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Free Knitting Pattern from Lion Brand Yarn, formatted for input to refreshable Braille displays or Braille software
Bias Knit Scarf
Lion Brand® Moonlight Mohair
Pattern Number: 40286 The diagonal knit gives this scarf an elegant drape -- and one single ball of yarn is all it takes to make!
SKILL LEVEL: Beginner (Level 1)
SIZE: One Size
5 inches x 36 inches Note: scarf will stretch with wear
CORRECTIONS: None
510-205 Moonlight Mohair Yarn: Glacier Bay
Subtle blues and grays.
Quantity needed: 1 Skeins
Estimated Price: $ 8.99
Lion Brand Knitting Needles- Size 13 [9 mm]
Quantity needed: 1
Estimated Price: $ 5.95
Lion Brand Large-Eye Blunt Needles (Set of 6)
Quantity needed: 1
Estimated Price: $ 3.59
12 stitches (measured along bias row; Note: final scarf width above is measured horizontally across body of scarf, not diagonally along the bias) + 16 rows (8 ridges) = 4 inches (10 cm) in garter stitch (knit every row). When you match the gauge in a pattern, your project will be the size specified in the pattern and the materials specified in the pattern will be sufficient. The needle or hook size called for in the pattern is based on what the designer used, but it is not unusual for gauge to vary from person to person. If it takes you fewer stitches and rows to make your swatch, try using a smaller size hook or needles; if more stitches and rows, try a larger size hook or needles. Making a Gauge Swatch
Exact gauges is not imporant to this project.
Cast on 18 stitches.
Row 1 Slip first stitch as if to purl.
Knit into front and back of next stitch (increase 1).
Knit until 3 stitches remain on needle, knit 2 together (decrease 1), knit 1 - 18 stitches.
Row 2 Slip first stitch as if to purl.
Knit to end.
Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until about 24 inches of yarn remains.
Bind off loosely and weave in ends.
Every effort has been made to have the knitting and crochet instructions accurate and complete. We cannot be responsible for variance of individual knitters and crocheters, human errors, or typographical mistakes.
We want your project to be a success! If you need help with this or any other Lion Brand pattern, e-mail support is available 7 days per week by mailing firstname.lastname@example.com.
For over a thousand free patterns available in versions for the vision-impaired, visit our website http://www.LionBrand.com
To order, visit our website http://www.e-yarn.com or call: (800) 258-9276 any time!
Copyright ©1998-2011 Lion Brand Yarn Company, all rights reserved. No pattern or other material may be reproduced -- mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying -- without written permission of Lion Brand Yarn Company.
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I'm working with Hadoop MapReduce. I've got data in HDFS and data in each file is already sorted. Is it possible to force MapReduce not to resort the data after map phase? I've tried to change the map.sort.class to no-op, but it didn't work (i.e. the data wasn't sorted as I'd expected). Does anyone tried doing something similar and managed to achieve it?
I think it depends on what style result you want, sorted result or unsorted result?
If you need result be sorted, I think hadoop is not suitable to do this work. There are two reasons:
If you do not need result be sorted,I think this patch may be what you want:
Support no sort dataflow in map output and reduce merge phrase : https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MAPREDUCE-3397

subset: commoncrawl


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Tips for Effective E-mail
June 9, 1999
Here are ten tips that will and your employees help you deliver effective e-mail -- and avoid being fired.
- Never send (or forward) racist, sexual or pornographic materials.
- Never assume that e-mail is confidential. Employers generally have the right to review their employees' e-mail.
- Never assume that e-mail is permanently deleted. It rarely is!
- Don't send spam or chain letters via e-mail. It can be illegal.
- Don't gossip or criticize others in an e-mail because it may come back to haunt you in the form of defamation or libel charges.
- When responding to an e-mail, make sure you reply only to the sender, and not everyone on the cc: list, unless that's your specific intention.
- Refrain from sending angry e-mail. It may embarrass you later.
- Don't write in all caps. It's the online equivalent of SHOUTING.
- Avoid misspellings that can make you look careless or sloppy. Not all e-mails have spell-checkers, so you might consider composing your mail in another text-editing program, and then cut and pasting it into e-mail.
- Remember that e-mail is international. When sending e-mails to another country, always use a polite address and avoid using acronyms and idioms that may be particular to American culture.
SOURCE: Corpedia Training Technologies, Mesa, AZ, January 5, 1999.


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Wendleton recommends you make a list of 50 to 60 target companies. The C list is places that would want to hire you but where you wouldn't much want to work. You wouldn't mind working at the B list companies. The A list companies are your first choice.
Photo: Bart Sadowski/iStockphoto


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SportsTime Ohio — the television flagship of the Cleveland Indians and Tee it up Ohio, proprietor of the worst network-owned website in all of Cleveland — has been officially been purchased by FOX Sports.
John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal reports that the deal, which was announced Friday morning, will be worth between $200-250 million and will include long-term (said to be 10 years) television rights to Cleveland Indians games, affording the team $40 million per season. The rights prior to this transaction cost $30 million per season.
What is yet to be determined is whether or not FOX will set up a Fox Sports Cleveland to go alongside FOX Sports Ohio (owner of rights to the Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Cavaliers) or if they will wrap the entire rights-based operation under FSO. They could also opt to run SportTime Ohio as is, likely including some much-needed changes to programming as well as various multimedia initiatives.
"The acquisition of SportsTime Ohio solidifies our business in Ohio, and FOX Sports Media Group's long-term agreement with the Indians reunites the team with the FOX Sports family," said Jeff Krolik, executive vice president of FOX Sports Networks. "We look forward to once again showcasing the Indians to their fans, as well as working with Indians ownership to continue to enhance the value of this iconic franchise."
SportsTime Ohio (STO) is a regional sports network in Cleveland and northern Ohio, launched in 2006. It was created to air Cleveland Indians games. It is also the cable television home of the Cleveland Browns, Mid-American Conference, and Ohio Machine. It had previously been owned by owner of the Cleveland Indians, Larry and Paul Dolan.
"We look forward to a a long-term partnership with FOX that will continue to bring state-of-the-art broadcasts of Indians games while strenthening the franchise and enhancing our ability to build competitve teams."
FOX Entertainment Group is owned by Rupurt Murdoch's News Corp.
[Realted: "Road Tested" still entertaining, still giving hope]


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We have limited tickets available for purchase for the 9/4 evening session at the US Open Arthur Ashe stadium. The New York City IBM Club will be meeting at the Heineken Star Cafe prior to the event at 6pm for networking, as well as include a behind the scenes tune of the IT solution at the event.
The cost is $80 for upper promenade seats or $110 for lower promenade.
If you are interested in purchasing, please reach out to Michael Bardis - email@example.com.


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Over the last decade India has emerged as one of the favourite destination for foreign investors. But compared to China, India still lags behind in attracting foreign investment. Some of the main factors which tend to act as roadblock for foreign investment in India include political considerations, poor infrastructure, inadequate government policies, rigid labour laws and rampant corruption.
- Political Considerations: The fractious nature of Indian politics has led to expiry of one party rule system. No government is possible these days without the support of regional political outfits. These regional satraps in the name of protecting the interests of poor, oppose liberalisations of policies which might lead to increase in foreign investment. Government which is dependent on support of these outfits is hence forced to slow down liberalisation of FDI policies. Besides, opposition parties often oppose foreign investment senselessly, inciting locals on the way, just to ensure that government doesn't run away with the credit for bringing investment. A case in point is POSCO steel plant in Orissa which is yet to take off due to opposition by locals. A change in government also sometimes leads to step motherly treatment towards projects setup by foreign investment during previous government's tenure. Such kind of unpredictability makes foreign investors sceptic of investing in India.
- Infrastructure: Despite the importance being accorded to infrastructure by the government it continues to be a reason to not invest in India. India's roads still continue to be one of the worst in the world. The power cuts remain a way of life. States like UP, Bihar which face severe crunch of infrastructure are also the ones to attract least foreign investment. Existing infrastructure projects often do not get adequate government support leading to withdrawal of foreign investment. Enron faced such situation when it pulled out of the Dabhol power project which had an FDI of $2.9 billion citing government opposition to the project.
- Government Policies: India happens to have one of the highest tariff rates in the world. Most of the East Asian countries charge taxes up to 30%. However the corporate taxes are charged in excess of 35% in India. A cap on the foreign equity in certain sectors also limits foreign investments. Though in recent times, government has taken measures to facilitate easy entry of foreign investors in India, but the exit barriers are still not as flexible. Investors find it difficult to exit the market freely, even if they find entering relatively easy.
- Labour Laws: India has abundance of manpower available at one of the cheapest rates in the world. But, the inflexible nature of labour laws often makes investors shy away from India. The present Indian labour laws forbid layoffs of workers for any reason. These laws protect the workers and thwart attempts to restructure business. To retrench unnecessary workers, firms require approval from both employees and state governments-approval that is rarely given. Labour unions extort huge sums from companies through over-generous voluntary retirement schemes and often resort to strikes in case their demands are not met. India needs to upgrade its labour laws to attract foreign investors which in the long run will prove beneficial to labours also.
- Corruption & Bureaucracy: In India corruption is the norm, not an exception. India is afflicted with a crisis in governance, with corruption in nearly every public service. In order to set up an operation in India, investors whether local or foreign have to pay some form of bribery. Despite steps by government in recent times to simplify norms for foreign investors, various surveys reveal that foreign investors still find it difficult to cut a path through the paper work of overlapping government agencies. International reports on transparency rank India as one of the most corrupt country every year. A combination of legal hurdles, lack of institutional reforms, bureaucratic decision-making and the allegations of corruption at the top have turned foreign investors away from India. Many of the foreign investors have become leery of the country's history of discrimination against foreign companies and its reputation as a slow, difficult, bureaucracy ridden environment to do business.
image: http://kpsconsultants.com/fdi__fema
You too can submit a story on Youth Ki Awaaz using our easy submission form.
You too can submit a story on Youth Ki Awaaz using our easy submission form.


