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Text from President Obama's remarks on the economy at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, April 10, 2012.
I know this is a busy time of year. Some of you are less than a month away from graduation. (Applause.) Some seniors in the house. (Applause.) Pretty soon, you'll be closing the books at Wimberly for the last time. Maybe you'll be making that one last trip to the beach or Coyote Jack's. (Applause.) You'll be picking up that diploma that you worked so hard for. Your parents will be there -- they'll be beaming, full of pride. And then comes what folks call the real world.
Now, I actually think college is part of the real world. But obviously there's a transition that will take place as you leave college. And some of you may go on to post-graduate degrees, but some of you are going to be out there looking for work. College is the single-most important investment you can make in your future. (Applause.) So I'm proud that you've made it and you've seen it through.
But I also know that the future can be uncertain. Now, we've gone through the three toughest years in our lifetimes, economically -- worst financial crisis, worst economic crisis. Our economy is now recovering but it's not yet where it needs to be. Too many of your friends and too many of your neighbors are still hurting out there. They're still looking for work. Too many of your families are still searching for that sense of security that started slipping away long before this recession hit.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Amen! (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Got the "Amen" corner here. (Laughter.)
So at a time like this, we've got to ask ourselves a central, fundamental question as a nation: What do we have to do to make sure that America is a place where, if you work hard, if you're responsible, that that hard work and that responsibility pays off? (Applause.) And the reason it's important to ask this question right now is because there are alternative theories.
There's a debate going on in this country right now: Could we succeed as a nation where a shrinking number of people are doing really, really well, but a growing number are struggling to get by?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: Or are we better off when everybody gets a fair shot -- (applause) -- and everybody does a fair share, and everybody plays by the same set of rules? (Applause.)
That's what the debate in America is about right now. This is not just another run-of-the-mill gabfest in Washington. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class and everybody who's aspiring to get into the middle class. And we've got two very different visions of our future. And the choice between them could not be clearer.
Now keep in mind, I start from the belief that government cannot and should not try to solve every single problem that we've got. Government is not the answer to everything. My first job in Chicago, when I wasn't much older than most of you, was working with a group of Catholic churches on the South Side of Chicago in low-income neighborhoods to try to figure out how could we improve the schools, and how could we strengthen neighborhoods and strengthen families. And I saw that the work that some of these churches did did more good for people in their communities than any government program could. (Applause.)
In those same communities, I saw that no education policy, no matter how well crafted it is, no matter how well funded it is, can take the place of a parent's love and attention. And I also believe that since government is funded by you that it has an obligation to be efficient and effective. (Applause.) And that's why we've eliminated dozens of programs that weren't working, announced hundreds of regulatory reforms to save businesses and taxpayers billions of dollars. We've put annual domestic spending on a path to become the smallest share of our economy since Eisenhower was in the White House, which is before I was born much less you being born. (Laughter.)
I believe the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. (Applause.) But here's the thing. I also agree with our first Republican President -- a guy from my home state, a guy with a beard, named Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) And what Lincoln said was that through our government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. (Applause.) That's the definition of a smart government.
And that's the reason why we have a strong military, to keep us safe -- because I suppose each of us could just grab whatever is around the house and try to defend our country, but we do better when we do it together. And we've got the best military in the history of the world, with the greatest men and women in uniform. We pay for that. (Applause.)
That's why we have public schools to educate our children. (Applause.) If we didn't have public schools, there would still be some families who would do very well. They could afford private schools or some would home-school. But there would be a lot of kids who would fall through the cracks. So we do that together.
It's one of the reasons that we've laid down railroads and highways. We can't build a highway for ourselves. We got to get our neighbors and our friends to say let's go build a road. That's why we supported the research and the technology that saved lives and created entire industries. The Internet, GPS -- all those things were created by us together, not by ourselves.
It's the reason why we contribute to programs like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and unemployment insurance. (Applause.) Because we understand that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, we know that eventually we're going to get older. We know that at any point, one of us might face hard times, or bad luck, or a crippling illness, or a layoff. And the idea that together we build this safety net, this base of support, that allows all of us to take risks and to try new things, and maybe try -- get a new job -- because we know that there's this base that we can draw on.
