text:
COLUMN - THINKING OTHERWISE - From Religion to Post-Religious Spirituality:
"We Irish think otherwise." Bishop Berkeley
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in 1950, the year of Aurobindo's death
In his 1933 novel, The Avatars, the Irish Theosophical mystic George William Russell (AE) prophesied that the future Avatar would not be a man like Jesus or Krishna, but a divinized couple of a man and a woman. AE's prophecy was not so much a glance into the akash of futurity, but a sensitive recognition of a presence in another country on the other side of the world that like Ireland was struggling to throw off the rule of the British Empire.
Aurobindo Ghose was a Bengali from Calcutta who studied as a boy in England and went on to take a degree in classics from Cambridge. He returned to India and became a revolutionary nationalist--one that the British police called "the most dangerous man in India." When the British imprisoned him on a charge of terrorist bombing and homicide, Aurobindo used his time in jail to meditate, and in three days said he achieved moksha or liberation—rather depressing for the rest of us who have been meditating for forty years and are still schlemils.
In 1910, when he was acquitted, Aurobindo escaped surveillance and traps the police had set for him and made it into the French colony of Pondicherry in Southern India where he remained for the rest of his life until his death in 1950. While he was in Pondicherry he continued his yogic sadhana, attracted a group of disciples, and developed a new approach that he called Integral Yoga.
Of Egyptian parentage, Mira Alfassa was born in Paris in 1878 at the time when Paris was the cultural capital of the world. She grew up in a milieu of painters and occultists, traveled the world, married twice, studied Zen in Japan, and in 1920 left her second husband Paul Richard to stay in the French colonial city of Pondicherry, India to become the initiatic consort of Sri Aurobindo.
What is an initiatic consort?, you ask. Ah, thereby hangs a tale.
In the Tantric Shaivism of India the tale is a cosmological story of the god Shiva and the goddess Shakti. In Tantra Yoga the story can be one of physically enacting the union of Shiva and Shakti in contemplative sexuality, or similar physical acts that go against the principles of Vedanta that state that the ascetic path should deny the world and see it all as maya or illusion of the senses.
Tantrics go naked, meditate on death next to corpses or in graveyards, or live hidden in the normality of the everyday world, but all the time they use the senses to transcend the senses. Tantra's contemplative practices are intended to raise a vital energy in the etheric body that is an envelope around the physical body. This sheath of energy is called the pranamayakosa in Sanskrit. In the Tantric system it is one of five sheaths, and each sheath has higher dimensionality than the preceding one. The food sheath, or the annamayakosa, has the three dimensions familiar to us, but the fifth, the anandamamayakosa, is said to be infinite.
The seat of this Shakti energy is at the base of the spine and is described as the snake of the Goddess. As the energy of kundalini ascends, it alternates to the left and right of each chakra, and so, metaphorically speaking, it is said to slither upwards like a snake. Through techniques of meditation, hatha yoga asanas, and/or the maithuna of contemplative sexual intercourse, this energy opens the third eye to make spiritual worlds visible and moves to the crown of the head before settling down in the heart chakra at the core of one's being for a new life of unity of body and soul in time.
The physical and hormonic basis of this transformation of consciousness is indicated by unusual conditions in the practioner's body. One may have olfactory perceptions, such as smelling auras rather than seeing them; or one may begin to receive "transmissions" or lessons from an invisible guru. In the case of the female, the woman's menstrual period may cease—indicating symbolically her movement out of lunar time, with its production of the ovum--to giving birth to her own higher eternal self.
The statues of the Virgin Mary in my parochial school classrooms depicted Mary as standing above the moon and trampling the snake rather than holding a serpent in each hand--as is the case with the prehistoric statue of the Minoan Snake Goddess. To be Derridean, one can say in deconstructing the statue that it presents what it pretends to negate, and so subliminally affirms it. The Virgin is not trampling the snake, she is standing on it and supported by it, and so the statue becomes an expression of the ancient matristic religion and not the patriarchal Roman Catholic one. Protestants were uncomfortable with this imagery of Papistry and felt that Roman Catholicism was primitive and not as patriarchal as those Puritans wished to be.
In the case of the male, the penis may withdraw into the abdomen with only the glans showing as a kind of androgynous large clitoris—one of the 28 signs of the Buddha by the way—and the seminal fluid, in an alchemical and equally androgynous process, is sublimed into a new cerebral-spinal fluid in the symbolic vagina of the spinal cord and brain stem that now gives birth to a new subtle body with the aid of the chakras along the spinal column and brain.
In the Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas, this androgynous condition is what is meant by Jesus' cryptic remark to St. Peter when the orthodox Jewish Peter tries to prevent Mary Magdalen from joining the meeting of the male apostles. Jesus says that Mary should be allowed entry to the inner chamber because he shall make the female male, and the male female.
This esoteric Tantra antedates Vedic culture and is fairly universal; its iconography can be seen around the world from the snake and Goddess of European prehistory to the dance of bird and snake in Tai Ch'i in China to the bird and snake of Quetzalcoatl in ancient Mexico.[i] When St. Patrick is said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland what is meant is not literally snakes, but the serpent mysteries of the Druids and the pagan religion of the Celtic Triple Goddess.
Cretan Snake Goddess Asherah, Ugaritic Snake Goddess
This mystical union in the crown is called the marriage of Shiva and Shakti. In T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding," the mystical marriage is described in more sublimated Christian terms as a condition of complete simplicity "When the tongues of flame are in-folded/Into the crowned knot of fire/And the fire and the rose are one."
Now this system of Tantra is precisely the one the Mother and Sri Aurobindo did not practice, and we fail to understand Integral Yoga if we try to turn it into Tantra Yoga. The Mother was not the sexual partner of Aurobindo, but his initiatic consort. All the action was in the spiritual bodies and not the physical or etheric bodies—hard as this is for us Americans to understand in our sexually saturated culture.
Integral Yoga starts where Tantra Yoga ends, so there are no "techniques," because what Aurobindo calls "the psychic being" that is hidden in the Upanishad's "cave of the heart" comes forward to direct the individual ego's development in time. Aurobindo's "psychic being" is the sum of all one's incarnations and is what would be called the Daimon by Socrates in Plato's dialogues and Yeats's A Vision, or the Nahual in the teachings of Mesoamerican Quetzalcoatl.
The Mother said that it would be the psychic being that would unite with "the Descent of the Supramental" in the next stage of human evolution. If the psychic being is the one who takes over the direction of the sadhana of the individual incarnate ego, then each path to the Supramental is unique, so there can be no uniform religion with standardized rituals, techniques, and practices. "The guru within" takes over.
The paradoxical implications of this radical anarchism are that the Yoga of each student of Aurobindo will be different from the Integral Yoga of the Guru. So those who try to become traditional followers of Aurobindo and the Mother are actually subverting their innovations. It is small wonder, therefore, that there has been conflict with the followers of Aurobindo with the followers of the Mother, and that there has been conflict between the conservative members of the Ashram with the countercultural utopians of Auroville.
The Integral Yoga in which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother sit in their chairs for decades and suffer agonies as they fight with "the Hostile Forces" who they say wish to block humanity's Supramental evolution is their particular Yoga. It may not necessarily be the yoga of those who have learned from them but follow another path up the mountain. So those who follow devoutly do not understand the deeply post-religious nature of Integral Yoga.
This new Efficient form of spirituality means that the old form of guru-chela has become Deficient, which is one reason why so many gurus have gone rotten and been exposed as con-men or delusional narcissistic psychotics interested in power, money, and sex. In the last decades of the twentieth century one guru after another--whether Yogic, Buddhist, or an ordinary Catholic parish priest--was exposed for sexual abuse, extravagance, and tyrannical behavior.
In cultural evolution, those who do not take the next quantum leap upwards, can slip down into an evil caricature of the old culture. Those who did not take the step upwards offered by Chartres, the Sufis, and the Cabbalists of the Zohar in Spain, as well as the poets and artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth century's first wave of the Renaissance, slid down into the Catholicism of the Inquisition. Small wonder then that Yogananda said that the age of the guru was over and chose to institute a self-realization fellowship rather than anoint a successor.
Some of the conservative male Indian disciples of Sri Aurobindo, much like St. Peter, had a hard time accepting a woman as Sri Aurobindo's partner in Integral Yoga—especially a Western woman who had been married twice. Since the second millennium BCE Aryan invasion from the west, India has been an intensely patriarchal culture. The Goddess cultures are more present and practiced in the Dravidian south. Indian women do not sit at the dinner table to dine and converse with the men—as I learned when I was a guest for a week in the home of the yogi Gopi Krishna in Srinigar. With customs like arranged child marriages and sutee, India--both Hindu and Muslim--is not feminist Paris or Manhattan.
So when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother reached back into the Goddess culture of prehistory, and, in Marshall McLuhan's terms, "culturally retrieved" the archetypes of the shaman and la sage femme, they encountered resistance. It was not until Aurobindo retired to his room and turned over the running of the ashram to the Mother that resistance became more open, and eventually overcome as the undeniable powers of the Mother were experienced by all.
The story of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is well known and has been told in countless books, even in little RoRoRo German monographs that you can get at tram stops in Zurich.[ii] Since this is a column and not a monograph, I am going to concentrate on the essential features of their post-religious approach.
There are four fundamental ways in which the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother differs from the Kriya Yoga of Paramahansa Yogananda:
Matrimandir, Auroville
Sri Aurobindo saw the human as a transitional creature between the animal and the superhuman. As a cultural historian looking around the world today at all our political and ecological problems and our highly problematic behavior, I would have to confess that I find it hard to believe that our species is viable and that we are not headed for extinction. So it is comforting to hope that there is some future ahead in which we pass the torch to the next evolutionary manifestation. The MIT mechanists led by Ray Kurzweil say that this creature will be a conscious computer or spiritual machine coming to a lab near you somewhere around 2020. The mystics led by the Mother say that the Supramental Manifestation began its process of emergence and envelopment of the Earth in 1956.
When I read about this special year in the writings of the Mother, I sat up and took notice, for 1956, when I was 18, was the year that I experienced an overwhelming transformative experience while listening to Beethoven's Ninth String Quartet--an experience that has different explanations, depending upon your religious tradition. I won't bother to inflict on the readers of a short column a long description, as that would be too self-centered and out of place here. I mention it only because this—what I would call yogic—experience was part of my motivation for going to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville in 1972—the centenary of Aurobindo's birth.
The post-religious nature of this new spirituality was explicitly stated by Aurobindo when he said: "I must say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old, for humanity in the future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter."[iii] And in her foundational document for Auroville, the Mother described a life for Aurovillians:
Program—Research through experience of the
Supreme Truth
A Life Divine
NO RELIGIONS.[iv]
Looking at the Israeli militarist occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, the fanaticism of the Orthodox West Bank settlers, the terrorism of Hamas, the Hindu Nationalist bombing of Mosques, the Islamist terrorist counter attack in Mumbai, the murder of doctors and the bombing of medical clinics by Christian fundamentalists in the USA, as well as their efforts to eliminate the teaching of science in public schools, it is easy for me to understand why the Mother wanted no religions in Auroville. And yet, paradoxically, her manner of being and her mode of dressing in goddess robes stimulated the growth of adoration and absolute devotion in her disciples.
Stephen Batchelor has argued that there is nothing in the Pali Canon of the Buddha to justify turning his sadhana into a religion.[v] And yet his followers did. Similarly, Jesus had no fixed address, one seamless robe, and a straightforward moral teaching that had little tolerance for the Pharisees and the moneychangers. But that didn't stop the Christians from setting up an ecclesiastical hierarchy with an infallible pope on a throne, cardinals and bishops in palaces, and a priestly demand for mind-destroying obedience.
Since the disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are already saying: "Mother said this, and Mother said that," just as the followers of Rudolf Steiner in Dornach, Switzerland constantly say, "Der Doktor hat gesagt," I am sure human devotionalism will stick to the Mother like barnacles on a great whale and turn her teachings into a religion. In fact, her followers already have done so.
When I was visiting Auroville in 1972 and talking to one of its architects, and thinking about how very much in the French utopian tradition of Fourier the Mother was working, we were interrupted by a breathless messenger who said: "The two Americans, the two Americans, they are to come to see Mother immediately." My traveling companion and I were deeply impressed. It was as if she knew we were there--I who had participated in the great 1956 event. And then I skeptically thought that that was all vanity, and that the Director of the Society and chief fund-raiser Navajata, who had interviewed us for permission to tour Auroville, had seen the three page interview with me in Time magazine that week, and decided I was to be given VIP treatment in the hope of raising money for all his projects.
Of course, we suspended our tour and got in the car sent to bring us into the presence. It was, however, not to be a VIP audience or private darshan, and there was a line of pilgrims waiting outside the Mother's apartment on a balcony for the daily ritual of pranam. In typical Indian fashion, the pilgrims began quietly pushing themselves ahead of me in line so that they could be the first to eliminate their egos. I thought to myself that since I was in their country, the Indians had a right to be first, so I moved to the end of the line of the twenty or so people waiting for pranam.
When it finally came my turn to enter the apartment, I saw the mother seated in her chair and was shocked. She had a pronounced curvature of the spine and neck and seemed the oldest creature on Earth. A doubting Thomas, I wondered if she was really in there with a clear mind in that impossible body, or if she was senile and simply being manipulated by the vain and ambitious director I had met. But when I approached her, she looked at me with eyes that were bright and alert and seemed to speak silently into my mind: "Oh, it is you! I have been waiting for you for a long time." I knelt so as not to be looking down on her, and received the small packet of flower petals that she gave to all the pranam pilgrims of the day. She never spoke, may have touched my head lightly, but I did not wish to prolong the moment selfishly, so I quickly moved on so that my friend could have pranam.
This silent mind-to-mind transmission, which I also experienced three years later in 1975 when I received Shaktipat from Swami Muktunanda in New York, is indeed a strange experience. Scientifically, there is absolutely no way of proving that I am not simply imagining things--impressed as I was with the transmission of energy and the unusual context. It is much like a channeling transmission when silently you hear a lecture from an invisible spiritual guide or are given instructions for a path of action that ends up saving your life. As a poet, of course, I have a highly developed imagination, so I ask no one to believe in anything I write here. As in a memoir, I am simply describing what the experience with the Mother felt like for me.
On the night the Mother died in 1973—I was living then at Lindisfarne in Southampton, New York--I had a dream that I was seated next to the Mother in an old fashioned luxury car like a Bentley—I did not know at that time that she actually did have an old Bentley. In the front seat were the driver and another man, and I thought to myself: "Well, she's the real thing, but those two guys are not." We came to a house, and without transition, the scene shifted to her apartment where she as a much younger woman stood and looked at me and said: "You have a great work to do for the ashram." I thought to myself, "Now, hold on, Lady, not so fast. I have my own Lindisfarne work to do." And I reached out my left hand, as if to hold her back. Then I was hit with what her disciples would call "Mother's force." My eyes rolled up into my third eye, my right arm extended and I began to whirl like a dervish in a trance. There was no denying her power. My friend Michael Murphy, the founder of Esalen, who lived at the ashram for a year and a half, also told me how he too had experienced that Shakti from her.
I woke up from the dream, and later in the day I learned the Mother had died. Theosophists would say I had been summoned to her on the astral plane as part of her dying process that, of course, would have included others around the world. Yet I am baffled, because I am not a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother—though I have read twenty of their books--and to date have done no great work for the ashram. But somehow our fates are entangled in the global experiences of 1956 and 1973.
In my own commitment to a post-religious spirituality through founding the Lindisfarne Association with its Fellowship, I am most definitely entangled with their work, but this cultural transformation seems larger to me than the work of my own Lindisfarne, or Findhorn, Auroville, and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
Sri Aurobindo's yoga is too personally suited to him and too cloud-like and elevated for me; Yoganananda's sadhana is more accessible. Like Arthur Murray's simple diagrams that teach the clumsy how to dance, Yogananda's lessons were something within my reach. If Aurobindo could meditate for three days in prison and achieve enlightenment, then he existed above on a cloud I could not reach no matter how high I stretched, which is the literal meaning of the Sanskrit word Tantra--to stretch thread on a loom for weaving.
And yet I am pulled in two directions, for in his politics, Sri Aurobindo was very down to earth. He disagreed with Gandhi and thought that India in order to avoid partition should accept the Cripps-offer in 1942 of Dominion status within the British Empire. Gandhi's refusal of the offer of Dominion status and Jinnah's desire for a Muslim state would cost the lives of millions. A religious state—whether a Roman Catholic Ireland, an all Muslim Pakistan and Iran, or a totally Jewish Palestine—is one of history's really bad ideas.
As we can see from history, Pakistan has never worked as a state and has always been a succession of dictators and military rule. The recent apparent collusion of Pakistan's S Wing of the Intelligence Services (ISI) with Osama bin Laden indicates that not even the Pakistani government knows who is truly governing Pakistan.[vi] Given that country's nuclear weapons, and the possibility that one could be sold to Al Qaeda by a corrupt cabal angry at the public shame of the successful attack on Bin Laden and the drone attacks in Waziristan, our new situation is truly scary.
And in the case of the politics of the Cold War, Aurobindo was not a follower of Gandhi's ahimsa, for he regarded Stalin as even more evil than Hitler and was in favor of President Truman's use of force to contain the expansion of a tyranny that was anything but communistic. If Nehru et alia had listened to Aurobindo and not become advocates of non-alignment during the Korean and Cold Wars with their shifting support for China and the Soviet Union, then the world's richest democracy might have supported the development of the world's largest democracy and not wasted its funds on the sequence of military dictatorships that is Pakistan.
Of course that is a perspective with 20/20 hindsight, for the jingoist McCarthyism of the US in the 1950s was hardly attractive, and the genocidal evil of Stalin and Beria was repulsive. Seeking out a third way of non-alignment must have made sense at the time. So Nehru leaned heavily to the Left, as did the intellectual apologists for the Soviet Union in Paris like Sartre and Althusser, and the U.S. and the CIA created the disastrous anti-democratic foreign policy that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and supported anti-communist dictators all around the world.
If Aurobindo was that prescient and worldly-wise about Indian politics, one wonders why he was not also other-worldly wise in the development of his Integral Yoga and taken steps to prevent it from becoming just another religion. But then again, why should I expect him to do what Buddha and Jesus could not?
For me the essence of post-religious spirituality is not expressed in simply becoming a devotee of the Mother or Sri Aurobindo and declaring them to be Avatars and Devas of Light fighting the Asuras of Darkness on the higher invisible planes—which is a typically religious response--but learning from them, and Yogananda, and Einstein. Devotees will say I am benighted and suffer from a lower consciousness than theirs, but I shall still go my own way with an Irish sense of humor and an equally Irish light touch of irreverence for the public sanctimoniousness of followers and the hierarchical authority of religions.
PART One - Thinking Otherwise - On Religion
PART Three - Thinking Otherwise - On Religion
[i] I go into these esoteric matters at greater length in my books, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture (St. Martin's Press: New York, 1981) and Blue Jade from the Morning Star: An Essay and a Cycle of Poems on Quetzalcoatl (Lindisfarne Books: Great Barrington, MA, 1983), and the novel, Islands out of Time: A Memoir of the Last Days of Atlantis (Dial/Doubleday: New York, 1985). These three books constitute a trilogy of three different genres exploring the world of Tantric transformation of self and culture.
[ii] See Otto Wolff, Sri Aurobindo: mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Rowholt Tachenbuch Verlag: Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1967).
For a more recent study by a very religious disciple, see Georges Van Vrekhem, Beyond Man: The Life and Work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (Harper and Collins Publishers India: New Delhi, 1997).
[iii] Van Vrekhem, p. 81.
[iv] Robert McDermott, The Essential Aurobindo (Inner Traditions/ Lindisfarne Press: Great Barrington, MA, 1987), p. 249.
[v] Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs (Riverhead Books: New York, 1997).
[vi] See Lawrence Wright's "Annals of Diplomacy: The Double Game" in The New Yorker, May 16, 2011, p. 95.


