729. The baby stars are invisible in this picture, being hidden behind dust clouds at the upper left of the picture, but material they are ejecting is crashing into the surroundings at speeds of that can be as high as one million kilometers per second. This picture was taken by the FORS1 instrument and records the scene in the light of glowing hydrogen and sulfur. Credit: ESO
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new image from ESO's Very Large Telescope gives a close-up view of the dramatic effects newborn stars have on the gas and dust from which they formed. Although the stars themselves are not visible, material they have ejected is colliding with the surrounding gas and dust clouds and creating a surreal landscape of glowing arcs, blobs and streaks.
The star-forming region NGC 6729 is part of one of the closest stellar nurseries to the Earth and hence one of the best studied. This new image from ESO's Very Large Telescope gives a close-up view of a section of this strange and fascinating region. The data were selected from the ESO archive by Sergey Stepanenko as part of the Hidden Treasures competition. Sergey's picture of NGC 6729 was ranked third in the competition.
Stars form deep within molecular clouds and the earliest stages of their development cannot be seen in visible-light telescopes because of obscuration by dust. In this image there are very young stars at the upper left of the picture. Although they cannot be seen directly, the havoc that they have wreaked on their surroundings dominates the picture. High-speed jets of material that travel away from the baby stars at velocities as high as one million kilometres per hour are slamming into the surrounding gas and creating shock waves. These shocks cause the gas to shine and create the strangely coloured glowing arcs and blobs known as Herbig-Haro objects.
In this view the Herbig-Haro objects form two lines marking out the probable directions of ejected material. One stretches from the upper left to the lower centre, ending in the bright, circular group of glowing blobs and arcs at the lower centre. The other starts near the left upper edge of the picture and extends towards the centre right. The peculiar scimitar-shaped bright feature at the upper left is probably mostly due to starlight being reflected from dust and is not a Herbig-Haro object.
This enhanced-colour picture was created from images taken using the FORS1 instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope. Images were taken through two different filters that isolate the light coming from glowing hydrogen (shown as orange) and glowing ionised sulphur (shown as blue). The different colours in different parts of this violent star formation region reflect different conditions -- for example where ionised sulphur is glowing brightly (blue features) the velocities of the colliding material are relatively low -- and help astronomers to unravel what is going on in this dramatic scene.
Provided by ESO
"The drama of starbirth (w/ video)." March 16th, 2011. http://phys.org/news/2011-03-drama-starbirth-video.html


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Postgame Quotes
Nov. 23, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery
Postgame Quotes
Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner
Opening Remarks
I am just so happy. I have said it many times; I am so indebted to this city and this fan base. So for us to be 5-0 is great. We want to put this city and this fan base in a position to be 5-0, and that is what we did tonight. This is for Tiger nation.
Secondly, (It is great to be 5-0) for our players and our staff. Our players have done a beautiful job. Now we have got to get better because I was very disappointed in our defense today. We were sloppy. I thought we were unsound and we didn't (execute) good rotations. We didn't get back, and they threw the extra pass. We didn't rotate to the proper spot or the proper guy. We were inaccurate and sometimes our switches were incorrect. I mean when a guy comes off the switch, you need to attack the screen. We came off and when they would switch we would be passive.
We talked about being aggressive on the switches and attacking hard. Our first plan for this game was to take away the three (point shot). My biggest pet-peeve is allowing the opponent to make three point shots. Tonight they shot 47 percent, and the only way they (UT-Martin) could hang around is if they shot threes. We had times to bury them, and they would make a three. We have got to take the three out of the game.
On top of that we didn't do a good job of guarding straight line drives. When a guy is up top we have to stop straight line penetration. When a guy drives and the post helps to stop the drive, that backside guy has got to help inside. I was really proud of the 29 assists on 38 made field goals. We would have probably had more, because we missed a lot of open looks.
We shot too many three pointers to be honest with you and a poor percentage. Twenty-six percent on 31 three-point attempts is poor; that is too many. We have got to cut that back. And 15 turnovers, we were trying to make the spectacular play instead of making the simple, fundamental play. That being said we are 5-0.
