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As I waited outside the AFL-CIO's closed-door executive council meeting on Tuesday at a hotel near Disney World, I recalled a conversation at another AFL-CIO meeting some 35 years ago. The Democratic Socialist leader of the machinists union, William "Wimpy" Winpisinger, had called for retirement of the AFL-CIO's aging, conservative president, George Meany, saying that labor was in crisis and needed to head in a new direction. I approached the teachers union president, Albert Shanker, known as a feisty Cold War liberal, to get his reaction. Wimpy was too impatient, Shanker said. The labor movement was like a battleship. It takes time to turn it around.
Who knew how long?
That old battleship has taken many direct shells since then from a flotilla of corporate warships, and it has lost about half its crew. It began noticeably turning in a different direction in 1995 when John Sweeney became president, but the AFL-CIO' s innovation slowed in Sweeney's latter years, and disagreements about its direction grew into a schism in 2005. Richard Trumka, Sweeney's fellow officer and successor, has largely followed the established course, with refinements, in his first four-year term. But the captains of the union ship still are trying to figure out which turns, if any, will win this battle. The mood at the meeting, one AFL-CIO top staffer said, was that the future of the labor movement was at risk if they continued "business as usual."
The strategies proposed at the meeting involve re-evaluating and re-framing labor's mission. Trumka and other leaders hope to both draw strength from, and add heft to, the progressive movement. While not entirely novel, the plans would move labor more out of its traditional insularity and into greater solidarity — the original soul of organized labor — not only within labor but also with other progressive groups.
Both Trumka and Communications Workers (CWA) President Larry Cohen, who heads the federation's organizing committee, said on Tuesday that the goal was not just gaining new members or better contracts, important as they may be. Rather, Cohen said, labor would try to "connect the dots" among causes — such as immigrant rights, worker rights, campaign and voting reform — to build a mass movement for a strong democracy at work and in the public arena.
Both Trumka and Cohen emphasized that the AFL-CIO must reflect the labor movement's changing shape, reaching beyond its core of legally recognized unions to new forms of worker representation, like the 3.1 million-member Working America, workers' centers (up from a handful to more than 200 in a few years), the OUR Walmart movement and non-union alliances of workers such as taxi drivers, domestic workers and food service workers.
As a first step, leaders from global unions and various progressive groups will be involved with AFL-CIO and member union leaders in developing a common agenda both before and during the federation's quadrennial convention in September.
"It's about bringing all of our allies together to make them part of the process," Trumka said. "It's not about us saying, 'Here's what we've got to do.' The unprecedented part is this: in the past we looked internally. How do we change us? Now we're looking externally as well — rank-and-file people, students, seniors, academics, asking what do we have to do for all of us to win?"
(Although Trumka did not lay out plans to do so, it would make sense to involve members of the unions directly in this discussion, not solely through elected representatives.)
Trumka also wants to change the federation's internal structures, breaking up the "silos" of separate interests within the labor movement. "The AFL-CIO developed to prevent us from hurting each other, not to help each other," he notes.
But more conventional union politics still trump some of these grand ambitions. As the executive council discussed its role in uniting with other progressive groups, it passed a resolution on energy pipelines, supporting their general utility and the need for better maintenance. Although the resolution did not mention the Keystone XL pipeline from the Canadian tar sands to the U.S. – opposed by most environmental groups and some unions – the building trades regarded the statement as supporting Keystone.
Emphasizing the need for construction jobs and suggesting that environmentalists are more concerned about mining the tar sands than any pipeline itself, Trumka said the resolution would make it possible to endorse the pipeline once there was a concrete proposal. For several years under Sweeney, a group of unions tried to work out common principles with environmentalists on global warming without success, and the BlueGreen Alliance and other labor-environment initiatives persevere. But the pipeline vote Tuesday suggests that there are — and will continue to be — special interests within labor as well as differences between unions and other progressive constituencies. Trumka's plans may generate more mutual understanding and more instances of cooperation, but not likely a unified progressive movement.
The continued decline of union members as a share of the workforce — down three-tenths of a point to 11.3 percent last year — undoubtedly contributed to a new seriousness.Much of organized labor's lost share of the workforce last year reflects heavy layoffs in relatively strong union sectors, especially public and manufacturing workers, that disproportionately hit highly unionized states like Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and New York, according to AFL-CIO chief economist William Spriggs. And in most of those states, unions suffered direct political attacks
"We're cognizant of the state of affairs," AFL-CIO organizing director Elizabeth Bunn said, "but we're not demoralized." While organizing has slowed, Bunn and Cohen said that it certainly has not stopped: CWA has several large campaigns and the United Auto Workers are working with what president Bob King described as a community-led effort for worker rights to a union at a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. And last year, while most unions shrank, four AFL-CIO members — Unite Here, National Nurses Union, AFGE (federal employees) and the International Association of Machinists — added more than 5,000 new workers each.
If labor is to survive, one legislative goal is paramount: removing the huge legal roadblocks to workers exercising their right to organize. Although right-wing Republican control of the House precludes any serious effort at reform of labor laws, the AFL-CIO is working on new version of the Employee Free Choice Act that would go beyond the current focus on union elections. The new proposal would reflect changes in the workplace and economy, Bunn said, such as the increased use of subcontractors and outsourcing. Many employers use these arrangements to evade legal responsibility for workers, making union organizing more difficult.
More immediately, unions are mounting a campaign to pressure Obama to nominate the full complement of five members and one general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the main labor law enforcement agency. In this, too, Republican roadblocks are likely. At the beginning of 2012, Republicans tried to block all NLRB appointments, which would have essentially stopped enforcement of labor law, as the Supreme Court has ruled that NLRB decisions by less than a three-member majority are invalid. Obama circumvented the blockage with two January 2012 recess appointments, but the those appointments — and thus all subsequent NLRB decisions — were invalidated by a D.C. Circuit Court ruling January that is currently being appealed.
Labor unions expect Democrats to use "all options" to force a Senate vote on the nominations. "We will not sit back and watch" as Republicans try to block appointments and render the NLRB ineffective, Cohen said angrily at the meeting, thumping the table. If Democrats don't pull out all stops, like Republicans did in 2005 to push through judicial appointments, he says, "We will mobilize against Senate Democrats like we've never done before."
Trumka argues that the labor movement must not separate politics, organizing and other activities but must incorporate "innovation and growth" into every dimension of its work. The AFL-CIO has reformed its old field services staff now into a campaign staff, shifting from a business union servicing model to more of a movement-building social unionism engagement with union members and allies, for example. And Working America is trying to support organizing more as it expands its already well-proven political track record.
At the same time, Cohen argues, labor's primary focus must be on democratizing America, securing rights for average people at work and in politics, building their power and raising their standards of living. "The story [about the decline of the unionized share of the workforce] is not about the numbers," he said. "It's about rights, rights of the 80 million of 125 million workers who are supposed to be supported by the National Labor Relations Board." The United States has fallen far below other industrial countries in democracy, rights and standards of living, now looking more like Mexico or Colombia.
Without the people, resources and experience with collective action that union members provide, any new democracy movement will be much weaker. But without a new democracy movement, unions may become only a memory.
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David Moberg, a former senior editor of In These Times, was on staff with the magazine from when it began publishing in 1976 until his passing in July 2022. Before joining In These Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. He received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.


