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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post8460292882860593255..comments2016-10-05T14:56:49.376-04:00Comments on The Daily Dietribe: Hint O' Chocolate Banana Muffins (Gluten Free, Sugar Free)Irishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-33434954463342733302012-02-22T13:06:10.084-05:002012-02-22T13:06:10.084-05:00I have had a lot of failures as far as gf baking g...I have had a lot of failures as far as gf baking goes...But these are worth EVERY bit of effort!! They taste the most like good old wheat flour muffins that I have ever tried...Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! Added bonus, is they are just sweet enough, and I don't have to worry about my kid being in a sugar induced coma after eating a couple :)firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-9974559246039933592010-11-09T20:50:45.960-05:002010-11-09T20:50:45.960-05:00Iris - perseverance wins! You have a lot of patien...Iris - perseverance wins! You have a lot of patience. But the result is well worth it...your muffins look perfect. I love the flavor combination. BTW...I once ripened bananas by nuking them slightly in the microwave.Nancy @SensitivePantryhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-34807536351236240102010-04-07T20:43:00.141-04:002010-04-07T20:43:00.141-04:00Iris, I love the story! I'm glad you kept try...Iris, I love the story! I'm glad you kept trying and were able to share a great recipe with us. Thanks for participating in the muffin challenge.Lindahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-71985003640427091662010-04-07T11:05:31.966-04:002010-04-07T11:05:31.966-04:00Hilarious post and a wonderful-sounding recipe! I ...Hilarious post and a wonderful-sounding recipe! I can SO relate to the trials of developing a good recipe. I will definitely give yours try!JoAnnhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-41704023309153269882010-04-07T08:10:23.111-04:002010-04-07T08:10:23.111-04:00You and me both, Aubree! Maybe I should just do a ...You and me both, Aubree! Maybe I should just do a post on all my flops in the kitchen!Irishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-83776892815908226622010-04-07T08:05:44.685-04:002010-04-07T08:05:44.685-04:00So... I know I already commented on these, but I h...So... I know I already commented on these, but I had to come back and check it out again! (I've also book marked it as a must try).

Having a lot of flops lately, its definitely encouraging to see another blogger making a few 'mistakes' and then coming out with an amazing result anyway!

~Aubree CherieAubree Cheriehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-11526174127033861222010-04-06T19:55:45.756-04:002010-04-06T19:55:45.756-04:00Ha! I love this post! I'm not the only one tha...Ha! I love this post! I'm not the only one that works in her sleep. It's been two years since I moved to a new library branch and I still get nightmares that I forget to open it.:) Great work on the muffins, Iris. I can't wait to try them.:)Just Call Me Zippyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-4546100660996534622010-04-06T12:46:37.468-04:002010-04-06T12:46:37.468-04:00I save up bits of old bananas in the fridge. Next ...I save up bits of old bananas in the fridge. Next time I have a bag full, I am going to try this recipe. My daughter tends to get the sugar high/dump so I really appreciate a sugar free muffin recipe. I have found that I can use brown rice syrup and fruit juice concentrates successfully as sweeteners in baked goods for her.Aleahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-11901869338518480992010-04-06T12:42:01.571-04:002010-04-06T12:42:01.571-04:00Iris this post made me laugh! I loved reading it....Iris this post made me laugh! I loved reading it. Thanks for sharing your muffin obsession with us! I love hearing how other people work on recipes. It's so interesting. I too dream about my baking projects. Are we crazy?Maggiehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-4724843255281468202010-04-04T21:57:16.392-04:002010-04-04T21:57:16.392-04:00These sound and look delicious. Bananas are my fav...These sound and look delicious. Bananas are my favorite thing, and banana muffins with some chocolate loving are much better :)Michalhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-58955651644311485492010-04-04T10:06:13.708-04:002010-04-04T10:06:13.708-04:00Saw your profile on food buzz. Glad I read your s...Saw your profile on food buzz. Glad I read your smart, informative, and interesting blog.Lazaro Cooks!http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-11037471338620497112010-04-02T10:12:34.643-04:002010-04-02T10:12:34.643-04:00Wow, 40 minutes for muffins? Your oven DOES take a...Wow, 40 minutes for muffins? Your oven DOES take a long time to bake. However, these sound like the perfect breakfast muffin - not too sweet, and full of yummy things! Good for you to stick to your muffin challenge!Tasty Eats At Homehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-73001890041999853842010-04-02T02:49:30.026-04:002010-04-02T02:49:30.026-04:00i made muffins tonight too. they're too moist...i made muffins tonight too. they're too moist (i used applesauce) but that's okay! i ain't picky!THE ACTORS DIEThttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-18139081253243140002010-04-02T00:43:24.259-04:002010-04-02T00:43:24.259-04:00Hey Iris! I love reading your blog. I was thinki...Hey Iris! I love reading your blog.

I was thinking about sugar recently because of an article on CNN. One day they had an article on the idea that sugary and fatty foods (cheesecake, etc.) are addictive just like cigarettes, alcohol, etc. I don't know how much truth there was to that article. It makes sense to me but I don't know if you knew anything.

I think it is important that we are careful with how much sugar there is in products and especially what kinds of sugar they are. Some people were giving out free Frosted Flakes at the opening of the new union at OSU. I started eating them and then decided to look at the nutrition facts and found out that one container (1 cup?) of frosted flakes has about 50 mg of sugar. I couldn't believe it...Elyssa firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-8539319048279626002010-04-01T23:25:51.202-04:002010-04-01T23:25:51.202-04:00lol! "What happened to that Iris girl? The m...lol! "What happened to that Iris girl? The muffins did her in..." You are hilarious. Bravo on succeeding with the "perfect" muffin. I can't tell you the amount of times I have tweaked a recipe (that I dream of) to taste like that of my dreams.

 I had a friend who wanted me to make her a chai syrup like Starbucks. I can make a pretty good chai so I gave it a go. Man what a nightmare! After the fifteenth try I was DONE. Forget it. Who needs syrup when I can whip up a kick ass chai hot on the spot?!Chelseyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-34965395540447291112010-04-01T15:11:35.455-04:002010-04-01T15:11:35.455-04:00I've tried various low-carb, low-calorie, and ...I've tried various low-carb, low-calorie, and low-fat diets for the past couple of years. Although the Atkins diet is very popular, it made me feel somewhat unhealthy.

The diet plan I'm on right now is the Medifast Diet. The caloric intake is roughly 800-1000 calories. However, it doesn't make my body feel weak. It is a bit of a pricey diet, but there are plenty of coupons available on the internet. www.swoopup.com/stores/deals/Medifast-Diet. You should never pay full price.

My advice is just choose a diet plan which your body reacts positively to. No one knows your body better than you firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-59555515850012131282010-04-01T07:19:52.853-04:002010-04-01T07:19:52.853-04:00Iris, you had me chuckling here. I admire your muf...Iris, you had me chuckling here. I admire your muffin dedication and I'm so glad you finally had success and aren't leaving us. ;-) Next time you have some overripe bananas, just pop some in the freezer and you'll always be ready to bake with them. You don't even have to thaw them out all the way. When you mash them (I used a potato masher), they'll thaw out enough. These look yummy ... love the hint o' chocolate factor, too!

Shirleygfe--gluten free easilyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-69124777517104943722010-04-01T04:43:15.467-04:002010-04-01T04:43:15.467-04:00These look lovely! Nice :) xThese look lovely! Nice :) xSarahhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-78207682634667324122010-03-31T21:53:46.346-04:002010-03-31T21:53:46.346-04:00Muffins looks great, and love how there is no suga...Muffins looks great, and love how there is no sugar but bananas in there ;)Pure2Raw Twinshttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-77311410316632010882010-03-31T19:24:21.244-04:002010-03-31T19:24:21.244-04:00Nicely done! I know how tricky it can be to make a...Nicely done! I know how tricky it can be to make a tasty GF-SF recipe... but oooh these look so very yummy :) (there should be a yum emoticon for all us foodie bloggers...)briogustohttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-23117844753154019242010-03-31T16:12:02.151-04:002010-03-31T16:12:02.151-04:00Iris, you are the champion! =) I love that you sh...Iris, you are the champion! =)

I love that you shared your trials and errors too. Way to go!Fayinagirl (means Free One)http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-69368049057549234292010-03-31T15:28:47.539-04:002010-03-31T15:28:47.539-04:00I'm not a fan of banana... but I am a fan of Y...I'm not a fan of banana... but I am a fan of YOU, Iris! Good mix of flours in this recipe! I bet they add just enough sweetness, with the salt and cinnamon. Have a great spring break. :)fartygirlhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-58091900263417625922010-03-31T14:27:53.214-04:002010-03-31T14:27:53.214-04:00Iris! Good work! I can relate a lot to your post.....Iris! Good work! I can relate a lot to your post...both with the experimenting and overeating...even when it's with better sweetners like agave or honey...:) Good for you...:) and good luck in your continuing cooking and eating saga...:) I am right behind ya!Ari @ The Frugally Rich Lifehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1756539810620766196.post-64800432257323121692010-03-31T13:19:32.578-04:002010-03-31T13:19:32.578-04:00Mmmm, these do sound perfect! I tend to make muffi...Mmmm, these do sound perfect! I tend to make muffins that are more on the dry side. I definitely want to give these a try!

