text:
Would you risk your health for money?
For $10 an hour, Jessica Cole will swallow a sleeping pill, curl up in a crowded room and let random strangers watch her sleep.
For $800 a month, Amy F. will pump milk from her breasts and sell it to a mix of parents, fanatics and fetishists over the Internet.
For $10,000, Carrie Bloedorn will allow doctors to harvest her eggs—for the eighth time—and pass them to an infertile couple.
And for $23,000, Jessie Cook will consent to having another woman's twin babies grow in her uterus for nine months.
These women don't know one another, but in a shattered economy, they have something in common: They all need money, and they're all willing to use their body to get it.
With the unemployment rate the highest in a generation—one in eight single moms is jobless, for instance—Americans have had to find creative ways to pay their bills. Women are feeling the strain because they make less on average and have less savings to tap into, says Nancy Folbre, Ph.D., professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Some research centers report jumps of as much as 50 percent in the number of healthy people willing to be medical guinea pigs. One Connecticut medical school reports increased interest in gynecological "modeling," a job that pays roughly $200 for two hours mostly spent spread-eagle in stirrups while med students practice pelvic exams. A sleep clinic in Boston pays people willing to live for 28 days without windows, clocks, computers or contact with the outside world up to $5,000.
If selling one's body for sex is the world's oldest profession, then the reality of American economics circa 2010 has created its newest profession—selling one's body for everything but sex. Should we worry when a woman's body parts become nearly as valuable as the work she can do with her hands and mind? "We as a society have not figured out which parts of our body or self a person can sell. There's a broad gray area of ethics and commerce where we are not comfortable," says economist Debora L. Spar, Ph.D., president of Barnard College in New York City and author of The Baby Business (Harvard Business Press). "Whether it's wombs, eggs, sperm, organs, genes or breast milk, we don't have any sense of where to draw the line, except at prostitution."
So is this a bold and exciting new world in which women are taking control of their financial situations? Or are their economic circumstances taking control of them? Even some of the women involved aren't quite sure of the answer.
Black market breast milk
Amy F., a store manager in Indianapolis and mother of two, produces far more breast milk than her 14-month-old son, Jonas, can consume—as much as 56 quarts a month, so much she can barely fit anything else in her freezer. So, she figures, "why shouldn't I make money from something that will otherwise go down the drain?"
Amy needs the money. When her husband, Brian, lost his primary job a few years back, the family spent time without health insurance. As a result, bills piled up after the birth of their 3-year-old daughter, Hannah, and after a staph infection landed Amy in the hospital twice. Brian is working full-time again, but "he had so little work for so long that the credit card debt really built up," to as much as $30,000, Amy says. Even with new insurance, Amy had to shell out $800 for a scan of her shoulder and about $6,000 to treat Jonas's chronic ear infections. "Every time we were about to get caught up, there was another setback," she says.
Amy learned about the notion of selling breast milk from a college friend whose mother's job as a wet nurse paid her tuition. It sounds like something out of the Victorian era, but with publicity surrounding the benefits of nursing, the breast milk market is booming. At least one Los Angeles staffing agency openly matches new moms with wet nurses. Nonprofit and for-profit milk banks across the country provide donated milk for a fee to parents who want to breast-feed but cannot, as when women have a medical condition that prevents nursing. And with the economic downturn, "we're getting a lot of calls from women who ask how much we will pay them for their milk," says Pauline Sakamoto, R.N., executive director of the Mothers' Milk Bank in San Jose, California. "We explain that it's a volunteer process."
Because going through official channels doesn't pay, some moms with milk to spare have struck out on their own; all Amy had to do to get started was Google "Breast Milk for Sale." She advertises on Sell.com and TruckAndBarter.com, reaping $400 to $800 a month from customers in New York, Oregon, Texas, Florida and the Carolinas. She ships her bounty via overnight mail or Greyhound bus delivery, sending out four coolers packed with about 22 bags of milk (6 ounces each) every week. For an extra $12, she will line the package with dry ice.
Amy provides milk for free to one client, a man whose wife died in childbirth and whose baby is allergic to formula. But as it turns out, "only two customers actually have a baby," she says. "Three are men who like the taste, and the rest are fetishists who pour milk on their partners during sex. Some guys spend their money on beer; these guys spend it on milk. I would feel bad charging [the widower]. But I don't mind getting money from the weirdos."
The American Academy of Pediatrics in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, recommends that people buy breast milk through licensed banks. These banks charge $3 to $5 an ounce, about 10 times what Amy asks, but the fee goes to testing milk for bacteria and certain viruses and later pasteurizing it. Banks typically screen donors using an eight-page medical questionnaire and a blood test for HIV and hepatitis. "Individuals who would not have passed our screening are selling their milk," says Sakamoto, also president of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America in Raleigh, North Carolina. "A healthy child might be able to handle bad bacteria, but not one who is immuno-compromised." These risks have prompted a few states, including New York, to require that people buy or sell breast milk only through licensed providers. That means Amy and her New York clients are breaking the law.
For nonprofit milk banks, paying donors would raise the price for people in need, as insurance usually does not cover milk, Sakamoto argues. "There is potential for fraud when you pay someone directly," she adds. "Her milk could be mixed with a neighbor's milk, cow's milk or water. It could be old or not stored properly. Any of these scenarios could compromise a baby's health." (Amy won't sell milk expressed while she is on antibiotics, or if she's had alcohol the night before. She alerts customers when she is sick so they can opt out.)
Amy won't close up shop until her milk supply dries up, which could be in two years or more. She's used her milk money for supplies such as diapers and payments on her car and her husband's student loans. At this rate, she will make $5,000 to $10,000 for every year of sales—enough, she says, to start saving for her children's college. "I want to do that for my kids," she says. "I don't want them to be in the same situation my husband and I are in."
Carrying a stranger's children
Hopeful parents once had to wait at least six months to find a woman willing to be their surrogate. Today, for the first time since the practice began three decades ago, there's no line. "Because of the economy, we are seeing more women than ever," says Fay Johnson, program coordinator for Creating Families, a surrogacy agency in Encino, California.
Jessie Cook, a 25-year-old military contractor and married mother of two in Mobile, Alabama, is due to deliver twins this summer—the biological children of a couple she met online, parents who have been trying for more than a decade to have a second child. Cook, who was implanted with the couple's embryo using in vitro fertilization (IVF), set her fee at $18,000, a price she says she could accept without feeling "like I was trying to sell their child back to them." The couple will also pay Cook an extra $5,000 for having twins, compensate her for missed work and provide $500 in maternity clothes after Cook completes her first trimester.
Although Cook and her husband, Jeremy, a mechanic, work steadily, the family owes thousands of dollars in credit card debt and car loans. And when a family member ran into hard times during the real estate crash, Cook helped out. Still, she insists her initial motivation wasn't money. Two years ago, a pregnant pal who had suffered repeated miscarriages asked her to act as a surrogate if her pregnancy failed. It didn't, but the idea stuck in Cook's mind. "My children are the best thing in the world to me," Cook says about her sons, Andrew, 8, and Chance, 2. "I can't imagine not being able to have kids. Surrogacy is a kind of calling for me. I'm doing this to change someone's life."
Surrogacy carries the same risks as any other pregnancy: Women can develop high blood pressure or gestational diabetes and, if the baby is delivered by caesarean section, infection or bleeding, according to the March of Dimes in White Plains, New York. Depression is common; one in eight pregnant women and new moms suffers from it. And childbirth is fatal for about one in 10,000. A surrogate's risk for complication is higher than for most pregnant women because IVF raises the odds of conceiving multiples—as Cook did. Prospective parents and surrogates often choose selective reduction if more than two babies are conceived, but Cook is firmly against abortion, meaning she took on even more risk than usual. Still, Cook says, "I'm not worried. I have the gift of carrying a child very easily."
Because women's pregnancy experiences vary so much, the balance of physical risks with emotional and financial rewards can be tough for many surrogate mothers to gauge, Johnson says. "For the more altruistic woman, the payoff is the child, regardless of the economy," she says. "But when women do it just for the money and something unexpected happens—multiples, complications, bed rest—she never feels she is getting enough."
The eight-time egg donor
Two and a half years ago, Carrie Bloedorn, 31, retired from her career as a "serial egg donor." A stay-at-home mom in Atlanta, she had donated seven times, nearly "back to back to back," keeping her on fertility medications for more than three years at a stretch. The extra money, from $4,000 to $15,000 per donation, had been a nice perk, funneled into a minivan down payment, college accounts for her 6-year-old twins and start-up costs for her long-term dream of opening her own egg-donation agency. But she knew she had already donated more times than doctors recommend. Seven times, in a process similar to that of IVF, she had injected hormones into her stomach, prompting her ovaries to produce multiple eggs, then undergone egg retrieval, during which doctors insert a needle into the ovary via the vagina. "In my mind, I was done," she says. The cratered economy changed that calculation.
Last winter, Bloedorn's husband, Eric, was selling medical devices for a fledgling company, and sales were at a standstill. Bloedorn herself estimates she lost about $8,000 trying to launch her agency, draining her business bank account and ringing up charges on a credit card that doubled its interest rates. "It became obvious to me that the economy was a bigger factor than I realized," she says. "I started getting scared." After cutting back every other way she could, she was forced to rethink the decision she'd made earlier: She reenlisted to be an egg donor, asking a fee of $10,000. "I was desperate," she says. "How long would it take me to make $10,000 at a part-time job?"
"Over the past few months, we have seen donor applicants go from an average of 13 a day to 40," says Andrew Vorzimer, an attorney and CEO of Egg Donation, the agency in Encino where Bloedorn enrolled. "We're hearing from an extraordinary number of working moms who would have never considered it before and college-age women begging to be accepted because they can no longer get student loans." Unemployed women are also offering up eggs, reports Robin von Halle, president of Alternative Reproductive Resources in Chicago. "We're finding more professional women who wouldn't have had the time had they not lost their jobs," she says.
Bloedorn first donated about five years ago, on the suggestion of a family member whose best friend worked at a fertility clinic. She says she's never thought much about the children she's helped to create, even after seeing photos of kids who her share her DNA. "I'm not attached to my genetics, I guess," she says. "I don't know the man [involved]. I don't love that man. I gave away an egg that had a chance of becoming an embryo, but I didn't carry it, and it doesn't feel emotional to me. Now that I've met some of the recipients, I understand how difficult their journey was. I am proud of my decisions, because they provided a gift to others while helping my children have better lives."
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Birmingham, Alabama, warns against donating eggs more than six times, chiefly to reduce the chance for half-siblings inadvertently dating but also to minimize medical risks to the donor, says Glenn Schattman, M.D., chairman of the Practice Committee of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, an ASRM affiliate. Donors risk ovarian hyperstimulation, a condition that in extreme cases can lead to kidney failure as well as infections caused by egg retrieval. Possible links between fertility meds and ovarian cancer have long been debated; in 2009, BMJ published a study of more than 54,000 Danish women that found no convincing association. Still, "six times is enough," Dr. Schattman says. "Just because a person wants to take the risk doesn't mean that medically we should let her." Lyne Macklin-Fife, program administrator at Egg Donation, agrees—in theory. "So many cycles should shut the door on [Bloedorn]," she says. "But she's in dire need. The money is too good for her not to do it."
Bloedorn remains ambivalent about her decision to advertise her eggs. Since her lowest point, her husband has found a better-paying job, and she has recouped all but $2,000 of her business losses and launched her agency, Eggspecting. But Eric has also enrolled in an MBA program, and this May, $60,000 in student loans will start to come due. As an egg broker, "I'd never accept a donor who has done it more than six times," Bloedorn says. "I go back and forth, willing and unwilling, and think, What if it does something to my body? I've been lucky. Then again, what's one more?"
Cash for napping in public
On the surface, literally, Jessica Cole has it all. Size 34B breasts. A perfect size 6 body. As a "fit model," whose body fashion designers use to create patterns, the 27-year-old in Brooklyn, New York, turned her corporeal flawlessness into cash. In her best month, she earned $3,500—not bad for a recent college grad trying to get by before beginning graduate school for anthropology. Then "the recession hit, and business dried up—I couldn't get any more work," she says.
One day last winter, a friend turned her on to a new way to use her body for bucks: An ad on CraigsList.org headlined "Come and sleep at the new museum." The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City wanted women ages 18 to 40 to arrive around noon, put on a cotton nightie, pop a sleeping aid if they chose, slip into a bed in the exhibition space and sleep until closing time. "The friend who forwarded me the ad said he wished he could do it," Cole says. "But they wanted only women."
"This is XX," by Chinese artist Chu Yun, aspired to create "a living sculpture through sleep," read the accompanying wall text. "The participants…are less real-life, modern-day Sleeping Beauties than islands of enviable calm.… There is an inherent irony in the participants' supernatural tranquility: That they are only able to maintain their state of sleep with the assistance of sleeping aids, suggests that, perhaps, their state is not one of relaxation, but of withdrawal and extreme vulnerability."
Hundreds of women applied, says assistant curator Jarrett Gregory, including a narcoleptic and someone feeling catatonic after a recent breakup. For her two-month stint, Cole dozed for dollars three days a week, earning a total of about $800. She says taking a pill didn't faze her, "because I used an over-the-counter pill and not a prescription." That sense of security may be misplaced, warns Donna Arand, Ph.D., clinical director of the Kettering & Sycamore Sleep Center in Kettering, Ohio. "Over-the-counter drugs aren't necessarily safer," she says. "Interactions with other drugs and supplements can occur with OTC sleep aids, and they can contribute to heart or breathing problems."
In her rare moments of wakefulness, Cole enjoyed measuring her audience's response. On her first day, a woman with a foreign accent wondered aloud if Cole was real, then decided she wasn't: "She said my hair was obviously a wig and that my veins were really badly painted on my arms." Later, a man lifted the pillow Cole had put over her eyes to block out light. "I screamed at him, 'You can't touch art!'" she says. "The service I provided with my body in that bed did not involve touching. Then it becomes prostitution."
Photo Credit: Jamie Chung