So these investments -- in things like education and research and health care -- they haven't been made as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. This is not some socialist dream. They have been made by Democrats and Republicans for generations, because they benefit all of us and they lead to strong and durable economic growth. That's why we've made these investments. (Applause.)
If you're here at FAU because you got financial aid -- (applause) -- or a student loan, a scholarship -- which, by the way, was how I was able to help finance my college education. That's how Michelle got her college education. That doesn't just benefit you. It benefits whatever company might end up hiring you and profiting from your skills. If one of you goes on to become the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, or one of you discovers the next medical breakthrough, think about all the people whose lives will be changed for the better. We made an investment in you; we'll get a return on the investment. (Applause.)
When we guarantee basic security for the elderly or the sick or those who are actively looking for work, that doesn't make us weak. What makes us weak is when fewer Americans can afford to buy the products that businesses are selling, when fewer people are willing to take risks and start their new business, because if it doesn't work out they worry about feeding their families. What drags our entire economy down is when the benefits of economic growth and productivity go only to the few, which is what's been happening for over a decade now, and gap between those at the very, very top and everybody else keeps growing wider and wider and wider and wider.
In this country, prosperity has never trickled down from the wealthy few. Prosperity has always come from the bottom up, from a strong and growing middle class. (Applause.) That's how a generation who went to college on the GI Bill -- including my grandfather -- helped build the most prosperous economy that the world has ever known. That's why a CEO like Henry Ford made a point to pay his workers enough money so that they could buy the cars that they were building. (Applause.) Because he understood, look, there's no point in me having all this and then nobody can buy my cars. I've got to pay my workers enough so that they buy the cars, and that in turn creates more business and more prosperity for everybody.
This is not about a few people doing well. We want people to do well. That's great. But it's about giving everybody the chance to do well. (Applause.) That's the essence of America. That's what the American Dream is about. That's why immigrants have come to our shores, because the idea was, you know what, it doesn't matter what your name is, what you look like -- you can be named Obama -- (laughter) -- you can still make it if you try. (Applause.)
And yet, we keep on having the same argument with folks who don't seem to understand how it is that America got built. And let me just say, the folks that we have political arguments with, they're Americans who love their country. Democrats, Republicans, independents, everybody -- we all love this country. But there is a fundamental difference in how we think we move this country forward.
These folks, they keep telling us that if we just weaken regulations that keep our air or our water clean or protect our consumers, if we would just convert these investments that we're making through our government in education and research and health care -- if we just turned those into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, then somehow the economy is going to grow stronger. That's the theory.
And here's the news: We tried this for eight years before I took office. We tried it. (Applause.) It's not like we didn't try it. (Laughter.) At the beginning of the last decade, the wealthiest Americans got two huge tax cuts -- 2001, 2003. Meanwhile, insurance companies, financial institutions -- they were all allowed to write their own rules, or find their way around rules. We were told the same thing we're being told now -- this is going to lead to faster job growth. This is going to lead to greater prosperity for everybody.
Guess what -- it didn't. (Laughter.) Yes, the rich got much richer. Corporations made big profits. But we also had the slowest job growth in half a century. The typical American family actually saw their incomes fall by about 6 percent even though the economy was growing, because more and more of that growth was just going to a few, and the average middle-class American wasn't seeing it in their paychecks. Health care premiums skyrocketed. Financial institutions started making bets with other people's money that were reckless. And then our entire financial system almost collapsed. You remember that?
AUDIENCE: Yes!
THE PRESIDENT: It wasn't that long ago. I know you guys are young, but it was pretty recent. (Laughter.)
Now, some of you may be science majors in here. (Applause.) I like that. We need more scientists, need more engineers. Now, I was not a science major myself, but I enjoyed science when I was young. And if I recall correctly, if an experiment fails badly -- (laughter) -- you learn from that, right? Sometimes you can learn from failure. That's part of the data that teaches you stuff, that expands our knowledge. But you don't then just keep on doing the same thing over and over again.
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: You go back to the drawing board. You try something different. But that's not what's been happening with these folks in Washington.