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Guiter Effects Processor
A.Yes, the GT-8 has many effects that are useful with an acoustic-electric guitar.
There are COSM amp types that compensate for the acoustic-electric guitar's frequency response characteristics to achieve a more natural sound.
There's also an "Acoustic Processor" effect that simulates the rich, live sound achieved from recording an acoustic guitar with a microphone. And, of course, the GT-8's chorus, delay, and reverb effects sound wonderful with an acoustic-electric guitar.


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Electronic Cigarette India The Secret Nobody Wants You To Know
Since 2006, e cigarettes has attracted millions of people around the world who have switched from traditional cigarettes to the e-cigarette, also referred to as the "safe cigarette, the electronic cigarette india, and the smokeless cigarette".
Electronic cigarette india share some aspects of there traditional counterparts of cigarettes, such as appearance, feel and taste of a normal cigarette. But the differences are substantial in that the e cigarette india gets it's name because it produces none of the negative aspects of traditional smoking like tar, ignition (heat), up to 4000 types of chemical additives that often lead to respiratory and cardiac system diseases, nor the carcinogenic effects of traditional cigarettes. There are electronic cigarettes that are consumers new favorite because they look and taste like a traditional cigarette. The most common e cigarette india is none other than the original Smokeless Delite electronic cigarettes starter kit.
Ever since the Surgeon General determined that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health, cigarette companies have searched for ways to reduce tar and nicotine levels, in efforts to create a more safe smoking experience. Nothing, however, has ever come close to the e cigarettes.
This revolutionary new smoking alternative called the electronic cigarettes , not only simulates cigarette smoke but also the temperature associated with dragging off a common cigarette (50-60 degrees Celsius), thus adding to the psychological habit without adding the hazardous substances which have proven to cause cancerous, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, hydrocyanic acid, acrolein, arsenic, lead and hydragyrum of actual cigarettes.
Electronic cigarettes were first viewed with trepidation but more and more have become embraced by the public as well as the Medical Association. E-Cigarettes are now manufactured by a number of different companies throughout the US and China and electronic cigarettes readily available across the United States and Europe, even the some of the most ardent skeptics have become believers once they try the electronic cigarette.
Adding to the safety benefits, the electronic cigarette has also been proven as a way for smokers to quit the habit of cigarettes , as the level of nicotine can be carefully monitored, thus giving the cigarettes smoker the option of gradually lowering the level until he/she can quit without fear of withdrawals. Most electronic cigarette refill cartridges are available in full, medium, light and none, and while e cigarettes are not yet approved as smoking cessation devices, the potential for the devices to be used as such is somewhat obvious.
It's recommended that people who have demonstrated a sensitivity or allergy to nicotine, pregnant or breastfeeding, or who have unstable heart conditions should discuss the use of an electronic cigarettes device with a doctor before using one. Additionally, electronic cigarettes may not be used by anyone under the legal smoking age in your state.
Best Electronic Cigarette India Reviews – Reviewed By Intrinsic Consumers of E-Cigs
Learning relative to electronic cigarette india may be a long-drawn-out manner among so many invented review sites online these days. It can aggregate an annoyance trying to ferret out actual general information in connection with an e cigarettes company. We've pieced conjointly an actual review site that is located upon essential consumer reviews. These consumer reviews fulfill as a purpose. Each person that has tried a particular product could rehash in on their experience with the electronic cigarette india brand. Aforesaid as if the e cig company has extremely below par shipping methods, that may be wonderfully paramount to you as a qualifiedness buyer. Who wants to go through the whole program of wondering just when will they get their packages that consist of their products that they ordered? It may be an route to just turn far away from companies like those.
Countless of consumers have been deliberation in of late on our e cigarette india review site, leaving reports about little things, like this one customer that received their order wonderful, and on time – although the batteries that they were delivered were both dead and wouldn't have a charge. So they decided to try substitute e cigarette india company once they got a precise refund from the one that they originally bought from.
There was alternative consumer review that was a prodigiously pleasing one lately. This lady had purchased from one company that gave her cartomizers, which are disposable refills that encompass the nicotine on the electronic cigarettes device – but her cartomizers were sated, so she had to go encourage between the headache of dispatching them back and she didn't snag to equal try out her ecig up to close to two weeks after her original purchase.
The outright part of our review site is so that you can land a flavor of just what everyone is saying as respects a precise electronic cigarettes company. We incorporate even had an one or two sites that we registered on our top ten, that we absolutely apart from the best electronic cigarettes review list in as much as there were too lots complaints from authentic consumers. We audit that sort of stuff – by doubtlessly having the purchaser rank the device with our 5 star ratings arrangement. Once we see that a lot of reviews are pouring in, the site impulsively looks to see whence thousands stars these visitors are giving the company and established upon that ranking the main review digest on the front of the website changes the after-effects from one to ten. An itsy-bitsy elaborate I know, but this is what our site is all about. We choose to go all out to generate sure that consumers do not get conned into procuring an e-cigarette that is so crappy and unsupported that they run out on on the total way of e cigarettes, which can guard their lives.
The need of Electronic Cigarettes india in history
As the time changes so is the styles of people, their needs have also been changed in all spheres of life. On the other hand it is also a natural phenomenon that humans want change in everything that is going around them. In the same way people also wanted to switch from the original cigarette to anything else. That is why there was a need of some discovery in the field of smoking so the addicted people may not only avoid the complication of tobacco but found themselves to be able to leave it
After great research of scientists the discovery of the Electronic Cigarette india took place that could be used instead of original one. In some recent time it was not possible for everyone to purchase the electronic cigarettes to leave the sins of the tobacco cigarettes. The e cigarette india is the best competitor as well as alternative to the original one, without having any kind of side effect of nicotine as compared to the tobacco cigarettes. Nicotine is like a poison for the body of the human if taken regularly in large quantity. That is why it has also been said by the ministry of health of almost all countries to leave the habit of using cigarette for a healthy life.
The people who did not follow the instructions become the victims of severe diseases of lungs and many other things and ultimately they lay down in the lap of the grave. Keeping in view the picture it is recommended to stop the use of nicotine in all shapes whether through cigarette or something else. But there are some people who are strictly addicted of using cigarette and they could not live well without using a specific quantity of tobacco in shape of e cigarettes. These people should use the e cigarette india which has been made free of nicotine with exactly same taste and feelings.
The user can feel immense pleasure by using the e cigarettes and it will not distress his health in any case. The Electronic Cigarettes could only be used with the help of electricity that is why in some recent past it could only be used in the house or office. Now a day there are electronic cigarette india available that could be used without using any cord of electricity and it could be used with the rechargeable battery. Now the users has been facilitated by the manufacturing companies to use the same anywhere you want like the cell phone by recharging the battery of the electronic cigarettes india.


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Hi folks. I've successfully removed the chainwheel on my mountain bike, and got off four of the chainring bolts, but the last one is stuck. I have the right tools (Parktool hex wrench and Parktool Chainring Nut Wrench CNW), but it won't budge. I sprayed some WD-40 in there too, but still no joy. Worst of all, the slotted nut is getting stripped. What should I do to get that damn thing off?
EDIT: Success! I drilled the chainring bolt right out. Worked like a charm! Thanks all for the help!


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A driver was recovering after crashing into a pond in New Albany.
The man was heading east when his pick-up truck ran off the side of the road, crashed through a fence and some trees around 2 p.m.
After striking the trees, the man crossed both eastbound and westbound lanes before plunging into the pond.
The driver, whose identity was not released, escaped from the truck on his own. Witnesses said that it appeared the man passed out.
Bystanders helped him dry off with blankets until paramedics arrived. He was not seriously injured.
Watch 10TV News and refresh 10TV.com for more information.


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Catching Up : A Loom & Not Me by IG88
This is only a catching up feature due to my overly busy, pointless life and general aloofness. IG88, AKA Branden Clarke one of Nueva Foma's new inductees released his label debut and to no one's fault but my own, I failed to talk about it on Cultbreak. After I flailed myself for several hours I finally listened to the album from top to bottom and found, as expected, a marvel of breaking melodious vocals, upbeats, downbeats, joy, sadness and memory. It is not often that a record tells a story.
Have a listen:
IG88 is yet another great addition to the Nueva Forma catalog; a label that insists on not disappointing those of us looking for great new music.