text:
IAEA Chief Calls for Diplomatic Solution to Iran's Nuclear Issue
From Press TV
"There is an opportunity to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue diplomatically. Now is the time for all of us to work with a sense of urgency and seize the opportunity for a diplomatic solution," Amano told a quarterly meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors on Thursday.
On November 11, Amano acknowledged that Iran's nuclear energy facilities are used for peaceful purposes.
Amano confirmed that a large number of nuclear energy facilities in Iran are under IAEA supervision and are used for civilian purposes.
The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Related posts
Add Comment
By posting your comment, you agree to abide by our Posting rules

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Okay, is it just me, or does "codex.wordpress.org" have problems? I can to addresses there a couple of times before it starts hanging or giving errors. Seeing as this doesn't happen with any other websites I am on, I think this is a problem with WordPress' server?
I apologize if this is somehow only happening to me, but it's really annoying. Is there anywhere I can just download all the documentation in html format or something? thanks.


text:
Nice post, some great points. I love the way you point out the emotional factor in insurance, and I agree wholeheartedly. Insurance can be just like any other consumer product or service, sold to us to fill an emotional need, a need which is never fully satisfied and thus keeps us buying more.
Plus, I laughed when I saw the tl;dr at the end!
"carrying water for the insurance company" - what an excellent phrase!
But man is the emotional factor important when there is a disaster! I would caution that these tips are really only good if you are already in a financial place that you can provide the "emotional security" with your own savings. (That is, don't cheap out on insurance *in order to* save up a big enough nest egg to buy a new car if yours is totaled. Get the savings first.)
Having been through a house fire, a car wreck where my car was totaled by an uninsured driver, and an exploding water heater that flooded the downstairs of my (rented) house (during the middle of a breakup from a partner who was living with me), insurance has had my back in some of my most stressful moments. To me, the "emotional factor" is the peace of mind that I'm not going to take a massive financial hit because of a (totally common) freak disaster. I know insurance is, essentially, a bet against yourself and someone has to be losing out for them to be making money, but had be covered so far.
My point is not that you should ignore all this advice and have ALL THE INSURANCE. It's that the the emotional factor *is* an important factor that should be weighed in consideration with your financial state, the impact a disaster would have on you, and your tolerance for risk. It's not just a frivolous "emotional need." (Emotional needs are real needs! I don't understand this dismissal, actually.) I think you should BALANCE your emotional needs (and risk tolerance) with your financial reasons, not ignore them.
(Although, full disclosure, I just decided to forgo dental insurance for the first time ever for a few months while self-employed (went to the dentist right before I left my last job), and have paid $3000 out of pocket to fix some sudden and extremely painful dental problems in the last month. And even though I had the emergency fund to cover it, I'm feeling pretty pro-insurance/anti-being-cheap-with-my-insurance at the moment...)
Nobody is dismissing emotional needs. Rather, I'm asking this question: Can an insurance company actually *meet* those emotional needs?
Remember, the insurance policy can only give you money.
Hi Dan, glad to see some responses here. It's a thought-provoking start to a discussion ... as I mentioned to you, my husband and I recently self-insured with Kaiser on a high-deductible plan, which is going to save us $200/mo over what we paid for my employer's group lan. That money is already earmarked.
We have also pretty much agreed on saving up the blue-book value of both cars and then deleting collision coverage. We will not be cancelling comprehensive, though, because of the hordes of uninsured drivers in CA.
Now if I can just convince him to unload the motorcycle ... .
I was primarily responding this line: "Be sure you really need insurance before you buy it, and be sure your need is economic one, not an emotional one."
I think the emotional needs/risk tolerance are also important when considering buying insurance. (I also disagree that they give "only money." For starters, insurance equals money + peace of mind. Second, I have always gotten legal, logistical, and practical support from my insurance company in the wake of disasters.)
Perhaps I just live in a part of the country where the cost differential isn't as high as chacha's? (Although I'm curious how much of that $1000/month is health insurance, which is way more expensive than renters insurance generally and wasn't touched on at all.) But it was only about $10-$15 more a month to have comprehensive instead of liability only or to go from a $250 to $1000 deductible. And saving $150/year while giving up protection on a $5000-$10000 asset strikes me as pretty penny-wise, pound-foolish.
Renter's insurance also cost me $15/month. Yet my exploding water heater and related flooding did $1500 worth of damage in only a few hours, and it only damaged two rooms. (And I don't even own that many nice things!) If I think I am going to have an equivalent disaster more than every 8 years or so, I'm ahead by having insurance.
I guess I was pretty disappointed in the tone of this article, which didn't discuss much practical advice in terms of figuring out when insurance is or is not a good financial decision and instead just advocated cutting your insurance to the bare minimum and made it seem as if insurance was always throwing money away on "some dumb insurance company" as opposed to something that required a balanced approach and assessment. Le sigh.
Although I also giggled at the tl;dr. =)
Brittany, I have to admit, I didn't know what tone you were expecting when I sat down to write this article. I'll try harder to get it right next time. :)
I'll see if I can address some of your examples in a future post. But keep in mind, I can't possibly know your financial situation or anyone else's, and that obviously plays in here. If you are unable or unwilling to cover a loss of a given amount, by all means insure for it.
But in the scenarios you present, you are thinking through the costs, and balancing them with your tolerance for financial risk. Quite frankly I don't see you making an emotional decision here, which is a good thing, and is pretty much the entire point of the article.
These are money questions after all: reasonable minds can look at the same set of facts and reach different conclusions.
I find that the necessity of insurance depends on each individual's case. Certain situations may cause some people to get higher premiums while others would rather invest in something else. That said, you have some great points that can give everyone something to think about when it comes to getting insured. You've also shared great tips on how to get our money's worth. Thanks, Daniel!


text:
Category Archives: News
Corpus Vitrearum Volume Awarded Top Prize
The fourth volume in the Dutch Corpus Vitrearum series, Zsuzsanna van Ruyven-Zeman's monumental Stained Glass in the Netherlands before 1795 (Amsterdam, 2011), has been awarded the Mr. J.W. Frederiksprijs for 2012, for the best publication on the applied arts in … Continue reading
'Charity' Window Recreated
Barley Studio has recreated a window destroyed during the Second World War for Sir John Soane's Museum in London. The 1830 window, by William Collins of the Strand, was in turn based on the figure of Charity in the … Continue reading
New Light on Medieval Stained Glass Reminder
Vidimus readers are invited to the inaugural lecture by Professor Ian Freestone at University College London on 12 March 2013. Together with colleagues based in York and Cardiff, Professor Freestone has recently completed a major programme of scientific analysis of … Continue reading
Society of Glass Technology Conference
The annual conference of the Society of Glass Technology will be held at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, 11–13 September. As usual, the conference will include sessions on the art and history of stained glass. A call for papers … Continue reading
Happy Christmas!
Vidimus would like to wish all its readers a happy Christmas and very best wishes for the new year. Do stay in touch and send us your news and details of any exhibitions or lectures you think should be brought … Continue reading
85th Anniversary of the First Exhibition of Stained-Glass Photography
This month marks the eighty-fifth anniversary of the first photographic exhibition in England devoted to stained glass [Fig. 1]. It was held between 3rd and 27th December 1927 at the then offices of the Royal Photographic Society, in Russell Square, … Continue reading
New Light on Medieval Stained Glass
Vidimus readers are invited to the inaugural lecture by Professor Ian Freestone at University College London on 12 March 2013 [Fig. 1]. Together with colleagues based in York and Cardiff, Professor Freestone has recently completed a major programme of scientific … Continue reading
Orb of Glass
A giant metallic orb displaying five newly-conserved glass panels from the East Window of York Minster has been unveiled to visitors [Fig. 1]. The orb, which is 33ft (10m) wide and 10ft (3m) tall, forms a new gallery reflecting the … Continue reading
Places of Worship in the British Isles, 1350–1550
An interesting weekend course on 'Places of Worship in the British Isles, 1350-1550' will be held in Oxford between Friday 4 and Sunday 6 January 2013. The late middle ages saw the flowering of a distinctive religious culture expressed in … Continue reading
Mayer Windows Found
Three windows by Mayer & Co. of Munich, previously thought lost, have been found at Bolligen, near Berne in Switzerland. The glass was made for the three choir windows of the protestant church at Bolligen. They are not dated, but … Continue reading


text:
The Vermont Mountaineers split a day doubleheader with the Plymouth Pilgrims on Tuesday. In game one, the Mountaineers earned a 5-1 win behind a strong five-inning performance from John Miles.
In the second game, early errors and cold bats hurt the home team, as they fell by a final of 4-2. With 17 wins, the Mountaineers still sit comfortable atop the Western division in the NECBL.
Are you viewing this on your WPTZ mobile app? If so, click here to see the video.


text:
Man boobs may be very difficult to get rid of. However, surgery must only be considered if you have exhausted all other alternatives and surgery is the only option left. There are a few risks involved in the gynecomastia surgery therefore it is best to find a safe and a natural solution in order to get rid of man boobs before considering this expensive and painful option. Gynecomastia is often traced to liver and kidney diseases or congenital disorders. It could also be due to over use of prescribed drugs or drug abuse. The treatment that is provided for these root causes often have a side effect in the form of gynecomastia. The best thing to do is to first consult a doctor in order to get diagnosed correctly.
Qualifying for the Surgery
If you have exhausted all the options to lose man boobs and have decided to go under the knife then you will first have to get pre-qualified for the surgery. You will have to be emotionally stable and healthy without a history of serious medical problems like diabetes, smoking and heart diseases. Although there are no stringent requirements that will bar you from getting the surgery done, there are higher risks involved if you fall under any of these categories. When you talk to your surgeon it is important that you appraise him/her about anything health related that you may think would be relevant. It is important to provide accurate and honest information to your surgeon so that he/she would be able to decide if surgery would be safe for you.
Risks Involved
Once the surgeon gives you an ok to go ahead with the surgery for removing man boobs, there will still be a few risk factors involved that you will have to be aware of. There may be a few complications in the surgery such as excessive bleeding, discoloration, excess fluid loss, permanent scarring and infection. If the surgeon thinks that the contouring of your chest is not symmetrical or that the shape is irregular then you may have to go for another procedure. Also, the recovery process is quite slow. It may take you up to one year before you can see the actual results of the surgery. During your recovery time there may be some discomfort and inconvenience involved. You would have to avoid any rigorous or strenuous physical activity. Those who are into sports may find this a little frustrating.
Another important factor that you will have to remember if you consider surgery to get rid of man boobs is the cost involved. The surgery itself would be expensive. Other than the cost of the operation there may be many other expenses like elastic vest, consultations and medication. It may cost you a few thousand dollars to get the surgery done. What makes it even more difficult is that these bills would not be claimable under the terms and conditions of insurance policies. Gynecomastia is not life threatening or benign and therefore not claimable.
FTC Regulations
Based on the New FTC Laws and regulations, we at Losemanboobsnow.com are under the obligation to reveal the relation we have with every product listed on this website.
Each product listed on this website is reviewed based on our own researches. We do our best to rank each product honestly as best as we can.
That being said, we make a profit for every product sold through this webiste.
Ultimate Gynemax is our top-pick gynecomastia (Man Boobs) treatment. It's highly effective, 100% Natural, safe, affordable and guaranteed for 60 days.
It's as simple as that, if you do not achieve Stunning results you get your money back. End the humiliation TODAY!
When you buy Ultimate Gynemax, you also get the Chest Loss system for free! This step-by-step program to lose man boobs is a great addition to the ultimate gynemax formula. With both of these you are bound to achieve stunning results very fast.
Ultimate Gynemax Review