And its nice to know that a lot of hard work in the kitchen and a whole pile of mistakes CAN lead to an awesome recipe! :)

~Aubree CherieAubree Cheriehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com


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MOBILE, Alabama - The USTA/ITA National Small College Championships did not go entirely to form over the 80 matches played on Thursday at the Copeland-Cox Tennis Center as two No. 1 seeds among the 16 divisions failed to get out of the first round.
In NCAA Divison III men's singles, Aaron Skinner of Trinity upended top-seeded Adam Putterman of Washington University 7-5, 6-5 to advance to today's semifinals.
In NCAA Division III men's doubles, Tanner Brown and Erik Lim of Johns Hopkins upset No. 1-seeded Byron Balkin and Mitch Osborne of Wisconsin-Whitewater 7-5, 6-4. The magic ran out for Brown and Lim in the semifinals, though, as they lost to No. 4-seeded Andrew La Cava and James Rivers of Whitman 6-3, 5-7, 10-8.
Among the No. 1 seeds advancing was Tiffany William of AUM in NAIA women's singles. William defeated Katie Wilson of Indiana Wesleyan 6-1, 6-2.
The tournament continues with 80 matches on Friday. The action starts at 8:30 a.m. National championship matches in men's doubles and women's doubles in NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, NAIA and NJCAA are scheduled to start at 5 p.m. Friday.
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association website includes a complete rundown of Thursday's results along with a schedule for Friday.

subset: commoncrawl


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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Obviously, Novien Yarber isn't the only person who thinks he can dance.
The Huntsville resident punched a ticket to Las Vegas with his performance on the June 4 broadcast of Fox's televised dance competition "So You Think You Can Dance." At the show's Memphis auditions, Yarber executed an angular, contemporary routine to an Asian-tinged instrumental tune.
"That was absolutely fantastic," gushed Nigel Lythgoe, "So You Think You Can Dance" judge and executive producer. "There were gasps from the audience. This is I want for the show. This is making people stand up and forcing them to pick up a telephone and vote for you."
Yarber, age 21, will strut his stuff on the show next at the "Vegas Callbacks" episode premiering 7 p.m. CST June 11. In the past, Yarber has performed in Huntsville at Merrimack Hall Performing Arts Center.
Coincidentally, "So You Think You Can Dance" choreographer Tyce Diorio was recently in the Rocket City, working with some young local dancers at Jill's Studio of Dance.
A clip of Novien Yarber's performance at the "So You Think You Can Dance" Memphis auditions is below:


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Hi there!
Welcome to our wiki, and thank you for your contributions! There's a lot to do around here, so I hope you'll stay with us and make many more improvements.
- Recent changes is a great first stop, because you can see what pages other people have been editing, and where you can help.
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- Please sign in every time you edit, so that we can recognize you!
I'm really happy to have you here, and look forward to contributing with you!
- -- Crimsonnavy (Talk) 00:38, 2011 March 25
Uh Sure. For starters always leave your signature so people know who you are. To do that you click the signature button in the right corner of the edit toolbar. Or you could leave your signature by putting 4 of these swirlies ~ in a row. And to leave another user a message just click the "leave a message button" in the corner. Hope this helped!
Hey! Bullet!' The Easter Bunny is Here! 01:41, March 25, 2011 (UTC)


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Amy Frykholm posted yesterday about Muhammad Musri, the
Muslim leader who met with Terry Jones and helped defuse last week's
Qur'an-burning situation. If more Christians and Muslims knew one another
personally, the whole furor may not have occurred in the first place.
There are a lot of ways to look at what happened with Terry Jones, the
pastor from Florida who wanted to burn the Qur'an on Saturday but later
thought better of it.
The Century's work relies primarily on subscriptions and donations. Thank you for supporting nonprofit journalism.


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Results tagged ' Mickey Mantle '
"Bronx Bombers" brings the Yankees to Broadway
Over the weekend, while the rest of New York was gearing up for a Super Bowl that didn't quite live up to the hype, I had the pleasure of catching a matinee performance of the new "Bronx Bombers" play at the Circle in the Square theatre. I'm happy to say that I enjoyed the performance very much; moving the Bronx to Broadway is no easy task, but they've succeeded.
The play opens in Yogi Berra's (Peter Scolari) suite at the Boston Sheraton in June 1977, the day after Billy Martin (Keith Nobbs) pulled Reggie Jackson (Francois Battiste) from a nationally televised game against the Red Sox. All of Boston seems to be talking about what happened in the Yankees' dugout yesterday afternoon, and Yogi is nervously pacing, rattling off the greatest hits from the catalogue of Yogi-isms. He's hoping he can broker peace between Reggie and Billy before George Steinbrenner gets involved; good luck with that.
Thurman Munson (Bill Dawes) is the first player to arrive in the suite, and he's terrific – the captain is instantly recognizable, cracking wise about his aching knees and sour about his own issues with Reggie. Martin soon enters the room, rage flooding the room in a southern drawl. He's shading his eyes with dark sunglasses and a cowboy hat, sneaking the occasional airline bottle into his coffee cup. Finally there's Reggie, dressed head to toe in red polyester swiped from the '70s. His strut instantly owns the room, fully in the heart of his "magnitude of me" years, months away from hitting the three homers that will cement his legacy in pinstripes.
You've become a fly on the wall in the history books. They've clearly done a lot of research to incorporate realistic portrayals of the players' personalities, and if you're familiar with those back stories, you'll appreciate many little easter eggs.
The Yankees are falling apart and Yogi is terrified that Steinbrenner will fire Martin, he tells his wife, Carmen (Tracy Shayne). That soon leads Yogi – and us – into a wonderful dream sequence that is a highlight of the play. Forget time and space: imagine if you could have put all of the greatest Yankees legends in the same room. What would they say to each other? How would they interact?
Your imagination runs wild at that possibility, and clearly the writers had a lot of fun with it too.
An all-time lineup joins Yogi and Carmen for dinner — Babe Ruth (C.J. Wilson, playing the fur-coat clad Bambino larger than life), Lou Gehrig (John Wernke, channeling the Iron Horse's strength and pain), Joe DiMaggio (an aloof, impeccably dressed Chris Henry Coffey), Mickey Mantle (Dawes, spot-on as the muscled-up, hard-living Mick), Elston Howard (Battiste) and even Derek Jeter (Christopher Jackson).
It's great fun. I won't spoil the rest for you. If those names mean anything to you, you'll want to see it for yourself!
"Bronx Bombers" is now in previews at the Circle in the Square Theatre (West 50th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue). For ticket information, visit bronxbombersplay.com or call 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250.
Maris loses an RBI, picks up AL runs title
Roger Maris just lost an RBI from 49 years ago, though he did pick up sole possession of the 1961 American League runs title.


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DOHA, Qatar (AP) -A second-half brace from Barcelona's Pedro Rodriguez helped world and European champion Spain beat Uruguay 3-1 in a friendly on Wednesday. Fielding a lineup that featured nine Barcelona players, Spain had the bulk of the early possession and the best chances in the match in Doha. It took the lead in the 16th minute when a long strike from Cesc Fabregas went through the hands of Uruguay keeper Fernando Muslera. Uruguay drew level in the 32nd minute when Cristian Rodriguez got behind two defenders and took a pass from Martin Caceres.
Spain Downs Uruguay 3-1 in Friendly
From SI.com
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse more stories
Julian Finney/Getty Images


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This deal has ended.
Possibly just for today, Newegg has Brutal Legend (PlayStation 3 or XBox 360) on sale for just $19.99, matching the lowest price we've seen online. This heavy metal RPG is voiced by Jack Black and is rated M for Mature. Shipping is free with no sales tax (except CA, NJ, TN).No longer available


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6 items from 2014
10 December 2014 1:31 PM, PST | We Got This Covered | See recent We Got This Covered news »
As one of the fastest rising stars in Edm at the moment, it was really just a matter of time before we got a BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix from Mr. Oliver Heldens. Keeping in suit with his deep house/groovy style, the two hours of music delivers exactly what you'd expect.
From the producer's own hits like "Gecko" and "Koala," to some of the biggest songs of 2014 ("Light Years Away," "A Sky Full Of Stars," "Blame," etc.) the mix is a pleasure to listen to from start to finish. In fact, it could very well make a case for Best Essential Mix of 2014, as it definitely rivals some of the more impressive ones that we've heard from BBC Radio 1 this year. If nothing else, though, it's a great way for the young DJ to cap off his truly incredible breakout year.
Check out the Oliver Heldens BBC 1 Radio Essential Mix below, »
- Matt Joseph
2 October 2014 2:35 PM, PDT | Popsugar.com | See recent Popsugar news »
Source: Getty Maybe it's his modeling roots or his techie smarts or his hot Hollywood roles, but whatever it is, Ashton Kutcher is one crushable heartthrob. To celebrate the news that Ashton and Mila welcomed a baby girl this week, we're looking back on the roller coaster of loving Ashton - who's now officially a hot dad. He first captured fans' attention as That '70s Show's quirky Kelso, he got silly with Dude, Where's My Car?, and we found ourselves swooning again and again thanks to A Lot Like Love, No Strings Attached, and his many handsome red carpet appearances. Take a look at the sweet, shirtless, and silly moments that make up more than 15 years of Ashton Kutcher fandom. »
- Laura-Marie-Meyers
16 September 2014 5:18 PM, PDT | E! Online | See recent E! Online news »
Check out that stunning pregnancy glow! Amanda Peet was absolutely radiant as she walked the red carpet at the premiere of Amazon's new series Transparent last night at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles! The A Lot Like Love actress, who is expecting her third child with her Game of Thrones producer hubby David Benioff, dressed her baby bump in a white, flowing gown with blue details and let her brunette locks effortlessly fall to her shoulders. The 42-year-old, who is currently filming Sleeping With Other People, revealed her pregnancy last month when she arrived at the 2014 Emmys red carpet with her growing belly on display. The mom-to-be had taken a break from the Hollywood spotlight for a bit to »
4 March 2014 12:48 PM, PST | Hitfix | See recent Hitfix news »
Eli Young Band is capable of great things as it showed with 2012's "Even If It Breaks Your Heart," which featured one of the stronger choruses to come out of Nashville in years, as well as with Acm's 2012 song of the year winner, "Crazy Girl." The question is if the quartet, which releases "10,000 Towns, its third major label album, today, is content to keep hitting singles and doubles or if it will consistently swing for the fences and find material that matches lead singer Mike Eli's vocal talents and the band's overall abilities. (Eli is joined by guitarist James Young, bassist Jon Jones and drummer Chris Thompson). The answer is mixed. To its credit, Eli Young Band, though very capable of hooting and hollering with the best of them, hasn't succumbed to the bro-country sound that is dominating Nashville right now. It has tried to collect »
19 February 2014 12:00 PM, PST | Zap2It - From Inside the Box | See recent Zap2It - From Inside the Box news »
On ABC's Wednesday sitcom "Suburgatory," which launched a new season in January, Jeremy Sisto plays George Altman, an architect and single father of a teen daughter (Jane Levy) who moves to the suburbs to give her a better life. He discovers life there is different, but whether it's better is a work in progress.
In real life, Sisto is a 39-year-old father of two: daughter Charlie and baby son Bastian. He got married to wife Addie a few months after his daughter was born, but Sisto has no regrets about taking the plunge.
"I love my family," he tells Zap2it. "I have a great wife. It took me a while to figure that out and commit, but now I'm really happy I did. She's a human being, and we're committed to each other. It's a nice thing. The kids are just amazing. It's a different level."
As to whether »
- email@example.com
14 January 2014 9:07 AM, PST | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Miramax has hired veteran producer and executive Zanne Devine as executive VP of production and development, signaling an expansion for the company.
The move comes a month after Miramax signed a 20-year deal with Harvey and Bob Weinstein for co-production and co-distribution of movies, TV and stage for titles in the Miramax library such as "Shakespeare in Love," "Swingers" and "Good Will Hunting."
Devine reports to Miramax Chairman Thomas J. Barrack, Jr., and Miramax CEO Steve Schoch. She will lead content acquisition, production and development for Miramax, overseeing both film and television.
Devine has been working with Miramax for past three years as a producer and strategic advisor on Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" TV series; Robert Rodriguez's "From Dusk Till Dawn" TV series, currently in production; "The Ninth Life of Louis Drax" written by Max Minghella; "Mimic" from writer John Shiban and "The Prophecy" with writer and director Gregory Widen. »
- Dave McNary
6 items from 2014
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#include <math.h>
int isunordered(real-floating x, real-floating y);
The isunordered() macro shall determine whether its arguments are unordered.
Upon successful completion, the isunordered() macro shall return 1 if its arguments are unordered, and 0 otherwise.
If x or y is NaN, 0 shall be returned.
No errors are defined.
The following sections are informative.
The relational and equality operators support the usual mathematical relationships between numeric values. For any ordered pair of numeric values, exactly one of the relationships (less, greater, and equal) is true. Relational operators may raise the invalid floating-point exception when argument values are NaNs. For a NaN and a numeric value, or for two NaNs, just the unordered relationship is true. This macro is a quiet (non-floating-point exception raising) version of a relational operator. It facilitates writing efficient code that accounts for NaNs without suffering the invalid floating-point exception. In the SYNOPSIS section, real-floating indicates that the argument shall be an expression of real-floating type.
isgreater() , isgreaterequal() , isless() , islessequal() , islessgreater() , the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <math.h>