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Dr. J. Harold Ellens, a recognized expert in the field of religion and psychology, will discuss religiously induced violence on Monday, April 1, at 4 p.m. in the Maas Center conference room at Hope College.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The presentation is a part of the Searching the Sacred lecture series sponsored by the college's department of religion.
Ellens is the author or editor of 180 published volumes, the majority of which explore the interface of spirituality and psychology, and of 167 professional journal articles and reviews. He edited "The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" (Praeger, 2003), a four-volume work that was inspired by the events of 9/11. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, has called the volumes "a groundbreaking work of tremendous insight." Martin E. Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and former president of the American Academy of Religion, has described them "as a work that will inform and provide perspective to people anywhere who are trying to make sense of the outburst of religiously based violence."
Ellens is retired from his roles as professor of philosophy and psychology, having taught at Oakland University, Calvin Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary and Oakland Community College; executive director of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies; founder and editor-in-chief of the "Journal of Psychology and Christianity"; and Presbyterian (PCUSA) pastor. He is also retired as a colonel from the U.S. Army and still works for the armed forces a major part of each year as a contract psychologist treating combat veterans.
Ellens holds a doctorate in Near Eastern studies from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in the psychology of human communications from Wayne State University. He is a graduate of Calvin College, and holds a Bachelor of Divinity and master's from Calvin Theological Seminary, and master's degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and the University of Michigan.
The Maas Center is located at 257 Columbia Ave., on Columbia Avenue at 11th Street.

