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Child protection bill would encourage a 'big brother state'
A number of past and present Moderators from the Free Church of Scotland have urged the Scottish Government to halt the passing of a bill that aims to add another layer of protection to Scotland's children and young people, believing it to be too intrusive.
The legislation proposes that every child under the age of 18 in Scotland should be given a 'named-person', most likely a health visitor or teacher, who would be a point of contact for parents to raise any concerns about the well-being of their child.
This state-approved person would be granted legal authority to ensure that every Scottish child is raised in a way deemed appropriate by the government.
In a letter to First Minister Alex Salmond, however, the Moderators have accused supporters of the bill of encouraging a "gross intrusion into family life" by the state, and argue that the legislation would "completely undermine" parental responsibility.
Rev James MacIver, minister of Knock Free Church on the Isle of Lewis, has noted that the "vast majority of Scotland's million children do not require any state intervention", and has suggested that the government's budget would be better spent on investing in local community schemes instead.
"The very concept of 'corporate parents' sets alarm bells ringing and is something becoming of a Big Brother state," he declared.
The bill has been branded by some as a "snooper's charter", including Rev Dr John Ross, who ministers in Drumnadrochit. He has called on Salmond to do "everything in his power to get rid of this snooper's charter and restore some common sense".
"The Scottish Government now seems intent on hijacking the legitimate rights and duties of parents to bring up their own children free of state interference. If this legislation is not amended, the Scottish Government will make itself the judge of every parent in this land," he says.
"There is also a very real possibility that this legislation could be used as a back door means to completely undermine parental values, judgment and discretion for their own children.
"It does not take a rocket scientist to foresee the potential for future conflict between Christian parents and the secular political correctness brigade.
"This is the sort of thing we would expect in a Fascist or Marxist regime, not in 21st century Scotland," he concludes.
Though the letter notes that the legislation is no doubt "well-intentioned", it also suggests that the bill is "fundamentally ill-conceived and liable to cause needless hurt and alarm to conscientious parents when their views conflict with the opinions of the state appointed 'nanny'".
"We are fully supportive of the Scottish Government's intention to improve outcomes for our most vulnerable children; this is a most laudable aim. However...we believe these proposals seriously overstep the mark," the letter reads.
"Fundamentally we believe that a child's values, wellbeing and development are primarily the responsibility of his or her parents, not for state-appointed guardians as these plans suggest."
A spokesperson from the Scottish Government, however, has argued that the system has already been operating well in the Highlands for several years, where it has been welcomed by parents.
"We have been consistently clear that parents are the best people to bring up their children - but sadly not all children come from safe, secure and loving homes," he explained.
"These plans, backed by teachers, health workers and other childcare professionals, aim to promote the well-being of all of Scotland's children, including protecting vulnerable young people who may be experiencing difficulties or at risk of neglect or abuse."
MSPs will vote on stage three of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill on Wednesday 19 February.


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On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission announced a plan to pilot a revision of the 25-year-old Lifeline program from a land line concentration to a high speed broadband Internet program. Under Chairman Julius Genachowski, the FCC has been making a big push for rural broadband, arguing that it's an essential utility in modern society and that anything you do on the phone could also be done over broadband. The new program, says the FCC, would eliminate a lot of the waste and fraud currently endemic to Lifeline.
From The Verge:
A new National Lifeline Accountability Database will be created to prevent subsidies from being funneled to multiple phone carriers on behalf of the same individual, while a secondary database will provide a streamlined way to determine any given customer's eligibility. Also changing is the way households are viewed under Lifeline: moving forward, multiple families living at the same address with be considered one single "economic unit," and will be blanket-covered accordingly. The FCC hopes the changes will save $2 billion over the next three years, with $200 million in savings set as the benchmark for 2012.

subset: commoncrawl


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This delicately-fragrant scrub combines Raspberry Seeds with other natural exfoliates to wash away lifeless surface cells and impurities that dull your skin. Pomegranate Oil adds antioxidant protection against the environment's skin-aging effects, as the seeds work to gently expose fresher, more vibrant skin with renewed radiance. This lush, Paraben-free scrub effectively refines skin's texture and conditions it to maintain a vital moisture balance, which leaves your face feeling wonderfully soft and smooth. Use once a week or more often if your skin is oily. Ideal for use in the shower too.


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Results 1 to 5 of 24
July 15th, 2013 09:20 AM #1Junior Member
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- Jul 2013
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Which name combo do you prefer? Honest opinions, please :)
I have three months left of my pregnancy, and so far I have a small list of names that I absolutely adore! I need some help choosing between them:
*edit: sorry, i meant middle names for Sage, not nicnames :/
Agnes Celeste - Agnes is the name of my great grandmother and Celeste is a family name, so I thought I'd put teh two together and they go really well together.
Agatha Sage - Sage has always been one of my favourite names, it's been at the top of my list since I was a little girl.
Harlon Rose - Harlon is the name of a family friend that my grandaddy fought with in the war. He's a hero of mine, but I don't know if the name fits a girl? What do you think? And Rose is the name of my godmother.
Celia Delphine - I love the idea of giving ferret a sweet, angelic name, and Celia fits perfectly. Delphine is rarely used these days, and I like the idea of it.
Winry Evangeline - Winry is another of those names that I've loved since I was a child. I used to play with a little girl called Winry, Winnie for short, though I don't think it really needs a nickname
So what do you think? Also, can you think of any nicknames for Sage?
Last edited by mammaclara; July 15th, 2013 at 09:36 AM.
July 15th, 2013 09:30 AM #3
I really like Agnes! It's very classic and has a beautiful sound, plus it really deserves to make a come back along with its sibling names Mabel and Edith. I think it's an awesome custom to name children after relatives (I'm named for my great-grandmother). I'd love to meet some little Agnes's! And Celeste has a lovely musical flow to it, so it compliments Agnes perfectly! I also like Agatha Sage and Celia Delphine. Nickname for Sage...well since it's so short, I think sounds nice just as Sage.
Hope this helps you out!
July 15th, 2013 09:32 AM #5Senior Member
- Join Date
- Nov 2012
- Posts
- 466
I like Winry Evangeline a lot, but I'd like to know more about the name first -- I can't find the meaning or origin anywhere.
maybe Evengeline Winry, which I think I like better. Why do names as short as Winry and Sage need nicknames? That's seems a little excessive to me.Always changing...Alberta . Hester . Sigrid . Frida . Edwina . Margery . NoelleFergus . Edgar . Gregor . Reuben . Angus . Lucius
July 15th, 2013 09:38 AM #7Junior Member
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July 15th, 2013 09:44 AM #9


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The nurses' grievance originally filed with the Amphitheater Public Schools District Sept. 19 has been withdrawn following information disclosed during a July 17 mediation session and in response to an agreement made after that meeting between the union's representative and district counsel.
The agreement - which some members of both the management and union sides said had been decided during contract negotiations in May - allows principals to ask or require nurses to work up to 10 extra days during school registration in return for an equal number of days in flex-time during the year.
Nurses are salaried employees who do not qualify for compensatory-time under the federal wage and hour laws, said Jim Slingluff, organizational consultant for the Arizona Education Association, but they can use flextime if agreed to by the employer. The grievance concerned the district's eight nurses working without pay during registration for the 2002-2003 school year. Amphi originally denied it in December, at which point the Amphi Education Association requested mediation from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
On Jan. 9, Amphi and the AEA agreed through mediation that the grievance would be handled as a negotiation during spring salary talks. Those talks failed to reach an agreement and it was returned to mediation with Slingluff as the local union's advocate.
Slingluff said a mediation meeting July 17 again failed in helping the parties reach an agreement, but "it led to information that helped us settle the issue … we withdrew the grievance in return for the agreement."
"The part that was stunning and frustrating for me was to find out during mediation that at least some of each team had thought this had already been agreed to in negotiations (in May). This is a fault of the bargaining process they use," Slingluff said. "There is no sign-off on each agreement. In traditional collective bargaining, anytime parties agree to something, someone from each party signs off on it, so there is a paper record of what was exactly decided. When I was brought into this, I received the information that management had rejected this proposal out of hand … in mediation I found out that was erroneous information."
So, "in a snowstorm of e-mails" between Todd Jaeger, Amphi assistant to the superintendent and district counsel, and himself, Slingluff said Jaeger explained that what the nurses were asking for - 10 extra contract days with flextime during the year - had been "left on the bargaining table" by union representation.
"Of course, I do believe that if management was really willing to do it, they wouldn't have left it on the table either," said Slingluff. "When I checked with some of the (union) people who had been at negotiations, some of them said it had been on the table as well. I was confused because it became clear to me that this was a confused situation. But as we talked back and forth (via e-mail) we discovered that both parties were agreeable to this decision (of flextime) and we agreed we would drop the grievance in return for this."
Jaeger said July 23 that he had e-mailed the principals of all schools with nurses on site - Amphi's three high school and five middle schools - and informed them of the decision. The district does not have nurses at its elementary schools, Jaeger said, but does have a full-time nurse coordinator who oversees health aides at those schools.
Registration at both high schools started July 21. Jaeger said if a nurse has worked some of those days before principals were notified "with the principal's permission or at the principal's request" the flextime decision will apply to them.
"However, a nurse can't just show up and work without permission or without being asked," and expect to get the flextime, he said.
Jaeger said this agreement "allows principals to determine if they need the nurses and if so, it is only fair they get flextime for those days."
Terry Clark, a nurse at Ironwood Ridge High School who has been involved in the grievance from the beginning, said district nurses "were grateful the district considered us important enough to be at registration that they settled the grievance." She added that nurses had been at all the schools during registration hours July 21 through July 31.
"The thing that is important is for people to realize we do more than just put on band-aids," Clark said. "Many times we are the first and only medical person in a student's life. We can't spend the first eight or 10 days of school doing paper work, we have to be ready on day one … if the first day is an Ozone advisory, we need to know who all the asthmatics are that day to be prepared. If we are at registration we can do all the paperwork for students then, get medicine and reassure parents that their (children) will be OK once school starts."
Slingluff said the whole grievance process left him frustrated, since he is used to dealing with traditional labor relations collective bargaining.
"This whole issue was mutual mistakes by assumption," Slingluff said. "It is not often you see the equivalent of "The Perfect Storm" in a screwed-up bargaining situation, but this was it … people were in the same room discussing the same thing and somehow they came out with different assumptions. I view the main culprit here as a bargaining structure that doesn't' include signing off on every single agreement."
Slingluff said his advice to the local union was going to be changing the "interest-based, win-win bargaining" to include mandatory signing off on every particular in an agreement.
Jaeger said he thinks management might be in favor of that suggestion as well.
"We don't want to make it more complicated," he said. "In interest-based bargaining, there are notes taken, sort of a running minutes, as terms are agreed to. I guess it would be simple enough for them to agree to sign off on them as they are agreed to. Our bargaining process is designed to be a little less formal and we don't want it to get bogged down with too much detail. But if it would help avoid this problem, I'm all for it."