About the Tiger's offense tonight
UT Martin Head coach Jason James
On his team's early turnovers
On using Terrance Smith as a point guard
On the way his team competed (in the second half)
On Reuben Clayton's performance at home in Memphis
On seeing Memphis' level of competition again during the season


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Alright so you've submitted your newsletter or e-mail and you're ready for it to be sent already. There's just one snag: you need to step away from your computer and live your life! You don't have time to sit around and wait for the status of your newsletter or e-mail to change to sent. The good news is that you don't have to. This help file will instruct you on how to check the status of your newsletter when you get back to your computer.
- From the Tendenci Console, locate the Admin Quick Links box and click on the link called "Pending Actions."
- This should take you to a page called "Actions Search View." This page will list actions that have not yet been sent in chronological order with the most recent being the first and the least recent being last.
- If you do not see your newsletter listed here, it might already have been sent. If that is the case, you will see a link highlighted in yellow that says "Click here for newsletters that have already been sent." Click that link.
- This will take you to a page that lists newsletters that have already been sent in chronological order with the most recent being first. Once you've found your your newsletter, click on its name.
- Once you've clicked it, you should be brought to a page that lists the creator or the newsletter and the 5 steps taken in order to make this newsletter happen. At the very bottom of that is a link called "View Recap." This link will be highlighted in yellow. Click this link.
- This link will take you to a page that lists every single person that this was sent to. At the bottom of this page will have the amount of e-mails attempted, the amount that failed to be sent and the total amount that was actually sent.


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Rusal Intends to Direct Norilsk Nickel dividends to Repay Loans
Filed Under: Business | Posted: 02/12/2013 at 5:32AM
Comments | Region: Russian Federation
UC Rusal plans to direct dividends from its 25% stake in MMC Norilsk Nickel to pay off company's debt, said CEO of the aluminum company Oleg Deripaska, in an interviewto Russian TV channel.
"We are one of the shareholders of Norilsk Nickel, and we do have obligations to the banks. Virtually all funds will go to pay off our old bank loans", said Deripaska. According to 9m2012 IFRS report, net debt of Rusal decreased by 3.1% to $10.710 billion from $11.049 billion at the end of 2011.
Earlier Rusal stated that the dividend payments from Norilsk Nickel for 2012 – 2014 may correspond to at least $ 9 billion. By the end of 2012 dividends could be amounted to $2 billion and in 2013 and 2014 – $3 billion per year. It is also planned to pay $1 billion in accordance with the stipulated sale of foreign or non-core energy assets.
Vladimir Potanin from Interros in the end of December 2012 said that Norilsk Nickel in the coming years plans to pay an interim dividends as well. In the opinion of all shareholders, Norilsk Nickel can go from 2014 to pay dividends twice a year instead of annual, and focus on the benefits the company will be based on metal prices and operating performance, by about one-half of EBITDA .
The authorized capital of MMC Norilsk Nickel consists of 190,628,000 ordinary shares with a par value of 1 ruble. Major shareholders: Interros – about 28%, UC Rusal – 25%, owners of Metalloinvest – up to 4%.


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Irrigation surges in Minn.The edge of one of Alan Peterson's corn fields outside of Clear Lake,Minn., in Sherburne County is a dusty wasteland.
By: Elizabeth Dunbar, Agweek
The edge of one of Alan Peterson's corn fields outside of Clear Lake,Minn., in Sherburne County is a dusty wasteland.
When he recently shucked an ear of corn on one of the few plants that have produced one, it had about a dozen kernels — not surprising, given that a good rain last fell on his fields July 9.
"I've got 240 acres of irrigated corn and 100 acres of dry-land corn," Peterson says. "If I had 340 acres of all dry land, I wouldn't be combining hardly any corn this year."
Peterson has 18 irrigators, but they don't always reach the fields' edges. Anyone walking between the stalks toward the irrigator would see plants change color from yellow to green approaching ears of corn that are fat with rows of perfectly formed kernels.
He's one of a growing number of Minnesota farmers who are relying on irrigation. The number of irrigated farm fields in the state has surged in the past few years, and data compiled by state officials show many farmers hope to irrigate even more of their fields.
So far this year, farmers have applied for 466 irrigation permits — more than twice the number of applications in all of last year.