text:
Definition of calzone in English:
noun (plural calzoni /-ˈzōnē/ or calzones /-ˈzōn(ē)z/)
A type of pizza that is folded in half before cooking to contain a filling.
Example sentences
- Moon River Pizza also serves calzones, salads and breadsticks and has a beer and wine license.
- In addition to an array of pastas, they have pizza, calzones, strombolis and a variety of veal, chicken and seafood dishes.
- Small, individual-sized calzoni are made by folding circles of dough in half over the filling.
Italian dialect, probably a special use of calzone 'trouser leg', with reference to the shape of the pizza.
Words that rhyme with calzoneabalone, Albinoni, Annigoni, Antonioni, baloney, Bodoni, boloney, bony, cannelloni, canzone, cicerone, coney, conversazione, coronae, crony, Gaborone, Giorgione, macaroni, Manzoni, Marconi, mascarpone, minestrone, Moroni, Mulroney, padrone, panettoni, pepperoni, phoney, polony, pony, rigatoni, Shoshone, Sloaney, stony, Toni, tony, zabaglione
For editors and proofreaders
Syllabification: cal·zo·ne
Definition of calzone in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
= trending


text:
Dijit Introduces NextGuide for iPad, the Hyper-Personalized Guide for Streaming and Live TV
Dijit Media, Inc, today launched NextGuide™, a "hyper-personalized" guide for streaming and live TV that helps answer the question "what should I watch next?" and transforms the way people discover TV shows and movies for viewing either on the TV or on their iPad™. NextGuide combines listings from any live TV service with movies and TV shows that can be found and played on services including Hulu Plus, Netflix, and iTunes, with rich searching capability, alerts, and one-click watching. The app also has powerful social features, and uses a person's Facebook friends' interests and their own profile to make recommendations. Unlike any other guide or listing service, NextGuide can not only assist in finding a show, but also launches shows directly into other viewing apps such as Netflix. NextGuide also gives DIRECTV customers with a DVR the ability to initiate recordings onto their home DVR for timeshifted viewing.
"In 2012, the concept of watching 'TV' can include anything from live or recorded movies, TV shows, and sporting events from cable or satellite providers or streaming services including Netflix. Further, viewing these shows has shifted from just the living room to the consumers' device of choice (TV, iPad, smartphone, etc.). To add to the confusion, there are pay TV subscribers, cord cutting, binge viewing. This type of fragmentation is bound to get even more chaotic in the future," says Jeremy Toeman, CEO of Dijit. "We set out to create an app experience that helps the viewer reclaim control by getting away from old concepts, like 'the grid' and focusing instead on people, and how they consume media. We put you in control of your own guide that gets to know you, not just a spreadsheet of content. And we give you an amazingly rich and intuitive browsing experience that actually helps you find the things you care about in a fun, easy and enjoyable way."
The NextGuide App.
NextGuide creates a mosaic, tiled experience built out of TV shows and movies relevant to you, and is designed specifically for the iPad. Each screen represents a category, such as Comedy or Drama, and users simply slide from screen to screen to browse listings. The user is in complete control, adding or removing categories as they'd like, creating their own personalized categories around their interests. New users start with suggested categories, such as "Football" or "San Francisco" or "Lady Gaga" or "Charlie Sheen", and can customize from there. NextGuide automatically scans these interests, and delivers alerts whenever there are new episodes of matching content.
"We frequently hear the complaint '500 channels, but nothing to watch', or in the case of streaming services, 'thousands of movies and TV shows, but nothing I haven't already seen'" added Toeman. "12,000 hours of shows beam through someone's cable or satellite feed every day – the problem is finding the good stuff. With NextGuide, we focus on someone's interests, not their channels. Want to know when Jon Hamm hosts SNL? Our app makes that association for you when you favorite Mad Men. Live in New York City? We'll tell you if Anthony Bourdain is in a show that was filmed there. Love the Montreal Canadiens hockey team? We'll find their game highlights on the NHL Network. The truth is, there's tons of great content on live TV and via streaming services, but it's just become too hard to find. We think we've created the perfect app to fix that."
NextGuide Features & Benefits:
- NextGuide alerts you when what you care about is on TV including your favorite actors, bands, teams, live concerts, sporting events, interviews, appearances and more.
- NextGuide automatically finds the TV shows and movies your friends watch, without having to remember things or write them down.
- NextGuide puts all your favorite channels into a single view, escaping the "grid" with rich box art and easy manipulation of content (to easily add or remove shows that are not of interest).
- NextGuide lets you create a category about anything; from your favorite actor to your hometown, to your favorite sports team. All in addition to typical genres or categories like Comedy, Drama, etcÉ
- NextGuide searches all your media sources to find where your favorite shows are on air and online.
- NextGuide lets you hide shows or movies that are not of interest to you so you can focus on discovering the ones you want to see.
- NextGuide automatically alerts you to new shows and season premieres across all networks so you won't miss a moment of the things you want to see.
The NextGuide app is free to download from the App Store. NextGuide is exclusively designed for iPad™, and is retina-optimized.
Media Contact
Brian Jaquet


text:
Treaties, States Parties and Commentaries
Advanced Search
Treaties and Documents
Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocols, and their Commentaries
By date
By topic
By State
Historical Treaties and Documents
By date
By topic
By State
Manual of the Laws of Naval War. Oxford, 9 August 1913.
Section V : On the rights and duties of the belligerent with regard to individuals - Art. 65.
Art. 65. D. Parlementaires. The personnel of cartel ships is inviolable.
It loses its rights of inviolability if it is proved in a clear and incontestable manner that it has taken advantage of its privileged position to provoke or commit an act of treason.
<< Previous
Next >>


text:
Economics, often perceived as an archaic and technical discipline, is beginning to get some of its groove back. Graduates and post-graduates of economics are in demand from investment banks, brokerage services and IT firms. Experts say that the sudden rush is thanks to a services-led economy that thrives on analysis and research.
"In the last three to four years, there is an upsurge in demand for economic analysts. The gradual shift in the outsourcing business, from compilation and collection to research and knowledge has resulted in an increase in demand in the IT and IT enabled services sector," said Dr DK Srivastava, director, Madras School of Economics (MSE).


text:
Get the most out of your boat and outboard motor by adding a hydrofoil stabilizer from Sting Ray or stabilizing plate from Cobra. We offer electric trim tabs and hydraulic trim tabs from Lenco Marine and Bennett Trim Tabs. You can also improve boat handling with jack plates, transom jacks, and tilt and trims from T-H Marine or CMC Cook Mfg.
Results 1 - 3 of 3 Page 1 of 1
Sting Ray XRIII Senior Hydrofoil Stabilizer
Sleek, hydrodynamic profile
Captures the prop wash for added thrust
3-point locking system for no-drill installation
For engines up to 300 hp.
StingRay Stealth 2 Hydrofoil Stabilizer, Black
Dual angle hydrofoil
Optimal performance at all throttle ranges
Fast-finish lowers drag dramatically
No-drill installation
Increases fuel efficiency
StingRay StarFire Hydrofoil
Simple No-Drill Design
Installs quickly with only 2 set screw
Swept-back Delta wing profile
Inverted concave trailing edge relieves drag
Patented curvature for maximum performance
Results 1 - 3 of 3 Page 1 of 1


text:
Libyan kidnappers still waiting for Egypt to release commander as embassy staffers return home to Cairo
Libyan kidnappers who have took five Egyptian hostage this weekend have urged Egyptian authorities to release a Libyan militia commander immediately in exchange for the kidnapped Egyptians, according to the Associated Press.
A Dubai-based Al Arabiya broadcaster facilitated the message only hours after Egypt announced it was withdrawing its embassy staff from Tripoli.
Egypt's Cultural Attache Al Helali El Sherbini who is one of the kidnapped told Al-Arabiya: "We were taken from our houses," and added, "we are under tough conditions here ... we call upon the Egyptian authorities to end this situation."
Egypt reported late Friday that its administrative attache was kidnapped in Tripoli, and Libya's Foreign Ministry reported that four other Egyptians were subsequently taken hostage early Saturday.
The abductions immediately followed Cairo's announcement that it had arrested Libyan Shaaban Hadiya who is the head commander of the Revolutionaries Operation Room militia. The Libyan government blames Hadiya's group for the kidnapping of the country's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan last year as well.
One of the kidnappers told Al Arabiya that Egypt must let Hadiya speak to them within 30 minutes and release him within 24 hours; otherwise, the kidnapped Egyptian will remain as hostages.
The group has denied, however, that is involved in the kidnapping of the Egyptian diplomats. "We have no relation with the issue," said Operation Room spokesman Adel Al Ghiryani.
According to Egyptian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, diplomats from the Egyptian embassy and and the military attache have arrived safely in Cairo with their families after being evacuated from Tripoli.


