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Arapahoe County has purchased the rights to thousands of acre-feet of agricultural water in northern Colorado, marking its first foray into the region and adding another chapter in the battle between farmers and cities for future water security.
"That's definitely one aspect in all of this in which you have to be concerned," said Brian Werner, public information officer with the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District " a public agency that distributes water to portions of eight counties in northeastern Colorado. "When you start getting the big dogs from the Denver area in your backyard, it starts to get a little scary."
Arapahoes's purchases, negotiated over the past couple of years and finalized in September, still leave a couple of major questions yet to be answered. The county must win approval from water courts to use the water for municipal purposes and it must figure out a way to get the water from here to there.
According to documents, Steve Witter, water resources manager for the Arapahoe County Water and Wastewater Authority, said during a presentation at an authority board meeting in September that 43 percent of the 4,400 acre-feet of water purchased by United Water and Sanitation District " on behalf of the authority " came from the Poudre River, while the other 57 percent came from the South Platte River.
In an interview Monday, Witter noted that this marks the first time Arapahoe County " the third-most populous county in the state with nearly 600,000 people and whose municipalities include suburbs of Denver " has purchased water rights from farmers in northern Colorado.
Witter said all of the agricultural water rights purchased on behalf of the water authority came from the Poudre and South Platte rivers. The transactions were made between United and individual shareholders of irrigation, ditch and reservoir companies " including 12 companies in Weld County, according to documents obtained by The Tribune.
"As far as 4,400 acre-feet of water, that in itself is not a tremendous amount. But it is another bite out of the apple," said Barry Anderson, who farms about 900 total acres of corn, wheat, sugar beets and alfalfa in Weld County and serves as president of the Larimer and Weld Irrigation and Reservoir companies and the Windsor Reservoir and Canal Company. "After a while, once enough bites are taken, there's nothing left. It's definitely a cause for concern, and it just continues on."
In addition to the water rights recently purchased in northern Colorado, Arapahoe County also has agricultural water interests in the Cherry Creek Basin, southeast of Denver, Witter said.
Front Range municipalities, because of their rapid growth, have been buying agricultural water rights from farmers to secure the future water needs for decades. But because of the ongoing "buy and dry" trend, the 2010 Statewide Water Supply Initiative, compiled by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, estimates that 500,000 to 700,000 acres of irrigated farmland could be dried up by 2050 " a year by which Colorado farmers will also be expected to help feed a state population that will have doubled to about 10 million people, according to some estimates.
Werner, who's worked for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District for more than 30 years, said "buy and dry" is an inexpensive way for municipalities to acquire more water. He said buying agricultural water rights and building pipelines to bring that water to their respective city is far cheaper than building an entirely new water supply project " with the permitting phase alone for those endeavors costing millions of dollars and taking several years.
Furthermore, farmers' water rights are valuable, Werner added, and selling them to cities " if those farmers don't have children coming back home to take over the farm " can help with retirement.
Today, an acre-foot of agriculture water sells for $11,000 to $12,000, Werner and others said.
"Water rights are seen as a 401K plan of sorts to a lot of farmers," Werner said.
One of the best-known examples of "buy and dry" came in 1986 in Weld County, when the city of Thornton purchased 22,000 acres of farmground in the Ault and Nunn areas for its approximately 17,000 acre-feet of water.
Thornton " like Arapahoe County is now " is still trying to figure out how to get that water to its residents. Thornton is drying up and revegetating about 8,000 of those purchased acres, while it is still leasing the remainder of the water rights and farmland back to farmers for them to keep in production, at least for now.
Werner and many others hope and believe that future regional water storage endeavors " such as the Northern Irrigation Supply Project, if approved " can help in the conflict between municipalities and farmers.
Further buying agricultural water rights and drying up farmground puts pressure on an agricultural industry looking to feed a rapidly growing population, but it also has economic implications. Irrigated crops are more profitable than dryland crops. In Colorado in 2009, irrigated crop receipts amounted to $1.7 billion " 77 percent of the state's total crop receipts.
The region's dairy industry also has concerns. With the presence of Leprino Foods " the world's largest processor of mozzarella cheese " now in Greeley, the region is expected to add 60,000 to 80,000 more dairy cattle to support the cheese plant's operations.
A dairy cow can drink up to 50 gallon of water per day. Plus crops have to be grown to feed them.
Additionally, as municipalities take water out of irritation ditches, it can make it difficult to get water to downstream farmers who still own water rights on the ditch.
At the 2011 Ag Water Summit in Loveland earlier this month, hundreds of state officials, water experts and farmers met to discuss their concerns of further "buy and dry." Talks included discussions of water-conservation efforts and cities and farmers working more closely together.
As state officials admitted at the water summit, there is no template in place yet to address the issue, but more people " state officials and the general public alike " are becoming more aware of the problem.
"It's great that more people are being made aware of the problem, but we're getting to the point where something needs to be done," said Jon Monson, director of the Water and Sewer Department for the city of Greeley. "I went to the ag water summit hoping to hear of new solutions to the issue. But it was simply just more talk " good talks, but just talks.
"We care greatly about the agricultural industry, and, as a municipality, we want to cooperate closely with farmers to make things work for both sides. But no one has figured out how. If anyone does know the answer, let us know. We're certainly open to any suggestions."


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Archive for the '9/11' Category
The Gateway
New York-The other wekend I finally got around to a rather simple task that I'd wanted to do over a decade back. Before 9/11 I had a vision of doing guerrilla art installations around New York and other major Western cities to explain to the rest of the world (or at least urbanized Western city dwellers) about what was going on in Afghanistan well beyond the bellicosity of the Taliban movement and its international critics. Afghanistan at that time was incredibly isolated in terms of the global economy and its discordant political representation abroad. I wanted people to understand Afghanistan in a pre-1979 sense.
I was inspired by the splendid per-war imagery of a Vermont-based photographer named Luke Powell who'd shot vivid landscape images of Afghanistan's valleys and monuments that conveyed a powerful message about the country's history and culture in a way that no day-to-day news image of war and pestilence ever could. What was remarkable to me about Powell's photographs was that I found pirated versions of his prints hanging in the bazaars of Peshawar, Chitral, Quetta and so forth. His images had credibility amongst Afghans themselves as well as Pakistani bazaaris.
I had wanted to emulate an updated version of this concept and combine it with the illicit poster art craze of the late 1990s and early 2000s to create and artistic meme with a message. Beauty with a subtle educational agenda. I was in sporadic communication with the Taliban before 9/11 in hopes of them granting me access to the territory they controlled literally or nominally.
Then I woke up one morning in September and was suddenly inhaling ash pedaling as fast as I could muster to the World trade Center. In an instant I went from being a pragmatic idealist to a witness to the brutality of our living history. A series of rather absurd starkly bifurcated polemics would quickly follow: the 9/11-everything-changed-sts and the 9/11-nothing-changed-ists and the with-us or with-the-terrorists.
I still have not entirely given up on those original ideas, just procrastinated to the point of near abandonment. I was looking for something in a dusty drawer and came across these old prints from 2000-2003 which were beginning to yellow ever so slightly at the edges. I finally went to slap them up in a nondescript locale. Better late than never as is said.
I still hope to do a coffee table book of the best of these prints someday but rather than with an über cool northern Italian, London or Brooklyn-based publishing house I will most likely self-publish The Fabled City (as my project was known before 9/11). As I'm not even remotely close to being a famous photojournalist in that industry's coveted inner circles, self-publishing via Blurb or something similar is probably the only way forward for me at this point. I see this initial installation as a step toward–a gateway if you will–that goal.
Beyond Polemics
New York-The reverberations of the misguided American policies following 9/11 paired with the continued spread of anti-authoritarian Arab salafism, South Asian Deobandism, evolving Levantine takfirism and the like amongst the global Sunni community*–both in terms of rhetoric and ground reality–are being felt today.
*Although it must be noted that actual adherents to kinetic radicalization are very few in absolute numbers relative to the global population of Islam's principle denomination.
I recently appeared on BBC Arabic in my colleague Murad Shishani's report on the first documented American suicide bomber in Syria, a young guy originally from West Palm Beach, Florida named Moner Mohammad Abusalha.
Clearly the only thing the Bush-era/neoconservative speak did was further polarize vulnerable communities and individuals. Suicide bombing has long since metastisized from somewhat of a curiosity among those studying war-fighting in the historical/tactical realm to such a common practice it is barely worth a mention in the news cycle unless its victim is someone of great importance.
The NYPD's terribly clumsy spying program here on New York City's masjids has only made immigrant communities here turn inward, wary of interlopers. Instead of developing methods of genuine inter-communal dialogue (while keeping in mind the now radioactive concept of 'assimilation' on which there is no longer a broadly accepted societal compact on just what that precisely means today), there seems to have only been an unfortunate increase in radicalization.
