text:
There is a nice story from the Sri Sampradaya where Ramanuja Acarya grew tired of hearing his celibate brahmacari and sannyasa students squabble over little things like who accidentally put on someone else's cloth, who had another person's lota, etc ...
They would also constantly deride Ramanuja's householder disciples as being materially bewildered and lacking in renunciation.
Sri Ramanuja had a very devoted householder student who lived a simple married life. The only material wealth he possessed were two costly bangles around his wife's wrists as per south Indian tradition.
Sri Ramanuja instructed that one of his brahmacari disciples should sneak into their home while they were unaware and take whatever they could find of value.
One brahmacari eagerly volunteered and then began to stake out the home waiting for an opportunity to, according to his vision, reclaim some material possessions from Maya and use it in the service of the Lord.
The husband left the home and soon the wife laid down to take rest. The brahmacari then carefully crept into the home but couldn't find anything of value. He tiptoed into the room where the wife was lying on her side and caught sight of the gold bangles around her thin wrists. Her body was quite frail due to an austere diet.
She seemed deeply asleep so he carefully slipped the bangle from one wrist off of her hand. Her other wrist was going to be more difficult to take from because she was partly lying on it. If he were to try to slip that bangle off it would most likely wake her.
Just then she stirred in her sleep and rolled over, exposing the other bangle. Despite that now the bangle was accessible, the brahmacari was already jumping out of the open window in fear that she had awoken and would catch him in the act of stealing.
He ran back to the ashram where Sri Ramanuja was waiting.
"Well", Ramanuja inquired, "Did you bring me anything from this householder?"
"Guruji, all I could find of any value was this bangle."
"I see, and where is the other one?"
"Your Divine Grace, I couldn't bring that one to you because she woke up and I had to flee."
Then Sri Ramanuja called all of his renunciate disciples to an assembly. He also sent someone to bring this householder couple.
When everyone had arrived he asked the couple to come forward.
In front of the assembly he asked, "Why are you only wearing one bangle, dear mother? Please speak clearly so all can hear."
She obediently cleared her throat and, while modestly looking at the ground, explained in a clear voice: "Your Grace, I am wearing only one bangle today because one of your brahmacari students was so desperate for money that he crept into my home while I was trying to rest. I felt pity on him that he must not be getting enough food to eat or enough cloth to keep him warm so I let him take my bangle while I pretended to sleep. When I rolled over to let him take the other bangle he fled out of fear and thus I couldn't fulfill my duty as a householder and support the young student. Please forgive us, Maharaja."
The entire assembly of saintly renunciates sat quietly aghast at the deeply selfless admission of this woman.
Sri Ramanuja filled the silence with one statement, "That is renunciation."
Then he returned to his quarters.
If 10,000 suns were to rise simultaneously in your heart, I reckon it might sound something like this:
Janardan Kewin - Hare Krishna Maha Mantra by Wild Mind Productions
These recordings are from the 12 hour Kirtan hosted by ISKCON New Govardhana, Australia on the 25th of July 2010, organized by Krishapada Dasa and Sitapati Dasa from Kirtana Australia kirtanaustralia.com. Recordings by Ekendra Dasa (go-run-ga productions).
Check out my Facebook page for more kirtans. I'll upload them as I finish editing.
Bali Mahārāja said to Lord Vāmanadeva: O son of a brāhmaṇa, Your instructions are as good as those of learned and elderly persons. Nonetheless, You are a boy, and Your intelligence is insufficient. Thus You are not very prudent in regard to Your self-interest. I am able to give You an entire island because I am the proprietor of the three divisions of the universe. You have come to take something from me and have pleased me by Your sweet words, but You are asking only three paces of land. Therefore You are not very intelligent. O small boy, one who approaches me to beg something should not have to ask anything more, anywhere. Therefore, if You wish, You may ask from me as much land as will suffice to maintain You according to Your needs.
The Personality of Godhead said: O my dear King, even the entirety of whatever there may be within the three worlds to satisfy one's senses cannot satisfy a person whose senses are uncontrolled. If I were not satisfied with three paces of land, then surely I would not be satisfied even with possessing one of the seven islands, consisting of nine varṣas. Even if I possessed one island, I would hope to get others. We have heard that although powerful kings like Mahārāja Pṛthu and Mahārāja Gaya achieved proprietorship over the seven dvīpas, they could not achieve satisfaction or find the end of their ambitions.
One should be satisfied with whatever he achieves by his previous destiny, for discontent can never bring happiness. A person who is not self-controlled will not be happy even with possessing the three worlds. Material existence causes discontent in regard to fulfilling one's lusty desires and achieving more and more money. This is the cause for the continuation of material life, which is full of repeated birth and death. But one who is satisfied by that which is obtained by destiny is fit for liberation from this material existence.
A brāhmaṇa who is satisfied with whatever is providentially obtained is increasingly enlightened with spiritual power, but the spiritual potency of a dissatisfied brāhmaṇa decreases, as fire diminishes in potency when water is sprinkled upon it.
Therefore, O King, from you, the best of those who give charity, I ask only three paces of land. By such a gift I shall be very pleased, for the way of happiness is to be fully satisfied to receive that which is absolutely needed.
When the Supreme Personality of Godhead had thus spoken to Bali Mahārāja, Bali smiled and told Him, "All right. Take whatever You like." To confirm his promise to give Vāmanadeva the desired land, he then took up his waterpot.
ugram viram maha-vishnum
jvalantam sarvato mukham
nrisimham bhishanam bhadram
mrityur mrityum namamy aham
"I bow down to Lord Narasimha who is ferocious and heroic like Lord Vishnu.
He is burning from every side. He is terrific, auspicious and the death of death personified."
This article, written by Madhavananda Dasa, appeared in issue number 17 of Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu.
In Hari-bhakti-vilasa, verse 2.147, Srila Sanatan Goswami quotes Sammohana-tantra:
gopayed devatam istam gopayed gurum atmanah
gopayec ca nijam mantram gopayen nija-malikam
One should hide one's ista-deva, one should hide one's guru, one should hide one's mantra, and one should hide one's japa-mala.
Wise persons keep their valuables in a confidential place. Similarly, an intelligent sadhaka does not advertise his or her guru, nor do they broadcast themselves as disciples of their guru. Considering themselves as low, fallen, and unfit to be considered disciples, sincere devotees do not want to advertise who their guru is.
Srila Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami has illustrated the mood of a devotee and disciple:
jagai madhai haite muni se papistha
purisera kita haite muni se laghistha
I am more sinful than Jagai and Madhai and even lower than the worms in stool. (Cc. adi 5.205)
Similarly, Thakur Bhaktivinode has stated:
garhita acare, rahilama maji',
na karinu sadhu-sanga
laye sadhu-vesa,ane upadesi,
e bada mayara ranga
Remaining absorbed in abominable activities, I never kept company with sadhus. Now I adopt the garb of a sadhu and act out the role of instructing others. This is maya's big joke. (Saranagati 7.3)
Although Thakur Bhaktivinode had so much association with elevated vaisnavas, including his siksa-guru Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaja, he did not flaunt that. Rather, he considered that, na karinu sadhu-sanga - "I have never had association with sadhus".
The essential principle in being a disciple is to follow the order of the guru. Srila Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami has described:
acaryera mata yei, sei mata sara
tanra ajna langhi' cale, sei ta' asara
The order of the spiritual master is the active principle in spiritual life.
Anyone who disobeys the order of the spiritual master immediately becomes useless. (Cc. adi 12.10)
Similarly, it is stated in the Raghu-vamsa:
sa susruvan matari bhargavena
pitur niyogat prahrtam dvisad-vat
pratyagrhid agraja-sasanam tad
ajna gurunam hy avicaraniya
Being ordered by his father, Parasuram killed his mother, Renuka, just as if she were an enemy. When Lakshman, the younger brother of Lord Ramachandra, heard of this, He immediately engaged Himself in the service of His elder brother and accepted His orders. The order of the spiritual master must be obeyed without consideration. (verse 14.46, quoted in Cc. madhya 10.145)
Srila Thakur Bhaktivinode has described that there are two types of disciples, the antarmukha-sisyas and the bahirmukha-sisyas. Antarmukha literally means "inward-facing". It refers to someone who is introspective.
Bahirmukha literally means "outward-facing", and refers to someone who is absorbed in external things.
Antarmukha-sisyas are desirous of bringing pleasure to their guru. Their focus is on following the guru's instructions. The antarmukha-sisyas practice gopayed gurum atmanah. They keep their guru and their relationship with him confidential. An antarmukha-sisya is not interested in advertising himself as a disciple of his guru, but prefers to follow the guru's instructions. His meditation is to try to understand what will please his guru. The antarmukha-sisya is anartha-mukta-avastha, he is free from anarthas. His vision of guru is known as sevya-darsana. He sees that guru should be served and pleased.
Bahirmukha-sisyas are disciples who practice the opposite of gopayed gurum atmanah. They are absorbed in advertising their guru and in making a show of themselves as being big or intimate disciples. Such a disciple is also known as guru-giri, or one who makes a business out of guru and one's relationship with guru. They are not absorbed in the inner intention of guru. Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur has described persons who act on such an external platform as dharmadhvajis ("religion flag-wavers"), meaning those who make a hypocritical or pretentious show of religiosity.
Following the logic of atmavan manyate jagat (everyone thinks like I do), the bahirmukha-sisyas consider that their guru thinks like they do. Because they are motivated by the desires for fame and adoration they think that their guru also wants such things. The bahirmukha-sisyas are anartha-yukta-avastha, they have anarthas, material desires, in their hearts. Because of those anarthas they only see guru in terms of their own pleasure. This vision is known as bhogya-darsana. They think that making a big show of devotion will impress their guru and enable them to come close to their guru. Their idea of guru-bhakti is to loudly proclaim to the world, amar guru jagad-guru - "My guru is the best or the only one and any other guru is lesser." They think that such publicizing will please their guru.
Neglecting or minimizing their guru's instruction regarding the worship of Krishna, the bahirmukha-sisyas place more emphasis on worshiping their spiritual master.
In the histories of all the major religions of the world it is commonly seen that the followers prefer to worship the guru, prophet, or founder rather than follow the instructions of that prophet to worship the Lord (who is unseen and unknown to them). Srila Prabhupada addressed this topic on a morning walk in Bombay on 29 March 1974 when some devotees mentioned to him that some of the followers of Swami Narayan were chanting the name of their guru instead of Krishna's name:
Devotee: In England they are chanting, "Swami Narayan," not "Krishna".
Prabhupada: Just see.
Indian man (1): No, they are also krsna-bhaktas.
Devotee: How are they, if they are chanting Swami Narayan's name?
Indian man (1): They actually work for the Krishna only, and they...
Prabhupada: No, no. Krishna recommends sastra, harer nama, harer nama, harer namaiva kevalam. So why they should chant "Swami Narayan"? ... In the Bhagavad-gita it is said, satatam kirtayanto mam - Krishna. Why should one chant any other name? Krishna says satatam kirtayanto mam. Hare Krishna. Not any other name.... But they are chanting "Swami Narayan." They're saying Swami Narayan is better than Krishna. What kind of preaching is this? ...
This is nonsense. People will go to the temple and the preacher will say that Swami Narayan's name should be chanted....
Indian man (2): Swami is their guru and Narayan is God, so both, Prabhupada and Krishna, Prabhupada and Krishna, Prabhupada Krishna...
Prabhupada: But that does not mean they should chant [like that]. Just like, we are not instructing our disciples to chant my name, "Bhaktivedanta Swami, Bhaktivedanta Swami." No. They're chanting Hare Krishna. hari-tvena samasta-sastrair uktah - "Guru is respected as good as Krishna." But that does not mean I shall teach them to go and chant my name, "Bhaktivedanta Swami, Bhaktivedanta Swami, Bhaktivedanta Swami." What is this? We are teaching, "Chant Hare Krishna." Harer nama, harer nama...
- Srila Prabhupada morning walk, 29 March 1974, Bombay.
Although the antarmukha-sisyas, who follow the instructions of guru, get the full blessings of guru, the bahirmukha-sisyas do not get the proper result.
In this connection Srila Jagadananda Pandit has written:
gorara ami gorara ami mukhe balile na cale
torara acara gorara vicara laile phala phale
It is not enough to repeatedly advertise that one is a devotee of Mahaprabhu by saying, "I am Gaura's! I am Gaura's!" Rather, those who follow the practices taught by Mahaprabhu are understood to get the results of being the Lord's follower. - Prema-vivarta 8.6
Sometimes we see that bona fide spiritual masters allow themselves to be advertised in order to preach. However, this is done in service to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Such personalities are not materially desirous of receiving prestige from their disciples. The daksina, gift, that the guru wants is jnana-sandesah - the sincere search for spiritual knowledge (Bhag. 11.19.39).
As the ideal guru, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has taught us how to please the spiritual master. Mahaprabhu instructed His followers:
yadi ama prati sneha thake sabakara
tabe krsna-vyatirikta na gaibe ara
If you really love me, then you should love My instructions: Don't think of anything but Krishna. Don't utter any name but Krishna. (Caitanya-bhagavat madhya 8.27)
Understanding that his spiritual master is always with Krishna, the antarmukha-sisya knows that by chanting Krishna's name he will come closer to his guru. In the Vamana-kalpa, Lord Brahma explains:
yo mantrah sa guruh saksad yo guruh sa harih svayam
One should understand that the mantra one has received from the guru is identical with the guru and that the guru is identical with Lord Hari.
(cited in Srila Jiva Goswami's Bhakti-sandarbha, anuccheda 237.8)
Srila Rupa Goswami has described:
atha guroh sri-pada-dvandva-bhaktim
The holy name gives devotion to the guru. (Padyavali text 24)
Historically, the sadhu-samaja, the society of saintly vaisnavas, has never been impressed with mere external shows of devotion. They are moved, however, when they see the genuine vaisnava humility and other good qualities that have manifest in a devotee due to that devotee's dedication to the instructions and bhajan given by guru (guru-nistha). Hence, introspective devotees prefer to keep their guru hidden and glorify him by exhibiting exemplary behavior.
For some devotees, pushing their guru is an easy way to avoid facing the reality of their own lack of advancement. They want respect, and they think it is easier for them to get it by broadcasting themselves as a disciple of a great personality than for themselves to manifest the qualities of a vaisnava. However, this kind of cheating mentality will never attract the attention of saintly persons. They are not impressed with whom we have taken initiation or instructions from. Rather, they want to see what is our own level of realization.
Since such neophytes equate the showing of respect to themselves with the showing of respect to their guru, when they become chastised or fail to receive the honor and recognition they want, they accuse the devotees, "You have offended my guru!" In this way, Kali, the personification of this age of quarrel and hypocrisy, is able to enter the movement of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and cause dissension, distracting them from their real business of chanting and distributing the holy names.
So Srila Sanatan Goswami's instruction gopayed gurum atmanah - "One should hide one's guru" - is advising devotees to go deeper in their relationship with guru by basing that relationship on following the instructions about service and bhajan that their guru has given.
This recording of Bhaja Hu Re Mana ("Oh Mind, Please Worship Nanda Nandana"), is a traditional Gaudiya bhajan originally written by Govinda Dasa Kaviraja at some time in the late 17th century. Traditionally it is sung in Raga Bhairavi in Tintal but here is a contemporary version.
Arrangement: Mohini Murti Devi Dasi and Ekendra Dasa
Lead Vocals: Ekendra Dasa
Response Vocals: Malika Des Fours, Amber McRae, Mohini Murti Devi Dasi, Seva Kunja Devi Dasi
Editing, Producing: Ekendra Dasa
Recorded at Go-run-gaa Studios, ISKCON New Govardhana, Australia
bhajahū re mana śrī-nanda-nandana
abhaya-caraṇāravinda re
durlabha mānava-janama sat-sańge
taroho e bhava-sindhu re
śīta ātapa bāta bariṣaṇa
e dina jāminī jāgi re
biphale sevinu kṛpaṇa durajana
capala sukha-laba lāgi' re
e dhana, yaubana, putra, parijana
ithe ki āche paratīti re
kamala-dala-jala, jīvana ṭalamala
bhajahū hari-pada nīti re
śravaṇa, kīrtana, smaraṇa, vandana,
pāda-sevana, dāsya re
pūjana, sakhī-jana, ātma-nivedana
govinda-dāsa-abhilāṣa re
1) O mind just worship the lotus feet of the son of Nanda, which make one fearless. Having obtained this rare human birth, cross over this ocean of worldly existence through the association of saintly persons.
2) Both in the day and at night I remain sleepless, suffering the pains of the heat and cold, the wind and the rain. For a fraction of flickering happiness I have uselessly served wicked and miserly men.
3) What assurance of real happiness is there in all of one's wealth, youthfulness, sons, and family members? This life is tottering like a drop of water on a lotus petal; therefore you should always serve and worship the divine feet of Lord Hari.
4) It is the desire and great longing of Govinda Dasa to engage himself in the nine processes of bhakti, namely hearing the glories of Lord Hari and chanting those glories, constantly remembering Him and offering prayers to Him, serving the Lord's lotus feet, serving the Supreme Lord as a servant, worshiping Him with flowers and incense and so forth, serving Him as a friend, and completely offering the Lord one's very self.
I'm not a Gurukuli but I have 3 kids who are or will be. Some of these are hilarious ....
This photo amazes me. Factually, this is a very caring initiative where the workers at ISKCON's Mayapur center can bring their children for an education for which they may not otherwise get the opportunity. But the sign is a shocker. The look of the building and the sign combined make for really bad PR. I couldn't believe it when I saw it.
"It's dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable."
- ARMY BRIG. GEN. H. R. McMASTER, on the growing use of PowerPoint presentations among military commanders. (From the article ''We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint" - New York Times 27/4/10)
I'm 38 years old and am still attending school. But it isn't as if I got a late start in life; I just don't seem to be able to keep a deep interest in anything long enough to call it a 'career'. Some people say I'm a professional student. I can live with that as a job title and it's only by circumstance that I'm able to maintain such a lifestyle despite being married with three children. Most men my age have already established themselves in some sort of niche. I'm digressing here, but you obviously don't have anything better to do than read this so why not let me waffle on a bit? Waffling can be a surprisingly good way to give and receive information. I'll go deeper into that later.
The reason I'm presenting this aspect of my life here isn't because I'm working on a draft for my autobiography. I respect trees and even LEDs enough not to bother them to be used as a medium to tell my story. I'm just trying to qualify myself to make the following criticism of a social and educational trend that I hope dies out soon.
What I'm talking about is the global obsession with PowerPoint slides. Yes, I'm aware how they can be used to good effect and supportive of important points that need to be made. They provide an outlet for the visually creative presenter as well as an 'inlet' for visual learners.
But here's the downside. Far too many times have I seen individuals use the PowerPoint medium in ways that, indeed, present 'the facts' but fail to convey the context of those facts. Bulleted lists seem to lend themselves to a summarized brevity that I interpret as presumptuous. Few people, it seems, know how to let the content drive the medium. More often they end up with a reversed presentation where the medium drives the content.
"True eloquence is the truth spoken concisely." said the great 16th century poet Krishna Das Kaviraja. Being concise and being presumptuous, I feel, are two different things altogether.
For example, the quotation at the beginning of this post asserts that we cannot reduce the nuance of interpersonal conflict down to a set of bullet points. In fact, whenever we are dealing with people, the entire medium is usually inappropriate.
I've learned that when I've had problems with another individual there are often complexities that take time, patience and prayer to resolve. No quick fix bullet point slide show does the trick. (if it was only that easy)
After nearly a decade of tertiary education (and one year of teaching high school) I've realized that the best learning takes place through a healthy relationship. It doesn't matter how slick the teacher is with multimedia as much as how genuine their concern is for the student's well-being.
For instance, my five year old son doesn't learn how to speak, read and interact with others via a set of memorized 'points'. His education at this level is achieved mostly by osmosis. Does that change as we grow older? I doubt it.
There is a lot of learning that takes place by just 'hanging out' with someone and waffling on about whatever comes to mind. Tangential conversations reveal the heart of a person. This helps to contextualize and personalize the message. By engaging in light discussion we can learn about the presenter's:
- interests
- concerns
- aspirations
- vulnerabilities
- miscellaneous other things
Just see how dorky that looks? It's misleading to even present such a subject in a way that presumes that you can summarize everything there is to know into a slide the size of your screen resolution.
In the last five years I've especially noticed that getting off-topic is practically considered taboo for a presenter. Personally, I love it even if just for the respite it provides from the barrage of bullet points being fired into the audience.
I also love it when the projector doesn't work properly. Funny how that seems to happen all the time. (No I don't sabotage - I just don't offer to help get things up and running.)
So next time you are tasked to give a presentation please consider these ideas. Sorry, but you'll have to read things over if you want an obvious summary. True I'm lazy, but I don't want to contribute to your intellectual laziness by assuming the role of expert and trying to wrap everything up into a nice tidy take away container. Waffle on, get off topic occasionally and you might find that your audience is far more interested in what you have to say. You might find it more interesting yourself.
Lately it seems as if this blog has attracted comments from some folks with some far out views. I'm not surprised as this has been a consistent thread in my life (offline and online) for the last 20 years at least.
I'm not going to delete them in the interest of letting people say what they want. I do want to point out that while the mostly anonymous posters are entitled to their views, they do not usually reflect the views of Ekendra Dasa who maintains this blog.
But the banter I engaged in with the person who accused me of being a reptilian cannibal who shapeshifted into human form is all mine :) !
Any other people who took acid 20 years ago and never quite came in for a landing are welcome to post so long as they can manage something coherent and don't mind me being amused and responding with whatever humor I feel like at the time.


