text:
I hear a lot of people talk about how the Ewing deal cursed this franchise. I won't disagree that it was a top 10(I wish I could say top 5, but theres been a lot of bad deals) worst deal of all time in Knicks history, but the Curry deal is what sinked this franchise and still affects us today.
Before the Curry deal, traded for Maurice Taylor and gave up Moochie Norris, Vin Baker and the 2006 2nd rounder which turned out to be Steve Novak for Houston. we signed Crawford to a 7 year 56 million dollar contract. Traded our cap space and Ronny Turiaf for Tim Thomas and Nazr Mohammad...even before that we traded Jamaal Tinsley for Othella Harrington. Those were some terrible deals.
The Marbury deal wasn't that bad. We did give up cap space, but at that point Isiah Thomas didn't think the cap space existed.
1/5/2004: Knicks acquire Stephon Marbury, Penny Hardaway, and Cezary Trybanski in exchange for Antonio McDyess, Howard Eisley, Maciej Lampe, Charlie Ward, the rights to Milos Vujanic, a 2004 first-rounder (Kirk Snyder) and a heavily protected first-rounder that eventually became Gordon Hayward in 2010. Plus $3 million. -
Antonio McDysess was a 10th man in the NBA, Eisley retired quickly, Lampe played in Europe, Ward retired, Milos never came to the NBA. Kirk Snyder became an NBDL reject. What did hurt us though was the protected first rounder for Utah. That pick became Gordon Haywood, Paul George was picked after Haywood, guys like Larry Sanders, Eric Bledsoe, Greivis Vasquez and Lance Stephenson were available. I think whenever you traded a protected first rounder, it will bite you in the ass. That's really the only downside of this deal. Marbury gave us a couple of good seasons until Steve Francis arrived and thats when things really began to die.
Let's take a look at the timeline of the Eddy Curry era.
10/4/2005: Knicks acquire Eddy Curry, Antonio Davis, and the right to swap 2007 first-rounders with the Bulls (ended up being Wilson Chandler) in exchange for Tim Thomas, Mike Sweetney, Jermaine Jackson, pick swaps in 2006 and 2007 that ended up being LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah, a 2007 second-rounder (Kyrylo Fesenko), and a 2009 second-rounder (Jon Brockman).
-Noah and Aldridge are top 5 Big Men in the NBA, players you could of build around and have a championship team, put together all that cap space...it would of freed us up in the 2006 season where we could of signed Ben Wallace and Peja Stojakovic for cheap.
2/3/2006: Knicks acquire Jalen Rose and a 2006 first-rounder (Renaldo Balkman) for Antonio Davis. (Rose was due like $30 million between '06 and '07.
-Isiah continues to f*ck the cap, leaving Knicks screwed until 2008 free agency. Balkman played well for us.
2/22/2006: Knicks acquire Steve Francis in exchange for Trevor Ariza and Penny Hardaway
-How much can we use Trevor Ariza now? After all his good work in Orlando, LA and now in Washington. He's developed a 3pt shot we thought he would never develop and is one of the best defensive wings in the NBA today. We let him go for a down the hill expensive score first PG(when we already had Marbury and Crawford) and we did it in exchange for one of our biggest expiring contracts in the NBA, Penny Hardaway. Theres never been a GM in NBA history that has f*cked the cap more than Isiah.
6/28/2007: Knicks acquire Zach Randolph, Fred Jones, Dan Dickau, and the rights to Demetris Nichols in exchange for Steve Francis, Channing Frye, and a 2008 second-rounder (Omer Asik).
- I don't know. We knew the Zach Randolph/Eddy Curry front court would be a fail. Randolph is still a good player, top big man currently...we traded Randolph before letting go of Currry...if you remember what we traded Randolph for you will see why this trade is so horrible and why Curry's presence in New York and Isiah's infatuation with him destroyed this franchise. Omar Asik was in this trade also(at the time no one knew he would become a good NBA player), but it's funny to look at since theres trade rumors revolving around Shumpert for Asik.
7/28/2007: Knicks acquire Taurean Green, Bobby Jones, and a 2010 second-rounder (Andy Rautins) in exchange for Renaldo Balkman.
-LOL, Isiah.
11/21/2008: Knicks acquire Al Harrington in exchange for Jamal Crawford.
Crawford was going to expire in 2011. I wasn't mad at this.
11/21/2008: Knicks acquire Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley in exchange for Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins.
-I forgot what Tim Thomas and Mobley's contracts looked like. But does it even matter? Tim Thomas was just a spot up shooter and Mobley didn't even play for us. Randolph is an all star NBA big man. After giving up a lot of cap space and a draft pick for his contract, we let him go for trash? Before we let Eddy Curry go? Why? Since when did Eddy Curry become more of a keeper than Randolph?
2/19/2009: Knicks acquire Larry Hughes in exchange for Tim Thomas, Jerome James, and Anthony Roberson.
2/19/2009: Knicks acquire Chris Wilcox in exchange for Malik Rose and cash considerations.
6/25/2009: Knicks acquire Darko Milicic in exchange for Quentin Richardson and cash.
2/17/2010: Knicks acquire Brian Cardinal in exchange for Darko Milicic and cash.
2/18/2010: Knicks acquire Eddie House, J.R. Giddens, Bill Walker, and a top-55 protected 2014 second-rounder in exchange for Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry.
- Hey, we got a draft pick...top 55-protected...lmao. Atleast Boston sucks and it will be a high second round draft pick. We need to do a lot of scouting into the draft this 2014 summer.
2/18/2010: Knicks acquire Tracy McGrady and Sergio Rodriguez in exchange for Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries, and a heavily conditional pick (Royce White).
Letting Hill go was dumb. He wasn't a polished player or durable(very injury prone), but he rebounded very well and had an 18 foot jumpshot. The heavily conditional pick became White who hasn't amounted to anything in the NBA, but the 2012 draft in the later picks was lackluster...can't be too upset at this.
7/9/2010: Knicks acquire Ronny Turiaf, Kelenna Azubuike, and Anthony Randolph in exchange for David Lee.
- LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. So we trade Zach Randolph for nothing and Lee for nothing, but still have Eddy Curry on the roster? Genius.
2/22/2011: Knicks acquire Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Renaldo Balkman, Anthony Carter, Shelden Williams, and Corey Brewer in exchange for Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov, Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry's expiring pact, their 2014 first-round pick and $3 million.
-The 2014 first round pick killed us in this deal. Why we did waive Corey Brewer? He's a starting SF in the NBA.
7/11/2012: Knicks acquire Marcus Camby in exchange for Toney Douglas, Jerome Jordan, Josh Harrellson, a 2014 second-rounder, and a 2015 second-rounder.
-more second round picks gone. I know second round picks in the NBA aren't like the ones in the NFL, but still. We're giving these picks away for free. The Knicks are the most generous NBA team the past two decades.
7/15/2012: Knicks acquire Raymond Felton and Kurt Thomas in exchange for Jared Jeffries, Dan Gadzuric, the rights to Kostas Papanikolaou, the rights to Giorgios Printezis, a 2016 second-rounder, and cash considerations.
2/21/2013: Knicks acquire a 2014 second-round pick, & Cash considerations in exchange for Ronnie Brewer.
So we have two second round picks in 2014...not bad. maybe we can trade up?
7/3/2013: The Knicks acquire Andrea Bargnani for Marcus Camby, Steve Novak, Quentin Richardson (via a sign-and-trade), a first-round pick in 2016 and second-round selections in 2014 and 2017.
^ this has Eddy Curry written all over it.
2016 will hurt us.


text:
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Ireland approves amendment on children's rights, abuse protection despite strong 'no' vote
DUBLIN – Official returns show that voters have approved an amendment to insert stronger rights for children into Ireland's constitution with a narrower-than-expected 57.4 percent "yes" vote.
Only a third of registered voters participated in Saturday's referendum, reflecting a low-key campaign. All political parties and children's charities supported the "yes" side.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Sunday the amendment will allow his government to pass laws making it easier for Irish children to be adopted, for courts to remove children from abusive homes and for children to testify in court.
Analysts say the unexpectedly high "no" vote reflects low turnout among "yes" voters, anti-government feeling, and a surprise Supreme Court ruling.
Ireland's highest court found that the government's information booklet on the children's rights amendment was biased and violated referendum law.