subset: commoncrawl


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text:
The following lines create a
pyopencl.elementwise.ElementwiseKernel instance named
calculate_polygon_vertices_x. The first argument is a string formatted as a C argument list. However, you must be careful with the addition of arguments because the kernel builder adds some arguments for you. For example, the total number of elements in the
x_origin array is automatically included as a
long n argument. Thus, if you add an argument named
n, the code will fail because there will be a duplicate argument. That information is not included in the PyOpenCL documentation and you can spend unnecessary time trying to guess what's wrong with your code.
from pyopencl.elementwise import ElementwiseKernel calculate_polygon_vertices_x = ElementwiseKernel(context, "float r, float *x_origin, float *x ", operation="x[i] = x_origin[i] + (r * cos(2 * M_PI * i / n))", name="calculate_polygon_vertices_x", preamble="#define M_PI 3.14159265358979323846")
operation argument is a C snippet that performs the desired
map operation. Notice that the current index is available in the
i variable and the total number of elements in the
n variable. The preamble argument includes a
#define that the kernel builder will include outside of the function context in the kernel's source code. This way, I define the value for
M_PI to avoid making the code compatible only with certain OpenCL extensions that define
M_PI when enabled.
The following lines show the code that the element-wise kernel builder generates based on the arguments provided to the
pyopencl.elementwise.ElementwiseKernel class. Notice that the generated kernel includes code to partition the loop based on the workgroups.
#define M_PI 3.14159265358979323846 #define PYOPENCL_ELWISE_CONTINUE continue __kernel void calculate_polygon_vertices_x(float r, __global float *x_origin__base, long x_origin__offset, __global float *x__base, long x__offset, long n) { int lid = get_local_id(0); int gsize = get_global_size(0); int work_group_start = get_local_size(0)*get_group_id(0); long i; __global float *x_origin = (__global float *) ((__global char *) x_origin__base + x_origin__offset); __global float *x = (__global float *) ((__global char *) x__base + x__offset);; //CL// for (i = work_group_start + lid; i < n; i += gsize) { x[i] = x_origin[i] + (r * cos(2 * M_PI * i / n)); } ; }
pyopencl.array.empty_like method creates a new and uninitialized
Array instance that has the same properties that the
Array instance received as a parameter. The code uses this method to create the
x_gpu variable, then uses it as an argument to call the
calculate_polygon_vertices_x element-wise kernel.
x_gpu = cl_array.empty_like(x_origin_gpu) event = calculate_polygon_vertices_x(50.0, x_origin_gpu, x_gpu)
Working with the Sum and Counts Builder
pyopencl.reduction module enables you to build kernels that perform a map expression on each entry, then a reduce expression on the outcome of the map. The following lines show an example of the usage of the
pyopencl.reduction.ReductionKernel class to calculate the minimum between two random values in the map operation and then perform a sum in the reduction operation. The documentation doesn't mention this, but you need to install the Mako package before using the
ReductionKernel class. Mako is a templating language for Python that the
ReductionKernel class uses to build the kernel.
import pyopencl as cl import pyopencl.array as cl_array import numpy if __name__ == "__main__": platform = cl.get_platforms()[0] device = platform.get_devices()[0] context = cl.Context([device]) queue = cl.CommandQueue(context) n = 5000 x_gpu = cl_array.to_device(queue, numpy.random.randn(n).astype(numpy.float32)) y_gpu = cl_array.to_device(queue, numpy.random.randn(n).astype(numpy.float32)) from pyopencl.reduction import ReductionKernel reduction_kernel = ReductionKernel( context, dtype_out=numpy.float32, neutral="0", map_expr="min(x[i], y[i])", reduce_expr="a+b", arguments="__global float *x, __global float *y", name="reduction_kernel") result = reduction_kernel(x_gpu, y_gpu).get() print(result)
x_gpu and
y_gpu use the previously introduced
pyopencl.array.to_device method to create two arrays with random values, ready to be used as arguments for the kernel execution. Then, the code creates a
pyopencl.reduction.ReductionKernel instance named
reduction_kernel. In this case, there is no consistency with the other kernel builder and the
context is required as an argument. The code specifies the following additional arguments:
dtype_outindicates the numpy.dtype for the reduction result
neutralspecifies the initial value that can be either a float or an integer but formatted as a string
map_expris a string with a C snippet that performs the desired map operation. In this case, the code just determines the minimum value between two values. You can call functions defined in the optional
reduce_expris a string with a C snippet that performs the binary reduction operation with two values,
b. In this case, the code just sums the two values You can call functions defined in the optional
argumentsis a string with a C argument list
nameis the kernel's name
In this case, I haven't included a value for the optional
preamble argument. The following lines show the code that the reduction kernel builder generates based on the arguments provided to the
pyopencl.reduction.ReductionKernel class. Notice that the generated kernel includes code to partition the loop based on the workgroups and adds many arguments that weren't specified in the
arguments string.
#define GROUP_SIZE 32 #define READ_AND_MAP(i) (min(x[i], y[i])) #define REDUCE(a, b) (a+b) #include <pyopencl-complex.h> typedef float out_type; __kernel void reduction_kernel_stage1( __global out_type *out, __global float *x, __global float *y, unsigned int seq_count, unsigned int n) { __local out_type ldata[GROUP_SIZE]; unsigned int lid = get_local_id(0); unsigned int i = get_group_id(0)*GROUP_SIZE*seq_count + lid; out_type acc = 0; for (unsigned s = 0; s < seq_count; ++s) { if (i >= n) break; acc = REDUCE(acc, READ_AND_MAP(i)); i += GROUP_SIZE; } ldata[lid] = acc; barrier(CLK_LOCAL_MEM_FENCE); if (lid < 32) { __local volatile out_type *lvdata = ldata; lvdata[lid] = REDUCE( lvdata[lid], lvdata[lid + 16]); lvdata[lid] = REDUCE( lvdata[lid], lvdata[lid + 8]); lvdata[lid] = REDUCE( lvdata[lid], lvdata[lid + 4]); lvdata[lid] = REDUCE( lvdata[lid], lvdata[lid + 2]); lvdata[lid] = REDUCE( lvdata[lid], lvdata[lid + 1]); } if (lid == 0) out[get_group_id(0)] = ldata[0]; }
The kernel builders really simplify the OpenCL code you need to write and they allow you to focus on providing a few arguments for common parallel algorithms. You won't face limitations using PyOpenCL and Python because PyOpenCL allows you to access the entire OpenCL 1.2 API. If you've worked with C or C++ OpenCL host programs, you might want to analyze additional features that might simplify your code even further. You can combine PyOpenCL host programs with Numpy features and other Python packages, and you will definitely increase your productivity with OpenCL kernels.
Gaston Hillar is a frequent contributor to Dr. Dobb's.


text: Next → This Day in History: Happy Birthday, Gipper ← Previous Friday Feature: Andrew Jackson Riding the Tiger You might also like... Miller Center Senior Fellows (11/30/16) Ted Kennedy and Health Care Reform (08/25/16) The Element of Experience (07/28/16) Which of these presidents thought that "government is the problem?" (07/14/16) Ted Kennedy and the Fight for Civil Rights (07/02/16) Presidential Speech Archive American President: A Reference Resource Presidential Recordings Presidential Oral Histories ← Return to Riding The Tiger February 4, 2013 By Kevin Evans Why the Obama Administration Has Issued Fewer Signing Statements President Barack Obama signs into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, for which he issued one of 22 signing statements during his first term in office. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza, PD. In light of the festivities surrounding President Obama's second inauguration a few weeks ago, I have found myself thinking a lot about unilateral power during his first four years in office. During his first term, Obama did not shy away from acting alone when Congress was unwilling to support his proposals. Yet, the president's frequent use of direct executive action should not come as a surprise. As political scientists Terry Moe and William Howell claim, the president's formal capacity to act unilaterally "virtually defines what is distinctively modern about the modern presidency." While there have been a number of interesting developments over the last few years in this regard, I wanted to spend some time discussing one unilateral tool in particular: the presidential signing statement. A signing statement is written commentary on a bill that is being signed into law. The scholarly literature has shown that these statements can serve a wide range of purposes (praise, criticism, credit claiming, legislative appeals, etc.). Most controversially, presidents offer their opinion about the constitutionality of various provisions of law and allude to non-enforcement (or altered enforcement in order to avoid constitutional conflicts). President George W. Bush made the constitutional challenges within signing statements (in)famous by citing problems with approximately 1,200 provisions of legislation; double the amount of all the previous presidents combined. Those challenges can be found within Bush's 112 first-term statements and his 50 second-term statements. The Obama administration has only issued 22 statements during his first term. While these statements are chock-full of constitutional challenges (Obama's most recent NDAA signing statement challenges more than 20 sections of law on constitutional grounds), the lack of frequency with which the administration issues them leaves Obama nowhere close to Bush in terms of the number of provisions challenged over a similar timeframe. Why have we seen fewer signing statements during the Obama administration? (Side note: anyone interested in this question should keep their eyes peeled for the work of Joel Sievert and Ian Ostrander who recently presented an interesting paper on this topic at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association.) Roughly speaking, the decline of the signing statement during the Obama administration can be attributed to four interrelated problems that President Obama has faced when aspiring to use this tool: 1. The post-Bush sensitivity problem. President Bush's use of signing statements to challenge provisions of law was unprecedented in nature. Charlie Savage's Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of signing statements in The Boston Globe and challenges from legislators helped to raise the public profile of signing statements to all new heights. As a result, these statements became an important symbol of abused power for many observers. When President Obama came into office he vowed to continue the practice with "caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well founded." Nonetheless, not everyone saw his actions as being in accordance with those principles. With every new signing statement came another New York Times article; the signing statement was no longer the quiet and obscure tool of unilateral power that it once was. 2. The YouTube problem. During the 2008 presidential election, candidate Obama did not do himself any favors when he spoke about signing statements. Some of his campaign's signals were mixed. One exchange in particular has been particularly useful for critics of the administration: Audience member: "When Congress offers you a bill do you promise not to use presidential signage [sic] to get your way?" Obama: "Yes…" [He follows this with an explanation of checks and balances, the veto, and his view of the Bush administration's signing statements.] Obama: "…we're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end run around Congress…" As a result of this exchange the use of signing statements has become a bit more of a nuisance for the administration. Every time a statement is used that contains constitutional challenges, YouTube videos of this exchange pop up on blogs and news stories around the Internet. Another example comes from President Obama's response to Charlie Savage's executive power survey in December of 2007. Here the message is a bit mixed, but ultimately the reader is left with the impression that Obama will use signing statements, but that he will not use them in the same manner as the Bush administration. Obama asserts, "No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush Administration has gone much further than that." In the end, the campaign left enough ambiguity for the president to be easily framed as hypocritical once he started issuing signing statements. 3. The fire-alarm problem. Research has shown (gated; earlier ungated version) that the use of signing statements stimulates congressional oversight. It is entirely possible that the Obama administration decided to use other tools of the presidency to avoid the increased scrutiny and publicity (Garvey suggests [gated] that "other interpretive mechanisms" like Statements of Administration Policy and opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel might serve as a partial substitute). 4. The legislation problem. Ultimately, you cannot have signing statements without a bill signing and there has not been much bill signing lately. According to The Washington Post: "…the 112th Congress enacted the smallest number of laws in modern history, fewer than 250 (some are still awaiting presidential action). At least 40 of those were trivial acts such as post office namings or commemorative resolutions." The same article points out that the 80th Congress, to which Harry Truman applied the "do nothing" label, "enacted a respectable 906 laws, including the Marshall Plan, one of the most consequential initiatives of the 20th century." Signing statements may have fallen slightly out of favor during the last four years because of the baggage that comes along with them. Nonetheless, the Obama administration is still attempting to preserve and extend presidential power through this tool. Kevin Evans is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University. His research on signing statements can be found in Presidential Studies Quarterly (gated) and Congress & the Presidency (gated). Tweet Date edited: 02/03/2013 (1:44PM) Comments Rules for Comments We reserve the right to remove any post or user. Things that will get comments edited/deleted: Offensive or abusive language or behavior Misrepresentation (i.e., claiming to be somebody you're not) – using a "handle" is fine as long as it isn't offensive, abusive, or misrepresentative Posting of copyrighted materials Spam, solicitations, or advertisements of any kind We hope these rules will keep the discussion lively and on topic. Commenting is not available in this channel entry. ← Return to Riding The Tiger