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Covenant Transport Move or Die
BALTIC is pleased to present the UK premiere of Amanda Beech's Covenant Transport Move or Die 2016. This five channel video installation delivers a heady mix of analogue-style pop and video game aesthetics.
Doubled Youth
Lithuanian artist Deimantas Narkevičius presents a new 3D film. 20 July 2015 traces the removal of several socialist realist sculptures from a prominent site in central Vilnius, known as the Green Bridge.
For the final week of The Playground Project timed entry slots will be in operation each day until 30 October so everyone gets a chance to enjoy the exhibition and play. This means you may be given a time slot and asked to come back to Level 4 if capacity is at maximum.
Caroline Achaintre (born Toulouse, 1969) works across a diverse range of media that includes textiles, ceramics, prints and watercolours. Her work is colourful and potent, evoking the subversive spirit of Carnival and creating an atmosphere that is simultaneously playful and absurd
Everyone needs a costume at Halloween including your little monsters! Families can delve into a world of materials and make and create unique monster costumes with BALTIC artists to take home.
Life's too short to have the same old stuff in the same old place all the time. We all like a refresh and as the season's change, so does BALTIC Shop stock. So whether you need to re-decorate your walls with fresh art prints or grab a gift we've got it covered. Shop online with BALTIC Shop.
BALTIC Shop presents Hit the North, a special pop-up shop dedicated to souvenirs and gifts inspired by the north and designed by northern makers.
Serving hot and cold drinks, speciality coffees, alcohol, sandwiches, pastries, mouthwatering cakes and a range of freshly made meals.
BALTIC is open daily 10.00-18.00 (except Tuesdays 10.30-18.00). Last admission at 17.45.
BALTIC+ is the online home for videos, images, sounds and text celebrating BALTIC's complete exhibition history. Browse or search the site on your desktop, tablet or mobile and discover more.
Don your super-hero capes and fly down to BALTIC for Panic Room, Fresh Element's annual Halloween party.
Perfect Christmas Gift
What better way to see the Newcastle and Gateshead skyline than by launching off the top of one of the region's most iconic buildings. At a whopping 45m from the ground, zippers will glide across the river on a 280m zip line experiencing speeds of up to 40mph.
BALTIC Shop has teamed up with ceramic artist Alex Sickling to present a Christmas Ceramics Workshop. Alex will talk you through how to make a pinch-pot, perfect for tea lights and small plants, as well as Christmas tree decorations using simple hand-building techniques in this two-session workshop.


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Enumclaw High School Daily Bulletin
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Athletics & Activities go on line at: www.spslathletics.com Keep up on the Hornet scores, schedules & directions and updates. For EHS Activities go to Enumclaw School District website and click on the upcoming events calendar and then View District-Wide Calendar.
Today's New Information:
Attention Buzzy's Express Fans! Buzzy's Express will be closing for the school year on Wednesday, June 5th.
While supplies last we will be selling ALL drinks for $2.00. Again, while supplies last, we will sell every drink for $2.00. We would like to thank every student and staff member who has supported us this year!
Girls' Soccer Meeting: Wednesday, June 5 at 2:40PM in room 324.
There will be a short men's tennis pre-season meeting TODAY after school in Mr. Ihde's room ( #321). If you are planning on playing next year, or just thinking about it, come by and get information about summer tennis.
Senior Awards are TONIGHT from 6:30 to 9:00PM in the auditorium. Parents are invited. Seniors be there!
Native American students please return the loaner lap tops and graphing calculators to Cathy by Friday, June 7th.
Good morning Hornets, thank you for all of the books being returned to the Library. We still have books out that should have been returned clear back to September. Please get your books in now to avoid being on the fine list.
High school teachers, students and parents are invited to the Information Technology Open House on the Green River Campus in Auburn, TONIGHT, from – 6-8:00pm
- Learn about our new four-year degree, Bachelor of Applied Science in Information Technology: Network Administration and Security
- Meet the faculty
- Visit with current students
- Tour the server room
- Find out about IT degrees and certificates
- Check out displays of student work
- Watch live demonstrations
- Enjoy pizza and pop while you visit
Information in Review:
There will be no math tutoring for the remainder of the year due to EOC testing.
Volleyball Open Gym begins tonight from 3-5p.m. in the main gym. See you there!
All JV tennis players: Coach Bowie would like to send out a BIG thank you for a GREAT season and the AWESOME coaches gift!!!! Thank you
EHS Wrestlers: Flyers for North Idaho Wrestling Camp are now in the Athletic Office.
TODAY through June 12, Cascadian Yearbooks are on sale again. Basic book is $58.00.
Congrats to the new FFA Officer Team: Your new sentinel is KC Moulden, reporter is Kelly Shigley, treasurer is Liz Vasquez, secretary is Dawson Ossello, vice president is Levi Norton and president is Riley Campbell.
Congratulations to our Prom Royalty for 2013: King Adam Cosgrove & Queen Mary Eck
If you've purchased an honor cord for graduation, they are available to pick-up in the Main Office. If you have not purchased one yet ($7.25), please pay the cashier and bring the receipt with you to pick up.
Senior & all other student fines are posted outside the cashier's window. Please check it out and pay your fines.
Attention all seniors. If you need to send an 8th semester transcript at the end of the year to a college you have been accepted to, please sign up in the Counseling Office. These will be mailed out after grades have been finalized.
Graduation Tickets will be available & extras on sale beginning June 3 through June 6 during both lunches in the commons on stage and after school in the cashiers office. Reminder – only the graduating senior may pick the tickets up & purchase them. 10 free tickets & $3.00 for each extra. Children 5 and under do not need a ticket if they sit in your lap.
At the same time that you pick-up your tickets you will be asked to sign-up with a walking partner for graduation. (Running Start students may pick up their tickets from the cashier.)
Senior Check-out Day is Thursday, June 6.
YUP (Yearbook Unveiling Party) will be held after school on Thursday, June 6.
Baccalaureate is on Sunday, June 9 at the Sacred Heart Church at 7:00PM.
Mandatory Graduation Practice is on Monday, June 10 from 10:00-1:00PM at the White River Amphitheater.
Running Start students please email your counselor if you have a conflict with classes and this schedule.
Graduation (by ticket only) is on Monday, June 10 beginning at 7:00PM. Seniors need to be there by6:30PM.
Photos during graduation will be taken by Grad Images. You can reach them by emailing:email@example.com or if you have any questions please call 1-800-628-4509 ext. 2455
IMPORTANT DATES for 2013:
Senior Awards Tuesday, June 4 6:30 – 9:00PM Auditorium
Senior Check out (Running Start too) Thursday, June 6 2:30PM Library
YUP (Yearbook Unveiling Party) Thursday, June 6 After School Commons
EHS Film Festival Thursday, June 6 7:00PM Chalet Theater
Annual Discipline Summit Thursday, June 6 2:45-4:15PM Library
Annual Athletic Summit Thursday, June 6 2:45-4:15PM TBD
Class Day/Carnival Friday, June 7 TBD Campus
Baccalaureate Sunday, June 9 7:00PM Sacred Heart Church
Graduation Practice Monday, June 10 10:00-1:00PM White River Amphitheater
Graduation (by ticket only) Monday, June 10 7:00PM White River Amphitheater
10 free Tickets will be given to the Graduating Senior. Extra tickets can be purchased for $3.00 a piece by senior.
Freshmen Football Practice June 10, 11, 12, 13 3:30-5:30 Pete's Pool
Underclassmen Check-out Tuesday, June 11 All day Campus
LAST DAY OF SCHOOL Wednesday, June 12
Fall Sports Registration Monday, August 19 TBD Commons
(Cross Country, Football, Golf, Soccer – Girls, Swim-Girls, Tennis-Boys, Volleyball-Girls, Water Polo-Boys)
Football Tryouts Begin Wednesday, August 21 TBA
Hornet Days August 22 -23 TBA Commons
Fall Sports Begin (other than football) Monday, August 26 TBA
School Begins Tuesday, September 3
PSAT Wednesday, October 16 EHS
Homecoming 2013 Football Game Friday, October 25 7:00PM Pete's Pool (Expo Center)
Homecoming Dance (Casino Royale) Saturday, October 26
*Change of date or time
Clubs & Advisors available at EHS: Drama - Darrell Miller, Equestrian – Courtney Bowie, German – Sarah Stout, Honor Society – Kathy Ross & Susan Sandfer, Interact (Rotary) – Christy Weinbrecht, Judo – Mike Nepper, Service (Key Club) – Amy Ihde, Weight Lifting – Jenelle Stussy Murrell, Art Honor Society – Amy Weber, Culinary – Cynthia Lang, D.E.C.A. – Carol Jackson. F.C.C.L.A. – Raeann Webb & Cynthia Lang, F.F.A. – Amy Morrison, Jewelry/Skills USA – Randy Cook, Robotics-Kent Basting & Jim LovellFord, Running Club – Jenelle Murrell Stussy & Trevor Kulvi, Streetmasters – Jerry Globe, Video – Doug Wolf, G.S.A. – Jean Zeman, Water Polo – Bob Averill & Ken DeMan
COMMUNITY Happenings:
The Enumclaw Clothing Bank: We are open every Tuesday from 10am-6pm. (closed on school closures and holidays) We are located at the JJ Smith building on Fell St. in the old library. Sheila Smith 360-829-6605
YoungLife is on Monday nights at 7:37PM in Senior Locker Bay. All students are welcome.
The Black Diamond Historical Society invites you to Welsh Heritage Day Celebration on Saturday, June 8
at the Black Diamond Museum, 32627 Railroad Avenue, Black Diamond, WA. Museum opens at12:00 Noon & the Program begins at 1:00PM (which is a presentation of the history & culture of Wales.
Pretty Little Liars Mystery Event -- Thursday, June 20, from 2:00-4:00PM, for 6th through 12 grades! Fans of the TV series Pretty Little Liars meet at the Library and decipher secret messages for a mystery Hunt, do cupcake decorating and Pretty Little Liars trivia. Brought to you by the Enumclaw Teen Services Librarian, Enumclaw Library, Stephanie Zero. 360-825-2045
© Sound Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Our Titles | Work With Us