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Okay, so she doesn't really strip. Well, okay, she strips, but she strips in the sense that she's a stripper in a Hollywood movie, and that means she doesn't actually strip. Natalie Portman didn't in "Closer" and Jessica Alba didn't in "Sin City", either. Hollywood's definition of a stripper is one who does not strip. Anyways, disappointment aside, the "I Know Who Killed Me" official site has been updated with a video blog, supposedly from the movie's killer. The sick bastard is hosting a couple of videos, including one that peeks at Lindsay Lohan's character through a window, and one that captures her during one of her strip shows. The quality sucks and the killer's monologue is annoying, but a gyrating Lindsay Lohan, even in grainy video, is kinda fun.
An idyllic small town is rocked when Aubrey Fleming, a bright and promising young woman, is abducted and tortured by a sadistic serial killer. When she manages to escape, the traumatized girl who regains consciousness in the hospital insists that she is not who they think she is and that the real Aubrey Fleming is still in mortal danger.
"I Know Who Killed Me" stars Lindsay Lohan and Julia Ormond and opens July 27th, 2007.
Images from the videos below:


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Bubble Shack Hawaii - Pikake Lei Loofah Lather Glycerin Soap Gift Set
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Even on a roaring uptown No. 6 train in Manhattan, there is a certain kind of quiet that veteran riders can sometimes sense. And yesterday, when the morning rush seemed almost to shiver in the aftershock of a terrorist attack on commuters in London five hours earlier, was one such time.
It is the quiet of being reminded that one's entire life, if it is lived in any urban area of this country, is a soft target.
"You notice it in the vibe of the train," said Geoff Hoffman, an uptown No. 6 rider who described himself as a painter. "Everyone's brow is furrowed. Everyone's thinking about it. Just look around."
It is usually hard to say what everyone is thinking about, but yesterday you could say it: "It's dangerous to live here," said Craig Fols, an actor. "But I thought this through after 9/11. It's a kind of danger I'm going to live with."
In Chicago, Boston, Miami and San Francisco, people said similar things yesterday, whether with a certain bravado, or on the legs of denial, or from a more tentative resolve. "When I stop to think about it, I don't feel very safe," said Nancy LaMantia, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., business owner. "But then again, on a day-to-day basis, I feel fine."Continue reading the main story
The American psyche, if such a four-time-zone mind exists, has for the past four years been poised somewhere between the frantic alarm of Sept. 11, 2001, and the daily routine of the low-grade anxiety that has replaced it. But with a bombing in the heart of a world capital like London -- a capital so closely related to America culturally -- that equilibrium seems lost, and in its place yesterday, you could sense the raw emotion, and even the fatalism behind it.
"It's only a matter of time before something happens in New York again," said Jason Falk of Brooklyn. He described his certainty about his statement as "definitive."
Phil Spencer, a sales executive from Kansas City who was interviewed in Chicago, said: "Things are just not the same as they were before 9/11. "It's just different. I wouldn't call it a sense of fear. Call it a sense of awareness."
Since 9/11, public officials have asked Americans to walk a fine line between the real likelihood of further attacks and the real demands of keeping their society -- the world's largest economy, and the ultimate bulwark against world terrorism -- humming at full strength.
It's a trick not everyone has managed to pull off.
"It's like we live in two parallel existences," said Peter King, a Republican congressman from Long Island who is chairman of a House subcommittee on emergency preparedness. "You know something could happen, and yet you don't want to alarm people constantly, or get too specific in your recommendations."
Indeed, some law enforcement officials, including those in New York, have admitted for years to being stumped about why terrorists, clearly capable of the spectacular attack, have so far not tried to hit the vulnerable transportation systems of this country's major cities.
There are, of course, some protections in place. But, said one high-ranking New York law enforcement official, "If you absolutely wanted to, you could do it. My feeling is, it's a matter of time."
Why such a time has not come may be a matter of good police work or good luck on the part of Americans. But many of the latter made it clear they would prefer something more solid to bank on.
"They should give us guidelines, offer some solutions," said Catherine Crawford, a nursing student interviewed on the subway. "It's unnerving."
Most of the antiterrorism preparations are vast government initiatives. They include such programs as border and port security, biological research, military intelligence and, of course, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which President Bush has justified, in part, as a strategy for keeping the terrorists over there rather than over here.
But Americans yesterday voiced some concerns about terror preparedness at the micro-level. "You know, I feel most vulnerable probably in my home drinking my water from my tap, or something like that," said Nicole Hardesty, 31, a grade school teacher from Evanston, Ill. "If something's going to happen, I'm thinking it's going to happen like that."
From interviews, there seemed to be as many strategies for handling the anxiety of the possible next attack as there are people in the nation.
Denis Peters, 43, a real estate developer in Miami, said he never used public transportation. Olivia Suchman, 30, an urban planner in San Francisco, said she kept herself focused on "how life is precious," and avoided thinking about the ruthless brutality of some people in the world.
"I don't even let my mind go there," she said.
Johnnie Lane, 48, an air-conditioning salesman from Manhattan, said, "When your time is up, your time is up."
Kathy Reul, 44, a health care worker from Queens, confided to a reporter: "I drink a beer every day on the subway. I don't have it in a cup. I have not seen a police officer on a subway train in a long time. If I can get away with having a beer, I can get away with having a bomb."
Norris Beren, the author of "When Disaster Strikes," a planning guide, says that people should not give in to fatalism. "Everyone should have a plan," he said in a telephone interview. "If an attack happens, an d you cannot use a phone, and you cannot go home, you should have a plan in place. You should know who will back you up and pick up your kids from school. You should know where you will go, by pre-arrangement, to meet a family member." The more a person has planned ahead, the better off he or she will be in a crunch, he said.
In the streets yesterday, the war on terror proceeded apace by improvisations both large and small.
"Don't put your hands in the bags," a police officer gently instructed a tour guide, watching as the guide followed company orders yesterday at Times Square by opening and searching all handbags and shopping bags of tourists boarding his Gray Line double-decker.
"If something turns up missing, they'll accuse you of stealing," said the officer to the guide, Jonathon Council of Amityville, N.Y.
"Oh, thanks, I wouldn't have thought of that," said the tour guide, a brand new soldier in the war on terror, cheerfully returning to his searching. This time he was careful to feel each bag from the outside and look inside without touching.
"Like this?" Mr. Council said.
"Good," said the officer.Continue reading the main story


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Membership in the Nebraska Daylily Society is very easy. The cost is as follows:
Single membership -- $15.00 per year
Family membership -- $20.00 per year
Dues are payable to the current Treasurer on or before October 1 for the following year.
See Contact Us page for contact people.
S. Keller Seedling
AHS Membership/Daylily Journal
Along with receiving THE JOURNAL, belonging to American Hemerocallis Society automatically makes you a member of Region One, which bring you two more publications a year of THE PIONEER, and gives you all the information on what is going on in our region. Membership dues for AHS can be sent to:
American Hemerocallis Society
c/0 Pat Mercer, AHS Executive Secretary
P.O. Box 10
Dexter, GA 31019
The dues are $25.00 (single) per year or $70.00 for three years. Dual membership (two persons) is $30.00 for one year and $83.00 for three years. Youth membership is $10.00
Photos from Rollie and Jacque Bremers' Sundridge Gardens 2015 Open House
Photos by NLA
Great Mercies (Bell-T., 2007)
Lake Jackson Beauty (Imperial, 2007)
Smokestack Lightning (Bachman, 2003)
Laughing Falcon (Lambertson, 2010)
Plant Name Unkown
Plant Name Unkown
Plant Name Unkown


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I Can See That I Will Have to Buy My Own Camera
I have been using Melissa's camera on the weekends to take photos for my blog. (Actually, Melissa has been using her own camera to take the pictures for me. I just ask, "will you take a picture of this?," and "how about this?," and "this too?," after which I say "and will you post them here?," and "that one goes there," and on and on.) So in the interest of eating up less of Melissa's art time and of having a blog with some visual interest on week days, as well as weekends, I can see that a digital camera for me is quickly becoming inevitable. If anyone out there has recommendations, I'd be glad to hear them.
Meanwhile, you will be forced to bear with my photo-less weekday ramblings.
The first of my brightly colored kids' wear projects was a prototype hat, which I finished up last night. Sadly, it is less a hat and more a very vivid yarmulke with a brim. At least I got the brim right. I used two strands of yarn, then switched to one for the hat itself, so the brim has a nice bit of body to it and doesn't go all floppy. I will mail version 1.0 off to my niece for use as a doll hat and move along to version 2.0 once I get a bit more of the yarn.
To get my mind off that project, I pulled out a skein of Malabrigo Worsted in the Col China colorway that I'd purchased back at the beginning of the month. This yarn was a new offering at The Golden Fleece, one of my local yarn shops (I'm lucky enough to have four of them). It reminded me of Manos del Uruguay, only a) a few dollars less expensive, b) in larger skeins (210 yds), and c) in somewhat simpler colorways. A and B were positives; C was a negative, but the skein I did buy is lovely.
I'd like to work on some designs for practical, but not boring, felted bags, so figured I'd start with the Malabrigo. After fretting a bit about size, I cast 120 stitches onto a circular needle and began working in 2 stitch x 2 stitch alternating squares of knit and purl. My main "what if?" question on this project regards the percent shrinkage I'll get when I felt the bag. Once I know that, I can start playing with more complex designs. Whether knitted on I-cord straps will hold up well is a secondary "what if" question I'll have to answer over time.
At any rate, I just want to say—this yarn feels wonderful in my hands. Soft, soft, soft, much softer than other single-ply wools I've worked with. I can't tell you anything about the bag I'm knitting yet, as I'm only a few inches into it, but the knitting itself is going to be a delight.
January 30 2007 01:50 pm | Uncategorized
One Response to "I Can See That I Will Have to Buy My Own Camera"
Molly on 01 Feb 2007 at 10:29 pm #
Cool, another Santa Cruz knitter! (Found your blog thru MagKnits :]) Might I ask you where the other 2 local yarn shops are? I know of Swift Stitch and Golden Fleece…but you can never have too many places to yarn-shop 😀
I just recently discovered Malabrigo at Golden Fleece, and man oh man am I smitten. I made the Voodoo Wristwarmers in Peach Tree, and while they're beautiful and sooooo soft, the yarn does seem rather delicate for something so utilitarian. It's formed a lovely halo, and the pills aren't too bad, but they stretch out like crazy in the 2×2 ribbing. It seems to perform relatively well in seed stitch, tho… But all in all, I am still madly in love with that yarn.