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: A lot of the folks who were peddling these same trickle-down theories -- including members of Congress and some people who are running for a certain office right now, who shall not be named -- (laughter and applause) -- they're doubling down on these old broken-down theories. Instead of moderating their views even slightly, instead of saying, you know what, what we did really didn't work and we almost had a second Great Depression, and maybe we should try something different, they have doubled down.
They proposed a budget that showers the wealthiest Americans with even more tax cuts, and then pays for these tax cuts by gutting investments in education and medical research and clean energy, in health care.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: Now, these are the facts. If the cuts they're proposing are spread out evenly across the budget, then 10 million college students -- including some of you -- would see your financial aid cut by an average of more than $1,000 each.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Now, thousands of medical research grants for things like Alzheimer's and cancer and AIDS would be eliminated. Tens of thousands of researchers and students and teachers could lose their jobs. Our investments in clean energy that are making us less dependent on imported oil would be cut by nearly a fifth.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's wrong!
THE PRESIDENT: By the time you retire, instead of being enrolled in Medicare like today's seniors are, you'd get a voucher to pay for your health care plan. But here's the problem. If health care costs rise faster than the amount of the voucher, like they have been for decades, the rest of it comes out of your pockets. If the voucher isn't enough to buy a plan with the specific doctors and care that you need, you're out of luck. And by the middle of the next century -- by the middle of this century -- excuse me -- by about 2050, at a time when most of you will have families of your own, funding for most of the investments I've talked about today would have been almost completely eliminated altogether.
Now, this is not an exaggeration. This is math. And when I said this about a week ago, the Republicans objected. They said, we didn't specify all these cuts. Well, right, you didn't because you knew that people wouldn't accept them. So you just gave a big number and so what we've done is we've just done the math. This is what it would it mean.
They say, well, we didn't specifically propose to cut student loans. Okay, if you don't cut student loans, then that means you've got to cut basic research even more. The money has got to come from somewhere. You can't give over $4 trillion worth of additional tax cuts, including to folks like me who don't need them and weren't asking for them, and it just comes from some magic tree somewhere. (Laughter.)
So if you hear them saying, well, the President is making this stuff up -- no, we're doing the math. If they want to dispute anything that I've said right now, they should show us specifically where they would make those cuts. (Applause.) They should show us. They should show us. Because, by the way, they're not proposing to cut defense, they're actually proposing to increase defense spending, so it's not coming out of there. So show me.
Look, America has always been a place where anybody who's willing to work and play by the rules can make it. A place where prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top, it grows from the bottom; it grows outward from the heart of a vibrant middle class. (Applause.)
And I believe that we cannot stop investing in the things that help create that middle class; that create real, long-lasting, broad-based growth in this country. And we certainly shouldn't be doing it just so the richest Americans can get another tax cut. (Applause.) We should be strengthening those investments. We should be making college more affordable. (Applause.) We should be expanding our investment in clean energy. (Applause.)
Now, here's the other thing that the Republicans will tell you. They'll say, well, we've got to make all these drastic cuts because our deficit is too high. Our deficit is too high. And their argument might actually have a shred of credibility to it if you didn't find out that they wanted to spend $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates. I don't know how many of you are math majors, business majors -- you can't pay down a deficit by taking in $4.6 trillion of less money, especially when you're denying that you're going to be making all these cuts. It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense.
And keep in mind, more than a trillion dollars of the tax cuts they propose would be going to people who make more than $250,000 a year. That is an average of at least $150,000 -- again, we're just taking the numbers with the details they've given us and you spread it out -- that averages to at least $150,000 for every millionaire, billionaire in the country. Each millionaire and billionaire, on average, would get $150,000. Some folks would get a lot more.
So we did some math of our own. We added up all the investments $150,000 could pay for. All right? So let's say a tax break that I might get that I really don't need -- I've got -- treated pretty well in this life. (Laughter.) So right now, I'm going to be okay. Malia, Sasha, they're going to be able to go to college. (Applause.) Michelle is doing fine. (Applause.) So understand what this means.
