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Story highlights
- Some countries in the Middle East, like Egypt, are experiencing a 'golden age' of caricature.
- Many cartoonists in the region can face arrest, torture and exile.
- Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat thought he'd say 'good-bye to life' when assaulted by thugs in 2011.
- Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar is working on a platform to make cartooning safe.
(CNN)In many ways, the Middle East makes a strange -- and at times perilous -- hotbed for caricature.
Many of the region's leaders have a poor reputation for humor, and often, the list of banned topics makes for a long read. For those that dare to satirize a taboo, the punishments can be harsh: arrest, torture, exile, even death.
"The one thing a tyrant can't stand is to be laughed at," says Robert Russell, the executive director of the Cartoonists Rights Network International, a group that monitors the threats facing editorial cartoonists globally.
"If there's rebellion in the streets, they can bring out the tanks, but if everyone is laughing at you, what defense do you have? It undermines the authority of a tyrant to be laughed at."
Despite the dangers that await many Arab cartoonists, some of the region's more contentious countries are actually experiencing a political satire renaissance.
According to Jonathan Guyer, a Cairo-based Fullbright Scholar who is translating Egypt's cartoons into English for his blog, Oum Cartoon, the country is experiencing "a golden age of caricature."
"On any given day, a newspaper could have ten comics. You'll see dozens of Morsys above the A1 fold being mocked," he says, referring to the ousted Egyptian president. "You just wouldn't see that in American papers."
Still, he notes, the country's media is more reticent about publishing images critical of the military.
"A couple of artists told me they got warning calls from the military, but more as a kind of gentle, backroom nudge," he explains.
In other countries, the nudges are less gentle. The assault of Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat in 2011 brought international attention to the dangers awaiting those that -- pen and ink in hand -- poke fun at the Arab world's more tyrannical leaders.
For much of his career, Ferzat satirized the political and military order in Syria without singling out any individual. In the months leading up to the Syrian revolution, he broke what he called "the barrier of fear" and started drawing President Bashar al-Assad. In one daring image, the Syrian ruler was depicted standing on the side of the road, thumbing for a lift from deposed (and, at the time, living) Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Less than a week after the cartoon was published, Ferzat was accosted outside of his office by masked gunmen.
"The president's boot is better than you," they told him, before breaking every finger in his hands and leaving him for dead.
"At that moment, I thought that I was going to say good-bye to life. But I also thought I had to accept the outcome of what I'd done. I had to stand behind what I believed in," admits Ferzat, who was recently in London for an exhibition of Syrian art organized by the charity Mosaic Syria, who is using proceeds from the sales to fund their relief work.
Hands healed, Ferzat continues to draw politically charged cartoons, but now lives outside Syria. If he was ever reticent about caricaturing the atrocities taking place in his home country, he isn't now.
"I was really happy to start drawing again. It was like a second chance. After what happened to me, I had more resolve to tell the whole world. I went to the front line. It's been even more important for me to speak out against the regime," he says.
Though exile is not an easy life, those cartoonists that haven't managed to escape face a potentially worse fate. Last year, another Syrian artist, Akram Raslan, was arrested and hasn't been heard from since. Russell, who has been lobbying for Raslan's release, fears he may be dead.
"We sent a letter to Syrian ambassador in Washington, D.C, and a few days later heard his trial had been delayed. We thought, 'Oh, how wonderful.' Two weeks later, we heard he'd been killed," he says.
Recognizing the dangers that many cartoonists face, Iranian Nikahang Kowsar who fled Iran in 2003, is working on an online platform that allows cartoonists to use templates to create their own satires anonymously.
"That way, people can use those characters to question the authorities, without having it traced back to, say, the Syrian or Iranian cyber army," he says. "It's our way of giving a voice to the voiceless."


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I've noticed this today, not sure if I've noticed this before because it's getting colder now and I crank the heat up a little. When I'm satisfied with the heat and turn off the blower motor to 0, I can still feel heat in the vent, sort like its between level 0-1 on the blower control. The problem is that, it won't shut off even after driving for a while. If I divert the vents it will still vent it out somehow.
Based off of this image below, shouldn't the vents block a significant portion of the heat/AC while the blower motor is off?

subset: commoncrawl


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When in the sensitive, highly appealing "Exodus Fall" three teenagers flee their abusive mother in Texas for the security of their grandmother in Oregon, they embark on a life-changing adventure through a beautiful swath of unspoiled countryside. This graceful, easy-to-take picture is a nifty example of resourceful independent filmmaking, with a perfectly blended ensemble cast in well-drawn roles.
Screenwriter Chad Waterhouse and producer Ankush Kohli, who co-directed "Exodus Fall," are skilled storytellers with a sure sense of structure, a deft way with telling detail and with capturing the exuberant sense of freedom and joy the siblings experience during their journey. The film's tone is loving and upbeat, but with enough of a dark undertow to acknowledge that the trip is not without inherent danger and potential setbacks.
Although too intense for the very young, "Exodus Fall" is a family film in the best sense.
In a very fine portrayal, Rosanna Arquette is cast as a woman who pretty clearly didn't want her three children, born in close succession, one of whom is autistic. When her baseball player husband (Christopher Atkins) is first sidelined from the majors by an accident and then felled by a fatal heart attack, Arquette's Marilyn becomes seriously unhinged. Always a resentful mother, she becomes drunk and abusive. Her children, who had the benefit of a loving, attentive father and are tightly bonded, at last realize they must flee home.
Eldest son Kenneth (Jesse James) plans a getaway in their father's station wagon with great care, though taking along autistic brother Dana (Devon Graye) entails an unexpected challenge for Kenneth and sister Charlotte (Adrien Finkel). But once the three hit the road, they are aided on their journey by a kindly hitchhiking photographer (Alexander Carroll) on his own special mission.
The filmmakers never make clear why the siblings haven't reached out to their grandmother (Dee Wallace Stone) or why they don't even let her know they are embarking on a 1,000-mile journey to reach her. Perhaps they just want to prove to themselves that they can do it on their own.
Luckily, "Exodus Fall" casts such a pleasing spell that it actually might benefit from leaving that final question unanswered.


text: Loyola education professor, Harford County Public Schools awarded $1.1 million grant for collaborative project focused on school counselors January 16, 2014 | By Nick Alexopulos Jennifer Watkinson, Ph.D., assistant professor in the school counseling program at Loyola University Maryland's School of Education, in partnership with Harford County (Md.) Public Schools, has received a collaborative federal grant of more than $1.1 million to provide additional recourses to advance the professional development of elementary school counselors within the county. Watkinson and Harford County are among the first in the nation to secure a grant for this specific purpose. The grant is one of 35 awarded this year by the U.S. Department of Education's Elementary & Secondary School Counseling Programs grant program. School systems are the primary grant recipients, and more than 500 applied. Watkinson and Harford County's project, "Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Programs," will be implemented over the course of three years. As the primary grant recipient and manager, Harford County will expand and improve its existing elementary school counseling programs to better serve the mental health needs of students in an effort to increase academic achievement. Watkinson will analyze the impact of those reforms by collecting data, creating protocols, interpreting the data, and contributing to written reports. The research opportunity linked to new work supported by the grant complements Watkinson's ongoing research agenda, where she looks to build capacity within school systems and school counselors to create change. "What I love about this opportunity is that it really embodies the idea of engaged scholarship, which is something that my field is calling for counselor educators to do," Watkinson said. "We're trying to transform the profession so that school counselors are able to utilize advocacy and leadership to support the diverse needs of their students." Professional counseling organizations have called for more engaged scholarship for years, but little progress has been made. Watkinson and Harford County elementary schools are one of few exceptions; they had been working together on counselor professional development for more than two years before they applied for and won the grant. During that time Watkinson created professional learning communities – small groups of counselors – focused on building skills and educating counselors on how to use evidence to guide their decision making. In addition, she worked with county elementary school counselors to draft a vision statement to ground practice. Financial support from the grant allows her to continue facilitating the professional learning communities and meet with top school administrators and counselors more regularly. Watkinson says the depth of her research will increase significantly now that she will be more entrenched in the school system. "The door is open for me to create systemic changes needed to support elementary school students so they can achieve, particularly those who are not able to do so because of systemic barriers," said Watkinson. With the grant funds, Watkinson will also be able to hire a doctoral student from Loyola's psychology graduate program to help administer the clinical supervision component of the project. Watkinson was a school counselor in Harford County for 14 years before joining the faculty at Loyola. She received her Ph.D. in counselor education with a specialization in school counseling from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2000, and she received her B.A. from Loyola in 1991. More information about the U.S. Department of Education's grant award program is available here.