text:
Eurosport expert Mats Wilander analyses Novak Djokovic's "near perfect" play after his win over Ryan Harrison in Melbourne.
Wilander explains why playing with a "softer arm" has helped the world number one control his serve and groundstrokes, and believes his "top heavy" racket is key.
He takes an in-depth look at what makes the Serb so special, and he goes on to predict that it would take something "extraordinary" for Djokovic to be beaten in Melbourne.
- Sports & Recreation
- Novak Djokovic
- Mats Wilander


text:
Address Book X LDAP
An address book and contact-centric LDAP tool with the option to create, update and delete contacts directly on the LDAP directory. It also has the option to transfer all contacts, groups of contacts, and individial contacts from the local address book to the LDAP directory. Includes SSL connections.
Required OS: not specified
Tags: addressbook , ldap , organize , contacts
1 Opinion
If you need to sync Address Book with an LDAP server, this is the tool to do it. Well documented, and a responsive developer.


text:
Three Manicures & Pedicures
$201 $140 30% off
- Three 30-minute manicures
- Three 45-minute pedicures
What we love
- Great for gifts! The pampering pedicure begins with a gentle dry buffing followed by an aromatherapy soak, a cuticle treatment, a moisturizing exfoliation, a cooling foot mask and a relaxing leg and foot massage
- Prepare for all those holiday parties with a series of mani-pedis at this luxurious spa, an oasis in the heart of Midtown.
- Employing the highest quality moisturizers, the Townhouse manicure includes a gentle two-step cuticle treatment, an enzymatic exfoliation and a soothing hand massage..
What to know
- Redeem by: Sunday, May 26, 2013
- This offer is subject to Terms and Conditions
- Appointments will only be scheduled starting December 10, 2012; please do not call to schedule appointments ahead of this date
- All services must be completed by May 26, 2013
- Services can be redeemed in a series or split up among three guests (on one appointment)
- This offer is final sale and non-refundable
- Offer is subject to availability; please call well in advance of desired dates
- Gratuity is not included; we recommend tipping on the full retail value of service(s)
- Offer does not include tax; tax will be charged upon redemption


text:
NEW YORK (AP) -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has ruled that the Minnesota Vikings did not tamper with Brett Favre in trying to get the quarterback to sign with them.
Goodell said that while there were conversations between then-retired Favre and Vikings coaches, that none of the conversations suggested Favre was soliciting a job or that anyone was soliciting his services.
The Packers had filed the charges, based at least in part between records of phone conversations between Favre and Darrell Bevell, Minnesota's offensive coordinator. Bevell is a former Green Bay assistant and a friend of Favre's.
Favre unretired and was scheduled to report to the Packers' training camp Monday.