text:
Beginning today, we will publish editorial endorsements of candidates in key local races in the Nov. 6 election. The endorsements reflect The Times-Picayune editorial board's view of which candidates will best serve the interests of our communities. We will also take positions on constitutional amendments and propositions voters will decide in this election. We will not make an endorsement in the presidential race. However, in the coming weeks Times-Picayune columnists Jarvis DeBerry and James Varney will be debating -- in the newspaper and on NOLA.com -- the pros and cons of President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
A note to our Times-Picayune / NOLA.com readers: Editorial
The Editorial Board, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By
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on October 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM
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on October 14, 2012 at 6:38 AM


text:
A worker with autism leaves a sheltered shop for the regular work force, scoring successes and setbacks in his struggle to achieve independence
By Bryan Denson
The Oregonian
July 17, 2006
(Second of two parts)
VANCOUVER — On a warm, dry Wednesday night two months before his 21st birthday, Donald Lee Stevens crossed an auditorium stage to collect his high school diploma and graduated to the world of commerce.
But like hundreds of thousands of Americans with severe disabilities before and since, this 1983 graduate of Camas High School discovered that businesses threw open few doors to workers like him.
Long before doctors diagnosed him with autism, before a single classmate called him "retard," before his obsession for order compelled him to collect hundreds of phone books, he wore the label they always stuck on citizens like him. They called him special, a euphemism for a litany of serious disabilities.
Donald could not deny his special status. He had gone all the way through special education, won a slew of medals at the Special Olympics. Yet Donald's hopes were ordinary. He wanted a job and the freedom of living alone. He wanted to fit in.
The odds were terrible. Across the nation, most adults with serious disabilities were unemployed. Legions were institutionalized. Those with jobs typically worked in special workshops out of the public's sight.
By chance, Donald lived in Clark County, Wash., where a cadre of social reformers — scholars, disability advocates and public officials — were planning ways to move people like him out of the workshops into regular jobs in the community.
But Donald's passage would prove slow and painful, an object lesson in how theory and reality often collide. Finding jobs was hard, holding them even harder.
Three months after graduation, he went to work in one of the very workshops that reformers hoped to close. He earned less than $1 an hour.
Federal law permitted the charity to pay Donald and co-workers with disabilities a fraction of the minimum wage because they were less productive. And the government had a polite name for the low pay: special minimum wage.
Going to work
Donald started his first paying job in September 1983, when he walked through the doors of Encore Industries, a sheltered workshop in Vancouver.
Seated at tables were dozens of adults with mental retardation, cerebral palsy, seizure disorders and other severe disabilities. He fit right in.
Donald was a friendly eccentric born to parents with disabilities. Adopted by devout Lutherans, he was raised singing old-time gospel music. He rooted for a pro wrestler named Lonnie "Moondog" Mayne. And he was strangely preoccupied with paints, tapes and the strong glues that hold flooring into place.
Donald collected phone directories to memorize the addresses of hardware stores that carried his favorite home improvement products, a collection of books that grew to nearly 1,000.
He was an awkward man. His feet clomped, fingers fluttered. His eyes sometimes blinked rapid fire. He suffered seizures from time to time, and his stutter was so severe that simple phrases sometimes left spittle in the corners of his mouth.
Donald's mind was good. He could read and write, although his handwriting was poor. He labored to put thoughts into sequence. Sometimes his brain unexpectedly stuck like a digital clock left blinking by an electrical storm.
Donald spent his days at Encore on boring chores, such as putting stickers on record albums or blow-drying carpet in an auto-detailing operation. Later he went to work at Vantech Enterprises NW, another Vancouver workshop, where he put stickers on bags of animal feed. At the time, the two shops paid so poorly that workers with disabilities, on average, earned less than $30 a month.
Workers built and packaged products for outside companies. But they weren't considered employees. Charity bosses often called them "clients" or "consumers."
Supported assistance
In the early 1990s, Clark County disability officials and state caseworkers launched a campaign to steer people like Donald out of sheltered workshops. They asked the workers and their parents a simple question: Would you like a job somewhere else? Donald and most of the others said yes.
Nine years after walking into Encore, Donald met with a job coach to find work on the outside. Norm Goldman ran an employment agency for the disabled and championed mainstreaming workers into regular jobs with the help of coaches, an approach known as supported employment.
In May 1992, Goldman helped Donald find work at a McDonald's restaurant in Vancouver. The job paid Washington's minimum wage at the time, $4.25 an hour, far more than he'd ever earned.
Two months later, with regular paychecks coming in, Donald moved out of his adoptive mother's home and into his first apartment, a studio in downtown Camas. He was nearly 30 years old.
One morning the next February, after Donald finished a shift at the restaurant, he was crossing 112th Avenue when a motorist ran a red light. Her car plowed into him, breaking his legs.
"He was shellshocked," Goldman later recalled.
Months of convalescence cost Donald his job, his apartment and much of his confidence.
A vest and name tag
As Donald recuperated, Goldman worked to find a position that matched his protg's preoccupation with home improvement products. He looked into jobs at a paint factory and a phone book distribution warehouse.
Donald dreamed of working in hardware. So Goldman talked to Hi-School Pharmacy, affiliated with True Value Hardware, and pitched Donald as a prospective employee. The position came with a vest and a name tag. He spent five years stocking shelves, watering plants and cleaning restrooms.
"This was his dream job," Goldman later said.
The young man's hardware fixation seemed harmless to Goldman until he got a call from a supervisor at the hardware store. Donald had been caught pilfering pens to highlight his phone books.
Hi-School Pharmacy fired him in January 1999.
Donald's moods grew dark during five months of unemployment, and they did not improve even when Goldman got him another McDonald's job. He showed up for work unshaven, needing a bath. Sometimes he was surly.
McDonald's fired him in October 2001.
Donald had long dreamed of working at a big-box hardware store. Goldman made some progress trying to get him an interview at Home Depot in Vancouver. But Donald jumped the gun, showing up at the store uninvited and phoning daily to appeal for work. Home Depot didn't invite him in for a formal interview.
Goldman watched Donald's moods cycle downward, undermining years of progress. The young man ran so low on cash that he sometimes raided neighbors' recycling bins, hauling bottles and cans by bus to Jantzen Beach for the nickel deposits.
Donald made such a pest of himself, phoning Goldman two and three times a day, that the job coach set limits on their time together. For his part, Donald felt Goldman wasn't doing him much good either. Eventually, Goldman sat Donald down for the news.
He needed to find a new job coach.
Frustration mounts
Geneva Wood, a former day-care operator and mother of two, had worked as a trainer in Vantech's sheltered workshop. But she grew frustrated with what she saw as the warehousing of workers with disabilities and took a job with an agency that focused on getting them work elsewhere.
As Donald's coach, Wood got him two interviews in the spring of 2003 at a new Lowe's on Northeast 76th Street. The chain is the nation's second-largest home improvement retailer.
Wood often found that prospective employers posed interview questions to her instead of her clients, talking around them as if they were children. But Lowe's supervisors talked directly to Donald, one of 700 applicants competing for 90 jobs.
Donald had been jobless 20 months, and his frustration mounted as he waited to hear from Lowe's. One day, he simply marched into the store and buttonholed manager Shaun Garvin. He told Garvin that Lowe's should hire him because people with disabilities shop at his store, too.
Wood phoned Donald a few days later to let him know she'd heard about his drop-in visit to Lowe's. The stunt could have backfired, she said. But this time, persistence proved a virtue.
He got the job.
"Star player" status
Donald's starting pay was $8.50 an hour, far more than he'd ever made in his life.
He performed his 20-hour-a-week job so exceptionally that a secret shopper — someone pretending to be a customer — awarded him a perfect score.
His bosses were happy enough with his labors in the gardening center, watering plants and stocking shelves and crushing cargo boxes, that they cross-trained him one day a week in the flooring aisle. The flooring job wasn't glamorous. But, as Steve Siemers, the operations manager, observed, "Donald loves it."
Donald loved the flooring aisle because it carried glues manufactured by his favorite adhesives manufacturer, the W.W. Henry Co. of Aliquippa, Pa.
Disability advocates, including Wood, had begun to hold Donald up as a model of supported employment. He gave speeches and PowerPoint presentations about his dream job at Lowe's, calling himself the gardening center's "star player."
Donald had spoken to a conference on autism at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. He readied for the after-dinner music by jotting down the names of women at the gathering, later pulling out this literal dance card as he approached each of them for a spin.
Like many people with major disabilities, Donald suffered an abiding loneliness. But now his love life was on the upswing. He dated one woman regularly; they worshipped together at church.
One morning last September, Wood stopped in to observe Donald as he broke down boxes in the gardening center. Typically she popped in to observe the 43-year-old worker as he negotiated his job, then left. But lately, she kept a closer eye on Donald.
He had gotten into hot water for begging co-workers to bring him out-of-town phone books. One co-worker had shot e-mails to other Lowe's stores asking for directories, and a few had sent them.
Donald was so preoccupied with hardware products that he'd taken to poring through the phone directories at Vancouver's main library, taking handwritten notes about his favorite stores. After one recent visit, he had looked up to announce, "Cedar Rapids is complete."
Wood knew Donald brought order to his mind by memorizing things. But she worried that what once seemed an eccentric fixation had grown into an obsession.
Needing help
Donald suspected he needed help. So he phoned The Arc of Clark County, a nonprofit that provides services to 175 adults with significant disabilities.
One day early last fall, he found himself sitting in the charity's main conference room with David Pitonyak, 50, a therapist from Blacksburg, Va. Pitonyak, whose specialty is helping people with challenging behaviors, was on contract with Clark County to help its Community Services clients.
Donald began by listing his disabilities, from his autistic mind to his spastic feet, then explained how his compulsions were causing trouble at work.
Pitonyak reviewed his complaints with a voice practiced in serenity.
"Certain thoughts you're having over and over again," he said. "It's hard for you to stop thinking about those things."
"OK, and you'd like some help thinking about them?"
"Anything else?"
Donald explained that he felt boxed in by his phone book collecting, which caused him to break company policies and procedures.
"So there's some days," Pitonyak said, "when you start thinking about things and you can switch and start thinking about something different.
"Then there are some days when you start thinking about something negative, maybe something at work, something that's bugging you. And you can't get unstuck for the life of you."
Pitonyak told Donald it was common for people with autism to get stuck on thoughts, often because of stress. Pitonyak advised Donald to take long walks. He also encouraged him to socialize with others who have autism, partly to remind him he's not alone.
The two men made small talk until Donald interrupted.
"David? David?"
"I'm kind of curious. What kinds of (hardware) stores do you have in your area, believe it or not?"
Donald pointed out that his phone book collection lacked a Blacksburg directory.
Pitonyak saw where this was headed and stopped him cold.
"That's one of those things that you're stuck on."
Domestic chores
One day last April, Debbie Thompson walked just behind Donald as he pushed a shopping cart through the big swinging doors of an Albertsons grocery in Vancouver.
Thompson works for The Arc, which serves as Donald's legal guardian and handles most of his financial affairs.
Donald gave the charity his monthly Social Security check of $804 and his take-home pay from Lowe's, which came to about $560 a month. The Arc used that money to cover Donald's monthly rent ($419), electric bill (about $52.50), phone (about $17), bus pass ($18), newspaper subscriptions and other incidentals, as well as giving him $260 a month in cash for food and spending money.
The Arc also provides "resource guides" like Thompson, who average about two hours a day with Donald. They act as chauffeurs, life coaches and confidants.
At Albertsons, Donald's cart seemed to make a beeline for the bakery, where he plucked a cake from a display. Chunks of Snickers bars swam on the icing.
"A cake?" Thompson asked.
"I have a sweet tooth," Donald said, eyes twinkling.
He pushed on, picking up a bag of oranges, Diet Pepsi, a jar of Smucker's jam, orange soda, milk, laundry detergent, frozen shredded hash browns, ground beef and three boxes of frozen Hot Pockets. Bachelor provisions.
Thompson dropped Donald off at his apartment in a large complex in walking distance to Lowe's. He had turned this domicile into a virtual shrine to Nascar, heavy on Jimmie Johnson. Every hard flat surface was alive with photos of the Lowe's No. 48 car, including his ceiling fan.
Donald and his girlfriend had broken up, and he was unhappy that she already was dating. He checked his answering machine and heard a familiar voice.
"You have no messages."
A blowup
Donald fumed as he flattened cardboard boxes and stuffed them into Lowe's recycling machine one day last month.
His personal life was in tumult. He had taken an interest in another woman from his church group, but she never could break free long enough to be alone with him. He had summoned the courage to ask a co-worker to join him for a "friendly date" after work, but she had other plans.
And now, work was unbearable. Lowe's had hired another man with disabilities, and Donald took it as an effort to replace him as the store's "star player." A co-worker had turned him in to human resources for calling the new guy an unflattering name.
Donald clocked out and headed to the break room, with its lockers and bulletin boards. His gaze fell on the co-worker he suspected of complaining to HR. "I hope you're satisfied!" Donald shouted. Then he hurled his backpack across the floor and lifted a fist.
The scene grew so intense that a co-worker strode across the break area and talked Donald into joining him in the training room next door to calm down. There Donald's frustrations erupted. He complained that his store manager was trying to break him of his phone book collection and that co-workers were ganging up on him. And he was lonely.
"No matter how hard I try, it is hard to lean on the Lord in faith," he said. "I keep searching in vain for someone my own age and my own level, so to speak."
Donald went grocery shopping after work, then sat at his dining room table to write down his grievances. By the time he finished, it was a letter of resignation.
He turned it in later that day.
Starting anew
Five days after the blowup, Wood took a seat with her suddenly jobless client at his dining table.
Donald was having second thoughts about resigning. His pay had been raised to $9.25 an hour. He was embarrassed about his hand-scrawled resignation, choked with what he called "self-pity."
Wood was crestfallen. One of the frustrations of supported employment was that workers often changed jobs. But this was a tough one. Donald wasn't just Lowe's star team player. He was hers, too.
"Companies can't have people getting angry and throwing things and what was it, where you . . . ."
Donald completed her sentence: "Cocked my fist at the other co-worker."
"They may accept your resignation for their own safety," she said. "Do you see what I'm saying?"
Wood pointed out that he'd gotten angry at work before. Donald sighed, looking forlorn.
Wood told him she was concerned about how he'd prevent such behavior in the future.
"Because dream jobs don't come every day," she said. "And this job took a long time to get."
"I know."
Wood asked him how he might avoid such blowups.
"Wish I could think before I sense things welling up inside of me, so to speak, Geneva." Gravely, Wood picked up Donald's phone and set up a meeting at Lowe's for her and Donald the following morning. With a motherly touch, she put a hand on Donald's.
"Don't beat yourself up anymore, OK?"
Just another guy
Lowe's accepted Donald's resignation.
News of his sudden joblessness set in motion a network of case managers at The Arc, Clark County Community Services and the state's Division of Developmental Disabilities.
Later that afternoon, the charity convened one of its regular "team meetings" with Donald. His support staff — five women, including Wood — surrounded him at the head of a conference table.
Wood explained that Donald needed time to work with a counselor on his anger and obsessive behavior before returning to the work force.
The women knew Donald would find another job. So did Donald. But after working in fast-food and retail, he now was thinking about taking a job in a nursery, having developed at Lowe's an interest in flowers, shrubs and trees.
But the journey had taught him a few things.
He knew what it was like to work in the safety of dead-end sheltered workshop jobs, which no longer exist in Clark County. He recalled the low pay and boring work with two dismissive words: "Highway robbery."
Donald also knew how good it felt to work elbow to elbow with the rest of the world, to have a name badge, a vest, to earn a real paycheck, to keep himself fed, to go home tired and fret over money. He knew the pleasure of talking to a customer about flooring, of watching him walk away with a big pail of Henry's adhesive in his cart.
Out in the real world, he hadn't felt so disabled. He was just another guy earning a paycheck.
One thing he knew for certain: There was no going back.
Jeff Kosseff and Faith Cathcart of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report.
Bryan Denson: 503-294-7614; firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Andrew Holmes
posted this on June 12, 2012, 16:44
Nitro PDF Reader 2
1. Browse to the location that you installed Nitro PDF Reader 2
(By default - 32-bit is C:\Program Files\Nitro PDF\Reader 2 and 64-bit is C:\Program Files (x86)\Nitro PDF\Reader 2)
2. Locate NitroPDFReaderSupportTools.exe and run this application
3. In the Support Tools dialog, select the PDF Creation tab.
4. Click on Nitro PDF Creator 2 (Reader) to reinstall the virtual printer.
Note: Users of Windows Vista and Windows 7 must run the Support Tools with Administrative Rights to complete this task