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Just a few quick news notes for you to start your Monday.
Asylum For Witch-Hunt Victims: A Nigerian woman in Britain is fighting deportation on the grounds that she will be hunted and killed as a witch in her country if sent back. Cynthia Owie came to the UK in 2008 with her infant daughter, shorty after the baby sadly contracted meningitis and died, now Owie says she is receiving death threats from fellow Nigerians accusing her of witchcraft in the child's death and is seeking asylum.
Ms Owie, 33, said: "I have been threatened that I will be killed if I go back. I have been told I am a witch and murdered our daughter." Ms Owie also claims she was treated "like an animal" at the Yarl's Wood detention centre, in Bedford, where failed asylum seekers are held before removal. Her cause has been taken up by West Ham MP Lyn Brown as well as members of the Ascension Parish Church in Custom House, east London, which has been providing Ms Owie with accommodation and support for two years. Rev Chris Hanson, the vicar of the church, took the case to the Home Office last week and said the community was praying that she would be allowed to stay. "Cynthia's case is one in a thousand," he said. "She has gone about trying to stay in this country in a God-honouring way. I am hopeful that the Home Office will understand her exceptional circumstances. When the baby was discovered as being very ill, she was accused of witchcraft. People out in Nigeria believe she brought on this illness and we believe if she is returned to Nigeria she would be killed."
If Owie's plea is granted it could set a new precedent for asylum seekers to the West. Would more individuals from places like Kenya, Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia try to seek asylum to escape jail, abuse, or death? More importantly, would a stream of asylum seekers affected by witch-hunts and panics force Western governments to become more proactive in using their diplomatic muscle to end the worst abuses? What do we do when the men and women accused of "sorcery" and "witchcraft" are no longer "over there" and are instead at our doorsteps begging to be spared?
Metaphysical Store Vandalized in Alaska: A Pagan-owned shop in Soldotna, Alaska was vandalized with a large wooden cross last week, the first time such an act has taken place in the small town.
"An Alaska store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs. The Peninsula Clarion reported 45-year-old Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye' Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap. Gonzalez says she believes in spiritualism rather than organized religion. She also said her father fought and died in Vietnam for religious and personal freedoms."
The Peninsula Clarion interviewed Gonzalez, who called the action "pathetic", and expressed surprise that the cross wasn't on fire. You can find out more about Pye'Wackets at their Witchvox listing. The question now is if this was an isolated prank, pulled by bored teenagers, or if it signals something more sinister.
Sarah Palin's Christianity: Speaking of Alaska and witch-hunts, religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman points to an emerging debate between former governor Sarah Palin and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend about the nature of religion within the realm of politics. It seems that Palin, in her new book "America By Heart", criticizes John F. Kennedy for his famous speech about his Catholicism. This has lead Townsend, a niece of JFK, to pen an editorial in the Washington Post criticizing Palin's views.
"Palin writes that when she was growing up, she was taught that Kennedy's speech had "succeeded in the best possible way: It reconciled public service and religion without compromising either." Now, however, she says she has revisited the speech and changed her mind. She finds it "defensive . . . in tone and content" and is upset that Kennedy, rather than presenting a reconciliation of his private faith and his public role, had instead offered an "unequivocal divorce of the two." Palin's argument seems to challenge a great American tradition, enshrined in the Constitution, stipulating that there be no religious test for public office. A careful reading of her book leads me to conclude that Palin wishes for precisely such a test. And she seems to think that she, and those who think like her, are qualified to judge who would pass and who would not."
While I doubt Palin would blatantly call for a religion test to high office, her allies in C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation, who regularly engage in spiritual warfare against Pagans, and helped nurture her career, certainly would. The fact that two of the Republican front-runner for 2012 presidential elections, Palin and Mike Huckabee, have ties to Christian groups and figures (like David Barton, for instance) who would deny Pagans their basic constitutional protections is chilling. The more we insist on an unofficial religious tests in campaigns, the closer we get to real ones.
That's all I have for now, have a great day!


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On June 28th, the Supreme Court released its ruling on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. The 5-4 majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that the individual mandate was unconstitutional according to the Obama administration's justification of its constitutionality under the commerce clause, but decided to uphold the mandate as an exercise of Congress's taxing power regardless.
After an initial wave of shock and disappointment, the ruling has proven to be a unifying call to action amongst conservatives. The phrase "full repeal" is on everyone's lips, and we at FreedomWorks have a simple and straightforward 5-point plan to accomplish just that.
As originally planned, the repeal movement will continue to steam along through Congress. After conservatives take back the Senate and replace President Obama this November, we should be able to pass a full repeal law early next year. No matter what, as long as conservatives remain committed and engaged, ObamaCare will eventually be repealed.
But as we all know, that's not enough. Health care costs are still skyrocketing, and our heath care system is still flawed. We need to replace as well as repeal ObamaCare. FreedomWorks has detailed several conservative solutions for replacing ObamaCare, and here's another: expanding and strengthening Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs.
Health savings accounts are pretty simple, really. It's a savings account for your medical expenses. Deposits made to your HSA aren't hit with an income tax at the time of deposit, and the money in your HSA can be used tax-free at any time to pay for qualified medical expenses. Similarly to individual retirement accounts (IRAs), the tax treatment of HSA withdrawals for non-medical expenses differs according to the time of withdrawal. Health savings account funds can also be invested, just like IRAs. Money saved in an HSA rolls over from year-to-year, and can be passed on to a beneficiary after death.
HSAs encourage people to save for their future medical expenses. They also provide an incentive for people to take more care in making medical decisions, instead of agreeing to any and all proposed tests and treatments regardless of their medical benefit, since it's their money on the line. This will help to reduce health care cost inflation. In addition, they expand patient freedom and choice by providing more flexibility, allowing patients to make health care decisions without government bureaucrats or insurance providers always acting as a gatekeeper.
As of now, only Americans with high-deductible insurance plans are allowed to start an HSA. If you're unfamiliar with high-deductible insurance plans, they're just health plans with low monthly premiums and high deductibles. Even if you're on such a plan, the current law caps your total annual contributions to your health savings account.
The law also prohibits you from rolling your HSA funds into your IRA or 401(k), or from rolling 401(k) funds into your HSA. One time only, you may roll a capped amount from your IRA into your HSA. Furthermore, ObamaCare placed a new restriction on HSAs by mandating that only over-the-counter medications purchased with a prescription may be paid for with HSA funds, with insulin as the sole exception.
We need to expand and strengthen patient-friendly HSAs in order to allow more Americans to save money for their own health care and to continue driving down costs. Representative Bill Huizenga's (R-MI) Health Freedom for Seniors Act and Representative Paul Broun's (R-GA) Patient OPTION Act are two great, conservative bills that would do just that.
The Health Freedom for Seniors Act would allow seniors to roll their required minimum distributions from their retirement accounts (IRAs, 401(k)s, etc.) into their health savings accounts, tax-free. Current law prohibits those eligible for Medicare from establishing HSAs, thereby limiting the freedom of seniors to make their own health care decisions. Rep. Huizenga's bill would put seniors in control, give them more options, and expand patient freedom.
The Patient OPTION Act takes a more comprehensive approach to reforming health savings accounts. First and foremost, the bill removes the high-deductible insurance plan requirement from HSAs, thereby allowing all Americans to start their own HSA. It substantially raises the cap on annual HSA contributions, and allows Medicare beneficiaries to contribute to HSAs as well.
The bill allows HSA funds to be rolled over into Medicare Advantage Medical Savings Accounts, or MSAs. Finally, the bill repeals a tax code provision that heaps an additional 20% tax on HSA withdrawals for non-medical expenses.
Together, these two bills provide a great framework for how to improve patient-friendly health savings accounts. Everyone knows that we must address the spiking costs of health care. Expanding and strengthening HSAs alone isn't enough to do it, but it's an important element in the conservative plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare with affordable, patient-centered health care.
TAKE ACTION: Urge your Members of Congress to cosponsor the Patient OPTION Act!
TAKE ACTION: Urge your Members of Congress to cosponsor the Health Freedom for Seniors Act!
The left claims by twisted socialist thought that anything that is not taxed is a cost to the government (i.e.it isn't paid for). Sadly I hear even Republicans in Congress adopt the same language. This is how they argue against HSA's. How do we educate those who can be educated ? How do we measure the "phantom" cost to Government coffers and compare it to the savings from the efficiency of patient-centered HSA's ? Has there been any consideration for Government to match and/or seed HSA's ?