text:
Large Item Pickup Day
The part of North Carolina that I live in is a pretty interesting mix. Wake Forest University is one of the more uppity schools in the country, and the combination of rich white college kids with the old money homes that surround the area make the town feel more well off than your traditional southern town. However, there are days when the area reminds me very quickly that I now live in the south. Today is one of those days.
It's officially called "Large Item Pickup Day". It's my neighborhood's turn to have the city come by and collect items that are too large for us to haul away, but that we don't want around the house anymore. It's a pretty nice service, actually. Between appliances and furniture, it seems like something big and heavy gets replaced every year, and not having to try to borrow a friend's truck to take it to the dump is pretty convenient. You just hang onto whatever you don't want until your neighborhood's turn comes along, and then you put your large items by the curb and the city takes them away.
At least, in theory, the city comes by and takes stuff away. In reality, Large Item Pickup Weekend is one of the most hilarious, insane, can't-believe-what-you're-watching activities of the year. Before the cities trucks ever make it around to collect your items, people come to see what they can grab first. And by people, I mean the cast members of Deliverance. And by collect, I mean "grab as much useless junk as they can haul". Generally, within 15 to 20 minutes of putting something out at your curb, a man in a truck (with a low probability of wearing a shirt and a very high probability of smoking) will have stopped, loaded up the whole pile, and driven away. Sometimes, he'll have a partner who will pick through your junk, deciding which of the things you want to discard isn't good enough for his home, but in the end, they usually take everything.
A few years ago, I was helping a friend by taking his stuff from his garage to his curb the day before Large Item Pickup Day, since he was under the weather. I took the first thing (a broken kiddie pool, I believe) to the curb, walked back to the garage, grabbed the second thing, and by the time I got back to the curb, the first thing was already gone. These people are like hawks. Hawks of trash.
Today, when observing the folks who deemed my crap nice enough to load up in their remarkably nice truck (perhaps if they spent a little less on their trucks they wouldn't need my broken screen door?), I had an epiphany – the Mariners constructed their roster using the baseball version of Large Item Pickup Day.
The rest of baseball left Mike Sweeney, Milton Bradley, Ian Snell, Jesus Colome, Josh Wilson, Josh Bard, and Ryan Langerhans on the curb this winter. That's 28 percent of the current active roster that no one else wanted, and we're not even counting Griffey (who wouldn't have gotten another job had the Mariners not brought him back), though we probably should. Essentially 1/3 of the roster the M's are running out on a daily basis are rejects from other organizations who have either cleared waivers recently or would clear waivers without a problem. The Mariners, in their shiny new truck, went around the league and rounded out their roster with discards.
There can be value in things left at the curb. Today, I put out a bookshelf/armoire/dresser thing that my wife hated and we didn't have room for, but it was in pretty good shape and I probably could have gotten $30 or $40 for it had I put it in on Craigslist. It has some value, and the fine (marginally clothed) people who took it got a good deal with that free piece of furniture. But they had to pick up a lot of crap to get to that relative diamond in the rough, and when they get home, they're going to have to find places to put all their junk (and my armoire). There's a pretty decent chance they'd have been better off just buying an armoire on craigslist and not have to sort through and store the rest of the crap they left with too.
And that's kind of how dumpster diving in baseball works as well. You can do it effectively to fill out a couple of roster spots and take some gambles on guys – if it works, great, if not, you just dump them and try someone else. But when your starting catcher, starting shortstop, starting left-fielder, starting DH platoon, fifth man in the rotation, and your long reliever are all guys that you picked up on the curb, well, then you just have too much crap on the roster. And when you can't cut bait on experiments gone wrong because it will upset the clubhouse or cause you bad P.R., then you have no business owning that particular large item in the first place.
If the Mariners want to make up the significant hole they've dug themselves, they'll have to stop hoping to find a marginally useful free armoire, go to the store, and buy something that actually makes the place look nice. Or, in this roster's case, buy a few somethings in a hurry, or you might as well starting preparing for the garage sale in July when you sell off everything that was too nice to leave at the curb.
65 Responses to "Large Item Pickup Day"
dingla on
May 23rd, 2010 10:47 pm
low on
May 23rd, 2010 10:50 pm
Free agent dumpster divers: your 2010 Mariners!
Should Z sign Carlos Delgado, Jermaine Dye, or ask the Mets what they want for Gary Matthews Jr.?
juneau_fan on
May 23rd, 2010 10:58 pm
5, 4, 3…until the first Adrian Gonzalez fanboying…
I see we already have Jermaine Dye, so that's one off the checklist of tired old dogs already roundly dismissed in a previous post.
Koala on
May 23rd, 2010 11:08 pm
ROFL this is the best post I've read on here since I started reading this blog
NBarnes on
May 23rd, 2010 11:17 pm
Eh. I'd tend to think that effective dumpster diving is an effective skill for a MLB GM to have. I mean, of the guys you list, Langerhans, Bard, Bradley, and Colome are absolutely MLB-quality baseball players. And if you can get such a beast for free, that's useful. Josh Wilson and Snell are less clearly useful, but hardly wastes of roster space (with the word on Snell being 'upside').
It's not working out as well for us this year as we'd like, but last year's efforts were awesome. I'm sure I don't need to remind people that Branyan and Aarsdma were similar bargain bin finds.
I'm simply going to have to disagree with Dave here; the problem isn't that the Mariners are unwilling to spend on real solutions to their roster needs. Almost everybody liked the Figgins signing, including me, and this season would be going better if he weren't OPS+ing 60 (I'm trying not to hate on Figgins, whom I don't dislike, but his horrible season to date has hurt the team). The season would be going better if Lopez hadn't forgotten how to hit over the offseason. But the real problem, the one I think that motivates this post, is simply that Ken Griffey has no business on a major league roster and Z and Wak don't seem to notice or care.
DAMellen on
May 23rd, 2010 11:24 pm
Hey, come on. Bradley, Langerhans, and Bard look like totally worthwhile players to me. And we didn't get Bradley for free. We got him in exchange for a terrible investment. That's different. Or at least differentish. Snell might not be a total waste as a 5. Sweeney can swing…lately. And Griffey and Colome…
Dave on
May 23rd, 2010 11:25 pm
There's a big difference between "no one else wants them" and "undervalued".
Aardsma wasn't free – we had to trade for him, because he wouldn't have cleared waivers. Branyan wasn't free – he cost over $1 million to sign as a free agent, and his incentives pushed the total paycheck over $2 million.
These guys are not that. The Mariners simply have too many players that aren't major league quality. They were on the curb for a reason. They're not good enough to play at this level (or, in the case of Bradley/Snell, their contracts make them negative assets).
pinball1973 on
May 23rd, 2010 11:28 pm
Perhaps my last comment about the team this season: You really sold your fans a pile of manure and had us believing there was a pony somewhere.
Ichiro! It's time to move on.
low on
May 23rd, 2010 11:39 pm
When is Jack Wilson coming back? Where has his glove been this year? Has he been playing hurt this whole time?
Interesting subplot: Lopez's reinvention as a solid third baseman with power (in the right park). I'm sure he is among the top players who will be on the block for the M's during trading season. He has a favorable contract. The question is who would want him?
Also: bat Ichiro! at cleanup? I realize this is not even a remote possibility. But he's pretty much the only Mariner hitting right now (besides SSS) and it would be nice for there to always be a possibility of runners on base when he does. Right?
Liam on
May 23rd, 2010 11:45 pm
Jack Wilson had a setback during his rehab.
spankystout on
May 23rd, 2010 11:49 pm
Hilarious, and correct.
Once again we have Bavasi to thank. He left a depleted system, with serious top-heavy contracts. Jack Z is trying to plug holes from single-A all the way to the MLB. He definetly needs to pull the trigger on a Cliff Lee deal. This organization needs more than one bat, and Lee should fetch at least two solid players. If there are takers on Aardsma, trade him also. Those two guys should have a return of 2-4 bodies. If possible, and done right those two trades could net a nice rebuild package.
Jack Wilson is having a rough time returning. Bedard had a second 'uncomfortable' session. Griffey is toast. Sweeney is pseudo-injured, Josh Wilson isn't an answer, Tui struggles everywhere, catchers not catching, hitters not hitting, etc……..
Adiós Cliff Lee. I wish we could have kept you but you are just too damn good for us. Damn you, and your awesomeness.
Marinersdude83 on
May 23rd, 2010 11:56 pm
The Series agianst the Padres has to sum up the season. The M's just can't be consistent with the players they have.
scott19 on
May 24th, 2010 12:01 am
A very good (not to mention, quite amusing) post, Dave!
Instead of the "golf course" ad this season, maybe they should've done one where Z and Wak are cruising around town in an old beat-up F-150 picking up other people's throwaways.
wabbles on
May 24th, 2010 12:02 am
OK, I don't agree with that entire post but it does raise an interesting question. Who is the MLB equivalent of "the cast of Deliverance" who will come along to haul off our crap? The Padres?
JMHawkins on
May 24th, 2010 12:03 am
Yeah, Bradley was a swap. We traded our own
LargeLarger Item for him. We gave the Cubs a 30 cu ft freezer that had stopped working a year and a half ago, but they seem to have gotten it going again. In exchange, we got an industrial strength buzz saw that shorted out and melted a few wires. I'm still optimistic we have the saw going again, but we don't have enough lumber to make it really useful.
Plus our manager keeps trying to use it as a belt sander.
Breadbaker on
May 24th, 2010 12:05 am
Who is the MLB equivalent of "the cast of Deliverance" who will come along to haul off our crap? The Padres?
The Royals.
scott19 on
May 24th, 2010 12:10 am
Who is the MLB equivalent of "the cast of Deliverance" who will come along to haul off our crap?
My vote goes to the Pirates — given both their ineptitude over the past 18 years as well as their proximity to West Virginia.
PackBob on
May 24th, 2010 12:15 am
Good analogy, but when you also have the non-curbside players such as Figgens and Lopez hitting so poorly, it highlights the ineffectiveness of the add-ons. These guys were expected to "step up" and haven't done so.
A few hot hitters can carry a team, but when Gutierrez cooled off from his hot start, Ichiro has been the only guy hitting on a consistent basis. You can't win with just one guy hitting.
Griffey has crippled this team from the start. The guys who were expected to perform haven't done so. The number of bit players just makes it worse.
tmac9311 on
May 24th, 2010 12:16 am
My problem isn't really with the players, as much as it is they are starting. We may be able to trade Tui for something and Josh Wilson for nothing, but Josh is more valuable to this team than Tui. Saunders should be starting left and Bradley should be starting DH. Sweeney has no business on the team, even with his hot bat. Bard is no better or no worse than Rob or Moore I think, so I don't have much of an issue with him. We have 3 catchers than can't hit or catch a ball in the dirt. Bard was a junk on the side of the road, but he just got put next to the equally useless catchers we already had in the garage. Snell has the upside, although he isn't offering much of it.
but the post is still awesome and serves it's purpose. I realize a humorous post can't be 100% factual and true. Hopefully we can talk the Royals into trading us their truck for all our large items.
Aletheia on
May 24th, 2010 12:27 am
Heh… parts of Winston are so like this though…
It's just sad that the analogy works so well…
Dang it, I thought I left the 336 behind, but seriously… showing up in my baseball team. That just sucks
low on
May 24th, 2010 12:34 am
Hey, don't hate on Josh Bard. He is far better than Rob Johnson and has the experience to teach Adam Moore how to, you know, catch the ball.
I wonder if Rob Johnson is gone when Moore gets off the DL?
Westside guy on
May 24th, 2010 12:43 am
We have those same people up here in the Pacific Northwest. I used to watch them when our area first started curbside recycling – they'd drive along and stop at each house, stealing the aluminum cans.
Fortunately they usually wear shirts up here, though, because the weather's just not conducive to going without.
Westside guy on
May 24th, 2010 12:45 am
I wonder if Rob Johnson is gone when Moore gets off the DL?
RoJo is on the good side of Wak's belief system, and (in my opinion) it's pretty obvious Moore is not. I'm betting Moore will be sent down to "get at bats", while Johnson will be given the opportunity to work through his issues up here. Unfortunately lack of talent isn't something most people can work through…
