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Panda How to buildroot
Building a minimal root file system using Buildroot
Why use buildroot? Because you can build everything you need in a very short time and the resulting rootfs fits on a 32Mb sd card with plenty of room to spare. Be careful of using small SD cards, there is a lot of folklore about how the OMAP4 ROM CODE operates and it may or may not like your vfat partition.
This is a high level How-To, it assumes that the reader is familiar with linux and
compiling software packages, over time it may evolve to be a bit more newbie friendly.
Go get:
Unpack it a dir of your choice.
use the .config file provided here config.buildroot which will build a tar.bz2 of the rootfs.
The .config uses BR2_JLEVEL = 8. You may want to change this to suit you CPUs capability.
-SD card prep-
Use this script to prepare an SD card with the small vfat partition and the larger ext2/3 partition (it has been posted many places, I take no credit for it btw, the card needs to be larger than 64Mbytes since this original script wants to make a 64Mbyte vfat partition) You may need to be root for some of the following operations. For the feint of heart, you can use sudo instead in the right places.
#!/bin/sh if [ ! "$1" = "/dev/sda" ] ; then DRIVE=$1 if [ -b "$DRIVE" ] ; then dd if=/dev/zero of=$DRIVE bs=1024 count=1024 SIZE=`fdisk -l $DRIVE | grep Disk | awk '{print $5}'` echo DISK SIZE - $SIZE bytes CYLINDERS=`echo $SIZE/255/63/512 | bc` echo CYLINDERS - $CYLINDERS { echo ,9,0x0C,* echo ,,,- } | sfdisk -D -H 255 -S 63 -C $CYLINDERS $DRIVE mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n "boot" ${DRIVE}1 mke2fs -j -L "rootfs" ${DRIVE}2 fi fi
If you have trouble with the pandaboards ROM CODE not liking your vfat partition check it out with this program.
Thanks go to mru and av500 who have gone a long way to dispell the cargo-cult fokelore surrounding the ROM CODE.
#include <stdio.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/stat.h> #include <fcntl.h> int main( int argc, char **argv ) { if ( argc < 2 ) { printf("check /dev/sdX you must be root too \n"); return 1; } int fd = open( argv[1], O_RDONLY ); lseek( fd, 0 + 446 + 8, SEEK_SET ); int start; int num_mbr; read( fd, &start, 4 ); read( fd, &num_mbr, 4 ); int num_bpb = 0; lseek( fd, start * 512 + 0x13, SEEK_SET ); read( fd, &num_bpb, 2 ); if( num_bpb == 0 ) { lseek( fd, start * 512 + 0x20, SEEK_SET ); read( fd, &num_bpb, 4 ); } printf( "start: %d mbr: %d bpb: %d -> %s\n", start, num_mbr, num_bpb, num_mbr == num_bpb ? "PASS" : "FAIL!" ); return num_mbr == num_bpb;
Save the above text as sdtest.c and compile it with:
gcc sdtest.c -o sdtest
I run it on the desktop that setup my sd card, if it reports failure then something went wrong with the setup script.
No clue as to how to fix it (yet).
-Add the bootloader & kernel to the vfat partition-
Use the MLO, u-boot.bin and uImage from:
(Untar it someplace convienient)
and copy them to the vfat partition.
There will be other tutorials on how to build MLO, u-boot, the kernel and wifi drivers, but for now we will use stuff from there.
-Add the rootfs stuff that buildroot built for you to the ext2/ext3 partition-
untar /buildroot-2010.11/output/images/rootfs.tar.bz2 to the sd card's ext2/3 partition and then edit the inittab and securetty files in /etc.
-Fix what is likely a busybox bug-
Change the sysinit part of /etc/inittab to look like this:
null::sysinit:/bin/mount -t proc proc /proc null::sysinit:/bin/mkdir -p /dev/pts null::sysinit:/bin/mount -o remount,rw / # null::sysinit:/bin/mount -a
This maybe due to a bug in the current version of busybox, if you don't fix it, the rootfs will be mounted ro and things won't work.
-Fix the serial port config-
Change the serial port part thusly:
ttyO2::respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyO2 115200 vt100 # GENERIC_SERIAL
This is because the serial port name for the Pandaboard is ttyO2 not one of the other choices.
Add the following line to /etc/securetty:
This is so you can login as root over the serial port, the standard securetty doesn't include serial port names for the Pandaboard.
-Copy stuff from the validatation image so that wifi will work-
Copy the whole /lib/firmware dir from the validadition image to the sd card's /lib/firmware.
Copy the whole /usr/share/tiwlan dir from the validadition image to the sd card's /usr/share/tiwlan.
Copy /bin/wlan-test.sh from the validation image to the sd card's /bin directory.
The above is neccessary since the sdio and tiwlan driver needs the exact version of the kernel they were compiled for.
Insert the SD card, add a USB keyboard, optionally a wired ethernet connection, mouse and Monitor.
Power up the board and watch it boot up over the serial port using your choice of terminal emulator, I use minicom.
There will also be a login on the display, you can login over either as root with no password, if the serial port one doesn't work, you probably didn't fix securetty (properly).
run wlan-test.sh and watch the wifi come to life. If you have an open access point in range, the pandaboard will associate with the accesspoint and
use dhcp and get an address and other stuff. you should be able to ping to the internet, and iwconfig will show you some useful info:
# iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. usb0 no wireless extensions. tiwlan0 IEEE 802.11ABG ESSID:"Your_Access_Points_ESSID" Mode:Managed Frequency:11 kHz Access Point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX Tx-Power:-51 Sensitivity=-80 dBm RTS thr=4096 B Fragment thr=4096 B Encryption key:off Link Quality=0/0 Signal level=-45 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


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Diets low in saturated fat don't curb heart disease risk or help you live longer, says a leading US cardiovascular research scientist and doctor of pharmacy in an editorial in the open access journal Open Heart.
And current dietary advice to replace saturated fats with carbohydrates or omega 6-rich polyunsaturated fats is based on flawed and incomplete data from the 1950s, argues Dr James DiNicolantonio.
Dietary guidelines should be urgently reviewed and the vilification of saturated fats stopped to save lives, he insists.
DiNicolantonio points out that the demonisation of saturated fats dates back to 1952, when research suggested a link between high dietary saturated fat intake and deaths from heart disease.
But the study author drew his conclusions on data from six countries, choosing to ignore the data from a further 16, which didn't fit with his hypothesis, and which subsequent analysis of all 22 countries' data, disproved, says DiNicolantonio.
Nevertheless, the bad boy image stuck, particularly after US President Eisenhower had a heart attack in his 50s, points out DiNicolantonio in an accompanying podcast.
And it prompted the belief that since these fats increase total cholesterol—a flawed theory in itself, says DiNicolantonio— they must also increase heart disease risk. And as foodstuffs with the highest calorie density, the thinking was that reduced intake would naturally curb obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
But the evidence, which continues to mount, suggests otherwise, he says.
There is now a strong argument in favour of the consumption of refined carbohydrates as the causative dietary factor behind the surge in obesity and diabetes in the US, he says.
And while a low fat diet may lower 'bad' (LDL) cholesterol, there are two types of LDL cholesterol. And switching to carbs may increase pattern B (small dense) LDL, which is more harmful to heart health than pattern A (large buoyant) LDL, as well as creating a more unfavourable overall lipid profile, he says.
Furthermore, several other studies indicate that a low carb diet is better for weight loss and lipid profile than a low fat diet, while large observational studies have not found any conclusive proof that a low fat diet cuts cardiovascular disease risk, he says.