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Stupefying AmericaBy Alan Caruba June 1, 2009If you have a suspicion that many of your fellow Americans are too stupid to trust with the great affairs of this nation, you might just be right, but you might not know why. Take a look at the choices television offers. Do you ever wonder why shows featuring stupid people or animated characters are so popular? I cite The Simpsons, Family Guy, Two and a Half Men, My Name is Earl, et al. Why do we enjoy laughing at stupid people? Does it make us feel smarter? Why does the History Channel feature nonsense like Monster Quest? Why is the National Geographic channel filled with apocalyptic programming about Earth after humans disappear or programs devoted to UFOs? A look at the evening's many choices reveals how shallow much of what passes for entertainment or even educational television is. Does the shallowness actually reflect the lives of those watching? The answer is probably yes and they didn't get that way by accident. The education system of America has been deliberately fashioned to create a docile, easily controlled population. And that means YOU. There is a book available that explains why "Every single school day in America, 7,000 students drop out, some confused, some angry, but all are brave...What does it say to us that a million and a quarter young people a year don't want to be in classrooms, and don't want to be there so much they're willing to endure scorn, insult, and constant discrimination as the price of escape?" The book is John Taylor Gatto's "Weapons of Mass Instruction: A School Teacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling." ($24.95, New Society Publishers). Gatto goes on to say, "The rigid stupidities of forced schooling, its linear logics, its bell curves, its buzzers and tests and multiple humiliations, its resort to magical spells, fills me with rage these days as an old man." Today's (and for several generations' yesterdays) schools are factories of boredom. They don't exist to educate, but to produce students who will obey rules, dutifully move from class to class when the bell rings, and accept nonsense like "fuzzy math" and "global warming." The No Child Left Behind Act of 2009 includes $500 million for the teaching of 'Environmental Literacy' when real literacy rates-the ability to read--have been dropping like a stone in water for decades. They are a national disgrace. Why can't our schools teach reading or arithmetic skills when even pre-school toddlers can learn these things if given the opportunity? Why would anyone willingly spend their youth cooped up in classrooms when they could be out in the "real world" learning real skills of their own choosing? Studying subjects of their own choice from open sources of information? And why wouldn't they flee schools where life is dangerous? Since last September, 20 Chicago Public School students have been killed, 18 by gunfire. Last year, 24 of the more than 30 students killed were shot to death. Nationally, homicide is the second leading cause of death for young people ages 10 to 24 in 2004. Elsewhere in the nation bullying is widespread. School in America is too often a very unpleasant experience dominated by boredom. The result of the American educational system is obvious to anyone if they simply observe Congress. Is there a single adult among the 535 members of the House and Senate? Why are we told that they are passing multi-billion dollar pieces of legislation they haven't even read? Why are they permitting enormous debt to be saddled on the back of our own and future generations? Is government exempt from the rules of common sense? The American school system as we know it today was imported from Germany in the 1850s. As America's industrial base boomed in the years following the end of the Civil War, the need was for millions of immigrants to do the often difficult manual work involved in making steel, building railroads, and manufacturing the first automobiles and countless other inventions that burst on the scene. Industrialists, men like Rockefeller and Carnegie, decided that compulsory education was the best way to produce not just a work force, but people conditioned to purchase the bounty, often the over-supply, of new goods. The bible of the compulsory educational system was Benjamin Bloom's two-volume "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives." Gatto describes him as "an academic madman" in whose system "children would be forced to learn 'proper' thoughts, feelings, and actions, while 'improper' attitudes from home were 'remediated.'" In other words, schools were to be laboratories of social change designed to serve business and industry. This has led to schools where students are literally drugged if they show any vitality or curiosity. The more docile are simply on a treadmill, so much human sausage to be processed. Indeed, why should we wonder why drug addiction is such a massive social problem in an America filled with people who were either trained to be cogs in some faceless corporation or told early in life they were failures? Since you no doubt passed through this process, it may in retrospect become more clear why schools as often fail the students entrusted to them, than not. The excuses for this are many, but the most popular is that less privileged students in urban centers are virtually doomed to failure from birth. This is not true. Given the opportunity to learn in charter or parochial schools, they do as well or better. The best of our students today are home-schooled. They win the spelling and geography bees. Some of the nation's great leaders of the past never attended school. They include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. They self-schooled themselves with great success and they did it early in life, often before they reached their teens. In modern times, the secrets of the Human Genome Map were cracked by a surfer-bum named Craig Venter and a born-again Christian home-schooler named Frances Collins. Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines and other ventures dropped out of high school. The examples of those who self-schooled themselves to success are numerous and put the lie to the jails, complete with on-site police, that we call modern schools. Our nation's schools have been failing generations of Americans in earnest, particularly since around the 1960s and, despite no mention in the Constitution, education is now totally controlled by the federal government and by the powerful teachers union, the National Education Association. It is truly no laughing matter when Jay Leno asks simple questions of people in the streets to reveal time and again how little actual knowledge they possess. They are the products of our school system. The United States is falling behind many other nations in educating its citizens. Tellingly, China takes schooling and learning seriously. Its students all learn English, knowing they may be part of their nation's international legion, likely to be the next great world power. While they build coal-fired plants for energy and lock in deals for oil, our government calls coal "dirty" and refuses to permit exploration of our vast offshore continental shelf for oil and natural gas. It takes a special kind of stupidity to deny one's own nation the energy it requires to grow, to force corporations to move overseas, to take control of industries such as banking and automobile manufacturing without having the slightest idea how to run them. It's the stupidity that is the result of a nationwide school system that prolongs childhood while making learning an unpleasant chore. To learn more, read my four part series: http://www.anxietycenter.com/subversion.htm
Alan Caruba is an American public relations counselor and freelance writer who is a frequent critic of environmentalism, Islam and research on global warming. In the late 1970s Caruba founded the PR firm The Caruba Organization, and in 1990, the National Anxiety Center, which identifies itself as "a clearinghouse for information about 'scare campaigns' designed to influence public policy and opinion" on such subjects as global warming, ozone depletion and DDT. |

subset: commoncrawl


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Burke was most heavily influences by what is referred to as the ACE study, a retrospective review that showed a strong connection between adverse childhood experiences(including such parental divorce, abuse and neglect, being raised by a family member with mental illness) and many long term health outcomes. These include chronic medical conditions as emphysema and heart disease illness, substance abuse and other mental illness. She is also influenced by research in neuroendocrinology and behavioral genetics, including work of Michael Meaney and Bruce McEwen.
Burke's idea, drawing on the evidence that adverse experiences affect the brain and body on a molecular level, is to treat early childhood trauma as a medical problem. She describes "multidisciplinary rounds" modeled on treatment of cancer where care is coordinated among surgeons and other specialists. The article states:
At Bayview clinic, having the patient's ACE data, and a theoretical framework for discussion the effects of trauma, has inspired Burke and her colleagues to be more vigilant about abuse and neglect. It also makes them more likely to help children get the social services they need, and better prepared to talk to parents early about the importance of secure attachment.Treatment interventions may include one or more psychological interventions and alternative therapies including yoga and medication. Alicia Lieberman, a leader in the field of infant parent mental health, is collaborating with Burke.
I wonder if Dr. Burke's medical model is successful in part because it allows clinicians to put the emotional component of this very difficult work at a distance. Bruce Perry, a brilliant psychiatrist at the Child Trauma Academy who has written extensively about working with traumatized children, describes very similar interventions. It may be that for clinicians who have not chosen a mental health profession, such as internists and pediatricians, viewing early trauma as a biological problem may be adaptive. It may allow them to do the work without being overwhelmed by feelings that the emotional suffering of their patients may bring up. This form of defense may be particularly important for clinicians who themselves have experienced some kind of early trauma, and for whom their patient's experiences are a bit too close to home. In the mental health professions, there are opportunities to discuss these types of reactions to the work. However, training in medicine and pediatrics rarely offers such opportunities.
In a sense analogous to testing for iron deficiency because of our knowledge about its importance in brain development, primary care clinicians on the front lines with young children and families will need to know about and apply our knowledge of the importance of early relationships on brain development. Dr Burke's clinic is an important step in the right direction. As this model makes its way into medical practice, however, it will be important to find a place for recognizing the emotional piece of the work. Not only will this avoid clinician "burn out" but it will give value to the relationship between clinician and patient. It can be the clinician him or herself who is the most important part of the treatment.


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I've been trying to find a jQuery plugin which creates behavior similar to that of Stack Exchange user searches. The user search used on Stack Exchange sites is not an auto complete, but is more akin to a result filter. Google calls their version of this pattern Google Instant Search, while some tech blogs refer to it as Google Live Search.
Is there a name for this instant filter search pattern?


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Posted 13 years ago
(9 items)
This bike I have had for 9 years. It is in working order and as far as I know is bone stock! I know how old it is but I know knothing about huffy cactus roses. This bike and I go far back. In 2002 my dad and I went to a bike sale. I looked right at this cactus rose and it was love at first sight. I loved the bike so much that the guy who was selling them actualy gave me it for FREE.


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Sol Greenspan
Sol Greenspan came to NSF in 2002 as Program Director for the Software Engineering and Languages Program. In the newly reorganized CISE directorate, he resides in the Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) where his responsibilities include software engineering, programming languages, compilers, high dependability computing (joint program with NASA) and topics in information technology research (ITR). He also coordinates a new, cross-directorate initiative called Science of Design, which is in its formative stages (look for information in early 2004).
Dr. Greenspan came to NSF after many years at GTE Laboratories, where he led research groups/projects and technology transfer efforts to improve software and systems practices and their alignment with business operations. He had previously held positions for several years each at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey and Schlumberger-Doll Research in Connecticut, as well as shorter stints at IBM Research and Softech. He has served on several blue-ribbon panels for research laboratories and government agencies, and has consulted for industry and governments in the U.S., Canada and Europe on requirements engineering, business process re-engineering, and software development methods and tools.
In 2002, Dr. Greenspan consulted in the health care industry while teaching graduate courses in systems and software requirements engineering in both London (UK) and Massachusetts, and he has recently become a Research Affiliate at MIT in the Software Design Group.
Dr. Greenspan has served on the editorial boards, since their inception, of the Automated Software Engineering Journal and the Requirements Engineering Journal, and until recently he served for 10 years on the board of IEEE Communications Magazine. He has served on many program committees and on the Steering Committee for the International Workshop on Software Specification and Design, also the International Conference on Requirements Engineering, which he co-chaired in 2002. For four years, until 2002, he chaired IFIP Working Group 2.9 (Software Requirements Engineering).
Dr. Greenspan received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto for work in the intersection of artificial intelligence and software engineering. His M.S. in Computer Science is from Rutgers University, he has a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan.
- L. Kagal, T. Finin, A. Joshi, and S. Greenspan, "Security and Privacy Challenges in Open and Dynamic Environments", Article, Computer, June 2006, 3031 downloads.


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George Lopez at BEC Tonight, Tickets Available
George Lopez, the multi-talented entertainer whose career encompasses television, film, standup comedy and late-night television, is bringing his 'That's The America I Live In' Tour to the Budwesier Events Center in Loveland on tonight, and prepare to laugh out loud. Tickets will be available at the door.
Tickets, priced at $35, $45 and $60, plus applicable fees, are on sale now at ComcastTIX.com, 877-544-TIXX (8499) and the Budweiser Events Center Box Office.


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The goal for this project was to allow a user to input the name and age of a person, as many times as they want, until they type "quit". After they type quit, the program is to print the name and age of the youngest person, and the oldest person. So far, I have a (probably not good) way for the user to input all the information and it moves to another method when the user types quit. I found a way to get all the ages to sort, but that's where I'm stuck. When I just print the array (which you see in my code) just to check how it sorts, it sorts a like 90 0's, then say 10 numbers in order.
I'm having a pretty hard time explaining this but hopefully someone can understand. Here is my code, now any help would be appreciated.
import java.util.*; public class age { public static void main(String[] args){ Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); int[] personAge = new int[100]; String[] personName = new String[100]; int x = 0; char responseChar; responseChar = 'a'; while(responseChar != 'q'){ System.out.println("Please enter a name: "); personName[x] = keyboard.nextLine(); responseChar = personName[x].charAt(0); if(responseChar == 'q'){ sortAges(personAge); } else{ System.out.println("Please enter their age: "); personAge[x] = keyboard.nextInt(); keyboard.nextLine(); ++x; } } } public static void sortAges(int[] personAge){ int sortAge[] = personAge; Arrays.sort(sortAge); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(sortAge)); } }