text: Implementing practices that improve the health of our communities for our visitors, staff, and volunteers is an important piece of our conservation mission. Environment What we do at the Aquarium: The National Aquarium is dedicated to improving the health of the Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay. In addition to making everyday business decisions that decrease our impact on our local environment, we have been actively engaged in local habitat restoration projects for more than a decade. To date, we have helped restore more than 155 acres of vital habitat in our region, removed more than 500,000 pieces of debris from our waterways, and planted more than 1.5 million native plants. Learn how you can help! Did you know that part of the Aquarium's roof is green? A green roof was installed on a portion of Blue Wonders: Reefs to Rainforests just behind the Australia exhibit. Green roofs provide many benefits. They reduce heating and cooling loads on a building, and reduce stormwater runoff by acting as a sponge. Pollutants and carbon dioxide are also filtered out of the air. Finally, green roofs provide habitat for plants, insects, and birds that otherwise have limited natural space in cities. In 2010, the Aquarium installed a manmade floating wetland in the harbor. Floating islands have the potential to provide the same benefits as traditional wetlands, and this island is a pilot to see if this could be a successful and cost-effective way to improve harbor water quality. Natural wetlands act as filters that pull excess nutrients from the water, and we expect the plants in the floating island will act in the same way. We will be monitoring the water quality surrounding the islands and documenting the abundance of animals that utilize the new habitat area. Aquarium staff members are encouraged to do their part to help save our planet. Each year, every Aquarium employee gets a paid day off to participate in a conservation event in their own community. We also help support a number of other conservation efforts, including Earth Day, Baltimore Green Week, World Oceans Day, and International Migratory Bird Day. What you can do: Use a gas-free, eco-friendly, and quiet push lawn mower—your neighbors will thank you! After mowing, leave lawn clippings on the lawn. They add nutrients to the soil. Control insects using natural controls instead of pesticides. Americans directly apply 70 million pounds of pesticides to home lawns and gardens each year and, in so doing, kill birds and other wildlife and pollute our precious water resources. Plant native trees and shrubs, because they need less fertilizer. Too much fertilizer can run off into waterways, which is bad for wildlife. And the shade that trees provide keeps your house cooler, so you can use less electricity in the warm months. Don't pour anything down storm drains because they lead to the bay, which connects to the ocean. Most sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants do not remove poisonous cleaners, and yard and car-wash chemicals make their way into local waterways, and, eventually, into our ocean, harming animals along the way. You wouldn't want to swim in those chemicals, and neither do animals! Food What we do at the Aquarium: Staff members have the option to join a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program that delivers organic, locally grown produce right to the Baltimore venue. What you can do: Become a "locavore": A locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius (such as 100 miles). The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers' markets or grow their own food, with the argument that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locally grown food is also an environmentally friendly means of obtaining food, because grocery stores that import their food use more fossil fuels and non-renewable resources. Buying directly from family farms helps them stay in business and is good for your local economy, and usually farm market prices are lower than those in grocery stores. In addition, the existing system of food transportation and distribution in the U.S. requires enormous amounts of energy and resources. The average food item travels 1,300 miles! In fact, only about 10% of the fossil fuel energy used in the food system is used for production. The other 90% goes into the packaging, transportation, and marketing of the food. Buying locally helps reduce the amount of energy and CO2 emissions emitted during this process. Choose ocean-friendly seafood: People are eating more seafood than ever, and the ocean and its fish are being pushed to the limit. According to the United Nations, approximately two-thirds of ocean species are overfished, and many types of fish farming are highly damaging to coastal ecosystems. Choose sustainable seafood, which is seafood from either fished or farmed sources that can maintain or increase production in the future and don't harm the surrounding environment. You can obtain a Seafood Watch Pocket Guide at the Aquarium, or download one here. Back to the Top