text:
Design of the PQE
The PQE is an essay exam constructed to assess the student's capability to design a research proposal based on a research problem scenario presented to them. It also tests the capacity for clear and logical expository writing. The student answers one question chosen from a set of four or five questions based on a policy or management problem. The PQE does not examine specific substantive knowledge from any given course; instead, it relies on the student's general knowledge and the appreciation of the logic of applied social science research.
The PQE is offered once a year in March. Students should sign up for the exam with the Assistant Director of the Doctoral Program. Sample exams are available to assist students in preparing for this exam. In addition, the program runs a PQE study group beginning in January each year.
Grading of the PQE
Each exam is graded independently by at least two faculty members. They are reviewed and graded anonymously. The faculty members then compare results and discuss any discrepancies in the grades. Students are notified of their final grades approximately four weeks after taking the exam. Students who do not pass are encouraged to speak to the relevant faculty to see how they can improve their performance. The specific areas considered in assessing the quality of the exam include: research context, articulation of a conceptual framework/causal model, statement of hypothesis, study design, sampling strategy/method of assignment, quality of measures, data source/data collection, analysis plan and limitations.
Aspects and Criteria for Assessing PQE Performance
|Aspect of The Examinee's Response
|Criteria for Rating the Aspect
|Research Context
|Has sense of the policy context for the proposed work (no detailed knowledge expected).
|Articulation of a Conceptual Framework/Causal Model
|Articulates IV, DV, and Covariates. Includes short statement of the theory of the treatment (no detailed knowledge of substance required).
|Statement of the Hypothesis
|Clear statement of questions addressed.
|Clear statement of type of design to be used; design appropriate to topic. Unit of analysis identified.
|Sampling Strategy/Method of Assignment
|Rationale for choice of that sample (those subjects) as exemplars; realistic sense of where subjects might come from.
A plus: discussion of recruitment or identification issues. Method of assignment to treatment and comparison status discussed (when appropriate).
|Quality of Measures
|Brief description of how constructs are operationalized through specific measures. Recognition that operationalization can be problematic.
|Data Source/Data Collection
|Realistic sense of where data might come from. No data ex machina; attention to spatial and temporal issues.
|Analysis Plan
|Plan should be brief and non-technical (no advanced knowledge of statistics expected).
|Measures- validity issues, particularly
Design- threats to internal validity
External Validity Issues - bias
A plus: discussion of how these might be mitigated in future work.
|Logical Organization of Answer
|Answer is organized into logical sections and each individual part of response is clearly developed (separated by bolding, effective use of paragraphing, etc.).
Uses topic sentences effectively; employs smooth, logical transitions.
|Quality of Writing
|Response written in a clear, grammatical style. Arguments and ideas are logical, well developed and clearly stated.


