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In the sixth grade, I ran for president of our class of 29 kids against a girl named Rosemary. On gender politics alone, I should have won.
We had 15 boys and 14 girls. Out of misplaced chivalry, I thought it wrong to vote for myself. I voted for Rosemary, thinking she'd vote for me.
Rosemary suffered from no such compunctions. She voted for herself, and won, 15-14. I can still hear her laughing.
Though it would have changed nothing, I've often thought I should have demanded a recount. The imbroglio at my school has helped me fathom the current fight in the California controller's race.
I know: People's eyes glaze over at the word "controller." So know this: The controller has big influence over the state's finances. Among other duties, the controller sits on the board of Calpers, the public pension fund.
More critically, the job has been a stepping stone to higher office. Gray Davis was controller before he became governor. Steve Westly was controller when he ran for governor.
Race for second
You may know the current story: Out of 4 million votes cast, Democrat John Perez finished 481 votes behind fellow Democrat Betty Yee for second place in the controller's race.
The winner will have the right to run in November against Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican. Because California is heavily Democratic, either Perez or Yee has a good chance of winning the office.
Here is where it gets strange. California's election laws do not demand an automatic statewide recount when the tally is this close.
Instead, a candidate willing to foot the bill can choose the counties in which the recount takes place. Perez, no surprise, has selected counties with heavier Hispanic voting, beginning with Kern and Imperial.
Inevitably, this launches an arms race governed by money: If Perez, who has a comfortable war chest supported by labor, should change the tally, Yee has the right to respond. Presumably, she would pick more Asian districts.
Because there is no deadline on this insanity, it can continue well past the time that ballots have to be mailed out to military voters overseas.
Money counts
I tried to figure out the origins of this system -- and while much of it is lost in the mists of election law, this much is clear: It has to do with money.
"We have county-administered elections," says Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "By convention, the state doesn't pay any of the direct costs to conduct elections.''
Some people have suggested that there should be an automatic statewide recount when the vote is as close as it was in this case. Even though it would cost $3 million, it's preferable to the arms race.
But in a state as large and diverse as California, there will probably never be an exact vote count. Just comparing signatures on mail-in ballots is a subjective exercise.
That speaks strongly to Perez accepting the results, maybe after a preliminary review. I can tell you from my sixth-grade experience that life goes on ever after the closest and most galling defeat.
Contact Scott Herhold at 408-275-0917 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Twitter.com/scottherhold.


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Office: 3365 - Coleman Hall
Phone: 217-581-6291
Email: email@example.com
Spring 2016 Office Hours: MF 1 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.; W 9-10 a.m.
Fern Kory is the director of the EIU Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum. She also teaches courses in modern American literature (including seminars focused on fiction of the 1920s and the Harlem Renaissance) and a variety of courses in literature for children and young adults, including a course in twentieth-century African-American youth literature. She has published book reviews in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, articles in Children's Literature and English Journal, and an essay in the collection Teaching Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
600 Lincoln Ave.
Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 581-2428
Fax: (217) 581-7209

subset: commoncrawl


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Now that the semi-rainy season seems to be over, work has resumed on a major construction project along several miles of Carquinez Scenic Drive between Martinez and Port Costa.
Workers are repairing damage caused by landslides back in the 1980s that nearly destroyed sections of the road. After embankments and slopes have been stabilized with retaining walls, new drainage systems will be installed and the road will be brought up to multiuse trail standards.
Carquinez Scenic Drive remains closed to the public at present. When work is completed this fall, the drive will become part of the San Francisco Bay Trail, open to pedestrians, equestrians and bicycles. The only motorized traffic allowed will be emergency and service vehicles.
Carquinez Scenic Drive was originally a Contra Costa County road. East Bay Regional Park District acquired a trail easement from the county in December 2012. Funding sources for the estimated $5.5 million project include a grant from the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) II fund, the State Coastal Conservancy, Contra Costa Transportation Authority Measure J and the park district's Measure WW bond funds.
point molate: There's other Bay Trail news, too. Chevron USA has donated a recreational trail easement in Richmond to the East Bay Regional Park District to complete a spur of the Bay Trail at Point Molate.
When completed, the new 1-mile segment will provide public access along historic shoreline property from the east side of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to Richmond's Point Molate Beach Park. It will also link to a future regional park at Point Molate. The park district will take the lead in securing funding for design and construction of the trail extension and will provide matching funds as necessary from its Measure WW park bonds approved by voters in 2008.
Temescal: Assisted by funding from the Regional Parks Foundation, the park district has restored the waterfall in the gardens behind the Beach House at Temescal Regional Recreation Area in Oakland. The waterfall and Beach House were both Works Progress Administration creations back in 1940, and the Beach House was once park district headquarters.
"By 2012, the pump and the infrastructure for the water feature were either damaged, or near the end of their useful service lives," said Kelly Barrington, the district's chief of maintenance. "We're grateful that with the help of the Regional Parks Foundation and staff efforts we were able to restore the water flow to that seen in historic photos and make significant structural improvements."
Restoration included repair and replacement of elements in the system that cycled water from the lake to the waterfall and back. The total cost was $35,000.
Alameda: Along with the city of Alameda, the East Bay Regional Park District is a co-sponsor of Alameda Earth Day at Washington Park on Westline Drive next to Crown Beach. It's from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 26 with all sorts of fun activities and Earth Day-themed giveaways. Food and beverages will be available for purchase.
Tilden: Recording your outdoor experiences in a nature journal is the topic of a free how-to session from 2 to 3 p.m. April 26 at the Tilden Nature Area in Berkeley, led by interpretive student aide Tricia Radis. It's for ages 5 and older.
And from 2 to 3 p.m. April 27, interpretive student aide Morgan Evans will present a slide show about wildflowers. She'll talk about how some wildflowers have been reclassified based on DNA testing.
Both programs are at Tilden's Environmental Education Center. It's at the north end of Central Park Drive. But to get there, turn off the drive onto Lone Oak Road, park at the end, and follow the signs on foot. For information, call 510-544-2233.
Black Diamond: Wildflowers are also the theme at Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve in Antioch. Naturalist aide Mickey Rovere will lead a short walk there from 10 to 11:30 a.m. April 26 to show how some plants thrive on ground that has been impacted by landslides, road building or cattle ranching. Best for ages 7 and older. Meet at the end of Somersville Road, 4 miles south of Highway 4 in Antioch. Rain cancels. For information, call 888-327-2757, ext. 2750.
Right at the moment, wildflowers are at their peak. It's always hard to predict how long the peak will last, but just recently there were beautiful displays out at Morgan Territory Regional Preserve east of Mount Diablo. Meadows along the Volvon and Blue Oak Trails were carpeted with filaree (storksbill).
Big Break: Out at Big Break Regional Shoreline in Oakley, "Faux Fishing" is on the agenda from 2 to 3 p.m. April 26. The park's interpretive staff will lead some fishing games with the purpose of learning how to identify various fish species in the Delta. Big Break is located at 69 Big Break Road off Main Street. For information, call 888-327-2757, ext. 3050.
Ned MacKay writes a regular column about East Bay Regional Park District sites and activities. Email him at email@example.com.