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Archive for Saturday, February 2, 2008
Fetal homicide charges still a possibility
February 2, 2008
The shooting death of a pregnant woman last week in Lansing would be an ideal case on which to bring charges under the state's new fetal homicide law, said a state legislator who pushed to get "Alexa's Law" on the books in Kansas.
"That's exactly what this law is for," said Rep. Steven Brunk, R-Bel Aire.
Leavenworth County prosecutors have charged Sedale Fox, 23, Lansing, with first-degree murder in the Jan. 22 shooting death of Olivia Jackson. Authorities have said Fox was Jackson's boyfriend and the father of Jackson's unborn daughter.
But Leavenworth County Attorney Frank Kohl has not yet filed any charges in the death of Jackson's fetus.
"We haven't ruled anything in or anything out," Kohl said earlier this week.
Brunk speculated Kohl may be awaiting Jackson's autopsy to gather more evidence in the case before filing charges under Alexa's Law. Otherwise, Brunk said, "I just can't imagine why you wouldn't prosecute under this law."
Kathy Ostrowski, legislative and research director with Kansans for Life, said the newness of Alexa's Law may be holding up charges in the death of Jackson's unborn daughter.
"I think there's some confusion about the law," Ostrowski said.
The law allows prosecutors to bring murder, manslaughter or battery charges in cases where a fetus is intentionally harmed. Alexa's Law, named after the fetus of a 14-year-old murder victim, has been on the books only since July 1, 2007.
Under Alexa's Law, Ostrowski said, prosecutors don't have to consider age in weighing whether to file charges in the death of the fetus. The law spells out that it applies to fetuses "at any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth."
Both Ostrowski and Brunk said they believe this is the first case since Alexa's Law has been in effect in which it could be applied. The law, however, does not mandate that a prosecutor file charges in such cases.
"It's an option, not a mandate," Ostrowski said.
But to Brunk, it's an option Kohl should consider.
"It would give him two opportunities to get justice, not just one," Brunk said. "It doubles his chances by making these charges."
And, he noted, sentences become more severe upon conviction in a double-murder.
"If there are two murders, it just ratchets up the penalty," he said.
The 2007 Legislature approved Alexa's Law and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed the bill into law. Alexa's Law specifies its provisions do not apply to the mother of the unborn child or for any medical procedure, including abortion, performed by a physician or other licensed medical professional at the request of the pregnant woman or her legal guardian.
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As the owner of PlentyOfbrands.com I have a passion for brandable business domain names and domain names in general.Brandables are my main focus.I hope you find a name you want here on POB!
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Paula Werneck-High-Rise Structures: Porto Rio De Janeiro Mixed Use Structure
At Design Interviews
Interview with paula werneck : Frank Scott: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?. paula werneck : To create a mixed use project exploring the relation between high-rise structures and pedestrians/ city and landscape. .Frank Scott: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?. paula werneck : Getting to know the main and specific aspect of a high-rise building. How it works and make it work out the landscape of Rio de Janeiro, wich it is always the main feature. In this case, the architecture turns into the main feature instead. .Frank Scott: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?. paula werneck : 5 months .Frank Scott: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?. paula werneck : The decision came from a will of wanting to work with high-rises and this particular site of the city. .Frank Scott: What made you design this particular type of work?. paula werneck : All the differents solutions and details for every part of the project. The mixed use is a challenge and without it the city won't work anymore. Working with high density projects is the present and the future . The fact that it is located in Rio de Janeiro, just makes it more difficult. .Frank Scott: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?. paula werneck : Yes. The architect Luiz Mario Xavier. .Frank Scott: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?. paula werneck : The avenue in wich the site is located and also the hole neighborhood will be occupied with high-rises up to 150 meters with an exagerated density. The project shows that it is possible to solve the demands with less built areas and preserve an architecture with concepts and principles. .Frank Scott: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?. paula werneck : It came up by exploring the main idea of the project. Working with high-rise structures in Rio de Janeiro. .Frank Scott: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?. paula werneck : Autocad , Rhinoceros and Adobe Photoshop. .Frank Scott: What is the most unique aspect of your design?. paula werneck : Firs of all, the size and the different uses combining in one great structure. Also the specific details for the façade , the skylight. Every detail was specifically design for this project. .Frank Scott: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?. paula werneck : No. .Frank Scott: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?. paula werneck : I couldn't exactly put into words everything that I've learned and how I've improved as an architect. There are so many aspects that goes from learning a new presentation technique to a major structure project like a high-rise building. .
Paula Werneck-High-Rise Structures: Porto Rio De Janeiro Mixed Use Structure Images:
End of the article, click here to go back to previous page, or alternatively go back to Big Architects homepage.