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December 23, 2008 from 6pm to 8pm – The Potter's House Our final meeting for the year before we take a holiday break. Join us for warmth, good cheer, food and fellowship at The Potter's House Bookshop and Cafe. They have kindly agreed to have a special b… Organized by Ecolocitizen | Type: Weekly_meeting, mixer
November 17, 2009 from 5pm to 8pm – Wonderland Ballroom Instead of our usual weekly meeting, Ecolocity will join Greater DC Cares, Sierra Club and Inner City Outings for Happy Hour at Wonderland Ballroom at 1101 Kenyon Ave NW on November 17th from 5-8 pm.… Organized by Greater DC Cares | Type: happy_hour, mixer, networking
December 15, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm – The Potter's House Join us for our last meeting of the year when we'll hang out, reminisce, celebrate, chew the rag, lick our wounds, scheme for next year. We'll meet at The Potter's House Bookstore and Cafe, the firs… Organized by Ecolocitizen | Type: mixer, holiday_party
© 2016 Created by Ecolocitizen. Powered by


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Well I got my new LXD75 yesterday..now i have read alot of posts about the grease/glue problems with the mount....my god....how can anyone, even some third world mechanic call this stuff grease???? Guess no one can be accused of telling any tall tales about this subject...and yes its still raining because i got something new...so i will have plenty of time to clean and lube. LOL
Meades choice of grease
Started by Mittag55 , May 01 2009 07:21 AM
1 reply to this topic
Posted 01 May 2009 - 07:21 AM
Posted 01 May 2009 - 09:37 AM
I found that my local ACE Hardware carries SuperLube but I haven't done a Hyper-Tune yet, just bought the tube of grease. Had it for 1 1/2 yrs with no problems with the original greese.


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Martin Luther King: 39 Years on ... 4 April 2007 Will Be Exactly 39 Years since Dr Martin Luther King Jr Was Assassinated in Memphis, Tennesee, USA. Professors A.B. Assensoh and Yvette Alex-Assensoh (Both of Indiana University, USA) Examine Dr King's Legacy by Focusing on His Archive Which Was Acquired Last June for Safekeeping by Morehouse College, One of His Alma Maters
Assensoh, A. B., Alex-Assensoh, Yvette, New African
Civil rights scholars and activists as well as friends of Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, who was assassinated on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, jubilated when it was announced on 27 June last year that the important archive of the famous civil rights leader would be retained by his undergraduate alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr King was a 1948 graduate of Morehouse College.
Deemed a historic archive of the 20th century, it is known to include Dr King's significant academic papers as well as his handwritten Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech and his famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech.
For many of Dr King's admirers and former fellow civil rights allies, it is very comforting that the documents are to stay in his hometown of Atlanta, and more so in the possession of Morehouse College, thanks to a $32m deal arranged by progressive businesses and philanthropists with the King family.
Dr Walter Massey, president of Morehouse College and also himself an old boy of the college said: "Given the important role Morehouse played in Dr King's intellectual, spiritual and moral development, we believe there simply is no better place for these papers to reside. We are grateful to the King family for their confidence in Morehouse to serve as the repository for this legacy, which reflects the best thinking of our nation's most outstanding leader, and of Morehouse College's most outstanding alumnus."
Morehouse College played crucial roles in Dr King's life, indeed up to the time of his death in 1968. For, apart from its famous chapel being used for part of Dr King's funeral rites, the college's president emeritus, Benjamin Elijah Mays, gave the eulogy of Dr King, as both men had planned.
Dr Mays revealed early in his eulogy: "It was my desire that if I pre-deceased Dr King, he would pay tribute to me on my final day. It was his wish that if he pre-deceased me, I deliver the homily at his funeral. Fate has decreed that I eulogise him. I wish that it might have been otherwise, for after all, I am three score years and ten and Martin Luther is dead at 39."
A lifesize statute of Dr King has been erected on the Morehouse campus in honour of its most famous alumnus. Therefore, his archive has proverbially come home to a befitting honour and rest. Reportedly, it was at the last minute that a group of very progressive businesses and philanthropists came together to raise the needed funds to buy the papers from Dr King's four living children: Yolanda King; Martin III; Dexter King; and Rev Dr Bernice Albertine King, who gave the powerful eulogy at her mother's funeral in Atlanta last year.
Dr King's children and other family members (initially including his widow, Mrs Coretta Scott King, who also died last year) had always wished to have a secure home for the papers instead of remaining in family hands. Therefore, the Morehouse arrangement was in line with that desire but not merely as a matter of greed as some critics have claimed against the King family members involved in the sale. Several academic institutions and their leaders initially felt uncomfortable that such a crucial civil rights throve could very easily fall into the hands of non-black institutions. It was a similar feeling that several helpless African academic institutions felt when the archive of Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, including his unpublished as well as several handwritten papers, could not be housed on an African campus. Thanks to Nkrumah's immediate family and June Milne, his literary executrix, who made sure that Howard University--a historically black institution in the US--retained the precious archive of the 20th century's foremost pan-Africanist.
The New York-based auction house, Sotheby's, had arranged for the sale of Dr King's archive of nearly 10,000 items on 30 June last year. …


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Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan should designate a member of the Lower House of Parliament as Leader of the Opposition even if "there is no clear applicable rule", feels one of her predecessors Somnath Chatterjee.
"That will also put an end to the fact that Indian Parliament does not have an LoP, which will weaken democratic system we have adopted," the former Speaker, who presided over the 14th Lok Sabha from 2004-2009, told PTI today.
At the outset, he made it clear that 10 per cent of the membership of the Lok Sabha is needed for an Opposition party to be given the status of the Leader of the Opposition.
He, however, hastened to add that the issue should be left to the discretion of the Speaker.
"So far as I know 10 per cent of the membership of the House... I think this should be left to the discretion of the Speaker," he said when asked as to what was the criteria for a member of a party to get the LoP status and what should be done in the current situation.
"I believe... For the proper functioning, someone should be designated as LoP, which recognises the important role of the opposition in an elected democratic setup.
"Therefore, I feel even if there is no clear applicable rule, Honourable Speaker may kindly in her discretion designate an honourable member of the House to be the LoP. Who will be designated should be decided by the number of members of different parties have in the House," he said.
Chatterjee's remarks came in the backdrop of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi opining that Congress is not eligible and there is no precedent since the days of the first Lok Sabha to grant the post to a party which does not have the minimum required MPs.
The AG's opinion came as a setback to Congress which has made a strong pitch for the Leader of Opposition post despite securing just 44 seats in the 543-member House. A party has to win 55 seats to get 10 per cent members.
Rohatagi had conveyed his views to Mahajan who had sought his opinion in view of the dilemma she is facing over the issue, sources said.
The top law officer of the country has said there is no precedence where a party was given the LoP position -- the status of a Cabinet Minister -- without


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03 February 2012
Photo: Siggi BucherSam Stosur (AUS)
FRIBOURG, SWITZERLAND: Given that the lowest ranked player in the Australian team, Casey Dellacqua, is higher ranked than any in the Swiss team there is a temptation to consider the result of this Fed Cup by BNP Paribas World Group II tie in Fribourg a foregone conclusion.
Sam Stosur for one certainly isn't. She hasn't forgotten the last time they were expected to win easily, against Ukraine last April, and ended up losing 3-2 at home.
"If there ever was a time we certainly learned our lesson from the last Fed Cup we played, against the Ukraine, we were heavy favourites then and we managed to lose that one," said the US Open champion. "So, I think there's definitely no chance of being complacent now - or in the future."
Having just had what she described as a "disastrous summer", going out in the first round of her home Grand Slam, the world No. 5 is in no mood to take anything for granted. Having said that, the Aussies have shown their hosts the respect of fielding their strongest team and the slow, indoor clay surface at the Forum Fribourg isn't expected to bring a halt to Australia's progress in the competition this year.
Nevertheless it's difficult to gauge exactly the strength of the Swiss team which lost 3-1 to Australia two years ago and 5-0 the last time they received them at home five-and-a-half years ago. There's no Patty Schnyder any more but there are echoes, albeit distant ones, of the halcyon days of Swiss women's teams when a young Martini Hingis was emerging with the inclusion of 14-year-old Belinda Bencic in the team.
Timea Bacsinszky is the real unknown quantity, though. At her best she is more than capable of giving the Australians a problem but she hasn't played serious tennis since winning both her rubbers against Sweden in April last year. Afterwards she suffered a foot injury away from the game which has since twice required surgery to put right.
She won the Swiss championship in December which was good for her confidence but she is aware that it is no real sort of preparation for what lies in store for her on court on day one against Stosur, a player who is just as happy on clay as any other surface, having reached the final of the Rome tournament last year and, of course, the French Open final in 2010.
"I hope – I think - I'm ready," Bacsinszky said. "For sure there are going to be some emotions for me this weekend. I've been waiting for this for such a long time. I'm going to give 100 per cent and more to bring back points for Switzerland."
Switzerland must hope that Stefanie Voegele, who will be heading up the team for the first time now that Schnyder has retired, can bring it level in the second rubber on day one. She has never played her opponent, Jarmila Gajdosova, before but she did play a close three-set match against Stosur in that 3-1 defeat two years ago.
"We're different now, we have a new team but I can't say yet whether we are better or worse than two years ago," said Chrisitiane Jolissaint, the Swiss captain. "Timea is just coming back from injury so her ranking, 246, doesn't show her playing qualities and Stefanie will be holding the flag for the first time. We used to have Patty on the team and she was an excellent player, she brought a lot to the Fed Cup team – it's just different.
"We have a newcomer in Belinda Bencic, who is 14-and-a-half. It's very important for her to have this experience. There will be no surprises for her any more. From the beginning she knew she was probably not going to play also because we don't want to burn her. Comparisons with Martina are not important. What's important is that she's Swiss, she's playing for Switzerland and she could become one of the very good players in the world."
The full draw is listed below.
SaturdayR1: Bacsinszky (SUI) v Stosur (AUS)R2: Voegele (SUI) v Gajdosova (AUS)
SundayR3: Voegele (SUI) v Stosur (AUS)R4: Bacsinszky (SUI) v Gajdosova (AUS)R5: Bacsinszky / Sadikovic (SUI) v Dellacqua / Dokic (AUS)
Captain Christiane Jolissaint (SUI) - 03/02/2012
Stefanie Voegle (SUI) - 03/02/2012
Timea Bacsinszky (SUI) - 03/02/2012
Captain David Taylor (AUS) - 03/02/2012
Samantha Stosur (AUS) - 03/02/2012
Jarmila Gajdosova (AUS) - 03/02/2012
4 Feb 2012 - 5 Feb 2012
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Stefanie VOEGELE (SUI)
Samantha STOSUR (AUS)
Amra SADIKOVIC (SUI)
Jarmila WOLFE (AUS)
Timea BACSINSZKY (SUI)
Jelena DOKIC (AUS)
Belinda BENCIC (SUI)
Casey DELLACQUA (AUS)
Forum Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
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Clive White
Clive started writing about sport at the 1966 World Cup final, since when, he says, it's been all downhill... for England if not necessarily himself. He joined The Times at 21 before moving to the Sunday Telegraph where he provided worldwide coverage of tennis and football. As ghost writer to John McEnroe for six years, Clive learned that sport, far from being a matter of life and death, was, in fact, much more serious than that.
Switzerland's Fed Cup by BNP Paribas captain Heinz Guenthardt
Poland's new Fed Cup by BNP Paribas captain, Klaudia
Chinese Taipei's Fed Cup by BNP Paribas captain Wang Shi-Ting
USA's longtime Fed Cup by BNP Paribas captain looks back on
Czech Republic reached its fifth Fed Cup by BNP Paribas Final
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mini diddie bag for kids, laptop, or lollies!
Not currently available in this region.
The mini diddie ™ kids bag is HOT because:
- big clip for easy fastening to body or stroller
- outer side pocket
- padded internal storage
- perfect for pre-school: side pocket for a favorite book & plenty of room for lunch
Select your region