text: 1 CPU hotplug Support in Linux(tm) Kernel 2 3 Maintainers: 4 CPU Hotplug Core: 5 Rusty Russell <firstname.lastname@example.com> 6 Srivatsa Vaddagiri <firstname.lastname@example.com> 7 i386: 8 Zwane Mwaikambo <email@example.com> 9 ppc64: 10 Nathan Lynch <email@example.com> 11 Joel Schopp <email@example.com> 12 ia64/x86_64: 13 Ashok Raj <email@example.com> 14 s390: 15 Heiko Carstens <firstname.lastname@example.com> 16 17Authors: Ashok Raj <firstname.lastname@example.com> 18Lots of feedback: Nathan Lynch <firstname.lastname@example.com>, 19 Joel Schopp <email@example.com> 20 21Introduction 22 23Modern advances in system architectures have introduced advanced error 24reporting and correction capabilities in processors. CPU architectures permit 25partitioning support, where compute resources of a single CPU could be made 26available to virtual machine environments. There are couple OEMS that 27support NUMA hardware which are hot pluggable as well, where physical 28node insertion and removal require support for CPU hotplug. 29 30Such advances require CPUs available to a kernel to be removed either for 31provisioning reasons, or for RAS purposes to keep an offending CPU off 32system execution path. Hence the need for CPU hotplug support in the 33Linux kernel. 34 35A more novel use of CPU-hotplug support is its use today in suspend 36resume support for SMP. Dual-core and HT support makes even 37a laptop run SMP kernels which didn't support these methods. SMP support 38for suspend/resume is a work in progress. 39 40General Stuff about CPU Hotplug 41-------------------------------- 42 43Command Line Switches 44--------------------- 45maxcpus=n Restrict boot time cpus to n. Say if you have 4 cpus, using 46 maxcpus=2 will only boot 2. You can choose to bring the 47 other cpus later online, read FAQ's for more info. 48 49additional_cpus=n (*) Use this to limit hotpluggable cpus. This option sets 50 cpu_possible_mask = cpu_present_mask + additional_cpus 51 52cede_offline={"off","on"} Use this option to disable/enable putting offlined 53 processors to an extended H_CEDE state on 54 supported pseries platforms. 55 If nothing is specified, 56 cede_offline is set to "on". 57 58(*) Option valid only for following architectures 59- ia64 60 61ia64 uses the number of disabled local apics in ACPI tables MADT to 62determine the number of potentially hot-pluggable cpus. The implementation 63should only rely on this to count the # of cpus, but *MUST* not rely 64on the apicid values in those tables for disabled apics. In the event 65BIOS doesn't mark such hot-pluggable cpus as disabled entries, one could 66use this parameter "additional_cpus=x" to represent those cpus in the 67cpu_possible_mask. 68 69possible_cpus=n [s390,x86_64] use this to set hotpluggable cpus. 70 This option sets possible_cpus bits in 71 cpu_possible_mask. Thus keeping the numbers of bits set 72 constant even if the machine gets rebooted. 73 74CPU maps and such 75----------------- 76[More on cpumaps and primitive to manipulate, please check 77include/linux/cpumask.h that has more descriptive text.] 78 79cpu_possible_mask: Bitmap of possible CPUs that can ever be available in the 80system. This is used to allocate some boot time memory for per_cpu variables 81that aren't designed to grow/shrink as CPUs are made available or removed. 82Once set during boot time discovery phase, the map is static, i.e no bits 83are added or removed anytime. Trimming it accurately for your system needs 84upfront can save some boot time memory. See below for how we use heuristics 85in x86_64 case to keep this under check. 86 87cpu_online_mask: Bitmap of all CPUs currently online. Its set in __cpu_up() 88after a cpu is available for kernel scheduling and ready to receive 89interrupts from devices. Its cleared when a cpu is brought down using 90__cpu_disable(), before which all OS services including interrupts are 91migrated to another target CPU. 92 93cpu_present_mask: Bitmap of CPUs currently present in the system. Not all 94of them may be online. When physical hotplug is processed by the relevant 95subsystem (e.g ACPI) can change and new bit either be added or removed 96from the map depending on the event is hot-add/hot-remove. There are currently 97no locking rules as of now. Typical usage is to init topology during boot, 98at which time hotplug is disabled. 99 100You really dont need to manipulate any of the system cpu maps. They should 101be read-only for most use. When setting up per-cpu resources almost always use 102cpu_possible_mask/for_each_possible_cpu() to iterate. 103 104Never use anything other than cpumask_t to represent bitmap of CPUs. 105 106 #include <linux/cpumask.h> 107 108 for_each_possible_cpu - Iterate over cpu_possible_mask 109 for_each_online_cpu - Iterate over cpu_online_mask 110 for_each_present_cpu - Iterate over cpu_present_mask 111 for_each_cpu_mask(x,mask) - Iterate over some random collection of cpu mask. 112 113 #include <linux/cpu.h> 114 get_online_cpus() and put_online_cpus(): 115 116The above calls are used to inhibit cpu hotplug operations. While the 117cpu_hotplug.refcount is non zero, the cpu_online_mask will not change. 118If you merely need to avoid cpus going away, you could also use 119preempt_disable() and preempt_enable() for those sections. 120Just remember the critical section cannot call any 121function that can sleep or schedule this process away. The preempt_disable() 122will work as long as stop_machine_run() is used to take a cpu down. 123 124CPU Hotplug - Frequently Asked Questions. 125 126Q: How to enable my kernel to support CPU hotplug? 127A: When doing make defconfig, Enable CPU hotplug support 128 129 "Processor type and Features" -> Support for Hotpluggable CPUs 130 131Make sure that you have CONFIG_HOTPLUG, and CONFIG_SMP turned on as well. 132 133You would need to enable CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU for SMP suspend/resume support 134as well. 135 136Q: What architectures support CPU hotplug? 137A: As of 2.6.14, the following architectures support CPU hotplug. 138 139i386 (Intel), ppc, ppc64, parisc, s390, ia64 and x86_64 140 141Q: How to test if hotplug is supported on the newly built kernel? 142A: You should now notice an entry in sysfs. 143 144Check if sysfs is mounted, using the "mount" command. You should notice 145an entry as shown below in the output. 146 147 .... 148 none on /sys type sysfs (rw) 149 .... 150 151If this is not mounted, do the following. 152 153 #mkdir /sysfs 154 #mount -t sysfs sys /sys 155 156Now you should see entries for all present cpu, the following is an example 157in a 8-way system. 158 159 #pwd 160 #/sys/devices/system/cpu 161 #ls -l 162 total 0 163 drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 . 164 drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 0 Sep 19 07:45 .. 165 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 cpu0 166 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 cpu1 167 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 cpu2 168 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 cpu3 169 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 cpu4 170 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 cpu5 171 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:44 cpu6 172 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Sep 19 07:48 cpu7 173 174Under each directory you would find an "online" file which is the control 175file to logically online/offline a processor. 176 177Q: Does hot-add/hot-remove refer to physical add/remove of cpus? 178A: The usage of hot-add/remove may not be very consistently used in the code. 179CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU enables logical online/offline capability in the kernel. 180To support physical addition/removal, one would need some BIOS hooks and 181the platform should have something like an attention button in PCI hotplug. 182CONFIG_ACPI_HOTPLUG_CPU enables ACPI support for physical add/remove of CPUs. 183 184Q: How do i logically offline a CPU? 185A: Do the following. 186 187 #echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/online 188 189Once the logical offline is successful, check 190 191 #cat /proc/interrupts 192 193You should now not see the CPU that you removed. Also online file will report 194the state as 0 when a cpu if offline and 1 when its online. 195 196 #To display the current cpu state. 197 #cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/online 198 199Q: Why can't i remove CPU0 on some systems? 200A: Some architectures may have some special dependency on a certain CPU. 201 202For e.g in IA64 platforms we have ability to sent platform interrupts to the 203OS. a.k.a Corrected Platform Error Interrupts (CPEI). In current ACPI 204specifications, we didn't have a way to change the target CPU. Hence if the 205current ACPI version doesn't support such re-direction, we disable that CPU 206by making it not-removable. 207 208In such cases you will also notice that the online file is missing under cpu0. 209 210Q: Is CPU0 removable on X86? 211A: Yes. If kernel is compiled with CONFIG_BOOTPARAM_HOTPLUG_CPU0=y, CPU0 is 212removable by default. Otherwise, CPU0 is also removable by kernel option 213cpu0_hotplug. 214 215But some features depend on CPU0. Two known dependencies are: 216 2171. Resume from hibernate/suspend depends on CPU0. Hibernate/suspend will fail if 218CPU0 is offline and you need to online CPU0 before hibernate/suspend can 219continue. 2202. PIC interrupts also depend on CPU0. CPU0 can't be removed if a PIC interrupt 221is detected. 222 223It's said poweroff/reboot may depend on CPU0 on some machines although I haven't 224seen any poweroff/reboot failure so far after CPU0 is offline on a few tested 225machines. 226 227Please let me know if you know or see any other dependencies of CPU0. 228 229If the dependencies are under your control, you can turn on CPU0 hotplug feature 230either by CONFIG_BOOTPARAM_HOTPLUG_CPU0 or by kernel parameter cpu0_hotplug. 231 232--Fenghua Yu <email@example.com> 233 234Q: How do i find out if a particular CPU is not removable? 235A: Depending on the implementation, some architectures may show this by the 236absence of the "online" file. This is done if it can be determined ahead of 237time that this CPU cannot be removed. 238 239In some situations, this can be a run time check, i.e if you try to remove the 240last CPU, this will not be permitted. You can find such failures by 241investigating the return value of the "echo" command. 242 243Q: What happens when a CPU is being logically offlined? 244A: The following happen, listed in no particular order :-) 245 246- A notification is sent to in-kernel registered modules by sending an event 247 CPU_DOWN_PREPARE or CPU_DOWN_PREPARE_FROZEN, depending on whether or not the 248 CPU is being offlined while tasks are frozen due to a suspend operation in 249 progress 250- All processes are migrated away from this outgoing CPU to new CPUs. 251 The new CPU is chosen from each process' current cpuset, which may be 252 a subset of all online CPUs. 253- All interrupts targeted to this CPU is migrated to a new CPU 254- timers/bottom half/task lets are also migrated to a new CPU 255- Once all services are migrated, kernel calls an arch specific routine 256 __cpu_disable() to perform arch specific cleanup. 257- Once this is successful, an event for successful cleanup is sent by an event 258 CPU_DEAD (or CPU_DEAD_FROZEN if tasks are frozen due to a suspend while the 259 CPU is being offlined). 260 261 "It is expected that each service cleans up when the CPU_DOWN_PREPARE 262 notifier is called, when CPU_DEAD is called its expected there is nothing 263 running on behalf of this CPU that was offlined" 264 265Q: If i have some kernel code that needs to be aware of CPU arrival and 266 departure, how to i arrange for proper notification? 267A: This is what you would need in your kernel code to receive notifications. 268 269 #include <linux/cpu.h> 270 static int __cpuinit foobar_cpu_callback(struct notifier_block *nfb, 271 unsigned long action, void *hcpu) 272 { 273 unsigned int cpu = (unsigned long)hcpu; 274 275 switch (action) { 276 case CPU_ONLINE: 277 case CPU_ONLINE_FROZEN: 278 foobar_online_action(cpu); 279 break; 280 case CPU_DEAD: 281 case CPU_DEAD_FROZEN: 282 foobar_dead_action(cpu); 283 break; 284 } 285 return NOTIFY_OK; 286 } 287 288 static struct notifier_block __cpuinitdata foobar_cpu_notifer = 289 { 290 .notifier_call = foobar_cpu_callback, 291 }; 292 293You need to call register_cpu_notifier() from your init function. 294Init functions could be of two types: 2951. early init (init function called when only the boot processor is online). 2962. late init (init function called _after_ all the CPUs are online). 297 298For the first case, you should add the following to your init function 299 300 register_cpu_notifier(&foobar_cpu_notifier); 301 302For the second case, you should add the following to your init function 303 304 register_hotcpu_notifier(&foobar_cpu_notifier); 305 306You can fail PREPARE notifiers if something doesn't work to prepare resources. 307This will stop the activity and send a following CANCELED event back. 308 309CPU_DEAD should not be failed, its just a goodness indication, but bad 310things will happen if a notifier in path sent a BAD notify code. 311 312Q: I don't see my action being called for all CPUs already up and running? 313A: Yes, CPU notifiers are called only when new CPUs are on-lined or offlined. 314 If you need to perform some action for each cpu already in the system, then 315 316 for_each_online_cpu(i) { 317 foobar_cpu_callback(&foobar_cpu_notifier, CPU_UP_PREPARE, i); 318 foobar_cpu_callback(&foobar_cpu_notifier, CPU_ONLINE, i); 319 } 320 321Q: If i would like to develop cpu hotplug support for a new architecture, 322 what do i need at a minimum? 323A: The following are what is required for CPU hotplug infrastructure to work 324 correctly. 325 326 - Make sure you have an entry in Kconfig to enable CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU 327 - __cpu_up() - Arch interface to bring up a CPU 328 - __cpu_disable() - Arch interface to shutdown a CPU, no more interrupts 329 can be handled by the kernel after the routine 330 returns. Including local APIC timers etc are 331 shutdown. 332 - __cpu_die() - This actually supposed to ensure death of the CPU. 333 Actually look at some example code in other arch 334 that implement CPU hotplug. The processor is taken 335 down from the idle() loop for that specific 336 architecture. __cpu_die() typically waits for some 337 per_cpu state to be set, to ensure the processor 338 dead routine is called to be sure positively. 339 340Q: I need to ensure that a particular cpu is not removed when there is some 341 work specific to this cpu is in progress. 342A: There are two ways. If your code can be run in interrupt context, use 343 smp_call_function_single(), otherwise use work_on_cpu(). Note that 344 work_on_cpu() is slow, and can fail due to out of memory: 345 346 int my_func_on_cpu(int cpu) 347 { 348 int err; 349 get_online_cpus(); 350 if (!cpu_online(cpu)) 351 err = -EINVAL; 352 else 353#if NEEDS_BLOCKING 354 err = work_on_cpu(cpu, __my_func_on_cpu, NULL); 355#else 356 smp_call_function_single(cpu, __my_func_on_cpu, &err, 357 true); 358#endif 359 put_online_cpus(); 360 return err; 361 } 362 363Q: How do we determine how many CPUs are available for hotplug. 364A: There is no clear spec defined way from ACPI that can give us that 365 information today. Based on some input from Natalie of Unisys, 366 that the ACPI MADT (Multiple APIC Description Tables) marks those possible 367 CPUs in a system with disabled status. 368 369 Andi implemented some simple heuristics that count the number of disabled 370 CPUs in MADT as hotpluggable CPUS. In the case there are no disabled CPUS 371 we assume 1/2 the number of CPUs currently present can be hotplugged. 372 373 Caveat: Today's ACPI MADT can only provide 256 entries since the apicid field 374 in MADT is only 8 bits. 375 376User Space Notification 377 378Hotplug support for devices is common in Linux today. Its being used today to 379support automatic configuration of network, usb and pci devices. A hotplug 380event can be used to invoke an agent script to perform the configuration task. 381 382You can add /etc/hotplug/cpu.agent to handle hotplug notification user space 383scripts. 384 385 #!/bin/bash 386 # $Id: cpu.agent 387 # Kernel hotplug params include: 388 #ACTION=%s [online or offline] 389 #DEVPATH=%s 390 # 391 cd /etc/hotplug 392 . ./hotplug.functions 393 394 case $ACTION in 395 online) 396 echo `date` ":cpu.agent" add cpu >> /tmp/hotplug.txt 397 ;; 398 offline) 399 echo `date` ":cpu.agent" remove cpu >>/tmp/hotplug.txt 400 ;; 401 *) 402 debug_mesg CPU $ACTION event not supported 403 exit 1 404 ;; 405 esac 406