But in the race to cut saturated fat intake, several dietary guidelines recommend upping polyunsaturated fat intake.
However, a recent analysis of published trial data shows that replacing saturated fats and trans fatty acids with omega 6 fatty acids, without a corresponding rise in omega 3 fatty acids, seems to increase the risk of death from coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases.
"We need a public health campaign as strong as the one we had in the 70s and 80s demonising saturated fats, to say that we got it wrong," urges DiNicolantonio in the podcast.
The best diet to boost and maintain heart health is one low in refined carbohydrates, sugars and processed foods, he recommends.
And anyone who has had a heart attack should not be thinking of replacing saturated fats with refined carbs or omega 6 fatty acids—particularly those found in processed vegetable oils containing large amounts of corn or safflower oil, he says.
[The cardiometabolic consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates or omega 6 polyunsaturated fats: Do the dietary guidelines have it wrong? Doi 10.1136/openhrt-2013-000032]
Open Heart

subset: commoncrawl


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By Simeon Bennett
A 20 percent tax on sugary drinks in the United Kingdom would cut the nation's obesity rate by 1.3 percent, with the greatest benefit for people under 30, a study found.
The tax, proposed by the U.K. Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, would result in about 180,000 fewer adults with a body mass index of 30 or more, researchers from the universities of Oxford and Reading wrote in the journal BMJ. Among people ages 16 to 30, who are the greatest consumers of sugary drinks, the tax would reduce obesity by 7.6 percent, the study showed.
About 26 percent of adults in the United Kingdom are obese, the second highest rate in Europe behind Hungary, which has adopted taxes on salt and sugar. While other European nations and some U.S. states tax soft drinks, most levies are less than 10 percent.
Today's findings show that while a tax wouldn't be a panacea, it could help reduce the diabetes, heart disease, and tooth decay linked with the drinks, the authors wrote.
"The more pressing question is whether policy makers can implement a tax this high," Jason Block, an assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School's obesity prevention program in Boston, wrote in comments accompanying the study. "We now need policy makers to act and provide opportunities for real-world evidence."
Diet surveys
The study used data from household spending and diet surveys, together with systems for estimating the effect of tax increases on drink purchases, and changes in energy intake on body mass index (BMI). BMI is a measure of body fat, calculated by using a person's weight and height.
Based on their findings, the researchers predicted that the tax would reduce the number of overweight people, defined as those with a BMI of 25 or more, by 285,000, or 0.9 percent.
It would also raise 276 million pounds ($443 million) a year in revenue and reduce consumption of concentrated sugar-sweetened drinks by 15 percent, according to the study.
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents about 220,000 British doctors, in February, proposed testing the tax for a year as one of 10 recommendations for curbing obesity.
The U.K. government's health department said companies including Tesco Plc (TSCO) and Coca-Cola Co. have agreed to reduce sugar in their drinks under a voluntary plan aimed at improving public health.
Reducing sugar
"The voluntary action we have put in place will help people to make healthier choices but we keep all international evidence under review," the department said in an e-mailed statement.
Taxing soft drinks won't curb obesity, partly because its causes are complex, Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said in an e-mailed statement.
"Trying to blame one set of products is misguided, particularly when they comprise a mere 2 percent of calories in the average diet," he said.
The sale of sugar-sweetened drinks in schools is banned in the United Kingdom, as is advertising them on children's television.
Soft-drink taxes in France and Ireland have been associated with reductions in consumption, though their health impact hasn't yet been studied, the authors wrote.
A sugar tax in Denmark was abandoned in November after it was criticized for raising prices and driving consumers to shop in neighboring countries that don't have the tax.
American consumers
In the United States, 34 states and the District of Columbia have food taxes that affect sugar-sweetened drinks, and studies there have shown that a 20 percent tax would bring about significantly higher reductions in energy intake than today's research predicts. Still, Americans consume more than three times more energy per person per day from sugar-sweetened drinks than Britons, the authors wrote.
In September 2012, New York City's Board of Health approved Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to restrict sales of sugary soft drinks to no more than 16 ounces (454 grams) a cup. In March, New York Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling barred the proposal from becoming law, saying it had too many loopholes and violated the jurisdiction of the City Council.
Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, has appealed the decision.
Mexico's Senate yesterday backed a 1 peso (8 cents) per-liter tax on soft drinks and an 8 percent tax on junk food. The nation has the highest obesity rate of any major country after Egypt, and is the world's top consumer of soft drinks at 163 liters per capita a year, 40 percent more than the United States, according to the World Health Organization.


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I contribute biweekly to Science-Based Medicine and could easily devote every post to writing about weight loss supplements, and never run out of topics. As soon as one quick fix falls out of favour, another inevitably replaces it. Some wax and wane in popularity. And pharmacies don't help the situation. I cringe every time I walk down the aisle where weight loss products and kits are located. Detox? Hoodia? The "fat blaster"? Here are pharmacists, well educated and perfectly positioned to provide good advice to consumers, but standing behind a wall of boxes with ridiculous weight loss promises. Yet pharmacists tell me that these products are not only sought out by customers, but they actually sell well. It's a lost opportunity to provide good advice, and consumers pay the price.
Perhaps because consumers associate these products with pharmacies, I get regular questions about weight loss programs. I end up developing some degree of familiarity with many of them, if only to be able to credibly redirect away from some of the more harmful plans and approaches. It's that philosophy that I used recently when I was asked about how to best to manage a "plateau" on the HCG diet. I'd never dispensed human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) before, but knew of its use for the treatment of infertility, where it promotes egg release. But weight loss? I couldn't think of a mechanism for how HCG could promote weight loss. So I did some digging, and found a long, rich vein of pseudoscience that dates back decades.
HCG is a hormone secreted by the placenta during pregnancy. Its use as a weight loss adjunct has roots that date back to the 1950s, when Italian physican ATW Simeons announced [PDF] case studies of weight loss in patients given HCG injection and placed on very low calorie diets — about 500 kcal/day. Simeons' data failed to be replicated in later studies, and interest seemed to deservedly fade. The diet leapt back into consciousness when telemarketer and convicted felon Kevin Trudeau started promoting the diet again in 2007, claiming the TRUTH had been suppressed by the American Medical Association and the FDA. Since then, HCG (also called the Simeons method) has been on a bit of tear, and it's currently enjoying a resurgence of popularity.
The Evidence
With HCG, we're not facing a situation of unproven efficacy. Rather, there's good evidence to demonstrate that it does not have any meaningful effect. Multiple studies and meta-analyses have evaluated the HCG diet and found no evidence that HCG injections offer any incremental benefit. The studies date go way back to the 1970s [PDF], and their conclusions are consistent and persuasive: The weight loss effect on the HCG diet is due to the dramatic calorie reduction, and the HCG has no measurable effect on weight loss. Not surprisingly, there are no medical associations that I could find that endorse the use of HCG for weight loss. The American Society of Bariatric Physicians warns,
Numerous clinical trials have shown HCG to be ineffectual in producing weight loss. HCG injections can induce a slight increase in muscle mass in androgen-deficient males. The diet used in the Simeons method provides a lower protein intake than is advisable in view of current knowledge and practice. There are few medical literature reports favorable to the Simeons method; the overwhelming majority of medical reports are critical of it. Physicians employing either the HCG or the diet recommended by Simeons may expose themselves to criticism from other physicians, from insurers, or from government bodies.
So does the HCG Diet Work?