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Lesson Plan
Digital Word Detectives: Building Vocabulary With e-Book Readers
|2 – 6
|Lesson Plan Type
|Estimated Time
|One introductory 45-minute lesson; Additional 30- to 45-minute lessons (one lesson for each chapter of the selected e-book title)
|Lesson Author
Manhattan, Kansas
E-book readers, or digital readers, are devices that can host thousands of electronic books and allows readers to interact with digital texts through the use of e-book tools and features. In this lesson, students will read e-books and use digital tools (dictionaries and notes) to support their development of vocabulary. Specifically, students will assume roles of word detectives as they look up words in digital dictionaries and use other strategies to identify the meaning of vocabulary words. This lesson assumes that students have prior knowledge of e-book reading and are familiar with the specific tools and features of their digital readers. In particular, students should know how to access and use the built-in digital dictionary and know how to insert digital notes into an e-book. If students lack such knowledge, please see Going Digital: Using e-Book Readers to Enhance the Reading Experience for an introductory lesson plan.
Greenwood, S.C., & Flanigan, K. (2007). Overlapping vocabulary and comprehension: Context clues complement semantic gradients. The Reading Teacher, 61, 249254.
- Learning words via naturally occurring context is important but not terribly efficient (Stahl & Nagy, 2006).
- Students need instruction and practice using context clues including repeated, meaningful encounters with new words.
Larson, L.C. (2010). Digital readers: The next chapter in e-book reading and response. The Reading Teacher, 64(1),15-22.
- When having access to digital readers, students use new literacy skills and strategies to envision and retrieve the potential of the digital device.
- Electronic books extend connections between readers and text as engagement with and manipulation of text is made possible through electronic tools and features.
Larson, L.C. (2009). e-Reading and e-Responding: New Tools for the Next Generation of Readers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(3), 255258.
- Electronic books provide new opportunities and extended possibilities for personal interpretation of and engagement with texts.
- Digital note-taking features engage students in the reading experience.


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It started with a lunch conversation that slowly turned into a coffee time mini-debate. You see, I moved into a new job recently at the Applied Cloud Computing Lab in HP Labs Singapore. My first task was to hire engineers to staff the lab and while the final numbers were not absolute, the number 70 was bandied around for the population of the facilities. We have half a floor at Fusionopolis, plenty of space really but the bone of contention was more delicately focused on more sanitary facilities i.e. the toilets.
The problem was that the whole floor shares a single pair of toilets (one for male and another for female of course). I was totally convinced that with 70 people in the office, we will reach bladder or bowel apocalypse, a disaster in the waiting. My other colleagues however were less worried — the other floors seem to be doing fine. It wasn't as if we could do anything about it, no one's going to magically add in new toilets for us no matter how long the toilet queue was; but I had to know. I was also curious of course — what is the algorithm used to determine the number of toilets per square meter of occupancy?
Looking up building regulations found nothing (at least not online) in Singapore but UK has some regulations covered by the Health and Safety Executive.
Looking at facilities used by men only:
|Number of men at work
|Number of toilets
|Number of urinals
Well, the toilets seem to almost fit into the UK regulations, but these are just regulations. How did these numbers come about and how realistic are they? To better model the usage scenarios, I did a Monte Carlo simulation on the usage pattern of the toilets, based on a simple set of assertions.
Taking an educated guess of 1 in 7 of engineers to be female, that leaves us with 60 male engineers sharing a single toilet facility. The toilet facility has 3 urinals and 2 stalls, one of which is a flush toilet, the other is a squat toilet (which in general no one uses any more).
An important piece of information is to find out how many times an average person need to urinate a day. It turns out that our bladder will signal us to make a trip to the toilet when it fills up to about 200ml. Combine with the information that an average urine output of an adult is 1.5 liters a day, this means that we roughly need to go about 8 times a day. This in turn means 8 times in 24 hours or 1 time in 3 hours on an average. The normal working hours in HP are 8:30am – 5:30pm, which is 9 hours, so this means on an average a person makes a beeline to the toilet 3 times during the course of the working day in the office.
I modeled the scenario discretely, per minute. This means a person in the office would make a decision to go to the loo or not every minute within the 9 hours in the office, or 540 minutes. Coupled with an average of 3 times in 540 minutes, this means the probability that a person would go to the toilet every count of the minute is 3 out of 540. In the case of urinating, my estimate is that a person will be able to complete the necessary job within 2 minute on an average and vacate the facility.
Armed with this model, let's look at the simulation code:
require 'rubygems' require 'faster_csv' # population of 60 people on the same floor population = 60 # period of time from 8:30am -> 5:30pm is 9 hours period = 9 # 8 times a day -> 8 times in 24 hours -> 1 time every 3 hours # within a period of 9 hours -> 3 times # probability in every min -> 3 out of 9 * 60 times_per_period = 3 # rate of servicing mu = 2 # number of people in the queue queue = 0 # number of stalls available stalls = 3 # number of occupied stalls occupied = 0 # total of all queue sizes for calculating average queue size queue_total = 0 # max queue size for the day max_queue_size = 0 FasterCSV.open('queue.csv', 'w') do |csv| csv << %w(t queue occupied) (period * 60).times do |t| # at every rate of service interval, vacate any and all people from the toilet and replace them with people in the queue if t % mu == 0 occupied = 0 while occupied < stalls and queue > 0 occupied += 1 queue -= 1 end end population.times do # does the engineer want to relieve himself? if (rand(period * 60) + 1) <= times_per_period if occupied < stalls occupied += 1 else queue += 1 end end end csv << [t, queue, occupied] max_queue_size = queue if queue > max_queue_size queue_total = queue_total + queue end end puts "** Max queue size : #{max_queue_size}" puts "** Total mins in queue by all : #{queue_total} mins"
Most of the code are quite self explanatory. However notice that mu is 3 (minutes) instead of 2 as we have discussed earlier. The reason for this is that in keeping the simulation code simple, I've not factored in that if we clear the toilets every 2 minutes, people who entered during the 2nd minute (according to the simulation) will be cleared in just 1 minute. To compensate for this, I use a mu variable that is 1.5 times the service rate.
The simulation writes to queue.csv, which contains the queue size and toilet occupancy at every interval. This are the results:
** Max queue size : 3 ** Total mins in queue by all : 17 mins
I opened the CSV up and used the data to create a simple histogram:
|Queue size
|Number of minutes
From the results it's pretty obvious that the architect and engineers who built Fusionopolis knew their stuff. These were the quantitative conclusions:
- Queues were formed less than 3% of the time of the day
- The maximum number of people in the queue were 3 people and that happened for only less than 2 minutes in a day
- The total time spent by everyone in the office, in a queue to the toilet was 17 mins
This is for the men's urinals, let's look at the stalls now. The same simulation script can be used, just changing the parameters a bit. Instead of mu = 3, we use mu = 8. Instead of 3 urinals, we have 2 stalls and instead of 3 times over the period, we use 1 time over the working period.
These are the results:
** Max queue size : 3 ** Total mins in queue by all : 81 mins
|Queue size
|Number of minutes
The problem seems a bit more serious now though not significantly so, though the chances of being in a a queue are higher now (10%).
In conclusion, I was wrong but I'm glad to be wrong in this case. Waiting in a toilet queue is seriously not a fun thing to do.