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Daylight Saving 2013: On the Grid, But Not Off the Hook
March 10 is the beginning of daylight saving time for 2013.
March 8, 2013— -- Never mind the snowy weather across the country -- it's time to spring forward this weekend, believe it or not. Daylight saving time begins Sunday at 2 a.m. local time in all but a few parts of the U.S.
The bad news: You will still lose an hour this Sunday morning.
The good news: With each passing year, there is less and less need to worry about that "don't forget to move your clocks forward an hour" part.
With more and more people using radio clocks (sometimes inaccurately called atomic clocks), clocks on mobile phones and clocks on any other online device like a cable box or computer, switching to and from daylight saving time has become less of a chore.
For those who still have off-the-grid clocks, there are plenty of mobile phone and tablet apps that will kindly remind you to spring forward or fall back when the time comes. The iOS app SpringAhead from IDEA.org even provides some fun facts and info about which parts of the world make the time change.
Although it's probably news to most U.S. east coasters, there are actually some parts of the country that don't observe daylight saving time. Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas do not participate, according to Weather.com.
But, no matter which way your clocks are adjusted, moving into daylight saving time means a loss of sleep for many.
Dr. Raghu Upender, medical director of the Vanderbilt Sleep Disorders Center, told ABC News that it's best to try to stick to your normal weekday sleep schedule during the "spring forward" weekend.
"People tend to delay their sleep during the weekend and tend to go into Monday with less sleep. This can be exaggerated on the Monday following the change to daylight saving time," Upender said.
For those who have traditionally struggled with the jump into daylight saving, Upender suggests going to bed a bit sooner, beginning several days prior to the time change. Calling it a night 15 minutes earlier the first day, and then an additional 15 minutes earlier for each successive night up until the Saturday before the time change can help make up for the jump ahead in time, according to Upender.
But why all this trouble anyhow? The idea of saving daylight time can be traced back to the 18th century.
"Ben Franklin is generally considered the person who came up with the concept of waking up earlier for making better use of the sun," David Prerau, author of "Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Study of Daylight Saving Time," told ABC News.
Although Franklin had several ideas about how to get people to wake up earlier (firing cannons in quiet neighborhoods is Prerau's favorite), he never considered adjusting clocks. Vernon Hudson and William Willett were among the first to suggest the idea of actually changing the time of day, though neither had success in having the idea adopted by their countries of residence, Hudson in New Zealand or Willard in Britain, Prerau said.
It wasn't until World War I that nations around the globe began to use daylight saving time. "As soon as the Germans decided to put in daylight saving time, the British implemented it three weeks later," Prerau said.
The U.S. first officially passed daylight saving time with the Standard Time Act in 1918. Since then, daylight saving has been repealed, reinstated for World War II, and finally etched firmly into a comprehensive law with with the Uniform Time Act in 1966. Each state can decide whether or not to participate, but those that do must conform to the nationally directed timeframes.
Since 2007, daylight saving time in the U.S. has run from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November.