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I am 37 years old. I have two children, work full-time, am permanently stressed and wonder where I'm going in life. I am a mid-life crisis waiting to happen. So what better thing to do than visit a far-flung country, sans kids, in order to "find myself" with a little help from some patronizing cultural stereotypes?
So I've been in Barbados for a week now. Here are the things that I have learned about myself: Continue reading


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Over half a century Seamus Heaney developed into perhaps the finest poet writing in the English language.
David Fawbert enjoyed the challenge of connecting with the poet's messages, both manifest and veiled, so much that, as a former Modern Language teacher in Secondary Education, he felt that students of Seamus Heaney around the globe might appreciate a set approach towards individual poems that would help them unravel both content and style.
What follow are the texts themselves grouped according to the collections in which they were published.
Textual survey is accompanied by pointers to style and composition.
The whole is written so as to be accessible to students whose first language may not be English.


text: projected Service de la Cartographie; Ministère des Ressources Naturelles; Quebec. 2013-12-13 true false http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/32198 NAD83 / Quebec Lambert For applications with an accuracy of better than 2 metres, replaced by NAD83(CSRS) / Quebec Lambert (CRS code 6622). Canada - Quebec. -79.85 -57.1 44.99 62.62 OGP 2014-05-01 false false http://www.opengis.net/def/area/EPSG/0/1368 Canada - Quebec Medium and small scale province-wide mapping. conversion Service de la Cartographie; Ministère des Ressources Naturelles; Quebec. 2013-12-13 true false 44 N 68 30 W 60 N 46 N http://www.opengis.net/def/coordinateOperation/EPSG/0/19944 Quebec Lambert Projection Canada - Quebec. -79.85 -57.1 44.99 62.62 OGP 2014-05-01 false false http://www.opengis.net/def/area/EPSG/0/1368 Canada - Quebec Medium and small scale province-wide mapping. EPSG guidance note #7-2, http://www.epsg.org 2018-08-29 true false true For Projected Coordinate System NAD27 / Texas South Central Parameters: Ellipsoid Clarke 1866, a = 6378206.400 metres = 20925832.16 US survey feet 1/f = 294.97870 then e = 0.08227185 and e^2 = 0.00676866 First Standard Parallel 28°23'00"N = 0.49538262 rad Second Standard Parallel 30°17'00"N = 0.52854388 rad Latitude False Origin 27°50'00"N = 0.48578331 rad Longitude False Origin 99°00'00"W = -1.72787596 rad Easting at false origin 2000000.00 US survey feet Northing at false origin 0.00 US survey feet Forward calculation for: Latitude 28°30'00.00"N = 0.49741884 rad Longitude 96°00'00.00"W = -1.67551608 rad first gives : m1 = 0.88046050 m2 = 0.86428642 t = 0.59686306 tF = 0.60475101 t1 = 0.59823957 t2 = 0.57602212 n = 0.48991263 F = 2.31154807 r = 37565039.86 rF = 37807441.20 theta = 0.02565177 Then Easting E = 2963503.91 US survey feet Northing N = 254759.80 US survey feet Reverse calculation for same easting and northing first gives: theta' = 0.025651765 r' = 37565039.86 t' = 0.59686306 Then Latitude = 28°30'00.000"N Longitude = 96°00'00.000"W http://www.opengis.net/def/method/EPSG/0/9802 Lambert Conic Conformal (2SP) Note: These formulas have been transcribed from EPSG Guidance Note #7-2. Users are encouraged to use that document rather than the text which follows as reference because limitations in the transcription will be avoided. To derive the projected Easting and Northing coordinates of a point with geographical coordinates (lat,lon) the formulas for the one standard parallel case are: E = EF + r sin(theta) N = NF + rF - r cos(theta) where m = cos(lat)/(1 - e^2 sin^2(lat))^0.5 for m1, lat1, and m2, lat2 where lat1 and lat2 are the latitudes of the two standard parallels. t = tan(pi/4 - lat/2)/[(1 - e sin(lat))/(1 + e sin(lat))]^(e/2) for t1, t2, tF and t using lat1, lat2, latF and lat respectively. n = (loge(m1) - loge(m2))/(loge(t1) - loge(t2)) F = m1/(n t1^n) r = a F t^n for rF and r, where rF is the radius of the parallel of latitude of the false origin. theta = n(lon - lon0) The reverse formulas to derive the latitude and longitude of a point from its Easting and Northing values are: lat = pi/2 - 2arctan{t'[(1 - esin(lat))/(1 + esin(lat))]^(e/2)} lon = theta'/n +lon0 where r' = +/-[(E - EF)^2 + {rF - (N - NF)}^2]^0.5 , taking the sign of n t' = (r'/(aF))^(1/n) theta' = atan2 [(E- EF),(rF - (N- NF))] (see implementation notes in GN7-2 preface for atan2 convention) and n, F, and rF are derived as for the forward calculation. Note that the formula for lat requires iteration. First calculate t' and then a trial value for lat using lat = ?/2-2atan(t'). Then use the full equation for lat substituting the trial value into the right hand side of the equation. Thus derive a new value for lat. Iterate the process until lat does not change significantly. The solution should quickly converge, in 3 or 4 iterations. 44 EPSG guidance note number 7. 1999-09-09 false The latitude of the point which is not the natural origin and at which grid coordinate values false easting and false northing are defined. http://www.opengis.net/def/parameter/EPSG/0/8821 Latitude of false origin -68.5 EPSG guidance note number 7. 1999-09-09 false The longitude of the point which is not the natural origin and at which grid coordinate values false easting and false northing are defined. http://www.opengis.net/def/parameter/EPSG/0/8822 Longitude of false origin 60 EPSG guidance note number 7. 2009-06-02 true false For a conic projection with two standard parallels, this is the latitude of one of the parallels of intersection of the cone with the ellipsoid. It is normally but not necessarily that nearest to the pole. Scale is true along this parallel. http://www.opengis.net/def/parameter/EPSG/0/8823 Latitude of 1st standard parallel 46 EPSG guidance note number 7. 2009-06-02 true false For a conic projection with two standard parallels, this is the latitude of one of the parallels at which the cone intersects with the ellipsoid. It is normally but not necessarily that nearest to the equator. Scale is true along this parallel. http://www.opengis.net/def/parameter/EPSG/0/8824 Latitude of 2nd standard parallel 0 EPSG guidance note number 7. 1999-09-09 false The easting value assigned to the false origin. http://www.opengis.net/def/parameter/EPSG/0/8826 Easting at false origin 0 EPSG guidance note number 7. 1999-09-09 false The northing value assigned to the false origin. http://www.opengis.net/def/parameter/EPSG/0/8827 Northing at false origin geographic 2D 2018-09-27 true false http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/4269 NAD83 Longitude is POSITIVE EAST. The adjustment included connections to Greenland and Mexico but the system was not adopted there. For applications with an accuracy of better than 1m replaced by NAD83(HARN) in the US and PRVI and by NAD83(CSRS) in Canada. North America - onshore and offshore: Canada - Alberta; British Columbia; Manitoba; New Brunswick; Newfoundland and Labrador; Northwest Territories; Nova Scotia; Nunavut; Ontario; Prince Edward Island; Quebec; Saskatchewan; Yukon. Puerto Rico. United States (USA) - Alabama; Alaska; Arizona; Arkansas; California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri; Montana; Nebraska; Nevada; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Utah; Vermont; Virginia; Washington; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming. US Virgin Islands. British Virgin Islands. 167.65 -47.74 14.92 86.46 OGP 2014-05-01 false false http://www.opengis.net/def/area/EPSG/0/1350 North America - NAD83 Area crosses 180-degree meridian. Geodetic survey. ellipsoidal OGP 2015-05-22 true false http://www.opengis.net/def/cs/EPSG/0/6422 Ellipsoidal 2D CS. Axes: latitude, longitude. Orientations: north, east. UoM: degree Coordinates referenced to this CS are in degrees. Any degree representation (e.g. DMSH, decimal, etc.) may be used but that used must be declared for the user by the supplier of data. Used in geographic 2D coordinate reference systems. http://www.opengis.net/def/axis/EPSG/0/106 Lat north http://www.opengis.net/def/axis/EPSG/0/107 Lon east geodetic 2008-04-11 false http://www.opengis.net/def/datum/EPSG/0/6269 North American Datum 1983 Although the 1986 adjustment included connections to Greenland and Mexico, it has not been adopted there. In Canada and US, replaced NAD27. Topographic mapping. Origin at geocentre. 1986-01-01 Cartesian OGP 2001-04-29 false http://www.opengis.net/def/cs/EPSG/0/4499 Cartesian 2D CS. Axes: easting, northing (X,Y). Orientations: east, north. UoM: m. Used in projected and engineering coordinate reference systems. http://www.opengis.net/def/axis/EPSG/0/41 X east http://www.opengis.net/def/axis/EPSG/0/42 Y north