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Glypha III 1.1
Glypha III is a classic arcade game by John Calhoun in which you are placed inside an Egyptian temple with only your lance and a winged steed to aid you, here you are forced to do battle with Sphinxes in order to gain the honour of a place on the High Scores list. The game is based on Joust and features sound and the original animated graphics. Both the game and its source code are released into the public domain. What's New
Version 1.1.2:
- Compiled as a Universal Binary by Kevin Wojniak Requirements
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.0 or later
Info updated on:


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Consumer Reports: Run your home by phone
Is the future here? You could run everything in your home by your cell
Is the future here? More and more products are available to control your home's lights, locks, and appliances from an app on your smart phone or tablet. Consumer Reports has been testing Wi-Fi-connected devices, including lighting systems, electronic door locks, smart thermostats, generators, and smart ranges and wall ovens.
What really gets your attention with those products is their cool features. So Consumer Reports tests those features to make sure each works at its basic functions.
That was a problem with the electronic door locks. Yes, you can use your smart phone or tablet to lock and unlock doors remotely. But none stood up to all of Consumer Reports' break-in tests. Far stronger, the "old school" Medeco Maxum deadbolt lock for $170.
Nest's Learning Thermostat has plenty of innovative features, but it costs $250 and it's harder to set up than others. With the $170 Venstar Color Touch Series, set up is a breeze. For an additional $65, you can add a Wi-Fi-connection key.
As for lighting systems, the $200 Hue system from Philips lets you dim and even change the color of its bulbs. For far less, the $50 Connected by TCP is easier to set up. It doesn't change colors, but you can dim the bulbs from your cell phone.
And with some Generac generators you can add Mobile Link for $280. It notifies you if your generator stops working and automatically calls for repairs. After the first year, it costs $100 per year.
Consumer Reports has more what's worth getting to make your home connected.
Complete Ratings and recommendations on all kinds of products, including appliances, cars & trucks, and electronic gear, are available on Consumer Reports' website.
Subscribe to ConsumerReports.org.


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If you've ever searched for a good property manager in Gauteng , then you know how difficult it can be to find a good one for your rental property. There are several property managers out there, probably more than what you really need to bring your property into the market.
With so many choices available, you may find it difficult to choose one for your unit. But don't worry – if you ask the right questions while shopping around for property managers, you'll get a better idea of who would make the best fit for your property. Ask them these questions when discussing your property to see if they're the right property manager for you:
1. What type of properties have you managed?
Experience counts for a lot in property management, and it can separate the good ones from the ones you should steer away from. Experience in this field, however, isn't just about the number of years worked in the field; it's also about what type of properties they've managed. Depending on what type of property you have, you can either go with someone who specialises in managing properties like yours or someone who has more varied experience managing different types of properties.
2. How do you screen potential tenants?
Some have small sign-up fees but a variety of hidden fees once you sign on and let them manage your property. Avoid getting surprised by such fees, and ask them to indicate all management and service fees included in their service. The more complicated their fee structure is, the bigger the headache (and expense) it will likely be.
9. What can you do that others can't?
This is where prospective property managers will try to sell you on what they offer and how well they set themselves apart from the competition. It's also the part where you assess the intangibles in any working relationship, giving you a better idea of how well they meet your standards. Listen well, take notes, and assess why they use property management companies.
How Do you Select Best Property Management Company in Gauteng ?
As a property manager, there are many positives and negatives with this job. As with any job you make it what you want. There are days that are longer and more difficult then others.There are many regulations you need to know and must be a relator. If you want to start this business you need to know exactly what it entails.You will need to be licensed by the sales tax agency if they charge sales tax on the monthly rent. You need to have one for each town you are doing business in. It is extremely helpful that you are well versed in repairing things or have a good list of contractors available for repairs. Your life will be so much easier if you can determine what repair needs your immediate attention, what can wait until the next business day. You need to be a people person, since you do meet people from all walks of life.
8. Tracking expenditures for repairs. Getting authorization from the owner as needed.
9. Establishing advertisements daily, with at least seven free website for any vacancies.
10. Show available properties, screen potential tenants, while maintaining the laws against discrimination.
The job can be a 24/7 day business. You set the hours. It is hard to predict when a client may need a repair. Keep in mind that the owner has the right to cancel the property management agreement. This has not happened to me I still have the same customers for the last seven years and continue to grow.
Why you ask, I believe it is that I handle this like a business while maintaining contact with the owners on an as needed basis.
Why Property Management Fees Explained?
When you hire a property management company to serve as the liaison between yourself and your tenants, you want to be sure you're getting the best possible property management services for the money. The services a property management company provides can range from ala carte to an all-in-one inclusive package. Along with that comes an array of fees for each. There is no set in stone fee structure we can provide you. But we can educate you on what common fees to expect and what each is commonly for. In the end it will be up to you to compare company fee structures and choose the best one that fits within your budget. Below are some of the most common fees and what service they provide.
This is an ongoing monthly fee charged to the owner to compensate the property manager for the responsibilities of overseeing the management of their property. This fee can vary from as little as 3% to over 15% of the monthly gross rent. In place of a percentage some managers may charge a flat monthly amount which again can vary from $50 to over $200 per month. All property management companies generally charge this fee.
Lease-Up or Setup Fee
This fee is charged to the owner to compensate the property manager for their initial time invested and resources used in setting up an owners account; showing property and/or other activities resulting in tenant placement. I guess you could look at it as a "finders fee" for placing a tenant in your property. Once a tenant has been placed and first rent income comes in, the property manager will deduct this fee from the rent proceeds. Some property managers have been known to require this fee upfront prior to tenant procurement. Usually this fee is non-refundable once the property manager has started the process of tenant procurement or any legwork has been initiated with the property. This fee can vary from none to as much as the first months rent, and usually is a one-time fee per tenant.
"You've Got To Be Kidding Me" Fees - These are ones I have personally had the pleasure of running into.
- Your property is vacant, but we still will charge our monthly commission or a small flat fee.
- "A For-Rent Yard Sign Fee". I believe this was $25/mo.
- "Preventive Maintenance Fee". This was to cover the "just in case" and changing out A/C filters. If "just in case" never happens they still pocket the money. I believe this was $20/mo and I still was charged for filters.
In Summary
Read your Manager/Owner contract, understand what you are signing, ask lots of questions and know what the fees will buy you in services. A good real estate lawyer can help in negotiating the terms in a contract that suit both parties. These contracts are not set in stone. If your property manager will not negotiate, there are other property management companies that are eager to earn your business.
What Is Real Estate Management?
Effective property management requires a close working relationship between tenants, investors, and managers. This enhances the ability to satisfy each party's needs while improving NOI (Net Operating Income), ROI (Return On Investment), and the property itself. Industry expertise and knowledge in property management cannot be replaced, but there are some basic principles that underlie all good property management solutions:
- Effective, responsive and customized service.
- Strength, generated from team effort and training.
- Creativity and understanding of management principles.
- Goals to enhance the value and esthetics of a property.
- Constant reevaluation of procedures to ensure superior levels of quality.
To get a bit more specific, there are two major branches of property management - logistical and physical. A key factor in the logistics of property management is financial reporting. Financial reporting must be timely and accurate to be effective. Regular and comprehensive reporting (typically in a monthly fashion) establishes continuity and reduces the number of lines of communication, thus maximizing time and minimizing confusion. Such reports should always adhere to GAAP (General Accepted Accounting Principles), though employing a higher set of standards for quality assurance is frequently advisable.
Maintenance and on-site management training programs should be conducted regularly. Safety inspections for compliance with loss prevention and OSHA requirements must also be performed. Additionally, the managers need to assemble regularly to discuss market trends, ongoing training, contractor service quality, and current regulatory issues. Following these procedures and refining system effectiveness and cooperation is the surest way to optimize management of all properties, house and estates.