Judging by outward appearance in the outer boroughs, some hijabis are becoming niqabis and young dishdasha-clad boys in Air Jordans who hail from a lungi-wearing and shalwar kameez cultural milieu are being indoctrinated by agenda-bearing mentors. (I'm very narrowly referring to my personal observations of the minority but growing pro-Bangladesh Jamiat-e-Islami sector of the Bangladeshi Sylheti and Chittagonian community here.)
Last week Dr. Abdullah Abdullah's presidential campaign convoy was attacked by suicide bombers outside the Ariana Hotel in Kabul just before this weekend's runoff election that will hopefully finally signify an end to the stultified malaise of the Karzai era. And this morning we learned that ISIL had gained control of large swaths of Mosul in Ninewa Governorate in a post-America Iraq that seems to be falling apart save for Basra and parts of the deep south.
The world as a whole cannot seem to move beyond impudent, self-destructive polemical tracts with the vitriolic terminology they entail. As we are presently witnessing in Ukraine, there is apparently a fight between 'fascists' and 'terrorists' there. The language being employed by all sides in that conflict spans from Stalingrad to the Chechen wars.
These unhelpful, reductive terms obscure reality and inflame conflict.
Threat Level: Elevated
New York- As I attempted to chronicle the major events of the first decade of the 21st Century, I scurried all over the world applying for visas through arcane processes at hard to find embassies and consulates, felt the thud of earth shattering ordnance , and did my best to get an intellectual grasp on all that was unfolding around me. Most of what I had shot in New York revolved around events at Ground Zero, but this milieu of civil disobedience was something different yet ultimately related to 9/11 in the larger scope of things.
In late August 2004, a time that was arguably the zenith of neoconservative power with Bush on the cusp of his second term, conservatives were rallying in New York of all places. According to its detractors New York was/is the cradle of comparatively liberal media save for Murdoch's media properties. But New York was also where 9/11 principally happened which neoconservative operators used to consolidate their hold on executive power in D.C. In other words, these were strange days in the city.
That year I pragmatically stayed home to financially recover from the chaos I'd created for myself from 2000-2003. Wars don't wait and when you run off to one after having made a decision from one day to the next, it is to your own detriment upon your return home unless you come from an old money or nouveau riche background. So that year I looked inward to shoot a story at home and along came the Republican National Convention protests that August.
On August 30, 2004, I followed hordes of people from Dag Hammarskjold Plaza to Madison Square Garden where the convention was being held. Next thing I know I was shooting shoulder to shoulder with James Nachtwey, Antonin Kratochvil and many of the other war photographers from the VII and Magnum agencies (all with the latest digital SLR cameras bestowed upon them by corporate sponsors I guessed).
I was in a weird place with relation to money and technology: I could get to events and shoot them but as I was an analog holdout I couldn't compete with everyone else who'd already long since made the switch to digital well before Iraq in 2003. I could just afford to shoot and develop actual film but not buy a digital body and lens kit. Meaning that I couldn't file ultra competitive breaking news stories. I therefore had to take a long view of history as it was happening since while I had the access to world events, I didn't have the technology to get my work out there at the time. So I have this large analog film archive that I treasure to this day.
By August 2004, the Iraq war was in full swing with American troops battling Jaish-e-Mahdi men in Najaf while the Afghan war was a forgotten backwater. Even though New York and DC were attacked by salafi-jihadis on 9/11, GIs were somehow fighting Shia militiamen instead. Sure I'm being rather simplistic in pointing that out, but purposefully so.
A (Hoped for) Peaceful Leadership Transition for Afghanistan
New York- With the partial election results from the April 5 vote trickling out from the Independent Election Commission (IEC) along Jalalabad Road on the edge of Kabul favoring Abdullah Abdullah, the world may witness the first peaceful transition of state level power in Afghanistan in post-royalist modern day history. Though Abdullah does not appear to have the absolute majority required under the Afghan constitution (50.01%), he maintains a healthy lead with an estimated 44.9% vs. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai trailing with 35.8% and Zalmay Rassoul far behind at around 11%. This will likely lead to a runoff election in late May as Abdullah and Ghani have no interest in forming a coalition as yet.
Hamid Karzai has effectively been in power since the conclusion of the Bonn Agreement in December 2001 when he was perceived as the West's man in Afghanistan. How times have changed.
As Karzai grew increasingly erratic, paranoid, and hostile to donor nations who had troops occupying his country over the years, he seemed to become a rather reclusive creature of the presidential palace in Kabul's fortified green zone. If Abdullah were to take power that would upend the ethnic calculus of foreign diplomats and intelligence agencies following 9/11 that the head of state must hail from a Pashtun tribe, preferably from the south. Abdullah, while being half Pashtun, is generally thought of simply as a Tajik with his partnership with Massoud that painfully ended on September 9, 2001.
The Americans and their allies felt that ethnicity should trump other traits in Afghanistan in order to placate the agrarian populace from whom the Taliban emanated in the mid-1990s. Similarly, these same people strongly felt that the leader of a post-Saddam Iraq must be a Shia in order to properly represent that country's oppressed majority. In that regard, the two principle democracy export projects were not genuinely democratic at all. If these disastrous neoconservative legacy projects had been truly democratic in nature, than an Uzbek or Tajik should have been able to theoretically be the leader of Afghanistan and a Kurd or Assyrian the leader of Iraq. Instead, American and various participating EU member states' policies did nothing but reinforce preexisting notions about what should be the mother tongue of the imposed national leader or what sect he must belong to in order to satisfy the electorate.
For Washington, moving past Karzai is critical in light of its failure to reach a Bilateral Security Agreement and NATO n=unable to hammer out a Status of Forces Agreement regarding the presence of foreign troops beyond the slated withdrawal date come the end of the current year. Both Abdullah (above) and Ghani (below) have indicated they will sign such agreements if in power. For all of the effort that has been put forth and lives lost, the Taliban have never been effectively quelled. The U.S. may be tamping down its planned-for forces numbers from 10,000 troops to possibly closer to 5,000 or less according to Reuters.
One should hope that a new leader will bring a modicum of progression to Afghanistan's internecine affairs. But Abdullah was Massoud's deputy-the Taliban's archenemy on the battlefield-and Mohammed Omar is still at large unlike bin Laden and it is unlikely his most strident foes will have forgotten that. Look what they did to Burhanuddin Rabbani after all? Almost exactly a decade on from the killing of Massoud by Maghrebi jihadis in Khoja Bahauddin, a Taliban turban bomber struck the former president. Grievances are seldom forgotten, particularly when truth and reconciliation have never been achieved in a land as pained as this one.
For there was never unanimity among relevant players (Pakistan, and even Iran in certain circumstances) about how Afghanistan should move forward beyond the formal collapse of their Kandahar-based movement in November-December 2001. This goes into massive geopolitical tangents about not having a proper mechanism to resolve once and for all the simmering Kashmir conflict between Pakistan and India to say nothing of the Kashmiris themselves and China and the enmity between Iran and Pakistan. With bizarrely-ruled Turkmenistan officially 'neutral' and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in varying degrees of stultified dictatorship, Afghanistan is and will remain a geopolitical laboratory for some time to come.
But if it can move beyond its leader in power since January 2002, that will be a step beyond the predicament in Iraq where Maliki is seeking the 3rd term in a vote a few days from the time of this writing that may likely further ensconce the bloodletting there while hindering political progress verging on the dictatorial.
The measures of progress in Afghanistan can be interpreted through a wide array of prisms. Below I am using the images below to make a simplistic, unscientific contrast based on my own frustrations derived from visual observations rather than data points.
Does progress establish order or is preexisting order necessary to foment progress?
What is the connection between the disparate images below? The plot to destroy the World Trade Center and the massacre of the Shia Hazara people of central and northern Afghanistan stemmed from parallel jihadi milieus operating in southern and eastern Afghanistan simultaneously-Deobandi Taliban and Salafi Arab. So a shiny new tower rising from the ashes in lower Manhattan and the Hazara living in relative peace are in fact very much related imagery.
Between Propaganda and Reality in the Caucasus
New York- I have an article out in this month's edition of the CTC Sentinel about the evolution over the last two decades of the fight for the North Caucasus which has morphed a great deal. In my view, Syria has been a game changer with regard to Chechens and other ethno-linguistic nationalities from that region fighting with abundant documentation outside their homeland. I first encountered members of the Chechen community in Georgia in 2002. The stories of their under reported struggle fascinated me.
Personally, I was in an early career lull between 9/11 back here in NYC and covering the Afghan war yet before the Iraq would begin in 2003. I was roving around the Levant and the Caucasus in the summer of 2002 looking for original stories to cover on my own. Sure there were the mostly crude analogies to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan of a grass roots holy war being fought by righteous bearded guys against cruel, drunken Russian officers and their hapless young conscripts, but I wanted to meet ordinary people whose lives were gravely affected by the war that solidified Putin as the Russian Federation's post-Yeltsin czar.