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Side A
A1 Gaane Mor Kon Indradhanu - Agni Pariksha
A2 Akaasher Astaragey - Suryamukhi
A3 Jani Na Phurabe Kobey - Sabar Uparey
A4 O Bak Bak Bakam Bakam - Mayamriga
A5 Tomarey Bhalobeshechhi - Natun Jiban
A6 Teer Bedha Pakhi Aar - Pita Putra
Side B
B1 Tuhu Mamo Mono Pran Hey - Anthony Firingee
B2 E Geene Prajapati - Deva Neya
B3 Du Chokher Bristitey - Sravan Sandhya
B4 Badho Jhulana - Basanta Bahar
B5 Keno E Hridoy - Nayika Sangbad
B6 E Shudhu Gaaner Din - Pathey Holo Deri
I have been very busy lately with completely new tasks and working more than full time in book publishing as editor and graphic designer. This last part has taken most energy away from editing any post and this may explain why there was such a long silence here! I was hoping to keep posting at least a couple of times a week but Alas, no such luck yet. I will not quit posting but unfortunately I have to realize that with my current workload I will be an infrequent poster for still some time to come. Fortunately I have so many very good friends and the following posts were kindly prepared by some of them. You will not suffer since they are of very high quality and I am more than happy to have been given this kind assistance.
First out is a Bengali LP by Geetashree Sandhya Mukherjee from my good friends Costis and Arvind who helped out before. It is Costis rip and photos, and Arvind wrote the high quality accompanying notes! It makes me so very happy each time these guys bring in such lovely music and all I have to do is some editing and minor cosmetics. Well, and adding the names to the tracks and track listings... so there is always a little something to fiddle with that also takes a little time but that is also some sort of a therapy while listening to the music. I hope you like it!
Here's what Arvind wrote:
This is a beautiful collection of songs by an artist who remains almost unknown outside Bengal, though one, who according to me, deserves much more recognition. Someone rightly said that her voice is like "liquid honey". On this record, she sings a selection of her film songs. Most popular filmi and non-filmi Bengali music from the time when this was recorded falls under the larger umbrella of Bengali Modern Song.
Bengali Adhunik Gaan
- The Bengali Modern Song
The trend of composing modern song forms the most important musical phenomenon in Bengal during the post Tagore period. Adhunik gaan literally means "modern songs". Although, to outsiders, this may seem an extremely ambiguous way of nomenclature, it has particular motivations. The term Modern is relative – the period implied is from the third decade of the 20th Century to around the 70s when it reached its apex.
Bangla music traditionally has been classified mainly by the region of origin and the creators of the musical genre, such as Nazrul geeti (written and composed by Kazi Nazrul Islam), ghombhira (unique to a specific area in Bangladesh), etc. However, this prevented the ability to classify any music that failed to fit into any of the classes.
In the period just before Indian independence (Bengal, under British rule, was a part of one massive India that does not exactly correspond to the India of current day), several new minor musical groups emerged, mainly as playback songs for movies. These songs failed to fit into any particular genre, but seemed to be tied together by common theme of "music for the masses". Most of the music tended to be aimed at the mainstream audience - popular catchy tunes with simple words, and music that was inspired by forms of light classical music, folk and Western music. Hence, a miscellaneous category, Adhunik Gaan (or Adhunik Songeet), was created, since, at that time, this music was "modern".
Although over time these so-called "modern" songs have become fairly old, they continue to be called by the same name. Interestingly, this group of song has grown faster than any other, since it is a miscellaneous category that can accommodate anything that fails to fit elsewhere. The common theme continues to exist. So, although the nomenclature itself might not be as insightful, the genre itself is still well-defined.
This modern musical experimentation in Calcutta also formed the background to the modern songs and film music of many other parts of India, most notably that of Bollywood. The main artists who popularized modern Bengali songs, both filmi and non-filmi, and who also gained much of their popularity through them were Hemanta Mukherjee, Manna Dey, Sandhya Mukherjee, Shyamal Mitra, Arati Mukherjee, Kishore Kumar, Sachin Dev Burman, Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, Satinath Mukherjee and Jaganmoy Mitra. Many of them went on to become legends as music directors and singers in Bollywood as well, and are household names in India today.
Geetashree Sandhya Mukherjee
(Bengali: সন্ধ্যা মুখোপাধ্যায়, Shondha Mukhopaddhae)* (b. 1931)
"I am not anyone's rival in the world of music because I sing only for myself and singing is my aarti, my pooja."
If Lata Mangeshkar is the nightingale of India, then 'Geetashri' Sandhya Mukherjee is the golden voice of Bengali music. No Bengali who loves music will ever be able to get over the spell of this honey-voiced singer of Bengal. Her recorded repertoire reaches beyond 3000 songs comprising a versatile range – bhajan, thumri, khayal, Tagore, modern Bengali song, and playback in Hindi and Bengali films. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Saheb once said, "Sandhya is comparable with Sandhya alone."
Born on October 4, 1931, in Dhakuria, Kolkata, Sandhya never had the chance of visiting her village home in Jeerat within Balagarh district. Dhakuria in those days was far from the glittery space filled with shopping malls and multi-storied building and even the over bridge did not exist at the time. Nor were there the dirt and the slush one encounters today. The sky was open and blue. The earth was filled with trees, flowers, fruits and birds. The chugging sound of a passing train would often drill holes of sound into the silent and dark evenings. A little girl would eagerly stare at the trains passing away through the square of an open window. In the evenings, she would go to the terrace of her Dhakuria (it was then a village) home and sing Krishna bhajans with the immediate family as her only audience. This simple incident laid the seeds of one of the greatest singers Bengal has ever produced.
Why the bhajans of Krishna? Krishna was the reigning deity at the Mukherjee home. Narendranath Mukherjee, her father, worked in the railways and was a great lover of music. Her mother Hemaprabha was a very good vocalist. Bhajans invoking the Lord Krishna were sung every evening during the pooja. Her academic career began at Dhakuria Balika Vidyalaya. She later shifted to Binodini High School.
Hers was the voice the most in demand at every school function. When she was 13 years old, Sandhya put in a stage appearance too, not as the heroine but as a maid! That was the time when HMV (His Masters Voice) released her first gramophone record. The song she sang for the record was Tumi Phiraye Diyechho Jaarey (the one you have turned back), a brilliant debut for a girl so young.
As her heart lay in music and not in academics so after her matriculation examinations, she stopped formal education and began to pursue her only love – music. Before she completed her schooling, her eldest brother placed her under the tutelage of Santosh Basu Mullick to study classical raga-based music. She then trained under Jamini Nath Gangopadhyay, Gyan Prakash Ghosh, Chinmoy Lahiri, Dhruvtara Joshi, AT Kannan and Pandit Ganpat Rao. But it was Ustad Bade Ghulam Khan who tied the naada around her slender wrist to drill her in the complex and fine intricacies of Hindustani classical music. Though he is no more, Sandhya's ties with his son sustains till this day.
The rest, as they say, is history. RC Boral, the music director of New Theaters gave her the song Ha Ha Ha Hans Ke Jiye Ja in a film called Anjangarh (1948) when she was just 17 years old. She later sang Ashkon Me Chhipi Mohabbat Ki Kahani in the film Pehla Aadmi (1950), which gave her immense popularity in Calcutta and then moved to Bombay where she earned fame with a duet with Hemant Kumar, Gupchup Gupchup Pyar Karen in the film Sazaa (1951). After these initial successes, she sung for most of the leading composers in Bengal and Bombay, but she is most fondly remembered for her collaboration with Hemanta Mukherjee, with whom she sang numerous duets, primarily as playback for Bengali films produced from Kolkata. Hemanta and Sandhya became known as the voices behind the pairings of the Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar and his numerous heroines, most notably being the actress Suchitra Sen, whose singing voice she became.
Very recently, a Bengali television channel had organized a twin recital of golden hits of Sandhya Mukherjee and Manna Dey. Sandhya, 78, and Manna Dey, 90, sang unfettered for two hours to a packed audience that remained enthralled and cocooned in the golden era of Bengali music in cinema and in modern songs.
*Note that "Mukherjee" evolved from the Sanskrit Mukhopadhyay (Bengali: মুখোপাধ্যায় Mukhopaddhae). Mukhopadhyay is from the purer Sanskrit form Mukhyopadhyay (in Sanskrit Mukhya - chief, Upadhyay - teacher, not necessarily a religious teacher). In modern parlance, the two are often used interchangeably, much like other such pairs (Banerjee/Bandhyopadhyay, Chatterjee/Chattyopadhyay), with the latter being used primarily in religious contexts.
Some detailed reading on the history of Bengali music here and here
The languid and dreamlike song the record begins with can be heard on youtube here