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Real estate transactions for issue of 4/30/13
16th Ward
Alissa Gilbert Durko to Christopher Faith at 98 S. 26th St. for $190,000.
Estate of Michael James Mattes to Hajjah Holdings LLC at 2407 Salisbury St. for $37,000.
17th Ward
Mt. Chimera LLC to Trella LLC at 1603 Arlington Ave. for $58,700.
Timothy Greenfield to Hajjah Holdings LLC at 1800 St. Patrick St. for $3,000.
Luck of the Irish L.P. 2 to Marcus Steele at 1927 St. Paul St. for $19,000.
Heather Bomba Prinsen to Barbara Hundenski at 1513 Sarah St. for $230,000.
18th Ward
Matthew Stepanovich to Bank New York Mellon at 302 Bailey Ave. for $1,789 by sheriff's deed.
Estate of Dorothy Storm to Katherine Storm at 447 Iberia St. for $41,800.
Matthew Hochstrasser to Ian Gamble at 615 Industry St. for $7,900.
Estate of Antoinette Welsch to Danielle Lammert at 927 Industry St. for $23,000.
William Toland to Lindsey Navickas at 14 Kathleen St. for $95,000.
Helen Fritz to CKNB Solutions LLC at 827 Loyal Way for $5,000.
19th Ward
Frank Valenta to Grandview Commons L.P. at 1553 Grandview Ave. for $325,000.
Judy Hancock aka Birdsley to James and Therese Moss at 809 Grandview Ave. for $275,000.
Estate of Karen Larson to Delores Cantees at 1700 Grandview Ave. Unit 904 for $275,000.
Anthony Altieri to Denise Daugherty at 319 Olympia St. for $185,000.
EHD Solutions Inc. to Lindsay Bruce at 738 Wills St. for $125,900.
29th Ward
Aron Schutzeus to Kayla and Jeff Workman at 222 E. Agnew Ave. for $70,900.
Daniel Bernard to Federal National Mortgage Assn. at 250 Maytide St. for $2,052 by sheriff's deed.
Teresa Kirk Bender to Kimberly Wherry at 301 Sprucewood St. for $86,300.
30th Ward
Lisa Toal to Federal National Mortgage Assn. at 327 Mathews Ave. for $1,735 by sheriff's deed.
Federal National Mortgage Assn. to Erika Delaney at 219 McKinley St. for $20,675.
Mt. Oliver
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. to Eco Engineeriing Inc. at 218 Anthony St. for $6,500.
Paul Kouknas to Home Finders Inc. at 519 Margaret St. for $37,500.
Bank New York Mellon trustee to Eco Engineering Inc. at 306 Onyx St. for $5,500.
Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. trustee to Paul Chalmers at 188 St. Joseph St. for $4,500.


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Three New Venues Featured on 2013 King of Wake Schedule
Three New Venues Featured on 2013 King of Wake Schedule
Orlando, Fla. — The King of Wake — the world's elite pro wakeboarding series — announced today the dates and locations for its 2013 season, with three new venues in North Carolina, California and Michigan, highlighting its upcoming schedule. The series will make eight stops throughout the United States, beginning in Orlando, Fla. and wrapping up in Grand Rapids, Mi.
The 2013 season will open with the Wake Games on April 25-28 at the Orlando Watersports Complex in Orlando, Fla. The Wake Games have become a kickoff tradition for the series, opening every King of Wake season since 2007.
The series will then continue the season with five stops on the Pro Wakeboard Tour, including Acworth, Ga., on May 18; Mooresville, NC. (near Charlotte), June 1; Mossdale, CA (near Sacramento)., June 29; in the greater Seattle area of Monroe, Wash., on July 13; and in Grand Rapids, MI on August 24. Grand Rapids will mark the first time the King of Wake series has ever been held in this city.
The King of Wake will also visit at two more venues, with WWA National Championships making a return appearance in West Chester, OH., on July 25-28. followed by the WWA World Championships return to Pleasant Prairie, WI., on Aug. 15-18.
The King of Wake season will end with the Pro Tour finale at Grand Rapids where both a Pro Tour and a King of Wake champion will be crowned.
The Chase for the Crown, which limits the King of Wake crown to the top 10 riders in the standings midway through the season makes this series one of the most watched races in the sport.
Last year, Harley Clifford took home both the Pro Tour and King of Wake crowns after defeating Phil Soven who placed second in the standings.
2013 King of Wake Schedule
|April 25-28 Orlando, Fla. Nautique Wake Games Orlando Watersports Complex
|May 18 Acworth, Ga. MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour: Stop #1 Dallas Landing Park
|June 1 Mooresville, NC. MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour: Stop #2 Lake Norman
|June 29 Mossdale, Ca. MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour: Stop #3 Mossdale Quarry Lakes
|July 13 Monroe, Wash. MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour: Stop #4 Lake Tye
|July 25-28 West Chester, Oh. Nautique WWA National Championships Voice of America Park
|Aug. 15-18 Pleasant Prairie, Wi. Rockstar WWA World Championships Prairie Springs Park Presented by Supra
|Aug. 24 Grand Rapids, Mi. MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour: Stop #5 Millennium Park
About ROCKSTAR
ROCKSTAR is the world's most powerful Energy Drink. Enhanced with the potent herbal blend of Guarana, Ginseng and Milk Thistle, ROCKSTAR is formulated to provide an incredible Energy boost for those who lead active and exhausting lifestyles – from athletes to rock stars. ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK is available in eighteen amazing flavors: Original, Sugar Free, Zero Carb, Punched Tropical, Punched Guava, Recovery Lemonade, Recovery Orange, Recovery Grape, Iced Peach Tea, PerfectBerry, X-durance, Energy Cola, 2X, Relax, Juiced Mango Orange Passionfruit, Roasted Mocha, Roasted Light Vanilla, and Roasted Latte. ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK is available at convenience and grocery retail outlets across the United States, Australia, Baltics, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, The United Arab Emirates, and throughout the United Kingdom. ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK supports the active Rockstar Lifestyle in Skate, Surf, Snow, Ski, MX, FMX, Wake, Snowmobile, BMX, Mountain Bike, Bull Riding, Off-Road Racing, Rally Racing, Bands, DJs, Producers, and all styles of Live Music. Go to www.rockstarenergy.com or www.facebook.com/rockstar for athlete and event updates, videos, profiles, and product information.
About King of Wake
The King of Wake is the world's elite pro wakeboarding series, attracting the sport's top athletes from throughout the globe. Over the course of a season, athletes compete for the ultimate wakeboarding crown in a series points race of eight events throughout the United States to see who rules the wake. The 2013 series consists of the Nautique Wake Games, the Nautique WWA National Championships, the Rockstar WWA World Championships Presented by Supra and all five stops on the MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour. The King of Wake is organized by World Sports & Marketing – the leading wake-events producer since 1988.