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Woahhhh whata morning!! Accomplished thus far
- baked OhSheGlows banana donuts
- perfected the pumpkin cookie recipe!!!!
- cleaned kitchen top to bottom
- vacuumed house
- made lunch, ate lunch
Now that is one productive morning 🙂
Onto the baking adventures!
Up first was trying OhSheGlows baked banana donuts.
I followed the recipe to a T except for adding a touch of agave to sweeten things up (probably 1 tblsp?). I also made up a quick peanut butter "icing" using peanut butter, water & agave (microwaved it to warm up and stirred until a drizzly consistency)
Half iced/half not…. these were a-freakin-mazing!
The Man woke up just as they were finishing up and he was so uber-happy it wasn't even funny 🙂 I tasted both with the pb icing and without, both were delicious…. Angela is a genious! If you haven't tried these I highly recommend doing so….. soon.
Next up was round 2 of the pumpkin cookies I had made a few weeks back… this time some canned pumpkin was gettin' thrown in the mix as was some cream cheese!!
- 1 cup wheat flour
- 1/4 cup oat bran
- 2 egg whites
- 1/2 cup vanilla soymilk
- 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp chia seeds
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 tsp agave
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- pumpkin butter (about 1 tsp per cookie)
- LF cream cheese (about 1 tsp per cookie)
Combine the dry ingredients (flour, oat bran, brown sugar, baking powder, chia seeds, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice). Then begin stirring in the egg whites, soy milk, pumpkin and agave. Stir to combine.
Coat baking pan with cooking spray and plop spoonfuls of cookie batter onto pan, I made14 total cookies. Made an indentation in middle of each cookie (use your thumb if ya want!). Bake in a 400F oven for 5 minutes, lower temp to 375F and finish another 2 minutes or so til done.
While cookies are still very warm, top each with a small blob of cream cheese (since the cookies are warm it was warm through and be easier to spread)
Then top each with a small blob of pumpkin butter.
At this point I popped them in the fridge to let the cream cheese and pumpkin butter "set up" — after about an hour I got to tastin' and holy yum these were incredible!!! The bites of cream cheese mixed with the pumpkin-y flava was insanely delicious, this put my first try at these to shame 🙂 I love them, and not sure if I'm willing to share hahahaha.
I did a quick calorie calculation and am estimating each of these puppies clocks in at about 90 cals… honestly, not too shabby!
Do any of you use pumpkin in a favorite baked goods recipe (cookies, bread, cakes)? I'd love to get more ideas because I love this stuff!
The Man and I then did a ton of cleaning around the house including kitchen, floors, vacuum, we all know how that goes….
After all that I had worked up quite the appetite 🙂 So I grilled up (in the trusty George Foreman) a peppercorn turkey sammie with mozzarella on an Light Italian Flat Out. Alongside I decided to give the swiss chard a test run based on an idea I learned at the Farmer's Market.
Washed a few leaves of chard, added to a medium heat pan with 1tsp EVOO.
Added these once the chard had cooked for a few
Here's how it turned out (sprinkled with a bit of Parm)
So what did I think?? I really liked the flavor of this basic recipe!!!! I am looking forward to cookin' the gratin using the rest of the chard later this week 🙂
Well, after 2 pumpkin cookies + 1 hershey kiss I gots to get goin'! We are headed to The Man's parents soon for some football and chili so I hear…. see ya tonight!


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Terrifically responsive dial pad
Hard, plastic case is not conducive to a ruggedized device
'There's silver plastic passing itself off as steel around the edges and on top you find glossy piano-black plastic as you do on the iPhone and high-end Nokia mobile phones. '
'Thankfully, the Samsung E2510 is relatively easy to flip open with one hand, though its long design means it's a little top-heavy. '
'It is quad-band receptive and has a flip-style frame with built-in VGA camera capable of video capture and playback.'
Call quality is very good
Good call quality
Slim and stylish flip-phone design
Great voice quality
Stereo Bluetooth
Good battery life
Slim and attractive design
'rugged phone'
'An example of how rugged this phone is displayed in the fact that it has been designed for use by United States military personnel, so it can withstand just about any weather conditions.'
'the colors were dull and our images were fuzzy with too much noise.'
'Poor camera.'
'This is a great phone if you just want a basic phone with the basic functions'
'great phone'
'Nokia is known for providing the mobile market with quality handsets that look terrific and perform just as good.'
'the display is washed out.'
Sturdy design & push-to-talk capability
No Wi-Fi
Call quality is great
Mediocre voice quality
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A southern New Jersey man who admitted killing a teenager 23 years ago was haunted by nighttime visions of the boy's mother, according to the suspect's best friend.
Steven Goff, 41, of Ventnor, turned himself in to police Monday and confessed to the 1990 stabbing of 15-year-old Frederick "Ricky" Hart in Galloway Township.
In a telephone call from jail Monday night to his friend Alan Rickel, Goff confided that he was tortured by what he had done, Rickel said.
"He couldn't bear it anymore," Rickel told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "He told me he had nightmares. He'd go to sleep and see the kid's mother staring in his face."
Goff had said goodbye to his friend at a lunch they shared on Friday.
"He said, 'Al, you're not going to see me anymore. I'm going to do something that will shock the world,'" Rickel said.
Rickel said he knew Goff had psychological problems, and figured he was going through one of his periodic dark spells. Then Sunday morning, Goff called Rickel from northern Michigan. He said he had been heading for the Canadian border but changed his mind and decided to return to New Jersey and take responsibility for having done something horrible, Rickel said.
"He said he was going to meet his maker and 'fess up to what he had done," Rickel said. "I said, 'I don't know what you're talking about, but just come back and I'll get you some medicine and some help.' I thought he might be having a psychotic breakdown. He said, 'No, it's much worse than that.'"
Rickel said he wired his friend $500 to help him get back home. The next call he got was from Galloway Township police on Monday, saying Goff had confessed to a cold-case murder. Police and investigators from the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office said Goff had told him details about the case that only the real killer would have known, Rickel said.
Goff was charged with murder and a weapons offense for stabbing Hart in the woods behind a condominium complex on May 7, 1990. At a court appearance scheduled to present the charges to him, Goff surprised the judge by confessing and saying he was ready to enter a guilty plea, sobbing lightly as he said, "I did the crime."
Superior Court Judge Michael Donio advised Goff that he had to wait until being indicted by a grand jury before he could enter a plea. The prosecutor's office said no further court appearances or grand jury proceedings had been scheduled as of Wednesday.
Goff called Rickel again from jail on Wednesday, reiterating that he was wracked by guilt and simply could not endure it any longer, Rickel said.
"He said it's been gnawing at him for years," Rickel said.
Goff was nearly 18 at the time of the killing. He was a senior at Absegami High School, where Hart was a freshman.
Hart was reported missing the next day, but it was not until a year and a half later that his remains were discovered by a hunter. By that point, a cause of death could not be determined.
Rickel met Goff 10 years ago and the two became friends. He said Goff was a skilled mechanic, plumber and electrician. But every once in a while, Goff would have what his friend described as "a rough spell."
"I always thought it was that he was a moody guy, but now it's obvious that it was because of this," he said. "He had some demons in him."