I'd wanted to meet Ruslan Gelayev (an infamous side-witching warlord present in northeastern Georgia at the time) and perhaps travel with his mujahideen unit onward to Ingushetia and Chechnya. I ultimately decided that the risk didn't measure up to the reward, particularly in the case of being a freelancer with a story no one in the West much cared about anyway. I also wanted to make sure I was back in New York to document the one year anniversary of 9/11 which was of paramount importance at that time to me.
I settled for trekking around villages populated with refugees who had crossed from souther Chechnya in the autumn of 1999. I ended up staying in what I determined was basically a hostel for foreign volunteers heading northward through the ravines of the Greater Caucasus range to wage war against a dehumanized enemy. Russian soldiers and officers from various federal organizations like the OMON were portrayed as soulless cannon fodder in muj propaganda videos produced in the GCC which were used to draw attention to the fight for Chechnya among Arab audiences. These videos–some of which I were shown by Chechens in Tbilisi–painted the conflict as a righteous cause. The whole situation was a mess and Georgia itself was in a state of contained chaos back then.
One of the major points I have tried to make in my new piece is that propaganda has–over time–become a kind of new reality. From the fantasies of the Lubyanka to the web forum hosts of the Gulf, Chechens are other North (and South) Caucasians are now really, undeniably fighting abroad. I remember being at a terrorism conference in Washington in the mid-2000s and a young Marine officer stood up during a Q & A session and spoke of his unit having fought 'Chechens' in Iraq. But when pressed, he had no method of verifying this. Of course there are Chechens who are semi-indigenous to Iraq from their expulsion to the Ottoman empire–though that nuance was rarely, if ever, mentioned. Then there were the stories of Chechens fighting ISAF troops in Afghanistan and the Pakistani Army encountering Chechens in various battles in the FATA. But not one of these assertions was ever proven with even a shred of evidence.
Now, however, Chechens (many coming from the EU or those who were already present in the Arab world), Dagestanis, Azerbaijanis, Georgian Kists, Tatars and all sorts of other guys are indeed fighting in Syria. It is as if the FSB and GRU's dream has come true…albeit over a decade too late. This situation serves several interested parties but in my view does a great disservice to the Chechens themselves. As a colleague and friend messaged me earlier this year: "[It is] sad what has happened to my people."
When Chechen rebel officials were asking for the internationalization of the situation in their republic, they were ignored. When moderate Syrian rebels asked for a no-fly buffer zone along the Turkish border, they were ignored. Then when these places descend into nihilism, people condemn them devoid of context.
The Chechens were villains in poorly scripted Hollywood films and novels but the reality has always been they were mostly an embattled people consumed with the fight for their own homeland as a opposed to global salafi-jihad in general. A pillar of this sort of thing was the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (ie the Taliban) recognizing the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (the rebels).
This move of non-state diplomacy served to benefit neither party. The Taliban wanted to be recognized worldwide well beyond the just littoral states of the Arabian Sea and when their efforts were rebuffed, they recognized the ChRI government. Moreover, the late Aslan Maskhadov, who was then president of the ChRI, was less than thrilled with the Taliban recognition and apparently believed it to be a play by Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Movladi Udugov to strengthen their position within a growing rebel schism.
The outside world's contempt in the form of apathy for the horrors perpetrated in Chechnya with it relegated to an "internal affair" for Moscow to resolve struck me as simply sad. Interventionists patted themselves on the back for aleviating suffering the Balkans and lashed themselves (to a far lesser extent) for doing nothing in Rwanda, while they let the internal affair in the Caucasus fester for years.
In other news, my CTC Sentinel article on Syria from 2012 was cited The War Report: 2012, edited by Stuart Casey-Maslen, published by Oxford University Press and an interview I did with a top former Afghan police official was cited in Policing Afghanistan: The Politics of the Lame Leviathan by Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammed Isaqzadeh by Columbia University Press.
Anbar-Insurgency Redux
New York- I have an article out now for IHS Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst on the eruption of violence in Iraq's sprawling western al-Anbar Governorate that borders the relatively calm governorates of Ma'an, Amman, Mafraq, and the somewhat sketchier Zarqa in Jordan, the war ravaged governorates of Deir ez-Zor, and Homs in Syria and, lastly, Saudi Arabia's Northern Border Region. Control of Anbar is a security issue for the entire region that surrounds it when considering the war in Syria that is attracting foreign fighters like moths to a flame and the transnational outlook of salafi-jihadi thought in a geographically contiguous KSA.
Anbar became the symbol of anti-American resistance in Iraq so much so that the restive northern town of Hawija in Kirkuk Governorate was referred to as the "Anbar of the North" by the US military at one time. Anbar became almost a catchall term for a place that was difficult to pacify through traditional counterinsurgency doctrine much less purely by means of military hard power. Only through cooperation and co-opting was the Sunni Arab insurgency there quelled for a time with the raising of Sahwa militias.
In the now bloody aftermath of the American troop withdrawal that took place at the tail end of 2011 and was hailed by President Barack Obama as 'ending' the Iraq war, Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Da'wa Party die-hard prime minister, has done nothing to tamp down the collective ire of Sunni activists from Fallujah north to Hawija. Maliki's moves have merely moved the Iraq war into a much more indigenous phase.
From accusing notable Sunni politcos of being involved in terrorism, a crime punishable by death in Iraq's draconian penal code, to doing nothing to assuage the concerns of angry protestors, Maliki at least partly set the stage for the arrival of ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah fi Iraq w'al Sham, know locally by its acronym DAASH, and by its English acronym ISIL, into Fallujah's city centre and sections of Ramadi and several villages in the respective surrounding areas at the outset of 2014.
The Iraqi elections are approaching quickly on the country's troubled political horizon on April 30th. How 'free and fair' voting will be carried out under such circumstances is entirely unclear.
I'm illustrating this post with the following images because I personally feel much of what is going on in Iraq today can be traced directly back to the elaborately expensive yet incredibly poorly planned Bush/neo-conservative regime decapitation initiative called Operation Iraqi Freedom. That moniker seemed to me to say that 99.9% of all Iraqis were equally oppressed by Hussein's dreadful Ba'ath Party policies.
By and large, yes, Iraqis were treated terribly by an anti-egalitarian strongman in a nation-state rife with deep tribal, sect, and ethnic division. But the late dictator could not have ruled for decades without a degree of genuine support fostered by patronage networks and adroit imbuing of his own ideology among at least a cadre of willing followers.
But it should be noted that not all the Sunnis fighting the state right now are doing so under the black banners of salafi-jihad. Though those banners make for exciting headlines, there is a viable retro or neo-Ba'athist strain of rebellion going on. Though it had been primarily focused more on the Kurds and territorial issues pertaining to the Green Line in terms of strategy and tactics, the Jaish Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandi (JRTN) and Intifada Ahrar al-Iraq which has been described as a political front group for the JRTN–since gone operational, are kind of Ba'athist revivalist groups (or two parts of the same movement depending on perspective).These movements have sought to resuscitate Saddamist symbolism to garner the support of disaffected Iraqis tired of what they perceive as "Safavid" (Iranian)-influenced political primacy in Baghdad. Certainly DAASH/ISIL and JRTN have starkly different ideologies and objectives, but for now they have a common enemy in PM Maliki and those who defend and support him.
Though at the time of this posting Fallujah remains under rebel control in a shaky truce mediated by the Anbar Provincial Council, in my view things aren't likely to improve overnight in terms of Anbar's overall security in the lead-up this spring's election.
Enter the Fabled City
New York- The other day I picked up The History of Armenia by Simon Payaslian somewhat at random off the bookshelf mainly to get some regional context for Georgian history during the Menshevik period and subsequent Bolshevik takeover shortly thereafter. Reading about Transcaucasia as a buffer zone between the Ottoman empire and the Russian imperial empire and the folding in of Western Armenia to the Turks, I recalled my visit to the medieval Armenian ruins of Ani today located in Turkey's Kars Province abutting the border of the modern Armenian republic along the Akhurian River. I went to Ani and a number of other fascinating ancient sites around eastern Turkey while I killed time waiting for my Iranian visa to be processed back in Ankara.
It was at this time that I conceived the idea of the "Fabled City," a photography project explore the lesser known interconnectivity of the ancient world in order to promote a healthy form of post-Cold War globalism in the present day. This idea died in an instant as I stood stunned in the ashes of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. But I still have many of the images lying around as a kind of pre-9/11 detritus of memory. I thought I'd scan a couple of the prints and share them.
So Long 2013
New York- As the worst year of my life comes to a quiet close, I can look back and be thoroughly grateful for the two reporting trips I was able to make to Iraq and Georgia and for the friends I was able to reconnect with in Catalunya and Greece. I thank heaven for all those who graciously supported me in 2013.
This world is filled with all kinds of people from pathetic nihilists to selfish materialists all the way to gentle altruists. The former are reported on and/or lionized far too often while the latter often fail to receive the credit they so rightfully deserve.