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Divas met at the VMAs on Sunday at Nokia Theatre L.A. in Los Angeles showing off their most covetable ensembles on a special night when Beyoncé announced she is pregnant, Lady Gaga performed as her alter-ego Joe Calderone, and Nicky Minaj surprised everyone with her peek-a-boo outfit. Take a look and tell us what was your favorite outfit.Beyoncé is no stranger to stealing the show when it comes to red carpet events and she did just that at the MTV Music Awards at the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The singer looked stunning in... Read More


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Hometown Hero – Danny Smit
Military Service Branch: Army National Guard
Where Are They Stationed: Afghanistan
Submitted by: David Diercks (Best Friend)
Danny (far right in picture) and I grew up together in Centerville, SD and are great friends. Most of us in Centerville are Minnesota Twins fans but Danny is a die-hard. He knows all of the facts about the organization and all of the players and stats. I'm sure he is still keeping up with Twins while overseas. We lived on the same street growing up and we always hung out around the town playing baseball, football, and basketball. Everybody is excited to see him when he returns to the states!!


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First, it was 90-year-old Henry Piotrowski, his arms and legs eaten like pieces of raw meat.
The next day, 3-year-old Kamar Reynolds had his ear ripped off while he played. Later that evening, two firefighters helping a man in the Bronx were bitten, one on his leg, the other on his hand. The bloody attacks last week had one vicious common denominator - pit bulls.
Animal advocates and city officials said the maulings never had to happen, pointing the finger at the city's confusing reporting system. "This is a bureaucratic nightmare with no end in sight when it comes to reporting dangerous dogs," said City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens).
After Piotrowski was critically wounded by two pit bulls on Tuesday, his neighbors in Port Richmond, S.I., complained they had dialed 911 and 311 countless times during the past year hoping authorities would seize the dogs.
Police and the city's Animal Care and Control said they had no detailed reports about the dogs, despite acknowledging that nine calls were logged about them.
Even though Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called dog maulings "increasingly a case of concern," there is no clear line of responsibility to deal with threatening dogs.
In an immediate emergency, police officers hunt for the animal and its owner.
In the rare case that cops spot the dog, they either tranquilize it and bring it to a shelter or tell the ACC to pick the dog up.
Worried neighbors have the option of calling 311 to report a scary pooch, but those complaints are often stymied by long delays and inaction, critics complain.
The 311 call goes to the Department of Health in the event the dog is roaming without a leash, lacks a licence or has bitten someone.
If the DOH decides to pick up the case, a warning letter is sent to the owner's address. This process can take weeks, putting more lives in danger. Owners who don't comply face penalties ranging from a $200 fine to losing the dog. Some victims think the answer should be a lot simpler. "Some people raise [pit bulls] right," said Kamar's mom, Keesha Reynolds. "But they are still pit bulls."