Any weight loss from the HCG diet is actually due to the dramatic calorie restriction required as part of the diet plans — in some cases, as low as 500 calories per day. This near-starvation diet is dramatically below appropriate levels for weight loss or maintenance, and escalates the risk of malnutrition if prolonged. Even if it wasn't immediately harmful, a 500kcal diet is simply unsustainable. Weight maintenance is the real challenge with obesity.
HCG injections are not innocuous. It may be teratogenic (cause birth defects) in pregnant women. Reported side effects include headache, fatigue, irritability, restlessness, ovarian overstimulation, ascites, and edema.
Regulatory status
The FDA has long maintained that HCG is ineffective for weight loss and in the 1970's mandated this warning with all HCG diet advertisements:
HCG has not been demonstrated to be effective adjunctive therapy in the treatment of obesity. There is no substantial evidence that it increases weight loss beyond that resulting from caloric restriction, that it causes a more attractive or "normal" distribution of fat, or that it decreases the hunger and discomfort associated with calorie-restricted diets.
What's appeared over the past several years have been non-prescription (i.e., over-the-counter) HCG products, including "homeopathic" HCG which if you follow the absurd principles of homeopathy, should cause weight gain, not loss. Moreover, HCG is a protein that would be digested if consumed orally. But scientific cogency isn't a necessary component of a good sales pitch, and you'll see homeopathic versions sold widely. The FDA noted this and took action this past December, when it began to pull all unapproved HCG products completely off the market. This has put the supplement industry into the positon of creating "HCG-free" versions of their products become infused with "radionics" where the HCG "energy" is transferred to vitamins or amino acids. The FDA emphasizes in its warnings that all non-prescription versions of HCG are fraudulent and ineffective, as non-prescription HCG does not exist. Even "homeopathic" HCG is prohibited:
"Deceptive advertising about weight loss products is one of the most prevalent types of fraud," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Any advertiser who makes health claims about a product is required by federal law to back them up with competent and reliable scientific evidence, so consumers have the accurate information they need to make good decisions."
The FDA even notes that the infamous Quack Miranda warning is insufficient warning to consumers, when it comes to HCG:
We recognize that a number of pages on your website contain a disclaimer stating that the products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. However, notwithstanding this disclaimer, the claims made on your website for "HCG Fusion 30" and "HCG Fusion 43" clearly demonstrate that these products are drugs as defined by section 201(g)(1) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1)], because they are intended to affect the structure or any function of the body.
The Alternative Universe
The lack of evidence for HCG, and the explicit FDA warnings haven't stopped a thriving business model among those that promote alternatives to science-based medicine. In the United States, for example, a naturopath has formed the "HCG Diet Council" and is collecting anecdotes from providers and users as part of their "standardized research program" of both HCG and homeopathic HCG. "Does the FDA Want to Keep America Fat?" the council asks. In Canada, naturopaths at the Northern Centre for Integrative Medicine thumb their nose at the evidence, and Health Canada's warning:
HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin) is authorized in Canada only for treatment of women with infertility, and only in an injectable form. There is no scientific evidence that the use of HCG either by mouth (as drops under the tongue, as advertised on the Internet) or as a self-administered injection, could promote weight loss.
NCIM honors the intent of Health Canada's statement, which is protective in nature. Health Canada's statement does not address the more substantive issue, which is the significant risk of not taking action to reduce your weight and risking future illness. The NCIM HCG Rx+ weight loss intervention cannot make any guarantees, it nevertheless provides a time-tested approach to weight loss that is physician supervised and individually monitored for safety and effectiveness.
And NCIM doesn't honour the intent of the statement at all. It notes that the prescription it provides for HCG injections may be covered by private drug insurance.
And a post on HCG can't neglect it's biggest television promoter after Kevin Trudeau: Dr. Oz, who having recommended against the HCG diet, turned around and subsequently promoted it on his show, prompting obesity specialist Dr. Yoni Freedhoff to ask "Dr. Oz — so corrupted by fame he even sells himself out?"
There's no persuasive evidence that HCG injections has any meaningful effects on weight loss. And "homeopathic" HCG is quite literally, nothing. If the HCG diet shows one thing at all, it's the tenacity of an idea once it's been planted. Despite warnings by researchers, health professionals, and regulators since at least 1976 about the lack of evidence for HCG as a weight loss adjunct, it continues to attract attention and new users, now promoted by naturopaths and television personalities that are indifferent to the evidence. It's gratifying to see a regulator (the FDA in this case) take off the gloves with supplement vendors and other purveyors of HCG pseudoscience. When it comes to weight loss there are no quick fixes.


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If we're to believe science, we're made of organs and cells. These cells are made up of organic matter. Organic matter is made up chemicals. This goes all the way down to strange entities like quarks and Higgs bosons. We're also conscious, thinking things. You're reading these words and making sense of them. We have the capacity to reason abstractly and grapple with various desires and values. It is the fact that we're conscious and rational that led us to believe in things like Higgs bosons in the first place.
But what if science is fundamentally incapable of explaining our own existence as thinking things? What if it proves impossible to fit human beings neatly into the world of subatomic particles and laws of motion that science describes? In Mind and Cosmos (Oxford University Press), the prominent philosopher Thomas Nagel's latest book, he argues that science alone will never be able to explain a reality that includes human beings. What is needed is a new way of looking at and explaining reality; one which makes mind and value as fundamental as atoms and evolution.
For most philosophers, and many people in general, this is a radical departure from the way we understand things. Nagel, according to his critics, has completely lost it. Linking to one particularly damning review in The Nation, Steven Pinker tweeted, "What has gotten into Thomas Nagel? Two philosophers expose the shoddy reasoning of a once-great thinker."
Nagel's pessimism about science's ability to explain things like consciousness has a long history. In his seminal 1974 essay "What is it like to be a bat?", he argues that even if you knew every single physical fact about someone, you'd still have no idea what it is like to be them. I could know everything there is to know about perception, but I'll never know what it feels like to be colour-blind, save some horrible accident. Similarly no matter how much we know about bats' ability to use echolocation we can never really know what it is like to be a bat flying about in the dark, navigating with reverberating sound waves. So, given that we are all conscious beings, it seems science is missing out on something quite fundamental. There are facts, or parts of reality, it leaves behind.
Nagel's argument has been criticised in a variety of ways. Philosophers like Daniel Dennett or Paul Churchland argue that Nagel's whole approach is flawed. We are of course conscious, but consciousness is a phenomenon that can eventually be explained by science the same way heat and colour are. The residual "what-its-like-ness" is just an outdated term with no real meaning, rather like obsolete scientific theories about the "ether" or "phlogiston."
But this line of attack is hard to accept. To us it really does feel as if there is something "it-is-like" to be conscious. Besides their strange account of consciousness, Nagel's opponents also face the classic problem of how something physical like a brain can produce something like a mind. Take perception: photons bounce off objects and hit the eye, cones and rods translate this into a chemical reaction, this reaction moves into the neurons in our brain, some more reactions take place and then...you see something. Everything up until seeing something is subject to scientific laws, but, somewhere between neurons and experience, scientific explanation ends. There is no fact of the matter about how you see a chair as opposed to how I see it, or a colour-blind person sees it. The same goes for desires or emotions. We can look at all the pieces leading up to experience under a microscope, but there's no way to look at your experience itself or subject it to proper scientific scrutiny.
Of course philosophers sympathetic to science have many ways to make this seem like a non-problem. But in the end Nagel argues that simply "the mind-body problem is difficult enough that we should be suspicious of attempts to solve it with the concepts and methods developed to account for very different kinds of things." And I think many of us are sympathetic to this line of reasoning.