One of the biggest events on the near term horizon slated for 2014 is of course the wobbly future of a post-Karzai, post-America/NATO Afghanistan. With a presidential election scheduled–replete with some candidates of questionable repute–for early April in which Hamid Karzai is ineligible to run for another term and the planned pullout-be it partial or total–of American troops a year from now, it is possible the Afghan Taliban's writ in the parts of Afghan Pashtunistan that make up its power base may be reenergized.
The pull-out of the Americans would likely lead to an immediate abandonment by its NATO partner nations and others non-NATO contributors such as Georgia. Like the Kurds, the Pashtuns are one of the world's largest ethno-liguistic groups devoid of a nation-state to call there own.
The Taliban are not akin to al-Qaeda but are rather an Islamist ethno-nationalist movement that seeks to rule Pashtunistan as it is sometimes referred and other adjacent parts of Afghanistan–and now Pakistan as the movement's once limited ideology has continued to metastasize– inhabited by Tajiks and Punjabis. Uzbeks and Sindhis. Although of course Taliban leadership would never admit such, even though the emirate they once proclaimed back in the 1990s was within Westphalian border principals in the land they inherited and conquered.
It should be remembered that while for the West the raison d'être for its presence in Afghanistan was Mohammed Atta sitting in Tarnak Farms when he wasn't in Hamburg-Harburg, the conflict is really one of and for the people of that region to decide. The West would be and likely have been best keeping the Afghan war a low impact intelligence effort rather than a swelling-in-troop-numbers vast boots-on-the-ground mission that ended up being more of an obstacle to genuine institution building in the ensuing years.
An effusive Sunni Punjabi taxi driver said to me the other night with great passion: "the [Pakistani] Taliban are bastards. They want to kill Shia, Ismailis, Christians, Sikhs and Hindus (all of whom are minorities in Pakistan)." And while Deobandism has planted its flag here in New York City, thus far it has not materialized as a threat (despite some close calls emanating from or tied to FATA in recent years where Deobandi ideology has traditionally held sway) the way that transnational Salafism has in terms of highly localized security issues here.
Besides the somewhat predictable events hoped for or dreaded in Afghanistan depending on one's perspective, there will be the other likely events in the news cycle: natural disasters in the Pacific or Indian Ocean regions, mass shootings in the United States, suicide bombings or other insurgent/terrorist actions in the Russian Federation before and after the Sochi Olympics, large scale protest movements driven by economic grievances in capital cities around the world, deaths of old guard leaders, inter-religous violence mislabeled as "sectarian" forever reminding us of the impact Iraq has had on our journalistic lexicon, unabated unrest in the Sykes-Picot legacy states of the Middle East and so forth. Shaping up to be an interesting year already!


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Repeat as Necessary: Historical IRS Policy Weapons to Combat Conduit Captive Insurance Company Deductible Purchases of Life Insurance
Beckett G. Cantley
Atlanta's John Marshall Law School
February 2013
U. C. Davis Business Law Journal, Vol. 13, 2013
The life insurance community has a long and tortured history of seeking the Holy Grail of insurance schemes: the tax-deductible life insurance premium. Nearly every year around tax planning season, life insurance agents attempt to boost year-end sales by offering some kind of tax-deductible premium plan — the newest of which is the small business Captive Insurance Company ("CIC") as an investor in life insurance. In this transaction, a small business deducts premium payments for business risks to an IRC § 831(b) CIC; the CIC is permitted to receive up to $1.2 million of premium income tax-free; and the CIC uses a substantial amount of the tax-free premium immediately to purchase life insurance on the small business owners who often also own the CIC. The Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") already loses a substantial amount of otherwise collectible tax revenue due to the existing tax-breaks afforded life insurance policyholders, such as tax-free internal build-up inside life insurance policies and the receipt of policy proceeds tax-free at the death of the insured. Therefore, the IRS has historically staunchly defended the loss of additional life insurance-oriented tax revenue that may derive from tax-deductible life insurance premiums. In furtherance of this defense, the IRS has brought cases against individual taxpayers and promoters, designated certain abusive life insurance arrangements as listed transactions, and imposed accuracy-related taxpayer penalties.
The IRS is likely to view an arrangement where a small business owner funds a CIC for the primary purpose of obtaining deductions on owner-insider life insurance premium payments as similarly abusive to prior listed transactions involving I.R.C. § 419 plans, I.R.C. § 412(e)(3) plans, and I.R.C. § 831(b) Producer Owned Reinsurance Companies ("PORCs"). They will also likely view this as a violation of its historical tax enforcement policies against discriminatory insider tax benefits and improper uses of key man life insurance. The IRS should view the use of an entity as a direct conduit for achieving an impermissible tax-deductible premium payment in the same manner as it would the taxpayer taking the deduction directly. This article discusses (I) the history of using taxation as a motivation for sales in the life insurance business, (II) the IRS enforcement and tax policy in combating improper tax uses of life insurance, and (III) evaluates the likely success of applying these historical arguments to establish that insider life insurance premiums are not deductible, nor should any tax-deducted funds be used to purchase such policies.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 37
Date posted: August 26, 2013
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Monday, April 13, 2015
Susan Boyd
I've watched the evolution of soccer technologically. As the boys grew and developed, so did the means of using computers and now smart phones and tablets to make soccer more accessible. We began with paper registration for their teams, lining up in the school gym with scores of other anxious parents holding the forms necessary to get our kids into the recreation program in our town. I met a mother there who had eight kids, all at various levels of soccer, who calmly filled out by hand eight sets of registrations and then stood in eight different lines, recruiting other parents to hold her place in each line. Since only a parent or guardian could sign up their children, she had no choice but to stand in front of the registration table in person. Now we open a club's website, fill in an online form, and click submit. We can locate game calendars, maps to fields, rosters with phone numbers, and practice schedules, all from the comfort of our homes. That mother of eight would probably consider having more children if she could sign them all up with a few strokes of her keyboard…then again maybe not. Technology has opened up an entire banquet of excellent soccer tools for families. These can be categorized as achievement, record keeping, facilitation, training, and promotion.
Young players love getting praise for their efforts. A passion for a sport grows out of their belief that they could be successful at it. While child behavior experts bemoan our cultural insistence on stroking our kids for just breathing, I argue that early praise creates both confidence and investment in an activity. Watching the youngsters' faces light up when they get a small trophy or ribbon after a competition tells me that they deserve to feel good about their effort. On the other hand we don't want to overdo it to the point that kids can't enjoy a game without some token at the end. There are apps that can create material to motivate. Soccer Card Maker app by Starr sells for $1.99 and lets you design a soccer trading card for your player and others on the team. There's a wide variety of styles and you don't even have to print them out, simply share them with family and friends via social media. A car decal can be a great way to show your pride and support without being unnecessarily effusive no matter the outcome of a match. Two web sites I've found seem to have good turn-around times, a variety of styles you can personalize, and reasonable prices: Car Stickers and Decal Junky. Finally, you might consider a wall decal for your player's bedroom. There are a vast number of companies offering loads of clever decals running from $10 up to over $100. Because there are so many providers, using a marketplace website is the best option. Here's the link to Amazon's selections, but there are other sites such as Zazzle that can be a gateway to choices.
Coaches and parents not only love to keep statistics, but often must keep them. Goal differentials, team standings, player stats, and youth rules regarding equal playing times complicate the process of staying on top of the numbers. Luckily once players get to the high school level, schools are great at keeping and reporting statistics. But you may still need help with club stats. Several apps address these concerns. For the youngest players there's a great app called Playing Time ($1.99) that allows coaches and parents to record exact playing times by toggling radio buttons by each player's name. You can sort the players by playing time, number, or name. One parent or an assistant coach could be in charge of the app to keep that stat recorded accurately. If someone on the team wants to make games professionally available to friends and family who can't attend, iScore Soccer ($9.99) is an excellent tool. With easy to use input functions, someone can track a game and stream the updates to anyone with a computer or smart phone. Additionally the application keeps track of all the data and delivers it in an exportable file that lets parents and coaches have player stats at their fingertips. Not quite as sophisticated but able to still stream game updates, statistics, practice schedules, and line-ups is Soccer Mesh which is free. A bit less reliable and capable, but for young teams it should be adequate.
I was a team manager for both my sons' teams and was the club administrator for three years. I would have loved some of the apps available now that facilitate the management and communication these jobs entail. I can't believe that Team Snap is a free app considering all it does to make life easier for not only managers, but coaches and parents as well. This application can send SMS messages to everyone with a single click allowing managers to inform teams of weather delays, cancellations, field changes, etc. Parents can post on the app if their child can't attend a practice or a game so that it's on the record for everyone to see – no misunderstandings. Additionally, a great feature is that you can share photos by both posting them to the app for those with the password to peruse or parents can select photos to send to family and friends. It's a great feature for those of us who aren't very good about taking pictures. I always appreciated when others shared their pictures with me. Finally the app lets you upload maps to fields and all the schedules any parent might need. Many tournaments not only offer online updates, schedules, and standings, but they now have gone one step further and offer tournament apps. Schwan's USA Cup, Pepsi International Soccer Cup, and smaller tournaments such as Grove United Memorial Day Shoot-out all had apps for their events in 2014. Search your application store for your tournament participation as they will help keep everything in the palm of your hand. No more running across fifteen soccer fields to find the board with the postings. Naturally the biggest convenience that technology has afforded us is online registrations. Soccer clubs, city recreation programs, and tournaments all have a way to log-in and get those registrations completed. No more lining up at a table, getting manual credit card transactions, and hoping you filled everything out correctly.