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Pound Cake # 2 is done and I'm very happy. The cake must be happy too because it has a smile!
This recipe is based on one Katy gave me called Mary Jo Bowen's Pound Cake, only this version is marbled with a small amount of chocolate. I also baked it in a loaf pan.
The texture is tight-crumbed, soft and tender. It's moist, but not greasy and not particularly dense. In fact, it's kind of light. The cake flour makes a huge difference and I don't know that I'd make another pound cake with anything other than cake flour, or if I had some on hand, soft wheat flour like White Lily.
The only drawback to this cake is it requires lots of bowls and beaters. Lining everything up ahead of time and having ingredients and appliances ready to go will help make baking this cake a lot more fun. It's definitely worth it, just take your time and enjoy the process. In other words, don't try to make it while you're making dinner.
I'm going to take this to the school and get some feedback on Marble Cake #1, which I left there yestserday I hope they didn't find it too dry.
Marbled Pound Cake #2
1 1/2 cups (165g) cake flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (regular is fine)
4 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter, cool room temp (114 grams)
1 1/2 cups (150g) superfine sugar, divided use**
3 large eggs, separated, room temp**
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/2 cup (4 oz) sour cream, room temp
2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 9×5 inch loaf pan with flour-added cooking spray (Pam for Baking or Baker's Joy).
Sift together dry ingredients; Set aside.
Beat butter and 1 1/4 cups of the sugar until light and creamy (3-5 minutes). Beat in egg yolks one at a time. Beat in extracts. Add flour mixture and sour cream in alternating portions, beginning and ending with flour.
In a separate bowl, preferably metal, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/4 cup (50 g) of sugar until shiny, soft, billowy peaks form. Do not over-beat. Err on the side of under-beating. Fold egg whites into batter.
Remove about (doesn't have to be precise) 1 cup of the batter and mix with the melted chocolate. Layer half of the white batter in the pan. Dot with the chocolate batter. Cover with white. Bake one center rack of oven for 50-minutes on center rack or until cake tests done (wooden skewer inserted comes out with moist crumbs).
Cool in pan for about 10 minutes, flip out of pan and invert. Cool completely.
To make neat slices, cut with a serrated knife.
**Make your own! Process in food processor
**Have whites ready to go in a large metal bowl for mixing.


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This recipe is terrific because you don't have to cook the lasagna noodles before you put the lasagna together.
Uncooked lasagna noodles
1 qt. spaghetti sauce (any dairy or pareve sauce you like will do, but thicker is better)
1 lb. ricotta
1/2 lb. grated mozzarella
Grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup water
In a lasagna pan (13x9x2) spread some of the spaghetti sauce, about 1/3. Place 3 lasagna noodles adjacent to each other—allow space for them to expand as they cook. Place a layer of ricotta and mozzarella on top. Add some sauce. Continue with additional layers. Sprinkle the last layer of sauce with Parmesan cheese. Put the water into the sauce jar and shake in order to clean out jar. Carefully pour the water into the corners of the pan, not over the top. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 1 and 1/4 hours at 350 degrees. Uncover for the last few minutes. Let the lasagna sit for 15 minutes before you cut it.


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by Category:
Ancient and Medieval Times to A.D. 1500
Charles A. Frazee - All books by this author
Easy Way Series - All books in this series
This volume offers a survey and overview of world history, starting with the earliest-known human settlements and concluding in 1500--the early years of Europe's Renaissance,and in the Americas, the era of the Aztec and Inca empires. Following a summary of prehistoric cultures, the author covers the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, ancient Egypt, civilization in the Indus and Yellow River valleys, early Mediterranean cultures, India's classical age, the rise of China's dynasties, classical Greek and Roman civilizations, the Islamic world, African kingdoms of the first millenium, Europe's middle ages, the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusaders and their clash with Turks, the Mongol invasion, and the humanism of the early European Renaissance.
Table of Contents:
Paperback / 512 Pages / 7 13/16 x 10 7/8 / 1997


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I recently got an Unknown Lv-1 frame and I had a problem with the one of the headset cups fitting the headtube. I'm new to building so I'm not familiar with the many variations of headsets and sizes. I thought a 1-1/8" headset should fit my 1-1/8" headtube (which is the only spec I could find) but apparently I'm missing something. This is the headset I purchased.. http://www.jensonusa.com/Ritchey-Log...adless-Headset
I was able to fit the top cup in, but the bottom cup just fell right back out as if it was too skinny to fit the headtube.. Im not sure what kind of headset I need to fix this..
This is a headset someone else with the same frame got. http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/u...et/rp-prod6183
Not sure what it is about this headset that makes it compatible.. the 36/45 degree? the stack height? or that it is integrated?
Thanks for any help anyone can give. Let me know if you need more info.


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Would you like to see more photos?
1015 Railroad Ave., Bellingham, WA 98225
- $189,900
- 1+ Years on site
- Beds: n/a
- Baths: n/a
- Commercial Building
Stylish "Turn key" commercial condo w/great visibility near Public Market, Downtown! Bamboo flooring, cabinets & storage. Two main work spaces, one large & open & a private office. 8 work stations w/built-in desks wired for computers. Kitchen & FULL bath. Monitored security system. One parking space in common garage + bike storage available. Office opens to beautifully landscaped common area. Located on walking & bike paths from Downtown to Fairhaven for an environmentally friendly commute!
- Commercial Building
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- Baths: n/a
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Local Info
| Median Household Income
| Median Years In Residence
| Median Homeowner Age
| Households with Children
| Percent of Homes Rented
Nearby Elementary Schools
- Assumption Catholic School
- 2116 Cornwall Ave
- Carl Cozier Elementary School
- 1330 Lincoln St
- Cedar Tree Montessori
- 2114 Broadway St
Nearby Primary Schools
- Meridian Special Programs
- 214 W Laurel Rd
Nearby Middle Schools
- Home Port Learning Center
- 707 Astor St
- Assumption Catholic School
- 2116 Cornwall Ave
- Whatcom Middle School
- 810 Halleck St
Nearby High Schools
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These are the closest schools to your requested location. Proximity does not guarantee enrollment eligibility. Please consult your real estate agent or school district to confirm the schools you are zoned to attend.
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text: Advocates for mass transit are keeping a running tally of complaints about the new local bus routes. Albemarle resident Nancy Carpenter (pictured) has compiled some comments by riders of Charlottesville Area Transit. They include the recent end of Saturday service on Route 1, and changes in bus stops that have created longer walking distances. CAT made significant changes to many bus routes on January 4th. The riders' comments have been brought to City Council. Councilor Kathy Galvin has asked City Manager Maurice Jones to ask for regular reports on reaction to the new routes from CAT administrators.