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G- Spot
Card Safety
Wand You Want
Crystal Wand Testimonial
Here is the email that I sent to Julie (aka Dr. Sarton who
has a PhD in physical therapy specializing in women's pelvic
issues) and her partner, Dr. Karen Noblett (who is a MD specializing
in uro-gynecoloy) at UCI Medical in Orange.
I was their patient for a few years from around 2003? to 2006
or 2007. Both Julie and Dr. Noblett are very personable, caring,
knowledgeable, curious and open-minded.
Hi Julie and Dr. Noblett,
I wanted to let you know that I found a really great "wand"
that works much better than the standard medical stents in releasing
pelvic floor tension AND also is much easier on the hands. You
can take a look at it here: www.pelvictherapyproducts.com
I recall that Julie said she and her partner were experiencing
muscular tension in your hands, because you are curling your
fingers at unusual angles and working on women all day. This
wand is curved and it is so much easier to get to the tight
muscle band around the introitus, as well as the deeper muscles
inside the vaginal canal.
With the wand, I am able to get to muscles that I was unable
to get to before. For example, I was not able to use the medical
stent on the tight muscle band around the introitus, because
it would slip on the tight muscle. However, with this wand I
can get to this tiny band of tight muscles, because of its curved
shape. I had to angle the stent to get to the deeper muscles,
which caused some wrist/hand aches, but I can very easily release
tension in the deeper muscles too.
It used to take me a good hour of stent work to release the
tension from various pelvic muscles. And because the tension
returned in about 48 hours or so (depending on how long I sat
that day), I had to find a hour of free time to do the stent
work every few days. Needless to say, it was difficult at times
to find a whole hour of free time. With this wand, I am able
to complete a full muscular release within 15 minutes or so
and I can do the work not only lying down but also sitting up.
(With the medical stents, I could not get to the muscles unless
I was lying down.)
I am not getting any kickbacks from talking about this wand.
I just wanted to share with you about this wand, because it
is so much easier and faster to get results from it. And it
costs much less than the stents that I purchased several years
ago. I thought you might also find it easier to work with and
I thought that your patients might like to try it out too.
I hope you two are doing well!
Crystal Wand - Loving It In Indy
I along with
a few others around the Indianapolis, IN area are raving
and bragging about just how wonderful this new toy is. Congrats
on whom ever designed it and we love you for making it available
for all of us women in this area.
Loving the
Wand in Indy.
Crystal Wand - Many Benefits!
Cynthia, I use Love Nectar wands, and recommend
them to women. We can use them to massage hard-to-reach
pressure points to organs, and to release internal muscles
to treat localized pain, intercourse pain, leg pain, and
infertility. Tight muscles can impinge on nerve and blood
flow to these areas, and so releasing them can result in
pain relief, better lovemaking, and overall well-being.
We even see psychological benefits, such as more groundedness
from the pelvic floor muscles being more open. The wands
can even be used to facilitate emotional release, since
our bodies' tissues can hold records of past trauma.
Bess McCarty, HHP
Crystal Wand
Hi Cynthia - We want to thank you for making
a website that is so
wonderful for both men and women to enjoy. We purchased
our first wand
last year and have since bought many more to give to friends
as gifts.
Our experiences with the wand have opened up the doors to
a new
sexuality for us and we are spreading the word to anyone
who will
listen. It has enhanced our sexual and sensual life beyond
words. It
brings a new vitality to our lovemaking and we both now
spectacular ejaculations, where before only one of us did
(guess which
one!) The wand has helped release incredible emotional feelings
and has
allowed us to celebrate hour long full body orgasms. Thank
you for
bringing us these products in a safe, sensual way!
LG( Psychotherapist specializing in womens issues)
and DG(Senior Executive in Multimedia Corp.)
Chicago, Ill.
Weight Lifting Egg Testimonials
have been working with the onyx egg for many years now.
I have found it to be extremely useful in many ways. I build
up a charge or energy in my second chakra that I often find
difficult to contain or move without the availability of
a partner. I'm not certain how it works, but use of the
egg seems to allow a diffusing of the energy that gives
me a greater ability to house this energy in my body and
my field.
swear, it's like having a pacifier! When I feel all frayed
and out of sorts, I pop my egg in, and it's comforting,
grounding and centering!]
a result of using the egg, I have acquired the ability to
discern different "regions" along the vaginal
canal and can feel them distinctly. It's really heavenly.
Although I believe that it is muscle tone that is responsible
for this, it translates in feeling as a softening and an
am very grateful for my egg!
Atlanta, GA
CRYSTAL ONYX MASSAGE EGG-The
quality is the first thing that you notice here. Tugging
open the smooth drawstring on the little velvet bag, and
looking inside at the small stone egg that rests in your
palm. The heft of it in your hand as you pull it from the
bag, warming it between your two hands, maybe rolling it
back and forth a little. It's made to tone and strengthen
the vaginal muscle walls, giving a woman considerably more
control over her sex, and relieving the tension that can
accumulate and build there over time. As with any new discipline,
practice is key and relaxation is the first step toward
enjoyment of this practice. (My own tendency is to get nervous,
start laughing, and pop the egg out onto the bed. Oh well,
there's time yet for me to learn). A fabulous toy that,
like the Wand, is an art object as well. I think it's a
good idea to be surrounded by things that stimulate visually
as well as sexually, which is why I've set my egg up on
my desk. An inspiration in more ways than one, and Most
Highly Recommended.
This review of Nectar Products™ is from EIDOS V10
N4 Issue # 40 Kinky Reviews by Heather Seggel Page 27. EIDOS
- The primary, and for some, the only forum of sexual expression.
love my vaginal weight lifting egg for practical reason
of toning my P.C. muscle. I also love it for fun reasons!
It gives me a stimulating feeling as I slowly let it drop
out of my vagina. " A giving birth" quality that
is deeply pleasurable both physically and emotionally. When
I am with my partner, he tugs very gently on the string
when the egg is inside of me while I grip the egg with my
vaginal muscles. This is a subtle dance of sensitivity and
communication with my partner. He has to really tune in
to be able to play with just the right amount of pulling
on the string, to feel my muscles holding and releasing
and responding to his tugging. We both laugh and enjoy the
silent love talk with my muscles! I have found that the
standing exercises in the booklet give me a great surge
of sexual energy throughout my whole body. I am opening
up to my sexual energy more and more every time I use my
vaginal weight lifting egg. It all feels great!
in San Diego, California
Money Well Spent
It's the best $39 I've ever spent!
Thank you, thank you! I'm particularly grateful to you Cynthia
for what you teach about use of this wand to open up and
reconnect deeply with my true self and with a vulnerable,
deep place in me that I hardly know, but I love the feeling
of it in me!!! And you've taught me how to enjoy this newly
awakened part of myself in connection with my femininity,
sensuality and sexual energy in a really positive, healthy,
fun way - Now I'm really knowing what loving myself really
means, whether I'm alone or with someone else!
Thank you again.
Linda C.in Atlanta, GA
Crystal Wand™ - Vaginal Orgasms
As the owner of a personal growth center
as well as two alternative sex shops in the Los Angeles
area, I have pretty much seen it all. I have tried and experimented
with just about every new sex toy that comes on the market,
and the Crystal Wand™ is on the top of my favorites
After a few days of using my beautiful Crystal
Wand™, suddenly, at fifty years old, I started enjoying
vaginal orgasms! From then on I was able to create vaginal
orgasms with my lover as well. What a joy! Another delight
has been my lover's pleasure in watching my orgasm; actually
seeing my vaginal contractions through the clear Lucite
of the wand! The wand has become my favorite "toy."
I love to start my day with a smile so, I can enjoy a quick
five minute orgasm with my wand on my G-crest and my vibrator
on my *censored*oris. It is guaranteed to begin my day with
a deep appreciation of how responsive my body is!
Judy L.
Business Owner
Product Review Crystal Wand™
- Emotional Release
I have used the wand for pelvic release
through the anus on myself and my husband. There are knots
of tension in that area that hold emotions and tensions
that effect the whole body and nervous system. I have begun
to experience great pleasure in that area instead of tension!
When using the wand I've experienced release of that tension
and that has profoundly effected the way I am in my life!
I am less up tight, less controlling and much more. I continue
to use it and get more and more out of the experience.
The Crystal Wand was a curiosity that I
purchased to experience and had no specific expectations
about it. As a psychologist who works with sexual dysfunction,
I was very intrigued with the possibilities of its usage.
What happened with it was truly profound for my own personal
evolution. It served as a catalyst for exploring the depths
of my sexuality through emotional release and imagery that
left me feeling that I had touched upon areas of my being
that I would never have been able to clear without that
unique experience. Love and light, Elise Psychotherapist
Crystal Wand™
Using the Crystal Wand™, I experienced
a type of orgasm I have never felt before with my hand,
my partner's hand and with anything else I've used. And
I've tried lots of things, believe me! I love the Wand.
Thank you for creating it, Cynthia. It's changed my life!
Patti M.
Marin Court, California
Writer, Book on Relationships
Honeydipper Deluxe
Hi Cynthia,
"It was quite amazing. It felt as though
I could get the rim of the bulb right on my sacred spot
and as I moved it up and down I was suddenly overwhelmed
by a gushing orgasmic wave which took me completely by surprise
and overwhelmed my senses."
Pretty hot stuff, eh?
I spent several hours with the wand! I don't
remember if I've ever taken that much time for myself! What
a GREAT EXPERIENCE!
Manager of New Age Bookstore
Thank You!
You gave me back something I had lost. My
connection to me. The drive home tonite was filled with
a growing sense of being home again. Being connected again.
The sadness and pain of devastation aren't gone, I know
it is still there. But that's ok now. I'm connected again.
I'm able to feel happy again. I'm optimistic. I'm not out
of the woods, yet. But it feels so good to be connected
again. I can meditate again. God, that feels so wonderful
to be able to have that again. I've missed having my meditation
time these last two months.
I've spent over 9 years with 5 different
counselors, 2 of which were very good and helped me tremendously.
And yet, none of them had the ability to key in so quickly
to the issues in my life and with such clear insight as
you have. Plus you put me at ease right away and I felt
very comfortable with you. You are very good at what you
do. Tonite was very healing for me and I'm looking forward
to having you as a guide, a teacher, and a healer to walk
with me awhile on this path.
Thank you again for helping me find my way
back home to myself.
Take care, Jeff
Prostate Massage
"I bought your G spot/prostate massage
tool from you at a convention where you lectured in San Diego.
I'm using it for prostate massage. I've found it very beneficial
for a chronic health problem that doctors call Prostatitis,
an infection of the prostate gland. I have been told by doctors
that the infection lies deep in many fine tubes within the gland
and becomes impacted with fluid disallowing the antibiotic medication
from reaching the infected area. Medical professionals have
recommended massage along with the medication, but my wife complains
that her fingers are not long enough, and it is hard to reach
and massage effectively.
Using the Crystal Wand™, I have milked
almost a teaspoon of fluid from the gland at a time, which
is a lot because when I had it done at the doctor's
office only a few drops appeared. So great! Thanks! I am
grateful I found it and I have passed the information on
to my buddies on the net who all suffer from the same problem.
Finally, some relief!
P.W., San Diego, CA
Told I Would Never Walk Again!
I had a car accident 8 years ago resulting
in a spinal cord injury. The doctors told me I wouldn't
walk again. I had fractured my C6 vertibrae resulting in
paralysis from my chest down. I was in the hospital for
7 weeks. After about a month of intensive therapy including
my own 'inner therapy', I would watch MTV between my physical
therapy sessions, using visualization, I would imagine myself
dancing to the music. It took a strong will and unwavering
intention to heal. An important factor too was my realizing
that what I THOUGHT about myself, my life and healing would
be the most important factor in getting better. I decided
to listen to the doctors and what they and others had to
say about what I COULDN'T do, would be to give my 'power
to heal' away.
So I did not believe what they told me.
I kept in a positive direction knowing I could do it. As
a result, I was walking with some help of my walker out
of the hospital in 2 months. The next few years were filled
with a number of good therapies including Yoga, Accupuncture
and Massage. I hired a personal trainer that helped me by
giving me exercises as well as breathing practices focusing
on strengthing and stabilizing the core muscles that are
responsible for movement, especially of my hips and legs.
This is when I came to work for Nectar Products and learned
from Cynthia about the Crystal Wand and the Vaginal Weight
Lifting Egg. This added a lot to my trainers exercise program.
It helped me to regain feeling and muscle strength in my
whole pelvic area and hips. The results were Great! I felt
more awake, more alive down there and more of a continuity
of flow of energy through my whole body. What was once numb
before is more sensitive! Using the breathing exercises
with the Egg and Wand suggested in the instruction booklet
has helped me to feel more throughout my whole body but
especially a strength in the pelvis which is the center
of my balance and movement.
Thank You So Much!
Peggy R.
Sensual Enhancing Product
MOJO Risen Male Enhancer Extroadinare
I am a 60 year old chiropractor who has been in practice for
over 32 years. I am also a clinical nutritionist and work with
patients who are looking for natural alternatives to mainstream
drug therapies.
Over the years I have investigated numerous herbal preparations
for my patients who did not respond well to pharmaceutical treatments
for erectile dysfunction. Most of these herbal products either
did not work or worked poorly. Then I discovered Mojo Risen.
I took it myself, and I was very impressed! As advertised, it
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Jennifer Mosher Gordon and Piper—November 11, 2011
From: Judge Robert Gage
This is a lovely horse, well turned out, and quite shiny! I like that the point of her haunch is the same height as her withers.
Her hind end is round with very good muscle tone. Therefore, I am surprised, that her tummy kind of hangs down a little?
She has a nice deep chest, and her shoulders are set on perfectly. If I were actually judging her in a hunter conformation class, I would note that her pasterns are pretty straight up & down.
Also, for hunter conformation, I would say that she is a bit thick through the throat latch, with kind of longish ears. Still, don't misunderstand me…..it is my job as a judge "to be picky". I still think she is a lovely horse!
From: Judge Carol Dean-Porter
Three year old Thoroughbreds are more mature than warm bloods of the same age. This photo is taken from a slight "front-to-back" view, so I think her hindquarters are actually better developed than this photo suggests.
She has nice short cannons and is probably slightly tied in below the knee. She appears to be straight on both front. It may be shadowing, but it is possible that her left front fetlock has a small enlargement on the outside. I cannot see the right front, as it is hidden by her left.
Her withers are well laid back and slightly low. They may develop more with age, or may remain a bit low. This can make saddle fitting a bit tricky.
Her shoulder has nice angle, which is slightly better than her pastern angle. Her neck ties onto the shoulder well but is slightly long on the underside. Her crest is nice. Care must be taken to develop the top side of the neck in order to help her balance. She may be slightly thick through the throat latch.
She is probably slightly long backed, or it may simply be the angle of the photo. She has the beginnings of good muscle along the top line. Keep working to develop the loin muscle.
She has well sprung ribs and good depth through the heart-girth.
It is possible she is slightly sickle hocked, difficult to tell from this angle. She appears to have a thoroughpin on the left, which adds to my suspicion about the structure.
Overall, she has nice muscle in the shoulder, forearm and gaskin. She needs more development in the hip. She is smooth and beautifully turned out. I love her expression!