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by Dan Burrows | January 27, 2012 11:25 am
Like their bigger, national brothers, it's been a mixed-to-disappointing fourth-quarter earnings season for the country's regional banks. However, as with the sector's larger firms, regional banks are outperforming the broader market so far in 2012, and, more important, balance sheets are on the mend.
The SPDR KBW Regional Banking ETF (NYSE:KRE[1]), a proxy for regional bank stocks, is up nearly 6% year-to-date, outperforming the S&P 500 by about a percentage point. That's a good indication that as tough a quarter as it's been for many regionals, it wasn't as bad as the market feared.
Naturally, regional banks' mixed performances reflect the different challenges and paces of recovery in different parts of the country. On Wednesday, KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY[2]), a Northern bank, and Regions Financial (NYSE:RF[3]), a firm based in the Southeast, both reported drops in revenue and profitability. However, KeyCorp generated more new loans than Regions, thanks partly to an improvement in Midwest manufacturing activity. Regions continued to be hampered by the weak housing market in its area of operation.
The same dichotomy can be seen in results from PNC (NYSE:PNC[4]) and US Bancorp (NYSE:USB[5]). PNC, a bank with operations in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states (and also in the housing quagmire of Florida), missed Wall Street's profit estimates, but beat on revenue. US Bancorp, a Midwest firm, squeaked past Street profit forecasts and easily beat on revenue.
Those anecdotal examples reflect the sector's wider trend. True, lending is picking up, more borrowers are paying debts on time and credit quality is slowing getting better — but business remains tough, and future bottom-line results remain frustratingly opaque.
"Profitability remains challenged, particularly at the large regionals," writes Melissa Roberts, regional bank analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, in a new note to clients. "Capital and credit improvement continues, and loan growth is back with banks posting both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter growth."
That said, it's been a tougher earnings season for regional banks than for the overall market. More than 50% of companies in the S&P 500 having reported so far have exceeded analysts' average estimates. That's not the case with regional banks.
Of the 64 regional banks sampled by KBW, only 48% beat Street estimates so far, while 36% missed analysts' forecasts. The remaining 16% matched estimates. That's quite a letdown from the third quarter, when 55% percent of regional banks beat estimates.
Perhaps most troubling, "the 13 large regionals that reported thus far have posted weaker results with 54% missing estimates," Roberts writes.
As we noted in our review of big bank earnings[6], cost cuts, accounting quirks and other noncore items are helping regionals' results look more presentable this quarter — or at least better than the market was discounting.
But as with big banks, that hardly means regionals are back to business as usual. The overhang of the housing crisis, the anemic economic recovery and sluggish small-business growth make it hard to separate the value stocks from the value traps among regional banks. For now, at least, stock-pickers would be wise to look for clearer risk/reward scenarios in other sectors.
Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/01/regional-bank-earnings-pnc-usb-rf-key-kre/
Short URL: http://invstplc.com/1nB9iy7
Copyright ©2017 InvestorPlace Media, LLC. All rights reserved. 700 Indian Springs Drive, Lancaster, PA 17601.


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Lindsay! Thanks! If I could remember how I did this one, I might make another! LOLEdie - Oh Yeah! do I know that! Poor Queen Bee. She can't help herself! (or can she????) :)
Well I thought it looked like Queen Bee which was fine with me. Pay back and all if you know what I mean. LOL Thanks Jan.
Way to stretch the imagination! It's kind of like looking at the kaleidos through a glass of water. Especially love the affect it had on the top right. Thanks for another fun one Jan.
Thanks, Mimi - I think I may be becoming manic.....but it gets me away from putting away all those things we unpacked!
We all cheer for your investigative Jigidi instincts - so many great results! Thank you! :))
Ardy - no living things were smooshed to make this puzzle! Only in your imagination! LOL Thank you so much!!Thanks, Katie. I will be trying other ways to smoosh, too! Color me crazy! :D
Such a fun science experiment! Thanks Jan!
Is that some of Edie's chickens being squeezed in the top left? The top right and bottom right both remind me a jellyfish. Fun puzzle and great shapes. Thanks, Jan.
JC - What a sweet thing to say! Thank YOU!Magda - Yes, I got a bit carried away with the squeezing.....all in the name of science, of course......I wanted to see what would happen!Pat - I'm glad you liked these! I could probably called them "Squishers! - cousins of Squeezers!" I would love to see that vase!
Oh, yes, these are sooooo pretty! I love the colors and patterns, especially the upper right one, which reminds me of a Native American jug/vase I inherited from my mother--super one, Jan! :-)))
Jan, I love these squeeze- puzzles of yours. But don't you think, today they squeezed a bit too much, getting all (beautifully) distorted? They will hurt, poor things. LOL
Loved your puzzles today, Jan! Of course!


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Analysis finds no salmonella at local farm
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture issued a consumer advisory last Thursday after routine safety testing revealed salmonella bacteria in a package of alfalfa sprouts grown by River Falls-based Jack and the Green Sprouts, N8477 770th St.
The MDA advised people to throw away any of the product they may have had.
The MDA and the Minnesota Department of Health classified the bacteria found on the sprouts as salmonella diarizonae. The advisory said Minnesota did not know of any illnesses associated with consumption of this product.
It also said the contamination wasn't associated with the ongoing national investigation of illnesses linked to peanut butter products.
The MDA worked with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to investigate the contamination and to remove the product from distribution and retail facilities in Minnesota and Wisconsin, including River Falls.
The news release advises that consuming food contaminated with salmonella can cause abdominal cramping, diarrhea and fever. Anyone who believes they may be ill as a result of eating a contaminated product, should contact a health care provider.
Jack and the Green Sprouts' owner Joe Mahoney said on Friday the MDA pulled the alfalfa sprouts it tested from a holding warehouse in the Twin Cities. The MDA called him and instructed him to call all his clients and ask them to hold the product.
He said once the agency contacted him, he used his color-coding system to track the shipment and see what seed it had come from. Mahoney found it had been shipped on Jan. 15 and 16, commenting that the shelf life for alfalfa sprouts is two weeks.
The farmer said alfalfa sprouts would have "no business" on any shelf after two weeks. He feels confident the product was contaminated during or after shipping; that the bacteria did not originate on his farm.
"Our facility is clean and we haven't had any problem in 30 years," he said.
The Jack and the Green Sprouts' owner said as soon as he was notified of the positive test, he ordered two more independent tests run on just about everything at the farm: Seeds, the entire indoor growing area, wash tanks, bubbler, floor drains, corners, countertops, inside machines and outside machines.
Mahoney said both sets of all the tests came back negative. He said the farm tests every batch of product before it's released, and none of those have shown a positive result in all his years in business.
Jack and the Green Sprouts also grows radish sprouts, broccoli sprouts, wheat grass, bean mix and sunflowers.
According to a profile posted on Minneapolis' Wedge Community Co-op, Joe Mahoney is "a real pioneer in the local produce movement." The profile says he uses well water, certified organic seed, and "super-clean growing conditions."


text:
Rosary for Josephina Duran, 92, of Lubbock will be at 7 p.m. today at Resthaven Abbey Chapel.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Monday at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church with the Rev. David Cruiz officiating.
Burial will be in Peaceful Gardens Memorial Park under the direction of Resthaven Funeral Home.
She died Friday, Aug. 3, 2001.
She was born April 26, 1909, in Del Rio. She married Margarito Duran in 1930 in Paint Rock. He died Sept. 20, 1992. She spent her life as a homemaker and was a member of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church.
She was preceded in death by daughter, Lucinda Duran.
Survivors include four sons, Adelino Duran, Armando Duran and Jerry Perez, all of Lubbock, and Rosenvelt Duran of Sweetwater; six daughters, Lily Euresta of Eden, Lucille Jimenez of Lubbock, Adelino Flores of San Angelo, Rosalinda Cumpian of Conroe, Cecila Suarez of San Diego, Calif., and Tomasita Ray of Heph, Ga.; 63 grandchildren; 49 great-grandchildren; and 12 great-great-grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials be made to Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church.
© 2017. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