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The Panhandle has been my home for most of my life and the older I get, the more fun I have looking at – and photographing – it in an "up close and personal" manner.
There is great fun in "really seeing" something for the first time and being surprised by just how beautiful it is.
-Beth Switzer
The slideshow above was photographed by Beth at Alligator Point, not too far from where David Kimbro is studying oyster reefs, and many of the photos are of salt marshes, such as those studied by Randall Hughes. So I knew when I saw them that they would be a great fit for this site.
You may know Beth Switzer as Executive Director and on camera personality at The Florida Channel, and before that on WFSU-TV. I was surprised, after years of watching and occasionally working with her, to discover that she liked to photograph nature. What's not surprising is that she has forged a connection with the natural splendor of our area. Those of us working in broadcasting in the panhandle end up seeing a lot of the area, and meeting a lot of the people. It's impossible to work in TV here and not love it here.
We're two months into "In the Grass, On the Reef," and so far the winds have been kind to Randall and David's sites in St. Joseph Bay an Alligator Harbor. When Deepwater Horizon exploded, we stepped up production on the project thinking that oil would arrive at any moment, and that we should get as much footage as we could before it hit. Now, the more I go to these places, the less I think about oil while I'm there. I hear about it on the radio as I'm driving to and from the shoots, but then I'm walking in water, planting my tripod in mud to get a steady shot of a periwinkle climbing a blade of cordgrass, or trying to see through my lens a stone crab that looks only slightly different than the oysters surrounding it. In those moments, it just doesn't feel like it will happen. I know it will most likely happen, but it never feels like it will.
One of the pleasant developments of doing this has been having artist features like the one above. So far we have had photographers and musicians, and we are talking to some writers as well. We want to hear from artists in any medium who depict or are inspired by the coastal habitats of the Forgotten Coast. Photographers, painters, musicians, writers: share your art with us! You can e-mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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If you're like me, you love photos of your friends and family around you.
If you're like my husband, you complain that you can't move around the house for fear of knocking over row after row of framed photos like so many dominoes.
Compromise! Practicality wins out, except during the month of December.
I bring out a TON of framed photos at Christmas time and incorporate them into our holiday decor.
This is so easy. I even store the photos in their frames. I just toss them in a bin with other holiday items.
…then unpack them at the start of each new season, where they receive a new coat of paint. Since I change my Christmas color palette each year, my frames need to keep up… so I just keep spray painting them. Over, and over, and over…
Pop those photos right out of the frames, take the frames to your Scary Spray Paint Area and paint them in the colors you're using for Christmas. (This year it'll be these colors for me!)
When dry, pop the photos back into the frames and start tucking them around the house.
I put them on shelves, in window sills, in the bathroom, on the mantel… I have even shoved a couple of the smaller ones in the tree! It is so much fun to see them each year.
We have the framed photos, but also precious pieces of art work and favorite cards.
I love this photo of Grant. He and my mom had made this gingerbread train together, and she was trying so hard to get him to pose next to it, but he was so enamored of his creation that he couldn't take his eyes off of it. Priceless!
It's really not much fuss to take cheap frames and just keep painting them. It keeps your Christmas photos neatly stored in bins each year, and each time you unpack them, it's like a little gift just to see them and smile.
Do you decorate with photos?
Click here to see the Halloween photo garland that I made. You could easily make one for Christmas.


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41st International Conference on Current Trends
in Theory and Practice of Computer Science
January 24–29, 2015
Pec pod Sněžkou, Czech Republic
SOFSEM 2015 is over.
We are looking forward to meeting you at the next SOFSEM.
SOFSEM (SOFtware SEMinar) is the annual international winter conference devoted to the theory and practice of computer science. Its aim is to present the latest developments in research for professionals from academia and industry, working in leading areas of computer science. The very first SOFSEM was organized already in 1974. Since 1995 the proceedings containing the invited and contributed papers are regulary published in the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science by Springer Verlag.
The SOFSEM program consists of Invited Talks by prominent researchers, Contributed Talks selected by the Program Committee from submitted papers, Poster Session and the Student Research Forum. SOFSEM is organized in plenary and parallel tracks, giving a unique opportunity to obtain an excellent overview of the selected research areas. All tracks are devoted to original research and leading developments.
Software is the central theme of the SOFSEM conference. This means that next to the traditional strong and popular track on Foundations of Computer Science there are tracks focussed at the production process, the application areas and the social role of Software. These three tracks which represent the How, What and Why issues around software as an ingredient of human civilization whose role is becoming ever more important, are focussed on annually chosen themes. For the 2015 edition these themes are: Software & Web Engineering, Data, Information and Knowledge Engineering, and Cryptography, Securtity, and Verification.
SOFSEM is the ideal conference for discussions, for establishing personal contacts with colleagues, and for exchanging ideas. At SOFSEM 2015 participants and lectures will be accommodated in the Hotel Horizont ****, Pec pod Sněžkou – an attractive winter resort town. SOFSEM is well-known for its familiar and inspiring atmosphere and is especially suited for young computer scientists.
See you at SOFSEM 2015!
Giuseppe F. Italiano (PC Chair)
& Martin Řimnáč (Organizing Chair)


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He burst through the back door of the Dunkin' Donuts shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday with a black hoodie pulled tight over his face and a gun in his hand. He ordered the employees to get down on the ground, robbed the register and a cash box, and then disappeared into the night.
The bad guy was gone in seconds, leaving behind frightened employees and lingering questions: Who is robbing all the Dunkin' Donuts, and is there a reason that the Canton-based coffee giant, one of New England's best known brands, is the target?
Since March, there have been at least 19 robberies of Dunkin' Donuts locations in Massachusetts, the latest at a store on Needham Street in Newton, also robbed in July.
Others have occurred in Westwood, West Roxbury, Walpole, Canton, Norton, Avon, Newton, North Attleborough, Plainville, Norwood, Easton, and Raynham, according to a list provided by Dunkin' Donuts. There was also a similar robbery at a Dunkin' Donuts in Nashua in September.
"It's easy to look at them and say they're all related, but the truth is that it could be an individual, a copy cat, or a group of people working together," said Newton police Lieutenant Bruce Apotheker. "But the person has managed to get away so far, so until we catch them and question them, there's no way to know why anybody does anything."
Police in 13 municipalities are now involved in investigations. Dunkin' Donuts has upped a reward for information leading to an arrest from $2,500 to $10,000.
The robberies have some Dunkin' workers and customers a bit on edge. And wondering.
In Newton Thursday, customers leaving the Needham Street location that had been hit the night before were confused as to why someone was picking on their beloved Dunkies.
"Dunkin' is a big thing in Boston," said Rachel Block of Mission Hill. "I don't like it. It's as if somebody were to talk bad about the Red Sox."
Others speculated that Dunkin' represented an easy target, with cash on hand and light security.
"Everyone runs on Dunkin', right?" Ali Gualtieri of Brookline said as she left the store with her coffee.
Police reports on the holdups follow a similar pattern, both in the suspect's description and his method. Witnesses have described the suspect as about 5 feet 6 inches tall, dressed in dark clothing, with a slim or medium build. The suspect is usually described as a white or Hispanic male, though his face is obscured by a mask or a hoodie.
In every case, the suspect has brandished a gun or a knife, and he has frequently worn gloves. All the robberies have occurred at night on a weekday, and all but one have occurred between 7 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.
No one has been harmed in the robberies, and the suspect flees on foot and disappears, police said. Authorities would not disclose how much money has been taken.
So far, investigators are reluctant to declare a connection between the 19 robberies, but Boston police have said that a string of five robberies at three Dunkin' locations in West Roxbury between March and September are related.
In surveillance footage released from a July heist in West Roxbury, the suspect enters through a side door, orders employees to the ground, makes his way to the cash register at the drive-through window, quickly hits a few buttons on the register to make it open, then stuffs the cash in his pocket and dives out the drive-through window. The entire clip lasts 29 seconds.
Nashua police Lieutenant Denis Linehan said it is difficult to explain why the coffee shop chain has been targeted so aggressively but said the proximity of the shops to highways or other quick means of escape could be a possible reason. Six of the locations that have been hit are either on or near a major thoroughfare.
He also raised the possibility the suspect could be a former employee who knows company security procedures and staffing levels at that time of night.
"We had a series of Subway robberies," Linehan said, referring to the chain of sandwich shops. "In that case, it happened to be a former employee who knew the ins and outs."
Dunkin' Donuts released a statement saying that its restaurants are owned and operated by individual franchisees who are responsible for making their own decisions with regard to security procedures. Newton police were alerted to the latest robbery via a panic button.
At Upper Falls Liquors, next door to the Dunkin' Donuts, manager Mike O'Connell said police had checked the store's surveillance cameras and come up empty, but told him it was probably an inside job. "They said it seemed like he knew exactly where to go, where to turn," O'Connell said.
That was the surmise of Jim Anderson of Wellesley, who was leaving the Needham Street location Thursday afternoon. "This sounds like an inside job for this guy, the Dunkin' Bandit, the Coffee Crook, whatever you want to call him," Anderson said. "All I can say is that if I'm a Dunkin' employee, I'm looking over my shoulder."
This is not the first time that local Dunkin' Donuts have been the target of a series of robberies. In 2011, Canton police arrested two brothers, charging them with more than 30 break-ins at Dunkin' Donuts locations while the stores were closed.
Billy Baker can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @billy_baker.
Jasper Craven can be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jasper_Craven


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Heinz Continues 'Talking Label' Campaign With Celebrities
Continuing its long-running "Talking Label" campaign, Heinz has enlisted the "voices" of soccer star Mia Hamm, actor William Shatner, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw and actress Lindsay Lohan. The quotes will appear on limited edition bottles currently in stores. Mia Hamm's label will read, "Worthy of Gold." Shatner's will read "Fixes Burgers at Warp Speed." Bradshaw's will read "Served at the Immaculate Reception" and Lohan's will read "Burger-licious" which is fair comment on her current celebu-pop, "breast of the month" status. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to each celbrity's charity of choice.


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4 Bonjour's Parties 4 Bonjour's Parties is a sprawling band from Tokyo, Japan whose sound is much bigger than their seven members. Signed to And Records after opening for Clue To Kalo, the band was subsequently licensed to Mush where they add an entirely new dimension to the roster. If instrumentation is cash, 4 Bonjour's Parties spares no expense, favoring cavalcades of luxuriant sound that features everything from traditional rock instrumentation to wind instruments, glockenspiel, accordion, and a sprinkling of samplers and synthesizers. With a dynamic live show and increased studio acumen, these dreamy musicians are developing a unique and noteworthy voice. |
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29 Mar 2004 White Men Are Americans, Too
Earlier in February, I really appreciated an item in the Everything I Know Is Wrong blog about an apparent double standard for scandals: a leftist can say or do things a rightist can't. I meant to link to it but didn't get to it.
Now that same essay has been updated to cover Rep. Corrine Brown's comments in an official government meeting about all white men look alike (and how the Bush Adninistration's position on Haiti is racist). I agree with Sean's post. Brown should resign. She clearly cannot objectively represent those Americans who were not born with her favored hue.
However, as few Congressmen actually resign from their positions because of incompetence, especially those who ought to, she won't. She probably thinks it is racist of her critics to want a color-blind government.
I do not understand, however, why Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega said he "deeply resent[s]" being "branded a white man." Maybe I have seen the quote out of context. Maybe he resents being branded at all. But if he doesn't like white men, either, he, too, should go.