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OAKLAND -- The bedroom above Gateway Liquors where Rayman Hussein used to live is gathering dust. The Oak-Town Fashion store where he sold throwback jerseys and hoodies is padlocked shut.
Hussein has been stuck for more than a year in Yemen, his birthplace, unable to return to his American life. U.S. Embassy officials in the Middle Eastern country confiscated his passport, stranding the naturalized U.S. citizen, a 30-year-old alumnus of Berkeley High School and San Francisco State University.
"I feel like my life has stopped for 18 months," Hussein said by phone from Yemen this week. "There are no words to express how bad I feel."
His legal quest to get back to Oakland has resonated in the Yemeni-American community and is shaking up a U.S. consular bureau not used to such outspoken criticism. Many Yemeni immigrants say they are frustrated about being a constant target of federal suspicion.
Hussein thought he was traveling to a routine bureaucratic appointment on Jan. 27, 2013, when he drove four hours with his wife and toddler son from their mountainside hometown of Ibb to the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen's capital.
He had flown to Yemen in 2012 in hopes of obtaining a "consular report of birth abroad" that would allow his son, Haitham, to join him in Oakland. The boy turns 4 years old in May.
After waiting months for the appointment, Hussein said he was stunned when American officials in Sanaa began aggressively accusing him of identity fraud and, at the end of the day, took his passport.
"They interrogated me and my wife, taking us to separate rooms for hours," he said. "They asked me questions about my family. ... They even threatened me that I would go to jail."
Hussein, who was 10 when he moved to the United States in 1993, hoped that his son could settle in the Bay Area before kindergarten. Arriving so young, he said, eases the difficulties of adjusting and learning English that grow more challenging with age.
"It was hard for me at 10 years old," Hussein said. "I would rather have my son start school in the U.S. and be ready for college, and make sure he does better than me."
He had been freely traveling back and forth from Oakland to Ibb since getting married in his native city in 2005 -- an international commute not uncommon for Yemeni-American men in the Bay Area. His wife is also a U.S. citizen but stayed in Yemen as Hussein completed his political science degree, drove a taxi cab and worked at his family's Oakland stores.
The family is among many in the Bay Area with roots in Ibb, a lush mountainous region that has shipped waves of farmers, grocers and shopkeepers to California for more than a half-century.
"One of the characteristics of the Yemeni community is we go back and forth a lot," said Alameda resident Mokhtar Alkhanshali, an advocate for the local chapter of the Muslim American Society. "When they take your passport away, they're essentially taking away your right to citizenship, your right to travel."
Hussein is not the only Yemeni-American to claim his passport was unjustly confiscated at the Sanaa embassy, but he is the first to take his grievances public. Now, word of his saga has inspired dozens of other Yemeni-Americans to contact lawyers with similar claims. Civil rights groups are asking U.S. officials for an investigation into the behavior of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Yemen, and Hussein and others began receiving notices in December notifying them of a chance to appeal.
A U.S. State Department spokesman in Washington, D.C., refused to comment about Hussein, noting the confidentiality of individual cases, but he denied Wednesday that there were any broader problems at the Sanaa embassy. Consular officials have a right to revoke passports for a host of reasons, and passport fraud is a global problem, he said.
But a 2009 diplomatic cable leaked to the WikiLeaks group and an unclassified 2010 embassy inspection reveal the high level of suspicion with which diplomats treat Yemenis seeking immigration documents. Fraud is so rampant, the leaked cable said, that all claims "are considered fraudulent until proven otherwise."
Years of violent turmoil in Yemen -- one of the poorest Arab countries, a place that terrorists have found ripe for recruitment and a target of U.S. drone attacks -- have made American officials cautious. But advocates believe officials trying to root out threats are also hurting many innocent Yemeni-Americans.
It took nearly a year before American officials offered Hussein a formal explanation, and only after a San Francisco legal group filed a public records request and demanded Hussein get an appeal hearing. A letter from the U.S. government said that by declaring himself Rayman Ali Hussein on his passport, the 30-year-old was falsely identifying himself. Missing was a fourth, tribal surname that reflects where he is from -- but which Hussein doesn't consider part of his legal name.
Hussein said the name on his passport was correct, and it is the same name he has used on American documents since he first moved to California two decades ago.
"The charge, aside from being baseless, is illogical," said his lawyer, Yaman Salahi of San Francisco-based Advancing Justice Asian Law Caucus. "It would mean he committed fraud at the age of 10."
U.S. officials say Hussein signed a sworn statement admitting the falsehood. Hussein said he did so under duress.
"I feel like they are discriminating against us," Hussein said. "I'm not saying they are not supposed to investigate fraud. All I'm saying is, 'Give me my right as an American citizen, to travel, to go back to the U.S. Treat me like other Americans.'"
U.S. officials in recent days told Hussein and others with confiscated passports that they might be granted permission to return to the United States, but Salahi said that is of little solace to Hussein "if it means he has to leave his 3-year-old son behind." Hussein is waiting to hear if the boy can get a "certificate of identity" allowing him to fly to San Francisco and assert his right to citizenship.
As he fights to return, Hussein said he misses the gritty block of San Pablo Avenue where his extended family has lived -- and made a living -- for decades.
"Oakland to me is home," he said.
His oldest uncle, a merchant seaman, moved to San Francisco in the 1960s. Another uncle, Abdul, followed in the early 1970s, and in the mid-1980s he bought an old commercial block in North Oakland near the Berkeley border, founding the Gateway Liquor store and settling his family in the residential units above it. On a recent evening, a pair of Hussein's cousins worked inside the cramped convenience store as some younger cousins sped down the sidewalk on scooters.
As he scanned his smart phone for a photo of his nephew, his uncle, the shopkeeper, said family members and neighborhood customers are awaiting the return of an upright man who has a lot of promise. Abdul Hussein said he understands the fears of American counterterrorism officials "because the world is going crazy, but you have to get the right person."
"Everybody knows him here," he said of his nephew. "We're from a good family, and this is our home."


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Friends of the Library City Market Monthly Book Sale
Sunday, October 5, 2008
On the first Sunday of every month at 9:30 a.m. at the City Market, 400 Grand St. Kansas City, MO 64106--North Walkway next to the Steamboat Arabia, the Friends of the Library will hold a series of book sales. Book sales will continue through October.
Subject matters cover many genres and range in price from $0.50 to $5.00.


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Holiday Tea
Friday Night Family Fun
Friday, December 21, 2012
6:30pm @ Plaza Branch
This program features a lesson on etiquette, snacks served on fine china, and a visit from Father Christmas! Fancy holiday dress is requested. All ages are welcome.
Due to limited space, registration is required. RSVP above or call 816.701.3407.
Co-sponsored by The John Wornall House Museum.


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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Who Are You??
Had I bothered to check my stats more frequently, I might have been able to at least pinpoint the exact date if not the time of this monumental occasion. And if I'd known you were coming, Mr. or Ms. 1,000,000, I'd have baked you a cake:
Or at least set out a plate of these cookies for you to enjoy during your visit:
At the very, very minimum, I could have at least held a giveaway for this Dove chocolate Easter bunny, which quite frankly is a moot point since it barely even made it out of the grocery bag before it hit my mouth. (At least I'm honest and I have sincere thoughts of love for you all, even though I'm filled with greed and selfishness.)
Thanks to all of you for stopping by so often during the last (almost) four years. Together, we've managed to raise nearly $1,000.00 for Gleaner's Food Bank. YEAH FOR US!
Please keep coming back. I may actually start to cook again.
love you lots...xoxox
16 comments:
- SeattleDee said...
Woo Hoo! 1,000,000 is a number to celebrate, a number to light up the day, and for sure a number to let you know you have a lot of friends and followers. Congratulations on this milestone.
- March 28, 2012 at 12:14 PM
- Donna said...
Congratulations! That's awesome.
- March 28, 2012 at 2:02 PM
- June said...
Congratulations Mags! That's absolutely frickin' amazing!
- March 28, 2012 at 5:15 PM
- From the Kitchen said...
It was me!! So, let me know when that lovely cake will be ready. And, congratulations!!
- March 28, 2012 at 6:34 PM
- Shelby said...
I'm one of those million and proud of it! :) Congrats Mags!
- March 29, 2012 at 5:34 AM
- Moogie said...
- March 30, 2012 at 2:29 PM
- Sarah said...
Congratulations! I am one of those million and visited often! And will look forward to your cooking ;)
- March 30, 2012 at 6:38 PM
- Pam said...
Congrats!! It might have been me!
- April 1, 2012 at 9:30 PM
- Lea M. Callais said...
Congratulations, Mags - that is fabu!
- April 5, 2012 at 8:38 AM
- Marie Wreath said...
oh I totally forgot to tell you it was ME!! LOL You can feel free to bake me any of those lovely recipes... My goodness. Joining your site today, so happy to find you! (got here via Pinterest, by the way... I pinned your chocolate chip cookie recipe!)
- April 6, 2012 at 11:15 PM
That's great, congrats!! Love your site!
- April 9, 2012 at 3:55 PM
- Leslie said...
Congrats, Mags! BTW, I think your Twitter account has been hacked. :-( Same thing happened to me last year. If you sign on and change your password you should be fine.
- April 11, 2012 at 8:17 AM
- Frieda Loves Bread said...
Yes, I believe your Twitter account has been hacked. This is what it said, "Hello someone is making nasty rumors about you.."
and I KNEW it wasn't from you!
Do what Leslie suggested and I'm sure you'll be fine.
- April 11, 2012 at 9:23 AM
- Jane said...
Warmest congrats, Mags! That's really pretty incredible. I mean, think of it: ONE MILLION VISITS! It's because you have a great blog and you are so sweet, funny, honest, and genuine. You've shared so much of yourself here. Keep up the good work, lady! :)
- April 14, 2012 at 8:25 PM
- nina said...
Wow thats a great number to celebrate.....congratulations.
- April 18, 2012 at 5:34 PM
- thisoldbroad said...
Happy Mother's Day!!!!!!!!!
- May 13, 2012 at 6:23 PM


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- Ultimate Performance
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Engineered to maximize your body's potential. It's so much more than a compression top.
ClimaCool moisture control is paired up with a compression fit and anatomically-placed TPU banding to improve posture and movement.
Stretch mesh insets at the back and sides offer comfort and ventilation.
ForMotion fit is like a cherry on top. 75/25 nylon/spandex. Imported.


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Riverhounds meet Charlotte Eagles, L.A. Blues in USL PRO play over holiday weekend
Pittsburgh—The Pittsburgh Riverhounds return to USL PRO action over the holiday weekend for a pair of matches at Highmark Stadium. Following a 10-day break, the Riverhounds host the Charlotte Eagles on Thursday, July 4 and the L.A. Blues on Saturday, July 6 for their final meetings of the regular season. Both matches are slated for a 7 p.m. kick off in Station Square.