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At London Metropolitan's studio culture summit, leading academics called for a collaborative approach to learning, reports Merlin Fulcher
'The RIBA has solidified the opposition between the speculative and complimentary,' said a critical Tom Emerson, who blamed the institute for fuelling one of the greatest divides in UK architectural education today (AJ 06.07.2012).
The ETH Zürich professor and 6a Architects co-founder was speaking at the London Metropolitan University Studio Culture Conference. He was joined on the panel by Forum for Alternative Belfast co-director Mark Hackett, who also had problems with the RIBA. The institute, he argued, should cease vetting schools and instead focus on accrediting professionals.
Other academics called for a less competitive, more collaborative approach to architectural learning with strong links to practice and the outside world at the event taking place at the London Metropolitan's Daniel Libeskind-designed Graduate Centre. They complained that a thorough reappraisal of studio, or unit-based teaching, had been missing for years.
Opening the convention, Robert Mull, London Metropolitan's dean of architecture, argued that a 'brutal, competitive' unit culture had thrived under Alvin Boyarsky at London's Architectural Association in response to Thatcherite individualism during the 1980s.
Mull – who headed an AA unit for 12 years – asked whether the well-established method of pitching students against each other to solve a shared brief properly equipped them to deal with today's increasingly divided, wider society.
Mull said: 'We should be talking about the huge intellectual chasm between the academy and world around it.'
He added that students working on self-directed, live projects were helping to dissolve these boundaries.
Delivering the summit's keynote speech, Emerson – who has taught at the AA and Cambridge – discussed a series of live projects by ETH Zürich students, including a replica of João Batista Vilanova Artigas' Jaú Bus Terminal, which illustrated how a collaborative approach helped to share knowledge and to boost innovation.
In Switzerland, students were more inclined to work in teams towards a common goal, he said, which led them to make the best out of available materials and skills.
Emerson's controversial stance on the RIBA broadened the debate among the 60-strong audience, but not everyone agreed with him.
For Oxford Brookes University senior lecturer in architecture, Harriet Harriss, the RIBA criteria has left much open to interpretation with the responsibility lying with educators to be more creative.
She argued the architecture school has become a 'sanatorium for creative people' – an insular place that is complacent about the studio system's value and plagued by the 'black box' approach to grading that makes it impossible to define how to obtain an 'A'.
In her paper, entitled 'The distributed studio', on situated learning, she claimed that academics should yield active control to their students, enabling them to assume leadership of live projects outside the campus and studio setting.
This would create a 'risk confident community of learners', she argued, by making students more aware of the kind of danger they will be exposed to in professional life, like being sued.
With tuition fees increasing as part of the government's drive to privatise higher education, educators at the conference also asked whether students would continue to pay for a studio system which is so expensive.
Rachel Sara of the University of the West of England presented research, carried out with Rosie Parnell of the University of Sheffield. They found that more than half of students found the design crit to be a negative experience and only eight per cent said it was positive. Their findings – summarised in a short film where tutors tore up models, swore at and attempted to seduce their students – showed the commonly blurred lines between constructive support and intimidation.
London Metropolitan's Jane McAllister and the University of Westminster's Ben Stringer compared the modern diploma course to a travel agency where expensive field trips of limited value are used to win prospective students.
Pie Architecture's Fran Balaam and Michael Corr joined Hackett and Tom Down of Cambridge-based Mole Architects in comparing requirements in the RIBA plan of work to the marking criteria for London Metropolitan's comprehensive design project. Their findings called for a radical overhaul of teaching to take account of multiple routes through and after architectural education.
Hackett – who retired from his Belfast-based Hackett Hall McKnight in 2010 – suggested that the RIBA should focus on accrediting architects who wish to build and allow more freedom for schools to be places where students and teachers explore architecture's context in the real world.
Hackett concluded: 'Architecture courses aren't offering the right choices to people at the moment. The RIBA should redefine completely what an architect is or stay out of the picture.'
Mark Hacket
Co-director, Forum for Alternative Belfast
The RIBA role in the validation of courses is problematic because it forces a singular vocational path through education. One key driver for many students is to attain that elusive title and this leads to stresses and aberrations in what could or should be their natural career direction.
An architect should be considered as someone who has rigorously demonstrated competence as a critical, self-critical and strategic thinker, who can also deliver practical visions if required. This is not the same thing as someone who administers contracts between parties, holds indemnity insurances and follows a code of conduct largely designed to assure 'clients' that they are 'safe hands'.
One of the flaws in our vocational path to title can be perceived in the negative connotation of the oft-used phrase 'dropping out'. We don't provide positive paths for people to practice as architects in roles which society increasingly needs and demands: the critic, the activist, the good bureaucrat, the politician. The declining and peripheral role that architects now have in decision-making, procurement and the urban debate reflects their absence at high levels in the administrative, critical and political spheres. Occasionally, the sense of grievance of a student 'dropping out' of a flawed system can work against the interests of good architecture later in life.
There is another pressure driving down standards of independent and critical thought. In the context of rising fees, students are becoming more demanding, not always for better standards, teaching and critique as I remember we once demanded in Belfast. The pressure is rather a role reversal in which individual students are questioning grades, sinking into the tick box culture that universities have unwittingly set as a rod to break their own backs. The unit system with its student choice of direction and study offers a useful way out of this conundrum.
In my view these pressures will force change, and in many ways it will improve architecture, the role of architects and their contribution to society.
Key findings
London Metropolitan University Studio Culture conference in brief
- Educators must question whether the studio system can resolve schools' separation from the outside world and be affordable and desirable to students.
Robert Mull, London Metropolitan University
- Studio culture, both in practice and education, is about sharing knowledge towards a common goal
Tom Emerson, ETH Zürich
- Field trips must engage locals and promote critical thought about relative ways of seeing
Jane McAllister, London Metropolitan University
- Field trip organisers need good contacts, such as local activists, to help students engage with resident knowledge and opinion
Marisol Rivas Velázquez, University of Stuttgart
- Precedent studies can boost students' awareness of cultural heritage
James Payne, London Metropolitan University
- Students can use precedents from their own lives to design places sensitive to people's emotional needs
David Knight, Kingston University
- Live projects should be used to cultivate a risk-confident culture among students
Harriet Harriss, Oxford Brookes University
- Involving students with real projects in your practice helps them realise the validity of their work and its stake in the real world
Fran Balaam, London Metropolitan University
- Architecture's context in the wider world needs to be reinforced to students at key stages so they can continually reconsider their trajectory
Mark Hackett, Forum for Alternative Belfast
- Design crits should be a true dialogue with constructive feedback and critical reflection
Rachel Sara, University of the West of England
- Reviewing by group and allowing digital presentations can be important
Sam Clark, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
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British director Mike Leigh ("Secrets and Lies") has a way of making films that are quite about nothing, yet speak volumes about the human condition.
His latest film, "Another Year," has no plot, no action. It's just got ordinary people leading lives of quiet desperation or contentment. While I admire the actors' skill and the emotional intimacy Leigh shares with his characters, it's one of those films that is just – there.
It revolves around a handful of working-class people on the outskirts of London. Tom and Gerri (wonderfully played by Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) have a rock-solid marriage and gentle, comfortable disposition. They are calming influences for friends and family, most notably Mary (Lesley Manville) who is desperately insecure and lonely. Tom's boyhood friend Ken (Peter Wight), as the only man who is attracted to Mary, also buries his misery in cigarettes and alarming quantities of booze.
Manville shows extreme lack of vanity in less than flattering, extreme closeups that lay bare her anguish. Her performance is almost too painful to bear.
If you are having any kind of winter doldrums, avoid "Another Year," especially if it's on a double bill with "Rabbit Hole." It's enough to make even the happiest person depressed.
Flock away from this one
Rarely have so many great actors produced a movie that so few people will care about. "Little Fockers" is the third installment of the film series that began with the amusing "Meet the Parents." The franchise then went downhill with the childish humor of "Meet the Fockers."
But the latest effort only magnifies previous mistakes to create one of the most contrived comedies of the year. Dustin Hoffman, Laura Dern, Barbara Streisand and Blythe Danner have only a few minutes of screen time amounting to cameo roles. The real blame for the mediocre enterprise rests squarely on the major players: Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro.
They play cat and mouse trying to uncover whether Ben's character is really cheating on his wife. Owen Wilson lends his usual juvenile presence to the lame enterprise. Everything is very predictable as the parade of silly situations and mistaken assumptions unfold. Together it all covers familiar territory where nothing original or really funny will ever happen.
SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a financial services company.
JOHN DEPKO is a retired senior investigator for the Orange County public defender's office. He lives in Costa Mesa and works as a licensed private investigator.


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For nine years, Donna Claire Newman and her red four-door Toyota Matrix have been ferrying cancer patients to their doctor and therapy appointments around Memphis.
Donna Newman chats with patient Thomas Fullwiley shortly after picking him up from an appointment at Methodist University Hospital. Newman is retiring from the American Cancer Society program Road to Recovery.
(Daily News/Andrew J. Breig)
"No freeway," Newman, 81, said. "I did enough of that in California."
Rather, Newman seeks out scenic routes – Shady Grove is one – where she and her passenger can see "beautiful places, flowers and trees."
Newman began volunteering through the American Cancer Society's Road to Recovery program for a simple and understandable reason: "People I love have had cancer and I wanted to make a contribution."
But this week, Newman was to make her last trip as a volunteer driver. She's retiring.
Regina Fowler, 52, has been one of her passengers for several years; since October of 2008, Fowler has received more than 100 chemotherapy treatments.
"She's a sweet lady, a feisty little lady," Fowler said of Newman.
And proof that this volunteer opportunity can be a good fit for a lot of people. After all, Newman was in her 70s when she got started.
"There's no easier way to volunteer," said Dr. Martin Fleming, who is in the Department of Surgical Oncology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and has long been involved with the American Cancer Society. "All you have to be is 18 years old and able to drive one day a month."
One of the needs, Fleming explained, is for volunteer drivers to take residents of the American Cancer Society's Harrah's Hope Lodge on Union Avenue to appointments. The lodge is a temporary home away from home for cancer patients from out of town who have come here for treatment.
"The problem is, we just don't have enough volunteers," Fleming said.
The result is that full-time employees at the lodge then have to take away from their normal duties to drive the lodge's van to get people to appointments.
"Just one day a month," Fleming repeated. "Surely, there are 30 people in Memphis who will do that. It's a sweet time for the drivers, very rewarding."
Newman doesn't know how many people she has transported in almost a decade of volunteering, saying, "You got a calculator?"
Over the years, there have been heartwarming moments and also heartbreaking ones. Many passengers, Newman said, shared that they were good cooks and liked talking about that. Newman says she can't cook, but enjoys hearing the stories just the same.
"The drivers do not ask personal questions about the patients' conditions," Newman said. "You simply listen. Oftentimes, they'll tell you their personal story. You listen, listen, listen, but don't give advice."
Fowler said of Newman, "She knows a lot about me."
At times, Fowler has had to get to three therapy appointments per week. That's not uncommon. The American Cancer Society screens volunteer applicants, who must have a valid driver's license, proof of adequate automobile insurance, dependable transportation and be from 18 to 85 years of age.
Volunteers receive training and the service for patients, who do not need a physician's referral, is free of charge. Advance notice, however, is required.
Anyone interested in volunteering, or who is a cancer patient and in need of transportation, can get more information by calling 1-800-227-2345 or by going to www.cancer.org.
Now that Newman's about to turn loose of the steering wheel, she is hoping others will provide a helping hand.
"Please," she said, "we need drivers."
Copyright 1995 -
by The Daily News Publishing Co. Inc. - All Rights Reserved