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Taste-of-the-Derby Burgoo Burgers with Spicy Lime Louisville Mayo and Tangy-Hot Bourbon Jicama Slaw
Burgoo is a spicy stew made from meats and vegetables. Burgoo is the celebrated stew which is served in Louisville, Kentucky on derby day. And what better way to pay tribute to this famous Derby Burgoo by turning it into a juicy burger! The Kentucky Derby is a Grade 1 Stakes race for thoroughbred horses. The derby is known in the United States as The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports, and my Taste-Of-The-Derby Burgoo Burgers will be known as The most delicious burgers in the Build a Better Burger history!
Immerse yourself in these Kentucky Derby inspired pork Burgers that are packed with sweet, spicy, smoky, saucy flavors- a combination that will create a Kentucky Derby Party in your mouth!
Spicy Lime Louisville Mayo:
1 cup mayonnaise with olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons Spicy Brown Mustard
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoon Tabasco Sweet and Spicy Pepper Sauce
2 teaspoons Kentucky Bourbon Hot Sauce (prefer Jim Beam)
2 pounds fresh ground pork
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Kentucky Bourbon Hot Sauce (prefer Jim Beam)
1 tablespoon Tabasco Sweet and Spicy Pepper Sauce
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Ground Black Pepper Blend (prefer McCormick)
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
Tangy-Hot Bourbon Jicama Slaw
2 1/2 cups thinly shredded Napa Cabbage
1/2 cup thinly shredded red cabbage
1/2 cup Vidalia onion, finely sliced
1 cup jicama, julienned
1/2 cup very thinly sliced red bell pepper
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 teaspoons Kentucky Bourbon Hot Sauce
3 tablespoons Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Other ingredients:
3 tablespoons vegetable oil for brushing on grill
2/3 cup Spicy Bourbon Barbecue Sauce (prefer Jim Beam)
6 high quality hamburger buns, split
6 tablespoons salted butter, softened
12 Bibb lettuce leaves
To make the mayo, combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and mix together. Cover and refrigerate until assembling the burgers.
To make the patties, combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix together well while handling the meat as little as possible; this prevents it from becoming too dense. Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions and form into patties leaving a slight indention in the center of patties; this allows the final product to be more equal in thickness when finished. Set aside until grilling.
To make the slaw, In a large bowl combine cabbages, onion, jicama, and red bell pepper. Preheat a gas grill to medium-high heat. Place a medium fireproof saucepan on gas grill over medium-high heat, bring vinegar, sugar, spicy brown mustard, orange juice, maple syrup, and Kentucky Bourbon Hot Sauce to a boil, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and whisk in extra virgin olive oil. Pour over cabbage-jicama mixture and toss to coat. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes before serving.
Heat the grill to medium-high. When the grill is ready, with a paper towel, rub the grill rack with vegetable oil to prevent sticking. Place the patties on the rack and cook until pork is fully cooked, about 6-8 minutes per side. During the last few minutes of cooking, baste the patties equally with the Spicy Bourbon Barbecue Sauce. Spread the cut side of each bun half with 1/2 tablespoon butter and grill 1 to 2 minutes, until golden brown.
To assemble burgers: Spread the cut sides of the buns with equal portions of the mayo. On each bun bottom, top with two Bibb lettuce leaves and a pork patty. Using a slotted spoon, drain equal amounts of slaw and put it on top of the pork patties. Add the bun tops and enjoy! Serves: 6, prep time: 2 hours, grilling time: 15 minutes


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It's Logical! Tickets Now on Sale for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in Boston
People say that you always have to tell the truth, so we are: Tickets are now on sale for the national tour of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in Boston. The touring production of Simon Stephens' Tony Award-winning drama will play the Boston Opera House from March 7 through March 19, 2017.
Directed by Tony Award winner Marianne Elliott and based on the novel by Mark Haddon, Curious Incident follows Christopher—a fifteen-year-old who is exceptionally intelligent but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. When he falls under suspicion for killing his neighbor's dog, he sets out to identify the true culprit, which leads to an earth-shattering discovery and a journey that will change his life forever.
The cast of Curious Incident includes Adam Langdon as Christopher, Gene Gillette as Ed, Felicity Jones Latta as Judy, Maria Elena Ramirez as Siobhan and Amelia White as Mrs. Alexander.
The Broadway production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time took home five 2015 Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Direction of a Play for Marianne Elliott.