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A C++0x Version
The aforementioned OO-style helper works well in any mainstream language, but in any given language we can often make it even easier by using local language features and idioms. For example, if we were writing it in C++, we could observe that
Message and its derived classes are simply applying the usual "OO way" of rolling your own function objects (or functors), and
Execute could as well be spelled
operator(), the function call operator. The only reason for the
Message base class is to provide a way to hold and later invoke an arbitrary message, whereas in C++0x we already have
std::function<> as a handy way to hold and later invoke any suitable callable function or functor.
So let's leverage the convenience of C++ function objects. We'll avoid a lot of the "OO Message hierarchy" boilerplate. Active will be a simpler class. Derived classes will be easier to write. What's not to like?
// Example 2: Active helper, in idiomatic C++(0x) // class Active { public: typedef function<void()> Message; private: Active( const Active& ); // no copying void operator=( const Active& ); // no copying bool done; // le flag message_queue<Message> mq; // le queue unique_ptr<thread> thd; // le thread void Run() { while( !done ) { Message msg = mq.receive(); msg(); // execute message } // note: last message sets done to true } public: Active() : done(false) { thd = unique_ptr<thread>( new thread( [=]{ this->Run(); } ) ); } ~Active() { Send( [&]{ done = true; } ); ; thd->join(); } void Send( Message m ) { mq.send( m ); } };
Next, we can use the lambda functions language feature to make an implementing class like
Backgrounder even simpler to write, because we don't even have to write the external "launcher" method and the actual body in different places…we can simply write each method the same way we write it naturally, and send the body of the message as a lambda function:
class Backgrounder { public: void Save( string filename ) { a.Send( [=] { … } ); } void Print( Data& data ) { a.Send( [=, &data] { … } ); } private: PrivateData somePrivateStateAcrossCalls; Active a; };
This isn't just a C++ trick, by the way. If you're using C#, which also has generalized delegates and lambda functions, you can do likewise. Here's a sketch of how the simplified
Backgrounder code would look in C#:
class Backgrounder : IDisposable { public Backgrounder() { /*…*/ a = new Active(); } public Dispose() { a.Dispose(); } public void Save( String filename ) { a.Send( () => { … } ); } public void Print( Data data ) { a.Send( () => { … } ); } private: PrivateData somePrivateStateAcrossCalls; Active a; };
Unlike with free threading, which lets us randomly do anything at all, active objects make it easier to express what we mean by automatically organizing the private thread's work around an event-driven message pump, naturally expressing isolated private data as simple member data, and offering strong lifetime guarantees by letting us express thread and task lifetime in terms of object lifetime (and therefore directly leverage the rich support for object lifetime semantics already built into our programming languages). All of this raises the semantic level of our program code, and makes our program easier to write, read, and reason about. Major uses for active objects include the same motivating cases as for any threads: to express long-running services (for example, a physics thread or a GUI thread); to decouple independent work (for example, background save, or pipeline stages); to encapsulate resources (for example, I/O streams or certain shared objects). You may never need or want to write a naked thread again.
Coming Up
So far, we've looked only at two of the basics of active objects, namely their lifetimes and asynchronous method call semantics. Next month, we'll complete the overview by considering important remaining details how to handle a methods' return values and/or out parameters, and other kinds of communication back to the caller. Stay tuned.
[1] H. Sutter. "Use Threads Correctly = Isolation + Asynchronous Messages" (Dr. Dobb's Digest, April 2009: http://www.drdobbs.com/high-performance-computing/215900465).
[2] R. Lavender and D. Schmidt. "Active Object: An Object Behavioral Pattern for Concurrent Programming" (update of paper published in Pattern Languages of Program Design 2, Addison-Wesley, 1996: http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/PDF/Act-Obj.pdf).
[3] The ADAPTIVE Communication Environment (ACE): http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html.
Herb Sutter is a bestselling author and consultant on software development topics, and a software architect at Microsoft. He can be contacted at www.gotw.ca.


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Loyola at a Glance
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Film screening features Louisiana musicians 'singing their way out of prison'
February 8, 2013
What song would you play if your life was on the line? That's the premise behind a documentary film featured in a Loyola University New Orleans Film Buffs Institute screening Feb. 22 at 6:30 p.m. Director Ronnie Clifton based his documentary on folklore describing how legendary Louisiana bluesman, Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, sang his way out of prison—twice.
"Songs of Souls" not only highlights Louisiana musicians and the Angola Prison's gospel inmate band, it also sheds light on Louisiana's criminal justice system and the state's high per-capita incarceration rate. A panel discussion after the film will feature Clifton, Angola Prison Assistant Warden Cathy Fontenot and Lafayette Parish Correctional Center Director Rob Reardon. Musicians David Egan and Michael Juan Nunez, who are featured in the film, will perform live. The event features movie snacks and is free and open to the public.
The film screening is set for Bobet Hall in room 332 on Loyola's main campus. Free parking is also available for visitors in the West Road garage, accessible from St. Charles Avenue.
For more information, please contact Dittmar Dittrich, Ph.D., with Loyola's Film Buffs Institute.
For the latest updates about Loyola University New Orleans, follow us on Twitter @LoyolaNOLANews or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/loyno.
Loyola at a Glance is written and distributed for the faculty, staff, students and friends of Loyola University New Orleans. It is published by the Office of Public Affairs, Greenville Hall, Box 909, 7214 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118. (504) 861-5888.
Information to be included in Loyola at a Glance must be received 2-3 weeks in advance of the publication date. Send us your news here.