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New 2019 NissanSentra SV SEDAN
- Stock: 26292
- Fuel Economy
- 29.0/37.0 mpg City/Hwy
- Exterior Color
- Gun Metallic
- Interior Color
- Charcoal
- Body/Seating
- SEDAN/5 seats
- Transmission
- continuously variable automatic
- Drivetrain
- front-wheel
- Engine
Nissan Sentra
Highlighted Features
- Automatic temperature control
- Wireless phone connectivity
- Exterior parking camera rear
- Front dual zone A/C
- Split folding rear seat
- Remote keyless entry
- Steering wheel mounted audio controls
- Fully automatic headlights
Detailed Specifications
Dealer Notes
Gun Metallic 2019 Nissan Sentra SV FWD CVT 1.8L 4-Cylinder **NEW TIRES**, **NEW BRAKES**, **KEYLESS ENTRY**, **REARVIEW CAMERA**, **BLUETOOTH HANDS FREE CALLING**.
29/37 City/Highway MPG Price includes: $2,000 - Nissan Customer Cash - 2019 Sentra. Exp. 07/01/2019
29/37 City/Highway MPG Price includes: $2,000 - Nissan Customer Cash - 2019 Sentra. Exp. 07/01/2019
KBB.com Consumer Reviews
- 5.0
awesome car . had to trade my Nissan 350 z.for gas
By nanny on Wednesday, October 14, 2015Love this car ,but I traded my favorite car for better gas milage
- 5.0
By amanda on Friday, June 08, 2018I totaled out my 2017 Nissan Sentra with about 2,000 miles not to long ago. I was run off the road by some loose gravel and hit the median head on. Not a broken bone! Mind you the last glance I looked I was going about 55 mph. I am so beyond blessed for this vehicle. I am buying another one!!!
- 5.0
For The Price, I Made The Right Choice
By rpauls on Saturday, May 13, 2017I like my Sentra SV, a lot. Slow, but nice economy. I dont need to win speed duels. Interior focus on quality and business-like look is consistent throughout. Large bright white gauges with large functional driver information center provide me with an easy driving experience. Color on driver information center pleasing to my eyes. Radio display is smaller and graphics not flashy. Does what it needs to do nicely, provide information. The near cinema display I had in my last car was a distraction to me at night. Cloth seats look great and, to me, are very comfortable. Padding on door and center arm rests, again, add to the comfortable driving experience. Steering wheel is first class for this kind of car in terms of feel, which again adds to nice driving experience. Gets a bit noisy inside on freeway. Strong winds will move the car at freeway speeds is biggest negative. Tall stance and narrower tires may cause this. The narrower tires allowed it to handle tough snowy conditions extremely well last winter. I feel ride is overall smooth, but rougher road bumps are definitely felt and heard. Cloth seats, to me, are attractive and very comfortable. Trunk is a dream for a car this size as is leg room (length-wise). Car and interior width are narrower than some of the competition, but benefit is easy to park. I think the exterior is attractive and front end makes it stand out. For the negotiated price, very, very pleased. After having it a little bit now, I would have paid more and been happy. Not a car for those who like flash and flair on the inside. I spend 2-3 hours driving daily for work and my last car had the large radio display, bright center stack with lot of buttons, flashy dials, lots of styling with cheaper plastics and fashionable wider tires. The flash and suspect snow handling wore thin. This car will not. Great deal in more ways than one.


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Swipe to the left
Posts tagged 'grill tools'
By Blogger June 15, 2012
Happy Fathers Day, to all the dads out there! Especially the first timer who are celebrating this day as a Dad instead of just for their Dad. Without my Dad I know I wouldn't be who I am today, many of the best parts of myself are because he helped shape me that way. Happy Fathers Day to my wonderful Dad!


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Why is Eminem always so upset? He has a hit album, he's the opening act for the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, and he gets to wear a comfortable hoodie while Rihanna is stuck in some sort of combat-boots-and-tutu getup I'm pretty sure she stole from Madonna. "Love the Way You Lie" is a painfully honest account of domestic violence and the fact that it's performed by two people with first-hand experience with the subject makes it all the more poignant but aside from some faux fireballs, the performance is pretty dull. And why is everyone so shocked that Rihanna made a guest appearance? She's in the video.
Grade: B


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Atonement Lutheran Church
Design expands church worship and fellowship spaces, enhances warm, inviting atmosphere
Design a church facility expansion that meets the current and future worship, instruction and fellowship needs of its congregation and conveys an open, inviting atmosphere to current and potential members.
Our design team worked collaboratively with church leaders to undertake a master planning process that examined potential future expansion needs and balanced facility space and increased parking needs.
The approved design replaced the church's existing worship space with a larger one constructed over a new multipurpose fellowship hall, increasing the building area with room for future classrooms expansion while retaining much-needed parking. The worship space and fellowship hall both have street frontage, visually inviting passersby to view the activity, light and spiritual icons of the church. Inside, the narthex wraps around the fan-shaped sanctuary, creating a welcoming transition between outside activities and the focused, quiet interior.
Published, Architecture for the Gods, Michael Crosbie
Award for Religious Art and Architecture Design - New Facility, Faith & Form/IFRAA


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Kin Platt was a cartoonist, painter, sculptor and writer. He was the artist of the 'Mr and Mrs.' comic strip, that appeared from 1947 to 1963 in the New York Herald-Tribune. From 1950 to 1954, he did another newspaper feature, called 'The Duke and the Dutchess'. He occasionally was a theatrical caricaturist for New York newspapers and a radio comedy writer for Jack Benny, Stoopnagle & Budd en The National Biscuit Comedy Hour of 1936. Platt was the writer of animated cartoons for Disney and Hanna-Barbera from the late 1930s and the creator of 'Supermouse' for comic books (Better Publications).
During the 1940s, he worked on many other Better titles, including 'Happy Comics', 'Diamond Dust', 'Rip Rabbit', 'The Sphinx', 'Captain Future', and 'The Mask'. He additionally worked on Timely's romance titles, as well as 'Terry-Toons Comics', 'Puffy Pig', 'Cindy' and 'Rusty'. In the 1960s, he drew for DC's war titles, and during the 1970s, he made some comic adaptations for Pendulum Press ('The Call of the Wild', 'Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde', 'Dracula').


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Nelson Mandela 'showing sustained improvement'
South Africa says the condition of former president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela continues to improve, six weeks after he was admitted to hospital.
"Former president Mandela is still in a critical condition in hospital but shows sustained improvement," a government statement said.
In another upbeat statement, president Jacob Zuma also thanked South Africans and the world for the outpouring of support that marked Mr Mandela's 95th birthday last week.
"The birthday celebrations for the former president on the 18th of July were the biggest ever this year, attracting scores of South Africans who engaged in community service in honour of Madiba," the presidency said, using Mr Mandela's clan name.
South Africans had come out in large numbers to mark the occasion, after weeks fraught with concern about their beloved elder statesman.
Mr Mandela was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurring lung infection.
He has a history of lung problems dating back to his time at the Robben Island prison camp near Cape Town.
He was released in 1990 after 27 years behind bars and went on to serve as president from 1994 to 1999.
Although Mr Mandela has long since left the political stage and has not been seen in public since 2010, he remains a towering symbol in South African public life.
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, people, south-africa


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26 The Village
Monday - Friday 9.30am to 5pm
Saturdays 9.30am to 4pm
For All Your Blinds And Shutters In London
Welcome to Tudor Touch, we specialise in supplying bespoke
blinds and shutters in the London area along with other furnishing
to help you fall in love with your home. All of our products are
customised to fit your home decor.
Styling The Nations Windows For Three
Tudor Touch has more than three decades styling the nations
windows, and we're now decided to take a step forward by
introducing more bespoke products. Our latest product is radiator
covers, we know that radiators are an essential part of living
comfortably but they can often appear ugly and ruin the beautiful
lines of your stylish room. The design of our radiator covers
incorporates our shutter design.
Elegant Blind Solutions For Your Home
We supply many different types of blinds to the residents of
London and these include:
This is a very comprehensive range and they are all of the
highest quality to make your home look beautiful. You can have a
wonderfully sleek and contemporary look for your windows by using
our blinds. We have a vast range of colours and styles for you to
choose from that will be sure to match your existing decor. Make
the decision to transform your home today by choosing your blinds
from Tudor Touch.
We know that are clients all have different taste some prefer a
traditional style of blind while others want something more
contemporary with our extensive range of fabric you're bound to
find a fabric for your blind which completes the look of your
Beautify Your Home With Our Range Of High Quality
When it comes to shutters in London, Tudor Touch is your number
one choice. Shutters provide a touch of elegance to your home and
we appreciate that they represent an investment that will increase
the value of your property. We offer a comprehensive range of high
quality shutters made from the finest materials and available in
many different styles and shades. Take a look at our different
shutter options that have different material, louvre and colour
options that are sure to match the decoration of your rooms. We can
Your First Choice For Blinds And Shutters In
Whether you are looking for blinds, shutters or radiator covers
in London, Tudor Touch will be able to supply you with a first
class job that will be the envy of your friends and you will
cherish for many years. We have many satisfied customers so contact
us today to discuss your requirements on 020 8319 4444. You won't
regret it!
We are pleased to say that we have a Sale on a range of made to
measure Roller blinds. For a quote or to view or Sale collection,
please visit our London Showroom in Charlton. Up too 20% off
TUDOR TOUCH is the trading name for Tudor Blinds & Shutters Ltd
VAT Reg. No. 843 9340 15
Company Reg. No. 05081186 (England and Wales)