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Xcel Energy and the Summit Chamber of Commerce hosted the annual COO Breakfast Thursday at Keystone Conference Center with ski leaders to discuss trends affecting the upcoming ski season.Coming into the ski season after a bad snow year, COOs from Keystone, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Loveland, and Arapahoe Basin greeted the crowd with optimism."My cup isn't half full - It's all the way full," said John Buhler, COO of Keystone Resort.Optimism was a prevailing theme from the breakfast but Ralf Garrison, the event's emcee from the Mountain Travel Research Program, posed a rhetorical question to the crowd: "One way to look at it is the cup may be full but what is it full of?"From last season's "bad snow year" the question is whether or not consumers are suffering from a "snow hangover" causing them to shy away from recreation, or if they have pent-up demand, increasing the motivation to recreate after last year's lack of precipitation.With snowmaking operations in high gear at area ski areas, many of the local COOs say that pent-up demand will drive skier traffic this season.Though resorts suffered last season, officials agreed the product was good from investments in snowmaking."Last season was the year of the snowmaker," said Gary Rodgers, COO of Copper Mountain Resort. "The lack of natural snow and trying to combat the negativity last year was a challenge."Using projections for the upcoming season based on pre-bookings, Garrison explained the industry in general is down on occupancy but increased lodging rates have compensated."The most we can hope for is that people have become fatigued by their frugality," Garrison said. "Vacation is looked at as a birth right. People invest in their entertainment and many people want to come to Colorado's mountains to ski."
The weather variable drove the conversation and speculation toward the season outlook. Though many hope for snow, the perception of snowfall provides lucrative skier traffic from "snow equity" too."We actually benefit from snow in St. Louis even if there isn't snow here because people who live there think, 'if it's snowing here, it really must be dumping in Colorado'' and that motivates people to come to Summit County," Garrison explained.Consumer perception is important especially when dealing with a weather variable. Snow equity as opposed to real snow works in the local ski industry's favor, according to Garrison.Still, ski leaders unanimously agreed that snowmaking is second best to natural snow."We're praying for a good snow year," said A-Basin COO Alan Henceroth.
Keystone Resort headlined its presentation with its focus on families bolstered by free skiing for kids under 13. "This is unmatched and unparalleled by any other resort," Buhler said. "Kidtopia 2.0 is scheduled all winter long, this will be the first season we've done that."Breckenridge is debuting its new component of Epic Mix this season with a interactive racing app that allows skiers and boarders to compete against one another and Lindsey Vonn, professional skier and pace setter for the Epic Mix race tracks.This season, Breckenridge moves closer to making the Peak 6 expansion a reality."We're very excited about the Peak 6 expansion and being able to spread our traffic across the mountain and alleviate crowding," said Pat Campbell, Breckenridge COO. "We fully intend to begin to build next summer and have the area open to users by Christmas 2013."New to A-Basin this year are many "behind-the-scene improvements," including the addition of a new snowcat, new AT&T snow coverage on the mountain and a new 70-foot conveyor lift for kids.The new lift, with a 4.2-vertical-foot incline called the Pika Place conveyor will strengthen A-Basin's appeal to families, according to Henceroth.As Loveland Ski Area celebrates its 75th anniversary, a Pine Bow Pale Ale is set to be developed by Tommy Knockers Brewery.Bundled in the price of a lift ticket or season pass, Loveland is offering free snowcat rides to transport skiers and boarders along the ridge.Also celebrating a milestone this season is Copper Mountain with it's 40th anniversary, which will be commemorated with a 1970s-themed birthday celebration Dec. 7-9. Tied in with the anniversary, longtime employee Chris Colman, in his 41st season at the ski area as planning and development director, was honored with the Retreat run renamed to Colman's Retreat. Copper Mountain's Woodward season pass debuts this year. The Woodward facility, in its fourth season, offers a venue for skiers and boarders to train.


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Model: 34413 Item: UNV34413
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Laurie Cataldo
Hey, it's Laurie...check me out weekdays from 10-3p, doing everything I can to make your workday better! In the studio you'll usually find me reading news articles of all kinds, while singing along to whatever song is playing. Outside the studio, I love good food, Penn State (class of '07!), The Real Housewives franchises (guilty pleasure), and brilliant sunsets. I'm also dying to be on a game show -- I'd rock Wheel of Fortune. I'm a local girl; I'm currently living in Red Bank, but grew up in Marlboro. Something on your mind? Let me know about it anytime at 732-988-POINT or firstname.lastname@example.com!


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Montreal Gazette - Nancy Martland: Hydro-Quťbec should bury its proposed Northern Pass power line
Nancy Martland is coordinator of Sugar Hill Tower Opponents, a group in New Hampshire opposed to the Northern Pass project, a proposal for an overland hydro transmission line from Quebec to southern New Hampshire.
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text:
Hi guys,
first of all many thanks for this nice modification that will fit my demands if it works. I read several postings and tutorials and did some uninstalls and reinstalls but nothing seems to work out for me.
I´m using the build 43. As it read that this is a beta i tried 42, but could not start, cause the downlaod of Java Runtime Enviroment would not start. So i´m back with 43. First i did not see the web folder, i hat to put it manually to a folder and now i see on my tv. Then i missed the channels but fixed that now. I once managed to start a channel file (ZDF Mediathek), but now its not working. PMS says "Serving the file "XX", TY says "Please wait", but nothing starts and PMS switches to the next file. Ist only using PMSENCODER, although all other engines are activated.
How will web work for me. I put Streamtorrent, Veetle nad Sopcast to my web.conf, but nothing starts here.
Can please somebody help me? It seems like i´m one step away from a solution, but i don´t know what to do