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Download Falling Man Study Guide
Do not expect to read Don DeLillo's Falling Man (2007) as you would read a mainstream novel, with a plot that takes you on a straight-line journey. The form is circular, moving the reader around and around a central point and then ending up where he started—at the falling twin towers after jet airliners have been hijacked and crashed into them.
A man walks away from the fallen towers. He is terribly disoriented and bleeding. Although Keith Neudecker is not walking in circles, his mind is certainly spinning. Moving with him are all the rest of the characters, including an actor, a man who does performance art on the sides of randomly selected New York buildings. The artist's simulates a vision that both the actor and Keith witnessed—a man flinging himself out of one of the broken windows on one of the top floors of the World Trade Center that fateful day in 2001. It is an image that both the actor and Keith cannot get out of their minds.
Keith and this actor are not the only people affected, of course. The entire city reels in the aftermath. There are the thousands of deaths and thousand more left to mourn. While this certainly could be a compelling novel, DeLillo focuses on something else. He turns his characters inside out and exposes the psychological damage that they have suffered beyond the mourning. He shows how various characters attempt to deal with it—or, if they cannot deal with it, how they change their lives in order to avoid it.
Keith and his wife, Lianne, had been separated before the crash. Keith had his own apartment close to the towers so he could walk to work. But in his dazed state after the towers collapse, Keith only wants to go home—to the place that he, Lianne, and their son, Justin, once shared. Keith shows up at the front door, his face sprayed with shards of glass and waits until Lianne invites him in.
Lianne's mother, Nina, warns her daughter not to take Keith back. But Lianne cannot say no. She takes Keith to the hospital to be treated, then waits, and watches, as their separation dissolves into a new type of relationship. This new form resembles the old one in very few details. They look like a family again, but there are many psychological scars as well as new wounds that are slowly opening. Keith disappears at times. Lianne almost cracks under the pressure of their new relationship and the fear that her whole world, like the towers, may someday come crashing down.
As Keith spins into a new world where very little is defined, characters flit in and out of his life. The friends they have lost and their own narrow escape from the fiery hell that they barely escaped affects all of them. In the course of the novel, subjects of religion, terrorism, death, and the meaning of life are played with but never resolved. Even the hijackers appear momentarily, as DeLillo attempts to give them faces and a reason for doing what they felt was right. Everyone in this story tries to move forward, tries to extract him or herself from the past. This proves to be an all but impossible task. To prove it, the novel ends exactly where it begins, with Keith wandering on the streets of New York, dazed and bleeding.
Extended Summary
The novel opens in a "time and space of falling ash and near night." It is the morning of September 11, 2001 and the World Trade Center is collapsing. The reader is given slow-motion glimpses of the horror—the "stink of fuel fire" and the "fitful cries of disbelief." Keith Neudecker, a lawyer in his late 30s who worked in the North Tower, walks in an ash-covered daze towards the place "where he'd been going all along"—the apartment of his estranged wife and their son.
Three days pass. The reader learns that Keith and Lianne have reconciled and he has moved back into their home. Lianne is comforted by his physical presence and his pilgrimage to her apartment. The couple is intimate again.
The focus of most of the remaining parts of the novel is on a series of alternating vignettes of...
(The entire section is 1,460 words.)


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May 31, 2020
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Latest Mental Health News
THURSDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Heavy methamphetamine use may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, according to a new study.
It also confirmed previous research showing a possible link between marijuana dependence and schizophrenia.
Methamphetamine and other amphetamine-type stimulants are the second most common type of illicit drug used worldwide.
In this study, researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto analyzed the records of patients who were admitted to California hospitals between 1990 and 2000 with a diagnosis of dependence or abuse for methamphetamine, marijuana, alcohol, cocaine or opioids.
People who were hospitalized for meth dependence and who had never been diagnosed with schizophrenia or psychotic symptoms at the start of the study had a roughly 1.5- to three-fold higher risk of later being diagnosed with schizophrenia than patients who used cocaine, alcohol or opioid drugs, study leader Dr. Russ Callaghan said in a CAMH news release.
The researchers also found that the increased risk of schizophrenia in methamphetamine users was similar to that of heavy users of marijuana.
The study was published online Nov. 8 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
It's not clear how methamphetamine and marijuana may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia.
"Perhaps repeated use of methamphetamine and cannabis in some susceptible individuals can trigger latent schizophrenia by sensitizing the brain to dopamine, a brain chemical thought to be associated with psychosis," Dr. Stephen Kish, senior scientist and head of CAMH's Human Brain Laboratory, said in the news release.
"We hope that understanding the nature of the drug addiction-schizophrenia relationship will help in developing better therapies for both conditions," Callaghan said.
-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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I have a few summer products I am loving right now too that I thought I would share...
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I am not going to lie, I love the sun. But, I am REALLY trying hard not to spend as much time tanning myself as I used to. In order to prevent from being completely pale this summer, I enlisted the help of a new self-tanner. A friend recommended this product and it's the BEST. You can get a fabulous tan in just 3 days. It has to be applied pretty carefully, but overall the streaking is not bad and it actually smells decent! I bought the medium-tan, and it's really given me amazing color.
This new Ginger and White peach body wash by Aveeno is light and refreshing...it smells almost good enough to eat!
Jonathan bought me this dress for Mother's Day and I can't wait to wear it. Sundresses are always my summer go-to. They are the only way to stay cool when it's 90 and humid in Kansas City!
You know that I love a good bargain; I recently scored these wedges at Old Navy for $12.99. I can't wear really high heels when carrying the baby and chasing after a crazy toddler. I searched everywhere for a lower heel and finally stumbled upon these. They also come in a fun citron yellow.
I don't own these (YET), but wouldn't these be the perfect summer earring? They are Kendra Scott's new Skylar earring in Chalcedony. I adore this color, I feel like it could go with anything!


text: Fiction No More Sheiks By Blue HararyApril 1975 Purchase the issue or subscribe to read this selection. Already a subscriber? Login Print Share: Facebook Twitter Email Thank you for sharing The Sun. Your Full Name* Your Email Address* Friend's Name* Friend's Email Address* Personalized Message Something went wrong. Please try again. Submit


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Ex-Fugitive Doctor Sentenced to Prison for Fraud
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - A Missouri doctor who spent a dozen years on the run from federal fraud charges in Illinois before being captured in Peru has been ordered to spend three years and a month in prison.
A judge in East St. Louis, Illinois also sentenced 65-year-old Doctor Juan Rios on Friday to $320,000 in fines and restitution.
Rios lived in the St. Louis suburb of Florissant, Missouri. He pleaded guilty in September to three counts of mail fraud and one count apiece of health care fraud and failing to appear in court.
The native Peruvian had medical offices in Collinsville and Bethalto when he admitted defrauding several insurance companies of more than $400,000. Authorities say he pocketed more than $250,000 in fraudulent disability payments while he still worked.