Here's what $150,000 means -- $150,000, this is what each millionaire and billionaire would get, on average. This could pay for a tax credit that would make a year of college more affordable for students like you. (Applause.) Plus a year's worth of financial aid for students like you. (Applause.) Plus a year's worth of prescription drug savings for one of your grandparents. (Applause.) Plus a new computer lab for this school. (Applause.) Plus a year of medical care for a veteran in your family who went to war and risked their lives fighting for this country. (Applause.) Plus a medical research grant for a chronic disease. (Applause.) Plus a year's salary for a firefighter or police officer -- $150,000 could pay for all of these things combined. Think about that.
So let me ask you what's the better way to make our economy stronger? Do we give another $50,000 [sic] in tax breaks to every millionaire and billionaire in the country?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: Or should we make investments in education and research and health care and our veterans? (Applause.)
And I just want to emphasize again -- look, I want folks to get rich in this country. I think it's wonderful when people are successful. That's part of the American Dream. It is great that you make a product, you create a service, you do it better than anybody else -- that's what our system is all about. But understand, the share of our national income going to the top 1 percent has climbed to levels we haven't seen since the 1920s. The folks who are benefitting from this are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years.
You might have heard of this, but Warren Buffett is paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. Now, that's wrong. That's not fair. And so we've got to choose which direction we want this country to go in. Do we want to keep giving those tax breaks to folks like me who don't need them, or give them to Warren Buffet -- he definitely doesn't need them -- (laughter) -- or Bill Gates -- he's already said, I don't need them. Or do we want to keep investing in those things that keep our economy growing and keep us secure? That's the choice. (Applause.)
And, Florida, I've told you where I stand. So now it's time for members of Congress to tell you where they stand. In the next few weeks, we're going to vote on something called the Buffett Rule -- very simple: If you make more than $1 million a year -- now, I'm not saying you have a million dollars -- right? I'm not saying you saved up all your money and you made smart investments and now you've got your nest egg and you're preparing for retirement. I'm saying, you're bringing in a million bucks or more a year. Then, what the rule says is you should pay the same percentage of your income in taxes as middle-class families do. (Applause.) You shouldn't get special tax breaks. You shouldn't be able to get special loopholes. (Applause.)
And if we do that, then it makes it affordable for us to be able to say for those people who make under $250,000 a year -- like 98 percent of American families do -- then your taxes don't go up. (Applause.) And we can still make those investments in things like student loans and college and science and infrastructure and all the things that make this country great.
And this is where you come in. This is why I came to see you. I mean, it's nice to see you. The weather is nice; you guys have been a wonderful audience. (Applause.) I learned about the burrowing owl. (Applause.) So there were all kinds of reasons for me to want to come down here. But one of the reasons I came was I want you to call your members of Congress. I want you to write them an email. I want you to tweet them. (Laughter.) Tell them don't give tax breaks to folks like me who don't need them. Tell them to start investing in the things that will help the economy grow. Tell them if we want to bring down our deficit sensibly, then we've got to do it in a balanced way that's fair for everybody. Remind them who they work for. Tell them to do the right thing. (Applause.)
As I look out across this gymnasium, everybody here -- from all different backgrounds, from all different parts of the country -- each of us is here because somebody, somewhere, felt responsibility for other people. Our parents, obviously, our grandparents, great grandparents, the sacrifices they made -- some of them took enormous risks coming to this country with nothing because they wanted to give a better life to their kids and their grandkids. (Applause.) A lot of them did without so that you could benefit. But they weren't just thinking about their families. They were thinking about their communities. They were thinking about their country.
That's what responsibility means. It means that as you have greater and greater opportunity, then the scope of you being able to help more people and think about the future expands. And so you're not just thinking about yourself; you're thinking about your kids, your spouse, your family, your grandkids, your neighborhood, your state, your nation. You're thinking about the future.
And now it's our turn to be responsible. Now it's our turn to preserve the American Dream for future generations. Now it's our turn to rebuild, to make the investments that will assure our future, to make sure that we've got the most competitive workforce on Earth, to make sure that we've got clean energy that can help clean the planet and help fuel our economy. (Applause.)