text:
It is a favorite summertime activity for all ages. In fact, swimming or relaxing in recreational water, such as swimming pools, water parks, hot tubs, lakes, rivers, or the ocean is one of the most popular activities in the country. However, swimmers can become affected by recreational water illnesses.
In swimming pools, parasites, bacteria, excessive chlorine, and indoor air irritants are the most common causes of recreational water illnesses. These germs enter the water primarily through fecal contamination. Exposure to these contaminants usually results in diarrhea. However, contaminated water may also cause skin rashes, ear infections (swimmer's ear), or respiratory infections.
And while it is true that chlorine does kill these germs, poor maintenance of chlorine levels and filtering systems may impact the effectiveness of chlorination. In addition, chlorine takes time to work, even in the best-maintained swimming facilities. Some parasites are highly resistant to chlorine and may continue to live for several days after a pool has been disinfected.
In lakes, rivers, and oceans, pollution by raw sewage is the largest culprit for water contamination with disease-causing organisms, such as bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and worms. And of course, open water is not chlorinated. This means that you should check with your local public health department or pollution control authorities regarding water quality at your favorite beach before you go. You can also check the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) beach monitoring and notification website at http://water.epa.gov/type/oceb/beaches/beaches_index.cfm .
In addition to fecal contamination, swimming pools, hot tubs, and water parks may also be contaminated by vomit or blood in the water. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes guidelines for the maintenance and care of these facilities and recommends procedures to deal with any of the above mentioned types of contamination.
If your favorite spot to relax happens to be a swimming pool, water park, or hot tub, check with the pool's management and staff to make sure they are aware of these recommendations and have a clear plan for responding to any type of water contamination.
If your favorite water spot is a public beach, here are some questions the EPA suggests you ask your local beach-monitoring official so you can stay safe:
If your favorite beach is not monitored regularly, here are some things you can do to protect yourself and your family:
The CDC has published steps for healthy swimming to help you protect yourself and others against recreational water illnesses. Following these six recommendations will go a long way in ensuring everyone has fun in the water this summer!
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
US Environmental Protection Agency
Health Canada
Public Health Agency of Canada
Before you go to the beach. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/pdf/swimming/resources/epa-before-you-go-to-beach-brochure.pdf. Accessed May 1, 2014.
Healthy swimming/recreational water. United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyswimming. Updated Updated April 8, 2014. Accessed May 1, 2014.
Hyperchlorination to kill cryptosporidium. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/pdf/swimming/pools/hyperchlorination-to-kill-cryptosporidium.pdf. Accessed May 1, 2014.
Steps of healthy swimming: protection against recreational water illnesses (RWIs). United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/swimming/protection/steps-healthy-swimming.html. Updated May 16, 2013. Accessed May 1, 2014.
Last reviewed May 2014 by Michael Woods, MD
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
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Two Fort Hays state basketball players earn post-season honors.
Newton native Kate Lehman and Wichita native Craig Nicholson have both been honored with All-American status by the Division II Bulletin. Both were named honorable mention.
Lehman lead Division II in blocked shots this season and is seventh all-time in DII. She averaged 16.5 points, 11.5 rebounds and 5.4 blocked shots per game this season.
Nicholson averaged 17.2 points and 7.4 assists for the Tiger men this season.
Emporia State's Laura Patrick, who is a Hutchinson native also earned Honorable Mention status.
Men's First Team
Brandon Jefferson Metro State Senior Guard
Cedric Harris West Liberty Senior Guard
Vincent Bailey Lincoln Memorial Senior Forward
Garret Kerr Univ. Sciences Junior Forward
Aaron Nelson So. Indiana Senior Forward
Men's Second Team
Kevin Capers Fla. Southern Junior Guard
Greg Kahlig Findlay Senior Forward
Greg Langston So. Connecticut Senior Forward
David Downs Seattle Paci?c Senior Guard
Mike Carlson Truman State Senior Forward
Men's Third Team
Zach Monaghan MN St. Mankato Junior Guard
Troran Brown Montevallo Junior Guard
Chuck Guy Tarleton State Senior Guard
Lacy Haddock CSU San B'Dino Senior Guard
Josh Gibbs C. Oklahoma Senior Forward
Men's Fourth Team
Ryan Berg Cal Baptist Freshman Guard
Willie Readus Delta State Senior Forward
DeShaun Cooper NW Missouri Senior Guard
Wali Hepburn Lock Haven Junior Guard
Alex Herrera Fort Lewis Junior Forward
Men's Honorable Mention
John Petrucelli, Molloy College, Sr.
Adam Blazek, Gannon, Jr.
Kameron Bundy, Drury, So.
Jake Toupal, UA Fort Smith, Sr.
Rashaun Claiborne, N. Alabama, Sr.
Rod Camphor, SW Oklahoma, Sr.
Richard Woodworth, W. Wash., Sr.
Chris Flemmings, Barton, Soph.
Mark Thomas, Livingstone, Sr.
Adam Kline, Alderson Broaddus, Sr.
Brandon Davey, Fort Valley State, Sr.
Patrick Simon, Seattle Paci?c, Sr.
Mitch McCarron, Metro St., Jr.
Ronald Zimmerman, USC Aiken, Sr.
Eric Anderson, New Haven, Jr.
Trey Casey, Chris. Brothers, Jr.
Whis Grant, East Stroudsburg, Jr.
Craig Nicholson, Fort Hays St., So.
Austin Armga, Michigan Tech, Sr.
Xavier Humphrey, Charleston, Sr.
Derek Billing, Lake Superior, Sr.
Austin Bragg, W. Wash, Sr.
Evrik Gary, Francis Marion, Sr.
Jerrel Harris, St. Leo, Sr.
Derrick White, Colo. Springs, So.
Assem Marei, Minn. St. Mankato, Jr.
Ishmal Hollis, North Georgia, Sr.
Dominykas Milka, Saint Rose, Sr.
Desmond Raymond, W. Alabama, Sr.
Chandler Hash, Anderson, Sr.
Mark McLaughlin, C. Wash. Sr.
Kenny Williams, Angelo St., Sr.
Women's First Team
Lauren Battista Bentley Senior Forward
Jada Blackwell Cal Poly Pomona Junior Forward
Keuna Flax Cent. Missouri Senior Forward
Sharaya Selsor Colo. Mesa Senior Guard
Megan Fogt Hillsdale Junior Forward
Women's Second Team
Courtney Finn Bentley Senior Guard
Nyesha Willie Barton Senior Guard
Mimi Hill North Georgia Senior Forward
Valerie Majewski Edinboro Junior Guard
Lizzy Jeronimus Pittsburg State Junior Forward
Women's Third Team
Kiara Wright Tarleton State Senior Center
Kristen Celsor Harding Senior Forward
Bobbi Knudsen MT St. Billings Senior Guard
Ashley Watts Paine Junior Guard
Jazmine Charles Lenoir-Rhyne Junior Guard
Women's Fourth Team
Tyler Hardy Barry Senior Forward
Mariyah Brawner-Henry Lewis Soph. Forward
Krystal Forthan Academy of Art Soph. Forward
Carly Boag Minot State Senior Forward
Lexy Carson WV State Senior Guard
Women's Honorable Mention
Chelsea Williams, LIU Post, Jr.
Catherine Noack, Bloomsburg, Sr.
Alexandra Ciabattoni, Newman, So.
Katie Benson, Seattle Paci?c, Sr.
Taylor Buie, Nova SE, So.
Chontiquah White, WTAM, Jr.
Erin Chambers, Simon Fraser, Sr.
Seneca Walton, Delta State, Jr.
Tae'lor Purdy, Regis, Sr.
Karly Rhoads, Kent. Wesleyan, Sr.
Jeanette Anderson, Caldwell, Sr.
Devin Grif?n, WTAM, Sr.
Jordan Smith, UA Huntsville, Sr.
Catherine Noack, Bloomsburg, Sr.
Kate Lehman, Fort Hays St., Jr.
Laura Patrick, Emporia St., Sr.
Lamesha Deal, Virginia State, Sr.
Anna Hackert, So. Indiana, Jr.
Aquillin Hayes, New Haven, Jr.
Taylor Beverly, Montevallo, Jr.
Jacqui Brugliera, Bentley, Sr.
Sarah DeShone, Ferris St., Sr.
Holly German, Lee, Sr.
Jeanette Anderson, Caldwell, Sr.
Sharetta Brown, Wayne St. (MI), Jr.
Mary Louise Dixon, Stonehill, Sr.
Dallas Ely, West Chester, So.
Courtney Hamilton, Chico St., Sr.
Willesha Spencer, Flagler, Sr.
Malika Jackson, TX A&M Int., Sr.
Jen Papich, Gannon, Sr.
Haley Holmstead, Dixie St., Sr.
Katie Gattuso, Seton Hill, Sr.
Katie McIntosh, Indianapolis, Sr.


text:
Bullington Gardens plant sale draws a crowd
Published: Friday, April 25, 2014 at 5:14 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, April 25, 2014 at 5:14 p.m.
Under sunny skies, locals flocked to Bullington Gardens' annual spring plant sale Friday.
Bullington Gardens
Bullington Gardens is located at 95 Upper Red Oak Trail in Hendersonville. From Highway 64, turn north onto Howard Gap Road. Proceed one mile, and turn right on Zeb Corn Road. Go two-thirds of a mile and turn right on Upper Red Oak Trail.
For more information, call Bullington Gardens at 828-698-6104 or visit bullingtongardens.org.
Since the 12-acre horticultural education center off of Howard Gap Road is a nonprofit partnership of the Henderson County Education Foundation, public schools and the Cooperative Extension, it's dependent on public and private donations and money raised during plant sales.
Retired Flat Rock lawyer Jane Davis volunteered to work the sale, which continues Saturday, helping patrons find the perfect addition for their garden. Davis said she has watched the garden grow both in size and in prominence within the community since she first started in 2001. Its combination of gardening and education is what keeps her coming back for more.
"We get all of these kids here — 3,000 kids a year from the schools ... kids with disabilities; we have kids who are not going to college who come get job training and skills training, and it makes a difference," Davis said. "This place makes a difference in the world, and I love to garden and get my hands dirty."
Bullington Director John Murphy said the flood of people the garden sale received Friday morning made him hopeful that they would have a fruitful weekend.
"It means a lot; I mean, it's our biggest fundraiser," Murphy said. "It pays for upgrades to the gardens, it pays for educational programs, it pays for what we do, so if we've got the money, we can do more."
From unusual perennials to dahlias, herbs and vegetables, the plant sale offers a variety in gardening. Murphy said they had more than 20 varieties of tomatoes alone.
Neighbors from Sugar Hill Apartments in Hendersonville went together to the plant sale and said they were planning on planting their purchases in their community garden.
"You find some interesting plants that we've never seen before and the prices are very good." Cheryl Noe said. "You can't beat them and it's a good cause. You're helping somebody else, so it's a win-win."
Mary Black said she liked being at the garden because it was so peaceful.
"We want to try to find some vegetable plants if we can to put into our garden over there," Cheryl Noe said. "She shares with us and we try to share with her. That's the way our neighborhood is — we share with one another."
The spring sale will continue on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and an additional sale will be held May 17 from 9 a.m. to 4p .m.
"Because of the winter, a lot of things are slow, so we'll have some other things that we'll pull out that are not here," Murphy said.
For more information on Bullington Gardens, visit www.bullingtoncenter.org.
Reach Bindewald at 694-7890 or email@example.com.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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After announcing a 2014 statewide pension ballot initiative with fellow mayors from around California, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed has run into some opposition -- from other mayors.
Nineteen mayors -- along with two vice mayors, two county board of supervisors presidents and five additional council members -- signed a letter to Reed on Tuesday urging him to abandon his effort that would see public employees pay more for their retirement.
Many of the opponents are labor-backed Democrats from small towns, and several of them are relying on donations and support from public employee unions as they run for re-election or higher office.
Leading the list are Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu. They were joined by top officials from three cities neighboring San Jose: Campbell Mayor Evan Low, Sunnyvale Mayor Tony Spitaleri and Cupertino Vice Mayor Gilbert Wong. Mayors from San Mateo, Millbrae, Richmond, Alameda and Santa Rosa also opposed Reed's measure.
It comes after Reed proposed the initiative last month with the help of four other California mayors, including Anaheim's Tom Tait. One of the supporters, Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, has since dropped out as a formal supporter and been replaced by Vallejo Vice Mayor Stephanie Gomes.
In the middle are mayors from more than 400 other California cities who have not voiced their opinion on the measure.
Tentatively set for the November 2014 ballot, Reed's initiative would give California cities and other public agencies power to negotiate changes to existing employees' retirement benefits. Employees would keep the benefits they had earned up until their contract changes but could see reduced benefits going forward.
Reed and other supporters say the changes are needed to stop the sharp rise of pension costs that have crippled taxpayer-funded public budgets. Last year, Reed won overwhelming San Jose voter support for Measure B, to trim city workers' future retirement benefits, but employee unions sued to block it. They argue that California court decisions suggest that once employees are hired, their pension benefits can never be reduced, even in future years, something Reed's statewide initiative would change. The Legislature also approved pension reforms last year, though mostly for new hires.
But critics led by public employee unions say cities and the state of California have already done plenty to cut back pensions and that voters should not get involved in an issue best decided at the bargaining table.
"We believe that engaging our public servants in construction (sic) dialogue rather than political battles is a more effective way of achieving balancing (sic) budgets," read the opponents' letter, which contained several typos.
Reed disagreed with the opponents' characterization of the measure and said he'd "be happy to sit down with these leaders to explain exactly what our initiative does."
"I wholeheartedly agree that pension matters should be decided locally -- and that's exactly what our initiative would empower local governments to do," Reed said in a statement.
Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705. Follow him at twitter.com/rosenbergmerc.