Nagel, however, goes much further, which is what makes Mind and Cosmos interesting. Even if we agree with him that consciousness presents a serious problem for the idea that science can explain all of reality, Nagel's next move is more controversial. He asks what reason there can be for the existence of consciousness. He rules out intelligent design and God, and even evolution. Nagel concludes, in a vein similar to the German idealist philosophers of the late 18th and early 19th century, that the nature of reality is such that there is a natural progression towards consciousness.
By this stage Nagel's argument might have begun to appear absurd. However, he begins with modest considerations. It seems reasonable to suppose that for every truth there must be an explanation for why it is the case, often called "the principle of sufficient reason." One may be tempted to deny this. There may be some inexplicable truths. But then one is faced with justifying why no explanation is needed. Why not just accept the brute fact that objects fall rather than bothering with Newtonian physics? There may be inexplicable facts deep in the fabric of reality, but most of them need explanation. One such fact that needs explaining is that there are conscious beings.
What sort of explanations are there for human consciousness? One is that there is some God or supernatural entity out there who endowed us with consciousness. But this explanation comes with its own vast set of problems. What is the explanation for God's existence? Is he a part of nature? If not how can he cause things? Is he omnipotent? Can he create a boulder so big he can't move it, and so on.
Another explanation looks to the theory of evolution. Darwin's account of evolution, broadly speaking, says that animals' traits will largely be determined by the environment they have existed in—namely the traits that allow one organism to survive and reproduce rather than another. Thicker furs in colder climates and sharper teeth for carnivores are good examples of adaptive traits. Consciousness could be like teeth or fur; a trait that allowed our ancestors to survive and reproduce. However, the principle of sufficient reason resurfaces. What does being conscious add, in terms of pure adaptability, over and above having really good adaptive behavioural patters? Why aren't we unconscious primates who unreflectively go about our business?
Seeing these problems Nagel concludes that the Darwinian answer is irreparably flawed. Ruling out divine intervention or design, evolution, and inexplicability, what reason is there left to explain consciousness? The only remaining answer, Nagel argues, is that on a fundamental level there is an end towards which the cosmos is naturally inclined: a natural teleology. Part of this natural teleology is a tendency for there to be creatures that are conscious. The universe, in a way of speaking, wants to become conscious. This conclusion may look no less strange or absurd than when I first introduced it, but it is at least clear that Nagel did not pluck it out of thin air. And even if we do not agree with his conclusion, the route he takes to arrive there raises many serious questions for philosophical naturalism (the theory that science exhaustively explains the universe).
I have overlooked two significant aspects of Nagel's book. In addition to all the problems surrounding consciousness, Nagel argues that things like the laws of mathematics and moral values are real (as real, that is, as cars and cats and chairs) and that they present even more problems for science. It is harder to explain these chapters largely because they followed less travelled paths of inquiry. Often Nagel's argument rests on the assumption that it is absurd to deny the objective reality, or mind-independence, of certain basic moral values (that extreme and deliberate cruelty to children is wrong, for instance) or the laws of logic. Whether this is convincing or not, depends on what you think is absurd and what is explainable. Regardless, this gives a sense of the framework of Nagel's argument and his general approach.
As often happens when a philosopher deviates from scientific orthodoxy, Nagel's book has been thoroughly denounced. Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg, in their highly critical review for The Nation, led the charge, asking, "Are we really supposed to abandon a massively successful scientific research program because Nagel finds some scientific claims hard to square with what he thinks is obvious?" Elliott Sober, in the Boston Review, wrote "[Nagel] argues that evolutionary biology is fundamentally flawed and that physics also needs to be rethought—that we need a new way to do science." Nonetheless, says Sober, "Nagel acknowledges that he has no teleological theory of his own to offer. His job, as he sees it, is to point to a need; creative scientists, he hopes, will do the heavy lifting."
Now to my knowledge at no point in Mind and Cosmos (or elsewhere) does Nagel suggest that scientists put down their microscopes, shut down their particle accelerators, and abandon their research programmes. In fact he explicitly states that "For all I know, most practicing scientists may have no opinion about the overarching cosmological questions...their detailed research and substantive findings do not in general depend on or imply [materialist reductionism] or any other answer to such questions."
What Nagel does suggest is that philosophers, or scientists who wish to provide philosophical insight look at the relationship between mind and nature in a different way. In particular, philosophers should stop assuming that reality will one day be exhaustively explained by science, and start trying to incorporate other methods of explanation into our worldview.
In response, philosophers like Weisberg and Leiter and Sober tend to dig their heels in, reiterate the pragmatic values of science, and conclude that these values are sufficient to justify philosophical naturalism. But this is not a satisfactory counterargument. Nagel and most critics of naturalism agree that our best methodology for predicting and manipulating natural phenomena is science. But why suppose that reality is exhaustively described by science in its current form? There are plenty of things that aren't obviously describable in scientific terms which are part of reality: mathematics, logic, language, history, and, here we go again, consciousness. It is never going to be possible to put these under a microscope.
There is also no obvious reason why the scientific method (granting that there is a coherent singular scientific method and content, which is itself dubious) warrants one picture of reality over another. A scientist might share Nagel's philosophical perspective, but this won't make any difference in the lab. There s/he will get along just fine with scientists who hold the more common materialist/naturalist metaphysical viewpoint. They'll both have the same conditions for falsification and crafting a hypothesis and they'll both read the same studies and keep the same standards for accuracy. In fact it's hard to see if they'd ever know each other's respective worldviews unless during a lunch break an impromptu debate on metaphysics breaks out.
Of course Weisberg-Leiter, Sober, and others have answers to these criticisms. These debates are not new, and they've generated mountains of books and papers in the philosophy of science, mind, metaphysics, and epistemology. Regardless, one of the motivating factors behind Nagel's book, one largely glossed over by his critics so far, is that even with the extraordinary success of science, there is no obvious way it could account for things like consciousness, rationality, or moral values. We can disagree with Nagel that those things need to be part of our picture of reality. We can disagree with Nagel that there must be one coherent way of describing reality. We can even disagree with Nagel that there is an appearance-reality distinction. But we can't keep gesturing to science's great pragmatic value as a way of papering over its incomplete metaphysics.
Mind and Cosmos is ambitious in scope, philosophically creative, decently written, and, most importantly, short. This makes it more enjoyable and readable than most philosophy titles out there, which are getting worryingly larger in volume and narrower in scope. Nagel's arguments against naturalism as an account of reality are powerful and demand close consideration, even if his positive arguments for a natural teleology end up looking every bit as intuitively implausible as a description of reality that leaves out consciousness.
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A very short introduction to the philosophy of mind: AC Grayling picks ten essential books that grapple with the question of consciousness
Richard Rorty - He was arguably the most influential philosopher of our time: a radical American who is against war in Iraq - and against truth, reason and science. Yet his radicalism turns out to be oddly disarming, argues Simon Blackburn
Neurotrash- We should avoid the common mistake of thinking that our minds are no more than electrical pulses in our brains, says Raymond Tallis
Wittgenstein's forgotten lesson - Wittgenstein's philosophy is at odds with the scientism which dominates our times. Ray Monk explains why his thought is still relevant
The mystery of consciousness - Nicholas Humphrey's book on the mystery of consciousness has half-persuaded me that his evolutionary approach will eventually provide an answer, says Paul Broks


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I admitted to a friend recently that I was not exactly ready for heaven yet. My reluctance has to do with the prospect of meeting Jesus face to face. I don't even know what Jesus looked like when He here on earth--no one does. His blazing, penetrating eyes will surely pierce my soul when I do see Him. He knows everything there is to know about me--and more.