Farmers in central Minnesota must cope with sandy soil that doesn't hold moisture very well. In the past, many counted on crop insurance to get them through drought years. Peterson, who is president of the Irrigators Association of Minnesota, says with the high crop prices in the past few years, it makes more financial sense to maximize yields through irrigation.
"Nine out of 10 years, if we're going to have a crop failure, it's drought," he says. "By putting my irrigator in there, that's my insurance policy. I don't know if I'd be farming if I hadn't had the ability to irrigate and count on a crop.
You put a lot of money into this, and you want to get a crop out of it."
Data from the state Department of Natural Resources indicate many farmers have come to the same conclusion. Crop irrigation has been on the rise for several years, but this year saw an even bigger spike in permit applications.
Jason Moeckel, who oversees the monitoring and analysis of water resources for the DNR, says the permits come in one at a time, but over time the number of farmers who want to irrigate fields can add up.
"All of a sudden now you've got 20 in an area," he says. "What's the cumulative effect? And that's the part that we're trying to get a better handle on."
The Legislature this year provided funding to accelerate an analysis of the state's groundwater.
Moeckel says there is not enough data yet to show whether irrigation is threatening groundwater supplies in some areas of the state. But permit applications in just seven central Minnesota counties — Stearns, Otter Tail, Pope, Morrison, Swift, Wadena and Kandiyohi — account for more than half of all of this year's permits.
"What we're concerned about is the impact that's having on, or can have on surface water features, which is the expression of the groundwater," he says.
"So as we divert that groundwater from where it was flowing to, to some other use, we're diverting it away from a surface water. It's beginning to express it enough that we're actually seeing it in our observations and our data, and that's where the concern is."
As more data on groundwater becomes available, state lawmakers this year also have changed the way the DNR handles permits. Farmers who want to drill a new well must seek preliminary approval from the DNR, and there's a better chance officials will come back with some restrictions — like limiting the amount of water they can take from the well or requiring them to install a monitoring well to test for possible problems.
State Rep. Jean Wagenius, DFL-Minneapolis, who supported the changes, has pushed DNR officials to better manage the state's groundwater.
"The basic issue here is one of fairness. In some states it's first come first serve, and I think a lot of people think it's that way here too, but it's not," Wagenius says. "We share this resource in common and it has to be allocated fairly so that everybody gets their fair share."
Irrigation and water conservation are topics that come up frequently when Dan Martens, an assistant professor for the University of Minnesota Extension, talks with farmers in Stearns, Benton and Morrison counties.
Martens says the data being generated on groundwater will help because farmers don't want to invest in a new well unless they know it's going to be reliable.
"I think everybody has a vested interest in knowing that how we're doing these things is sustainable and will work and if there are limitations or issues down the road, [that] we're aware of them and doing what we can to stay ahead of those issues before they become problems for us," he says.
Minnesotans can expect to see irrigators going strong in much of the state for the next several weeks. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a majority of Minnesota's counties are experiencing moderate to severe drought.
Tags: life, crops, agribusiness, updates


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Ethics Rounds
The National Gallery of Art is a short distance from the APA building in Washington, D.C.-close enough for an afternoon walk through one of our nation's most treasured art collections. A favorite painting for visitors is Orazio Gentileschi's "The Lute Player." The subject of "The Lute Player," which Gentileschi painted in the early 17th century, is a young girl sitting at a table, concentrating intently on finding a chord as she strums her lute. The girl, her hair in braids and her face turned toward the viewer, wears a white blouse and a flowing canary-yellow dress, while on her table rest her music scores and other musical instruments, including a violin. A rich, velvety cloth covers the table and the stool on which she sits.
Light in the painting falls on the girl's upper body and so emphasizes her complete focus on the music and her lute. The light also partially illuminates the violin resting on the table, whose stem-or "neck," as it is properly called-is pointed outward. A reason why "The Lute Player" is so popular-aside from its beauty-is that the violin's neck points at the viewer regardless of where the viewer stands in relation to the painting. Stand to the painting's left or right, or at its center, and the neck of the violin points toward you. What makes visiting "The Lute Player" especially fun is that the violin's neck will actually follow you as you walk across its horizon. Delight inevitably accompanies a visitor's discovery of what Gentileschi has done.