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The gender inequality among developers and supporters of free software is stunning. Less than 2% of us are women, according to studies conducted for the European Commission. Why? The evidence says we're driving them away. There are even some pretty good published guidelines on how not to drive them away. What's missing is a practical implementation strategy: here I present ten relatively simple changes in how you run your project, to make it more attractive to would-be contributors—especially women.
There's a lot of research on this subject, and if you are interested in a deeper understanding of the problem, then you'll want to go and read some of the notes. The FLOSSPOLS[1] study is particularly informative, and although long, it is well structured, and has good summaries. Val Henson wrote an excellent HOWTO[2] on the behavioral issues, which I highly recommend you read. A lot has been written about how big the problem is, the factors that are probably contributing to the problem, and even some broad social and political ideas about solutions.
To put it very briefly, the studies conclude that there is no dearth of women interested in computer science, nor women capable of doing it well, and there are excellent reasons why women should be involved for their own benefit and for the benefit of the community[1]. But the community's process is exceedingly male-centric and hostile to anyone who doesn't fit that mold—a problem confirmed by the few pioneering women who do participate[2-9]. The recommended solutions primarily involve intentional cultural changes that need to happen to avoid the hostility and make the field more accessible.[1,2]
I'm going to assume that you're already sold on the value of inviting more women into our community, or at least committed to stopping the things that drive them away. But what are you going to do about it? As a free software project leader or founder, you make a lot of fundamental design decisions about how you're going to run your project. And that's where I think that change needs to start: make one project friendlier. Then another, and so on.
In my opinion, the key is the technology problem. Online society is a product of its participants, but also of the landscape artificially created by the software that we use in our production process. That toolchain has been crafted almost entirely by men, and unconsciously, for men and their social needs. Women's needs have been ignored, if not actively derided. And surprise, surprise... they don't show.
It's time to fix that. Here's a list of ten not-so-difficult process decisions to make in laying out a new project, or to adopt in an existing one. Nine of these ten suggestions do not involve any special treatment for women (the tenth does, but only in a trivial way). Making your project friendlier and more open to new contributors will attract some men as well as women. But it is women who will benefit the most from these changes[10].
1 Use forums instead of mailing lists
"When asked about the large gender imbalance in FLOSS [free software] development, many women relate stories about harassment or other inappropriate treatment at a FLOSS meeting or in a FLOSS newsgroup. Since most FLOSS projects aren't affiliated with a company, university or other accountable body, civilized behavior isn't enforced." —— Michelle Levesque/Greg Wilson[5]
"Just knowing that there is one other person in the group who is willing to publicly disagree with the 'bad apple' will help immensely, and will make women more willing to stay." —— Val Henson[2]
- Community standards are easier to maintain
- Avatars create a face-to-face-like feeling that encourages "more human" behavior
- Badges and ranks afford a better understanding of how representative any poster is
- Signatures and avatars provide a form of graphical self-expression more comfortable for women than the sorts of posturing and crowing behaviors that fill this role for men
- Out of channel communications allow "meta" conversations to happen without disrupting the forum: you don't have to post to counter a flame, you just vote it down or report it to a moderator
- Things like gender status and dating information can be communicated in profiles, by those who want them, and ignored by those who don't, eliminating the motivation for talking about it in a thread
The absolute number one problem with women joining free software projects is that, from square one, they have to put up with jerks. If you're on the job, you put up with jerks, because you have to. But would you do that to yourself, just for fun? No. And most potential contributors—especially the new ones and the ones you most want—are here for the fun.
Val Henson's "HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux"[2] pretty much covers the behavioral issues and what needs to change, but it says little about how to make these changes happen. As a leader, you need a way to set community standards and enforce them. Despite a certain "Wild West" charm some of us feel about the libertarian environment of internet text forums, no one seriously needs to tolerate flame wars. They are not constructive, and you can always argue the same points in a civilized tone.
So ban the jerks and put the fun back in for everyone. Mailing list software is lousy at moderation options, so don't use it! Set up a web forum in your CMS, on your server, or use a paid or free forum hosting service. Have the conversations there: for users and developers.
Forums are a lot of fun once you get used to them, and women like them for other reasons besides the feeling of a "safe haven". They also promote more camaraderie and social behavior than do mailing lists, contributing to a greater feeling of "constructive leisure". Women often collaborate on projects in order to socialize, so this is a good way to encourage more serious contributions.
It goes without saying, of course, that you need to have forum behavior guidelines and you need to enforce them. Empower moderators to take on that job (and women often will volunteer for this kind of job if you ask them nicely).
2 Use flat conversation rather than deep-threads: "who" not just "what"
"While it is possible for a programmer to be relatively successful while being actively anti-social and programming does tend to attract people less comfortable with human interaction, computing is as social as you make it. [...] For me, programming by myself is less fun or creative than it is when I have people around to talk to about my program." —— Val Henson[2]
- Flat threading environments encourage a simpler "logic of conversation" that is more like a face-to-face discussion
- It is easier to track who is talking, not just what they are talking about, and this is likely to matter more to women, for whom individual relationships in the community are generally more important than just mining it for information
- Flat threading encourages smaller, more focused conversations with intentional topic-setting, these are likely to be easier for all newcomers to follow, not just women
This is a much more subtle and less obvious point. When confronted with the observation that women often prefer flat-threading to deeply-nested topical threading, some people leap to the conclusion that this is a product of limited experience with the technology. However, I'm convinced that it's more than that.
The key is the nature of the information and the psychological needs of the participant: if you are there primarily just to grab some information and go, then deep threading serves you by categorizing information. But if your reason to be there is largely social—you want to be in the company of like-minded people discussing a subject you love—then flat threading serves you by providing a better conversational context.
Women feel a stronger commitment to contribute when they are surrounded and depended-upon by people they consider friends. So ironically, these behaviors, which may not sound very productivity-oriented, will result in greater productivity.
In the same way, I recommend keeping IRC sessions small and intimate, with "teams" targeted to solve particular problems. Make arrangements for online "sprints" in this way, so that people with "lives" (which a lot of women do have) can work these projects into their time. But don't try to run continuous massive IRC sessions which you would have to dedicate your life to in order to follow.
3 As much as possible, use wikis instead of version controlled archives
"Being good at computing is considered to be an activity that requires spending nearly all your waking hours either using a computer or learning about them. While this is another misperception, women generally are less willing to obsess on one topic, preferring to lead a more balanced life. Women often believe that if they enter computing, they will inexorably lose that balance, and avoid the field altogether instead." —— Val Henson[2]
- Women like working cooperatively, they don't just tolerate it
- The "reputation game" is much less important to women than is "belonging" to the group
- Everybody has a browser, but women may have less control over what equipment and software they use, especially as beginners
- Even if women do have the control they need to install development environments, they generally don't want to waste as much time "fiddling with the tools", and want fewer obstacles to simply getting the job done
- Women are more likely to want to discuss or seek approval for their changes, owing largely to confidence issues
Wikipedia has a much more representative group of contributors than does free software in general. One reason is that it doesn't take much "buy in" (time risked) to participate. You see something wrong with an entry, then you punch "edit" and fix it—there's no big barrier to overcome, so you don't have to be as extremely motivated to overcome it.
It's too bad that there's not yet any good way to implement source code version control via a wiki-like environment (how would you test the changes?), but it's absolutely feasible for everything else in a project: documentation, textual and graphical resources, and so on.
4 Use very-high-level languages (Perl, Python, Ruby, etc)
"Another important point is that Free Software development is often done as a hobby, just for fun, and in one's spare time. Where is a woman's spare time? After their working day, most of them still have the second working journey, which is at home, taking care of the home, the children and her husband. If the men can have the privilege of doing Free Software in their spare time, sitting in front of the computer and having some fun coding what they want, women in general don't have this privilege." —— Fernanda Weiden[9]
"It matters when you have kids, it really does" —— Mitchell Baker[9]
"So I set out to come up with a language that made programmers more productive, and if that meant that the programs would run a bit slower, well, that was an acceptable trade-off. Through my work on implementing ABC I had a lot of good ideas on how to do this." —— Guido van Rossum (on his motivation for writing the Python programming language).
- Women have less time for buy-in to the technology.
- Time often comes in smaller chunks, as it must be fit in around responsibilities like support and care-giving roles in their families
- Unexpected interruptions and the resulting uncertainty of time intervals spent programming is an even bigger issue: you never know whether you're going to have time to put back together what you just took apart
- For reasons of low confidence and a later start in programming, many women today will simply lack the faith that they can fight through to the end on a large, complex problem in a language that doesn't make it easy
- Modern Very High Level (VHL) programming languages like Python, Perl, and Ruby can often condense out the busy work of programming, providing a better use of the time available
- A language that emphasizes readability, like Python, can make recovering from an interruption easier, and less time is wasted as a result
This one was a deeply-personal revelation. For years during high school and college, I programmed in BASIC, then FORTRAN, and then C and C++. I felt pretty good about it, and like most hackers, I put in some long late night sessions of programming.
Then, sometime after college, we had our first child. After that, I found I couldn't program any more. Seriously. There were just too many interruptions. As soon as I got back "up to speed" with the software I was working on and "recovered state" enough to make the next logical step, I would get another interruption, and the program would go back on the back burner. Later, I'd find myself having to puzzle out what I had written a day, a week, or even a month in the past.
When I finally did get back into programming, it was through free software, and someone on my first project recommended I try Python. It was amazing. I could get stuff done again. That's both because Python code is more compact and because it is more readable.
Now the kids are school age, and I have more time, but I'm too hooked on the rapid productivity of Python to go back now.
5 Follow "extreme programming" ideas
"Like any other discipline, computer science is easier to learn when you have friends and mentors to ask questions of and form a community with. However, for various reasons, men usually tend to mentor and become friends with other men. When the gender imbalance is as large as it is in computer science, women find themselves with few or no other women to share their interests with." —— Val Henson[2]
- Test-driven development turns long-delayed gratification into lots of little wins, each one a confidence-building victory which women, who often lack confidence in their technical abilities, need to see
- Pairs programming is a very "feminine" way to work, in close knit teams, observing the code together. Two sets of eyeballs find more bugs, and there is no better time to find a bug than right after (or even before) you make the mistake
- Getting rid of the male "power-world" of hierarchical programming teams is a definite win for women, who prefer flatter "peer" structures
One wonderful trend, largely motivated by free software development is so-called "Extreme Programming" (XP). In my opinion, it's actually a very "feminine" way to work, and in any case, it directly confronts some of the obstacles that women face with programming. There are plenty of other reasons to use XP methods, but attracting women developers is a good one.
One issue that may be a problem is that women may not easily be able to find partners for pair programming sessions. It may be desirable to try to simulate this experience with small (tiny) IRC chat sessions and some means of viewing the same code as it is being worked on.
6 Replace pecking-orders with affirmation processes
"Interestingly, rude responses are often given by people who are in the process of gaining a reputation. It is often as if lower ranking participants try to build their reputation by either responding rudely and thereby implying impatience with the ignorant, or by showing off the extensiveness of their knowledge, instead of providing an uncomplicated answer." —— FLOSSPOLS[1]
"Often, the only reward (or the major reward) for writing code is status and the approval of your peers. Far more often, the "reward" is a scathing flame, or worse yet, no response at all." —— Val Henson[2]
- The cult of personality is all about glory and honor, things that matter a lot to men, but are usually of secondary interest to women