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Looking back on 30 years of programming: there's nothing new since 1983. Examples and implications.
John Graham-Cumming is a computer programmer and author. He studied mathematics and computation at Oxford and stayed for a doctorate in computer security. As a programmer he has worked in Silicon Valley and New York, the UK, Germany, and France. His open source POPFile program won a Jolt Productivity Award in 2004. John is the author of a travel book for scientists published in 2009 called The Geek Atlas, and has written articles for The Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, New Scientist, and other publications.
He can be found on the web at jgc.org and on Twitter as @jgrahamc.
If you've heard of him at all, it's likely because in 2009 he successfully petitioned the British Government to apologize for the mistreatment of British mathematician Alan Turing.
For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at the conference, contact Sharon Cordesse at (707) 827-7065 or email@example.com.
View a complete list of OSCON contacts


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Tennis For Kids In Adelaide
Introduce your kids to a smashingly awesome sport!

The tennis community in Australia is huge, especially in Adelaide.Read more
Indoor Tennis for Kids
Unleash your kid's potential inner champion!

No matter what the weather, there's no excuse not to play!Read more
Squash for Kids
Give your kids a workout with this fast-paced sport!

Squash is a fast growing sport in Australia and your kids can get in on the action!Read more
Badminton for Kids
Badminton - a growing sport that can be played in the backyard or competitively on the court!
Great for fitness and fun and one of the activities for kids that can be enjoyed in the backyard during school holidays and weekends!Read more
Table Tennis for your Kids
If your kids want to develop their hand eye co-ordination table tennis may be the answer!
Great for confined spaces and indoors, it has become a fiercely competitive sport that goes all the way up to Olympic level!Read more
Tennis for Kids
Get your kid to start Tennis and compare to Roger Federer! Your kids may start learning quite young, and will quickly have fun playing it. Double or singles, in family or with friends, your children will love sharing that sportive moment.Read more


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Salsa and Stars Recap
Tuesday, September 14
Even though the team was off yesterday, quite a few guys still put their star power to work by attending Ozzie's 'Salsa and Stars'. The event was in support of the Ozzie Guillen Foundation, which benefits children touched by cancer and enhances educational opportunities for underserved youth.
The ambiance was electric as one by one, players and coaches began to arrive. Among them were Paul Konerko, A.J. Pierzynski, Juan Pierre, Alex Rios, Mark Teahen, Omar Vizquel, Freddy Garcia, Dayan Viciedo, Gregory Infante, Greg Walker, Mark Salas and Juan Nieves.
Ozzie and Ibis kicked off the night by being the first couple to hit the dance floor. Pretty soon Garcia, Vizquel and Nieves (among others) could be seen singing and dancing alongside of them; at one point Vizquel even jumped on stage and took over the drums.
The fun-filled atmosphere was maintained by NBC Chicago's Zoraida Sambolin and Omar Ramos of Univision Radio's La Kalle who both served as emcees. At one point Sambolin was even spotted sharing a dance with our G.M. Kenny Willams.
Ozzie's inaugural 'Salsa and Stars' managed to be a hit. Special thanks to the performers, players and fans who came out to support the cause.


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Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake
Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake
Makes 8-10 slices
155g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
155g golden caster sugar
20g cornflour
155g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the tin
3 large eggs
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
For the drizzle
160g granulated sugar
juice of 2 lemons
Preheat the oven to 180oC/fan 160oC/gas mark 4. Grease 1 x 900g/2lb loaf tin and line with baking paper or a loaf tin liner.
Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar and cornflour into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse the mixture for about 4 seconds until evenly mixed. Add the butter, eggs and lemon zest and juice and process briefly until evenly blended (about 10 seconds).
Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and level the top with a spatula. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 35-40 minutes, until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf coms out clean. Let the loaf cool in its tin.
Make up the drizzle by stirring the sugar into the lemon juice in a jug and mixing well. Prick the surface of the loaf all over with a fork. Pour the drizzle over the loaf and allow it to set, before removing the loaf from the tin and serving. Keep any uneaten loaf in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days.
11 comments:
- Kelly-Jane said...
Oh it looks moist and gorgeous, I could do with a slice right now :)
- 28 February 2012 at 20:06
- Jacqueline Meldrum said...
Mmmmmmmmm, that is my kind of loaf cake. I love all that is lemon :)
- 28 February 2012 at 20:23
- Cupcake Crazy Gem said...
Usually I think loaf cakes are soo boring and always whizz by them super quick in my google reader but there is something about lemon drizzle that just draws me in! and yours is especially inviting! with that thick layer of sugary drizzle on top - yum! good job!
- 28 February 2012 at 20:42
- Heather said...
Looks marvellous! I think I will try it for next week's office treat.
- 29 February 2012 at 11:24
- Kim said...
Mmmm looks delicious! Lemon drizzle is my favourite.
- 29 February 2012 at 17:20
- Chele said...
Classic recipe - can't be beaten ;0)
- 29 February 2012 at 19:06
- Angela said...
That looks amazing!!!
- 1 March 2012 at 04:09
- Lisa said...
Beautiful cake - beautiful photos! (Loved the yellow gerbera touch!)
I've got a lovely Lemon Drizzle recipe - I think it's from the Hairy Bikers - which I haven't made for some time. I'm now feeling inspired. And hungry!!
- 2 March 2012 at 16:49
- Caroline said...
It looks lovely! Really moist and light, I do love a good lemon drizzle! Shame the timings were off, but I don't think I'd expect a loaf cake to be cooked in 35-40 minutes. Most recipes for 2lb loaf cakes specify at least 50 minutes cooking, often more!
- 3 March 2012 at 13:11
Thanks for sharing this recipe which I have recently tried and was so impressed, I made another a day later! A gorgeous texture and absolutely delicious!
- 25 May 2012 at 21:58
this cake looks sooooo delicuos makes me hungry LOL
- 16 February 2013 at 16:22


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The Google Nexus Twitter account will post a puzzle in just a few minutes, at 12EST. If you're the first to person to figure out and Tweet the answer back at them, they'll give you a free Nexus S. And at their event yesterday there was some talk of giving away Chrome netbooks to puzzle winners, too, so if you keep your eyes peeled and sleuth your hardest you might just win one of those, too.
Google says they'll be putting up a new puzzle every day—yesterday's answer was CREAMPUFF. I'm just going to tweet DONUTHOLES back at them as soon as the new puzzle goes up, because, hey, they're clearly into treats, and because I'm really hungry. [Google Nexus]