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The New Jersey Nets have decided to play two exhibition games at the Prudential Center this fall, and we're not sure if they did it because a) they're trying to expand the team's fan base; b) they're tired of playing in a place that's quieter than the East Rutherford library; c) they have never seen a fan arrive on a train; or d) they just want to quiet Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
But watch out, Nets. Whatever the reason for packing up the station wagon and visiting the cousins in their Mulberry Street McMansion for a couple of nights, it could backfire. Nets fans might get a taste of what they're missing.
Why is it that when the Nets say they're going to play at the Rock, even for only two nights, we hear the theme song from "The Jeffersons" in our heads?
"Well, we're movin' on up . . ."
Imagine, Nets fans, an arena in the heart of a city, not wedged between highways, off ramps and construction sites. Imagine parking lots without hovering, pooping seagulls asking, "Hey, you gonna eat that?" Imagine food choices beyond sweating hot dogs in soggy buns. Imagine spacious concourses where you don't have to knock over people standing in food lines to enter crowded bathrooms.
And imagine an NBA game that doesn't sound like a memorial service for the least-liked guy in the neighborhood.
And imagine all that in New Jersey.
The Nets insist they're moving to Bruce Ratner's proposed Strip Mall Deluxe in Brooklyn. Even Norman Oder, the New York community activist who, for years, has been calling technical fouls on Ratner and his lawyers, concedes that the team probably will open the 2012-13 season in the new Brooklyn digs. But, with the economy in a downward spiral and no bottom in sight, Brooklyn isn't a slam-dunk yet. And with each delay, the Prudential Center -- with better facilities and more luxury suites -- becomes a more attractive option, even if it's temporary.
Meanwhile, here's what Nets fans who come to those two games at the Prudential Center will realize: Arenas with a pulse have three things in common -- location, location, location. Basketball courts plunked down like rest stops on the side of a highway don't draw anymore.
Fans want to tap into the synergy of an arena and a city -- atmosphere, bars and restaurants, honking cabs and mass transit. They want to mingle with fellow sports crazies in same-color jerseys. They want an experience.
After all, isn't that the lure of the college game -- the throbbing vibe of a campus with its raucous student body?
The Devils, who have been playing at the Rock since October 2007, have witnessed jumps in home attendance, from an average of 14,176 in 2007 to 15,564 last year and 15,625 this year.
In the end, the Nets' fate will come down to money -- whether Ratner and his investors still have enough of it , and if they don't, what follows as Plan B.
What Booker really needs is the closing of the Izod Center, which would allow Newark and the Prudential Center to land the lucrative A-list concerts currently booked at the Meadowlands. That's where the real money is.
But all the courtroom and zoning board wrangling aside, for two nights next fall, Nets fans will get a taste of a different NBA experience. They'll like it. And when they realize they don't have to cross a rickey footbridge to get it, they'll really like it.


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FAIRMONT - Fairmont Area Schools has added a section of kindergarten and third grade in response to higher-than-estimated enrollment.
As of Friday, 149 students were enrolled in six sections of kindergarten. With additional students expected, the district numbers would exceed 25 students per class. An additional teacher brings the number down to 21 students per class.
In third grade, enrollment on Friday settled at 141 for five sections. That brought the student-teacher ratio to 28.2. Adding a section brings the number down to 23.5.
District officials say it is especially important for younger students to have smaller class sizes because they are learning to read. The reading level of third-graders is tied to state funding levels, according to Superintendent Joe Brown.
"It is so important to keep those numbers smaller in the K, first and second grade," he said. "My guess is that between now and next Thursday, we will pick up a few new students."
Brown said districts need to be conservative when making estimates of students during budget-setting meetings the previous year because schools cannot cut sections once they have been included. They can, however, add sections.
The sections added Tuesday bring the elementary school to capacity, with no more room for new sections.
The entire district enrollment is about 1,730, a slight increase over last year.
Ra'Keeta Pfingsten was hired to fill the new third-grade teaching position, with Trisha Vlaminck hired to teach the new kindergarten section.
In other business Tuesday, the school board approved a pilot project to transport 10 local Alternative Learning Center students to the facility's new location in Winnebago.
Minnesota Motor Bus already is scheduled to send six Day Treatment Center students from Fairmont to Winnebago daily on a 24-person bus. The district pays per hour, not per student, so including 10 ALC students is free.


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Hi everyone,
DC Tri will be hosting Aid Station #2 again this year for the Savageman 30.0. If you are interested/able to help out, please let me know. We could use a couple of more people. The station is located at the entrance to the campground loop and the time frame is roughly 10:45-1:00.
travis dot siehndel at gmail dot com


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NEW YORK -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is demanding more savings from city agencies. It's the ninth cut in the past 3½ years.
City Hall told agency heads on today to squeeze their budgets.
The Education Department and uniformed forces must cut spending by 2.7 percent this fiscal year and 4 percent next fiscal year.
All other agencies are told to trim by 5.4 percent now and 8 percent next fiscal year.
The Bloomberg administration says the city faces a $3.3 billion budget gap for fiscal 2012, which begins July 1, 2011.


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SARANAC LAKE - Mount Pisgah Ski Center in Saranac Lake hosted the Top of the Mountain alpine ski races Sunday for competitors of all ages.
Ava Day and Hayden Olsen were awarded the Scheefer Cup as the fastest girl and boy in the under-12 age group. Day turned in a two-run time of 1:13.29 and Olsen clocked a 1:10.89.
Jake Reynolds and Ryley Fischer each earned a Russell Trophy for the top boy and girls finisher in the 12- to 18-year-old age group. Reynolds finished with a combined time of 1:06.92 while Fischer clocked a 1:10.05.
Article Photos
All the medal winners from Sunday's Top of the Mountain skiing races pose for a photo outside of the lodge at Mount Pisgah Ski Center in Saranac Lake. Terence Fogarty clocked the fastest time of the day with a combined two-run time of 1:05.32 in the 40- to 49-year-old age group. Ryley Fischer, competing in the 12- to 13-year-old age group, was the fastest female with a 1:10.05.
(Photo provided)
Scheefer Cup winners Ava Day and Hayden Olsen show off their plaques after turning in the fastest times for racers up to 11 years old. Day turned in a two-run time of 1:10.89, while Olsen combined for a 1:13.29. Both competed in the 10- to 11-year-old age group.
(Photo provided)
Russell Trophy winners Jake Reynolds and Ryley Fischer were the fastest skiers in the 12- to 18-year-old age group. Reynolds recorded a combined time of 1:06.92. Fischer narrowly won the girls race with her time of 1:10.05 to beat Erica Swirsky who clocked a 1:10.60.
(Photo provided)