text:
Last fall, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 2012 graduation at Sacred Heart Academy in Mount Pleasant, Mich. For me, and for my family, this was a huge honor. My brother, William, will be the latest of three generations, including me, to graduate from the school. I was proud to have grown up Catholic, and to have been educated at a Catholic school that instills virtues and values in me. And I was especially proud to talk about my faith and my life with these graduates.
I worked on my speech. I was going to talk about fear. Fear holds us back. Fear limits our options. Fear stands in the way of having us be all that God created us to be. And for us to live as full, authentic people, we need to overcome fear. I wanted to end by reminding the youth that, just like 1 John says, perfect love casts out fear.
But then, last month, I was disinvited. The reason: I'm gay.
The longer story is that I posted my engagement photos of me and my lovely partner on Facebook. My family was told that I was uninvited because of the Facebook postings that proclaimed our love and our intention to commit ourselves to one another.
I'm a man in love. Ironically, it is because of my love that I'm not allowed to speak. The very fear that I wanted to encourage the students to face and overcome was exactly what prevented me from speaking.
Being uninvited stung. I'm not going to deny that. The shock was powerful. I posted some thoughts on YouTube that same night. If you listen to it, you can probably hear some of the shock and hurt in my voice.
But after the initial shock, something amazing happened: the students rallied around me. They acted and reacted out of love. They cast away the fear coming from the school administration and from the Bishop of our diocese about having a gay man in love speaking to the graduating class. They took to Facebook, YouTube and Change.org in order to make their voices heard, and it worked.
The principal of Sacred Heart has already acknowledged that he overreacted out of fear and has apologized to me and to the school. I still suspect that he is afraid, and I hope that these students can help him to overcome his fear going forward.
The students have organized an opportunity for me to speak to them. On Sunday, they will attend mass in the morning and then come to Central Michigan University to hear me speak, before heading back to the school for their graduation. We are calling the event "Live Through Love" because we know that this situation has been trying for everyone involved, but we want love to rule our hearts. Even if it's not at the graduation ceremony, I still get to deliver my speech.
Oddly enough, even with all that's happened, my speech hasn't changed much. It is still about fear and how fear keeps us from achieving our dreams. However, even though the words haven't changed, the context around the speech has given my words special meaning.
Fear has ruled this situation with Sacred Heart. It has driven most of the actions and reactions from those in charge of the graduation. But the senior class, Mount Pleasant community and organizations like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation have let love — not fear — rule. They have already stood up for their faith and for their belief that love casts out fear.
I am spending every day of my life living through love. I thought it was I who was to inspire the graduates with my speech. I guess I was wrong. The graduates from Sacred Heart have inspired me so much with their courage and their actions. I want to thank them for showing me, and the world, that no one is outside the Love of God.
DOMINIC SHEAHAN-STAHL was supposed to give his speech on Sunday. Instead, "Graduation for All: Live Through Love," will take place at 1 p.m. in Warriner Hall at Central Michigan University.


text:
United EasyUpdate Saves the Day
I recently started using the EasyUpdate service that United airlines provides to give you the most up to date information on flight cancellations, delays, rebookings and other flight updates. Thus far I have only signed up for email alerts, but they also offer wireless and text message updates.
My experience so far has been a mixed bag in terms of the experience.
The first experience was while I was in Chicago and I signed up to get the latest information on delays for my flight to Cleveland given the mess that was happening in the Midwest on that Monday.
I was supposed to get notification of any changes that were greater than 15 minutes for the particular flight I was on. I know that the time on that particular day changed at least 5 times that met the criteria. However, I did not receive any updates. Basically, the service was no help.
Then, before our trip to New York, I decided to sign up for the broader service to see if it would make a difference.
It did.
Yesterday, when I woke up in the morning on what was going to be our last day in New York City – I noticed I had several emails from United's EasyUpdate. Not only was our flight out at 5:00pm cancelled, but we were also rebooked on a 9:50am flight out of LaGuardia on Christmas day.
Without this information, it would have been very possible for Ashley and I to go throughout the day without knowing the status of our flight and still planning to head to the airport. Instead, we were able to call United to get on the flight we wanted and make the appropriate hotel arrangements for the extra night so we could spend the day in Manhattan worry free.
I will definitely continue to use United's EasyUpdate service based on what happened yesterday!


text: Those pics are great! A few friends and I put on a rail jam in down town Pittsburgh a couple years ago. we have ties to a local ski resort so we got our hands on a Techno-Alpin M18 snow fan (the kind used on ski slopes, mounted it to a trailer and hooked it up to a fire hydrant. We had a foot of snow and two skid steers moving it. built two ramps out of scaffolding and had an awesome show. it.was the only snow in the area. good times.for sure!


text:
Doctors at North Middlesex University Hospital said they have treated people for severe dehydration, heatstroke and breathing difficulties.
In Plymouth, the Derriford Hospital urged people to take extra care after heat-related admissions soared.
A level three health warning has been put in place by the Met Office in London, the South East, the West Midlands, and the South West due to the unusually high temperatures.
Public Health England advised people to stay out of the sun between 11am and 3pm, store medicines in the fridge and keep an eye on elderly neighbours.
The aged, the very young, and those with respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, are among those most at risk.
"The risk of death and risk of illness really concerns us," Professor Virginia Murray, head of extreme events and health protection at Public Health England (PHE), said.
"Those with pre-existing illnesses are at much greater risk of not being able to cope with heat. It's much harder for them to cope with cooling."
She warned that those with breathing difficulties could find themselves struggling to regulate their temperature, while those with heart problems were more likely to suffer a heart attack.
As part of the heatwave plan in the South East, high-risk people are being contacted by hospitals.
Health experts have estimated that hundreds may have died already as a result of the heatwave.
The death toll for the first nine days of the heatwave is between 540 and 760 people in England alone, according to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
If the hot weather continues until the end of next week, as many predict, the number could rise substantially.
The figures were produced by using temperature data supplied by the Met Office and comparing it with studies conducted on death rates during previous heatwaves in Britain.
Ben Armstrong, a professor in epidemiological statistics at LSHTM, said risk increases at temperatures above 26C.
"A lot of evidence has been pulled together that the risk in London, for instance, is greatest when it is above 32C in the day and above 18C at night," he said.
On Wednesday, temperatures in London reached 32.2C (89F), the hottest day of the year so far.
Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that temperatures on London transport were brutally hot, after being told the temperature on a Northern Line tube had hit 35C.
He said: "Other countries are used to very hot summers, we are not ready for this. 35 degrees is pretty brutal and you need to be careful, particularly if you're frail.
"My small kids don't realise when they're overheating. I was padding around in the office wearing no shoes yesterday, and I am relaxed about staff not overheating in my private office - providing they're not engaging in public facing tasks."
Extreme heat can lead to heatstroke, in which the body is unable to stay cool - leading to brain damage and death.
Temperatures are considered significant if they are high relative to the normal temperature for that area.
During the summer of 2003, there were 2,000 excess deaths in Britain.


text:
freecgi++ is an ANSI C++-compliant hierarchy for developing object-oriented CGI applications. It supports FORMS, cookies, multi-part submissions, basic cryptography, HTML output, custom HTTP headers, etc. and includes full documentation, help, a tutorial and samples. It has been tested and supported on Linux/GCC, Windows/MSDEV, Solaris/SunC, and HPUX/aCC.
|Internet Web
|BSD Original
Release Notes: The Microsoft solution files to have been updated 8.0 (MSDev 2005). A Cygwin makefile has been added (which is really the generic Linux gcc, but people kept asking). The cookie.cpp test file that demostrates usage of RFC-2019 and Netscape type cookies has been fixed. There are other bugfixes. This release cleans up examples and adds some more comments.
Release Notes: SCO makefiles have been removed. An AHTMLHelper class has been added to help with formatting some data (mostly static helper methods). multipart_ex.cpp has been cleaned up and greatly improved to display more output about the multipart submissions and data processed.
Release Notes: variables.cgi was enhanced to display nice results and allow query of the environment. Extra tracing code is added if built with _DEBUG_DUMP_ and _FULL_DEBUG_. Parsing issues with post submits and IIS 4.0 have been fixed. Routines for string concatenation were added, the documentation was spellchecked (some typos snuck in), and all tags are now HTML4.0/XML compliant.
Release Notes: This release adds more safety checks on pointers (after a heavy linting session), cleans up code, removes old samples, and has been converted to use the new string stream class (sstream).
Release Notes: Minor bugfixes and a fixed memory leak.
A Fluent OpenStack client API for Java.
A TWiki appliance that is easy to use and lightweight.