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At least six times during the last few years I have found myself in a situation in which I should certainly have become a Catholic, if I had not been restrained from that rash step by the fortunate accident that I was one already.
The point is not merely personal but has some representative interest, because our critics constantly expect the convert to suffer some sort of reaction, ending in disappointment and perhaps desertion. As a rule, the most that they will concede to us is that we have found peace by the surrender of reason; which generally means in practice that we pass the rest of our lives in interminable controversies with a perpetual appeal to logic. But, as a fact, it is in a rather peculiar sense the other way about. The strongest sort of confirmation often comes to the convert after he has received enough to establish conviction.
In these articles I propose to discuss some examples of this singular sort of post-conversion conversion. I mean that things have happened, since I was received into the Church, which would in any case have rendered impossible any intellectual position outside the Church, and especially the position in which I originally found myself.
One occasion was the Parliamentary settlement of the controversy on the prayer book—or prayer books. Another was the Lambeth decision, or indecision, about birth control.
But I will take first the example of the latest turn of political events in Europe. I take it first because it is both typical and topical; that is, it gives perhaps the clearest and simplest example of the sort of thing I mean, and it is a thing of which the facts are fresh and familiar to everybody, even those who live only from day to day with the assistance of the daily press, that very synthetic substitute for daily bread.
But in order to explain what I think has really happened rather more lucidly than the daily press explains it, it is necessary to say a preliminary word about the Protestant Reformation and the sense in which its consequences, rather than itself, continue to bewilder and mislead Christendom.
Men of the type or school of Bishop Barnes or Dean Inge are, as we know, very fond of appealing to the discoveries of science; generally the not very recent discoveries of nineteenth-century science. They delight in dealing with what my grandfather would have called the Testimony of the Rocks; the geological record of natural development; and they often treat fossils and similar traces as if they were sacred hieroglyphics, by which some priesthood had symbolized the secret of the universe. And yet it is doubtful, it is more than doubtful, whether one of the Broad Church ecclesiastics would be soothed and flattered if I addressed him personally as an Old Fossil. Nor indeed should I dream of indulging in this playful form of social address; since there are truths, or half-truths, that cannot be coarsely stated without giving rise to misunderstanding even about their true meaning.
In one sense these liberal theologians are interested in fossils. They continue to demonstrate the Darwinian theory from the geological record, by means of all the fossils that ought to be found in it. They will even explain luminously why the geological evidence does not apparently exist; and they seem to think that this is quite as convincing as if it did exist. But I doubt whether they have really thought profoundly and delicately about what a fossil is, or there would be no danger of their resenting so innocent and inoffensive a comparison. For a fossil is really a very curious thing.
A fossil is not a dead animal, or a decayed organism, or in essence even an antiquated object. The whole point of a fossil is that it is the form of an animal or organism, from which all its own animal or organic substance has entirely disappeared; but which has kept its shape, because it has been filled up by some totally different substance, by some process of distillation or secretion so that we might almost say, as in the medieval metaphysics, that its substance has vanished and only its accidents remain. And that is perhaps the very nearest figure of speech we can find for the truth about the new religions, which were started only three or four hundred years ago. They are fossils.
It is easy to see the sense in which they are now dying. But in a much deeper sense, they have long been dead. The extraordinary thing about them was that they really died almost as soon as they were born. And this was due to a fact not always emphasized, but which always strikes me as the most outstanding fact of the mysterious business; the incredible clumsiness of the Reformers.
The real Protestant theologians were such very bad theologians. They had an amazing opportunity; the old Church had been swept out of their way, along with many things that were really unpopular, and some things that were deservedly unpopular. One would suppose it was easy enough to set up something that would at least look a little more popular. When they tried to do it, they made every mistake that they could make.
They waged an insane war against everything in the old Faith that is most normal and sympathetic to human nature, such as prayers for the dead or the gracious image of a Mother of Men. They hardened and fixed themselves upon fads which anybody could see would pass like fashions. Luther lashed himself into a sort of general fury, which obviously could not last; Calvin was logical, but used his logic for a scheme which humanity manifestly would not long find endurable.
Perhaps the most successful were those who really had no ideas to offer at all; like the founders of the Anglican Church. They at least did not exasperate human nature; but even they showed the same blindness, in binding themselves instantly to the Divine Right of Kings, which was almost immediately to break down.
For this reason, there is really no historical doubt about what Protestantism did; it died. It did not die because the Protestants were wrong; Mahomet, for instance, was a far shrewder person, and his heresy has not died.
The creed of the Protestants died, not because they were wrong, but because they were wrong-headed. They did not really think what they were doing; and this was chiefly because the real driving force behind them was the impatient insolence and avarice of new nobles and rebellious princes. But, anyhow, the theological and theoretical part of their work withered with extraordinary rapidity; and the void that was left was almost as rapidly filled with other things.
What those things were is clear enough in many cases, including cases much more apparently harmless; but it is clearest of all in what is confronting us today: the race religion of the Germans.
Needless to say, there was no such nonsense talked in Luther's time, or for long after his time; and least of all, to do him justice, by Luther. Germans were turbulent and a little barbaric, as he was himself; but it is only fair to him to say that he was a Christian, in the sense that he believed nothing could be done except in the strength of Christ.
A superbly typical story reaches me from Germany; that some of the Nazis started to sing the great reformer's famous hymn, "A strong fortress is our God" (which sounds quite promisingly militaristic), but found themselves unable to articulate the very words at the beginning of the next verse, which run, "Of ourselves we can do nothing."
Luther did, in his own mad way, believe in humility; but modern Germany believes simply, solely and entirely in its pride.
That is an example of what I mean by a void being filled up, not only by another substance, but actually by an antagonistic substance.
Luther was subject to irrational convulsions of rage, in one of which he tore out the Epistle of St. James from the Bible, because St. James exalts the importance of good works. But I shudder to imagine into what sort of epileptic convulsion he would have fallen, if anybody had told him to tear out the Epistles of St. Paul, because St. Paul was not an Aryan. Luther if possible rather exaggerated the weakness of humanity, but at least it was the weakness of all humanity.
John Knox achieved that queer Puritan paradox of combining the same concentrated evocation of Christ with an inhuman horror and loathing for all the signs and forms and traditions generally characteristic of Christians. He combined, in the way that puzzles us so much, the adoration of the Cross with the abomination of the Crucifix. But at least John Knox would have exploded like dynamite if anybody had asked him to adore the Swastika.
All this new Nordic nonsense would seem to have nothing whatever to do with Protestant theology; or rather to be completely contrary to it. No one is more sincerely glad than we are to know that some of the German Protestants are still most consistent and courageous Christians; and that a definite number of the Lutherans still have some sort of remote connection with Luther.
But, taking the development simply as an historical development, as a part of the science and philosophy of history, it is obvious by this time that the hollow places that were once filled with the foaming fanaticism of the first Reformation doctrines are now filled with the foaming fanaticism of a totally different kind. Those who are rebelling like Luther are rebelling against Luther.
The main moral of this is so large and simple and striking that it will soon be impossible to conceal it from the world. It is the simple fact that the moment men began to contradict the Church with their own private judgment, everything they did was incredibly ill-judged; that those who broke away from the Church's own basis, almost immediately broke down on their own basis; that those who tried to stand apart from authority could not in fact stand at all.
But there is another moral, in the particular case of the German race religion, which specially illustrates my point, and with which I will deal in another article.