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Friday, November 13, 2009
To Circumcise, or Not to Circumcise
Studies show that male circumcision causes the loss of sensation: http://www.forward.com/articles/2704/
Related to: Penn & Teller: Bullshit! - Circumcision
Also watch: Moolaadé - Protection
6 comments:
- Charles said...
The article you referenced does not mention any studies that show that circumcision causes a loss of sensation.
The article claims that some book that seems to me, by the language used in reference to it, to demonise circumcision, brings together the "scientific consensus" that circumcision diminishes sexual pleasure!
What a joke...
If I ever have a son I will get him circumcised as a favour for his health (there are good studies that suggest it reduces transmission of aids) and future sexual activity.
I'm an ex Muslim who converted to Islam when 18 and got circumcised.
The reason I wanted to leave this comment is that there is a serious amount of harm caused by forms of female circumcision and medical malpractice when carrying out circumcision. I think these issues would be better not being confused with something like properly done male circumcision.
- November 15, 2009 at 7:14 PM
- BlindW@cher said...
It's just a reference. Did you search for the studies? Did you read the book? No?
Just unsupported comments...
Here is the some studies (look at the link for more):
Some recent researchers have asserted that the foreskin may be sexually responsive.[14][15][16][17] Opponents of circumcision have cited these studies, which report on the sensitivity or innervation of the foreskin, claiming a sexual role based upon the presence of nerve-endings in the foreskin sensitive to light touch, stroking and fluttering sensations.
Circumcision removes the ridged band at the end of the foreskin.[16] Taylor (1996) observed that the ridged band had more Meissner's corpuscles — a kind of nerve ending that is concentrated in areas of greatest sensitivity[citation needed] — than the areas of the foreskin with smooth mucus membranes. Taylor postulated that the ridged band is sexually sensitive and plays a role in normal sexual function. He also suggested that the gliding action, possible only when there was enough loose skin on the shaft of the penis, serves to stimulate the ridged band through contact with the corona of the glans penis during vaginal intercourse.[18] This gliding action was also described by Lakshmanan (1980).[19]
Boyle et al. (2002) argued that circumcision and frenectomy remove tissues with "heightened erogenous sensitivity," stating "the genitally intact male has thousands of fine touch receptors and other highly erogenous nerve endings—many of which are lost to circumcision."[20] They concluded, "Evidence has also started to accumulate that male circumcision may result in lifelong physical, sexual, and sometimes psychological harm as well."
Yeah, female circumcision is more brutal but that does not justify the circumcision producure on males.
But male circumcision is risky too:
* Circumcision is always risky: Circumcision always carries the risk of serious, even tragic, consequences. Its surgical complication rate is one in 500.48 These complications include uncontrollable bleeding and fatal infections.49 There are many published case reports of gangrene following circumcision.50 Pathogenic bacteria such as staphylococcus, Proteus, Pseudomonas, other coliforms, and even tuberculosis can cause infections leading to death.51, 52 These organisms enter the wound because it provides easy entry, not because the child is predisposed to infection.
Medical journals have published numerous accounts of babies who have had part or all of their glans cut off while they were being circumcised.53, 54, 55 Other fully conscious, unanesthetized babies have had their entire penis burned off with an electrocautery gun.56, 57, 58 The September 1989 Journal of Urology published an account of four such cases.59 The article described the sex-change operation as "feminizing genitoplasty," performed on these babies in an attempt to change them into girls. The March 1997 Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine described one young person's horror on learning that "she" had been born a normal male, but that a circumciser had burned his penis off when he was a baby.60 Many other similar cases have been documented.61, 62 Infant circumcision has a reported death rate of one in 500,000.63, 64
The studies about preventing AIDS are suspicious and disputatious.
To circumcise a kid to protect him from HIV is an irrational approach in this case.
According to that argument, then we can say that women surgically remove their breasts to protect them from breast cancer.
Is that less logical than circumcision?
That is the real big joke!
- November 15, 2009 at 8:32 PM
- Charles said...
Well I'll have to get back to you when I have time to go through some of this stuff.
Just some thoughts though.
The references you are giving, except for the Wikipedia one, are not giving both sides of the issue. Articles by "Mothers against circumcision" and the other called "Marked in your flesh" (think that was it), come across as having an ideological bias.
I do not doubt that the foreskin does produce sensation. But you are mixing things up if you are to conclude that that leads to a loss of sexual pleasure or even loss of sensation during sex. They are different things altogether. There are many more variables to sex than the sensation that the foreskin produces.
The penis head is constantly exposed and rubbing against the inside of their partner during sex for a circumcised man.
I don't think that it is a good analogy comparing removal of breasts to avoid breast cancer and the removal of the male foreskin so that HIV cannot be transmitted through it (I'll have to check but I think that is the case).
Breasts are different than foreskin in terms of their importance to people. If you cut a women's breasts off she will probably appear disfigured and perhaps unattractive to most men. Also, do you see heaps of people wanting to cut their breasts off for the sake of pleasure?
Good science takes into account both sides of an argument.
- November 17, 2009 at 9:43 AM
- BlindW@cher said...
This is an example of using science to justify an ancient tradition due to health issues. Circumcision wasn't discovered to protect people from HIV. So you approve circumcision just in this matter? (Even there are more simple and bloodless methods like using condom!) If there was a total cure for HIV, you would do this operation again? While you are blaming the studies against circumcision, you suppose they may not be objective, but how do you so sure on supporting studies?
The analogy is not wrong. All my body parts are important for me and anybody even my family has no right what will I remove from it!
Why do I choose decreased pleasure?
There were no significant differences in sexual drive, erection, ejaculation, and ejaculation latency time between circumcised and uncircumcised men. Masturbatory pleasure decreased after circumcision in 48% of the respondents, while 8% reported increased pleasure. Masturbatory difficulty increased after circumcision in 63% of the respondents but was easier in 37%. About 6% answered that their sex lives improved, while 20% reported a worse sex life after circumcision.
The supporting studies mostly arguable.
Evidence that sexual exposures were responsible for only 27% of HIV incidence appears inconsistent with the observed 60% lower incidence in circumcised than in uncircumcised men. Some of the observed lower incidence in circumcised men may be due to less non-sexual HIV acquisition during their less frequent health care for genital complaints[1,2]. Some men many have misreported their sexual behavior; however, insofar as assumed misreporting is relied on to explain what happened, any conclusion that circumcision protects would not be based on evidence, but rather on assumptions that overcome evidence.
Other puzzles in the study include much higher HIV incidence for men aged more vs. less than 21 years, for men recruited before vs. after 30 December 2002, and for men during the 13th to 21st months of follow-up vs. the 4th to 12th months. Does this evidence provide any clues to blood exposures and non-sexual acquisition?
It may be that non-sexual HIV acquisition in this study cannot be identified and delimited. If so, it's not clear how convincing this research will be, or should be, in promoting circumcision for HIV prevention. Evidence from other studies suggesting a protective effect from circumcision may already be sufficient to persuade uncircumcised men in long-term partnerships with HIV-positive women to seek circumcision. However, without good evidence that circumcision prevents not less than some specified number of HIV infections per 1,000 coital acts with HIV-positive women, is it responsible to recommend circumcision to men who are anticipating possible coitus with unknown non-spousal partners? Data reported from this study do not (yet) provide that evidence.
- November 17, 2009 at 2:38 PM
- BlindW@cher said...
The study by Auvert et al (1) will certainly go into the history of HIV prevention as a landmark. The study is important because the results are the first blinded randomized study demonstrating that HIV can be prevented by male circumcision (MC). Although double-blinded studies are considered a panacea, the nature of the intervention, however, necessitated that double blinding was impracticable - i.e. it was impossible for the men to be circumcised without them knowing that they had been circumcised.
The other challenge is that medical practice is conservative - i.e. it is unlikely that any country will immediately include MC in its policy for the prevention of HIV. The reasons include: these studies may not be corroborated in forthcoming studies, the potential harms still need to be considered in order to assess the cost-benefit ratio. Even in South Africa where the study was carried out, it will be a while before MC is incorporated into the national HIV prevention policy. Interestingly, however, the institutional review board stopped the study prematurely, as is always deemed ethical, before the completion of the study, suggesting implicitly perhaps their endorsement that MC works and ought to be standard practice and no one needed to be further exposed to not being circumcised.
(And there are different issues too)
Researchers in the HIV field face the dilemma of not subjecting their study subjects to undue harm through stigmatization and discrimination. In several Southern African countries, providing HIV test results to clients of health services and research subjects is at the discretion of the client. That there is no requirement for people who test positive to inform others who may benefit from the disclosure is, in my opinion, an important omission in the prevention of HIV in the region. It may be useful, to include at the time of obtaining informed consent that "should you test HIV positive, we will encourage you to inform your sexual partners about the test results.
In a nutshell, there is no any logical base to be circumcised.
- November 17, 2009 at 2:39 PM
- ernest said...
there are different methods for circumcision... certain procedures that do severe the foreskin containing the nerves could do just that -- lead to some loss of sensation. However, I think most(?) doctors who do the procedure avoid this now... but anyway, I don't think it's always justified even with the supposed medical benefits. If I were in Africa, or say, plan to have sex with a lot of different people... maybe circumcision is best. There is no single right answer here it depends on the context, risks and benefits have to be weighed.
- December 6, 2009 at 6:05 AM


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Research says that one of the best ways to encourage the growth of language skills is to read to your baby… from birth. It's never too early. Apparently, this encourages language development. According to the book Baby Read-Aloud Basics, "… by age four, children who are read to are exposed to 32 million more words than children who haven't been read books." I don't know how often you need to read to your baby to attain that, but anything is better than nothing and variety is important. To get started, here a couple of books I bought to start with Kamea (Herb The Vegetarian Dragon and That's Why We Don't Eat Animals). Next up? The Twilight Series. I hope she's Team Edward.
What are your favorite books to read to your children?