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Recent studies suggest that carbohydrate restriction can improve the training-induced adaptation of muscle oxidative capacity. However, the importance of low muscle glycogen on the molecular signaling of mitochondrial biogenesis remains unclear. Here, we compare the effects of exercise with low (LG) and normal (NG) glycogen on different molecular factors involved in the regulation of mitochondrial biogenesis. Ten highly trained cyclists (VO(2max) 65 ± 1 ml/kg/min, W (max) 387 ± 8 W) exercised for 60 min at approximately 64 % VO(2max) with either low [166 ± 21 mmol/kg dry weight (dw)] or normal (478 ± 33 mmol/kg dw) muscle glycogen levels achieved by prior exercise/diet intervention. Muscle biopsies were taken before, and 3 h after, exercise. The mRNA of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1 was enhanced to a greater extent when exercise was performed with low compared with normal glycogen levels (8.1-fold vs. 2.5-fold increase). Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I and pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase isozyme 4 mRNA were increased after LG (1.3- and 114-fold increase, respectively), but not after NG. Phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases and acetyl-CoA carboxylase was not changed 3 h post-exercise. Mitochondrial reactive oxygen species production and glutathione oxidative status tended to be reduced 3 h post-exercise. We conclude that exercise with low glycogen levels amplifies the expression of the major genetic marker for mitochondrial biogenesis in highly trained cyclists. The results suggest that low glycogen exercise may be beneficial for improving muscle oxidative capacity.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Fasted Training? Exercise with low glycogen to be a better fuel burner
This is a very interesting one! Exercise in a depleted state seems to look like it could lead to more mitochondria in the muscle and therefore more capacity to burn fuel and create energy and movement..... So one up for fasted training?
5 comments:
- ProudDaddy said...
Not having the full text, is there some reason they couldn't measure actual mitochondrial biogenesis?
- October 12, 2012 at 2:06 PM
- Chris said...
I don't know. I wonder if anyone has the full text?
- October 12, 2012 at 2:08 PM
- Purposelessness said...
Dr Andro already wrote about it!
http://suppversity.blogspot.co.at/2012/10/8x-increase-in-mitochondria-building.html - October 13, 2012 at 2:31 AM
- ProudDaddy said...
Yeah, the good professor did note that whether mitochondrial biogenesis is actually increased was left unknown, but he didn't address the reasons why. I'm sure it must be more complicated than looking at cells with a microscope.
- October 13, 2012 at 7:03 AM
- Chris said...
Prof Dr andro is amazing. His blog is the best out there.
- October 13, 2012 at 10:21 AM
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Immigration remains one of the most contentious debates. The US Senate in June passed a sweeping immigration bill, but it has stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
The outcome of this standoff has implications for Massachusetts, where immigration plays a vital role in the economy. Immigration accounts for much of the state's population growth; foreign-born residents make up 15 percent of the state's population, compared to 13 percent nationally.
Immigrants have become increasingly important to the workforces of Massachusetts industries, from technology to tourism. They are expected to play even larger roles in coming years as the aging, native-born population leaves the labor force.
Immigrants are likely to be poorer, receiving public assistance at a slightly higher rate than native-born residents, according to the The Immigrant Learning Center Inc. in Malden. But immigrants also show higher rates of state income tax payments, workforce participation, and entrepreneurship. Here are three of their stories.
Joel Joseph
Joel Joseph is still finding his way in the United States.
In the nine months since he moved to Malden from Haiti, Joseph has found a job at McDonald's, enrolled in English classes, and begun to plan his future. He also is learning to embrace winter, which he never experienced in his native country.
"Wow, it's crazy," he said of his first snowy season.
Like many of the immigrants who arrived in Massachusetts last year — more than 31,000 immigrated legally, according to the Department of Homeland Security — Joseph is in the early stages of building his own American dream, working in a low-wage job, pursuing education, and hoping it will lead to bigger and better opportunities.
At 29, he is among the influx of young, foreign-born residents to Massachusetts that many economists say is needed to bring vitality and energy to an economy still shaking off the effects of the last recession and grappling with an aging workforce.
From 2010 to 2012, Massachusetts' working age population — residents from age 18 to 64 — increased just under a half percent per year, with the growth occurring entirely in the immigrant population, according to analysis of census data by demographer Peter Francese of Exeter, N.H. At the same time, the 65-plus population, which will depend on younger workers to finance Social Security and other benefits, grew by an annual 4 percent, he said.
"Immigration is not just important for Massachusetts' economic growth and workforce growth," Francese said. "It is absolutely essential."
For Joseph, as with many immigrants, coming to the United States meant starting over. In his hometown of Petion-Ville, an affluent suburb of Port-au-Prince, Joseph made a good living in computer repair. He also managed a local team that played handball, a cross between soccer and basketball popular in Europe and other parts of the world.
He came to the United States to join his family. His mother has been living here since 2002. In the decade that followed, she brought her children over one by one; Joseph is the last of the five to arrive and was eager to reunite with his family.
When he heard that he would finally be making the journey, Joseph said he was excited for the opportunities he believed America would offer, opportunities unavailable to an average person in Haiti. "In my country, it's different," he said. "If you want to learn something, you need a lot of money."
Establishing himself here has not been without challenges. He spent four months looking for work after his arrival. He applied to every entry-level job he could find — restaurants, markets, convenience stores — but repeatedly heard that he didn't have enough US work experience.
Eventually, a cousin helped him find a job as a cook at a McDonald's in Newton. Joseph seized the opportunity, even if it means a commute of more than an hour each way on the Orange Line and a bus.
Such jobs are among the most common ways for new arrivals to enter the workforce; 14.2 percent of employed recent immigrants work in the accommodations and food services sector, according The Immigrant Learning Center Inc. in Malden, a nonprofit that offers English classes to new immigrants.
Joseph works at the hot grill as many as 38 hours a week. With the money he earns, he helps pay the rent on the two-bedroom apartment he shares with five family members, including his mother, brother, niece, and nephew. Two of the other adults work, also at McDonald's. Joseph contributes to the household budget, buys himself clothes, and sends money to his father in Haiti.
When he is not working, he is preparing for the future. Four mornings per week, he takes classes at the Immigrant Learning Center to improve his English. He plans to continue studying English at Bunker Hill Community College in the fall. When he is more confident in his English, he wants to attend Boston University and learn computer programming.
"I hope to finish my schooling and get a better job," Joseph said.
When he looks 10 years down the road, he is uncertain where he will end up. He would like to live on his own, and would be happy to stay Malden, where nearly 40 percent of the city's residents are foreign-born.
He is confident that moving to the United States has given him a much greater chance of improving his life than staying in Haiti, one of the world's poorest nations. In his new home, his age and financial circumstances are unlikely to hold him back as they would have in his home country, he said.
"Even if you are old or young in this country," he said, " if you have a goal, you have an opportunity to reach your goal."
Rosemary Agbede
Hair was not Rosemary Agbede's first love, but it has been her most enduring. Growing up in Benin-City in southern Nigeria, Agbede dreamed of becoming a newscaster, but over the years her focus shifted. She started helping out at a local salon, and her interest grew as she learned more about hair styles and cuts. She started to see something special in the beauty field.
"It's being able to transform people, making them beautiful or making them happy," she said. "I can do any hair, and I can make people feel good about themselves."
Now, nearly three decades later, Agbede, 49, is the owner of the Unique You Salon in Lowell, a longtime fixture of the city's small business community. Her salon is part of the 18 percent of Massachusetts businesses owned by foreign-born residents. From convenience stores and restaurants to insurance agencies and real estate firms, these businesses generate jobs, strengthen ethnic communities, and help revitalize struggling neighborhoods.
In Massachusetts, immigrant-owned businesses generate $2.8 billion in income annually, 14 percent of the state's total, according to a report from the Partnership for a New America, a bipartisan immigration reform advocacy group. And immigrants are twice as likely as native-born residents to start a business, said Denzil Mohammed, assistant director of the Public Education Institute at The Immigrant Learning Center Inc. in Malden.
"The act of immigrating itself is entrepreneurial: You're leaving everything, taking a risk, trying to make everything better," Mohammed said. "We can't emphasize enough how important it is to have immigrant entrepreneurs."
Agbede, who worked as a bookstore clerk in her home country, left Nigeria in 1987, following her boyfriend, who had immigrated the previous year to Dallas. The couple got married and had a baby.
At first, she missed her family terribly. Holidays were especially difficult, she said, and she didn't have the money to return home for visits. She was a stay-at-home mother; her husband worked in security. "There was a lot of struggle financially," she said.
After two years in Texas, the family moved to Lowell, drawn by the promise of jobs and opportunity during the "Massachusetts Miracle" of the 1980s. Agbede started looking for work and found a job as a security guard in Bedford.
When she got pregnant a second time, she went on maternity leave, intending to return to the job in a few months. But then, she said, she started imagining a different future — "what I love to do, which is doing hair."
Three months after Agbede's son was born, her mother came from Nigeria to help care for the baby. Agbede enrolled at Blaine Beauty School, now part of Empire Beauty Schools.
When she finished her training in 1992, she got a job as a stylist at a salon in a JCPenney in Nashua. She became a US citizen in 1995.
Her devoted clients at the department store convinced her to consider the jump from employee to entrepreneur. She confided in a friend that she was thinking about opening a shop; her friend not only agreed it would be a good idea, but offered her credit card to cover some of the start-up costs.
Agbede dug into her savings, borrowed from friends, and, in 1997, she opened Unique You Salon. "It has been a lot of persistence and hard work just trying to get the business going," she said.
The month she opened the salon, she discovered she was pregnant with her fourth child. She hired a couple of women, but when she returned from maternity leave, she was horrified at their mismanagement of the business and had to fire them. From that point, she worked with the baby in a bassinet in the corner of the shop; customers often held and fed the baby to help out.
Over the years, there have been other challenges as well. A stylist left, taking clients with her. Agbede has had to move the salon twice, driven by plumbing problems and rising expenses. Her latest move, from a commercial plaza to the center of Lowell, cost her a couple of customers who were skittish about parking downtown.
Despite the challenges, Agbede reckons she has been successful. Today she employs three stylists. Her business is strong, and she has raised four children, largely on her own since separating from her husband seven years ago, she said.
Living in the United States has given her children opportunities they never would have had in Nigeria, Agbede added. Her eldest graduated from Georgetown University four years ago, and her middle two children are studying at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Agbede has returned to school herself, studying accounting at Middlesex Community College to improve her business skills. She wants to launch a charitable program to improve women's health by offering rewards for joining a gym and maintaining exercise regimens, she said. And one day, she hopes to give back to her native country, starting an orphanage in Nigeria to help care for children less fortunate than her own.
"I still keep striving," she said.
Andre Kurs
As Andre Kurs finished high school in his native Brazil, he thought his future lay in France and the prestigious research university Ecole Polytechnique near Paris.
But then he was accepted to Princeton University, and the lure of the Ivy League — and opportunities in America — proved irresistible to the aspiring scientist. After graduating Princeton with a degree in physics, he headed to MIT for his doctoral studies.
Today, Kurs, 31, is cofounder of a Watertown start-up developing a technology to transmit electricity without wires — wireless power. The start-up, WiTricity Corp., has grown from its two founders to about 50 employees in just five years.
"You could see that all the action was really in the United States," Kurs said of his decision to immigrate here. "If you wanted to make connections to start a new business and be in the middle of the exciting new technology, the US seemed like the place to be."
Kurs is one of thousands of immigrants who play vital roles as scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in Massachusetts' economy, developing new technologies, launching companies, and providing essential talent to a state that depends on smarts to spur economic growth and jobs. About 18 percent — nearly one in five — of the state's foreign-born residents hold advanced degrees, according to the census.
"Innovation and entrepreneurship are the cornerstones of the Massachusetts economy and growth in the state," said Eric Nakajima, assistant secretary for innovation policy in the state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. "Immigrants have played a critical role, at every step and at every level."
Kurs was born in Rio de Janeiro and moved to Sao Paulo at the age 7. Years before he was ready to choose a college, his parents — his father is an engineer, his mother an economist — tried to expose him to options beyond Brazil.
He first visited the United States when he was about 10 for a family trip to Disney World in Florida. A few years later, his parents sent him to a classic American summer camp in Vermont.
"My parents wanted me to get a bit of a broader view," Kurs said.
When it came time to decide on life after high school, Kurs never seriously considered staying in Brazil, where engineering schools just weren't as good as options abroad, he said. Friends and teachers from his high school urged him to go to France, but the prestige of American schools and atmosphere of innovation in the United States convinced him to choose Princeton.