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I Cypherpunk
For years I have had an interest in cryptography. I recently decided to get more than just my feet wet. I bought a copy of Applied Cryptography from eBay and have been reading it for about a week.
I'm less than 1/4 through the book, but I have already learned much that I did not know about security protocols. I really do not look forward to the math that lies ahead of me.
It's going to make my head hurt. But once I've gone through the book, I'll have a much better understanding of the subject.
I also hope to be able to take what I learn and add some cryptographic functionality to the programs that I'm working on.


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One of the most important and telling numbers of any restaurant is its Prime Cost.
Prime Cost is the total of food and beverage costs plus all payroll expenses including wages paid to management and staff and payroll taxes and related benefits.
Prime Cost is a key indicator of a restaurant's profit potential and how well management is managing the restaurant's biggest and most volatile costs.
Generally accepted industry rules of thumb tell us that in tableservice restaurants the goal should be to keep Prime Cost at or below 65% of sales. QSR or non-tableservice operations should aim for a Prime Cost is 60% of sales or less.
When Prime Cost exceeds these percentages by more than a point or two, it usually becomes a real challenge for any restaurant to make a sufficient bottom line profit regardless of the other expenses on their P&L.
Some independent operators may not be getting an accurate reading of their Prime Cost because of the way owner's compensation is handled.
When calculating Prime Cost, the owner's compensation should be included in management payroll only if the owner is actively working in the restaurant and the amount of compensation does not exceed 4% of sales.
If you own a restaurant but have a GM manage the daily operations, don't include your compensation when calculating Prime Cost
For owners who perform the duties of a GM and/or chef, first see if your salary exceeds 4% of sales. If it does not, don't do anything. If it does, take the amount that exceeds 4% of sales out of Prime Cost.
Reason for the 4% amount is this. In general, GMs or chefs are not paid more than 3%-4% of sales. When a restaurant is very profitable, working owners may pay themselves more or even much more than 4% of sales so including all of their compensation in Prime Cost can cause it to be artificially high in comparison to other restaurants.
If applicable, reclassifying some portion of owner's compensation out of Management Payroll should give you a better number for comparing your Prime Cost to industry averages and rules of thumb.
Have a profitable week! Jim Laube & Joe Erickson


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object Decorator& Translation2::getDecorator (
string $decorator
, object [optional] 1
This method is used to get a decorator instance. A decorator can be seen as a filter, i.e. something that can change or handle the values of the objects/vars that pass through.
Name of the decorator
$obj [optional]
Object to decorate (the default object being $this)
returns object Reference of a Translation2_Decorator subclass
This function can not be called statically.


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Cool Kids
Part of the mid-2000s hip-hop movement that found kids in all-over prints rapping about their shoes and their favorite forms of transportation (which often weren't cars), the Cool Kids proved to be both an Internet and live show phenomenon. The duo of Mikey Rocks (born Antoine Reed) and Chuck Inglish (or Evan Ingersoll) met in mid-2005 after Mickey came across some of Chuck's beats online and liked what he heard. They met up in their Chicago-area homes (where Mikey was born and raised; Chuck lived in Mount Clemens, Michigan, about 30 miles north of Detroit, until he was 11) with the intention of making beats to sell to other artists, but soon realized their own measured, smooth flows and lyrics fit best over their production. In 2007, though they had yet to release any material outside of what was posted on their MySpace page or MP3 blogs, they started receiving a lot of press attention from fellow Chicagoans and tastemakers Pitchfork, who invited them to play at their summer festival. This led to a spot at New York's CMJ Music Marathon, where they shared a showcase with DJ A-Trak -- who offered to put out their EP -- and an opening spot on M.I.A.'s solo tour. However, that same year the Cool Kids signed to Chocolate Industries, who released their debut, the Bake Sale EP, in January 2008. Their full-length album When Fish Ride Bicycles would follow in 2011.


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I figured it was time to get some nice pictures of my mom and so i brought my camera up last Sunday and just started clicking. She thought it was silly to take so many.
This isnt the life you expected to have. I know that. You never expected that you would be dependent on anyone, certainly not me. You never expected to live in a nursing home, or need help bathing yourself. You never expected to need a wheelchair. You never expected to lose your short term memory. You never expected to be so lonely.
I never expected to be your caregiver. I never expected that you would need me to remember. I never expected that you would need me to do your hair, your nails, put on your shoes. I never expected to have to know your meds, your allergies. I never expected to be the one to make major decisions for you, financial decisions, too. I never expected that without me your health would suffer miserably.
No this is a very unexpected life for us, but it is one that I am so grateful for. I love being there for you, caring for you. I love putting your hair in rollers on Sunday mornings, so you feel pretty for the rest of the week. I love that I can still make you laugh and that you make me laugh all the time. I love that you are here. Thats it, just that you are here, for me to love. I know its selfish, and I would have felt very different about that had you not recovered as well as you have, I am well aware of your wishes, but thankfully, YOU are still here. I hate the days that you are bored or lonely, the days you long to get up out of that chair and go for a walk. It breaks my heart. I am the youngest of your seven children, why is it that it is only me that knows and cares for you? Maybe forgetting somethings arent so bad. I am so honored to be the one that matters. What an incredible gift I have been given. I will be here, always and forever. As long as you need me. I am your daughter.
Katie Pertiet
Photo Clusters No15
Classic Cardstock Dragon Trainer
Artistry de Blanco
Lifted WingsNo5
Negative Sleeves No3
Oiselet Bleu
Slide Reels No1
Web Inspiration Journalers 12311
Ali Edwards
Remember word art
Unexpected Life Word Art
Lynn Grieveson
Worn Page Edges