text:
LG Dare from Verizon: iPhone wannabe.
I just bought two LG Dare phones from Verizon after shopping the iPhone @ AT&T.
And I really wanted the iPhone. Two major issues:
• My daughter who does like 3000 text messages monthly was convinced that many of her friends (almost all on Verizon) wouldn't text her if she was out-of-plan (easy to go over your text allowance texting out of plan recipients). I think she was correct.
• AT&T's monthly rate charges would have cost me nearly $1,000 extra over the first year alone. I paid full price for two Dare phones, that came to about $900 with tax, cases, etc. I'm sure we'll get a year or more out of them, then we can re-visit iPhones later. I paid full price instead of the subsidized price (that cost me $320 extra on the two units) so we're not so locked into Verizon going forward should we decide to switch in 2009.
• The Verizon LG Dare is CDMA, a GSM iPhone would work in Europe. But we only go to Europe two weeks a year, Verizon has a loaner phone program where the phone costs like nothing and you just pay the high $1.50/min roaming charges while in Europe. That worked great for my trip to Greece and my wife's trip to Italy in July. Very smooth, outstanding service.
The Dare does texting great (fantastic touch screen keypad), GREAT built in camera, GREAT phone, easy interface, it does all the things I actually use a cellphone for. Lousy web browsing (although it works), but it is a real browser. But I don't care about that on my phone, neither does my kid.
Ultimately if I traveled abroad on business, or if I was an on-the-road person who wanted more web access, I might have sprung for the iPhone. But I'm not. The Dare does a few things better: voice dialing for example (iPhones don't do that, go figure). Actually very pleased with the interface on this phone. The touch screen QWERTY keypad is amazing, I can type smoothly with two thumbs, and I have big fingers.
Verizon claims that GSM and CDMA will be replaced with a new protocol that EVERYBODY will be adopting in a year or so. Anybody know anything about this?
Also: the Dare is very nice and compact, light, excellent ergonomics.
$900 holy.... all cellphones are a ripoff though, but that's a lot for a phone that sounds like you'll just be using it for a phone. did you signup for a new plan? you should have got a discount.
Review the numbers I quoted about the difference in AT&T's rates vs. Verizon. Two iphones would have been more like $500 with tax and cases, but there would have been about $300 in penalties to leave Verizon, and then $1000 or so in higher charges over the next year. But a bigger issue was my teenage daughter's fear of being left out of the High School text message loop. For a 15 year old that's like losing your oxygen tank in the Death Zone on Everest.
In about ten years the iPhone will be the free model you get with an upgrade.
I can wait.
Should have waited for the Blackberry Bold. At AT&T Sept 15 if rumors are to be believed (I think they are this time).
Anxiously waiting,
Your daughter has you by the...
Are these 3g capable? What about GPS?
I've been doing it with a Blackberry Curve 8310 from AT&T for the last 6 months. Nothing could be finer.
The iPhone is a piece of crap anyway.
I have the voyager, the phone one step down from the dare. I actually like it better than the Dare since it has the full keypad.
And no my mom and dad did not pay for it, I buy my own useless junk:thumb:
I also have a Blackberry 8820 for AT&T but am not using it. Maybe when my verizon contract is up I will switch over to AT&T to use the blackberry.
patentcad: I thought texting was the same for all companies? I.e. Texting verizon-verizon is no different than verizon-T-mobile. Anyhow if you are willing to pay that much then unlimited texting is only $30 more a month.
For what we use the phones for they're great.
Make no mistake, I want iPhones, but currently we're sort of locked into Verizon for a number of reasons. I can wait. At least we have smart phones now, far easier to use than the phones they replace. I'll be surprised if you can't get iPhones from Verizon and other carriers within 2-3 years or so, regardless of Apple's current agreement with AT&T. Stay tuned.
I did call the Dare an iPhone wannabe. But it actually does a couple of things better than the Apple phone. Bear in mind the average user life on a cell phone in the industry is only 18 months. So the likelihood that we will have different phones two years hence is rather high.
If the phone suits your purposes, then it's a pretty good phone! I personally could go iPhone because it doesn't fulfill all of my needs. I've always thought of that device as a smartphone for those that either have never owned smartphones, but know of Apple devices well or those looking for a 'different' smartphone experience.
It's definitely not a bad device; it just doesn't do what I want it to do. I'm unsure of how well it handles Microsoft Exchange, it doesn't have copy and paste, a lot of the applications are really basic, and the idea of a touch-screen keypad still isn't that convincing for me. On top of all of that, if I know Apple like I know them from my iPod, they probably have stupid limitations on the device as well.
I have a Blackberry 8700, and I can't be any happier.
Depending on where you are, you dont want an iPhone.
Around here, I am getting HORRID reception, dropped calls if I so much as look the wrong way, and "3x faster" 3g internet that never seems to work (all this, and the phone shows 5 bars of 3g).
After exchanging 2 iPhones, and still being in this rut, I figured it is either the network around here, or an inherent flaw in the phone. Seeing as a few towns over, I get nothing but great reception/internet access on the phone, I'm gathering that someone has really screwed up the network in my locality. AT&Ts respone- "Meh.. just keep still while we bend you over".. I should have never switched from VZW..
AT&T is 60-120 days away from a rather massive 3G rollout nationwide, so 3G should improve soon on their network. Verizon's 3G is far superior at this moment. Works here in Orange County, 60 miles outside of Manhattan, a fairly fringe/rural area by Metro Area standards.
Its a shame, as my area, according to the map on ATTs website is in the best 3G coverage. And its not that I dont get all bars- its that it doesnt matter if I have 5 bars or 1- it just doesnt work well. [/rant off]
I am considering a trade back to the BB Pearl, despite the split keyboard.
I'll tell you what: that iPhone is raising the bar, and pushing companies like LG to respond with products like the Dare phone. No iPhone, no Dare. Fewer new innovative Blackberry phones. The competition is a very good thing for consumers.
Mine weighs 121 grams with a modified WW case and a 4GB MicroSD card. Pretty dang light for something that does a lot more than for me than my friend's flip crap can do.
What I find ironic is that Windows Mobile is pretty good, especially 6 and 6.1. Writing apps for it is easy, and it supports multiple distribution models, including just slinging the app's .cab file onto the phone and installing.
I wish MS would do something to get back all the developers stampeding to the iPhone.
I also wish T-Mobile would offer something other than the same lame phones it has been offering in the US for the past 2-3 years. People want real smartphones, not 2004-era 200mhz TI OMAP procs, and 128 megs of memory. T-Mobile needs to kick HTC, and get something like the HTC Touch Dual, but with 3G, 16-32 GB onboard encryptable flash as well as a MicroSD slot. Software-wise, T-Mobile needs to see about something similar to the iPhone's graphical voice mail, and work on a UI that is designed for fingers, not stylii. Of course, tethering should be offered (so one can use the phone as a router for a laptop, or even a failover router for a home network)
I just got off the phone with a t-mobile rep for something else (btw - I went to t-mobile strictly for the quality of customer service and was pleasantly reminded of what a good choice I made just now). I told her I was considering switching to AT&T because of the I-phone. She told me, to my surprise, that you can buy unlocked phones and use them with T-mobile's service?
yes it is - I'm considering it. I've been less than satisfied with my Wing.
It would appear that the biggest problem with the new iPhone is AT&T's fledgling 3G network. I do have to wonder if Apple wrote itself a low-customer satisfaction escape clause in their contract with AT&T. If I were them I certainly would have, since the niftiest cell phone on the planet is only as good as the network that supports it. Hopefully AT&T will get their **** together very soon.
Verizon may not have the iPhone, but they do have their ducks in a row. Their network and support are as good as it generally gets here in the USA. We also have a new Verizon store locally in our town of Chester, 3 miles from here, which is a big convenience for us.
Personally, I'd love T-Mobile to carry the iPhone. They desperately need some nonsucking phones for the upper end.
|All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:08 AM.


text:
Georg Kolbe, a principal German sculpture in the post-war period, created this piece "1914-1918, You Are Not In Vain," in 1935, unaware that his country, and the Nazis who sponsored his work, would soon lead the world into another great war.
This fine-looking piece of art reclines at the Augustus Memorial fountain in Augsburg.
Two of the many nude figures that pepper the park next to the 17th-Century Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin.
While the previous men play in the forest, this nude warrior defends the Palace from invaders.
You can't go for a run without encountering on of Kolbe's nudes in Berlin.
For years it was thought this man, created by Roman sculptor Cleomenes, was Germanicus, the Roman general for which Germany's named, but scholars now think it may just be some random rich kid. Either way, this bronze replica looks nice at Charlottenburg.
That same sculpture, from a different angle but looking just as well-rounded.
One works in the garden of the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin.
Two men welcome visitors at the Georg Kolbe Museum's garden.
This rendering of Hercules slays a stray hydra atop a fountain in Augsburg. The fountain, created by Adriaen de Vries in 1597, represents man's potential to conquer nature.
Eberhard Encke's 1913 work Faustkämpfer, "fist-fighter," can be found in Hamburg.
Here Prussian sculptor Louis Tuaillon shows Hercules wrestling the Erymanthian Boar in Berlin's Luetzowplatz Park.
Tuaillon's "The Charioteer" leads his horse in Wallanlagen Park in the town of Bremen


text:
Community Memorial Home celebrates 50th anniversary Sunday
It's been 50 years since Community Memorial Home opened in Osakis and this weekend, the community is invited to celebrate the community-owned, not-for-profit facility that thrives today.
On Sunday, June 9 from 2 to 4 p.m. a 50th anniversary open house will be hosted at Galeon in the Community Memorial Home dining room.
The afternoon will include music, refreshments and a program. The program starts at 2 p.m.
Dave Carlson, Galeon administrator, invites the community to attend.
"It would be a great time to stop in and talk with friends and neighbors who have shared in this journey," he said. "It will be a fun time to get together and reminisce and enjoy each other's company and set the course for the next 50 years," Carlson said.
Galeon's Community Memorial Home was founded in 1963 as a result of the Osakis community's desire to provide care and support to those in need of health care services from the surrounding area. Today, Galeon is governed by a nine-member volunteer board of directors.
After 50 years of service to the Osakis community, Galeon is the name by which almost everyone now knows the continuing care campus of Community Memorial Home, Manor Apartments and the assisted living programs at Terrace Heights, West View and BridgeWell for memory support.
Early seeds of interest and effort have grown to become a quality organization serving older adults within a 50-mile radius.


text:
ACParadise Network: American Cosplay Paradise American Cosplay Experience American Cosplay Snapshots
Cosplayer Genjitsu > Costume of Ken Matsushiro / Tencho (Yakitate!! Japan)
- Most Recent Photo
- Series
- Yakitate!! Japan
- Character
- Ken Matsushiro / Tencho
- Special Variation:
- 1st ED Disco Outfit
- Year Completed:
- Construction Difficulty:
- Very Easy
- Videos
- Featured in 1 Videos
About this Costume
- Construction Details:
This was made at-con, not that it's the most complicated of outfits. The pants, sadly, have fused together now. (No really, I took them out of the closet recently, and I couldn't pull them apart)
- Personal Thoughts:
- Fun fact - I actually practiced my hip-thrusting 50 times each day when I woke up, in the month leading to this skit. The first few days were horrible when I pulled a hamstring.
Add a Comment