The biggest application explosion has been in developing and explaining training methods for players. Hundreds of apps offer practice drills, game tactics, physical training plans, and nutrition monitoring. You can search your app store for these, but I'll mention just a few. One of the best for parent coaches is Easy Practice – Soccer Practice Planner for Parent Coaches which is free. It begins with material for U5 and goes through U10. There are drills, videos you can share with the players, information on how to lay out the scrimmage field for the drills, and equipment lists. Coach My Video is also free and allows coaches to film individual players, scrimmages, and games then play back the video in various modes including slow motion and frame by frame, draw lines on the video, zoom, and change angles. It will work on any IOS device and may be best used on a tablet. It provides a great teaching tool for coaches. Soccer Fast Footwork Drills (free) sets forth dozens of ways to improved dribbling, passing, and holding the ball with descriptions, drawings, and videos all designed by coach Lou Fratello. He has other apps that address shooting and advanced drills, all free. Goalkeeper Mastery by Vogel Academy is a free application that specifically addresses the training of keepers with drills, videos, exercises, and diagrams. For nutrition help one of the highest rated apps is Wholesome (free). The beauty of the photos, the massive facts, and the organization of food information based on things like calories, vitamins, minerals, energy, and nutrition information makes it an excellent tool for parents and athletes looking for the foods they need to promote muscles, energy, and health.
Technology can be used to promote an interest in athletics. Kids who develop a passion for a player or a team are likely to sustain an interest in the sport. Professional teams all have mobile apps that allow people to follow team members, check in on statistics, and even watch streaming games. Giving kids an opportunity to keep up with the culture surrounding their sport helps them feel connected. Searching through your app store will reveal which apps cover the team, player, and/or sport your child wants to follow. There are also applications which will encourage participation in soccer with clever games, professional team websites, and videos. Games for the youngest players are Dora's Super Soccer Showdown and Sponge Bob Plays Football. For the older player there's naturally EA Sports' FIFA, which you can get as app, but works best on a game console. Head Soccer is a free app which can also be a multi-player game and is the hot soccer game on mobile devices right now. My only complaint with the game is that it has levels that unlock new avatars and game scenarios. Players can purchase points in order to speed up the process, which is tempting, making a free app suddenly very expensive. The MLS has a free app with tons of extras beyond team reports including a Matchcenter which has graphs on things like shot accuracy. There are links to teams, players, and photos, plus videos including player interviews. Likewise, Barclay Premier League has a free app which offers many of the same features, plus links to UEFA and Euro standings and teams. Local colleges and universities have websites that allow fans to follow games and stats, a few even have apps which you can find with a search.
Finally, you can download soccer movies and music to entertain on the way to practices and matches. Some great film choices are: Big Green Machine, The Game of Their Lives, and Shaolin Soccer. For music to get the body moving before a match I'd suggest UEFA Champions League Anthem, Soccer Songs by Various Artists (which came out of 2014 World Cup), Ole, Ole, Ole, I Believe We Can Win, and Football World Hits 2010 (from South African World Cup), plus if you access this link you'll see a list of 50 "pump up" songs that will get players in the mood to which I would add our family's favorite "All Star" by Smash Mouth. You can download these from iTunes or Spotify, plus I'm sure several other music sharing sites.
Most of these apps are available for IOS or Android, although a few may not cross platforms. Nevertheless, with so many excellent applications out there, you can find many to suit your needs and your smart phone. I remember distinctly when we were at a tournament way out in the boonies of Central Florida with only swamps underfoot and Spanish Moss hanging over us, when four team parents walked up to the sidelines with piping hot Starbucks. They had located their store using something revolutionary – a GPS with points of interest. I thought it was amazing. Now I just pull out my iPhone, click my Starbucks app, and have listed all the stores in a 20 mile radius, their operating hours, whether or not they have a bakery, and a drive up. Tournaments won't be nearly as much of an adventure now, but they'll certainly be convenient.
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Tuesday, April 07, 2015
Apparently I've had it wrong all these years. I encouraged, nay even demanded, that my kids and grandkids spend as much free time outside running and screeching. Even in the winter I would send them to the basement to run and screech, safely removed from the temptations of electronics. I signed them up for athletic teams so they could develop healthy habits, learn cooperation, understand the humility of wins and losses, and possibly, just possibly, earn a college scholarship. I am one in a legion of parents with the same requirements and dreams. We drive our kids thousands of miles every year so they can get to practices, matches, and tournaments. We spend a king's ransom on uniforms, equipment, dues, and private coaching. We battle the elements in order to support our young players. Most importantly, we pat ourselves on our backs that we don't have those squinty-eyed, slouch-shouldered kids who spend their free time clicking on a video controller and staring at a TV screen.
Then my entire world was shattered by this weeks' TIME magazine. Using March Madness as a backdrop, TIME did an extended report on college e-sports better known as video gaming. Just 90 miles down the road in Chicago is the first college to offer athletic scholarships in video gaming. These aren't some token amount — they can be as much as $19,000 rivaling and even surpassing the amount given to most physical athletes including those battling for March Madness glory. Robert Morris is a commuter school in the heart of Chicago that has attracted corporate sponsorships for their gaming athletes who wear jerseys and fall under the athletic rules of the college but not those of the NCAA. This means that when they compete in their "Final Four" championship this May, the winning team is guaranteed $30,000 in scholarships, plus the players can be awarded money and equipment from game companies. They train in state-of-the-art classrooms outfitted with ergonomic chairs, HD TVs, and high speed internet, all donated by the industry's companies.
Gaming is big business, which is probably why schools, including Harvard and Stanford, are flocking to cash in on the trend. There is a collegiate league that sponsors the North American College Championship leading to that "Final Four" showdown. Who competes? Amazingly, many of the schools who have established NCAA sports programs such as University of Michigan and Texas A&M. However, it's smaller, private schools who are the pioneers in this program. Just recently the University of Pikesville (KY) announced it would be offering scholarships in the fall. Presently, dozens of other schools, even some athletic powerhouses are exploring the prospect of setting up e-sports programs. This might be the start of the NCAA having to address the issue of amateurism in college athletics. With the e-sports athletes being able to cash in on their abilities with scholarships, salaries, and products, they may soon outstrip their basketball and football counterparts in financial viability.
The president of Robert Morris, Michael Viollt, feels that the program adheres to the same teaching and community standards as other sports teams. "These guys have to learn to communicate with one another in clear and concise patterns, and take leadership positions." The operative word in that statement is "guys." Gaming is traditionally a male pursuit. Since the e-sports teams aren't under the auspices of the NCAA it means they are probably outside of the Title IX rules as well. That means college women may be shut out from this pool of money. In addition, these e-sports athletes are as prone to the enticements of professionalism as are their athletic brothers. The lure of huge paychecks in the professional competition ranks can pull players out of the college level quickly. In a recent championship in Seattle in July for "Dota 2," the Chinese team members each earned a $1 million prize. Competitive gamers can earn on average $4,000 a month. My son who briefly went pro in indoor soccer was being paid around $500 — a season. Certainly makes one think, doesn't it?
Lest you believe this isn't a spectator sport, you should know that the 2014 World Championship of "League of Legends" drew 40,000 fans to the World Cup stadium in Seoul. There were over 32 million viewers for the 2013 championship streamed online. So it's no wonder that ESPN has taken notice. They will air the finals of "Heroes of the Storm," which begin as a 64-team collegiate tournament. It's no coincidence that sounds like a familiar bracket set-up. However, last year's NCAA final between Kentucky and Connecticut drew 21.2 million viewers, which "Heroes of Storm" should eclipse. Although the "League of Legends" finals only drew 130,000 in 2014, those numbers are expected to jump dramatically this year. More importantly, the winners of the "Heroes of Storm" competition are guaranteed a three-year college tuition scholarship. No one on the winning Kentucky team got that guarantee.
E-sports teams are run in a parallel fashion to their sports counterparts. Players must attend daily practices, must attend all their school classes, and must maintain a study trajectory to graduate on time. They watch team films which are replays of certain sections of their contests against one another and against other schools to find ways to maximize their power. These scrimmages are an important part of their training just as they are for college sports teams. The e-gamers take their training very seriously. They concentrate on good nutrition, the right amount of sleep, learning to trust their teammates, and developing strategies for improved play. They have coaches who give notes and encourage better teamwork.