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The Australian Sugar Heritage Centre opened in 1977 and is a modern complex covering some 14,000 square. It houses The Australian Sugar Industry Museum, Cassowary Coast Region Art Gallery, Mourilyan Café, Post Office, Conference Room and Canegrowers Office. The Museum's collection comprises of contemporary and historical photographs, books, documents, domestic objects and artefacts related to Australia's sugar industry. Historic tractors, locomotives, harvesters, implements and a working model of a 500 horse power driven crushing engine are on permanent display.
Many static displays depict the history of the sugar industry, including South Sea Islander involvement, a Cane Barracks replica, Stables, a Blacksmith Shop and the manufacturing of sugar.
The professionally equipped 50 seat theatre features an audio visual presentation of the Sugar Industry. Examine the pioneering methods and processes on informative audio/visual displays throughout the Museum.
General, Education and Special Interest Group tours are given on request please call them for details.
Due to current health advice on social distancing, please contact the business for the most up to date information regarding opening times and services.
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You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'educating' tag.
I was recently invited to make a guest appearance in a High School Social Studies & Politics class in Vermont by the teacher who follows my twitter feed and reads my blog. I was deeply humbled by the invite and by the fact that the teacher had gone beyond the call of duty to ask someone from the Middle East to answer student's questions.
I liked the idea a lot from an educator's perspective. What better way to build bridges and to shatter false images and misconceptions painted by the media than by exposing students to someone who is Egyptian and actually lives there?
A trip to Vermont would have been ideal but out of the question at the beginning of the academic year, so thanks to modern technology, I could be in two places at once with the help of Skype. After a couple of test runs and agreeing on a day and time that suited both time zones, the questions which the students wanted to ask were sent to me in advance so that I could mull over how I would answer them and what I would say. As well as checking information and sources to make sure the information that I was discussing was indeed factual.
As the day approached my nerves were on edge as well as boiling over with excitement. I was nervous because I was stepping out of my comfort zone and talking to a group of young strangers thousands of miles away and I felt a bit like a diplomat representing my country. I posted the event in my group on facebook so that my readers would know. I was quite flattered by all the words of encouragement from friends and acquaintences who sent me words of encouragment and told me how proud they were of me for doing this.
The day of the interview I was invited to my sister's in-laws for brunch. I was terrified that I would not make it home in time for 3pm, so I took my laptop and all my research with me just in case, (and it was a good thing I did too). I have to thank my brother-in-law and his family for allowing me to take up a corner of their sitting room while they session took place. I am very grateful.
Friday 28th of September at 3P.M Cairo local time the Skype video call began … (I can't remember all of my answers verbatim, but I will do my best to recall my responses as best I can)
The teacher that I had been communicating with was present along with another Social Studies teacher, the Principle of the school and the students (talk about nerve-racking!!). For 45 minutes I was asked questions and discussed Egypt and the region.
The first question I was asked was 'Why did you agree to Skype with us?'
My answer was simple, Why not? How else are we going to build bridges and destroy misconceptions if we don't learn from one another?
The second question was 'Would there be any repercussions for speaking with us?"
No, not in my case, I'm not a political blogger and I don't write anything negative about the government, the president or religion so I have not been red flagged.
What is the current political situation in Egypt?
Well, we finally have a president! Part of the parliament has been dissolved, the president tried to overrule the decision and allow them to be reinstated but he was over ruled again by the Supreme Court, so we don't really know what's going to happen with them. Then there's the writing of the new constitution.
Can women run for public office in Egypt?
Yes, they can. We had a woman named Bothaina who was in the presidential elections but, she didn't get enough votes to carry her through. We also have other women in parliament.
What was it like for you during the Arab Spring?
(Never a simple answer and I couldn't help but let out a big sigh)
Having lived in Saudi Arabia and remembering the signs of what happened during the Gulf War, I knew something was going to happen. I started to read and follow many of the revolutionaries on twitter. I prepared myself for the worst, made sure I had provisions in the house and on the 28th of January I asked a Canadian friend and colleague of mine to come and stay with me because she didn't know what was happening and didn't speak the language. There isn't a word in the dictionary to describe what we experience. We had no clue what was going to happen from one minute to the other. There were riot police and then the police were dissolved. Saturday 13000 prisoners were released from prison taking the ammunition that was in the stations and that's when chaos broke loose. Boys your age and younger were out in the streets armed with whatever they could find, planks of wood, kitchen knives, candle stick holders, Molotov cocktail bombs to defend their neighborhood and their homes from petit thieves and dangerous criminals who were heavily armed. It was a terrifying experience. Things have calmed down a lot since then, but even months afterwards you always looked over your shoulder.
How do Egyptian people view the United States? Is there a difference between how they view the government and the American People?
Egyptian's don't hate Americans. They don't dislike foreigners. We need foreigners to come to Egypt for our tourism. Tourism is our source of money (I had meant to say income, but the word escaped me). We just don't like your foreign policy.
(I am sure many will disagree with me on this point, but that is how I perceive things to be)
There were many questions that followed these but I cannot remember their chronological order or how I answered them.
While answering the questions I didn't notice how fast the time had passed and when the bell rang I couldn't believe a class period had flown by. I wasn't sure what the student's impression of the video call was. It was hard for me to see their faces and to know if they found it engaging or not. Once the student left the class I spoke with both teachers for a little while longer. I won't know the verdict on the experience until next week, but I did get an email from the class teacher the following day. It read;
"Hi Irish!
A number of students have come to me and said they enjoyed speaking with you and wondering if they would be able to do it again. That's a good sign. Our principal who left three quarters of the way through was very impressed with you and happy that you too took the time to speak with our students. He actually said he got chills up his spine a couple of times when you were speaking. Again that is a good sign. Thanks so much for taking the time to do what you did. It's a great learning experience for myself and my students. Hopefully we can find some other ways we can break down some of the misconceptions of both Egyptians and Americans with our students. If there is anything you can think of or anyway we can bring students together through this source of media please let me know. "
An even further update on how the skype talk went;
" You have received many positive comments and none negative. Greg who you talked with after the class felt that you had a great persona on camera. I agree with him on that and its not easy to do on skype.
I spoke to one student's mother who said her son came home and talked about the class's conversation with you. He said he really liked it. This is from a student who usually doesn't appear to interested in class.
The students commented on your English and how good it was.. They wondered if it would be hard to understand you. They all said they would like to do it again.
I hope you would be willing. As I told you I think if they get more comfortable with you and you them it would be interesting to see where the conversation leads just in regards to daily life in Egypt and the United States. Perhaps the average person's goals, dreams, hopes for the future etc, so that they see people are not really that different regardless of what country they live in.
I asked them if they felt you had answered their questions and they felt you had done a good job of that. I heard them laugh a number of times during your talk due to the expression on your face in regards to a question or answer. This indicates that they picked up on your facial expressions and body language. I believe they felt that you were much like them instead of this perception they may of you. "


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Capacity building
Increasingly, violence and injuries are being recognized as important public health problems. Along with this recognition comes a pressing need to develop capacity in the area of injury prevention and control. Prevention efforts require multidisciplinary approaches and a variety of trained professionals. A public health approach to building capacity for injury prevention and control requires enhancing knowledge, developing skills, and enabling systems in which injury prevention and control efforts are supported.
Capacity building needs include those related to human resources, institutional and infrastructural capacity, and networks and partnerships. WHO is working in all three of these domains to help build capacity for violence and injury prevention.
Two priority needs in the human resources area are training and skills development. To address training, WHO has collaborated with a global network of experts to develop a modular violence and injury prevention and control curriculum known as TEACH-VIP. To address skills development, WHO has developed a global mentoring programme for violence and injury prevention known as MENTOR-VIP. Other activities for human resource development, as well capacity building activities addressing other domains are outlined in WHO's strategic plan for capacity building.


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For kids, school is their job, and what works for you in the office can be a big help at home, too. Set up a "school station," with an in box and an out box for permission slips, library books, report cards, and anything else you normally have to remind your children to take with them each morning. This Rubbermaid 12906 Smart Sorter System is a great option, with room for cell phones, iPods, PDAs, chargers, and extra pencils as well.
$21.99 at Amazon.


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This web content guide is the first version of many—an infinite, ever-evolving many! It aims to provide practical and actionable information about how best to plan, structure, and maintain meaningful content on your University of Michigan-Flint department website.
What Is This and Who Is It For?
What Is "Meaningful Content?"
Only your audience, your website's users, can assess the quality (the "meaningfulness") of your content. The best way to plan and structure meaningful content is to begin with a conversation with your audience.
Later in this guide we will share ideas and best practices for how to have those conversations. Before that, there are other broad truths about "meaningful web content" that are important to begin thinking about right away.
Content Basics
Some of the best thinking on the subject of writing for the web is found in Janice Redish's book Letting Go of the Words (available online through the Thompson Library).
In her summary of Chapter 1 ("Content! Content! Content!"), Redish shares many of the most important truths about web content. She writes:
- People come to web sites to satisfy goals, to do tasks, to get answers to questions.
- Navigation, search, design, and technology support the content that people come for.
- The best metaphor for the web is phone, not filing cabinet.
- Every use of your site is a conversation started by your site visitor.
- Social media is pushing the web to be even more conversational.
To have good conversations through your website:
- Answer your site visitors' questions throughout your web content, not only in sections called frequently asked questions (FAQ).
- Let your site visitors "grab and go" ("Scan, Find, Act")
- Engage your site visitors (Meeting visitors' needs = engagement).
- Market successfully to your site visitors by first satisfying the conversation they came to have.
- Improve search engine optimization (SEO) and internal site search.
- Be accessible to all.