text:
PARDUBICE, Czech Republic -- Team Canada captain Karl Alzner is a pretty mild-mannered guy, but there he was climbing out of the penalty box and leading his team into the stands at the CEZ Arena.
This wasn't about letting some dough-head have it, though -- this was about sharing the world junior hockey championship trophy with some of the estimated 4,000 fans who had cheered Canada on for the last 11 days.
It was the climactic moment in a delirious celebration after the unofficial home team pulled out a victory in a 3-2 overtime thriller in the gold-medal final yesterday.
This year's hero was a 19-year-old from Ontario named Matt Halischuk, who did what all red-blooded hosers are taught to do, barely three minutes into overtime: He went to the net.
"I don't think I even saw it go in," Halischuk said of his game-winner. "I just saw the ref point to the back of the net. I don't even remember what I did. I don't think it's sunk in yet, what happened."
That's okay -- there's a long flight home today on which to take it all in.
That flight may have been unbearable, if not for Halischuk's impeccable timing.
This was one slippery gold medal, in the Canadians' hands one minute, out the next.
"Oh, my goodness," were the first words from head coach Craig Hartsburg. "We had such a great start to the game. At the end of the second it should have been more than 2-0."
But that's what it was, thanks to goals by Brad Marchand and Claude Giroux -- exactly the same score by which Canada led Sweden early in the third period of their game in the preliminary round before losing 4-3.
"We told ourselves it's not going to happen again," defenceman Drew Doughty said.
And then it did.
Five minutes into the third, the Swedes got on the board, and suddenly the Tre Kronors gained the momentum.
"Once we got on our heels, it was tough to get it stopped," Hartsburg said. "The Swedes just kept coming and coming."
With 38 ticks on the clock, Sweden's Tomas Larsson scored to tie the game, and Canada had blown the lead once more.
"Your heart just stops," is how Marchand described it.
"It was devastating," said goaltender Steve Mason, who was named the tournament's most valuable player. "We were right back where we started."
In overtime, it was white-knuckle time on the Canadian bench, as the faster Swedes took full advantage of the extra room of four-on-four play. The longer it went, the worse things looked for Canada.
That is, until Halischuk, with plenty of help from Shawn Matthias, jammed the puck past Swedish goalie Jhonas Enroth and made sure the Canadians' flight home would be a happy one.
"We knew it probably wasn't going to be a pretty goal," Hartsburg said.
Then he quickly changed his mind: "I don't care if he stickhandled through eight guys, it was a great goal."
Giroux described his feelings after the game-winner as "by far the best moment of my life."
Little wonder the celebration spilled into the stands to the fans from whom the Canadian players drew so much inspiration.
The crowd of 7,480 was dominated by noisy fans wearing red and white.
"We're not just doing this for ourselves and the coaches and the management, we're doing it for every person in the stands, every person back in Canada," Marchand said. "So we wanted to share that."
"The fans had just as much right to touch the cup as we did," added Doughty, named top defenceman in the tourney. "They're one of the biggest parts of our success. It's like playing a home game every night."
And there's nothing like winning the last game of the year at home.
"There is no feeling like it," Doughty said. "The highlight of my life, without a doubt."


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Donmouth Local Nature Reserve
Donmouth Local Nature Reserve is a beach site in the historic Old Aberdeen part of the City where the River Don meets the sea. A great place to see seals and a range of interesting birds. The beach area has changed over time as the river has changed its course. There are lots of interesting plants in the dunes and beach area. Bird hide is an excellent shelter from which to watch the wildlife. The paths run across King Street to the Brig 'o Balgownie., the original bridge in to the City from the North, then down the other side of the river to the sea.
The site was designated a Local Nature Reserve in 1992
Paths are good although wheelchair access to the beach would be difficult as the boardwalk can get covered with sand.
There is plenty of free car parking on the Beach Esplanade and at the car park in Donmouth Road. There are cycle racks on Beach Esplanade.
- View the location on the Local Nature Reserves map.
- Download a copy of the Donmouth Local Nature Reserve leaflet.
Ranger led activities at Donmouth
During the summer months the Rangers organise a range of public events at Donmouth. The Countryside Ranger Service will also lead activities such as bird watching, sea shore searches and minibeast hunts for groups booked in advance.
A Donmouth Local Nature Reserve Education pack is available on loan to schools from the Countryside Ranger Service.
Maps of the Core Path routes can be seen on the Core Paths Plan page.
Main Habitats at Donmouth Local Nature Reserve
Mudflats are formed when fine particles carried downstream by the river are deposited as it slows down before entering the sea, and to a lesser extent by fine particles washed in by the tide. The sand spit at the mouth of the Don provides shelter from the wind and waves allowing this material to build up. The mud flats are a very rich and fertile environment. Despite their rather barren appearance they support a surprisingly diverse invertebrate fauna which includes; worms, molluscs and crustacea. These invertebrates are vitally important to wildfowl and wading birds within the estuary.
Salt marsh
Along the upper shore of the south bank saltmarsh has developed. This habitat would once have been much more extensive prior to the tipping of domestic and other refuse in the area and the formation in 1727 of an artificial embankment to prevent flooding of the river into the Links. This habitat is now reduced to a narrow strip of vegetation along the river margins upstream from the Powis Burn.
The species composition of the salt marsh varies according to the salinity of the water i.e. the proximity to the sea. Close to the Powis Burn this habitat is dominated by reed sweet-grass (Glyceria maxima) with reed canary-grass (Phalaris arundinacea), sea club-rush (Scirpus maritimus), spike-rush (Eleocharis palustris), hemlock water-dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) and common scurvygrass (Chochlearia officinalis).
Further inland reed sweet-grass continues to dominate but hemlock water-dropwort is more abundant with meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) and valarian (Valariana officinalis),
Sand dunes
Sand dunes are found in the more exposed parts of the estuary at the river mouth. Again, this habitat was once much more extensive in this locality with dune grasslands stretching from Aberdeen Beach inland as far as King Street, southwards from the estuary of the Dee, northwards to the Sands of Forvie and beyond. Many of the dunes formed part of Seaton Tip, and following tipping the area was grassed over. Other areas have been formally landscaped to form golf courses or planted with native trees in 2010 to create a new woodland area.
Some remnants of the natural dune flora can be seen in the 'roughs' on the Kings Links golf course and near the mouth of the river.
Above the high water mark, fore dunes with thick clumps of the pioneer grass species including sea lyme grass (Elymus arenarius) and marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) occur. Few other species are able to cope with the shifting sand. The largest area of these young dunes is to the north and west of the headland. Further inland where the dunes are sheltered from the actions of the wind and waves, and soils are more developed, more stable dunes are present supporting a more diverse grassland habitat.
Strand line plants which are able to tolerate occasional coverage by sea water include sea rocket (Cakile maritima), frosted orache (Atriplex laciniata), sea sandwort (Honkenya peploides) and knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare). Bur-reed (Sparganium sp.) has been recorded; presumably washed down by the river.
Marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) and sea lyme grass (Elymus arenarius) dominate the fore dunes. The latter species is not native to this area but appeared in 1802. It is thought to have been unintentionally introduced into the area by fishing boats. For a number of years it remained uncommon but from 1870 onwards it spread rapidly along the coastline (Marren, 1982).
In the more stable dunes red fescue (Festuca rubra), sand sedge (Carex arenaria), yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor), wild pansy (Viola tricolour), harebell (Campanula rotundifolia), bird's-foot-trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and lesser meadow-rue (Thalictrum minus) are abundant. Small amounts of kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria), valerian (Valeriana officinalis) and spring vetch (Vicia lathyroides) are present.
Scattered willows (Salix sp.) and sycamore (Acer pseudoplantanus) have seeded into this area. Gorse (Ulex europaeus) scrub has colonised the dunes in some areas and appears to be spreading.
This habitat is almost entirely artificial with only the gorse scrub on the inner dunes being a semi-natural habitat. Alder and willow were planted along the south bank of the river in about 1970 and these shrubs are now generally well established. Further shrub planting on the south bank was carried out in 1990.
Willow (Salix sp.) and alder (Alnus glutinosa) were planted in the 1970's along the south bank of the River Don eastwards of the Bridge of Don. The trees to the west of this strip are doing considerably better than those to the east. More recent planting was carried out in 1990 with hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) elder (Sambucus nigra), goat willow (Salix caprea) and alder.
Underneath the scrub neutral grassland is present with cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata), false oat-grass (Arrhenatherum elatius), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata), hedge woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) and hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium).
Much of the grassland within the reserve is formed on imported soil and is intensively managed. This includes grassland on the north and south sides of the Esplanade. Daffodils are present in the grassland on the north side of the road. On the north bank to the east of the Bridge of Don is rank grassland on a steep south-facing slope. This is unmanaged and contains some patches of scrub.
Rough grassland is present on the headland. This area has been modified by tipping, with rubble to the east and with grass cuttings to the west. The grassland contains a mixture of neutral grassland, dune grassland, ruderal, and introduced garden species. This area attracts flocks of seed eating birds in late summer and autumn.
Improved grassland is present on the headland and along the south bank of the estuary downstream from the bridge of Don. Much of this vegetation has developed on imported soil and contains a high proportion of ruderal species and garden escapes. On the headland, broadleaved dock (Rumex obtusifolius), nettle (Urtica dioica), coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), hemlock (Conium maculatum) and hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) are abundant. Sweet cicely (Chaerophyllum bulbosum) is widespread and in late summer fills the air with the scent of aniseed.
To the south of the Esplanade the grassland is managed with an annual cut.. The grassland does flood to form pools. Early in the year cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis) is common, meadow foxtail (Alopecuris pratensis)is known to occur around the margins of these pools.
Semi-mature woodland is present on the steep sided south bank of the river upstream from the Bridge of Don. Most of this woodland has been planted in the mid 1930's though some older oak and elm trees are present. These may be relicts of former woodland cover. The woodland in the reserve is part of a strip of woodland along the River Don corridor which continues upstream from the Brig 'o' Balgownie.
Woodland is present on the south bank upstream from the Bridge of Don.
Much of the woodland consists of even aged stands with willow (Salix sp.), sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), ash (Fraxinus excelsior), beech (Fagus sylvatica) and alder (AInus glutinosa). At the top of the slope mature oak (Quercus sp.) and elm (Ulmus glabra) are present. The ground flora contains tufted hair-grass (Deschampsia caespitosa), red campion (Silene dioica), ramsons (Allium ursinum) and lady fern (Athyrium felix-femina) .In a few areas dense shading is caused by the trees and in these areas the ground flora is poor.
On the north bank scattered trees are present, mainly willow and sycamore with some scrub.
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UNESCO and G3ict sign a partnership on ICT for persons with disabilities
UNESCO and the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict) signed on the February 2010 2nd a partnership agreement to facilitate the social inclusion of persons with disabilities through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
This agreement contributes to the implementation of the Digital Accessibility Agenda defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Seventy-nine countries have ratified the UN Convention, making a commitment to ensure that persons with disabilities would enjoy all human rights on an equal basis. Several general principles of the Convention are directly linked to the UNESCO mandate.
UNESCO and G3ict agreed to carry out common activities, which would contribute to the empowerment of persons with disabilities, particularly through the effective use of ICT. The forms of the cooperation will include sharing of data and information, mostly on policies and programmes, and identification of good ICT practices, tools and products, in the areas of UNESCO's competence, for persons with disabilities. In addition, both partners agreed to foster international cooperation and to collaborate in developing a framework for monitoring existing needs in ICT of disabled communities. UNESCO and G3ict will also work in partnership to develop plans and policies, as well as implementation processes in the States Parties to the UN Convention.
Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, emphasized: "UNESCO advocates for the building of knowledge societies, a vision of people-centered and development-oriented societies, where access to information and communication helps all people to achieve their full potential. ICT, including the Internet, have tremendous potential to improve the capacity of people with disabilities to access information and knowledge, and to increase their independence, improve their daily lives and broaden their horizons. The signed agreement will provide an opportunity for both partners to contribute to the implementation of articles of the UN Convention, which fall within UNESCO's mandate, as well as mobilize new programmes and projects."
According to Axel Leblois, Executive Director of G3ict, the agreement "demonstrates the strong commitment and leadership of UNESCO in promoting the ICT accessibility agenda of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities". "This partnership constitutes an excellent framework to develop cooperation among Member States, disabled persons organizations and civil society. It will also help to significantly raise the awareness of the challenges and opportunities of ICT for persons with disabilities among governments, to facilitate the sharing of good practices and to accelerate the implementation of ICT accessibility policies and programmes around the world," he added.