- Macho superiority contests are generally boring to women, and let's face it, they're dumb
- Women don't like to "blow their own horns", but they love to be appreciated, and they'll do more work when they are
- Subjective reputation is often flat-out wrong and very, very biased. Objective measures are useful to see what the score really is, especially when the players are not equally forthright
- Explicit acceptance rituals encourage a feeling of "belonging" that is more important to women than it is to men, and more important than a competitive desire to "lead the pack"
- It builds confidence and encourages people to contribute if they get tangible feedback and recognition for what they do
It's important to realize that flame wars and other male dominance contests do serve a social function. They are a very primitive way of evaluating the importance and value of individuals in the group. Knowing "who's in charge" is something that makes it much easier (especially for men) to cooperate. Men, either instinctively or through childhood experiences, know how to play this game, and they do it unconsciously.
Women's methods of achieving the same goals are very different. They revolve around higher levels of cooperation, less competition, and much more careful attention to affirming other people in the group. Women care more about "belonging" than about "winning". They don't care so much about "glory", but they care a lot about being "appreciated".
So concentrate on positive reinforcement of good behavior and good contributions. When someone does something helpful for the project, recognize them for it. Give them more responsibility. And—on the forum—give them some token (a label or avatar) that recognizes what they've done. That way, there isn't the necessity to crow about it. People will be able to tell in an instant who has made real contributions.
Women, because of shyness, low confidence, or social admonitions against "putting themselves forward", generally won't take these titles for themselves. They have to be given them by others, or they don't feel that they count. Being "appreciated" or "useful" was the point of the contribution.
All too often, that just doesn't happen in the free software process. People spend hundreds of hours writing and/or improving code, and what do they get for their trouble? Often not much.
Spend some time lurking on a female-dominated forum or mailing list if you want to see what I'm talking about. Women actually do this amazing thing of encouraging and complimenting each other. Above all, they remember to say 'thank you' when somebody does something good for their community.
7 Don't discount what women do
"Opening up our definition of hackerdom to include such traditionally female concepts as user interface and psychology, written and verbal communications, group interactions (both electronic and face to face), et cetera, may be a valid alternative to requiring women to fit the existing hacker mold. Additionally, it may result in communities and processes which are even more powerful than our current models." —— Kirrily "Skud" Robert[6]
- Good software is a lot more than just "code"
- Documentation is no easier to write than code (unless you do it very badly)
- Marketing, graphics, logos, icons, and just generally helping people are also important
- Given a safe and affirming environment, women will do a lot of the stuff that men don't want to do on a project, and which is absolutely essential for the project's success
- Artificial distinctions like "Turing-completeness" are a silly way to divide the world: HTML, SVG, XML, and SQL are no easier to write than C, Java, or Python, and just as important to many projects
- Systematically undervaluing women's work is a holdover from archaic and sexist gender politics, it's just a way of perpetuating them
There is a pattern (in all of society, not just in computing) of systematically trying to devalue anything that is done by women as somehow less important or less difficult than anything done by men. Perhaps this is because men feel a need to "be important" and women mostly just feel they need to "be useful".
But the reality is that the jobs traditionally done by women are often just as difficult and just as critical to success as any of the jobs that men traditionally do.
Often enough, documentation, web pages, and other "non-programming language" products are the areas where women will first contribute code (notably these are areas where the male-dominated field of free software is consistently weak!). Value it for what it is, and don't make artificial distinctions about it. A contribution is a contribution. And those who today write documentation may write code tomorrow—if you don't drive them off in the meantime.
8 Emphasize community process over manufacturing products
"Computers are still seen as boy's toys – even before going to the university many boys are ready to work with technology and develop careers in technical fields. Women, most of the times, need to dedicate much more time to study and professional improvement. In the FLOSS community, what is more important is the exchange of knowledge–through codes, documentation, debates and ideas. It's like a library, a huge live encyclopedia available. This is very important for women and can be very helpful to their development." —— Sulamita Garcia[7]
- The manufacturing and product-ization of software is artificial and antithetical to the nature of free software
- Service and support areas are the profit center for free software, so they deserve more respect
The model of software as a defined "product" to be "manufactured" by a certain "release date" and "sold" is a highly artificial one, created primarily to make proprietary software companies viable. The reality is that creating software is a much more creative give-and-take process.
This really should be a no-brainer. In the proprietary software world, creating software is a profit center (you sell copies of your code), whereas providing service and support is a loss-center (because you typically included some kind of support in the sale price of the copies you sold, and you won't get that back on a regular basis). In the free software world, things are usually exactly the opposite: you make nothing from actually delivering code, because people can get it for free and copy it as much as they want, but you can make money from selling service and support contracts through a number of different business models.
Women, of course, tend to gravitate much more to support roles than men do. Yet they receive very little acknowledgement for this. See anything weird? Yes, that's right, the women are doing the big money work. So why is there so little appreciation of this fact?
9 Create a formal mentoring and induction processes
"LinuxChix started as a space for women who worked as techies to come together and get support. Generally when these women joined us they felt happy and surprised that there was a group of women discussing technology and that they were not alone." —— Sulamita Garcia[7]
- Women have fewer opportunities for apprenticeship
- Informal apprenticeships with men may be awkward (Is she your "apprentice" or your "girlfriend"?)
- Women may have missed out on early training opportunities due to sexism earlier in their lives
Ultimately, learning to program tends to be an apprenticeship process. You can learn quite a bit through formal classes or by reading. You can even learn by spending enormous amounts of time bashing your head against the wall while trying to make something work on your own. But the best way is to be able to ask for help—even at the beginning when you need to ask the really, really dumb questions.
10 Make the existing women in your project visible
"I encourage all women in computing to be as visible as possible—accept all interviews, take credit publicly—even when you don't want to. You may be embarrassed, but by allowing yourself to be publicized or promoted, you might change a young girl's life." —— Val Henson[2]
- There are pioneering women in free software who can act as role models for young women in seeking careers and vocations, but they are "lost in the noise" of all the men in the field
- Role models can be powerful motivators for everyone, but especially for younger people who may not be very certain they can really follow a certain vocational path
- Often, we act like free software forums are 100% male-only, when they are really more like 90%-95%. Making the minority of women visible now makes it easier for men and women to adjust to the reality and leaves room for that minority to grow
- Many women lurk more than they post, for many of the reasons described. Seeing visible women accepted by the community will stir more of them to participate
While it's a hard road to be a pioneer, the presence of women will encourage more women to join in. It will also make it clear to the men in your project that they are in "mixed company" and this by itself will curtail some of the worst behaviors.
Of course, it requires that the pioneering women who do work on free software projects be willing to expose themselves to a bit more scrutiny than might be comfortable. You certainly should not try to force recognition onto them, but you should ask them if they're willing to stand up and be counted.
Diversity is strength
"People write software to meet their needs, to make software do what they want. If women don't participate in writing code and writing documentation, they will never have the results and the answer for their needs. That's how it is. Those who merely watch have no influence on driving development, and the consequence is not having software that [does] precisely what you want it to do." —— Fernanda Weiden[9]
I hope the benefits of having more women participate in free software are obvious. We write software to serve the needs of people, but we can only clearly see our own needs. A greater diversity of those involved means more perspectives on every problem, a better understanding of the problems that need to be solved, and better solutions for solving them.
Many of the "stereotypically female" contributions: interface design, documentation, and even marketing are areas in which free software is sadly lacking. It should be fairly obvious that if this is what women want to contribute, we should darned well make it easy for them to do so.
There's a lot to be gained by bringing women into free software, and the best way for you to help make it happen is to start with your project and the projects that you contribute to.
[1] Dawn Nafus, James Leach, Bernhard Krieger; "Free/Libre and Open Source Software:Policy Support" (FLOSSPOLS), D16 - Gender: Integrated Report of Findings; 2006-3/1
[2] Val Henson; "HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux"(PDF); The Linux Documentation Project; 2002-10/29
[3] Emma Jane Hogbin; "Form an Orderly Queue Ladies"; OSCON 2008
[4] Whitney Butts; "OMG Girlz Don't Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1"; The Escapist; 2001-11/1
[5] Michelle Levesque, Greg Wilson; "Open Source, Cold Shoulder"; Dr. Dobb's Journal; 2004-11/01
[6] Kirrily "Skud" Robert; "Geek Chicks: Second thoughts"; Freshmeat; 2000-02/05
[7] Graciela Selaimen; "Women developing FLOSS - freedom for knowlege free from prejudice"(Interview with Sulamita Garcia); GenderIT.org; 2006-02/10
[8] Elizabeth Bevilacqua; "Women in Free/Open Source Software"; MontcoLUG meeting, Royersford, PA USA, 2007-1/15
[9] Fernanda G. Weiden; "Women in Free Software"; Groklaw; 2005-09/11
[10] Throughout this article I make a lot of generalizations about how "men" and "women" behave. Obviously men and women are not monolithic groups, and there's a lot of variation, so this is just short hand. There are some important differences that apply in the real world, though, whether because of nature or nurture. Indeed, in writing this article, I have taken the assumption that many of the issues are really just manifestations of lifestyle differences, and it's largely because of lifestyle issues that I feel I can identify with many of the problems that women face when dealing with "hacker culture" in general and "free software" in particular.
[11] Wikipedia Biography: Ada Lovelace
[12] Wikipedia Biography: Grace Hopper
[13] Wikipedia Biography: Frances Allen
[14] Wikipedia Biography: Rosalind Picard
[15] Wikipedia Biography: Mitchell Baker
[16] Wikipedia Biography: Mary Lou Jepsen
[17] Wikipedia: ENIAC
[18] Wikipedia: Colossus
Licensing Notice
This work may be distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0, with attribution to "Terry Hancock, first published in Free Software Magazine". Illustrations and modifications to illustrations are under the same license and attribution, except as noted in their captions (all images in this article are CC By-SA 3.0 compatible).
Much needed article
I'd always assumed that women were well represented in the Free Software Community because I saw names of some prominent female developers and simply imagined that there must be many more.
What a dreadful pity that your statistics show the opposite to be the case.
It is also completely shameful that even the proprietary software developers can easily outdo us in the matter of female participation.
Free Software Community, but not so free when it comes to women taking part. Software development is certainly an area one would expect to find women being able to work on an entirely equal basis with men.
I'm very disappointed with this finding and will certainly use this article to attempt to alter my own attitudes, where necessary, and to influence others to do the same.
This is a waste of potential talent for no good reason at all.
These aren't new statistics of course -- they were collected a couple of years ago. But I don't think there's been a lot of good ideas about what to do about them. People know it's bad, but they don't know how to respond to it.
This article started as a series of design notes that I was collecting for my own use in creating a better, more inclusive system to encourage more people to participate in development processes. I wasn't particularly interested in women's requirements -- I just wanted to "assess user needs" and find practical and tested design ideas.
I am in fact writing another article (the next in the Making the Impossible Happen... series) about community design to encourage "an atmosphere of productive leisure", which is more general in scope. Which is why I'm publishing this now.
But it was a fact that most of the other communities I was studying for ideas were much more representative (some were about 50% women or even more). Also, there were some features or technologies that women used more than men (and vice versa). So the software certainly can be "gendered" (as Yuwei Lin puts it).
Later, I was made aware of the FLOSSPOL statistics and the various women's involvement projects (Debian Women, LinuxChix (which has the best FS logo ever, BTW), etc) through news sources, and I too was floored by the statistics (the FLOSSPOLS reference, BTW, contains a lot more detail than this. I don't recommend reading the whole thing, but the summaries are well worth your time).
Studying the reports, I saw confirmation of most of the trends I had noticed from watching the online behavior of men and women in different online environments, and I felt it was time for an article focused on the gender issue. At first I was a little self-conscious about writing this as a man ("what do I know about it?"), but the more I got into it, the more important it seemed (which is why this post became so huge).