Evoxx on
May 24th, 2010 1:01 am
Z should pull a rabbit out of his hat by signing Lee and then this off season do a Bavasi impersonation by bidding hard for Pena and Crawford. Nintendo is one of the few companies to do extremely well the past five years, why not go bull and leave the dumpster diving to Oakland?
NBarnes on
May 24th, 2010 1:05 am
I distrust Carlos Pena. He's good, but he'll be 33 and has OBP'd over 377 exactly once and SLG'd over 500 exactly twice. He's not the kind of elite 1b talent that's worth locking up. I'm comfortable going year-to-year at first.
And he's sucking in 2010, to date. Which doesn't make me covet his services.
maqman on
May 24th, 2010 1:42 am
Great piece Dave, I might disagree with some of your stuff sometimes but you are a fine writer.
Leroy Stanton on
May 24th, 2010 2:28 am
I loved this one, Dave. Poignant and very funny.
The_Waco_Kid on
May 24th, 2010 2:33 am
I think the point that the M's are too unwilling to give up on failing experiments is right on. I think the judgements of which players are worthless are more questionable. Certainly we are limited, but I doubt we can make a good trade anytime soon, so I think (for now) playing time is a far bigger issue than roster spots.
okinawadave on
May 24th, 2010 6:18 am
Dave, you're awesome.
KimCinAZ on
May 24th, 2010 6:52 am
All these names and somehow the biggest WASTE of money and prospects, a guy who NO ONE wanted in the off-season is nowhere to be found — Bedard.
Dennisss on
May 24th, 2010 7:50 am
This little metaphor really captures the mistakes of this season. The Mariners did some big things right — Cliff Lee, Gutierrez, Felix, Figgins (?) — but they engaged in too much wishful thinking when it came to the back of the roster, and they gave way too much playing time to lost causes.
Every Roster Spot Counts — that should be the mantra for the front office going forward.
Then we can work on Every Managerial Decision Counts.
firova2 on
May 24th, 2010 7:52 am
One of the better posts here. Thinking about Griffey: for all the incompetence Bavasi showed over the years, he did DFA two very popular Mariners–members of the 2001 squad to boot: John Olerud and Brett Boone in the middle of the season. He even pulled the plug on one of his own, Richie Sexson, though that was in the context of saving his own hide, perhaps. It should be done with Griffey. At least a "knee-related" DL stint is in order.
msb on
May 24th, 2010 8:00 am
But an armoire give you lots of space to store the other valuable curbside finds.
eponymous coward on
May 24th, 2010 8:48 am
If you want to expand the dumpster-diving metaphor a bit bigger, you can add Jack Hannahan, Future Backup Shortstop to that mix.
It's also worth noting that Casey Kotchman is on his fourth organization, though he doesn't meet the Large Item Pickup Standard. He's more the $40 bookshelf/dresser you pick up used on Craigslist that your wife ends up hating because it doesn't match the decor.
Adam B. on
May 24th, 2010 9:01 am
So when do we get to see a post on Cliff Lee's potential return? It may be a bit early for that, but it's definitely getting late for the M's.
I would assume Sabathia to the Brewers is a reasonable comparison?
hans on
May 24th, 2010 9:23 am
Don't the rest of you have "Large item pick up day" in your neighborhoods? It is alive and well in Berkeley and Oakland. However; the folks that come by to pick things up never had a part in "Deliverance". It's more the "student/young-professional-living-with-a-roommate" set. And they tend to be a little bit more selective.
kinbote on
May 24th, 2010 9:29 am
This was brilliant, btw.
Jay R. on
May 24th, 2010 9:45 am
Good stuff, Dave. First half was hilarious, while the second half made me want to beat my head against my desk.
The sooner CA retires, the better. In fact, I would just as soon have everyone who was around in 1995 out of decision-making positions at this point. There is no recapturing that magic; they need someone neutral who will build a good baseball team. Hopefully JackZ ends up being that guy.
brianc1279 on
May 24th, 2010 9:53 am
So…what do you feel that we could pick up for a Cliff Lee? I realize we could get prospects at the ends of the season but it certainly seems better to build around Ichiro, Felix and Guti with some guys that will be ready to play next year. Cincinnati looks like a good trade partner as they could run away with their division if they added Lee.
brianc1279 on
May 24th, 2010 9:53 am
So…what do you feel that we could pick up for a Cliff Lee? I realize we could get prospects at the end of the season but it certainly seems better to build around Ichiro, Felix and Guti with some guys that will be ready to play next year. Cincinnati looks like a good trade partner as they could run away with their division if they added Lee.
G-Man on
May 24th, 2010 10:26 am
This putting out large items is somewhat similar to waiving, releasing, or maybe DFA'ing someone. You want to get rid of it/him, and if someone else really wants it/him, this is their chance.
They used to have some sort of free pickup days in some neighborhoods in the City of Seattle, but they quit it because people from other places would haul over their junk and toss it on the curb. Beacon Ave was a giant junkyard.
msb on
May 24th, 2010 11:08 am
In my neighborhood, folks still just dump things on the corner when they move … and amazingly, it usually disappears.
Chris_From_Bothell on
May 24th, 2010 11:31 am
I thought you guys liked Bradley and Langerhans? The rest of that list I understand, though.
I didn't hear too much jumping up and down about settling for the LIPD guys when they were picked up in the offseason or prior season, apart from Sweeney. I suppose Z might have been given a pass on this past spring considering what he found with guys like Aardsma before. Or that even the best of the rest weren't much better than who the Ms settled for, and not even throwing money around would have gotten the Ms much better.
But the next couple of seasons of free agents should be pretty good, and I suspect this fall Z won't be given as much benefit of the doubt, so that filling out the rest of the roster on the cheap won't cut it anymore.
Same for not being willing to pay up for the bigger free agents, the way they didn't stay involved with Bay or Holliday this past offseason.
z24lax on
May 24th, 2010 11:45 am
Casey kotchman is the armoir that was bought new for $100, but then you broke bringing into the house, then it got sold on craigslist for $80 bucks, that guy saw it was broken and cut his losses and sold it for $40 bucks, that guy treid to fix it, but it ended up a little more messed up than before, so that guy found a third fool who he sold it too for $50 bucks who swore he could fix it and make it worth at least $80 again, but its actual value is about $20.
That is Casey Kotchman, and the mariners are that third fool
wh33ls on
May 24th, 2010 11:49 am
Dave, I like this post a lot.
Shizane on
May 24th, 2010 11:53 am
Let's hope the M's don't end up on an episode of Hoarders.
"When our film crew arrived, they could barely make it through the living room, which was overflowing with Jesus Colomes, Ian Snells, and the like."
"I just can't convince myself to throw them away; they can still be useful in some way", says chronic hoarder Jack Z.
Leroy Stanton on
May 24th, 2010 11:54 am
It's hard to believe that Eric Byrnes hasn't been mentioned yet.
Goody on
May 24th, 2010 12:32 pm
Last year the FO got very lucky by picking up undervalued pieces. Perhaps they thought too highly of their ability to coax something out of something that everyone else sees as worthless. Blow it up. Start over.
joser on
May 24th, 2010 12:37 pm
Who is the MLB equivalent of "the cast of Deliverance" who will come along to haul off our crap? The Padres?
The Royals.
Impossible now to think "Dayton Moore" without hearing the opening to "Dueling Banjos" in my head.
(Who is playing the other banjo? Omar Minaya?)
joser on
May 24th, 2010 12:42 pm
Last year the FO got very lucky by picking up undervalued pieces.
Gambles are gambles, and winning them shouldn't make you forget that. Last year some of those dumpster finds turned out to be diamonds, the bullpen got lucky, and the team won a lot of one-run games. This year, not so much on all of the above. Even smart gamblers who know the odds and make only the best bets lose on occasion. (Of course, doing dumb things with inflexible rosters doesn't help.)
mln on
May 24th, 2010 1:23 pm
The Mariners as dumpster divers. LoL.
Next time, they should probably stick to shopping on Craigslist or eBay.
georgmi on
May 24th, 2010 1:35 pm
They're shopping on eBay, but they keep getting sniped.
jking12 on
May 24th, 2010 2:33 pm
Have you ever been to a Wake basketball game?
Diehard on
May 24th, 2010 2:35 pm
GMZ went cheap on the offense and took gambles on a bunch of guys and none have worked out this year. Hope he learns from this and starts getting come quality guys to anchor this lineup before he goes looking for bargains at the curb in the future.
scott19 on
May 24th, 2010 3:09 pm
It's hard to believe that Eric Byrnes hasn't been mentioned yet.
You'll find him these days down at Play It Again Sports right next to all the softball gear!
MKT on
May 24th, 2010 3:09 pm
Great post.
In most Los Angeles area neighborhoods and towns, every week is LIPD: you simply call in advance and tell them that in addition to your usual trash, you have a large item, and the Bureau of Sanitation or whoever picks it up.
Recycling is also we-do-it-all-for-you. After experimenting with pre-sorted recycling, the way most cities do it, most LA-area towns now simply say dump all your recyclables (not including electronics) into a single container. All the stuff gets put onto a conveyor belt where employees (I suspect these are unskilled workers making minimum wage, of whom there are plenty in LA) do the sorting.
Given that California is as tax-averse as most other states, I'm a bit surprised at the high level of service provided by the trash and recycling departments. Quite possibly, they discovered that Southern Californians are incompetent at sorting their own recyclables, and dump stuff on the curb regardless, so the towns realized they better provide the service.
Back to baseball: the once-a-year LIPD is like the baseball off-season, where you know that every year there will be a chance to pick up cheap free agents cast off by other teams. LA's year-round LIP is more like the search for international free agents. You don't know when and where you'll find them, you just have to go scouting all over the place to find the 17-year old fireballing pitcher, or the 17-year old armoire.
StankeyGrammasBroglio on
May 24th, 2010 3:57 pm
Wak and Z aren't dummies. They do not elect, as a matter of choice, to sit in the hotseat for weeks while something named Junior stinks in their clubhouse. My conspiracy theory says that they are forced to keep him by the Nippon-Seattle ownership.
By the way, this was a very well written and pleasureful post. Thanks.
Shanfan on
May 24th, 2010 4:38 pm
Excellent, hilarious writing, Dave, and a good analogy. God bless the cooters for their contribution to recycling. Z needs to make sure he's cruising the nicer neighborhoods when picking up large items and stay away from the ghettos of Washington, Oakland, San Diego, Pittsburgh, etc. But that's still better than Bavasi, who would put nice pieces out on the curb and then go pay somebody else for their crap.
droppedrod on
May 24th, 2010 4:54 pm
Excellent analogy and a great post . . .
It doesn't happen only in North Carolina though. I once put 25 bags of cement mix I had left over from an ill-conceived home improvement project on the curb in Ballard with a free sign. They had been in the rain for 10 months and half were solid blocks. None the less, someone took them within 30 minutes.
Why do I mention this? Because sometimes the only utility is that something is cheap or free. Z got a little too enamored with his success on some dumpster diving last year and this year's roster is the result. Hopefully he has learned that some things are on the curb for a reason.
peterp16 on
May 24th, 2010 6:17 pm
Living in a nice part of Tacoma (yes, they do exist), I don't have the equivalent of LIPD. I found something that works as well, and doesn't even require a special day. I can put something out on a well-traveled corner a half-block away with a "free" sign on it, just in case anyone had any hesitation whatsoever, and the item would vanish within a few hours. My last drop-off included some overgrown plants from the yard, rootballs and all. Hmmm — maybe if the Ms attached a sign to the backs of a couple of unproductive players and left 'em on Edgar Martinez Drive it would work the same way — gone before the end of the homestand. Why wait until July 31st to do something…
badperson_ny on
May 24th, 2010 8:26 pm
I'm sure this has been covered before, but in looking at the upcoming schedule…two series with the Angels, one with the twins, one with texas…if the m's don't turn it on now through the first week of june or so, they're done, right?
Rick L on
May 25th, 2010 6:37 am
buy something that actually makes the place look nice.
Like who?
rcc on
May 25th, 2010 11:18 am
Great read Dave. I chuckled at the imagery you created. Speaking of pick ups….whatever happened to Chris Doyle Snelling? If he is still playing what about picking him up?
ferocious_gentleman on
May 25th, 2010 1:02 pm
So does the city actually end up collecting anything, or does periodically lifting the ban on curbside junk sort of work itself out without sending out the truck(s)? Are there verified sightings of the official collection vehicle(s)?
MKT on
August 9th, 2010 1:17 pm
A late addendum: Winston-Salem, NC's "bulky item pickup day" makes it way into the New York Times.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.