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Dear Esteemed Reader and XCD Fan:
Due to some shifts in availability on the volunteer XCD Communications Committee, we are temporarily suspending our blog postings. We plan to be back in the summer with new articles and a fresh look, so please stay tuned!
In the meantime, our conversation about Culture + Design continues on Facebook and Twitter. If you aren't already signed up to receive news via our social media, we are waiting for you!
Your comments and postings are always welcome to our global community of communication professionals.
Expulsion: Dancing Across Borders at Home
The Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre sets it Site Specific Peformance Art on cross-cultural communities across the USA.
Since 1985, Heidi Duckler has been choreographing dance along the boulevards and avenues of
Los Angeles, across the USA and around the world, promoting a unique approach to performance art: site specific dance. Incorporated as the Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre (HDDT) in 1988, the group now defines its role as "creating ephemeral contemporary art experiences in extraordinary places that boldly redefine the relationship between audience and art."
Continue reading »
Calling for Evolution, not Revolution in the 21st Century
During the 5th Astana Economic Forum, Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, outlined a blueprint for a "G-Global Community" to replace the G8 and G-20.
"I think that the humanity has reached the ceiling for revolutions and world wars in the last century. Now the human wisdom is in keeping peace, otherwise we will destroy ourselves. Successful renewal of the global architecture can only be evolutionary in the 21st century. As we can see from the Arab Spring, the revolutions only slow down development of the communities, cast their economies and social standing back, complicate interstate relations and cause even greater problems.
The revolutions in the 21st century are possible and acceptable only in scientific knowledge and technologies, but they are destructive for political and social practices, especially if they are planted on economically unprepared ground. The path of reform is the only pathof progress in the 21st century.
"The international community can constructively develop only in the absence of revolutions, in terms of equality, mutual tolerance, transparency and global multi-polarity…successful renovation of the global architecture can be only evolutionary… the current relations between the countries should be based on justice, equality and consensus. The division of the great and minor countries in the 21st Century is out of date in terms of civilisation, the domination of some countries over others is not progress. This is a dead end for all…
The issue regarding the relations between the poles will (continue to) occur. It will be determined whether this will be an honest fair competition, global competitiveness, or (whether) the world will be an arena of tough political and ideological confrontation, the scene of a new arms race. The only alternative to these threats and challenges is to create "constructive multilateralism"….
There should be no geopolitical snobbery."
–Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan and host of the 5th Astana Economic Forum
Thanks to Tengrinews.kz and Trend.az for the original article.
2012 Planet Jam!
Global Service Design Jam 2012, joining 36 dedicated jammers, 11 nationalities, split into 5 teams
Okay. So you've come to terms with the idea of Service Design/Design Thinking/Designing with Empathy and all these evolving perspectives on Design, right? If you graduated from Design School a while ago, this is probably a new learning curve you'd rather not try on a new client. Or maybe you need a critical mass of like-minded people to work through a nascent idea.The solution? Join a Service Jam!
Jam Sessions–inspired by jazz and improvisation–are all the rage in the Universe of Problem Solving (read Design). Everyone's jammin', even IBM, and they seem to be having a good time.
April 27 is World Communication Design Day
It's Today! And this year's theme is Convergence.
Get your whimsy on and Celebrate the
2012 World Communications Design Day!
Pronouncements, Events, Photos & Posters are welcome
on Facebook.
Decorate your twitter feed with #wcdd2012
Thanks to Rob Peters for these lovely posters. Continue reading »
XCD Student Showcase: CAAD goes to Il Salone
The CAAD-AUS showcase at SaloneSatellite!
Graduation is in the air and in the spirit of the season, the XCD revisits its student showcase, featuring the work of aspiring professionals from the global design community. This post features the work of eight students and recent alumni from the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) at the American University of Sharjah (AUS). Opening this week, CAAD will have the honour of being the first design school from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to exhibit at the prestigious SaloneSatellite in Milan, Italy (April 17 – 22, 2012).
Created in 1998 in Milan, SaloneSatellite counts as one of the most exciting gatherings of promising young designers. It's the first international event to focus on young talent, attracting prominent design houses, manufacturers, the press and the general public. Many of the prototypes presented in previous editions have gone into production, launching successful careers in design.
CAAD was invited to join approximately 700 young designers and 18 international design schools. Eight furniture pieces designed and built by CAAD students will be on display; they issue from courses in Furniture Design Basics and the recently launched Furniture and Graphics taught by Professors Bill Sarnecky and Amir Berbic.
"After teaching beginning furniture design…, I teamed up this past semester with Amir Berbic to teach a new course entitled Form, Furniture and Graphics. Students in the course were encouraged to explore the potentially reciprocal relationship between two-dimensional graphics and three-dimensional form…" said Sarnecky.
Berbic adds, "In some examples of student work, typographic patterns became a skin for the piece of furniture, while in others, the form of letters was the shaping element. Students from both the architecture and design department enrolled in the course and the unique conditions of the course resulted in a hybrid between 2D and 3D design."
Book Review: Design By Nature
XCD gives the thumbs up to Maggie Macnab's Design by Nature.
Biomimicry, derived from the Greek for "imitating life", is a growing field that looks to Nature for problem-solving and processes. It's therefore no wonder that the quintessential visual problem-solver, the Designer, is embracing this "new field" as a source of inspiration, or more accurately, openly acknowledging Nature as creative muse. Maggie Macnab has tapped into this current in her new book, Design by Nature , where she attempts to formalize the Natural World's impact on the design process.
The 2012 Design Manifesto
Read It, Believe It;
No Matter How Hard the Reality Is…
Vada a Bordo, Cazzo!
Supporting a Creative Economy: Munich und Bayern, February 7-12, 2012
As national and cultural entities thrive in a globalised economy, they face an interesting balancing act between being reaping the benefits of diverse voices and influences while highlighting their assets and identity. Many advocates of economic development are turning to Design for affirmation. XCD continues to follow the interaction between municipalities and engaged citizens using design. Our latest article covers the Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW) scheduled for February 7-12, 2012 and is based on an interview with Bayern Design, the principal event organiser.
If you're cruising through The Continent looking for Design Inspiration or have some frequent flyer miles you need to cash in, this might be worth checking out…
Welcome to 2012
Time to turn the page and a new leaf! Many thanks to Francois Caspar for this beautiful poster
- Advertising (6)
- Architecture (11)
- Art (16)
- Blogs + Criticism + Publications (44)
- Branding (17)
- Conferences (11)
- Culture (31)
- Dance (1)
- Design (36)
- Design Education (5)
- Design History (11)
- Design Management (6)
- Ideas (40)
- Illustration (10)
- Information Design (6)
- Interactive + Motion (3)
- Performing Arts + Literature (2)
- Photography (8)
- Politics (6)
- Professional Practice (27)
- Social Issues/Responsibility (20)
- Typography (17)
Online Resources
- AFRIGadget
- Alltop
- Architect's Newspaper
- Artkrush
- Attack On Fear
- Brandchannel
- Business for Diplomatic Action
- Core77
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Creative Review UK
- Death by Architecture
- Design Can Change
- Design Council UK
- Design Ignites Change
- Design Matters
- Design Observer
- DESIGN> Magazine
- Designers Accord
- Ediciones Corondel
- Ellen Lupton
- Étienne Mineur
- eye
- Flavorwire
- Global Brand Leadership
- Logo Design Love
- Marketplace
- Package Design
- plās'tĭk • nā'shən
- SocialDesignZine
- The World
- Things Magazine
- Typographica
- Typotheque
- Visual Dictionary
- we make $ not art
- World Learning
- World Trade Week NYC
- World Usability Day


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This material was developed by the National Center to Improve Practice (NCIP) in collaboration with the Center for Literacy and Disabilities (CLD) at Duke University. NCIP was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs from October 1, 1992 - September 30, 1998, Grant #H180N20013. Permission is granted to copy and disseminate this information. If you do so, please cite NCIP. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by CLD, NCIP, EDC, or the U.S. Government. This site was last updated in September 1998.
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