My friend commented that some Catholics believe they have Mary as a go-between. Presumably, they can go to Our Lady first? Perhaps she can plead for one's soul and soften that inevitable face to face encounter? Or, perhaps one can find a way go to heaven first, and make an appointment to see Jesus later--through one of His appointment secretaries--He must be very busy anyway, who I am to take up His time?
My apprehension resulted from a recent Bible study in the Epistles of John.
And now little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that every one who does right is born of him. See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 2:28-29, 3:1-3)
I found new clarification about this, as I usually do, by consulting Ray Stedman. Ray says,
In this section John has been thinking of Jesus Christ. He has reminded us that there is coming an hour when each Christian will see him face to face. He is thinking of that encounter and the joy of seeing him again without that incomplete understanding we often experience now. It is not that Christians do not have personal contact with Christ now. We definitely do. It is that which keeps our faces alight, our hearts aflame, and our lives filled with joy. But, as Peter describes it, ours is now an experience of not seeing and yet loving. But John speaks of a day when we shall see him face to face. Suddenly he sees how the knowledge of Christ which we now have, incomplete as it may be, is the key to a problem that every Christian faces at one time or another -- the problem of recognizing other Christians. How to know whether a man or woman, a boy or girl, is genuinely born again. How to distinguish between the phony and the true, the mere professor and the real possessor of Christian life, between the one who is genuinely born again and the religious activist. He says the key is, "every one who does right is born of him"
It does not yet appear what we shall be. Life is full of mystery, and even though we have the enlightenment of the Scriptures there is still much we do not understand. John frankly acknowledges this. But notice, he quickly moves on to a note of certainty:
...but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
We do not know everything, but we do know three definite things about the future:
Certainty #1: We know that he will appear. I wonder if there is anyone here who doubts that. This is the most certain fact of all history. You think death and taxes are sure -- they are nothing compared to this. This is an absolutely inescapable fact in God's program for mankind; he will appear. He appeared once, he will appear the second time. Of this there is no doubt. All history is moving to this goal. You who know your Bibles well know that even the apparent confusion that exists today is but creating the conditions predicted in the Scriptures, and are working out the great purposes of God. Remember, as we saw earlier in John's letter, all this as far as your experience is concerned is no further away than your own death, and you do not know how soon that will come. So this event, this change (we shall be like him when he appears) is no further away than your own death -- and may be much closer than that.
Certainty #2: "We know that we shall be like him. I urge you to read that very carefully now, and note the context out of which it comes. It is linked with our present limited knowledge. Note that it does not say, "when he appears we shall become like him." There is a misconception that has arisen in many Christian minds which seemingly regards this verse as teaching that when Jesus Christ appears, when we see him at death or when he comes into time, we shall all suddenly become like him, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. Certainly as regards the body, this is so. Our bodies become like his. Paul speaks of it to the Philippians, "this vile body of our humiliation shall be made like unto his glorious body, his body of glory. All the groanings and weakness which we experience each day will be forgotten when our body is changed into a body like his. That happens, as Paul tells us in First Corinthians 15, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, when this mortal puts on immortality, and "Death is swallowed up in victory," (1 Corinthians 15:54). But the body is but the shell of the inner life. We do not suddenly change our total character and personality when we see Jesus Christ, and there is no Scripture that says so. Rather, as John is saying here, and is brought out in other places as well, what we have been becoming, through the years of our life, will suddenly be revealed when he appears. And what we have been becoming is, little by little, stage by stage, like him. The full extent to which we have become like him will be revealed when we see him, and not before. That is what he means.
The question, of course, that comes shouting out at us from all this is, "How much of my life is becoming like him right now?" What percent of the time am I, as a Christian, like Jesus Christ? How much of my time now, am I projecting the image of his life in me, rather than the image of the flesh in me? That is the crucial question, because that is what will be revealed when we see him. Everything else will be burned, as Paul says in First Corinthians, since it is but wood, hay and stubble. The gold, the silver, the precious stones, are the aspects and parts of our lives in which we have consented to be like him. But those times when we resist him, those areas in which we shut him out and assume that we have what it takes to live as God wants us to live in our own strength and energy, are all wood, hay, and stubble, and will be burned, and we will suffer loss. We have seen all this before. But notice that the change into his likeness must happen now. We are becoming like him right now. Look at Second Corinthians 3:18:
And we all, with unveiled face [i.e., with the blindness taken from our eyes by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who teaches us all things], beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness [right now, as we see the Lord revealed to us from the word by the Spirit, and in the experience of fellowship with one another, we are being changed into his likeness] from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Thus in the day when we see him, when he appears, then we will be like him only to the extent we have learned to be like him now. That is what makes this "light affliction" Paul speaks of so tremendously important, because it is producing this. This light affliction is working for us, Paul says, producing a likeness to him. As we see him in our circumstances, and we learn to accept them, prickly and thorny as they may be, as coming from him, sent by him to work in us that which he desires; as we learn to do this without grumbling, without complaint, or rejection, we discover that we are becoming like him. All these things are God's instruments to shape us and mold us to make us into his likeness. When we grumble and gripe, or complain and try to run away, we are rejecting the instruments God has sent to make us into his likeness. So we face the possibility of becoming much less like him than we could be.
Certainty #3 is mentioned in this verse, "we shall see him as he is." "But," you say, "according to what this verse says, this is the reason we become like him; when we see him as he is then we all become like him." That is exactly what has given rise to what I have previously called a misconception in the Christian life, this idea that everyone is suddenly to become fully like Jesus when we see him as he is. No, no. We are already becoming like him, even when we see him as in a mirror, faintly, darkly, as Paul puts it. It does not take a full-orbed view of Christ to make us like him, that is happening even now.
But this little word for in this verse, is a Greek participle that can also be translated that. The best commentators admit that it is ambiguous whether this should be translated, "we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is" or whether, as I think, it should be translated, "we shall be like him that we might see him as he is," i.e., in order to see him as he is. That is why we are being changed into his likeness now, in order that when we see him we shall see him as he is.
We shall be able to understand him, to enter into communion with him, to fellowship with him. As we well know from our own experience, you must be like something in order to understand it, to enjoy fellowship with it. That is the reason why your dog cannot enter into your sorrows or your joys. You come home brokenhearted and sit down. The dog senses something is wrong. He whines and sits looking up at you with his brown eyes expressive of concern, but he cannot understand, he is puzzled, he does not know what is wrong, he cannot enter in, he cannot comfort you. He does not and cannot understand what you are going through. Again, you are happy, and he knows you are happy. He wags his tail, but he does not know what it is all about. He cannot know because he is a dog and you are a human; therefore, he cannot enter into what you are going through.
Christian friends, that is what the apostle says about us. No man can understand the things of God except the Spirit of God, he only can understand. No man can enter into fellowship with God by himself. We cannot possibly understand this mighty, wonderful, transcendent Being, this great fountain of love and grace and truth. We can never know him until we become like him. But that is what is happening now. Do you understand? That is what is happening to you, through your circumstances, now. If you see it that way, then you will see why John adds this third verse here.