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Call Center Agent Resume
The call center agents work either in the outbound or in the inbound department. This means that they either contact clients in order to present certain products, to conduct surveys or to receive feedback on particular products or services, or they are being called by customers who have questions or complaints. The call center agent has to be polite and has to know very well the products and services provided by the company he is working for in order to best meet the clients' demands.
The resume for this position should highlight your experience in working at a call center and your potential to offer quality services over the phone. For this it is necessary to have great communication skills and persuasion abilities.
Personal Details
Name: Sandra Garfield
The call center agent is the person with highly developed communication skills who contacts client over the phone in order to promote products or services or to handle complaints and inquiries.
My objective is to work as a call center agent in your company. The purpose of my work is to find as many clients as possible for your products and services and to solve as many problems as necessary for the existing clients of your company.
Communicative person, with extraordinary abilities of interacting effectively over the phone, I will be pleased to work in your company and help increase your profit
Qualities and Skills
Work Experience
Call Center agent at Call Duty Enterprise, 2008-2011
Bachelor's degree in Business Management, University of California
Areas of interest
Human interaction
Andrew Crane,


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March - April 2000
Steve Reich is a leading pioneer of Minimalism and his music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony, the BBC Symphony, and the Boston Symphony. In 1990 he received a Grammy Award for Best Composition for Different Trains, which marked a new compositional method, and in 1994 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dance companies and choreographers ranging from the New York City Ballet, Jiri Kylian, Alvin Ailey, Eliot Feld, and Laura Dean have used Reich's music. The Cave is a video piece exploring the biblical story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, which has been performed worldwide.
Last Updated: 9/14/09


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Downton Abbey may be over, but we've got information on a great contest that will help you live your own Downton experience. PBS Masterpiece are running a great sweepstakes with the opportunity to win a trip to Britain that is all geared towards Downton Abbey.
Here are the prize details:
- Two round-trip economy class tickets to London aboard British Airways from one of 20 gateway cities in the US.
- Four nights hotel accommodations including breakfast at a Radisson Edwardian property in London.
- VIP guided tour of Highclere Castle with Lord Carnarvon and afternoon tea with Lady Carnarvon, author of Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey and round-trip ground transportation to and from London.
- Afternoon tea at the May Fair Hotel with Jessica Fellowes, author of The World of Downton Abbey and Mud & The City: Dos and Don'ts for Townies in the Country.
- Lunch and VIP tour of Leeds Castle with round-trip ground transportation to and from London.
- Two Hudson's Heritage Explorer Passes.
- Round-trip train tickets between the airport and London.
Travel must take place Sept. 17-22, 2012. You can enter daily for more chances to win. Open only to legal residents in the 48 contiguous United States and the District of Columbia, 18 years of age or older. You have until April 27th 2012 to enter.
Anglotopia Contest Disclaimer – PLEASE READ – before you email us and complain about the contest please understand that we are NOT running this contest NOR are we affiliated with it in anyway. We are merely providing the information that this contest exists.


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FEB 13, 2013 - Yahoo! News
A Must Read - Share
(Reuters) - Arizona Cardinals running back Javarris James has been suspended four games for violating the league's policy on substance abuse, the National Football League (NFL) said on Wednesday. James, who spent the 2012 NFL season with Arizona on injured reserve after suffering a knee injury during the pre-season, has not played a regular season game since 2010 when he was with the Indianapolis Colts. If he makes a roster for next season James, the cousin of former NFL standout Edgerrin James, would serve his ban for the first four games of the 2013 campaign. ...
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The Purdue Women in Agriculture Team was formed to help address the educational needs of women employed in or involved with the agricultural industry. The team is made up of Purdue Extension Educators and Specialists, as well as representatives from industry.
Lori Bouslog - Extension Educator, Sullivan County
Stacy Clupper - Extension Educator, Grant County
Ed Farris - Extension Educator, Huntington County
Kelly Heckaman - Extnesion Educator, Kosciucko County
Amy Jones - Plant Sciences Recruitment and Outreach Coordinator
Danica Kirkpatrick - Events and Educational Activities Coordinator, Purdue Agriculture
Gracie Marlatt - Extension Educator, Rush County
Jenna Nees - Extension Educator, Putnam County
Bryan Overstreet - Extension Educator, Jasper County
Danielle Sands - Extension Educator, Newton County
Amanda Veenhuizen - Extension Educator, Fayette County
Melissa Bercaw - New Albany, IN
Rhonda Dyer - Freedom, IN
Melanie Strait-Bok - Lagrange, IN
Michelle Vigna - Westfield, IN
To recognize and empower women to fully integrate into agriculture.
The Purdue Women in Agriculture Team is committed to providing educational opportunities, current resources and a network of support to position all women for success in the agriculture industry through skill development, confident decision making and personal well being.


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Amy Poehler: Cos she's an animal, and she's bigger than you.
May 13, 2010
The following post originally appeared on I Fry Mine In Butter on April 19th, where, you may recall, I no longer post. I've edited it a bit, mostly for the purposes of updating and providing a bit of context.
I understand that there is a lot of debate about Tina Fey in The Land Of Feminism. I get why this happens, really. Tina Fey is the only woman I can think of who created and who head writes her own sitcom while also having been the first female head writer for a show that was previously thought of as a pantheon for sexist douchebags and their fans. On top of all of this, she takes feminist positions and self-identifies as a feminist. People tear Tina Fey apart and analyze every aspect of her existence. I get that, and I get why it happens. But I also can't help but think that part of it is because She's The Only One. No other woman in her field has accomplished what she specifically has (the SNL thing), despite the fact that there are surely countless women out there who could do her job as well as she does. I don't think that's Tina Fey's fault, but it still sucks. On the one hand, she's cast as this unrealistic feminist ideal; on the other hand, everything she says is picked apart until there's almost nothing left.
Although I've liked or loved plenty of Tina Fey's work, I've certainly despised some of it: particularly, her portrayal of a really sexist stereotype whose ending wraps up way too conveniently and unrealistically in Baby Mama, and the various times I've seen her rag on sex workers, or sluts, or poor people, or her dated idea of bimbos, or whoever it is that she thinks is below her at the time. I've always felt like most of the ladies who've repped Tina so hard have been pretty different from me. Women who wear their intellect on their sleeve seem to totally heart Tina Fey, which is fine. But in SNL terms, I've always been more of an Amy Poehler girl: loud, bossy, obnoxiously charming (or obnoxious, depending on how you look at it), and often covered in fingerpaint and boogers, as I spend much time with the young kiddos.
Amy Poehler's portrayal of Angie Ostrowski in Baby Mama made me give a shit about the film, and the seriously underrated, straight-to-DVD Spring Breakdown starring Poehler, Rachel Dratch and Parker Posey was one of my surprise favorite Netflix rentals of last year. But it is in her send-ups of, and homages to, young girls where I love Amy most of all. One of her most widely beloved characters on SNL wasKaitlin, a hyperactive ten year old who always wore pink Mickey Mouse shirts and ran circles around her tired (but loving) stepdad Rick, screaming his name over and over again in an obnoxious, garbled and lispy staccato. Kaitlin was hopelessly uncool but never gave up trying not to be, and didn't seem to care too much when her attempts culminated in colossal failure. Kaitlin was perfectly content to win the cool kids and the grownups over to the weird side, where she happily resided. Kaitlin send-ups abound on Youtube, where they are primarily performed and uploaded by tween-age and teenage girls who loved the sketch while it was an SNL regular.
Amy Poehler veered away from Kaitlin completely with her Dakota Fanning impression on the fictional The Dakota Fanning Show. Amy's Dakota wears a puffy princess dress with a pink satin sash while waxing poetic about Umberto Eco and Charlie Rose. Faux Dakota Fanning is also wildly insecure, throwing temper tantrums when she encounters guest stars whom she perceives as competition, and booting them off her show when they reflect an interest in topics she deems to be below her. Amy's Dakota summons her mother (whom she calls by her first name) for a juice box or some Dunk-A-Roos when she gets cranky, then gleefully bounces up and down in her chair when her inner beast has finally been quelled by the snack. The Dakota Fanning Show is a tongue-in-cheek warning about what may happen when a young girl's inner-Kaitlin is put under lock and key, as this version of Dakota is only truly happy when she receives her snacks and permits herself to bounce around.
Amy's love for the little ladies extends to her work outside of SNL and sketch comedy. She is a co-creator of and vocal actor on The Mighty B!, a newish Nickelodeon show about a, in her words, "fiesty, plucky, bossy Honey Bee Scout" named Bessie who relies on her imagination to envision becoming a superhero when she encounters trouble. Bessie is the most focused and driven Scout in her group, and has amassed thousands of Honey Bee badges; she believes that when she collects them all, she will become a true superhero. The Mighty B! is one of the only girl-centric kids' cartoon shows on TV, and it's certainly the only one I can think of whose main character both 1. is awesome and 2. looks odd. She wears glasses and braids, is sort of googly-eyed, and is missing her front two teeth, plus she seems to have a pretty severe overbite. Basically, Bessie looks like, brace yourself, a cartoon version of a typical nine year old girl. Whoa.
Amy's most serious and significant contribution to kid culture may be her collaborative, under-the-radar web show, Smart Girls At The Party. Amy's mission for SGATP is, in her words, to showcase "extraordinary individuals who are changing the world by being themselves." She interviews girls who have a serious interest (gardening and writing have been two covered topics) about the work that they do. Every episode is endearing and empowering, especially if you read the excited comments painstakingly typed out by little girls who watch the show. Amy's interviews are humorous, but she doesn't pander to the girls she is talking to; rather, she takes them and their interests very seriously and gets excited right along with them, usually asking the girls to teach her their skill. My favorite Smart Girl At The Party is Ruby The Feminist, who has written a book called A Few Things I'd Like To Share With You about how "boys and girls are of equal value." She explains feminism to Amy and the Smart Girlsaudience with panache and intellect, and talks about her personal connection to it via her single mom. Ruby is awesome; all of the Smart Girls are. It's a shame that Smart Girls is relegated to being a web show, because it does something that the very large majority of the media is reticent to do: it celebrates something special that exists in every little girl, and that lived inside of every woman until the world at large knocked us on our butts around age 11 or so.
Perhaps Amy's most famous, shining moment on SNL was when, about a month before giving birth, she pwned then-Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin TO HER FACE during 'Weekend Update' with a brutal pseudo-gangsta rap send up of every ridiculous aspect of Palin's campaign. Amy covered everything, from the 'Bridge To Nowhere' to Palin's porch view of Russia to her husband and his snowmobile; she even took out a guy in a moose costume with an invisible gat. All the while Palin raised the roof and beamed like she was in on the joke, but looked absolutely clueless- a fact that did not escape the pundits and media the next day.
There was something particularly poetic about watching Sarah Palin, who so deftly exploited her own motherhood for political gain, being taken down by a woman who was then eight months pregnant. Amy huffed and puffed her way through her performance expertly, periodically turning sideways and reminding us just how far along she was. At the end of her rap she wedged her way between Palin and "Update" host Seth Meyers to "shoot" the already dead moose a few more times for effect, and firmly exited stage left to wild, reverent applause. If Tina Fey's dead-on Sarah Palin impression built the coffin that Palin's campaign was eventually to be laid to rest in, Amy Poehler firmly nailed it shut in the two minutes that it took her to deliver her performance.
Next time you're sitting down to write out a list of the brilliant feminist women who make you laugh, don't forget about Amy Poehler. She's repping for those of us at the tiny table in the corner with Play-doh stuck to our fingers and juice boxes in our purses, and for that we are extremely grateful. She's also repping for that hyperactive preteen niece of yours who plans on being a fashion designer, astronaut, basketball player, and mommy when she grows up- but if she can't do all of that, maybe she'll be the next Amy Poehler instead.
We love you, Amy!
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October 23, 2013 11:00 AM
Naomi King Englar
For one day, a few New Orleans streets will come alive with people walking, cycling, dancing and playing games, all free of cars and exhaust. The first Play Streets Ciclovia event will bring people together on Oct. 26 from 9 a.m. until noon to walk and talk, get moving and feel good.
To repurpose spaces for people to walk, ride bikes, dance and play, the plan is to close the lake-bound traffic lanes of Esplanade Avenue from N. Claiborne Avenue to Bayou Road, and Bayou Road from Esplanade Avenue to N. Broad Street.
The goal is to take this type of event to different parts of the city in the future, so more neighborhoods can experience it.
"Play Streets Ciclovia is about rejuvenating New Orleans," says Jamie Wine, executive director of Bike Easy, a local bike-advocacy group and lead coordinator of the event. "It's about creating a city that people want to work and live in and be healthy."
Activities include dancing, soccer, hula-hooping, yoga, Pilates, skateboarding, biking, walking, cooking demonstrations, fresh food and a second line led by the Bone Tone Brass Band.
"When we show that streets can serve more than just cars and trucks, we can reimagine streets as these great places for walking, biking and staying healthy," says Naomi Doerner, program manager for the KidsWalk Coalition at the Tulane Prevention Research Center.
"And by creating safe spaces for physical activity, we are helping make the healthy choice the easy choice."
Play Streets is still looking for people to volunteer — the event is another opportunity for the Tulane community to log service hours for the Cowen Service Challenge.
Play Streets Ciclovia sponsors include American Traffic Solutions, Bike Easy, the New Orleans Health Department, Louisiana Public Health Institute, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Partnership for a Healthier America's Play Streets program and the KidsWalk Coalition at the Tulane Prevention Research Center.
Naomi King Englar is the communications and training coordinator for the Prevention Research Center at Tulane University and the Maternal and Child Health Leadership Training Program.
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118 504-865-5000 email@example.com