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Consensus Report
Oil in the Sea III: Inputs, Fates, and Effects (2003)Ocean Studies Board
Each report is produced by a committee of experts selected by the Academy to address a particular statement of task and is subject to a rigorous, independent peer review; while the reports represent views of the committee, they also are endorsed by the Academy. Learn more on our expert consensus reports.
Even a small amount of oil in the sea can have severe effects on marine life depending on the location and timing of its release. Changes in regulations and industry practices following the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 have helped to dramatically reduce oil inputs from petroleum transportation and extraction, but most oil that enters the sea does not come from oil exploration, extraction, or spills. In fact, nearly 85 percent of the 29 million gallons of petroleum that enter North American ocean waters each year as a result of human activities comes from land-based runoff, polluted rivers, airplanes, and small watercraft. This report, which is the third in a series, presents the most up-to-date estimates of major oil sources and makes recommendations to help policy-makers prioritize next steps for prevention and response.
Key Messages
- Land runoff and two-stroke engines account for nearly three quarters of the petroleum introduced to North American waters from activities associated with petroleum consumption. This is particularly significant because, by their very nature, these activities are almost exclusively restricted to coastal waters.
- Activities associated with oil and gas exploration or production introduce, on average, an estimated 3,000 tonnes (880,000 gallons) of petroleum to North American waters, and 38,000 tonnes (11,000,000 gallons) worldwide, each year.
- Although the VOC released during the extraction, transportation, and consumption of petroleum appear to have short residence times in the marine environment, their impact on air quality may be significant.
- Although there is now good evidence for the toxic effects of oil pollution on individual organisms and on the species composition of communities, there is little information on the effects of either acute or chronic oil pollution on populations or on the function of communities or ecosystems.
- Areas surrounding natural seeps are extremely important natural laboratories for understanding crude oil behavior in the marine environment, as well as how marine life responds to the introduction of petroleum.
- In North America, the largest and best known natural seeps appear to be restricted to the Gulf of Mexico and the waters off of southern California, regions that also have extensive oil and gas production.
- Much more needs to be learned about how petroleum interacts with marine sediment and how it is transported or dispersed by ocean and coastal processes such as waves and currents.
- Natural seepage of crude oil from geologic formations below the seafloor to the marine environment off North America is estimated to exceed 160,000 tonnes (47,000,000 gallons), and 600,000 tonnes (180,000,000 gallons) globally, each year.
- Oil and gas extraction activities are often concentrated in regions where seeps form.
- Releases associated with the consumption of petroleum make up nearly 70 percent of the petroleum introduced to the world�s oceans from anthropogenic sources and nearly 85 percent of the total petroleum input from anthropogenic sources to North American waters.
- Releases from oil and gas extraction can include accidental spills of crude oil from blow outs, surface spills of crude from platforms, or slow chronic releases associated with the disposal of water produced from oil or gas-bearing formations during extraction (referred to as produced water) or oil-bearing cuttings created during the drilling process.
- Releases that occur during the consumption of petroleum, whether by individual car and boat owners, non-tank vessels, or runoff from increasingly paved urban areas, contribute the vast majority of petroleum introduced to the environment through human activity.
- Research on the cumulative effects of multiple types of hydrocarbons in combination with other types of pollutants is needed to assess toxicity and organism response under conditions experienced by organisms in polluted coastal zones
- Spills from transportation activities may release a wide variety of petroleum products (not just crude oil) each of which behaves differently in the environment or contain different concentrations of toxic compounds like PAH.
- The estimates for land-based sources of petroleum are the most poorly documented, and the uncertainty associated with the estimates range over several orders of magnitude.
- The potential for large spills from aging pipelines and other coastal facilities is especially disconcerting, as these facilities often lie near sensitive coastal areas.
- The seepage of crude oil to the environment tends to occur sporadically and at low rates.
- The threat posed by even a minor spill in a sensitive area remains significant.
- These compounds rapidly volatilize into the atmosphere and thus appear to have a short residence time in marine waters.
- These releases are concentrated in areas of petroleum production in the Gulf of Mexico and the waters off of southern California, northern Alaska, and eastern Canada.
- These releases from petroleum extraction activities that take place near shore or even on shore can pose significant risks to sensitive coastal environments
- These spills can occur anywhere.
- Unlike other sources, inputs from consumption occur almost exclusively as slow, chronic releases. Furthermore, because the vast majority of the consumption of petroleum occurs on land, rivers and waste- and stormwater streams represent the most significant source of petroleum to the marine environment.
- VOC are also released from tankers underway or involved in loading and offloading activities, and they contribute to the total load of hydrocarbons input to the sea.
- Volatile organic compounds (VOC) commonly associated with, or dissolved in, petroleum are released during extraction activities and also contribute to the total load of hydrocarbon input to the sea. These compounds, however, rapidly volatilize into the atmosphere and thus appear to have a short residence time in marine waters.
- With a few notable exceptions (e.g., the Exxon Valdez, North Cape, and Panama spills), there have been a lack of resources to support studies of the fates and effects of spilled oil. Much of what is known about the fate and effect of spilled oil has been derived from a very few, well-studied spills.
- through anthropogenic activities to North American waters and less than 22 percent worldwide.


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Water: Walk across the beach road to our award-winning "Blue Wave" beach with picnic tables, play areas and lifeguards. Snorkel and dive trips 3x daily; charter party and fishing boats, enjoy public fishing pier, surfing, jet skis and boat rentals and gambling cruises.
Restaurants: Some of the best restaurants in all of South Florida are a short walk or drive away. There are dozens of really good ones, including waterfront dining, in all price ranges.
Shopping: Walk to local beach shops or drive to many high-end shopping malls including the new Pompano CitiCentre mall, trendy Las Olas Boulevard, Sawgrass Mills outlet mall, the Swap Shop and Festival Flea Market Mall.
Cultural: Walk or drive to local establishments with live music, nightclubs, dancing, comedy clubs and all sorts of local and regional festivals. Visit the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, the Fort Lauderdale Art Museum, the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Discovery and Science with IMAX theatre and the historic Bonnet House museum and gardens.
Sports: Visit the spectacular Isle Casino (smoke-free) right next door to Pompano Harness Track. All professional sporting events are represented at nearby arenas, plus Jai Alai, car racing, tennis, golf, and local gyms.
Eco Tourism: Visit Butterfly World, Fern Forest Nature Center, or Quiet Waters Park. Drive to the Everglades for airboat and swamp buggy rides, photography, Indian reservations, alligator farms, nature trails, kayaking, fishing, and bird watching.
Just for the Kids: Visit museums, water parks, the zoo and seaquarium, and various playgrounds and arcades.
Pineapple Place is centrally located in the safe, ocean side community of Pompano Beach, just 15 minutes North of Fort Lauderdale and 15 minutes South of Boca Raton. I-95 is a 10-minute drive for easy access to all South Florida business centers, shopping and attractions.
It's a short walk to dozens of great local restaurants, shops, boat rentals, snorkel and dive boats, party and charter fishing boats, day spa, gym, gourmet fish store, pharmacy, banks and more. It's a five-minute drive to the new Pompano CitiCenter shopping mall, movie theaters, tennis and aquatics complex, dog park, air park, 36-hole golf course and driving range. The smoke-free ISLE Casino, next door to Pompano Harness Track, is a 15-minute drive.
Pineapple Place is very clean, with lush landscaping and everything you need in your home-away-from-home. Enjoy full kitchens, free Wi-fi, king beds plus sleeper sofa in all living rooms, and a host of amenities to make you feel right at home. A coin laundry and BBQ area are also on property.
One Bedroom Apartments: Sleep up to 4, Unit #2--King Bed, Queen Sleeper, Unit #3--King Bed, 2 twin beds, Unit #4--King Bed, Two Full Sleepers
Additional charges include:
- Exit Cleaning Fee: One Bedroom $100, Two Bedroom $125
- Taxes: 12% to Broward County and the State of Florida
*Rates are subject to change until confirmed. We accept all major credit cards.
Payment Terms:
A 50% deposit of the rent, exit cleaning fee and taxes is due upon signing the lease. The balance is due 30 days prior to arrival. $500 toward a security deposit is due prior to arrival, and can be put on a guest's credit card as a temporary hold on the money instead of a charge to the card.
Cancellation Policy:
In the event of cancellation, the Guest is responsible for paying the full amount of rent for the contracted lease. The Landlord will refund monies realized from re-renting the unit during all or part of the same rental period, after deduction of the $300 administration fee and 20% of each new rental fee collected to cover commissions. Travel insurance is recommended prior to signing this lease for anyone who is unsure whether they may need to cancel.
Check in beginning at 4 p.m. Check out by 10 a.m.
For the comfort of future guests, no smoking is allowed inside the apartments or the pool area. Small dogs under 20 pounds: inquire.
From Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport or Miami International Airport:
Take I-95 North
Pass the Fort Lauderdale exits (Broward, Sunrise, Commercial, Cypress Creek)
Exit East on Atlantic Blvd. In Pompano Beach.
Cross the Intracoastal Waterway bridge and go all the way to the ocean.
Turn left on Briny Avenue along the ocean.
Pass NE 7th Street, and turn left on NE 7th Place
Pineapple Place is the second building on the right.
Parking is available by the entrance.
From Palm Beach International Airport, or from points North:
Take I-95 South
Pass Boca Raton exits (Glades, Palmetto Park, Hillsboro, Sawgrass, Sample)
Exit East on Copans Road
Turn right heading South on Federal Hwy. (Route 1)
Turn left on 14th Street and cross the Intracoastal Waterway bridge.
Turn right on Ocean Blvd. (A-1-A) heading south
Pass NE 7th Court, and turn right on NE 7th Place
Pineapple Place is the second building on the right.
Parking is available by the entrance.
|Map Legend
|Pineapple Place - South Florida great getaway
3217 NE 7 Place, , Pompano Beach, Florida
|Golf Course
|2 miles
|3 miles
|Weekly - Monthly
|2017 Spring - Fall 4/21/17- 12/14/17
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|1200 week/3600 month
|2017/2018 Winter 12/15/17-1/25/18
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|1750 week/5250 month
|2018 High Winter 1/26/18-3/8/18
|From: 0
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|2275 week/7000 month
|2018 Spring 3/9/18-4/5/18
|From: 0
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|1950 week/5850 month
|2018 Summer-Fall 4/6/18-12/13/18
|From: 0
|From: 0
|1200 week/3600 month