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LONGMONT — Two local fire districts' legal dispute over territory — and the tax revenue that comes with it — is at the heart of a dissolved aid agreement, according to officials.
Mountain View Fire Rescue Chief Mark Lawley confirmed on Monday that his district's board of directors opted to end an automatic aid agreement with the Frederick-Firestone Fire Protection District over pending lawsuits regarding territory.
Frederick-Firestone Fire Protection District officials last week released a public statement noting that Mountain View had given notice that automatic aid would end June 28 and said that MVFR district officials had not responded to inquiry about the decision.
Under automatic aid, emergency dispatchers automatically send the closest stations to a structure fire, no matter which district a fire is in. Mutual aid, meaning aid is sent upon request from the primary district, remains in place.
Lawley said in a prepared statement that both Frederick and Firestone filed a lawsuit against Mountain View to get Mountain View to give up properties to FFFPD that Frederick and Firestone have annexed.
"The conflict arises from the assumption of the town of Frederick and the town of Firestone that whenever a property is annexed into their towns that Frederick-Firestone fire district should be entitled to serve that property as the towns' sole fire/rescue provider," Lawley wrote.
He added that Mountain View officials believe it would best serve those in annexed areas to continue to have coverage from both districts, adding that Mountain View "has spent over ($3 million) in fire stations and equipment to enhance service to the area, in addition to the ongoing annual cost of providing paid fire officers, firefighter/paramedics and firefighter/EMTs to cover this area."
Lawley said Mountain View has attempted to solve territory issues out of court but Frederick-Firestone has been unresponsive.
He added that town and FFFPD officials "have embarked down a path that will cost their taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees."
Lawley also claimed that should the annexed lands be pulled from Mountain View's district, residents there will lose out on access to those resources. The FFFPD "is actively pursing building another fire station a mile from an existing Mountain View Fire District station along the (Colo.) Highway 119 corridor."
Frederick-Firestone Chief Ted Poszywak told the Times-Call last week that he believed the two districts should continue to work to cover the areas. In three years, the aid agreement was used 23 times. He said Monday that he believes the territory differences should be hashed out in court, "not on the streets."
Both districts said in their press releases that they want to sit down and negotiate a specific mutual aid deal. Each claims the other has not responded to overtures.
Pierrette J. Shields can be reached at 303-684-5273 or at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Classes are currently being taught online. All physical facilities are closed to the public at this time, and employees are working remotely.Please visit
dcccd.edu/coronavirus for additional information and to
find contact information for various departments.If you need additional assistance, please visit
My Community Services and our
Community Employment Resources.
This article appeared in a May 2016 issue of the student newsletter.
By Valerie Coll Student Staff Writer,
The News-RegisterLast fall, North Lake College student, Eliezer Escalona, got together with his friends Paulina Fonseca, Natasha Farrah and Juan Camilo Chaparro to start a new club on campus called "Latin Dance Society."It is a club for students to learn at a slow pace the basic steps of Latin dances, such as Bachata, Merengue and Salsa, while escaping from the daily stress of school.
"I was part of a group that was called Latin Dance Society at University of Texas at San Antonio and I had a good time over there. It took a load off of stress," said Escalona, the club president."It's something I brought over here and I feel like it can benefit other people learning a different culture, different dances."The club members aren't going to limit themselves to just learning Latin styles, though. There will also be opportunities to learn other types of dances, like Hip-hop and Swing."I never got to dance when I was a kid so I would get to dance in Latin Dance Society," said Miles Roan, explaining why he joined the club. Roan's favorite style of dance he has learned is Salsa.Besides the International Club, there aren't any other clubs on campus that explore and unite Latin culture while still bringing in students with different ethnic backgrounds."We're not just focusing on Latin American culture, we also want to learn other cultures," said Fonseca, a club officer.
Anyone wishing to become a member of Latin Dance Society can join at any time. LDS meets every Friday from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in the North Lake College dance studio, room P-250.For more information, send an email to
firstname.lastname@example.com. To view photos and videos or stay updated on upcoming events check out the club's Facebook page: North Lake College Latin Dance Society.


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Zen Space is a free community service run by volunteers to provide an online place to discuss Zen Buddhism and to share our experience, knowledge and understanding.
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Are you the kind of person who always talks about how you've got the next billion dollar idea in your head? You know, but it can't happen without the right backing .. say, a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur with big money and big connections?
We've got your solution!
Mark Zuckerberg! Well, maybe.
Facebook admits that it's testing (as part of its "reach out to people who aren't yet your friends for $1 plan") a plan to let you reach out to very powerful people .. for more money. And it seems CEO Mark Zuckerberg is included.
Check it out: If you're willing to part with $100, you'll be able to get your idea/message/whatever into Mark Z's inbox.That's all that is guaranteed.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
Now, in theory, if you already follow Zuckerberg, you can hit "Message" and send him a note. Will he read it? Will $100 grease the skids? Who knows, but Facebook has been on a roll lately when it comes to both pleasing investors (its stock price has popped above $30 a share lately) and convincing everybody that it can make money. It's doubtful that this will make a big difference in its bottom line, but as part of a "what will we pay for social access" test, it's kind of intriguing.
And, who knows – maybe Zuckerberg will turn out to be the next big tech talent scout, and this turns out to be the best way to get your idea seen. Wouldn't that be worth a hundred bucks?
Scott can be found on Twitter, for free: @scottbudman.


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Home > Car Accessories > Car Power Adapter > USB 4-Port Car Charger Adapter for cell phone
Product Details
Use your car to charge devices such as digital cameras, PDAs, mobile phones, USB accessories that can reply on USB for power. This adapter plugs into your car's cigarette lighter jack to become a powered USB port. Great for charging phones, cameras, MP3 players when travel.
- 4 ports USB car power charger adapter for cell phone, iPhone, iPod and other electronic appliances that with USB charging port
- 4 USB ports charge up to four mobile devices simultaneously
- Note: USB charging cables required and not included
- Input: DC 12V
- Output: DC 5V
- Max: 2.1A
- Input protection: Fuse
- Output protection: Automatic electronic short circuit protection and restoration
- Color: Black
- Size ( L x W x H ): Approx. 3.6 x 1.9 x 1.3 inch / 9.1 x 4.8 x 3.3 cm
Package Includes:
- 1 x USB car charger
Related Tags


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Apparently, the V6 version of the Toyota Camry, a long-time resident to Consumer Reports' "Annual Car Reliability Survey," is no longer welcome around those parts. And it's not just the Camry, but also the new bigger-than-big four-wheel-drive V8-powered Toyota Tundra and the Lexus Gs. All three of these vehicles "declining reliability" has canceled the "automatic recommended" rating given to the Toyota, Scion and Lexus brands from CR. Hmm, that's no good thing — except it appears to be a boon for Ford, who's showing some serious increases in quality ratings this past year in the Explorer, the F-150 and the Mustang. Full list below the jump.
Models with improved reliability
BMW 7 Series
Cadillac STS (V6)
Chrysler 300 (V8)
Dodge Charger
Ford Explorer (V6)
Ford F-150
Ford Mustang
Jaguar S-Type
Jeep Commander
Kia Sportage
Mazda RX-8
Porsche 911
Saab 9-3
VW Jetta (5-cylinder)
Volvo S40 (non-turbo)
Models with declining reliability
BMW 6 Series
Chevrolet Suburban
Chevrolet Tahoe
Chrysler 300 (V6)
Dodge Ram 1500
GMC Yukon
GMC Yukon XL
Hyundai Entourage
Kia Amanti
Kia Sedona
Lexus GS (V6, AWD)
Pontiac G6
Toyota Camry (V6)
Toyota Tundra (V8, 4WD)
VW Passat (V6)
[via Freep]


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Stools for dining, bars and entertainment.
A wide variety of customization and mix and match styles from the most prominent furniture designers and manufacturers today. Find the perfect fit, style, height and material to accent your home.
Default | Name Up | Name Down | Price Up | Price Down
1 | 2 [94 Items / 2 Pages]
Don't see what you are looking for? GIVE US A CALL! (856-486-1880)
We might have products or variations not seen online.
Viking repairs all types of furniture, indoor and outdoor regardless of the place of purchase. Freeze damaged patio sling chairs. Re-cord and re-canvas patio umbrellas, cantilever and offset. Steel & cast aluminum furniture welding. We sell indoor and outdoor glass tops with or without umbrella holes. Re-glue and reupholster kitchen and dining chairs. Replacement swivel, memory swivel and swivel tilt plates for chairs and stools. Custom table tops made in Formica, Granite, Wood and Glass.
Click here for Furniture Repair services and general pricing from Viking.