There is presently the National Collegiate e-Sports Association (NCeSPA) which compiles statistics on the colleges who compete. There are Eastern and Western divisions where presently Georgia Tech and University of British Columbia sit on top. Because matches don't require any travel, these teams can compete across the country easily, opening up the competitive possibilities. On its website, NCeSPA allows viewers to see the players, learn the schedules, and keep track of statistics (www.ncespa.com). Collegiate StarLeague (www.cstarleague.com) lists an extensive bracket for the various game competitions they sponsor and actively advertise for teams to join with the prizes they will award to the athletes who win. They have links to Twitch, the online gaming application which connects gamers to one another through chat rooms and which streams games, and to Razor University which recruits e-sports athletes for teams. Twitch was recently purchased by Amazon for nearly $1 billion (yes billion with a "b") showing the financial power gaming has acquired and the trust major investors have that this pot of gold will continue to grow.
All of this certainly makes me re-evaluate the push for our sons and daughters to succeed on the pitch. It may be that they'd be better off taking a quick run every morning and then knuckling down with their mice, keyboards, computers, X-Boxes, and PlayStations. As one scholarship player, Jonathan Lindahl, said, "My parents were always telling me to get off the Xbox. So I'm really rubbing it in their faces." Given that a much larger percentage of e-sporters end up playing professionally than the 1.2 percent of other college athletes and that their ability to immediately cash in on their talents while still at school could make e-sports a far more attractive option for getting an athletic scholarships. Given that most sports cost families dearly during their youth development and given that most of us already supply our players with the tools to play video games, we may all be better off simply concentrating on the latter and forgoing the former. As e-sports grows so too will the popularity of individual players, the status of schools with winning teams, and the opportunities for more scholarships. I certainly don't regret one single moment of watching my kids play in their various sports: soccer, basketball, baseball, swim team, dance team, and cheerleading. I also don't regret the money we spent. But now I get it when there's a line outside of Game Stop for a week before the new Halo or Call of Duty version is released. Those kids know a cash cow when they see one.
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Monday, March 30, 2015
Besides the steady discussion of bracketology during March Madness, we are inundated with the perennial argument concerning paying student athletes. As obscene levels of money change hands before, during and after the three-week event, people ask why the real generators of these sums shouldn't get a share. It's a difficult situation and the sides are clearly drawn. The NCAA absolutely refuses to even consider the possibility, while players both current and graduated argue the fundamental unfairness of the situation. In 2014, Ed O'Bannon, a starter on the 1995 National Champion UCLA men's basketball team, realized that his likeness was being used in an NCAA video game entirely without his permission. He argued that he was no longer an amateur student-athlete and as such deserved to be compensated. Several other former basketball and football players joined the suit. On August 9, 2014 the court ruled in their favor. The precedent may lead to other financial doors opening for college athletes.
The problems in considering compensation for college athletes are three-fold. First, payment would result in athletes becoming employees, a standard that requires all kinds of legal obligations including workman's compensation, payroll taxes, termination standards and benefit packages. Second, they would need to decide exactly how much pay would be appropriate. Third, there's the issue of fairness across the broad spectrum of college sports since most sports outside of Division I football and men's basketball don't bring in any money to the schools in the form of lucrative TV deals and fan support.
Since scholarships rarely cover the full financial needs of players, they are forced to add heavy debt to continue playing and studying. Therefore, even players who get a good scholarship can find themselves without enough money to get groceries for the entire month or to purchase all the books they need. NCAA rules are very stringent concerning financial assistance. Students can't accept money or anything of monetary value from boosters, coaches, or university staff for even the most rudimentary of costs. The story is told of a young basketball player whose father died. His coach drove him to the airport so he could attend the funeral and sat with him before the plane took off. He bought the player a sandwich for the flight, which was against the rules. The coach didn't buy a plane ticket, he bought a sandwich under $10 as an act of kindness during a stressful time. The university, player and coach were cited by the NCAA for the incident. In the meantime, March Madness generates billions for the universities, the coaches in endorsements and analyst jobs, and commercial sponsors. But nary a penny for the players. Since less than 2 percent of college athletes go pro, there is no pot of gold at the end of the college years that the vast majority can hold out for.
The argument that at least these players get a college education, which translates into higher pay would be wonderful if the graduation rates were strong. The NCAA uses its own algorithm which differs from how the Federal Government measures graduation rates. The NCAA argues that transfer students who leave a school in good academic standing should be included in the graduation rates since the original school has no control over that student leaving. However, the government doesn't take that factor into account at all unless a student eventually graduates. This naturally skews the NCAA rates to higher than the national rates, which they then use in the press to tout the academic strength of athletes. Additionally, the graduation rates are for all athletes, which average out the notoriously low rates for football and basketball. Soccer graduation rates for both men and women are quite high, as are those of lacrosse and golf. However, these sports represent only a small percentage of all college athletes. Additionally, female athletes do graduate at a higher rate than their male counterparts. Therefore, many athletes, as many as 44 percent never graduate and don't enjoy the bump in pay benefit.
College athletes, no matter the size of their scholarship, or even the absence of a scholarship, have a grueling schedule. Because their eligibility is dependent upon maintaining a minimum grade point average and successfully completing a proscribe number of credits each year, they can't cut back on studies to give them more time for practices, games, travel to games, weight training, study hall, appearances, and team meetings. They must arrange their classes around their athletic obligations, which means they often can't take prerequisite classes in a timely manner, have to do online courses, and may find themselves taking evening classes after practices. Coaches, fearful of losing players to academic ineligibility, will prohibit the athletes from taking courses with strenuous academic standards. For example, when Robbie was a freshman he wanted to take a chemistry course that was a prerequisite for his pre-med studies, but his coach told him he couldn't, which meant Robbie would have to wait an entire year before he could begin the reason he was attending college. Instead, he was steered to take earth sciences, pre-algebra (he had completed calculus II in high school), and U.S. history. Some colleges even offer what is called "paper courses," where a student logs into an online course two or three times in a semester and completes a paper for his or her grade. The courses are never difficult and there seems to be no bell curve of grades. Additionally, there's no monitoring to check that the student and not a proxy has written the paper. These come in handy for coaches when an athlete has a grade point too low to be eligible. A couple "A's" in paper courses can lift that up immediately. Therefore, the label of student-athlete is a bit disingenuous for many.
That label was instituted for the sole purpose of insuring that no scholarship player would ever be considered an employee. And for decades the label worked. But recently several athletes have begun to question their lack of share in the deep-dish financial pie that universities and the NCAA enjoy. College athletes see the daily hypocrisy of the title "student-athlete" as they watch teammates who never attend a single class and yet magically manage to keep their academic eligibility or as they watch their coaches earning in the six to eight figures cutting endorsement deals, being hired as consultants and announcers, scheduling paid speaking engagements, and receiving gifts from boosters, or as they witness schools spending funds liberally on lavish building improvements rather than funding more scholarships. Northwestern University football players voted to unionize, several on-going lawsuits on behalf of injured athletes to receive compensation for their injuries, and groups of athletes who have completed their college careers who have filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA are the recent indicators that the tides are shifting. For their part, the organization has adamantly refused to even discuss the issue, stating simply that "if you're going to come to us, you're going to come as a student."
Both of my sons were Division I student-athletes in soccer, and I can attest to the difficulty of that job. Yes, it is a job for which they get paid in minimal scholarships, which are constantly at risk should they become injured or fall below the eligibility levels or get caught breaking any one of the thousands of NCAA rules. Bryce never graduated – the combination of athletics and studies proved to be more than he could responsibly handle. Robbie graduated, but it took five years and several occasions of scrambling for credits when he changed his major mid-stream. The scholarships they received covered around 25 percent of their expenses. Bryce was recruited by a private school where the tuition was over $30,000 and Robbie was recruited by an out-of-state pubic university, so he had to pay additional tuition that wasn't covered by his scholarship. Both boys transferred to a public in-state university, which made their education more affordable but didn't reduce any of the myriad of demands.
How does this impact youth players? Once a child begins to exhibit some interest and talent in a sport, everyone begins talking scholarship. There's a special pride and honor attached to earning a slot on a college roster. It's certainly a vindication of years of dedication and hard work and offers some respite from the heavy expenses of higher education. Nevertheless, parents should be wary because the time commitment of being on a team can actually end up destroying the reason kids go to school, which is an education. It's not unusual for players to burn out with all the demands and just quit. As difficult as it was to juggle studies with athletics up to college, those pressure ramp up at the university level. If our kids are recruited to a private school, they may not receive much financial assistance (very few players, especially freshman, get a "full-ride") and parents are left to either pay or borrow the balance. Therefore, parents need to have a serious discussion with their potential student-athletes about the reality of the title. We need to be honest on how far we will go financially to support our children in their athletic pursuits just as we have a discussion on choosing a college for the education. Let them know, for instance, if you will support them being recruited by a private vs. an in-state public school. Because of our savings and a small inheritance, we were able to afford most of the expenses not covered by our sons' scholarships, but not every family has that luxury. No family should go deeply into debt for the chance to say their child is a student-athlete.