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You are here
Moves and Countermoves in Texas
The end of 2008 was replete with moves and countermoves in the controversy over the place of evolution in Texas's state science standards, beginning with the release of proposed drafts of the state's science education standards on September 22, 2008. Not surprisingly, the media focused on the place of evolution in the draft standards, with the Dallas Morning News (2008 Sep 23) reporting, "Proposed curriculum standards for science courses in Texas schools would boost the teaching of evolution by dropping the current requirement that students be exposed to 'weaknesses' in Charles Darwin's theory of how humans and other life forms evolved. Science standards drafted by review committees of teachers and academics also would put up roadblocks for teachers who want to discuss creationism or 'intelligent design' in biology classes when covering the subject of evolution."
In particular, a requirement in the current standards for high school biology that reads "The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information" would be replaced with "The student is expected to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing," and a description of the limits of science (adapted from the recent National Academy of Sciences publication Science, Evolution, and Creationism) — "Science uses observational evidence to make predictions of natural phenomena and to construct testable explanations. If ideas are based upon purported forces outside of nature, they cannot be tested using scientific methods" — would be added.
Such revisions may seem small and unimportant, but in 2003, the "strengths and weaknesses" language in the Texas state science standards was selectively applied by members of the board attempting to dilute the treatment of evolution in the biology textbooks then under consideration. At the time, board member Patricia Hardy observed that it was invidious to apply the language only to a single topic; while if it were applied across the board, "we'd need a crane to carry the books to the schools." In the end, all of the textbooks were adopted without substantial changes, but it was clear that the "strengths and weaknesses" language would be a matter of contention when the standards were next revised. As Kathy Miller of the Texas Freedom Network told The New York Times (2008 Jun 4), "'Strengths and weaknesses' are regular words that have now been drafted into the rhetorical arsenal of creationists."
Groups supporting the integrity of science education unsurprisingly applauded the draft standards. In a September 23, 2008, press release (available on-line at http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5453), the Texas Freedom Network's Kathy Miller was quoted as saying, "These work groups have crafted solid standards that provide a clear road map to a 21st-century science education for Texas students ... These commonsense standards respect the right of families to pass on their own religious beliefs to their children while ensuring that public schools give students a sound science education that prepares them to succeed in college and the jobs of the future." "It's time for state board members to listen to classroom teachers and true experts instead of promoting their own personal agendas," she added. "Our students can't succeed with a 19th-century science education in their 21st-century classrooms. We applaud the science work groups for recognizing that fact."
In a September 23, 2008, blog post for the Houston Chronicle (available on-line via http://www.chron.com/commons/readerblogs/evosphere.html), Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman also welcomed the addition of the description of the limits of science and the removal of the "strengths and weaknesses" language, which he described as "the primary weapon that creationists have to attempt to damage and corrupt science textbooks." He expressed regret, however, that those revisions were not emulated in all of the standards. Schafersman also lamented the omission from the biology standards of any requirement to learn about human evolution in particular, commenting," I'm sure the competent teachers on the biology panel discussed a requirement for human evolution, but they ultimately decided against it. They should have included it and forced the [state board of education] members to remove it by majority vote rather than by giving their prior permission to continue censorship."
The chair of the state board of education, avowed creationist Don McLeroy, defended the "strengths and weaknesses" language, telling the Austin American-Statesman (2008 Sep 23), "I'd argue it doesn't make sense scientifically to take it out ... Evolution shouldn't have anything to worry about — if there's no weaknesses, there's no weaknesses. But if there's scientifically testable explanations out there to refute it, shouldn't those be included too?" The newspaper added, "he prefers the 'strengths and weaknesses' language because it allows the board to reject a textbook that doesn't cover the weaknesses of evolution." But Kevin Fisher, who helped to write the draft biology standards, told the American-Statesman, "Something doesn't become a theory if it's got weaknesses. There may be some questions that may yet to be answered, but nothing that's to the level of a weakness."
Clearly the treatment of evolution in the standards — and especially the omission of the "strengths and weaknesses" language — was going to continue to be controversial. Summarizing the political situation on the state board of education, the American-Statesman reported, "In previous public discussions, seven of 15 board members appeared to support, on some level, the teaching of the weaknesses of evolution in science classrooms. Six have been opposed, and two — Geraldine Miller, R–Dallas, and Rick Agosto, D–San Antonio — are considered swing votes." And, as Schafersman commented, "Since there are no scientists on the SBOE and since seven members are young-earth creationists — most of whom have publicly stated their intention to distort evolution standards and damage science instruction — it is likely that the public debate and approval will be contentious."
Schafersman was not wrong. The next focus of contention was the composition of a six-member committee appointed by the board to review the draft set of science standards. Included were three anti-evolutionists, and defenders of the integrity of science education were livid. "The committee was chosen by 12 of the 15 members of the board of education, with each panel member receiving the support of two board members," as the Dallas Morning News (2008 Oct 16) explained. Six members of the board "aligned with social conservative groups" chose Stephen C Meyer, the director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture; Ralph Seelke, a biology professor at the University of Wisconsin, Superior; and Charles Garner, a chemistry professor at Baylor University.
Meyer, Seelke, and Garner are all signatories of the Discovery Institute-sponsored "Dissent from Darwinism" statement (see RNCSE 2001 Nov/Dec; 21 [6]: 22–3). Meyer and Seelke are also coauthors of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism (Melbourne: Hill House, 2008), which, like Of Pandas and People, is a supplementary textbook that is intended to instill scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution. A recent review by biologist John Timmer (available on-line at http://arstechnica.com/reviews/other/discovery-textbook-review.ars) summarized, "But the book doesn't only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book." (Timmer's review of Explore Evolution will be reprinted in a future issue of RNCSE.) Garner, for his part, reportedly told the Houston Press (2000 Dec 14) that he "criticizes evolutionary theory in class."
Meyer and Seelke also testified in the 2005 "kangaroo court" hearings held by three anti-evolutionist members of the Kansas state board of education, in which a parade of anti-evolutionist witnesses expressed their support for the socalled minority report version of the state science standards (written with the aid of a local "intelligent design" organization), complained of repression by a dogmatic evolutionary establishment, and claimed to have detected atheism lurking "between the lines" of the standards (transcripts are available on-line at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/kansas/kangaroo.html). A version of the minority report was adopted in 2005, despite criticism from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Science Teachers Association, but the balance of power on the board changed, and supporters of the integrity of science education quickly restored a proper treatment of evolution to the Kansas standards.
Referring to the appointment of Meyer, Seelke, and Garner, Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network told the Austin American-Stateman (2008 Oct 16), "I think these state board members have really lifted the veil on what their real agenda is here ... It's clear they picked a few experts and a few people with a clear conflict of interest and a political agenda." Similarly, in a press release issued on October 15, 2008 (available on-line at http://www.texscience.org/releases/creationists-science-reviewpanel.htm), Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman lamented, "It is unfortunate that some SBOE members have such a poor regard for the education of Texas science students that they must resort to pushing their own anti-evolutionist and creationist religious ideologies into the science standards revision process."
The three remaining members of the committee — "veteran science professors from major Texas universities," as the Morning News observed — were David Hillis, a professor of biology at the University of Texas, Austin; Gerald Skoog, a professor of education at Texas Tech University, and Ronald Wetherington, a professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University. The American-Statesman noted,"a seventh panel member could be nominated. The panel is expected to send recommendations on the proposal back to the board in the coming months." In the end, there was no seventh member. And although the recommendations of the individual committee members were completed and posted on the Texas Education Agency's website (available on-line at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/science/expertfeedback.html), there was little reaction to or comment on their suggestions in the media. The panels that wrote the standards for the various subjects were furnished with the outside reviews as well as feedback from the public, a comparison of the draft standards to the Texas College Readiness Standards, and a comparison of the draft standards with the highly regarded Massachusetts science standards.
Meanwhile, the scientific community, both in Texas and nationally, was not remaining silent about the need for a proper treatment of evolution. The 21st Century Science Coalition's advisory committee published a pair of op-eds urging the state board of education to accept the draft standards, emphasizing the scientific centrality and the economic importance of evolution (see sidebar 1). The chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alan I Leshner, argued, "The new standards will shape how science education is taught in Texas for the next decade, and it would be a terrible mistake to water down the teaching of evolution in any way" (see sidebar 2). Barbara Forrest explained "Why Texans shouldn't let creationists mess with science education" in a November 11, 2008, lecture at Southern Methodist University in Dallas (video is available on-line at http://smu.edu/flashvideo/?id=248; audio is available on-line at http://smu.edu/newsinfo/audio/barbaraforrest-11nov2008.mp3). And a study conducted by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund and Raymond Eve demonstrated that a vast majority of scientists at public and private universities in Texas reject the arguments advanced by those seeking to undermine the treatment of evolution in Texas's state science standards (see sidebar 3).
At last the day appointed for the Texas state board of education to hear testimony about the proposed new set of state science standards arrived, November 19, 2008 — and plenty of the testimony concerned the treatment of evolution in the standards. As the Dallas Morning News (2008 Nov 20) explained, the standards "will dictate what is taught in science classes in elementary and secondary schools and provide the material for state tests and textbooks. The standards will remain in place for a decade after their approval by the state board." The standards under consideration were not the version released in September 2008, but a revised version drafted in November 2008 and not posted on the Texas Education Agency's website until November 17, 2008. A significant difference is that the September version omitted the "strengths and weaknesses" language of the old standards, which was selectively applied in 2003 by members of the board seeking to dilute the treatment of evolution in biology textbooks, while the November version included a variant of it: "strengths and limitations."
Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman told the board that the "strengths and weaknesses" language was unscientific and pedagogically inappropriate, according to the Austin American-Statesman (2008 Nov 20). He was not alone in defending the teaching of evolution at the meeting. In a story significantly headlined "Evolution proponents descend on state education panel," the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (2008 Nov 20) observed, "With few exceptions, the speakers — scientists, teachers, clergy and grassroots activists — took the side of evolution," a situation that evidently vexed the chair of the board, avowed creationist Don McLeroy, who complained,"This is all being ginned up by the evolution side."
Reflecting on the spectacle, the Corpus Christi Call-Times (2008 Nov 20) editorially commented, "Members of the state board of ducation, as they prepare to establish a new science curriculum, should certainly heed the advice of the state's top science teachers: Teaching the 'weaknesses' of the theory of evolution raises questions about its validity, questions that are not shared by established science. Public schools should teach evolution. Period. Texas students will have to compete in the real world, not the flat earth of the past." In addition to the newspaper reports, detailed running commentary on the meeting was posted on their blogs by representatives of two of the groups defending the integrity of science education in Texas: Texas Citizens for Science, on the Houston Chronicle's Evo. Sphere blog (http://www.chron.com/commons/readerblogs/evosphere.html), and the Texas Freedom Network, on its own blog (http://tfnblog.wordpress.com). Both groups are going to continue to monitor the standards, which are expected first to return to the writing committee for revisions in December 2008, and then return to the board for consideration in January 2009.AUTHOR'S ADDRESS
Glenn Branch
Glenn Branch is deputy director of NCSE.