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(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that's happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)
I'm with Loretta Lynn on this one. Ever since I heard Zooey Deschanel sing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in the film, Elf, I knew her voice could take her places. Like, Butcher Holler, Ky. (I've actually had a girl crush on Deschanel since I first saw her in Almost Famous more than a decade ago.) Lynn has now asked Deschanel to play her on Broadway in a musical version of Coal Miner's Daughter. She brought Deschanel onstage Thursday night (May 10) at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium to make the announcement. "Well, there's a little girl backstage that's going to do the play of Coal Miner's Daughter on Broadway. Zooey, where you at honey?" Lynn said. "Are you going to help me sing 'Coal Miner's Daughter'?" Deschanel did, saying that this was a great honor and called Lynn her hero. I'm not so sure how deep Deschanel's country roots go, but I do know that she is all about music (when she's not acting on her hilarious sitcom, New Girl) because on her HelloGiggles website , she says of herself, "Deschanel writes music, sings and acts on screens, small and big. She is a co-founder of hellogiggles. She is one half of the indie folk band She & Him . She dances, too, but just for fun." No word yet on who will play Mooney "Doolittle" Lynn. Any suggestions?


text: Installing, Configuring and Using Windows Server AppFabric and the "Velocity" Memory Cache in 10 minutes July 1, '10 Comments [39] Posted in AppFabric | ASP.NET Sponsored By A few weeks back I blogged about the Windows Server AppFabric launch (AppFabric is Microsoft's "Application Server") and a number of folks had questions about how to install and configure the "Velocity" memory cache. It used to be kind of confusing during the betas but it's really easy now that it's released. Here's the comment: Have you tried to setup a appfabric (velocity) instance ? I suggest you try & even do a blog post, maybe under the scenario of using it like a memcache for dasblog. I would love to know how to setup it up, it's crazy hard for what it is. No problem, happy to help. I won't do it for dasblog, but I'll give you easy examples that'll take about 10 minutes. Get and Install AppFabric You can go to http://msdn.com/appfabric and download it directly or just do it with the Web Platform Installer. Run the installer and select AppFabric Cache. If you're on Windows 7, you'll want to install the IIS 7 Manager for Remote Administration which is a little plugin that lets you manage remote IIS servers from your Windows 7 machine. NOTE: You can also an automated/unattended installation as well via SETUP /i CACHINGSERVICE to just get caching. The configuration tool will pop up, and walk you through a small wizard. You can setup AppFabric Hosting Services for Monitoring and Workflow Persistence, but since I'm just doing Caching, I'll skip it. The Velocity Caching Service needs to know where to get its configuration and it can get it from one of two places - either a database or an XML file on a share. If you use the XML file on a share, you'll need to make sure the service account has access to the share, etc. I'll use a database. The config wizard can make it for you as well. Click Next then Finish up the configuration. Configuring the Configuration Database... Ok, let's start it up and poke around. Start and Administer your Memory Cluster from PowerShell Now what? Go to the Start Menu and type in Caching. You'll have an item called "Caching Administration Windows PowerShell." This is where you can connect to the cache, check out what's going on, make new caches, etc. Run it as Administrator. If you type "get-command *cache*" you'll see all the different commands available for cache management. I typed start-cachecluster. C:\> Start-CacheCluster HostName : CachePort Service Name Service Status Version Info -------------------- ------------ -------------- ------------ HANSELMAN-W500:22233 AppFabricCachingService UP 1 [1,1][1,1] Cool, it's up and running. If you look in the config database (or the XML file if you chose that) you'll see that I have one machine in my memory cluster. I could have lots and lots, and if I had Windows Server Enterprise I would also have high-availability if one of the nodes went down. I download the AppFabric Caching Samples and opened the CacheSampleWebApp in Visual Studio. Immediately we notice the two new references we don't usually see in a web application, Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Core and .Client. Remember that for security everything is locked down by default, so you'll need to grant access to the cache for whatever user you'll be using to access it. I'm running as "ScottHa" so I'll run Grant-CacheAllowedClientAccount scottha ...and you should do the same for whatever account your IIS is running as. Use Your Memory Cache from ASP.NET Remember that you can chop up your memory caches into logical buckets (partitions) and a memory cluster can serve more than one application, if you wanted. Your cache can be hooked up in the web.config or from code (however you like). Here's a code example helper method where the sample does this manually. This data could come from wherever you like, you just need to tell it a machine to talk to and the portnumber. It'll automatically connect to the Caches can also be partitioned. For example, I'm using a named cache called "default" but I could have multiple logically segmented areas like "shoppingcart" and "productcatalog" if I wanted. using Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching;using System.Collections.Generic;public class CacheUtil{ private static DataCacheFactory _factory = null; private static DataCache _cache = null; public static DataCache GetCache() { if (_cache != null) return _cache; //Define Array for 1 Cache Host List<DataCacheServerEndpoint> servers = new List<DataCacheServerEndpoint>(1); //Specify Cache Host Details // Parameter 1 = host name // Parameter 2 = cache port number servers.Add(new DataCacheServerEndpoint("mymachine", 22233)); //Create cache configuration DataCacheFactoryConfiguration configuration = new DataCacheFactoryConfiguration(); //Set the cache host(s) configuration.Servers = servers; //Set default properties for local cache (local cache disabled) configuration.LocalCacheProperties = new DataCacheLocalCacheProperties(); //Disable tracing to avoid informational/verbose messages on the web page DataCacheClientLogManager.ChangeLogLevel(System.Diagnostics.TraceLevel.Off); //Pass configuration settings to cacheFactory constructor _factory = new DataCacheFactory(configuration); //Get reference to named cache called "default" _cache = _factory.GetCache("default"); return _cache; }} Once your cache is setup, it's trivial to use. m_cache.Add(orderid, order); andOrder order = (Order)m_cache.Get(orderid); or updating an existing object:m_cache.Put(orderid, order); Check your Caching Statistics So after adding a bunch of items to the cache, then requesting a bunch back I can go into PowerShell and see what's going on: C:\> get-cache CacheName [Host] Regions --------- --------------- default [HANSELMAN-W500:22233] Default_Region_0103(Primary) C:\> Get-CacheStatistics default Size : 2493 ItemCount : 5 RegionCount : 5 RequestCount : 17 MissCount : 3 You can use Performance Monitor as there is an imperial buttload of different Performance Counters Available. As I mentioned, you can make different partitions, like "default" or "poopypants" and check the stats on each of those separate, or the cache as a whole: And of course, I can recycle my webserver, start it up again and fetch an order and it's still there. You've effectively got a big, partitionable distributed (and optionally highly available) hashtable across multiple machines. Replacing ASP.NET Session State with AppFabric Caching If you want, in ASP.NET 4 you can also swap out the default in-memory Session State Provider for AppFabric via your web.config. Here's an example web.config.<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?><configuration> <!--configSections must be the FIRST element --> <configSections> <!-- required to read the <dataCacheClient> element --> <section name="dataCacheClient" type="Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCacheClientSection, Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Core, Version=18.104.22.168, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" allowLocation="true" allowDefinition="Everywhere"/> </configSections> <!-- cache client --> <dataCacheClient> <!-- cache host(s) --> <hosts> <host name="CacheServer1" cachePort="22233"/> </hosts> </dataCacheClient> <system.web> <sessionState mode="Custom" customProvider="AppFabricCacheSessionStoreProvider"> <providers> <!-- specify the named cache for session data --> <add name="AppFabricCacheSessionStoreProvider" type="Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCacheSessionStoreProvider" cacheName="poopylands" sharedId="MySharedApp"/> </providers> </sessionState> </system.web></configuration> Resources and Links Here's a recent AppFabric caching slidedeck from Ron Jacobs I found useful. More links below. Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric Slides at SlideShare. As with all things, a little abstraction goes a long way. If you have an existing caching strategy (via EntLib, or whatever) you can almost certainly swap out your internal storage for AppFabric Caching. Related Links AppFabric on MSDN How to: Get started with a Routing Client (XML) How to: Get started with a Routing Client (Code) Administration with PowerShell Configuring an ASP.NET Session State Provider (Windows Server AppFabric Caching) How to Create a Simple Enterprise Library Cache Manager Provider for Velocity AppFabric Caching Forums AppFabric "Velocity" Caching Documentation Windows Server AppFabric 1.0 Windows Server 2003 Distributed Cache Client - while the memory service runs on Windows Server 2008, your existing apps running on Windows Server 2003 can use this cache client to access the Caching Service. Tracing and Caching for Entity Framework available on MSDN Code Gallery « C++ killed my grandpappy - Is C++ hard a... | Blog Home | The Weekly Source Code 54 - Can't have M... » About Scott Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author. About Newsletter Sponsored By Hosting By Comments [39] Share on: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or use the Permalink


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DS-8 Chronometer
Reference: C033.451.22.031.00
Diameter: 40.20 mm
Now it's official – this timeless and elegant timekeeper is obsessed with precision: its exceptional accuracy has earned it a COSC Chronometer certificate. In addition, the simple dial and refined workmanship cut a very fine figure on the wrist.
EUR 495.- Recommended retail price (incl. VAT)
Case: DS Concept Stainless steel 316L PVD coating
Bezel: Stainless steel 316L PVD coating
Glass: Sapphire crystal Antireflection treatment on one side
Dial: Silver Index
Movement: Swiss Made Quartz PrecidriveTM End Of Life Chronometer
Water resistance: Up to a pressure of 10 bar (100m)
Bracelet: Stainless steel 316L PVD coating
Buckle: Stainless steel 316L Butterfly clasp with 2 push-buttons
COSC certification
Exact, more exact – chronometer. A chronometer is a watch whose precision has been officially tested and certified by an independent testing laboratory. This Certina model has been tested by the Contrôle officiel suisse des chronomètres (COSC), the official Swiss testing authority, and awarded the quality certificate.