And why does it suppose to matter that woman are not into free software? I cannot explain the logic in this? Usually woman being into computers is not so much of a big deal as it was before. I've been seeing a lot of these "woman need to get into computers", "how to attract chicks with Linux", lately and it needs to stop. How this article pinpoints woman directly sounds more like dating tips, and it's just fu**ing retarded. [Edited for language. Please. Next comment with swear words will be deleted]
Ten easy ways to make women look like idiot in a FS project?
You're just equating women with "newbies" and assuming they are prone to error.
Um, no...
No. I'm suggesting that the ad hoc way we have managed projects up until now is obsolete and that it creates the social barriers that have driven a lot of people away from contributing (women disproportionately, though not exclusively).
If we can get rid of that bad process, we can get rid of the barriers.
Thanks for the link, BTW.
a partial, tentative response
Thanks for an interesting article and for the FLOSSPOL reference.
While I can agree with some of the recommendations - for example, I'm all in favor of courtesy and of giving generous credit to writers of documentation - I'm wary of replacing mailing lists with web forums, deep threading with flat threading, solitary programming with team programming, et cetera, simply on the basis of perceived female preferences.
When we talk about what women want, we need to specify the population in question: different women want different things. And a project leader may rightly care more about the desires of women who've already paid their dues, wrestled their way through the manuals, and arrived at a position to contribute than about the perceived preferences of women in general.
It might also be useful to broaden the discussion to consider women not only as contributors to existing OSS projects, but also as originators of such projects. One problem I've run into is a lack of coding capability and open-source awareness in the (overwhelmingly female) group of end users to whom my particular programs might be useful.
I have a background in both math and art, and, over the years, I've taught myself to program in C++, Java, and Python (with forays into Perl and Gimp's Lisp-based scripting language) by writing software for textile design. I've always been more than willing to share my source code. But the knowledgeable, code-contributing end-user audience on which open-source projects depend just doesn't seem to exist in the textile-design field. Instead there are countless people eager to hand over money for proprietary software like Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator, SymmetryShop, and SymmetryWorks but dismissive (when not ignorant) of open-source alternatives like Inkscape and Gimp. I'm not a marketing person or natural proseletizer; I don't have the time or the talent to run a one-person campaign for OSS (let alone for my own efforts) within the largely technophobic textile community. Thus I've always wound up code that's useful to me, but not really promising as an open-source project.
My mistake, if it is a mistake, has been to tackle problems of interest to an audience for whom open-source and programming in general seem to hold little appeal. Had I applied my efforts to problems in a stereotypically male field (e.g., gaming rather than textile design), I might not have encountered such isolation. It's possible that female developers willing to share their source code will gain more visibility (not to mention social and emotional support) as women in general become less technophobic, more open-minded, and more receptive to open-source.
I don't have experience contributing to other people's OSS projects, and so I can't comment directly on that. But I have been reading online technical discussions since 1992 and Slashdot since its inception (admittedly, mostly lurking rather than posting). Much as I dislike flames, acrimony, and Asperger-ish behavior, I've often found these conversations more nurturing and emotionally "safe" (to me as a whole thinking human being) than the online talk I've encountered in female-dominated milieus (the LinuxChix groups being a welcome exception to this rule). So, I'd urge caution in reframing OSS development practices to be more "social" and less task-oriented. (Just my two cents, of course.)
Many other interesting points were raised in this article - wish I had more time to comment. Thanks again.
fitting the project to the community
Thanks for a considered response.
I agree that you can go too far with a focus on social involvement. However, I do think that this is already a major motivator for people to be involved in free software projects, though it is conspicuously missing from lists of reasons for involvement that I have read, and I think that the current environment is very male-centric in the forms of social gratification it grants. Paying some attention to the way women (in general) deal with these needs will make the whole more balanced in my opinion -- and not just for women, but to a wider variety of male participants as well.
It's also true that for any particular project you must consider the needs and makeup of the community it's meant to serve, and that means looking beyond gender generalities.
I wonder though if such a web community approach wouldn't have been perfect for your project? Aren't you in the position of trying to motivate people with textile expertise and limited programming skill to become more involved with programming and using free software?
I had a very similar problem with my own project The Light Princess, because that project depended so heavily on artwork and music. I wasn't selling free software developers on making art and music; I was selling artists and musicians on the value of free software. Obviously, the project was not terribly successful as a whole, but I did find people willing to contribute (about 50% women, as a point of interest). Not one of the artists ever joined the mailing list -- they would pass stuff directly to me, and I would post it for consideration. Nowadays I would've set up a wiki for that, but that was pretty new technology in 2000. If I ever get the game engine software to run, I will probably revive the project following a strategy similar to what I've outlined here. Then I guess we'll see if it works.
Also, if your project has to do with creating textile pattern graphics, I would like to personally invite you to participate in Linux Graphics Users where I think this should be on topic (probably under vector graphics? -- I'm guessing you're doing something akin to CAD). My username there is "Digitante". Of course, it is a users forum, but I know we'd be interested. Also, my mother is both an expert in needlecraft and a Linux user, so she'd certainly be interested in free software tools for textile work, though I don't know how equipped she'd be to contribute. I'd love to be able to recommend your software to her, if you could let us know where to find your project.
We face the same problems with all artistic and even engineering software packages -- the primary users usually have a limited interest or expertise in programming. I'm also seeing the same kind of problems with Open Hardware projects for things like "electronics design automation" (EDA) and "computer aided design" (CAD).
But while that is clearly not a gender issue, it does hold up the value of keeping the gate open for potential contributors with low-confidence in programming and hesitancy to join into the developers' discussion. If you make the slope between users and developers a little more graded, you may be able coax some of those folks to cross. There are ways to make use of their core skills while minimizing the software knowledge they need (e.g. build in easy scripting for adapting the software to more complex design problems), and that's probably the key to making it happen.
IOW: It's probably easier to adapt your process to your users, than your users to your process.
more on project/community fit
The idea of a navigable slope between end-users and developers holds enormous appeal, I think, for anyone who believes in open-source. Thus, any measure that helps users take part in development (e.g., a wiki, or hooks into the program that allow for scripting add-ons/plugins) deserves consideration. But some end-user communities operate at such a remove from some development projects that direct communication is nearly impossible. In some cases no wiki or scripting language or change of social customs is quite enough to bridge the gap.
Consider, for example, the ImageMagick suite of command-line tools for cropping, combining, and transforming bitmapped images. It's fast, powerful, and wonderfully flexible, with a dazzling (and initially daunting) array of options. I was thrilled, years ago, when I first stumbled across it. At that point I'd been active for years in the online textile community, connected to thousands of artists and craftspeople with image-processing needs. It says something, I think, that I first learned about ImageMagick not from fellow artists and craftspeople, but rather from a listed dependency in some other graphics program (can't remember which) that I was trying to run or compile under Linux.
While the ultimate end-users of ImageMagick may be artists with no interest at all in command-line tools, the intermediate users are programmers and writers of scripts. At this point ImageMagick has interfaces for incorporation into programs in C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Lisp, Tck/TK, etc., and I'm guessing it lies hidden under the hood of a great many graphics applications.
What we're looking at in this success story, I think, is two distinct user/developer slopes: one connecting end-users with graphics application developers and another connecting these application developers with the developers of ImageMagick. Thus, the people who work on ImageMagick just have to produce a good command-line product; they don't have to get into all the subtleties of gui design and open-source promotion for the various end-user audiences. And they don't have to explain complicated ideas (all those concepts underlying the many ImageMagick options) directly to those who ultimately benefit from those ideas.
The ImageMagick people have been able to fit the project to the community, I think, because the relevant community for that project is not the ultimate end users but rather a fairly large group representing the intersection of three sets:
(1) people with programming or at least command-line skills,
(2) people interested in computer graphics, and
(3) people who believe in the open-source development model.
No analogous group exists in the case of the suite of command-line utilities that I've been working on for textile design. In practice, this means that a successful textile design project needs to provide not only the core functionality (i.e., methods for combining multiple bitmapped and vector images into non-obvious repeat patterns in various colorways), but also a not-too-intimidating gui front end, plus end-user documentation, support, and "marketing."
I'm currently working on putting a web-hosted front end on a subset of my command-line utilities - the only way I can see to make my efforts useful to people who, overwhelmingly, don't install their own software, don't use Linux, don't read wikis (except Wikipedia), don't use the command line, and tend to fear (as a source of viruses, not to mention frustration) any product that isn't already well known or at least slickly packaged. The web 2.0 approach can get around these obstacles, but it does take extra effort: the effort of running a server, designing a web gui, and writing all the web code.
People create software not just out of altruism or to learn new skills and improve their resumes, but also because they need tools to pursue their own core interests. In some cases the problem field isn't all that negotiable; it's the developer's primary concern and motivation. If the problems the software solves are of interest mainly to a specialized audience with a low threshhold for computer frustration, then the developer who wants to share his/her efforts and reach this audience may have to take on a lot of extra work.
At this point I'm willing to do that extra work, but only if I get at least some nominal payment. Thus, I plan to charge for some of the web-based services; that seems the necessary route to respect within the textile community. Meanwhile an ancient version of the core code is at patternand.org. I do plan to update it and write some documentation after I get the web-based services going.
Finally, I'm delighted to hear your mother is using Linux; needlework-and-Linux stories are rare but always heartening. Thanks for the link to linuxgraphicsusers.com; the site seems very well-run with a good cross-section of users.
Expressing bad wishes about someone
There is much work to do in this direction.
I tried to apply it on a mailing list, but it received mixed results.
A guy suggested that some program was so bad, that someone should cut of programmer's fingers. Now he wasn't really meaning it, but it would still drive people off. So I tried to point out that saying such things is wrong, but the effort was met with:
"Can we let this panty-wetting, cry-baby discussion die please?
He's rude, and pissed-off. Get over it and move on to another discussion."
I think you should add this to your list of things driving people off and which should be avoided.
active moderation
This is where active moderation and out-of-channel communication can help a lot.
When you respond to a rude post with another post, which can hardly help but be rude itself, it leads to a perpetuation of the thread, which perversely makes it more visible, thus increasing the negative impact of the original rude comment.
But in a moderated forum environment with more out-of-channel options, you might:
- Delete the post
- Modify the post, by excising the rude comment but leaving in the essentials
- Downgrade the post by a voting or "moderation points" system (note that showing formal disapproval of the post may be all that's need to mitigate its impact -- people who are sensitive to such things are often more afraid that such behavior is accepted than that it occasionally happens)
- Ask the original poster to tone down their comments in a private message (e.g. ask them to edit their own post)
I've done each of these as a moderator before, and it's generally possible to do it without sacrificing real content. Usually, even the rude poster will realize the benefit of it (especially if the improved comment leads to a constructive response).
moderation is a form of authoritarian force
Great article! Thank you for all the information. Here you have given good pointers on why advocacy for freedom is a tough job: it requires women skills in a non-social/competitive/man-only community.
Please comment on the following points:
- Mailing list can be moderated too.
- Moderating can cause people to stop expressing their feelings and quietly abandon collaboration or simply use undercover manipulation techniques. Consensus is the best way to make everyone feel part of a project and make great efforts to get it better. But it requires that people can freely express their feelings. Obviously some way to motivate people to be polite and nice without forcing them could be good.
- You talk about free software (as in freedom) but you do not give the freedom to modify your article.
Thank you for your responses. :-)