And every one who thus hopes in him [i.e., Christ], purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:3)
If the degree to which you become like him is the degree to which you will see him as he is, then what a powerful motivation this is to become like him now; to accept your circumstances, to stop quarreling with what God sends to you, and begin in everything to give thanks, allowing these strange instruments of God's grace to do their work in your life. Paul says, "tribulation works patience, and patience, experience," (cf, Rom 5:3ff). Tribulation works patience -- that means it makes you ready to wait and watch and pray for God to work things out. And patience works experience -- experience of what? The experience of seeing God work things out so that again and again you see that the situations which caused you to fear, or made you uncertain, as you patiently waited and looked to God, doing what he indicated you could do at the moment but otherwise resting quietly, began to work out in wonderful ways, time after time. And experience works hope. Not hope in the worldly sense of uncertainty, of chance, but hope in the biblical sense, of certainty, absolute assurance.
A few experiences like this and you know absolutely that God is adequate, that he is able to work everything out. You know that every testing is another opportunity for God to demonstrate his great ability to work things out. Thus hope "makes not ashamed," it gives confidence, a sense of unbeatable confidence which keeps you poised and assured under any circumstance. All that is what happens now, as God begins to work through our circumstances to make us like him. That is why John says that every one who has this kind of hope, this certainty; and understands this process; purifies himself, even as Christ is pure
The provision for our cleansing is the Word of God and the Spirit of God. "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin," (cf, 1 John 1:7). "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," (1 John 1:9 KJV). This means we must begin to take seriously this matter of a break of fellowship with Christ because of an impatient spirit, or an ugly word, or a lustful idea or thought which we have dwelt on. We must realize the stain of it does not disappear by the passage of time. It has interfered with our fellowship with the Son of God, and we must do something about it. We cannot simply forget it, we must do something about it. We must purify ourselves, using the provision he has provided, that we might be clean...
(from Recognizing the Unrecognized, http://pbc.org/dp/stedman/1john/0150.html, and What Shall We Be? http://pbc.org/dp/stedman/1john/0151.html), by Ray C. Stedman.
Reconciled to God
Three decades ago I would have said I understood the New Covenant-- "Everything coming from God, nothing coming from me." But each year I see things about this great "arrangement for living" which God put into effect for Israel, and for us, at the Last Supper (Luke 22:20).
...Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, "See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain." But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: "The days will come, says the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I paid no heed to them, says the Lord. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, `Know the Lord,' for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8)
This past year I have returned again and again to the following brief "New Covenant" section of Scripture in 2 Corinthians:
"Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men; but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to be proud of us, so that you may be able to answer those who pride themselves on a man's position and not on his heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.
Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:11-21)
This passage says several important things to me. See if you agree. As far as God is concerned all men have already died. Moreover Christ has already died in place of, on behalf of, each and every one of us. He did this in order to carry away all of our sins forever. This means that the central issue today between man and God has to do with forgiveness and mercy. In effect God is saying to us. "Do you want to be forgiven?" "Will you allow me to love you and make you into a new person?" "I know you feel the weight of years of sin and guilt and shame, but I have already taken care of that." "I love for you and I am ready to forgive you fully and drop all charges against you in My Court forever--will you let me do this?"
Because of this full provision for all the sins (past, present and future)--for all men everywhere-- we who know Jesus here and now are urged to view our fellow human beings as if they already have died, and already been forgiven, and already made into "new creations" in Christ. The potential is there. It is only a decision away. Those of us who know Jesus now are not better than anyone else, we can not write anyone off, we must not given up on people until they stop breathing. If all men would say "yes" to Jesus, presumably all men could be saved. The potential is there. The human inclination to come to Jesus is not there. Most everyone hates God and wants no part of Him. (Indifference to God is a very effective form of hatred by the way). They must be persuaded by patient love in virtually every case.
At the end of our lives each one us--one at a time--will give account of himself or herself to this very same Jesus. Consider the situation a non-believer will be in when he faces Jesus. YOU will stand in front of the loving, caring man Jesus who gave his life that YOU might be saved. In spite of every opportunity in YOUR life-time did YOU keep saying to God, "no thanks"? What an ultimate insult this rejection of Him will be to a merciful and compassionate God! But, in addition to being merciful and gracious, God is also Just. He must act justly. Having been unwilling to accept God's offer of reconciliation YOUR entire life (while you were living as a house guest in God's universe), YOU--the guilty sinner--must now pay for YOUR own sins. This means, of course, being separated forever from God, separated from God's people and God's kingdom. C. S. Lewis says,
"I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully 'All will be saved'. But my reason retorts, 'Without their will, or with it'? In fact, God has paid the price, and herein lies the real problem: so much mercy, yet still there is hell.' In the long run, objectors to the doctrine of hell must answer this question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins, and at all costs to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty, and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so -- in the life and death of his Son. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, that is what he does. Hell, it must be remembered, is not only inhabited by Neros or Judas Iscariots or Hitlers. They were merely the principal actors in this rebellious drama. God's heaven is not a bribe: it offers nothing a mercenary soul can desire. The great summons to heaven is that away from self. This is the ultimate law -- the seed dies to live, the bread must be cast upon the waters, those who lose their soul will save it. Perhaps self-conquest will never end; eternal life may mean an eternal dying."
It is a wonderful gift God offers us free of charge. Not only should we gratefully receive that gift, (which we obviously do not deserve and can not earn), we ought not refuse to allow God to give us the full benefits of that gift--He wants to make us over into the new persons He designed us to be when He built the universe.
The teaching of the New Testament is that now, at this very moment, there is a Man in heaven appearing in the presence of God for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul; he is a man glorified, but his glorification did not de-humanize him. Today he is a real man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible and audible man, whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us. But more than this, he is the heir of all things, Lord of all lords, head of the church, firstborn of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the believer, the hope of Israel, and the high priest of every true worshiper. He holds the keys of death and hell, and stands as advocate and surety for everyone who believes on him in truth. Salvation comes not by accepting the finished work, or deciding for Christ; it comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our fight and won it, accepted our debt as his own and paid it, took our sins and died under them, and rose again to set us free. This is the true Christ; nothing less will do. (from the pen of A. W. Tozer)
References: What's
There to Live for? http://pbc.org/dp/stedman/2corinthians/3685.html,
and A Word for this Hour, http://pbc.org/dp/stedman/2corinthians/3686.html
Back to Lambert Dolphin's Library


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RTC Summer Update: America East
Posted by Brian Goodman on July 13th, 2011With the completion of the NBA Draft and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. Our newest update comes courtesy of our America East correspondent, John Templon. John also writes about New York City basketball at Big Apple Buckets.
Reader's Take I
Summer Storylines
- Coaches Moving On Up: Vermont and Boston University lost two very talented coaches this summer. The Catamounts' Mike Lonergan went back to his Washington, D.C., roots and took the job at George Washington. Lonergan – who won a national title at Division III Catholic University in D.C. and also coached at Maryland – should fit in well at GW. Assistant John Becker replaced Lonergan, so there should be strong continuity. On the other hand, BU had to scramble after Pat Chambers was hired by Penn State to replace Ed DeChellis. The Terriers ended up with former Columbia head coach Joe Jones, who spent last season as an assistant at Boston College.
- Playing With The (Future) Pros: The 2010-11 America East Player of the Year, Boston University's John Holland, played in the Portsmouth Invitational. He finished tied for ninth in scoring at 15.0 points per game and 18th in rebounding with 6.3 boards per game. He played with former Florida forward Vernon Macklin and former Villanova guard Corey Fisher on the Portsmouth Sports Club team that finished in fourth place. Holland had workouts with a few NBA teams before signing with Chorale de Roanne of France's Pro A Division.