The promise of paying those students for their efforts can naturally be enticing to families who would want the best of both worlds – a free college education and the honor of having a college athlete. I'm hoping, should the decision be made to pay athletes, that A) the "lesser" sports won't be neglected and B) the schedule will require that sports and education are pursued separately allowing the latter to have a student's full attention during a true off-season. However, no matter how this controversy plays out, families need to decide how realistic it is to encourage their children to become student-athletes, whether at one of the three NCAA divisions or the NAIA, keeping in mind that Ivy League and Division II schools don't offer athletic scholarships. Parents need to rise above the hype that surrounds college athletics and look realistically if our children can handle the strains and ultimately graduate, which is the point of going to college.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Last week, 24 year old rookie linebacker Chris Borland retired from the 49ers stating he had too many concerns about injuries, especially concussive episodes. He decided his health was more important to him than a big paycheck. Just a short time before his decision, seven-time Pro-Bowler Patrick Willis, just 30 years old also retired from the 49ers citing health and injury concerns. As he said, "I have no regrets . . . [I don't want to] barely walk." Over the past few months at least five players under 30 have quit the NFL for health concerns. However, they also complained of burnout, a condition that easily plagues those who play for years under a heavy scheduling burden and the constant risk of injury. Even as these players finally begin to have a monetary reward for their efforts, they are worn out both in body and in mind. As I mentioned last week, the English Premier League realized they needed to address these issues for their youth players if they expected to retain the best into the professional ranks. Consider that these professional athletes have already spent up to a quarter century playing their sport, often overshadowing all other aspects of their lives including schooling, social contacts, family life and hobbies. They have spent as much time playing before their third decade of life as many of us spend in our adult jobs before we retire. If they remain in their sport, they may make a big check, but they may also risk their quality of life for the next four or five decades.
We parents deal with our youth players exhibiting burnout as young as seven or eight. When kids have to give up a bike ride with friends, watching their favorite after-school TV show or down time in order to complete homework after a practice, they will grumble and/or show anxiety. This manifests itself in refusing to go to practices, breaking into tears easily at the slightest roadblock or slight, clinging and hanging back. Some of these behaviors could be shyness and feeling intimidated, but in general kids who begin a sport enthusiastically and then slide into reticence are experiencing a form of burnout. In these cases, burnout isn't overdoing a sport in the classic sense, but feeling as if the sport is intruding on the rest of their lives. If a child has several activities on top of a sport, or plays several sports, then he or she may try to shed one or two of these to stop feeling overwhelmed. Astute parents need to recognize when this is happening and address it without adding even more pressure.
As children advance in their skills, they will also advance in time demands. Two one-hour practices a week with one match morph into three or four 90 minute practices a week with two matches. Additionally they may be expected to train extra outside of scheduled practices including weight training, running, backyard dribbling or studying instructional films. Parents, in an attempt to help their children compete, will hire private instructors or put them in intense physical training programs, adding to the stresses and stealing more precious time. The more that's invested in the child and the sport, the more reluctant both parent and children are to walk away even if the tensions are tremendous. At the same time, parents may also begin to feel some burnout with the constant scheduling, carpooling, cheerfulness at game after game and the financial demands. It may be that we can unknowingly transfer our burnout to our kids, especially if they are a bit on the hesitant side and still discovering their passion.
Progressing through the youth ranks can propel a player to high school and college teams which bring both honor and another set of pressure. Now a player is expected to not only represent their institution on the field but in the classroom as well. They need to juggle excellence in play and excellence in studies. Players have to meet eligibility requirements for both grades and credits in order to keep playing, and in the case of college players, to maintain their scholarship. Those expectations now require hours and hours of devotion. Passion for the game is important, but often it can be that players don't feel so much passion as they do obligation – they need to see the investment through even though they are no longer joyful. They may fear disappointing their parents, school mates and coaches if they express hesitancy. Parents will also feel the obligation for their child to continue both because of the monetary investment and their own ego investment in their child's achievements. Therefore, kids can be burned out, but not willing to give out.
How do we handle burnout at the various levels of participation? For the youngest players, it may just be recognizing what is causing the reluctance and letting the child exercise the right to choose a break. While I do preach commitment because I believe it's important for kids to work through the occasional valleys of emotion, with very young players there needs to be an opportunity to try activities on, walk around in them and see if they fit. It's not one size fits all, and if a kid is uncomfortable, then burnout can be nearly instantaneous. Sometimes just letting a kid choose a different option during one practice can give him the sense that he isn't on a speeding, out of control train. It may be that you give your child the chance to exchange one practice for something different each month. It's important to listen to concerns and acknowledge them while encouraging our players to not give up too easily. Finding a valve to let off the pressure can really help slow down burnout and help them stick to a course during rough spots. If hesitant to participate in practices, it may just be an issue of feeling like they're drudgery. So spice them up by putting some rousing music on while driving to the fields or let your child bring a treat to share. If they worry about not measuring up, find a skill where you've seen improvement or a behavior that indicates leadership or kindness and point them out. Don't begin the trip home with any kind of criticism or suggestions, because they'll begin to dread the trip home before they even leave for practice. That makes the entire experience distasteful leading to early burnout.
As the players get older, parents can't get by with gentle changes and simple fixes. Players now have a commitment to their team which has to be honored. Nevertheless, we parents can reduce the feeling of being trapped by setting down options before the season even begins. For example, give the player the guarantee that special events like school dances or a concert will be reasonable excuses for not attending a practice. Work with your club to remember important events and holidays when setting up the practice and game calendar. This is much easier when teammates come from the same school district or districts with similar schedules. Still coaches may be totally clueless about the significant rites of passage kids on the team look forward to. So parents should make those dates clear during the first meeting after tryouts. When kids are discouraged about their progress, they can feel burned out. So if your player suddenly moves from being a starter to being a bench player, be aware that she may want to give up in order to erase the pain. That's when you can meet with the coach, not to ask for special treatment, but to find out what he or she sees for your child's future development. Have your child initiate the conversation and help him or her understand what is being relayed. Ask positive questions such as "what do I need to do to earn back my starting spot?" and "can I work with you on my skills?" Don't demand things like more playing time.
Kids ma be overscheduled leading to burnout in an activity they love but see as the most viable option to quit. Overscheduling can also be a reason for a player's skills to decrease – he's just too exhausted to give 100%. So we need to discuss and really listen to how our kids are feeling about what they are doing. In our house every year for three or four years we had the internal battle of football vs. soccer. The boys had to choose for themselves and my only input was that they had to do one or the other. Ultimately, each year they chose soccer, but I wasn't opposed to revisiting that decision once a new season was beginning. I think knowing they had the option to switch helped take some pressure off while owning their decision.
Landon Donovan famously quit soccer for four months from December 2012 to March 2013. During the break he traveled, relaxed and didn't think about soccer. As he put it he was tired and lacked motivation. His mother had always told him to quit soccer if it was no longer fun. His time off angered U.S. National Team coach Jurgen Klinsmann, who removed Donovan from the 2014 World Cup roster. Within 18 months Donovan had permanently retired. He admitted to being burnt out; that facing daily training was weighing him down. He acknowledged that many players feel like they want to pack it in, but "…they're scared to say it because it shows perceived weakness. It shows your coach that you're not completely committed like all coaches want. It shows that you're human…" Donovan was 33 when he retired and had spent 28 years playing soccer, most of that time at the highest levels possible requiring intense physical, mental and time commitments. Sustaining that degree of intensity can be wearying. So it's not surprising that many players gladly give up what is making them feel exhausted despite accolades and monetary rewards. If players burn out in those situations, imagine how young players feel with little come back and lots of input on their part.
Robbie spent five hours a day in the car, five days a week, as we commuted to Chicago for his soccer training. I'd pick him up as soon as school let out and we'd get home around 10 p.m. He had to do his homework in the car, eat his dinner in the car and maintain whatever social like he could with his cell phone in the car. Even after he got his driver's license, I continued to chauffeur him because he needed the commute time to get his homework done. There were certainly times when he had had enough. Even I suffered from burnout, since I was working at the time, so I went from job to driving, to bed, to job. Our discussions centered on what he would do if he quit and what would he miss if he quit. Ultimately his love of the game, the quality of the training and competition and his strong ties to his teammates won out, and he stuck with it. But I certainly wouldn't have blamed him if he wanted to just hang up his cleats. We did make it clear to the team that he would not come down when there was a big event at school or a special occasion with a friend. We did what we could to carve some normality out of the chaos and pressure. Even now that he has completed college and decided not to turn pro, he expresses some desire to get back into the game. But he has moved on to his preparation for medical school and plays for fun, which is how it should be.