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Propel Zero
Hello, Chris here, and today I am going to be reviewing the flavored water known as Propel Zero.
Lets us begin with what Propel Zero is. Propel Zero is a flavored water drink that comes in nine different flavors currently. These flavors are Berry, Grape, Peach, Lemon, Mandarin Orange, Black Cherry, Blueberry Pomegranate, Kiwi-Strawberry, and Cranberry Lime. Each different and exotic flavors. Sadly, I haven't been able to try Lemon, Mandarin Orange, Peach, or Cranberry Lime because it isn't sold in my area, but from what I have had, I have fallen in love with.
Appearance: Propel Zero's bottle is a bit of an eye catcher to me. It is skinny, sleek and sexy in many ways. From the different blue tops to the in-dents and ex-dents in the bottle all the way down to the five pegged feet. On the bottles label it tells you what drink it is along with the giant logo and some vitamin information, calories and ingredients, and the little bubble stating its a zero calorie drink. The drink it self is clear, not colored, which I believe is a plus because coloring is bad for you and your teeth.
Price: Propel Zero isn't anymore expensive than the regular Propel or plain water where I live. A six pack is around $5.30. Although, you can buy packs of twelve, twenty four, and in some cases more. For the twenty four packs, it features eight drinks of each of the three types included. I have only seen the twenty four contain Grape, Berry, and Kiwi-Strawberry though.
Taste: Ah, the taste. Propel Zero has a unique taste many love, and some hate. I personally love the taste of Propel Zero because again, it's unique and thirst quenching. It is NOT a drink that will make you thirsty or leave a weird taste in your mouth and throat. Propel Zero is the exact opposite. It is a very filling and great tasting drink that will keep you hydrated and cool. Even if that water is hot, it is still delicious.
Packets: Propel Zero conveniently makes packets filled with a powder that can transform your ordinary water into a mouth explosion of flavor. Now I am not a huge fan of regular water, unless it is cold and fresh. And that's the great thing about Propel Zero packets. They make it where if you can't have an actual propel, then you can put a few of these in your wallet or purse and pull one out and make a flavored water when and where ever. This is extremely convenient when your traveling or doing something with sports. The taste is almost exactly the same too! For a box of ten packets it will cost you around seven dollars or more (US dollars) depending on where you live and if there is more packets. Sadly, I don't think there is only Grape, Berry, and Kiwi-Strawberry packets though.
Overview: Propel Zero is a great tasting and thirst quenching drink that any water and flavored water enthusiast should try. Propel Zero can help you lose weight, stay hydrated, and even be with you on the go. All in all rating: five out of five. Perfect.
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AP Spanish: Preparing for the Language Examination is designed for students at the upper levels of Spanish and specifically for those students who wish to take the Advanced Placement Language Examination in Spanish. It is also a fine complement for any advanced course in Spanish.
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Nick Listens to Parents on Addicting GamesKJ Dell'Antonia
The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood reports that after Nickelodeon's Addicting Games website won the TOADY award (that would be for a "Toy Oppressive and Destructive to Young Children), "Nickelodeon removed links to AddictingGames.com from the preschool websites under its NickJr.com umbrella, including Dora the Explorer, Backyardigans, and Wonder Pets."
The CCFC's description of the games available on AddictingGames.com is more than egregious: It's hard to beat a title like You Da Sperm for inappropriateness for preschool game play, although surely Torture Chamber III comes close. Nick's still marketing the games on its Nick Jr. Boost and Nick Jr. Arcade websites, and advertises its own shows, like iCarly, on Addicting Games, and it's airing the Addicting Games Showdown on Nick itself later this month. I'm not always a big fan of the CCFC, but it's hard to see much reason to advertise a game like Nancy Balls: "You can try to keep women out of congress, but it's going to be really difficult. Take their shoes away and collect guns. That's how to be a MAN" to anyone under twelve. Actually, it's hard to see much reason to advertise it at all. The CCFC encourages parents to "keep the pressure on" Nick in the hope that it will stop promoting Addicting Games to all children.
Image from AddictingGames.com's Barnville Massacre.