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Saturday's letters: Changing the idiocy
Published: Saturday, January 18, 2014 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, January 17, 2014 at 3:32 p.m.
To the editor: Hendersonville City Councilman Jerry Smith is certainly entitled to his opinions and ideas. Maybe if enough people such as Jeff Miller will get involved with the affairs of cities, counties, states and the US of A, then ridiculous thinking such as Councilman Smiths can be overcome.
I do not live in a city, just Henderson County. In observing the actions of the city of Hendersonville in recent years, the job of changing the idiocy is large, Mr. Miller. Stick with it.
If the fellow council members are not even going to be able to quote you correctly and attempt to paraphrase your words to agree with their ideas, keep everything in a bright light, sir.
Joe Stanley Sr.
National Enquirer
To the editor: You recently published a letter comparing the Obama administration to Nazi Germany. Outrageous. But you can hide behind the fact that the letter was a readers opinion.
Days later, you printed a grotesque caricature of President Barack Obama in an editorial cartoon that implied he does not have a valid U.S. birth certificate.
Your editors know the governor of Hawaii and his secretary of state (both Republicans) examined Obamas birth records in Honolulu and found them to be authentic. An Aug. 4, 1961, announcement of Mr. Obamas birth appears in the archived records of a Honolulu newspaper. And a team of Republican congressmen made a much publicized (all expenses paid) trip to Hawaii to conduct a thorough investigation. They returned with nothing but a suntan.
Even John McCain, John Boehner and Mitt Romney stated that Obama was born in the United States.
You know the truth but continue to give credence to malicious lies and pander to right-wing extremists in an effort to sell newspapers.
If you really love our wonderful country, you will work to bring both sides together to solve our problems instead of publishing a newspaper that compares to the National Enquirer.
Walter H. Peter Cornish
Flat Rock
Address the issues
To the editor: OK, I get it! Thom Tillis is a conservative running against Sen. Kay Hagan. We certainly know what hes against (Sen. Hagan and what she stands for), but it might be a breath of fresh air if we told the TV viewers which party he represents (GOP, tea party, Democrats, etc.) and what issues hes in favor of.
Not all voters need to be spoon-fed the rhetoric being spewed out in 30-second dosages. If Tillis has any political positions, he should be man enough to put them out and let we the people decide for ourselves whether or not we want Tillis to represent us in the Senate.
Peter Perkel
Laurel Park
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