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Results tagged ' Giancarlo Stanton '
Just putting together some notes on Giancarlo Stanton's 2014 home runs. Here's some fun stuff (all info culled from ESPN Stats and Info Group's Hittrackeronline.com):
Stanton's average 2014 home run traveled 415.3 feet. No major leaguer who hit more than 20 homers had a longer average distance.
There were 50 home runs in all of Baseball that traveled at least 450 feet last season. Giancarlo hit 7 of them.
10 teams didn't hit a single long ball that traveled at least 450 feet.
No other team had more than the Giants' 5 and the Blue Jays' 4.
The Angels, Dodgers, Cubs and Royals hit 3, and the Red Sox, Braves, D-Backs, Twins, Rockies, Brewers and Athletics hit 2.
Outside of Stanton's 7, only 4 major leaguers hit as many as 2 homers of at least 450 feet: Michael Morse of the Giants, Edwin Encarnacion of the Blue Jays, Billy Butler of the Royals and Justin Upton of the Braves.
The only other Marlins to go 450 in 2014: Marcell Ozuna went 462 off Yovani Gallardo September 8 at Milwaukee, and Justin Bour went 450 on the nose with his first big league long ball September 19 vs. Washington off Doug Fister.
For more on the Marlins and Major League Baseball, follow me on Twitter at @GlennGeffner. To have new Fish Tales posts delivered directly to you via email, please click the "Follow" button and enter your email address. And tune in for all the Marlins action throughout the spring and all season long on 940 WINZ and the Marlins Radio Network.
I've got a jam-packed 2 hours of Marlins Hot Stove talk for you from 7-9 tonight.
Over the course of the 2 hours, I'll talk with Marlins first base coach and infield instructor extraordinaire Perry Hill (below) as well as Marlins righthander Tom Koehler (right).
I'll discuss my outside-the-box proposal for a 2015 Marlins batting order, which you can read at http://glenngeffner.mlblogs.com/2015/01/10/shuffling-the-lineup-card/
Former Marlin and current MLB Network Analyst Cliff Floyd shares his thoughts on the moves the Marlins have made this winter.
Our coverage of the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2015 includes a Kyle Sielaff conversation with our own Hall of Famer, Dave Van Horne. Dave was the voice of the Montreal Expos when Hall of Fame electee Pedro Martinez broke through in the big leagues, and he'll share some terrific memories of a young Pedro beginning on the road to Cooperstown.
And I'll begin a series on the Marlins' rivals in the National League East Division with a look at the New York Mets, talking with Mets radio broadcaster Josh Lewin.
Marlins Hot Stove airs every Monday night throughout the offseason on 940 WINZ. You can also listen live on iHeart Radio and at Marlins.com/HotStove.
If you want to get caught up on what you've missed to this point throughout the winter–guests like Michael Hill, Dan Jennings, Mike Redmond, Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Steve Cishek, Dee Gordon, Michael Morse, Mat Latos, Jack McKeon and more–all of our Marlins Hot Stove shows are archived at Marlins.com/HotStove, and they're also available as free podcasts on the iTunes Store.
For more on the Marlins and Major League Baseball, follow me on Twitter at @GlennGeffner and friend me on Facebook at Facebook.com/GlennGeffner. To have new Fish Tales posts delivered directly to you via email, please click the "Follow" button and enter your email address. And join me for Marlins Hot Stove talk every Monday night from 7-9 p.m. on AM 940 WINZ, iHeart Radio and Marlins.com/HotStove.
While I don't pretend to have a thorough understanding of all the numbers, I find Baseball Analytics to be fascinating.
In recent years, I've incorporated some advanced metrics into our Marlins radio broadcasts. While stats like WAR (wins above replacement), BABIP (batting average on balls in play) and FIP (fielding independent pitching) can help add some context to the game, there are some statistics (defensive metrics for example) in which I have little confidence and reference rarely, if at all. And there are others that, while they definitely carry some weight, are virtually impossible to use in the context of a radio broadcast because it's just not practical to dedicate the time necessary to give a thorough explanation of exactly what you're talking about every time you want to reference wRC+ (weighted runs created plus for those of you who didn't take a foreign language in high school). TV could use an on-screen graphic to provide a definition if it chose to without interfering with the game. On radio, it's just not possible when nothing that a play-by-play man does is more important than describing what's happening on the field at that second.
The one area of Analytics that has particularly interested me is lineup construction. The point is this: There are ways to maximize the number of runs you score with the 9 players in your batting order. And it often boils down to hitting this player 3rd instead of 4th and that guy 5th instead of 7th. It's about having the right hitters not just in the lineup but in the right spots in the lineup.
That brings me to the 2015 Marlins.
Barring injury or something else unforeseen, we know who the 8 position players will be in Mike Redmond's Opening Day lineup. The question becomes how do you line them up in order to maximize the Marlins' season-long offensive efficiency.
I've got a radical proposal to make.
At one point in the winter, immediately after the Michael Morse signing, it looked like there was one most logical way to make the pieces fit:
1. Dee Gordon, 2B
2. Christian Yelich, LF
3. Giancarlo Stanton, RF
4. Michael Morse, 1B
5. Casey McGehee, 3B
6. Marcell Ozuna, CF
7. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
8. Adeiny Hechavarria, SS
9. Pitcher
But then, for me, things changed. In separate trades consummated on the same December afternoon, the Marlins added Martin Prado and subtracted Casey McGehee.
Could Prado, who would take over for Casey at third base, slot right in to the 5-hole McGehee would vacate? Sure. But he's enjoyed most of his career success hitting 2nd, and he profiles as a prototypical #2 hitter. So now what?
Try this on for size:
1. Christian Yelich, LF
2. Martin Prado, 3B
3. Giancarlo Stanton, RF
4. Michael Morse, 1B
5. Marcell Ozuna, CF
6. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
7. Adeiny Hechavarria, SS
8. Pitcher
9. Dee Gordon, 2B
Yes, I'm proposing the Marlins hit the pitcher 8th in 2015 with Dee Gordon batting 9th.
Here's my top-to-bottom rationale:
Christian Yelich flourished when pressed into service as Miami's lead-off hitter in 2014. He's a patient hitter, who ranked among league leaders in pitches seen per player appearance as a 22-year-old in his first full big league season. He did a good job getting on base. He's got the ability to steal a base. And at this point in his career, he's primarily shown himself to be a singles-doubles hitter. While many expect him to develop more power and become a middle-of-the-order force with age and experience, the fact is he's not yet consistently driving the ball to his pull side.
Martin Prado is, as stated earlier, your prototypical 2nd-place hitter. He'll take a pitch to allow a base runner to steal. He can hit behind a runner to move him up. He's always done a good job getting on base as evidenced by a .340 career OBP. He's got, at least to this point in their respective careers, more doubles-homers pop than Yelich, having averaged 35 doubles and 12 long balls over the last 6 years. And as we discussed extensively last season, the ability of the 2 men ahead of Giancarlo to reach base consistently does as much to protect Miami's biggest bat as having a big bat behind him. With runners on base ahead of him, it's harder to walk Stanton. It's harder to even pitch around him. The reigning National League home run champion is going to see more pitches to hit, maximizing his chance of doing damage.
As for Stanton in the 3-hole, this is a no-brainer for me. Could you hit him 4th? No doubt. But the norm in Baseball has become to bat your best hitter 3rd for a few reasons. First, you're guaranteed to get him an at-bat in the first inning every night, a chance to get on the scoreboard with one swing in inning number one. Second, research shows your 3-hole hitter bats with more base runners aboard over the course of the season than your clean-up man. More RBI chances for your best hitter is always a good thing. And finally, over the course of a full season, your #3 hitter will average about 2.5 percent more trips to the plate than your #4 hitter. Again, more chances for Stanton to crush is always a good thing. Any time Giancarlo comes to the plate, he is in scoring position. Getting him up more often and with more base runners makes all the sense in the world in trying to maximize the club's offensive output.
In Michael Morse, the Marlins may not have signed a prototypical 35-home run clean-up hitter, but the new Miami first baseman does possess tremendous power. Morse has hit as many as 31 homers in a season. He hit 16 in the regular season for the Giants last year. And the 10-year vet, with a career .808 OPS, definitely gives pitchers something to think about hitting behind Giancarlo. (It's worth noting that the Marlins got a major league-low 6 homers and just a .726 OPS from their clean-up hitters last season. In 2013, Logan Morrison and then-rookie Marcell Ozuna received the bulk of the team's at-bats from the clean-up spot with the tandem totaling 4 home runs out of the 4-hole.)
In the 5th spot, Marcell Ozuna gets the nod in my lineup, entering his 2nd full major league season at age 24. The Miami center fielder slugged 23 homers and drove in 85 runs in 2014, hitting mostly in the 6-hole. In all of Baseball, only one player 23 or younger had more home runs and RBI than Ozuna: American League MVP Mike Trout. Improved plate discipline with more experience would be key to helping Ozuna build on those numbers as he climbs in the lineup.
Switch-hitter Jarrod Saltalamacchia begins the season hitting 6th in my lineup, although a bounce-back season for Salty, putting up numbers more along the lines of what he produced as a Red Sox in 2013, could move him up a spot if Ozuna were to struggle or in match-ups against certain tough righthanders. More doubles and fewer K's will be key for Salty in 2015.
And now this is where I'll really deviate from the probable norm.
I propose Adeiny Hechavarria bats 7th. While the 25-year-old shortstop raised his OPS 99 points from 2013 to 2014, he still has room for improvement. He did take several positive steps in 2014, however, particularly in shortening his stroke and going the other way, improving his bunting game under the tutelage of Brett Butler and hitting more line drives, more ground balls and fewer fly balls.
Now the fun really begins as I propose the Marlins hit their pitcher 8th in 2015.
The key here is, if an NL team is going to bat a position player 9th, you need the right personnel to make it work. And I think the Marlins have just that grouping.
With Dee Gordon batting 9th, you get the 2nd lead-off hitter effect with him and Yelich batting back-to-back once Gordon comes to the plate for the first time in a game. You now have the benefit of 3 consecutive on-base threats (Gordon, Yelich and Prado) batting directly ahead of your best RBI man Stanton without pushing Stanton to the 4th spot and costing him ABs over the course of the year. I'd also argue that you free up Gordon, the 2014 major league stolen base leader, to run even more if he hits out of the 9 spot. If Gordon leads off, no matter who hits 2nd, when Dee is at first base with Stanton on deck, you find yourself in that spot where you fear the risk of Gordon getting thrown out attempting to steal, costing yourself a base runner with your best hitter lurking next. I'd further argue that a stolen base from Gordon is more valuable when he is hitting in front of both Yelich and Prado–as they're more likely to single Gordon in from second base, whereas Stanton's propensity to hit doubles and home runs means that Gordon often wouldn't need to steal a base to have a good chance to score with Giancarlo coming up. Taking it a step further, Gordon on base ahead of them means more fastballs for Yelich and Prado, even in breaking ball counts, leading to potentially more production from 2 of the bats the Marlins will count on to lift some of the offensive burden off Giancarlo's shoulders in 2015.
One downside to this possible batting order is you'd have your only 2 pure left-handed hitters in the lineup (Gordon and Yelich) hitting back-to-back, making it easier for opposing bullpens to match up in later innings. That said, both Gordon and Yelich posted reverse splits a season ago, enjoying more success against lefty pitchers than they did against righthanders. Yelich hit .317 with an .819 OPS against lefties in 2014 as opposed to .273 with a .747 OPS against righties, while Gordon posted a .295 average with a .719 OPS against lefties as opposed to a .287 average and a .699 OPS vs. righthanders. (You could potentially remove this concern by batting Prado first and Yelich 2nd although we've already explained Yelich's 2014 success at the top of the order and Prado's career-long track record in the 2 spot.)
And for those who worry about the pitcher's spot coming up more often when he hits 8th, remember that, in a typical game, a National League starting pitcher would rarely bat more than twice before often leaving for a pinch hitter or as part of a double switch. If he's batting much more than twice, you're either having a big game offensively or he's pitching exceptionally well, shutting down the opposition and working deep into the game. Finally, statistical analysis indicates any loss of production out of the 8-hole in this scenario would be more than compensated for by the benefits of lengthening the top of the order with more production out of the 9-spot.
So there you have it, my proposal to attempt to maximize production out of the Marlins' 2015 lineup.
While there's no guarantee this lineup outscores any other that may be considered, I think there are compelling arguments that it likely would.
What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
It takes something big to bring Fish Tales out of its winter hibernation, but today's a big day.
The Baseball Writers' Association of America will announce its selections for the 2014 American League and National League Most Valuable Player awards tonight. Conventional wisdom seems to have Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw as the NL MVP favorite after he took home his 3rd career Cy Young Award last night, but I'm here to make a very quick case for why I think Giancarlo Stanton should be the first Marlin ever to receive Baseball's most prestigious on-field honor.
I think this point is critical, and I don't think it's gotten much attention:
While both Stanton and Kershaw had amazing seasons, Giancarlo had his at the plate in a season dominated by pitchers (with offense at its lowest levels in about 30 years) while playing half his games in a pitcher's park. Kershaw had his remarkable season at a time when pitchers across both leagues are dominating the sport, while also having the advantage of pitching in a pitcher's park and in a largely pitcher-friendly division.
In a season in which offense was harder to come by and should be MORE VALUED than it has been in 3 decades, Giancarlo Stanton was clearly the most productive offensive player in the National League for the most improved team in the league. The context of the season and the circumstances in which he—and Kershaw–put up their numbers should not be ignored.
To take it a step further, while there is no doubt Kershaw was brilliant over his 27 starts and deserved the Cy Young Award he received last night, the fact is he pitched in exactly 1/6 of his team's games as opposed to Stanton, who played in every Marlins game of the season before his September beaning and led his club to the biggest increase in wins of any National League club from 2013 to 2014. One season after 100 losses, Stanton had the Marlins playing meaningful games in September despite not having their ace pitcher after early May.
When his season was cut 17 games short by the gruesome injury on September 11, Giancarlo led the league in nearly every major offensive category. Additionally, he was recognized for his defensive excellence as a Rawlings Gold Glove Award finalist.
No National League player impacted more games in more ways more dramatically in 2014. To me, THAT is the definition of Most Valuable.
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Thanks to all who cast their votes during the season's final weeks for the 2014 Marlins Fish Tales Award winners.
We are pleased to announce the results, now that they have been verified by an independent accounting firm:
You selected Giancarlo Stanton as the 2014 Marlins Most Valuable Player with 93% of the vote. Others receiving votes included Casey McGehee, Steve Cishek and Christian Yelich.
You selected Henderson Alvarez as 2014 Marlins Pitcher of the Year with 68% of the vote. Steve Cishek finished second with 16%. Also receiving votes: Bryan Morris, Tom Koehler, A.J. Ramos, Mike Dunn and Dan Jennings.
And, in our most hotly contested race, you chose Casey McGehee as your Favorite 2014 Marlins Newcomer with 56 percent of the vote. Jarred Cosart came in second with 36 percent, while Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Jeff Baker, Reed Johnson and Bryan Morris also received votes.
Thanks for voting and congratulations to our Fishies winners!