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It was one-thirty in the afternoon. On a Wednesday. It was Orange County. South Orange County, one of the most white and most Republican sections of California. Who but me, I thought, would be in the theater to see a movie about black maids in Jackson, Mississippi? In 1963? To my shock, the theater was packed, floor to ceiling, stem to stern. All white people to be sure, but they—mostly middle-aged and young, a few oldsters—were there. The OC represented. The audience laughed and cried and applauded in the end. Despite the reviews, which have been mixed and cautious, this film may be a nice little hit at the end of the summer.
Then I came home and watched Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word and heard a commentator I respect, Melissa Harris-Perry, lambast the movie. Her distaste for the film was tweeted regular intervals while she watched it. I have no intention of debating or disagreeing with Dr. Harris-Perry, but I would like to present a different viewpoint. I understand her objections and, as I drove to the theater this afternoon, I, too, sighed and said to myself, "Wouldn't it be nice for once for a story about black people be told from the perspective of black people by black people?" "Wouldn't it be nice to have a film about the Civil Rights movement that didn't have a white person as the spokesperson for or the rescuer of black people?" I had the same qualms when writing about The Blind Side. I had already read some reviews on The Help that called attention to the way in which the black maids were asked to speak in "dialect." I was braced for the patronizing white-centric inevitability, but I am a huge Viola Davis fan and had been waiting for this film for months. Therefore, I went to The Help on the first day it opened, so what did I think? Attack or support the film?
I come back to my original point: Wednesday, one-thirty, Orange County, many white people in the theater. Good Job.
Like Dr. Harris-Perry, I am an educator and a professional public speaker. I know, first hand, what happens when, if that audience is a general audience with a general education, you approach an audience on a scholarly level. And it's not good. You sound patronizing and the audience justifiably reacts to you with hostility. You lose your opportunity to do what you were hired to do: teach. You have to start with where your audience is. You don't talk down; you talk with. You don't lecture, you use humor and pathos and facts to get your point across and listen to the people who have come to see you. I always say, I teach only to learn.
I live in an educated neighborhood, University of California, Irvine is five minutes away, but I would guess that I was among the few in the audience who had watched the wonderful PBS special on the American Experience series, Freedom Riders, this past May. Not everyone is interested in history or in politics. I know few people who match the total geekiness that is me. And, it is surprising how little Americans know of their own history. Many people have heard of "Kent State," but, how many people have heard of "Jackson State?" Same year, 1970. My point is that The Help is another Hollywood attempt to teach history through a human-interest story. It's what I call "infotainment," the film informs and it entertains; otherwise no one would watch. "Real" history belongs on PBS.
The definitive Civil Rights movie along the lines I outlined, with black characters telling the story from the black point of view, has yet to be made. Mississippi Burning reduced African-Americans to extras, Ghosts of Mississippi did a bit better, and the only film I can think of, structured from the black point of view, that I have seen is Rosewood, a wonderful movie by John Singleton, who kept the white presence in its historical place. This last was a film almost no one went to see, black or white. Rosewood, a horrific true story of the destruction of a prosperous middle class African American community named "Rosewood" in North Florida in 1923, was a powerful and moving film—I have shown it to some of my classes—but it came and went without causing much of a ripple. But people will go and see The Help. Why? Because, as a Southern woman would say, "you catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar."
Not that The Help is sugar; it is not. Yes, there are places to laugh, just as there are places to cry. And yet, this is a serious movie that comes out of a real history of a real place. If you were "a Negro" in the 1960s and you lived in Jackson, Mississippi, you lived in one of the most dangerous places in America. The movie captures some of the very real fear of white backlash experienced by the black maids (Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer) who talked to a young white woman (Emma Stone) about what it was like to be in bondage as maids to the white women of the Junior League. Those who have read Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson, one of the best books about the black experience in the South…ever, know that if you were black and lived in the South, you experienced a constant and unmitigated reign of terror. Talking to a white person as an equal, like "Aibileen" and "Minnie" talked to "Skeeter," was a death sentence, never mind that the maids were talking about their "betters," the white women who exploited and humiliated and terrorized them.
The book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, was fiction, or so the author says. Stockett, who is being sued by her family's maid, was born too late (1969) to have any authentic experience of those terrible years of the Civil Rights movement, especially in the early sixties. Her distance from history might account for the lack of weight and urgency in this film, but, as a native of Mississippi, Stockett should be commended for paying some sort of penance in her quasi-confessional story that is a tribute to the endurance of generations of oppressed African-American women.
Those who feel that the character of "Hilly Holbrook," played by Bryce Dallas Howard, was an exaggeration or a caricature or was overplayed by the actor, should watch the news footage of attempts to integrate public schools in the South and look at the faces of the white protestors and listen to the voices of the women in the mobs. True, there is what Harris-Perry called "mean girl" atmosphere among the Southern women who played bridge to pass the heavy time but women like that were genuinely mean, cruel and racist in real life. People like that, women like that, still exist today, to be sure, but today's culture does not countenance that kind of behavior. In 1963, these women would have had no shame in their actions and no understanding that they were monsters.
In the presentation of the matriarchy, the film lets the men of Jackson off easily. "Skeeter" falls briefly for the unlikely wooing of a frat boy-alcoholic in the oil business (Chris Lowell), but otherwise the males leave the home front and the running of the maids to their wives. The men had other things to do, such as enforcing the iron laws of Jim Crow and the terror atmosphere of segregation through insanely unconstitutional laws and plain old brutality. The wives are the second line of offense against the black citizens of Jackson who are not allowed to vote or eat at local restaurants or sit in the main auditorium of the movie theater or sit in the front of the bus or try on clothes in the department store or use the restroom in the houses they cleaned. My mother spent her entire life in the South and there was a mysterious toilet in her basement. Its presence was incomprehensible to me, for like Kathryn Stockett, I left the South early and never looked back. Why was there a toilet in the basement, sitting exposed without any kind of privacy? My mother never confessed or explained. I was an adult before I caught on: it was the maid's toilet.
The Help starts with the toilet issue. Maids were expected to work twelve or fourteen hour days in a white home without using the toilet. That is what segregation meant. The line between black and white had to be held at all times and in all places. The space—and it was a wide space—and unbridgeable gulf—between maid and employer could never be bridged. One slip, one acknowledgement that your black maid was also a human being, and the entire edifice of inequality would come tumbling down. It was a strange system in which white women entrusted their children to black maids and yet could not share the toilet with them.
The Help does make clear that, like slavery, segregation of the races was a social system that poisoned the souls of the perpetrators. Like slavery, segregation was a kind of psychological illness that dehumanized the enforcers who thought they were dehumanizing those whom they abused. Make no mistake; the housewives in The Help were very dangerous to the black maids. The South had spent millions of dollars duplicating public facilities so that blacks and whites would never come into physical contact. This region of the county was the poorest but no amount of money was too much to keep "our way of life" intact.
One of the blessings of the Civil Rights era was the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, who taught non-violence, love and forgiveness. All the violence of the sixties came from one side, the white side, the side that had the most to lose. And here is where The Help reads false: that black maids would never trust a white person with their lives. In Mississippi, a black person was not allowed to look into the eyes of a white person. "Aibileen" had raised seventeen white children and every one of these children repudiated her as adults and did not think twice about reinforcing a shameful social situation of unconscionable injustice. The white child was not allowed to use the word "Mrs." when addressing the maid, she would be permitted to employ only first names, and the child was taught not to shake hands with a black person.
This is the region of the nation where a thirteen-year old boy was beaten to death because he spoke to a white woman, where three Civil Rights workers were murdered because they tried to register blacks to vote, where blacks were trapped inside a bus that was then set on fire by a white mob because the Freedom Riders wanted to use a white waiting room. Under no circumstances would a black woman ("Minnie") serve a white woman ("Hilly") a pie make of her poo and then admit it. Serve the poo pie, yes, admit it, never. The film burdens one character, "Hilly," with almost all the racism of the region and carefully presents a number of "good" white people who are "enlightened" about race. But these white characters are without power or leadership. Allison Janney plays "Skeeter's" mother who regrets she fired the family maid but she is dying, and the young couple, "Celia and Johnny Foote" (Jessica Chastain and Mike Vogel), who are finally nice to "Minnie," are social outcasts. Despite the good feelings, no one ever thinks to offer Social Security to The Help.
But it's 1963 and the conversation on race is not quite ten years old and Mississippi is getting ready to experience its close up on national television. The Help sketches a glimpse of a precarious culture about to be visited by the conscience of the Twentieth Century, a culture on the edge of violent change.
So The Help is a sweet gentle film, a fragile fantasy, but it is a teachable moment. The audience is led to identify, not with Skeeter who isn't particularly interesting, but with the victimized and proud black maids in their gray and white uniforms. The acting, especially that Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, is worthy of Oscars.
One can justly complain that black women should have better roles in Hollywood and that Davis, who is beautiful and luminously talented is way over due for her star turn, and one can argue that it is a questionable decision to ask these women to speak as if they were characters in Uncle Remus—but they shine and out perform everyone else on the screen. It would have been nice to have the maids speak dialect in the homes of white people and communicate among themselves in normal dialogue, a device that worked so well in Skin Game.
I think the film's merits outweigh its faults and that what it has something very valuable to offer to people who are too young to remember the Civil Rights era and to those who have never lived in the South. The Help is not just a watch and learn film; it is a watch and enjoy movie; it is laugh and cry movie. Do Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer a favor, honor their performances and see this movie.
Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette
The Arts Blogger
Tags: Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard, by Isabel Wilkerson, by Kathryn Stockett, Emma Stone, Freedom Riders on PBS, Jessica Chastain, John Singleton, Lawrence O'Donnell, Melissa Harris-Perry, Mike Vogel, Octavia Spencer, Rosewood, Sissy Spacek, The Help, The Last Word, Viola Davis, Warmth of Other Suns