Gentileschi's painting and our ethics
"The Lute Player" can be interpreted in a manner that resonates deeply with practicing ethically as a clinical psychologist. The setting suggests that the young girl spends many hours in practice, expending enormous effort to perfect her technique and enhance her skills as a musician. Competence has been called the cornerstone of ethics, for good reason. Competence is the foundation for Principle A in the Ethics Code, Beneficence and Nonmaleficence, which begins, "Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm." Psychologists can neither benefit patients nor avoid harm if they are not practicing in a competent fashion, which takes our continuing effort and attention to maintain a high standard of clinical work.
As she hones her skills, the girl is fully immersed in her endeavor. The movement of the violin's neck conveys her focus on the viewer, wherever the viewer may be or move. The ethical starting point for our clinical work is recognizing where a client stands in relation to what we offer and following the client's movement as we maintain the relationship. The girl is firmly settled in her seat, balanced and secure in her setting, surrounded by the accoutrements of her profession. Firmly secure in our professional identity and in the ethical parameters of our work, we can more freely allow our patients to move, to explore different positions in relation to us, and so to discover and examine aspects of themselves that internal obstacles have constrained them from experiencing. The girl's posture, head turned with her ear almost touching the lute, conveys that her primary tool is her ear-listening. Good ethics and good clinical care come together when we most skillfully and attentively do what we are trained to do, central to which is listening to our patients in an open and receptive manner.
Competing needs
In discussions about ethical aspects of clinical work it is sometimes said that in order to be ethical, psychologists should avoid meeting their own needs and desires or should always put the needs of their patients first, before their own. Both ways of thinking about ethics strike me as missing the mark, in ways that "The Lute Player" eloquently addresses. The girl in the "The Lute Player" is fully present in her work. Her hair, her dress and her posture are all unmistakably hers. She is not one to hide or apologize for who she is or what she does. Her interest in and enjoyment of her music seem much more to enhance-rather than detract from-her artistry. Gentileschi leaves no doubt that for this girl making music is deeply meaningful and richly rewarding.
As clinical psychologists, we meet many of our own needs and desires through working with our clients. These include engaging in creative and interesting professional endeavors, enhancing the well-being of others and perhaps contributing to the profession through scholarly publications. Meeting such wants and needs is highly appropriate and can make us better clinical psychologists.
We meet other needs as well, sometimes in ways that conflict with the needs of our clients. We charge fees, offer appointments at times that fit our schedules, take vacations in light of non-work-related commitments and obligations, and sometimes cancel appointments when the unforeseen necessity of doing so arises. Meeting such needs, even when they conflict with those of our clients, may be perfectly appropriate. The most ethical posture is not that we deny our desires and needs, or that we always put those of our patients' first. Both of these positions are complex, even problematic, from an ethical perspective.
Differentiate and assess
A more helpful way of thinking about ethics legitimizes meeting our own desires and needs and embraces what we derive from our clinical work. The challenge from this perspective on ethics is not to deny our own needs or always to place our patients' needs first. The challenge is rather to differentiate our desires and needs from those of our patients and to determine which of our interests are legitimate to meet through our clinical work and which are not. Each of these tasks-differentiating and assessing the legitimacy of a want or need being met-is central to benefiting our patients and avoiding harm.
Differentiating our desires and needs from those of our patients entails a measure of insight into our inner life. Until we know ourselves in this way, it will be difficult if not impossible to separate what we want and need from what our patients want and need. Because a lack of differentiation leads inevitably to confusion about where our needs and desires end and those of our patients begin, clinical work has strong ethical underpinnings in self-other differentiation.
Determining which of our desires and needs we may legitimately meet through our clinical work is a more overt exercise in ethics. The APA Ethics Code provides significant guidance about specific behaviors. As valuable as the code is for maintaining an ethical practice, however, no code of conduct can adequately capture the many ways in which patients can be used inappropriately. A code must always be supplemented by an ethical orientation that views patients primarily as ends, rather than as a means to satisfy ourselves. This way of thinking about our ethics will lead us, I believe, to where we find Gentileschi's lute player: fully present and engaged in the work by which we earn a living, enjoying and enlivened by a creative professional life, and using our talents and skills in a manner that benefits our patients and does them no harm.
Further Reading
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