As an undergraduate, he studied physics, but wasn't sure what sub-field he wanted to focus his graduate research on. He spent his first couple of months at MIT talking to professors, trying to choose a direction. That's when he was recruited by Marin Soljacic, a physics professor and Croatian immigrant researching ways to transmit power without wires.
Kurs was fascinated by the research and, within a few months, was seeking ways in the laboratory to make Soljacic's theories work in the real world. He and his research partners succeeded, laying the groundwork for technologies that will be able to recharge cellphones and electric cars, or power home electronics, without cords and outlets.
As his graduate studies progressed, Kurs began to find academia "a little dull and hierarchical," he said. So when Soljacic offered the chance to help start a company based on their research, Kurs grabbed the opportunity.
For three years, Kurs was both student and entrepreneur, finishing his thesis while simultaneously building a business. He completed his doctorate in 2011.
WiTricity has received several rounds of venture funding, including an investment from Ray Stata, founder of Analog Devices. WiTricity licenses its technology to partner companies, who can use it to create commercial products.
"We'll develop the technology," Kurs explained, "they'll handle the marketing and integration."
In addition to being a founder, Kurs is still deeply involved in the science end of the company. He splits his days between promoting WiTricity, developing and improving its wireless power transfer technology, and researching new scientific developments.
Now, Kurs wants very much to stay in the United States and help foster the success of the enterprise he says is "like my baby." But his future here is uncertain.
Kurs holds an H-1B visa. Two years ago, he applied for a green card, which would permanently grant him the right to live and work in the United States and allow his wife, a Czech national, to work as well. But earlier this year, he learned that his application is being audited and he will have to wait at least another year for a decision as immigration officials take a closer look at his request.
"That makes life a little harder than it has to be," Kurs said. "There's a chance it could be rejected."
The immigration overhaul bill recently passed by the US Senate calls for the creation of a system that would give priority to green card applicants with high educational achievements and significant work experience. The proposal, however, has stalled in the House.
For now, Kurs can only wait — and continue to build his company.
"I work with great people here on an exciting technology that I think could really revolutionize some of the markets we're trying to enter," he said. "Of course, as you accomplish your dreams you always want more, which is where I find myself now."
Sarah Shemkus can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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MIAMI -- Isiah Thomas thought he would be dead by age 20, so at 49 he offers no apologies for betting on himself. Exiled in Miami, haunted by his proximity to LeBron James, Thomas embraces his articles of blind faith like one would a baby in a storm.
Isiah believes James (and perhaps Dwyane Wade) would be starting for the New York Knicks if Isiah had remained president of the team.
Isiah believes he can recruit James out of Miami and into Madison Square Garden in 2014.
Isiah believes that, with or without James, he will someday help the Knicks win their first NBA title since 1973.
"I want to be on the float and I want to get my ring," Thomas said.
As he stepped out of a soft South Florida rain and into a Coconut Grove restaurant the other day, Thomas, now the head coach of Florida International University, projected that familiar boyish vibe he maintained as a grown-up player, coach and executive in the NBA.
Wearing sneakers, sweatpants and a white T-shirt bearing the FIU name and teeth-baring Golden Panthers logo, Thomas looked fit enough to take an outlet pass from Dennis Rodman and lead a three-on-one break.
But in a wide-ranging two-hour interview with ESPNNewYork.com, Thomas spent far less time on his Hall of Fame playing days in Detroit than he did on his tumultuous time as an executive and coach in New York, where he believes a sexual harassment trial cost him a job he is driven to reclaim.
Asked if he hopes to replace Donnie Walsh whenever the 69-year-old Knicks president retires, Thomas said, "Every single day of the week.
"When I look at my GM/executive record, if I'm evaluated on that, then whoever's after Donnie, if you're not talking about some of the top people in the game, I'll put my draft evaluation record up against anyone's."
Thomas lost his jobs as president and coach of the Knicks in 2008, but had already suffered a more damaging defeat in the courtroom when a team executive, Anucha Browne Sanders, won her sexual harassment case against the Garden and Thomas and a jury award of $11.6 million in punitive damages (the Garden settled the case for $11.5 million before a hearing on potential compensatory damages).
Both the Garden and Thomas raged against the verdict, and the fallout from the trial and the loss of his career inspired a devastating choice on Oct. 24, 2008, when he overdosed on sleeping pills in the hours after his teenage daughter was hospitalized for an undisclosed medical issue.
"I was a deeply bruised and scarred person," Thomas said. "I wasn't trying to take my life, but I wanted and needed that day to be over."
If Isiah Thomas went to hell and back, it wasn't his first round trip. Growing up on the West Side of Chicago, Thomas said that he lost one drug-addicted brother to AIDS and that another brother "basically drank himself to death." His father, Isiah Sr., left the family when Isiah Jr. was 6, and when his mother, Mary, wasn't scrubbing floors in a local monastery and cooking for the priests and nuns, she was guarding her home with a sawed-off shotgun when gang members tried to recruit her sons.
The youngest of the nine Thomas kids, Isiah literally hunted for discarded food on the street and figured he was living on borrowed time. "I was below the poverty line," he said. "I swear to you I never thought I would see 20 years old."
A month before his 20th birthday, Thomas won a national championship for Bob Knight at Indiana. He would claim two NBA titles for Chuck Daly in Detroit, and a place among the game's 50 greatest players of all time.
His playing legacy secured, Thomas is motivated to defend a coaching and front-office record that lies in a million little pieces, like the residue of a shattered backboard. He wants to build a winning program at FIU, but burns to find his way from the underbelly of Division I basketball back to the executive suites of the NBA.
So this is the frayed book of Isiah. These are his articles of blind faith.
LeBron James would have taken his talents to the white lights of Broadway, not the white sand of South Beach, if Isiah Thomas had anything to do with it.
"I have to believe that," Thomas said, "because that was my plan. So I stick to it."
Hired as president of the Knicks in December of 2003, Thomas said he targeted James as the centerpiece of a future title winner in New York "from the first day he got in the league, as soon as I got the job."
Thomas guessed James would ultimately sign an extension with Cleveland that would keep him with the Cavaliers through 2010, but went about acquiring players he thought would appeal to LeBron, anyway. Eddy Curry and Jamal Crawford, for instance.
"They were just all friendly, and they were all on the AAU circuit," Thomas said.
So the man criticized for never having a plan actually had one. It might've been crazy to focus on 2010 in 2004 and 2005, but Thomas had many friends in the business who thought he was crazy to assume control of the Knicks in the first place. His overmatched predecessor, Scott Layden, had left behind a dreadful roster that was some $45 million over the salary cap.
"Chuck Daly begged me not to take the Knick job," Thomas said. "He said, 'You can't fix it. You'll probably fix it for somebody else.'"
Thomas was trying to survive until he could recruit James, the longest of long-term strategies doomed from the start. "That's a problem with being a visionary," Thomas said. "You're way too far out, and by the time it catches up, people will hack you to death."
The sexual harassment trial amounted to the final, fatal hack. "I think if you take away that trial," Thomas said, "I'm still there, we make the playoffs a couple of times ... and I don't know if Miami has LeBron or Wade. We may have had LeBron and Wade."
As a Dolan emissary on a desperate mission, Thomas met with a James associate on the eve of LeBron's televised announcement in July, arriving with too little power, too late in the game. Not that Thomas is giving up on the hope of being a high-ranking Knicks executive in the summer of 2014, when James can opt out of his deal with the Heat.
"I'd like to still hold onto that dream," Thomas said. "I do think that he'll win championships here in Miami, and they will be a great dynasty. ... But I think when he comes to New York and he wins it in New York, I think he's the greatest player ever."
Isiah Thomas didn't want to do it. Once Phil Jackson rejected him in 2005, Thomas wanted to appoint his fellow Bad Boy, Bill Laimbeer, a wildly successful coach in the WNBA.
"I thought [Brown] was used to championship talent," Thomas said, "and where we were, we weren't ready for the big-time coach.
"But Jim [Dolan] always wants the best and ... he's like, 'OK, you're telling me I've got a choice between Larry Brown, P.J. Carlesimo or Bill Laimbeer?' I'm going with Larry Brown.'"
Signed to a $50 million deal, Larry Brown went 23-59 in his first and only season.
"He admitted himself he didn't do a good job," Thomas said, "and I agree with that."
Asked if he still believes he would be the Knicks' president if he'd hired Laimbeer instead of Brown, Thomas said, "I think I'm still the GM and president of the Knicks if it wasn't for that trial."
Isiah Thomas wants to say this about Anucha Browne Sanders:
"If the things that she alleges did happen in her daily working environment, I have great sympathy for her. If those things happened in her daily working environment, then yes, she is a victim, and I do have great compassion for her.
"But I wasn't there. I wasn't her boss. She didn't report to me. I worked in Westchester, she worked in Manhattan. I would say hello to her at the games ... "
Of course, Browne Sanders told an entirely different story. She said Thomas engaged in sexual harassment, including the use of crude and profane language, allegations the jury believed.
"I was falsely accused," Thomas maintains. "My wife and kids and I, we were persecuted like I've never seen anywhere in sports. [The criticism] just got so mean and ... as a family we were just hanging by a thread every single day. We were just hanging by a thread and just trying to hunker down and weather the storm. My mother was dying at the time, and it was the most awful time in my life. We were going through hell."
Vin Baker, Jerome James, Jared Jeffries.
There's no defending that, and Thomas knows it.
"But there were 24 All-Stars last year," he said, "and I left New York with two of them, David Lee and Zach Randolph. Jamal Crawford became a sixth man of the year."
Thomas believes injuries cost the Knicks a playoff appearance in 2007, the year he replaced Brown on the bench. "Before the trial," he said, "people weren't saying bad things about the Knicks. They were saying, 'Watch out for the Knicks.'"
Thomas said he needed to make the trade for Stephon Marbury to resuscitate a dead franchise. He blamed Brown for moving Trevor Ariza in the deal to acquire Steve Francis. Surrendering the draft picks that became LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah for Curry?
Curry played at a high level for Thomas for a bit, but soon enough devolved into a symbol of everything that went wrong between Seventh and Eighth avenues.
"There was a method behind the madness," Thomas said. He was confident Curry would opt out in 2010 to clear the necessary space for a fellow client of Leon Rose, name of LeBron James.
"My instincts always told me LeBron would be great in New York," Thomas said. "I remember talking to Jerry West about when he was going after Shaq and how he mortgaged the team and what he went through. I kept saying to Jerry, 'I think if I position this right, I'll have a shot at LeBron.'"
Thomas committed too many unforced errors to ever get that shot. A longtime supporter and friend, Dolan gave him the bad news in an emotional meeting in the Garden chairman's office.
"We both understood that the environment was toxic," Thomas said.
Isiah Thomas held up his cell phone to show a text from a starting Eastern Conference point guard. In the message, the player wrote that he was hoping Thomas would offer him some career advice.
"I get asked to advise a lot of players," Thomas said. "Not just Carmelo."
Carmelo Anthony, that is, the object of the Knicks' post-LeBron affections.
Thomas wouldn't say how deeply involved he is in the Knicks' effort to pry Anthony out of Denver. Thomas isn't on the Garden payroll, not after David Stern reversed his earlier ruling and decided a college head coach shouldn't be a paid employee of an NBA team.
Much to Walsh's dismay, Dolan had offered Thomas a job as a consultant. The job would've paid Thomas more than he's making at FIU, but he decided he couldn't leave his recruits high and dry. Not yet, anyway.
"Six or seven [NBA] teams I advise," said Thomas, who included the Knicks in that group. "I don't get paid for it."
Sure, Thomas would love to do it. Nothing personal, just business.
Walsh is in the final year of his contract, and he's been burdened by health issues. Nobody's sure how much longer the Knicks' president wants to stay in the job.
Asked if he would characterize a return to the Knicks' presidency as a dream, a desire or an expectation, Thomas said, "Desire or dream. I don't expect it. But knowing what I know about the game and the relationships that I have, I'm confident that if no crazy [stuff] happens, I think I can win in New York, and I think I was really close to winning in New York."
No, Thomas has never lacked for confidence. The day Larry Bird fired him in Indiana, Thomas told his former on-court adversary that he was making a terrible decision, that he was running off the very coach who would lead the Pacers to a title.
Thomas tried selling Bird on the free-agent dream team they would form as summertime recruiters. "If you and I stay together," Thomas told him, "we'll get all the players."
Bird fired his mother's favorite Indiana player, anyway, because he said he was more comfortable with Rick Carlisle.
"In Toronto, Indiana and New York," Thomas said, "I've never actually gotten fired for a basketball reason."
Isiah Thomas conceded that he is haunted by what could have been in New York, and by LeBron's staggering presence down the road from FIU.
James is on the doorstep of a potential NBA dynasty, and Thomas is merely hoping to finish .500 in the Sun Belt Conference.
"I do find it ironic that we all ended up here in Miami instead of us all ending up in New York," Thomas said. "But it's a four-year deal."
Four years before James can opt out on the Heat. By the summer of 2014, it's likely Thomas will have long opted out on the Golden Panthers.
Right here, right now, he thinks about returning as Knicks president eight days a week.
"And I think about what Chuck Daly would tell me," Thomas said, "I know he's in heaven right now saying, 'Nooooo.'"
Ian O'Connor is a columnist for ESPNNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.