Therefore, parents need to determine if the burnout our kids express is temporary or chronic. Except for the youngest players, all kids should meet their commitment before quitting. But if they really want to end their participation, we can't allow our dreams and opinions to make that decision impossible for them. Considering that less than 10% of youth players go on to play in college and less than 1.7% of college players go on to play pro, it's inevitable that most kids will have to quit simply due to exigent conditions. Therefore, the timeline of when they leave the sport should be less important than what will make them happy, secure, confident kids. Sticking with an activity that they consider agony doesn't contribute to those qualities. However, we need to make sure they don't just quit and then cocoon. We need to help them make plans. Find out why they want to quit, what they want to do with that free time, how they'll feel leaving their teammates, what the plan will be if they regret their decision and what the process will be for quitting. Our input should be free of judgment. We can lay out the alternatives, be sure that they aren't having a knee-jerk reaction to a temporary setback like a coach's sharp criticism or kids making fun of them and help them see all the permutations of their decision. Then we need to leave it up to them and make it clear that it is their decision to take responsibility for. We should be a sounding board, a mirror in which they can see the outcomes, and a resource for choices, but not the decision maker. When Robbie quit baseball, I was very sad. He was great at it, but he was impatient with all the inactive time that came with the sport. Compared to soccer it was like slogging through molasses. We discussed what the decision meant, and even though he was only 11, he has never expressed regret for leaving. Childhood is so short; it shouldn't be filled with anxiety unless the child is prepared to deal with it and accepts it as the proper balance for the joys and passion of an activity. When that isn't the case, it's our job to listen and let kids take the pressure off.


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Welcome to Blue Planet Surf.
As stand up paddle boarders and surfers, the ocean is our playground and we need to act as its shepherds. We do our best to use environmentally responsible materials, conserve energy, recycle and try to minimize our impact on the environment and the oceans. We encourage our customers to do the same.
We pride ourselves on offering the best SUP boards and accessories for sale and offer great value and expert advice. We want to help you have more fun on the water! Our current product line offers the best Stand Up Paddleboards from beginner all the way to expert level. The best SUP surfboards, the fastest SUP race boards, and the easiest to use All round entry level SUP's. We make it easy for you to find the right board for you, whether stable, fast, inexpensive (but not cheap), or high performance, we can help and you can try before you buy at our shop! Enjoy browsing and shopping on our website, and let us know if there's any way we can help you find the perfect SUP gear for you. To see web customer reviews for our products, please click on the blue review tab on the left. Mahalo to our customers for voting Blue Planet as Hawaii's Best Stand Up Paddle Shop. Aloha!
Blue Planet offers limited epoxy ding repair service only for boards purchased at our shop and for regular customers. If you did not purchase the board from us or are not one of our regular customers, please see the Ding Kingdom repair shop right around the corner from our shop.


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Rent Linear Algebra and Projective Geometry 1st edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by Reinhold Baer. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Literary Licensing, LLC.
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Though their success may feel recent, the Seattle Seahawks have actually been one of the NFL's most successful organizations for the best decade. Like most franchises, the Seahawks have had their occasional dips since 2004, but with six NFC West titles, their consistency has been underrated.
Part of Seattle's success stems from their solid draft record. Cost-controlled talent like Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman constitute the foundation of the current Super Bowl champions, allowing Seattle to compile loads of talent while also maintaining a healthy salary cap.
Of course, the end of the Mike Holmgren era necessitated that new foundation, as the Seahawks suffered four consecutive losing seasons between 2008 and 2011. Examining their draft track record from the years before that, it is clear that a few early-round whiffs fostered a dearth of talent in the late 2000s.
The Seahawks may be on top of the football world at the moment, but as the past has shown, effective drafting is the only method to retain their lofty perch. Using the last decade as the time frame, here's a look at the best and worst Seahawks' draft picks.


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In addition to well-known and favored by many people because of the delicacy of taste, recipes spicy sweet and sour shrimp also contain a lot of nutritional value that is required by our body. Just as food ingredients other seafood, such as squid, fish, crabs and other meat shrimp combined with recipes sweet and sour is also a lot of high protein, omega-3, calcium and materials and other substances that are needed by the body growth and cells in our body. Of course besides very much nutritional content, taste sweet and sour shrimp recipe that we will create this time was also very tempting everyone to taste.
Make friends who do not like cooking certainly imagine that how to make shrimp Sweet Acid is difficult and troublesome. However, if you already know, actually Recipe Shrimp Sweet Acid that we will make this time how to make it quite simple and easy to follow, although by girls or friends who do not like to cook too easily made. This time we will use tiger shrimp as the main ingredient, but if you like friends also can replace it with another type of shrimp, speerti barong shrimp, prawns, shrimp jerbung and others. To give a distinctive flavor in the seasoning sour tamarind sauce that will be mixed with shrimp meat, we will use the water to make it more sticky tamarind. Actually there is also the use of lemon juice, pineapple or the other, but in my opinion personally still more legit and distinctive taste when using tamarind. Do not forget the shrimp before it is used should be cleaned in advance of the outer shell and the head and its antennae should be discarded. For more details please see the details of any materials used to make shrimp and sweet sour recipes.
Ingredients Recipe Spicy Shrimp Sweet Acid
- Such as shrimp recipe, this time we need a good quality black tiger shrimp for about 500 grams. To type can be tailored to each type of home favorite size is not too big like a lobster.
- Local onion medium large size of approximately 10 cloves alone. Peel the outer skin and a tiny little slices so easy when there will be smoothed (smooth flavor).
- Large medium tomatoes by about 2 pieces only. Rinse and then cut into sections so that easy as to be smoothed (smooth flavor).
- Big red chili so that the color is nice of approximately 8-10 pieces. Can be added or subtracted according to your taste (spices).
- Garlic is a great medium size of approximately 5-6 cloves of course. Peel the skin for later blended with other spices (spices).
- Cayenne approximately 6-8 pcs or can be added according to taste each (spices).
- Good quality bottled chili sauce to add flavor to taste spicy or less as much as 1-2 tablespoons of course.
- Soy sauce thickened by about 2 tablespoons of course.
- Sugar to taste sweetness strengthen by about 1-2 tablespoons of course.
- Sufficiently good quality margarine for frying marinade or less as much as 2 teaspoons - 3 tablespoon.
- Iodized salt to taste more or less as much as 3 small scoops.
- Tamarind water to strengthen the sense of typical acid of approximately two tablespoon (mix 2 teaspoons tamarind with approximately 4 tablespoons of water and stir stir).
How to Make Recipes Shrimp with Sweet Acid Seasoning
- The first step is to clean the shrimp with clean water and dispose of feces, including outer skin and head.
- Puree red peppers, chili pepper, tomato, onion and garlic until smooth. For maximum results, should be smoothed by hand or in the pestle, but can also be in a blender so faster and more practical.
- Prepare a small frying pan over medium heat and give a little margarine for frying delicate seasoning.
- Enter the delicate seasoning and stir stir until all ingredients are well blended and stir distinctive smell fragrant spices.
- Enter shrimp meat in a frying pan over and cook until half cooked while still stirring stir again so that the shrimp blended with sweet sour recipes.
- Enter bottled chili sauce, iodized salt and sugar and stir stir until well blended.
- Enter tamarind water that has been prepared in advance and add the soy sauce to taste and stir stir again and cook until all ingredients and truly cooked shrimp meat.
- First Taste and add salt, soy sauce and sauces sauce if necessary.


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Geriatric Medicine Physicians in San Rafael, CA
Dr. Maria Theresa Paz specializes in geriatric medicine in San Rafael, California.
Dr. Maria Theresa Paz has been compared 77 times. Details of Dr. Paz's experience as an MD are available on your free doctor report.
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Insurance plans and networks accepted by a doctor are not necessarily universal across all locations at which the doctor practices. This can be affected by many factors such as different group practices, hospital affiliations and working arrangements at those locations. Checking that the doctor you are visiting and the facility they are at are in-network providers for your insurance plan can save you money and headaches later from surprise medical bills.
Dr. Maria Theresa Paz accepts the following plans at 4000 Civic Center Dr, San Rafael, CA
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text: Panel Round Two By editor • Mar 31, 2012 ShareTwitter Facebook Google+ Email Listen Listening... / More questions for the panel: Good News For the Jolly Green Giant, What's In An Unappetizing Name and Somebody Needs A Drink. Related Program: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on WKNOView the discussion thread.


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Prescott Arizona Business Directory - Prescott- AZ - Prescott, AZ - Phone: (928) 777-8886
Internet advertising is defined as a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing messages to attract customers in Prescott. Some examples of online advertising are contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, interstitial ads, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam. One of the biggest benefits of online advertising is the immediate publishing of information and content that is not limited by geography or time. To that end, the emerging area of interactive advertising presents fresh challenges for advertisers who have adopted an interruptive strategy.
PSEG Long Island Helps Customers Go Green and Save Green
Energy Efficiency Programs Save Customers Millions of Dollars (Long Island, NY) PSEG Long Island announced today that customers participating in energy efficiency programs in 2015 will save more than $60 million and 307,582,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. The amount of energy saved is good for the environment, too, as it results in the elimination of the carbon dioxide..