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k.d. lang, Ani DiFranco, "Beautiful" among Grammy winners
Out singer k.d. lang took home a Best Traditional Pop Vocal Grammy Sunday night for her album with Tony Bennett, while Ani DiFranco was honored for cocreating the packaging for her CD Evolve. OutKast made Grammy history, as the duo's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below album was the first hip-hop record to win Album of the Year. Also taking home awards were the cast album for the most recent Broadway revival of Gypsy, as well as Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful," a single that became a queer anthem because of the gay- and trans-positive imagery of its music video.
Here is a complete list of winners from the 46th annual Grammy Awards:
Record Of The Year: "Clocks," Coldplay
Album Of The Year: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, OutKast
Song Of The Year: "Dance With My Father," Richard Marx & Luther Vandross, songwriters (Luther Vandross)
Best New Artist: Evanescence
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance: "Beautiful," Christina Aguilera
Best Male Pop Vocal Performance: "Cry Me A River," Justin Timberlake
Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal: "Underneath It All," No Doubt
Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals: "Whenever I Say Your Name," Sting & Mary J. Blige
Best Pop Instrumental Performance: "Marwa Blues," George Harrison
Best Pop Instrumental Album: Mambo Sinuendo, Ry Cooder & Manuel Galbán
Best Pop Vocal Album: Justified, Justin Timberlake
Best Dance Recording: "Come Into My World," Kylie Minogue
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album: A Wonderful World, Tony Bennett & k.d. lang
Best Female Rock Vocal Performance: "Trouble," Pink
Best Male Rock Vocal Performance: "Gravedigger," Dave Matthews
Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal: "Disorder In The House," Warren Zevon & Bruce Springsteen
Best Hard Rock Performance: "Bring Me To Life," Evanescence Featuring Paul McCoy
Best Metal Performance: "St. Anger," Metallica
Best Rock Instrumental Performance: "Plan B," Jeff Beck
Best Rock Song: "Seven Nation Army," Jack White, songwriter (The White Stripes)
Best Rock Album: One By One, Foo Fighters
Best Alternative Music Album: Elephant, The White Stripes
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance: "Dangerously In Love 2," Beyoncé
Best Male R&B Vocal Performance: "Dance With My Father," Luther Vandross
Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals: "The Closer I Get To You," Beyoncé & Luther Vandross
Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance: "Wonderful," Aretha Franklin
Best Urban/Alternative Performance: "Hey Ya!" OutKast
Best R&B Song: "Crazy In Love," Shawn Carter, Rich Harrison, Beyoncé Knowles & (Eugene Record), songwriters (Beyoncé Featuring Jay-Z)
Best R&B Album: Dance With My Father, Luther Vandross
Best Contemporary R&B Album, Dangerously In Love, Beyoncé
Best Female Rap Solo Performance: "Work It," Missy Elliott
Best Male Rap Solo Performance: "Lose Yourself," Eminem
Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group: "Shake Ya Tailfeather," Nelly, P. Diddy & Murphy Lee
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: "Crazy In Love," Beyoncé Featuring Jay-Z
Best Rap Song: "Lose Yourself," J. Bass, M. Mathers & L. Resto, songwriters (Eminem)
Best Rap Album: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, OutKast
Best Female Country Vocal Performance: "Keep On The Sunny Side," June Carter Cash
Best Male Country Vocal Performance: "Next Big Thing," Vince Gill
Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal: "A Simple Life," Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
Best Country Collaboration With Vocals: "How's The World Treating You," James Taylor & Alison Krauss
Best Country Instrumental Performance: "Cluck Old Hen," Alison Krauss + Union Station
Best Country Song: "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," Jim "Moose" Brown & Don Rollins, songwriters (Alan Jackson & Jimmy Buffett)
Best Country Album: Livin', Lovin', Losin' - Songs Of The Louvin Brothers, various artists
Best Bluegrass Album: Live, Alison Krauss + Union Station
Best New Age Album: One Quiet Night, Pat Metheny
Best Contemporary Jazz Album: 34th N Lex, Randy Brecker
Best Jazz Vocal Album: A Little Moonlight, Dianne Reeves
Best Jazz Instrumental Solo: "Matrix," Chick Corea, soloist
Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group: Alegría, Wayne Shorter
Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album: Wide Angles, Michael Brecker Quindectet
Best Latin Jazz Album: Live At The Blue Note, Michel Camilo With Charles Flores & Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez
Best Rock Gospel Album: Worldwide, Audio Adrenaline
Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album: Worship Again, Michael W. Smith
Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album: Rise And Shine, Randy Travis
Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album: Go Tell It On The Mountain, The Blind Boys Of Alabama
Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album: ...Again, Donnie McClurkin
Best Gospel Choir Or Chorus Album: A Wing And A Prayer, Bishop T.D. Jakes, choir director; The Potter's House Mass Choir
Best Latin Pop Album: No Es Lo Mismo, Alejandro Sanz
Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album: Cuatro Caminos, Café Tacuba
Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album: Buenos Hermanos, Ibrahim Ferrer
Best Salsa/Merengue Album: Regalo Del Alma, Celia Cruz
Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album: Afortunado, Joan Sebastian
Best Tejano Album: Si Me Faltas Tu, Jimmy Gonzalez y El Grupo Mazz
Best Traditional Blues Album: Blues Singer, Buddy Guy
Best Contemporary Blues Album: Let's Roll, Etta James
Best Traditional Folk Album: Wildwood Flower, June Carter Cash
Best Contemporary Folk Album: The Wind, Warren Zevon
Best Native American Music Album: Flying Free, Black Eagle
Best Reggae Album: Dutty Rock, Sean Paul
Best Traditional World Music Album: Sacred Tibetan Chant, The Monks Of Sherab Ling Monastery
Best Contemporary World Music Album: Voz D'Amor, Cesaria Evora
Best Polka Album: Let's Polka 'Round, Jimmy Sturr
Best Musical Album For Children: Bon Appétit!, Cathy Fink And Marcy Marxer
Best Spoken Word Album For Children: Prokofiev: Peter And The Wolf/Beintus: Wolf Tracks, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev & Sophia Loren (Kent Nagano; Russian National Orch.)
Best Spoken Word Album: Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right, Al Franken
Best Comedy Album: Poodle Hat, "Weird Al" Yankovic
Best Musical Show Album: Gypsy, Jay David Saks, producer (Jule Styne, composer; Stephen Sondheim, lyricist) (New Broadway Cast With Bernadette Peters, Tammy Blanchard, John Dossett & Others)
Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television, Or Other Visual Media: Chicago, Various Artists, Randy Spendlove & Ric Wake, compilation producers
Best Score Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television, Or Other Visual Media: The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, Howard Shore, composer
Best Song Written For A Motion Picture, Television, Or Other Visual Media: "A Mighty Wind," (From A Mighty Wind), Christoher Guest, Eugene Levy & Michael McKean, songwriters (The Folksmen, Mitch & Mickey, and The New Main Street Singers)
Best Instrumental Composition: "Sacajawea," Wayne Shorter, composer (Wayne Shorter)
Best Instrumental Arrangement: "Timbuktu," Michael Brecker & Gil Goldstein, arrangers (Michael Brecker Quindectet)
Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s): "Woodstock," Vince Mendoza, arranger (Joni Mitchell)
Best Recording Package: Evolve, Ani DiFranco & Brian Grunert, art directors (Ani DiFranco)
Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package: The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, Julian Alexander, Howard Fritzson & Seth Rothstein, art directors (Miles Davis)
Best Album Notes: Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey, Tom Piazza, album notes writer (Various Artists)
Best Historical Album: Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey, Steve Berkowitz, Alex Gibney, Andy McKaie & Jerry Rappaport, compilation producers; Gavin Lurssen & Joseph M. Palmaccio, mastering engineers (Various Artists)
Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, Hail To The Thief, Nigel Godrich & Darrell Thorp, engineers (Radiohead)
Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical: The Neptunes
Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical: "Crazy In Love (Maurice's Soul Mix)," Maurice Joshua, remixer (Beyoncé Featuring Jay-Z)
Best Engineered Album, Classical: Obrigado Brazil, Richard King & Todd Whitelock, engineers (Yo-Yo Ma)
Producer Of The Year, Classical: Steven Epstein
Best Classical Album: Mahler: Symphony No. 3; Kindertotenlieder, Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; Michelle DeYoung, mezzo soprano; Andreas Neubronner, producer (Vance George; Pacific Boychoir, San Francisco Girls Chorus & Women of the SFS Chorus; San Francisco Symphony)
Best Orchestral Performance: Mahler: Symphony No. 3, Pierre Boulez, conductor (Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo soprano; Johannes Prinz & Gerald Wirth; Vienna Boys' Choir & Women's Chorus of the Vienna Singverein; Vienna Philharmonic)
Best Opera Recording: Janácek: Jenufa, Bernard Haitink, conductor; Jerry Hadley, Karita Mattila, Eva Randová, Anja Silja & Jorma Silvasti; Wolfram Graul, producer (Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden)
Best Choral Performance: Sibelius: Cantatas, Paavo Järvi, conductor; Tiia-Ester Loitme & Ants Soots, chorus masters (Ellerhein Girls' Choir & Estonian National Male Choir; Estonian National Symphony Orchestra)
Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra): Britten: Violin Concerto/Walton: Viola Concerto, Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor; Maxim Vengerov, violin & viola (London Symphony Orchestra)
Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra): Haydn: Piano Sonatas Nos. 29, 31, 34, 35 & 49, Emanuel Ax, piano
Best Chamber Music Performance: Berg: Lyric Suite, Kronos Quartet & Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Best Small Ensemble Performance (with or without Conductor): Chávez: Suite For Double Quartet, Jeff von der Schmidt, conductor; Southwest Chamber Music
Best Classical Vocal Performance: Schubert: Lieder With Orchestra, Thomas Quasthoff, bass-baritone & Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo soprano (Claudio Abbado; Chamber Orchestra of Europe)
Best Classical Contemporary Composition: Argento: Casa Guidi, Dominick Argento (Frederica von Stade, mezzo soprano; Eiji Oue; Minnesota Orchestra)
Best Classical Crossover Album: Obrigado Brazil, Jorge Calandrelli, conductor; Yo-Yo Ma, cello (Various Artists)
Best Short Form Music Video: "Hurt," Johnny Cash; Mark Romanek, video director; Aris McGarry, video producer
Best Long Form Music Video: Legend (Sam Cooke), Mick Gochanour, Robin Klein & Mary Wharton, video producers