- A World of Experience: America East continues to pick up steam as a worldwide conference. Four players in Maine's incoming recruiting class aren't originally from the United States and Albany has two players coming in from Australia and another from the Dominican Republic in its 2011 class. Another Australian, Corban Wroe, will be playing for Hartford in the fall. Many of the incoming recruits have experience playing with their respective international squads and incoming Maine freshman Noam Laish was selected as the captain of Israel's U-18 squad for the European Championships.
Power Rankings
- Boston University: After making the NCAA Tournament in 2011, the Terriers return all but one of their linchpins. Of course, that one guy is America East Player of the Year John Holland who averaged 19.2 PPG last season. BU will also be going without head coach Pat Chambers, but he certainly didn't leave the cupboard bare for Joe Jones. Darryl Partin (14.3 PPG) and Jake O'Brien (10.9 PPG, 5.5 RPG) should provide scoring. Also watch out for sophomore guard D.J. Irving. He averaged 8.0 PPG as a freshman and his workload should only increase in 2011-12. The Terriers have won 21 games in each of the past two seasons and a postseason berth is definitely the expectation.
- Albany: The Great Danes are in a similar position as BU, as the graduation of one key player will determine the fate of their season. Tim Ambrose was First Team All-America East last season and led Albany with 16.6 PPG and 3.6 APG. Two other Third Team All-America East teammates will try to pick up the slack next season and improve on a 16-16 record and both are high-scoring guards. Logan Aronhalt averaged 14.6 PPG and Mike Black averaged 12.1 PPG. They will be the leaders of a young Albany team that has a lot of potential, but doesn't have a single senior amongst the key players.
- Stony Brook: Maybe this will be the season that the Seawolves finally make it to the NCAA Tournament? After coming one win away from the Big Dance last season, Stony Brook brings back a talented cast of characters and will look to build on a 15-17 campaign that only ended when Holland hit two free throws to give Boston University the title. The key man is Bryan Dougher, a 6'1″ guard that was second team all-conference last season. It was a tenacious defense that kept Steve Pikiell's team in games last season and that'll have to be this team's calling card again in 2011-12. Dougher was the only double-digit scorer last season and the team's second leading scorer, Chris Martin, graduated.
- Vermont: While it's always hard to pick against the Catamounts, they have a number of glaring holes to fill for next season. The first is at head coach where Vermont decided to go with continuity by hiring former assistant John Becker after Mike Lonergan left for George Washington. The second is on the court, as leading scorers Evan Fjeld and Joey Accaoui graduated. Left behind though is a number of talented players. Brendan Bald scored 11.3 PPG last season and forward Brian Voekel was named Rookie of the Year in the conference. Four McGlynn, a 6'1″ shooting guard from Dallastown, Pennsylvania, is expected to come in and immediately use his shooting range to extend defenses so that Voekel has the space to work underneath. The midseason addition of Gonzaga transfer Keegan Hyland will also help boost the roster. By the end of the season, the Catamounts will once again be a team no one wants to face.
- Maine: The Black Bears end the list of serious contenders for the America East crown in the 2011-12 season. After finishing 15-15 (9-7 in conference), Maine looks to build towards the future and its first ever NCAA Tournament appearance. The loss of Troy Barnies will be a big blow to the Black Bears' frontcourt after he averaged 14.1 PPG and 7.6 RPG last season. Serbian native Zarko Valjarevic should take some of the scoring load as a freshman. He's a 6'4 shooting guard with the ability to make an immediate impact.
- UMBC: It's time for the Retrievers to prove that the last two seasons were a fluke and that the team can be competitive again in America East. Led by Chris De La Rosa (see "Buzzworthy"), UMBC has to improve from 2010-11 when it went just 5-25 overall. A commitment to defense will be the key as the Retrievers finished last in America East in opponent field goal percentage and allowed 1.14 points per possession. Look for 6'6″ forward Chase Plummer to make a bigger impact during his sophomore season after the graduation of Justin Fry and Travis King. Also gone? Assistant head coach Nate Stewart. Stewart had been the longest-tenured assistant on UMBC's staff, but he's taking over as head coach at Eastern University in Pennsylvania.
- Hartford: The Hawks graduated four of its top five scorers this spring, and its top three overall, and now have a big scoring load to pick up. Luckily, Hartford is also bringing in a pretty talented freshman class. Texas guards Yolonzo Moore and Wes Cole should bring some hustle and firepower to the Hartford backcourt next season. Up front, Genesis Maciel will hold down the fort. Maciel is Hartford's leading returning scorer at seven points per contest. On the plus side, the Hawks will host the first three rounds of the conference tournament again this season.
- New Hampshire: Bill Herrion likes to play slowly and, led by 2010-11 All-America East Defensive Team member Chandler Rhoads, the Wildcats should be able to frustrate their opponents. The question is can the team score enough to make it matter? There's not much out there to suggest that they will. Ferg Myrick is a player to watch out for if he can come back strong from the knee injury that ended his 2010-11 season after just 14 games. When healthy, he averaged 12.1 PPG.
- Binghamton: Binghamton sure has developed a strong following, as the school has the led America East in attendance each of the past eight seasons. It's tough to expect too much to cheer about in 2011-12 though as the team graduated its three leading scorers. Junior guard Jimmy Gray is Binghamton's leading returning scorer after averaging just 6.5 points per game last season. Freshman Ben Dickinson at 6'9″ might get some playing time his first season, because the team will struggle to put size on the court.
Look Ahead
2010-11 was a down year for the America East Conference as a whole. It finished 28th in conference RPI. The conference hasn't won an NCAA Tournament game since 2005, when Tom Brennan's Vermont Catamounts upset Syracuse (read more from Brennan in this recent interview with RTC). Of course, before that, the last win was Drexel in 1996. Last season, just two conference teams finished over .500 overall,Vermont and Boston University, and now both squads are breaking in new head coaches. How quickly Joe Jones and John Becker adapt to their new teams and are able to establish continuity will go a long way towards determining what happens in the conference race this season.
It looks like it should be an exciting race overall, as there are a number of teams that should challenge the Terriers, the current league favorite, for the title. Albany and Stony Brook were young teams last season and bring back most of the important pieces of their roster. Improvements by those two teams could make America East at least a four-team race. Most importantly, the conference needs schools at the bottom to pick things up. UMBC won 24 games and reached the NCAA Tournament in 2008, but won just a combined nine games over the past two seasons. Binghamton is still recovering from the academics scandal that hit the university and won just eight games during the 2010-11 season. If either of those schools significantly improves, it would be a big boost to the conference overall.
Chris De La Rosa is a 5'10″ point guard playing on UMBC, so it's not a shock that most of the country has no idea who he is. If the Retrievers are going to do anything next season, it'll be the senior point guard that gets them there. Last season, De La Rosa led the America East by averaging 6.0 assists per game. He was also third in the conference scoring 15.5 points per game (and the other two guys graduated). The question for the guard from Washington Heights, New York, is whether he can get UMBC's team success to match his personal accomplishments.
Reader's Take II
Mark Your Calendar
- Vermont in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off – The Catamounts will go on the road to face South Florida on November 12 before traveling to Mohegan Sun to take on Marist.
- Maine at Connecticut, Nov. 17 – The Black Bears have just one victory over a power six team since 2000, a 2009 win over Boston College. The defending national champs will be as good a barometer as any in this early matchup.
- Stony Brook at Rutgers, Dec. 17 at Madison Square Garden– The Seawolves get tested in the non-con against Mike Rice's Scarlet Knights in his second season.
- It also looks like Boston University is setting itself up with a challenging non-conference schedule and Vermont could have a few other games against quality competition. These are just the very early releases.