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Hidden in plain sight
The shadow world of human trafficking
The beating was the final straw. The relentless daily psychological abuse had been bad enough; the endless days of work stretching into weeks and finally into months had been exhausting beyond endurance. Somehow she managed to get through.
"I always just told myself to just take it, to just bear it, just for a little longer," remembers Lucy, a young Kenyan woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name. But now after being slapped into near unconsciousness by her employer, she realized she was in danger of real physical harm. She would have to plan an escape from this home in a quiet upper-class New York hamlet. She picked up the phone and dialed her only friend in North America, a Kenyan priest living in Toronto, to finally ask someone for help.
There are thousands of people like Lucy, held against their will, in the United States today. You may have passed them on the street, begging for small change, watched one working in a neighbor's yard or behind a kitchen door, or passed one cleaning a room in a four-star hotel. Some have helped put food on your table or sewn the clothes you wear. A large number of them are trapped deeply underground but still, like their brothers and sisters, in plain sight behind the black-filtered facades of massage parlors and strip joints.
They are the community of America's enslaved people, trafficked sometimes legally, most often clandestinely across the U.S. border. They are held by force and violence or by the cruelest forms of psychological coercion and persuasion by individuals or by organized crime networks that reach all the way back to the homelands of the trafficked in Africa, Mexico, Central America, Central Europe, and Southeast Asia.
Catholic Charities's Sister Joann Marie Aumand, S.C.C. works with trafficking victims at the Archdiocese of Newark's Bishop Francis Center for Immigration Services. "We think this is something that is happening in Burma or Thailand or someplace far away," says Aumand, "but [it's] happening right here; it could even be happening next door."
According to the U.S. State Department, each year about 800,000 people worldwide are trafficked across national borders bound for what most of them believe are better opportunities in a neighboring nation, Europe, or the United States.(Other estimates place the number as high as 3 million.) But instead of that hoped-for better life, these migrants find themselves entrapped in a kind of modern slavery, forced to pay off their travel and associated debts under often horrendous working conditions or in demeaning labor and intimidated into silence and compliance. Trafficking victims are typically obscured from public view by a painstaking system of isolation and surveillance or the simple remoteness of barracks-style housing where they are often kept.
Those who have been rescued from the U.S. sex trade are perhaps best known, but thousands of others are enslaved in less notorious trades: apparel manufacturing, agriculture, even among maintenance and cleaning staff in America's hotel and restaurant industry.
"We've had domestic laborers, sex workers, restaurant workers, victims who have worked in construction," says Sehla Ashai, an Illinois-based legal advocate for trafficking victims. "We've had people in just about every low-paying service industry job."
"Trafficking victims can be found in all walks of life. They're not going to be found in some dark alley," says Nyssa Mestas, associate director of anti-trafficking services at the U.S. Catholic bishops' Department of Migration and Refugee Services. "You'll find them working in nice homes or even for legitimate businesses."
Aumand is currently working with a group of women and girls who were trafficked from Togo and Ghana in West Africa. They had been forced to work in two small Newark, New Jersey-area hair-braiding salons. Following a typical strategy to better control their victims, the traffickers took passports and other ID away from the women. They worked without pay.
Prosecutors allege that the 20 women and girls were beaten if they did not return to the two apartments they shared immediately after work, if they had the nerve to ask for spending money, or if they otherwise disobeyed their employers. The women saw customers six days a week, 14 hours a day, but it took more than a year for their plight to come to the attention of authorities.
Some trafficked laborers end up working for big agricultural processors well known to consumers, but their abuse is distanced from respectable food companies by a kind of bureaucratic plausible deniability. "We had [traffickers] harvesting for two big citrus processors that put the orange juice on your table," says Brigitte Gynther, a member of Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida working with the Coalition for Immokalee Workers (CIW).
"You often wonder how [growers] never seem to realize this is going on," says Gynther, "but the citrus and tomato growers all use contractors. The workers never see the owners; there is a whole system in place of non-responsibility. . . . These guys are kept on isolated labor camps; nobody knows where they are."
The invisible industry
The U.S. State Department estimates that there may be as many as 18,000 trafficked people living in some form of involuntary servitude in the United States, but few advocates of trafficking victims are confident that figure represents the extent of the problem.
"There's no census that you can take," says Mestas. "All I know is that the numbers we're seeing grow every year, but we may not be identifying them as we should be."
In modern-day America slavery is just "not on anyone's radar," says Mestas. Human trafficking victims often go unrecognized when they come into contact with law enforcement, local social services, or even emergency room doctors treating injured people quieted by the hovering presence of their "employers."
A wide range of estimates exists on the scope and magnitude of modern-day slavery. The International Labor Organization estimates that globally there are 12.3 million people in forced labor and sexual servitude (other estimates range as high as 27 million) and reports that children represent between 40 and 50 percent of all forced labor.
How large this industry is in the United States is not completely understood, but trafficking victims have been identified in 90 U.S. cities. Worldwide human trafficking generates as much as $42.5 billion annually.
In the past most U.S. trafficking victims worked in the sex-for-hire industry, but according to the latest numbers, victims of trafficking are now almost evenly split between the sex trade and all other labor sectors.
But the lines often blur, advocates say. The commodification of the victim can be complete. Women brought into the United States for domestic service or sweatshop labor are frequently further victimized through sexual assault by their "hosts" or rented out or sold to agents within the sex industry.
As much as 80 percent of the contemporary victims of trafficking and slavery are, like Lucy, women and girls from poor communities in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, and Central Europe; 50 percent of trafficking victims are minors. They have few educational or career opportunities. Their status as women in traditional societies is so low they are often already treated like chattel. The poverty they and their families experience is so crushing that otherwise cruel alternatives come to seem acceptable.
The girls and their parents are susceptible to the cajoling and appeals of the itinerant brokers, who represent the trafficking networks in developing countries. Those job recruiters are often women. Claiming to have been placed in jobs overseas themselves, the female recruiters are less threatening to the girls and their families alike, their recruitment success rates higher.
The women hear of the good jobs they can get in America, the chance to go on to a better education and to meet real Americans, perhaps build a future and escape once and for all the poverty that surrounds them. Often, families will sell a daughter to pay off a family debt, send a more valued male sibling to school, or manage a minor and temporary respite from their poverty.
Lucy, in 2003 a single mother of a 5-year-old boy, worked as a housekeeper in the small community of Meru in central Kenya when she heard of what to her seemed an "unbelievable opportunity."
A Kenyan family living in the United States, acquainted with her employers, was looking for a young Kenyan woman to help them in their home. They were willing to provide transportation and pay what to Lucy seemed the exorbitant amount of $200 a month.
"I didn't know what $200 was in America. I was thinking that was 16,000 Kenyan shillings, and it seemed like a great deal of money to me," she says. Lucy signed a two-year work contract.
The American nightmare
At the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) in Los Angeles, women from all over the world are attempting to rebuild lives sidetracked by human trafficking and involuntary servitude. Its director, Lisette Arsuaga, says many of the women seeking assistance at CAST have escaped from California's sex industry, but many others have also been victims of violence and sexual abuse including rape at the more traditional labor sites where they found themselves.
"Fifty percent of the women we work with are Hispanic," she says, "but we also see a lot of women from Indonesia and other parts of Asia." The kind of work-slavery they've escaped, she says, varies with little rhyme or reason. In the past more may have come from massage parlors or light industry. "Right now we're mostly seeing women from domestic servitude."
Like many victims of trafficking, most of the women CAST works with came to the United States willingly and, as they believed at the time, legally. Only after their arrival and at rendezvous with the local agents of their trafficking operations did they discover that the promised opportunity as a student, an au pair, or with a great job in the tourist or travel industry, did not really exist. Instead they were en route to work in a brothel, bar, or sweatshop. That is only the beginning of the bad news.
They also may only learn upon arrival how much they owe their job recruiters for travel expenses—a debt that somehow only grows more unapproachable as new costs for food, housing, clothing, and upkeep are added each week. In a strange land, unable to speak the language, cut off from friends or family, subject to sexual and physical assault, sometimes placated with drugs, these victims of trafficking begin an American nightmare that may take years to escape.
The experience of male agriculture workers recruited in border areas to work American harvests is similar: a seductive pitch followed by a hasty journey then a rude awakening to debt bondage in Florida, a modern underground railroad in reverse.
The isolation of such workers and their reliance on their "contractors" for food, shelter, even liquor and drugs, is often complete. After deductions for supplies and "housing" from their traffickers, these victims often find a weeks' hard work in America's growing fields only got them deeper in debt.
Lucy thought she was on her way to an American paradise. "I was so excited," she says, remembering her arrival. Her employer worked for the United Nations, his wife for a local bank. She didn't question them when they locked her visa and passport and later her Social Security card away for "safekeeping."
Lucy had come a long way to seek a different future than the bitter road that lay ahead for a poor and uneducated woman in Kenya, but her dream of a new life in the United States quickly dissolved. "I worked every day from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. They said I came to America to work, I didn't come to America to talk to Americans. I didn't come to America to watch TV. I never rested. If I had finished all my work, then I should be looking around for something else to do.
"I was just like a stupid person," Lucy says, remembering that other person with a sudden bitterness, "believing whatever they told me, doing whatever they told me. I was trying to please them, but I never could."
Not only was she not allowed to watch television or use the phone, she was essentially never allowed out of the home. Lucy knew no one in America and nothing about U.S. life except what her employers told her. What they told her was consistently frightening.
Lucy's employers were verbally abusive to her from the beginning, she says, and each week they found a reason to dock her meager pay for meals or performance they deemed substandard. When the family's old electric dryer breathed its last, Lucy was accused of breaking the machine and had an entire month's salary and then some deducted from the savings account her mistress was keeping for her. In addition to her housekeeping duties, Lucy was supposed to care for the couple's 8-year-old child. One afternoon the girl burned herself on a hot iron playing "laundry." The blame for the injury fell on Lucy.
"Now my husband will beat you when he comes home," her mistress coolly assured her. It was not an empty threat. The man forced himself into Lucy's basement room and beat her senseless. She had been essentially a slave for more than a year by the time of this attack. "At this time I realized I was in trouble; I can't do this anymore, but I thought, if I escape, where do I go? If I call the police, where do I go? They were the only people I knew."
Stopping traffick
Sehla Ashai is a counter-trafficking attorney for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago. She says law enforcement agencies across the United States have been working harder at recognizing trafficking cases, but there is still a long way to go to raise the profile of this crime.
But the primary obstacle to more prosecutions of traffickers could be the victims themselves. They are frequently unable or unwilling to come forward. Silenced by language or isolation, sometimes by shame, victims of human trafficking often don't understand that their treatment is illegal in the United States or that in the United States the police can be trusted to save them from their plight.
Victims also often hesitate to seek help because of communal, even familial, connections to the people who are victimizing them. They may identify more with their traffickers—who often come from their home nations or villages—than with the people attempting to assist them. Geoff Scowcroft, a legal advocate for Catholic Charities in Portland, Oregon, describes the phenomenon as "trauma bonding."
Ashai says trafficking victims are often unable to come forward because they simply don't have freedom of movement or are simply too afraid to surface to save themselves—afraid not only what the traffickers might do to them but to their families back home. "It's a really effective way of scaring people into doing what you want," says Ashai, "when you say you know where their family lives—and you really do."
In an attempt to encourage prosecution of traffickers by protecting victims and their families both in the United States and their home countries, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 created the T-visa with an annual quota of 5,000. The T-visa allows trafficking victims to stay in the United States working toward permanent residence as long as they cooperate with law enforcement against their traffickers, and it includes visa opportunities for immediate family members of victims, so their safety can likewise be assured.
The T-visa initiative has had mixed success. Since its inception fewer than 1,000 trafficking victims have made their way through federal paperwork to a T-visa, and although it reports record numbers of investigations and prosecutions, the Department of Justice has managed only 77 convictions nationwide for human trafficking in 2008.
After her beating, Lucy says, the last thing on her mind was calling the police. Her employers had often warned her to stay away from the police since they were likely to deport her, and civic life in Kenya had taught her that police officers were not to be trusted. "In Kenya, you could beat someone up right in front of the police, and they would do nothing," she says.
The new abolition
Finding ways to encourage trafficking victims to come forward is only part of a stronger overall strategy to fight trafficking and modern slavery. A more powerful approach, says CAST's Arsuaga is to "abolish slavery by fighting it at its roots."
Families often don't understand what they are getting their daughters into when they make deals with traffickers who are promising the good life. Arsuaga advocates more aggressive efforts to publicize the unpleasant outcomes of trafficking in developing countries before girls fall for the recruiters' pitch.
"The problem is you're appealing to people who often don't know how to read and they listen to the radio for entertainment, for music," says Arsuaga. "But they do watch telenovelas." CAST is helping to produce a telenovela—a kind of Spanish language soap opera—for Latin American television. The show will dramatize the experience of a trafficked girl, hoping to get a warning out about the dangers of "job brokers" who come to Central American and Mexican villages.
Raising awareness in the developing world must be accompanied by better attention to the problem in the United States, say victim advocates, and a recognition that rescuing trafficked people is only the beginning of a lengthy process of restoration. Catholic Charities human trafficking outreach programs in Newark and Portland deploy a full gamut of medical, social, and psychological services when a trafficking victim is delivered to them.
"This is a real violation of human dignity," says the USCCB's Mestas. "They need our help to be healed; they need our help to be rescued and restored. This isn't like a robbery; your whole body has been violated. You as a person are a commodity to traffickers. That takes a while to heal."
Lucy's priest friend in Toronto was eventually able to connect her with the Newark archdiocese's Catholic Charities office. After a few days of planning with federal agents, they made a final call. "They asked me: 'Are you ready to get out of that place?' " Lucy says.
"I said, 'I'm ready.' " Catholic Charities staff and agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency descended on Lucy's home and pulled her out. That afternoon she was in a shelter. Her escape had been shockingly simple to her.
"I was so happy. Even though I was in a shelter, I was free. I could get up and take a walk. I could talk to people."
Four years after she made her escape, Lucy seems well on her way to healing. Catholic Charities helped her get a T-visa and a job and arranged for her first-born son to immigrate to the United States to be with her after years of separation. "They started the life that was taken away from me," she says.
Now Lucy has an American husband and two new American-born babies. She has hope for her future and a warning for young girls like her wondering how to escape.
"Don't be afraid like I was. Call the police. Don't go through what I went through."
This article appeared in the January 2009 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 74, No. 1, pages 12-17).