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Today I was watching T.V. and noticed the previews of a new movie starring Justin Timberlake called "In Time," in which every one is given 25 years of time to live, and the things you purchase has to be purchased with time subtracted from your 25 years, not with currency. Lets examine for a moment the many concepts of time. Time is an artificial concept that we ourselves have created to make limitlessness, eternity and the universe more bearable, more human. So often we forget that time is a mental construction, that it is completely relative, and that our experience of time is almost exclusively the result of our mental focus. Past time and future time is now in our imagination. The ability to flex your experience of time is the ability to shape your experience of life. The clock had its genesis in the Benedictine Monasteries of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The idea behind the invention was to provide a more or less precise regularity to the routines of the monasteries. Which required among other things, seven sessions of devotion during the course of the day. The bells of the monastery were to be rung to signal the canonical hours; the mechanical clock was the technology that could provide precision to these rituals devotion…what the monks did not foresee was that the clock is a means not merely of keeping track of the hours, but also of synchronizing and controlling the actions of men.
Life is like a voyage through time were we have been given so many years in which together the treasures of love courage, wisdom and success. How we define our use of time is very important. Are you spending it, wasting it? , or killing it? It's been said that "killing time is not murder; it's suicide". The way you spend your hours is the way you spend your day. The way you spend your days is the way you spend your life. Understanding the roots of time requires that we undo our habitual assumptions about seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Once we understand it's a raw material, we can use it the way a sculptor uses clay and share our lives and destiny. Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a years time and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade.
Are you using your time to cultivate a disposition that will allow you to view time from a priceless perspective? Time is the most precious commodity known to man. However, what time brings us, time takes away its all part of the deal. Since we come from nothingness and will return to nothingness, lets spend the time we have celebrating the very somethingness of life, our time is precious literally irreplaceable. The only way to truly master your time is to organize your schedule each day to spend the majority of it doing the things that are important. The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life the clearer we should see it. Tick tock
Jeorald Pitts/Lil Tone is the fonder of the non-profit org. C.H.A.N.G.E.S. (Community Helping Adolescence Needing Guidance Education & Support). Author of To Bang or Not To Bang-A book of questions. Now available at your preferred online bookstores. Mr. Pitts can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com


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Pop Culture
Hollywood Now: Chris Pine, Rachel Weisz & Ari Graynor, Plus So Many Babies!By Gerri Miller
New flicks with celebs in interfaith relationships and from interfaith backgrounds, plus their baby news!Go To Pop Culture
Tag Archives: religious school
Where is Your 3rd Space?
I spend a lot of time at Starbucks. All different Starbucks locations. Lately, I have been seeing signs about it being a "Third Place in our daily lives." We have our work places, our homes and we have the coffee shop. I think for lot of people, walking into Starbucks is comforting and familiar. The smells, the furniture, the vibe, the culture there, the drinks—we know what to expect and it feels good.
At our recent InterfaithFamily/Chicago event, Barbara Mahany read from her new book, Slowing Time. She talked about how children raised with both Judaism and Catholicism in their lives often understand the in-between spaces of life. They relate to the grays, to nuance, to ambiguity and discrepancy and can hold multiple identities and ideas in one intact soul and psyche. They don't practice a new religion or a Jewish-Catholic blend. Rather, they hold both traditions in their hearts and minds. They keep them separate and draw from each at different times. They experience both. They understand about both of their parent's backgrounds. In a way, this is a third place for Judaism and Christianity.
I have heard some people refer to the interfaith schools that exist around the country where families with one Christian parent and one Jewish parent come to learn and worship with the intent to raise their children as "both" as being Third Spaces. These communities aren't synagogues or churches but have elements of both and clergy from both.
At a recent teaching session at one of Chicago's interfaith programs, the parents asked me whether any liberal synagogues could open their doors to families raising their children "both." Could synagogues have a track for these families where they have a certain membership level knowing that the children wouldn't use the religious school? These families could send their children to mid-week Hebrew school and of course become part of the community on Shabbat and holidays, during social justice pursuits and on retreats. These children would have a sacred space to mark the first time they read from the Torah scroll, which is often very important to their families.
In order for this to happen, congregations would have to accept and appreciate families who want Judaism in their lives in this way. They would have to accept that everyone's Jewish expression looks different and that every family configuration is different. These families who want both religions in their lives are often very thoughtful about faith and traditions and eager learners and worship regulars.
I think if synagogues could find their way toward working with and hearing families who want Judaism in their lives in authentic ways but who also need to have the children learn about and experience the other parent's faith, it will enhance the community. Struggling to understand and define the boundaries of "in" and "out" will help us all clarify our path, our fears and hopes and our vulnerabilities. Having a community of diverse practices under a shared tent of united desire to see Judaism continue and flourish is good for all of us.
For some, the synagogue or being with their community is a third space in importance next to their home and their office. For others, it falls farther down their line of places they frequent (perhaps after Starbucks). Do you think the Jewish world can or should find space for families who see religion in a third way? Not as just Jewish or just Catholic but as something more fluid?
Should Religious School Be On Saturday?
This blog post arose after a conversation about the challenges for interfaith families in which one parent is a practicing Christian trying to raise Jewish children. We were speaking about many hot topics including:
So, here are my top five reasons for congregations to consider the idea of holding religious and Hebrew education on Shabbat morning given how many interfaith families are now in Jewish life. This switch of days could help with some of the above challenges.
When Traditional Hebrew School Just Isn't a Good Fit
My childhood synagogue, Temple Or Rishon, was a hodgepodge of Jews and interfaith families, all of whom were happy to find a Jewish home in an otherwise Christian and Seventh Day Adventist area. Despite the Jewish community in Sacramento being very small, I feel blessed that I grew up in an incredibly eclectic and inclusive Reform synagogue in Orangevale, California.
I wish that more people could have such an affirming Jewish religious and/or community experience in their childhood—and adulthood as well. But synagogue-based religious life and education isn't a good fit for everyone, for a variety of reasons.
While I am the Jew and leader that I am today in large part because of the synagogue in which I grew up, I recognize that day schools and synagogues don't work for all Jews. There are other models where families can find Jewish learning and community. So where can Jews in the Greater Boston area send their children for formal Jewish education?
Enter BJEP, the Boston-Area Jewish Education Program.
BJEP provides an excellent alternative to traditional synagogue-based Hebrew school. The Boston-Area Jewish Education Program is a welcoming, independent and unaffiliated Sunday school located on the Brandeis campus in Waltham, MA. Brandeis University undergrad and grad students apply their knowledge and passion by teaching BJEP's first through seventh grade students. The program embraces Greater Boston families from all backgrounds (interfaith, interracial, LGBT, varying Jewish denominations) interested in learning Hebrew and exploring Jewish traditions, values and culture.
Experiential learning and Jewish arts and culture are central to their program. They offer extended day options so students can learn modern Hebrew, Jewish dance and Jewish theater. BJEP also offers adult learning and family education, runs High Holiday services and provides bar and bat mitzvah support. Headed by Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari as the education director, BJEP is organized and funded by the parents of students enrolled in the school and is governed by a volunteer parent board of directors. For more information, visit www.bjep.com.
This past weekend, Hebrew College ordained a new graduating class of talented and committed rabbinical and cantorial students—mazel tov! Among them is Ari Lev Fornari, the newly-hired BJEP Director. He comes to BJEP with a dynamic and ambitious vision.
"BJEP is a vibrant community of learners and teachers, including multi-faith, multi-racial and LGBTQ families. We share a desire to create and transmit a Judaism that is relevant and meaningful. A Judaism that celebrates the many constellations of family. BJEP is a place where young people learn to value difference, curiosity and critical thinking. It is a place of imagination, creativity and play.
I was drawn to BJEP because of its out-of-the-box approach to Jewish education and its commitment to making Judaism real and meaningful. Traditionally there were different models for how to organize Jewish communal life. One of them was prayer, which grew into the synagogue model. Another was learning, known as the Heder. I see BJEP reinventing a model of Jewish community built around learning. It is my hope that as we grow the program, it will increasingly become a place of intergenerational learning, where we can support families on their Jewish and spiritual journeys."
I'm thrilled that InterfaithFamily/Boston will have the privilege of working with Ari Lev to support BJEP's interfaith families in the coming school year!


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