text:
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Indigo Books & Music at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Get it today!Shop Now
OrAdd to Wish List
This set features: Primes of the Form x2+ny2: Fermat, Class Field Theory, and Complex Multiplication (978-0-471-19079-0) and Galois Theory (978-0-471-43419-1) both by David A. Cox.. Price: $243.00
© Copyright 2016 - Christmas.com. All rights reserved and protected by Christmas Spirit


text:
September 4, 201512 months ago
FALL 2015 DATES + VIPFall co-headline US tour with our friends The Birthday Massacre and support from MXMS and Echo Black on sale now! VIP Packages on sale now for all dates. For more information, click here!
May 29, 20151 year ago
Summer 2015 DATES + VIPSummer 2015 Festivals and Headline Shows are now announced! VIP Pre-Party packages on sale now for selecte headline dates. More shows will be announced soon. For more information, click here!
January 9, 20151 year ago
Party On Our Tour BusFeb/Mar 2015 we are proud to be part of the Coal Chamber/Filter/Combichrist/American Head Charge mega-tour! For each show we are inviting 5 of you - and ONLY 5 of you - on to our tour bus to rage with us while we get ready for the show. For more information, click here!
January 9, 20151 year ago
North American 2015 Tour with Coal ChamberWe are excited to play with Coal Chamber, Filter & American Head Charge this Feb/Mar in North America. For tickets and special VIP Tour Bus Party packages, click here!
Click here to view the News Archive
September 24, 20141 year ago


text:
She sports a pink toque and furry purple boots, and she can barely see over the steering wheel, but that didn't stop an 8-year-old girl's parents from letting her drive a car down a Russian road in the middle of winter, according to a YouTube video the family uploaded.
Music plays and cars speed past as the little girl accelerates to 100 km per hour. Her mother smiles at the camera, seemingly unconcerned, while dad grabs the wheel periodically to straighten out the car.
[ Related: Russia's dangerous roads, corrupt cops allow for great meteorite videos ]
To add to the danger, a shot from the windshield shows an icy road with snow banks on each side. Karina says proudly that she's only an 8-year-old kid and she can drive, according to the BBC. When she steps out of the driver's seat, she takes with her an empty plastic jug she was using to reach the peddles.
The video has led police to open an investigation on the family, identified as Karina, Dmitry and Lena Mikulchik, for breaking traffic laws, according to the Telegraph.
[ Related: Grandma gets four speeding tickets on way to granddaughter's school dance ]
Russia's roads are notoriously dangerous. The World Health Organization called traffic deaths in countries like Russia an epidemic and launched an effort for safer roads in 2010. Keeping 8-year-old kids away from the steering wheel might help.


text:
Political endorsements
October 24, 2008 - Jennifer Houtman
This week, The Marietta Times will begin publishing its endorsements of candidates. You may have noticed we've already run editorials against the casino issue in Ohio and in support of the local mental health levy for children. In the days leading up to the Nov. 4 election we will run endorsements for individual candidates at the local, state and national levels.
Our editorial board voices our opinions every day on issues important to this community. The endorsements are simply an extension of that.
Our opinions are strictly that, opinions, but we hope they also help to inform and motivate our readers by provoking thought and sparking discussion.
In many cases we've had the opportunity to sit down with candidates one-on-one. We've sorted through the information and we've discussed the candidates' strengths and weaknesses. We hope you'll consider the information provided in the endorsements prior to making your own decisions on Election Day.
Many readers already are expressing their opinions and their own endorsements through letters to the editor. We love the interaction among readers and we ask for your patience. In the week to come we will make sure all election letters that come in by the deadline - 5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27 - get published by the election.
One last note. If you haven't already done so, please make sure to exercise your right to vote!
Article Comments
No comments posted for this article.
Post a Comment
You must first login before you can comment.