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Crofty brauchte ein neues Button oder Icon Design und hat einen Wettbewerb auf 99designs gestartet.
Aus 34 Designs von 9 Designern wurde eine Gewinner gewählt.
I am looking to add to our collection of "Stylish" rubber stamp designs.
*** 7/10/08 - Off to a good start. Stay away from anything that could be copyrighted or very similar to a copyright. MelissaMax has some very nice entries. We like the butterfly design by Pegatinas, but it may be hard for us to customize/mass produce. Keep in mind that as we get orders, they also need to be easy for our typesetters (who are not graphic artists) to replicate. Two favs so far are Moon Stamp by Melissa and the Carson's Computer repair by Pagtinas. But we need 20 total, so keep the designs coming!
*** 7/12/08 - Too much black will not imprint well on a stamp. Stay with white backgrounds. Also, if there is a very small white area (like an eyeball or nose) surrounded by lots of black/ink, it will not come out well as the ink may bleed into the small white area.
*** 7/14/08 - If you do not have Corel, Illustrator files are fine.
We are a rubber stamp company looking for some new fun creative address templates.
Please see this page for the few designs we have.
We would like to have 20 designs and we will pay $10 per design via paypal for any designs that we like and end up using on our website.
Please email me your ideas and or thoughts.
Here are the sizes we have to work with:
Ideal 100 - .75 2.375
Ideal 200 - 1 x 2.5
Ideal 300 - 1.5 x 3
Ideal 5790 - 1 x 3.25
Ideal 400 - 1.65 Circle
Ideal 500 - 1.96
Please remember we are working with rubber stamps that have ink on
the...we cant get too detailed because when we stamp the paper the ink
bleeds a little so, then it bleeds we lose some detail...
Let me know if you have any questions
* If your design is approved we will ask you to send us the design in vector art ( Corel is prefered ) and we will also need any fonts used to create the image as we will need the font to personalize them.
The Circle Stamps seem to be selling online alot so we want to push those first!
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