Over at Big Apple Buckets, I've been looking at team similarity scores. It's fun to see how the style of certain teams compares to its peers. Here's the closest comparison for each of the nine conference teams. The one caveat is I'm not taking into account schedule strength, so sometimes schools from the America East are being compared to major conference teams. I think it's still a fun thing to look at.
- Vermont– Georgia 2011
- Boston University– Charlotte 2010
- Maine–Miami (OH) 2008
- Albany– Wyoming 2004
- Stony Brook – Houston 2004
- New Hampshire– New Hampshire 2010
- Hartford– Washington State 2004
- Binghamton– Indiana State 2007
- UMBC – Idaho 2006
A few things I found interesting:
- Vermont's closest comparison made the NCAA Tournament last season. Georgia is the only comparison team that made the Field of 68, which makes sense considering the down quality of the league last season.
- Bill Herrion's squads have had a very definitive style recently. That's especially true in terms of effective field goal percentage defense (where UNH has been strong) and effective field goal percentage offense (where UNH has been miserable).
- UMBC finished 5-25 last season. Ironically, its closest comparison, 2006 Idaho, finished 4-25 overall.


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Within the local food movement, the community supported agriculture model is praised. CSAs, as they're commonly known, are often considered one of the best ways to restore a connection to the foods we eat.
The model is simple: Consumers buy a share of a farmer's produce up front as a shareholder and then reap the rewards at harvest time. But running a CSA can bring with it some tricky business decisions.
Farmers, some of whom have limited business experience, must quickly learn how to market products, build customer loyalty, advertise, manage risk and diversify their revenue sources. CSAs, depending on their member involvement, often force farmers to turn a portion of their operation into a customer service business.
Visit Spring Kite Farm in Fort Collins, Colo., and it's clear that even on small vegetable farms, business savvy is a necessity. Meghan Williams and her boyfriend Michael Baute began farming a three-acre parcel in the spring of 2012. Both had farmed as apprentices before, but wanted their own space and their own business.
"People ask if we're married and we say, 'Oh no, we're way beyond that. We own a small organic farm together," Baute said with a laugh. "You spend a lot of time on the farm and there's not a great margin, profit margin, so in the beginning it's definitely a struggle."
Many small business owners will understand that struggle, even if running a small vegetable farm comes with what Baute called"unique challenges." The business of Spring Kite Farm is split into thirds. One third of the produce goes to the farmer's market. Another third is sold to local restaurants. The final third feeds their 35 CSA shareholders, a relatively small CSA. An operation in Europe, where the CSA model has been used for decades longer than in the U.S., feeds more than 45,000 families.
Here's how the model works at Spring Kite: Local folks sign up at the beginning of the spring and write a check to the farm for a season's worth of vegetables. Then they hope for a good year, right alongside the young farmers.
"Like the stock market, you can have a good year or a bad year," Williams said. "Sometimes it pays off and it doesn't pay off in money, it pays off in food."
Starting and running a small farm, or any small business, is inherently risky. About ten percent of farms go out of business each year.
"The CSA model is probably the deepest commitment a customer can have with a farm, but it's also very difficult to run well," said Dawn Thilmany, a professor of agricultural economics at Colorado State University. "It's just a richer relationship. And any time there's a richer relationship in any form, but mostly in business, it's going to mean you have to do a lot of planning to make sure you can honor all of your promises."
The promise of locally produced, consistent baskets of food is one of the biggest concerns when running a CSA. Proponents of the model say it's what makes the CSA model unique. A CSA allows a farmer to spread out the risk of running a small farm. Customers share a portion of the risk, whether it be in the form of late season frosts, pesky bugs or hailstorms, which can really help a small farm plan for a growing season. They receive cash up front and have a stable group of investors.
The problem comes when things go wrong. Small farms can usually communicate that risk to members, Thilmany said, but it can be a tougher task for bigger farms with a less engaged group of members. One bad season could sour even the most loyal members.
"Once you have a ding on your record that someone was disappointed, it's really hard to get your reputation back," Thilmany said.
Another problem is the lack of reliable data on what works and what doesn't. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is starting to take notice of innovative local food systems. The USDA recently commissioned a nationwide survey of CSA farms, working with researchers from the University of Kentucky. Forms are schedule to be sent out this year.
Other surveys and studies conducted since the CSA model took hold in the United States in the 1980s have been fragmented, incomplete, or infrequently updated. A 2007 USDA agricultural census asked farm owners just one question about CSAs. More than 12,500 farmers said they had some involvement with a CSA enterprise. That number, though, has been called inaccuratedue to the loose and sometimes confusing definition of what qualifies as a CSA. A University of Wisconsin 1999 study of farms that were using the CSA model yielded insights on how these businesses were faring financially, but there hasn't been a comprehensive look at the state of the CSA movement in the U.S. since then.
John Hendrickson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a vegetable grower himself, helped conduct the 1999 nationwide survey. When talking to CSA farmers, he found the biggest challenges came when they started to grow the farm, to begin making more money. He says problems came up not just on the customer service side, but on expanding the farm's operations.
"It's fairly easy to fall into a trap of growing larger than you intended even in the very first season," Hendrickson said, noting that it can be tempting to expand quickly when the weather's cooperating and customers are clamoring for a CSA share.
But bad weather and other unexpected complications lurk just around the bend. Plus, it's easier to manage weeds and harvest and pack produce from a four-acre farm than from a 400-acre farm.
"That's where the you-know-what hits the fan sometimes and growers realize that, gulp, I expanded too quickly," Hendrickson said.
The biggest challenges to the growth in CSAs are financial, Hendrickson said. Back in 1999, he found that on average CSA enterprises brought in $15,000 annually. Farms that used CSAs as an income source reported total farm income of somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000, which forced many small farmers to keep jobs off the farm. Even though the study is more than a decade old, Hendrickson said he suspected many of the same issues are at play on CSA farms today.
Back at Spring Kite Farms in Fort Collins, Meghan Williams and Michael Baute say they're taking the "slow growth" approach to avoid some of the pitfalls that come when a farm grows too quickly. They just barely broke even last year, without giving themselves a paycheck.
"Part of our philosophy – and this is incredibly idealistic and romantic and I know that – but there's more ways to quantify success than just maximizing economic gain," Baute said. "And so for us to be out here with our dogs and make our own decisions, that's success."
Even Baute says joining a CSA is not for everyone, no matter how much the concept is in vogue. Shared risk can cause even the most die-hard foodie to feel anxious, and make them pine for the days of shopping at the farmers market.


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Yes. Emerald Ash Borer was confirmed in Fridley on May, 2019. Since then outbreaks have been found throughout the city.
If your tree service does not remove the ash material, you can dispose of the tree at a yard waste site such as the Bunker Hills Compost Site. Ash tree wood can be used as firewood in your backyard, provided that you comply with Fridley's fire safety regulations. Leaves cannot be burned in a backyard firepit. Ash tree wood cannot be transported outside of the EAB quarantine zone.
As part of our contract to treat public ash trees, Rainbow Treecare is offering Fridley residents discounted pricing on the treatment of private ash trees in the City. The City also offers discounted replacement trees through our annual tree sale. The City does not offer any cost share options on tree removal.
Yes, untreated infested trees have to be removed or treated or they will become a safety hazard. If you see a tree that appears infested or hazardous, let us know by reporting a tree concern or calling 763-572-3566. Under City Code Chapter 104. the city forester will prescribe whether the tree can be treated or should be removed. If the tree is not removed within the timeline established by the letter, the tree will be abated and costs assessed to the property owner.