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Northern Drakensberg & Royal Natal National Park from Jordan Bierma on Vimeo.
June 15th:
We left the Southern Berg and made our way up to the Northern Berg & Royal Natal National Park. The Northern Berg is home to much more dramatic scenery, as the low veld of South Africa smashes up against the high veld of Lesotho to create steep vertical cliffs that shoot up into the sky. The day was spent driving but we were rewarded by the 5 star backpackers that we camped at. After dinner we relaxed in the hot tub while watching the Euro Cup matches on a large projector before crawling into my tent for a cool 75R ($9.37).
June 16th:
After a night of staying up late, watching soccer, and soaking, we were slow to get moving. We made it out to the trailhead by 10:45 a.m. The Royal Natal National Park is home to the Amphitheatre, a huge sheer cliff that seems to swallow most of the park. It is home to some of the taller peaks in the Drakensberg, some reaching over the 3000m(9,842ft) mark. We opted to take the Thukela Gorge trail which took us winding through the valleys and eventually to the gorge at the bottom of the 850m(2788ft) Thukela Falls which falls from Lesotho into South Africa. It was by far one of the best hikes thus far on the trip. The first few kilometers weren't anything to write home about, but it soon opened up into huge winding tunnels of rock, carved away by water over thousands of years. Every turn seemed to be filled with pools that would make the perfect summer swimming hole. The gorges are also home to sets of chain ladders which take you up on top of the gorge and eventually to the bottom of the falls. The short winter days took their toll and we had to turn around after spending our time exploring the rock tunnels. This wasn't a huge disappointment since the falls would have been barely running because it was the middle of the dry season.
June 17th:
Our second day at Royal Natal NP started off with a short hike with a mandatory guide up to the bushman rock paintings. Our guide, Matiba, from the nearby village of Amanzizi was extremely nice, and was actually very knowledgeable about the areas trails, plants, and animals, unlike many other park rangers I had encountered. The village Matiba hailed from, Amanzizi, literally translates to "Cannibals". The village was named so because during the time of Shaka many of the people lived in caves in the area to hide from the mighty armies of Shaka, and during extremely difficult times had to resort to cannibalism to survive. After about 1km we got to the site of the rock art. Many portions had been damaged to the point of being almost unrecognizable from vandalism before the site came under protection from the national park. This is the reason for the mandatory guide. The drawings higher up on the wall remained in good condition, showing historical scenes of the lives of the Bushmen. There were drawings of leopards, elands, hartebeests, as well as many human figures. One of the sections depict the Bushmen being pushed out by the Zulu, and the Zulu being pushed out by the white settlers. The oldest drawings dated back about 800 years and were created by mixing ochre with either animal urine or animal blood. On the hike we were lucky to encounter Elands, and a reed buck before we got back to the car.
We then made the short drive to the trailhead that would take us up to an area called the cascades. We arrived at the parking lot to a troop of about 30 baboons, most of whom were young and rambunctious. The kept to themselves with games of tag, but there was one older male who seemed in a destructive mood. We pulled up as he proceeded to pee on the hood of a SUV a few cars down and then hopped to the next car, and with apparent ease folded back the rear windshield wiper to make a perch to sit on. He continued to further chew and pull off bits of the car. This included tearing and chewing a metal license plate, and pulling the bumper partially off the car. Assuming the standard insurance for the rental car wouldn't cover baboon damage we decided to park elsewhere and walk the extra distance to the trail in a roundabout fashion. We knew little about the trail before we set out but were pleasantly surprised. It lived up to its name of cascades as the river ran its course down a series of worn and rounded shelves creating a string of small waterfalls, which had perfect pools. I could not resist even though the water was all ice and snow melt and froze every bit of me. I took a nice refreshing dip and dried out in the sun.


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Join us at the Love House and Hutchins Forum for the opening reception of our fall art exhibit, "An Eye For Mullet." These photographs, taken in a North Carolina mullet camp by Charles A. Farrell during the 1930s, were collected and curated by historian David S. Cecelski for an annotated photo essay that appears in the forthcoming issue of Southern Cultures. "Our world today is so different than that of only a century ago," writes Cecelski, "that few people can recognize even the most basic aspects of daily life and labor as seen in [these] photographs." Yet the black-and-white images reveal "the changing nature of our relationship to the ocean and seashore."
To celebrate the issue's release, we have invited Ricky Moore of Durham's Saltbox Seafood Joint to serve up some of his signature sustainable seafood from the Carolina coast. We'll also enjoy live music on the porch by Wayne Martin & Friends. The reception is free and open to the public, and $20 gets you "Fish and an Ish": a plate of Ricky's delicious seafood plus the Fall 2014 issue of Southern Cultures.
To purchase tickets, click here.


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How to Use
the Readings
Inquiry Question
Reading 1: A Roar Like Thunder
Johnstown in 1889 was a town of German and Welsh immigrants. With a population of 30,000, it was a growing and industrious community known for the quality of its steel. Founded in 1794, Johnstown began to prosper with the building of the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal in 1834 and the arrival of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Cambria Iron Company in the 1850s. There was one small drawback to living in the city. Johnstown had been built on a floodplain at the fork of the Little Conemaugh River and Stony Creek. Because the growing city had increased the runoff from the surrounding hills by stripping them for wood, and had narrowed the river banks to gain building space, the heavy annual rains had caused increased flooding in recent years.
Furthermore, 14 miles up the Little Conemaugh, three-mile-long Lake Conemaugh was held on the side of a mountain450 feet higher than Johnstownby the old South Fork Dam. It had been poorly maintained, and every spring there was talk that the dam might not hold. But it always had, and the supposed threat became something of a standing joke around town.
But at 4:07 on the chilly, wet afternoon of May 31, 1889, the inhabitants heard a low rumble that grew to a "roar like thunder." Some knew immediately what had happened: after a night of heavy rains, South Fork Dam had finally broken, sending 20 million tons of water crashing down the narrow valley. Most never saw anything until the 36-foot wall of water, already boiling with huge chunks of debris, rolled over them at 40 miles per hour, consuming everything in its path. Those who did see it said it "snapped off trees like pipe stems," "crushed houses like eggshells," and "threw around locomotives like so much chaff." A violent wind preceded it, blowing down small buildings. Making the wave even more terrifying was the black pall of smoke and steam that hung over itthe "death mist" remembered by survivors.
Thousands of people desperately tried to escape the wave, but they were slowed as in a nightmare by the 2 to 7 feet of water already covering parts of town (this flooding was typical in seasons of heavy rain, and it had been raining heavily that spring). One observer from a hill above the town said the streets "grew black with people running for their lives." Some remembered reaching the hills and pulling themselves out of the flood path seconds before it overtook them. Those caught by the wave found themselves swept up in a torrent of oily, yellow-brown water, surrounded by tons of grinding debris, which crushed some, provided rafts for others. Many became helplessly entangled in miles of barbed wire from a destroyed wire works. People indoors when the wave struck raced upstairs seconds ahead of the rising water, which reached the third story in many buildings. Some never had a chance, as homes were immediately crushed or ripped from foundations and added to the churning rubble, ending up hundreds of yards away. Everywhere people were hanging from rafters or clinging to rooftops and railcars being swept downstream, frantically trying to keep their balance as their rafts pitched in the flood.
It was over in 10 minutes, but for some the worst was still to come. Thousands of people, huddled in attics or on the roofs of buildings that had withstood the initial wave, were still threatened by the 20-foot current tearing at the buildings and jamming tons of debris against them. In the growing darkness, they watched other buildings being pulled down, not knowing if theirs would last the night. But the most harrowing experience for hundreds came at the old stone railroad bridge below the junction of the rivers. There, thousands of tons of debris scraped from the valley along with a good part of Johnstown, piled up against the arches. The 45-acre mass held buildings, machinery, hundreds of freight cars, 50 miles of track, bridge sections, boilers, telephone poles, trees, animals, and 500 to 600 humans. The oil-soaked jam was immovable, held against the bridge by the powerful current and bound tightly by the barbed wire.
Those who were able began scrambling over the heap toward shore. But many were trapped in the wreckage, some still hopelessly hung up in the barbed wire, unable to move. Then the oil caught fire. As rescuers worked in the dark to free people, the flames spread over the whole mass, burning with "all the fury of hell," according to a Johnstown newspaper account. Eighty people died at the bridge, some still in their own homes.
The next morning survivors were unsettled by the eerie silence hanging over the city. During the night the waters had receded, revealing vast heaps of mud and rubble filling streetswhere there were still streetsup to the third story. Entire blocks of buildings had been razed. Hundreds, alive and dead, were buried beneath the ravaged city. Many bodies were never identified, and hundreds of the missing were never found. As everyone had dreaded, disease followed in the wake of the flood, and typhoid added 40 more lives to the 2,209 that had already died. Emergency morgues and hospitals were set up, and commissaries distributed food and clothing. The nation responded to the disaster with a spontaneous outpouring of time, money, food, and clothing. Contributions from the United States and abroad totaled over $3,700,000. The flood also provided the newly formed American Red Cross under the leadership of Clara Barton with its first test. Barton and her staff of 50 doctors and nurses arrived in Johnstown five days after the flood. After surveying the scene, she set up hospital tents and built six Red Cross "hotels" for the homeless. Barton and her crew remained in Johnstown until October, when the city was finally able to begin rebuilding itself.
Questions for Reading 1
1. Why was the location of Johnstown a "problem"?
2. What posed an additional danger to the city?
3. Describe the flood that devastated Johnstown.
4. The flood lasted only 10 minutes, but the destruction and fear continued through the night. Describe those events.
5. What did the survivors find when dawn broke the following morning?
Reading 1 was compiled from the National Park Service visitor's guide for the Johnstown Flood National Memorial.


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