text:
Snow cuts W'md spring break short
- Details
- Last Updated on Wednesday, 31 March 2010 16:27
- Published on Wednesday, 31 March 2010 16:27
- Hits: 1185
Spring vacationers returning to part-time Westmoreland County homes are discovering it was a hard winter as they attempt to negotiate a path between the overflowing ditches and the pitted surfaces of the county's narrow and winding secondary roads.
It's spring vacation time in Westmoreland County and the traffic is heavier than it has been for many months, but vacationers are discovering they must share the roads with school bus traffic. The county school division's spring break had been sharply abbreviated by weather events that occurred earlier this year.
Loss of a meaningful spring vacation was a discussion topic at last week's county school board meeting. The holiday would be limited to April 2 and 5.
School Board members acted on the calendar revisions reluctantly. Days lost to snow events had to be restored and Standards of Learning (SOL) test performance was a big consideration.
Longer school day hours were a consideration that failed to take flight. Subjects needed to be taught before SOLs were administered or the exhausted students' test scores would be low.
The school board members were advised that neighboring divisions were making school days longer in order to avoid disrupting spring vacation plans. It was stated that spring break is needed to preserve everyone's morale.
"It came down to the instructional issue," School Board Chair Dan Wallace explained.
"We have missed 13 days [and the state forgave] nine days that we don't have to make up.
"The bottom line is we have to do what is best for the students. They would be out for 10 days with the two weekends and wouldn't do as well on the SOLs when they return."
Wallace went on to explain that the intention to change spring vacation plans was posted on the division's Web site in order to provide everyone with advanced warning of the calendar change that would officially be made.
Board member Bryan Oliff concurred that the morale issue needed serious attention. He then conceded that longer days would be unlikely to boost learning.
"The continuity of instruction is important," Wallace said.
Superintendent Elaine Fogliani expressed concern that keeping the spring vacation plans in place would cause the SOL scores to be compromised.
"We need to keep our eye on the ball," Fogliani said. "Losing 13 days is very unusual."
The county's at-large School Board member, Rosemary Mahan, weighed in with recollections of her own childhood's winter weather events and spring vacation disappointments.
"When I was a kid, all of us knew we'd lose spring break if we had snow," Mahan commented.
"We used to have to go to school on Saturdays and lost our holidays. Everyone should be able to understand that when you have snow, you lose vacation.
"I can also understand how the teachers depend on spring vacation for morale, but adding extra hours to the day with a county a long as ours would create hardships. The days would be too long for the children who ride for 60 or 90 minutes on these buses.
"It causes me to wonder how effective the students can be when they're exhausted," Mahan continued. "We're talking about making up 13 or 14 days of instruction in just four days. The other days have been forgiven by the state.
"In the end, everything comes down to what's best for the children. I batted all this around in my head. The state could forgive all the days that were missed, but would the kids know what they need to know to do well on the SOLs?"
"We've lost a tremendous amount of instructional time and our students need to get verified credits. The SOLs are something by which our community is evaluated by industry and by any business that might be interested in establishing a new location.
"I listened and this is a very hard thing that I do not like. I feel like Mr. Grinch!"
The "grinches" prevailed in a 4-1 vote, with Bryan Oliff dissenting in order to leave the entire spring holiday intact.
"I guess it's better if we do it this way," he said of the school division's amended calendar.
Betsy Ficklin
Staff reporter


text:
Boudhar, A; Duchemin, B; Hanich, L; Boulet, G; Chehbouni, A (2011). Spatial distribution of the air temperature in mountainous areas using satellite thermal infra-red data. COMPTES RENDUS GEOSCIENCE, 343(1), 32-42.
AbstractUnderstanding the spatial distribution of air temperature in mountainous areas is essential in hydrological modelling. In the Moroccan High-Atlas range, the meteorological stations network is sparse. In order to get additional information, we investigated the thermal infrared data supplied by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM +) sensor onboard the Landsat 7 satellite. The brightness temperature derived from ETM+ images is used as a proxy for air temperature to set up a model that describes its spatial distribution. This model accounts for sun location and topographic characteristics derived from the SRTM digital elevation model. It was evaluated on the Rheraya watershed, a 225-km(2) region located within the semi-arid High-Atlas mountain range, using two different sources of data. The first data set consists in in-situ air temperature collected by meteorological stations installed during the experiment at various altitudes from 1400 to 3200 m. The second data set is satellite estimates of snow-covered areas (SCA) derived from MODIS images over the whole catchment at 500 m spatial resolution. (C) 2010 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
Web Curator:
NASA Official:
Privacy Policy and Important Notices


text: Hi, Alys. :)Just a question: how much it costs to buy a new server? That´s something I have absolutely no idea. Is it U$300, or U$3000? If it helps, I could try and donate money too (I still paying for BowieNet and I don´t even go there anymore! hmph!). However, some people may misunderstand a donation with buying a service, and start to really annoy Evan demanding this and that. Tati


text:
More DC: The New 52!
This just in from Manager Joe:
DC is doing everything they can to make every single one of these books from Action Comics to I, Vampire important and worthwhile to their publishing line, and they are backing this initiative with an unprecedented marketing campaign! But ultimately it will be retailer enthusiasm that can make or break this launch. We need to learn about these titles and DC will be continuing to provide us information throughout the summer as we build to September. We can expect a 40 page Preview Book to debut both on a retail level and at the San Diego Comic-Con. There will be a "52" Checklist/Scorecard for customers to pick up and keep track of the titles they are after!
"This is DC Comics giving readers the prime version of their characters", said Jim Lee. We will see how many of the classic stories that went before matter but in bold new ways, as going forth the DC Universe will be invigorated to give readers a sense of excitement, adventure, and heroics again.
This initiative is about the people who actually create and publish our favorite comic book characters taking the creative reigns of this universe and using the medium of comics to tell stories like no other art form can do! The folks at DC are tired of seeing video games and movies have all the fun playing with their stable of characters and taking them apart, taking them in new directions, new looks, new history, while the creators at DC Comics adhere to the attitude that these characters are "precious" and have to be played with as such! Now it's a new day at DC! No fear! They have assembled the creators and the resources to make their comics brave and bold again! To tell stories that can reach people and appeal to people equal and better than these other forms of media currently do! Jim Lee explained that they're not just rethinking costumes, they are rethinking about a story is told on a page! How panels can best be used to convey the action in these books! They're tired of giving readers lots of panels of talking heads! The goal of comic books is to bring us the action of these tales!
They showed us a video (which we will be receiving code for to share with customers via our website and Facebook) to share some of this pitch with our customers! I gotta say there's so much excitement between all of these guys for these books and what they are hoping to give readers in September!
Jim Lee said that Flashpoint #5 is very key to how this brave new world is born! Justice League #1 and Action Comics #1 will be bigger extra length books for $3.99 each that will serve to tell a bit of the back story required in reading and understanding the changes to the Universe.
Some other neat info I just recalled about the Justice League book:
The first story arch establishes how these people came together to do what they do. In this world Superman is the first superhero again, but Batman has been operating for a fair amount of time too but almost everyone thinks he's an urban legend. The initial members come together as a team to say to the world "we are here to serve the world" as people don't really have a sense of what a superhero even is yet, but they're aware that extraordinary men and women are operating in the world they live in now. So these heroes unite. Batman does it reluctantly. Green Lantern is in but doesn't know if he needs to be on a team. When he needs some help at one point he calls his buddy Barry Allen but The Flash isn't sure he should join such a team. When Hal tells him "you could meet Batman...", Barry responds "Wait a minute! He's a real guy?" To which Hal responds, "yeah, and he's kind of a jerk!".
Johns' stressed the book has three essential elements he's hoping to push and that's heroics, humour, and heart. I think coupled with Jim Lee's art this is going to be the "IT" book of the year!
Man, this all sounds amazing... what do you all think?
Labels: cool comic creators, fan boy, fan girl


text:
If you send me an email during the rest of February, you are highly unlikely to get an answer. However, I promise not to spam you with an "Out of office" auto reply. I dislike receiving those messages, as they seemingly have little correlation with when the person actually will reply to the email.
My excuse for not responding is that I won't be around my laptop and that connectivity is bad in rural Tanzania anyway. I will make an attempt at conquering Kilimanjaro, one of the Seven Summits, …[Read more...]


text:
Welcome to Going Public, a site for those who believe, as we do, that public education is the heart of our democracy.
Fair does not Equal Equal
When my children were younger, their operative word was "FAIR," as in: "It's NOT fair!." Most parents hear it. And most say, "I will give you what you need. You and Jeff are different and need different things. That's what's fair." It seems so obvious that those who believe "fair is the same as equal" […]
Fixing Education: Who You Gonna Believe?
A philosophy of education has been repeated, however, from every media source known to us. Not by those who have real skin in the game. By business leaders and "reformers" who rely on little or no research, who use improbable business models to tell us how to teach.
They have their talking points. Where are ours?
we need our own set of talking points, whether we're on a call-in show or invited to one of those fancy cocktail parties. But here's the key: We need to agree to use them.
7 Things You Need to Know about Your Public School
Our public schools are the last real space where people from different classes and different walks of life come together to learn, to share ideas, and to be afforded a fair opportunity to reach for the American dream. At the same time, unless you work in a public school or have a child enrolled in […]
What They Don't Want You to Know about Standardized Testing
We create a homogenous culture at our own peril.
The Gorilla Speaks: It's time to Change the Conversation
Nancy's article for the Huffington Post is trending: Read "The Gorilla Speaks" here.
Starving the Beast
If They Might Be Giants sing it you know it's true! They wouldn't lie to children, and neither should we. But the clock is running so fast in many states that it may be too late to call for repairs. The truth is that we like our educational system. We support teachers and the work […]
Nancy writes OP-ED for Good Magazine
Nancy recently wrote an OP-ED for Good Magazine outlining the history of education "reform." Education Reform: Who's Winning and Why We're All Losing. Read Nancy's OP-ED here.


text: I've searched without success looking for tips how to increase the length (number of characters) of record field. Currently record field length doesn't lend itself to entering lengthy notes. I can scroll within a field but I'd like to see more text. Once data has been entered it displays in a list OK. I'd appreciate any hints. TIA