It's our turn. It's our turn to rebuild our roads and our bridges and our airports and our ports. It's our turn to make sure that everybody here, every child born in whatever neighborhood in this country it is, that if they're willing to dream big dreams and put some blood, sweat and tears behind it, they can make it. (Applause.)
I know we can do that. I know we can do it because of you. You're here because you believe in your future. (Applause.) You're working hard. Some of you are balancing a job or a family on the side.
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: You have faith in America. You know it's not going to be easy, but you don't give up. That's the spirit we need right now, because here in America we don't give up. (Applause.) Here in America, we look out for one another. Here in America, we help each other get ahead. Here in America, we have a sense of common purpose. Here in America, we can meet any challenge. Here in America, we can seize any moment. We can make this century another great American century. (Applause.)
Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)


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Among opaque objects of equal size the apparent diminution of size will be in proportion to their distance from the eye of the spectator; but it is an inverse proportion, since, where the distance is greater, the opaque body will appear smaller, and the less the distance the larger will the object appear. And this is the fundamental principle of linear perspective and it follows:—[11]every object as it becomes more remote loses first those parts which are smallest. Thus of a horse, we should lose the legs before the head, because the legs are thinner than the head; and the neck before the body for the same reason. Hence it follows that the last part of the horse which would be discernible by the eye would be the mass of the body in an oval form, or rather in a cylindrical form and this would lose its apparent thickness before its length—according to the 2nd rule given above, &c. [Footnote 23: Compare line 11.].
If the eye remains stationary the perspective terminates in the distance in a point. But if the eye moves in a straight [horizontal] line the perspective terminates in a line and the reason is that this line is generated by the motion of the point and our sight; therefore it follows that as we move our sight [eye], the point moves, and as we move the point, the line is generated, &c.
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.

subset: commoncrawl


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October 4, 1999
Dyslexic children use nearly five times the brain area
Dyslexic children use nearly five times the brain area as normal children while performing a simple language task, according to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of University of Washington researchers. The study shows for the first time that there are chemical differences in the brain function of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children.
The research, published in the current issue of the American Journal of Neuroradiology, also provides new evidence that dyslexia is a brain-based disorder. Dyslexia, a reading disorder, is the most common learning disability, affecting an estimated 5 percent to 15 percent of children.
The UW researchers, headed by developmental neuropsychologist Virginia Berninger and neurophysicist Todd Richards, used a novel noninvasive technique called proton echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (PEPSI) to explore the metabolic brain activity of six dyslexic and seven non-dyslexic boys during oral language tasks. The researchers used PEPSI to measure levels of brain lactate activation. Lactate is a by-product of energy metabolism produced by neurons when the brain is activated. Most, but not all, of this brain activity took place in the left anterior, or frontal, lobe of the brain, which is known to be one of the centers for expressive language function.
"The dyslexics were using 4.6 times as much area of the brain to do the same language task as the controls," said Richards, a professor of radiology. "This means their brains were working a lot harder and using more energy than the normal children."
"People often don't see how hard it is for dyslexic children to do a task that others do so effortlessly," added Berninger, a professor of educational psychology. "There are learning differences in children. We can't blame the schools or hold teachers accountable for teaching dyslexic children unless both teachers and the schools are given specialized training to deal with these children."
To capture the brain activity of the subjects, the UW research team used PEPSI, which is about 32 times faster than conventional magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Software developed at the UW enabled the researchers to detect specific brain chemicals.
The 13 boys in the study were between 8 and 13 years of age and the dyslexic and control groups were well-matched in age, IQ and head size, but not in reading skills. The controls were reading at a level above normal for their age and had a history of learning to read easily. The dyslexics had delayed reading skills and were reading well below average for their age. Their families also had a history of multi-generational dyslexia that was confirmed in a concurrent family genetics study.
The boys, fitted with earphones were asked to perform four tasks while their brains were being imaged. Three of the tests involved pairs of words and the fourth used pairs of musical tones.
In the language tests, the boys heard a series of word pairs that consisted of either two non-rhyming words such as "fly" and "church," two rhyming words such as "fly" and "eye," a non-rhyming real word and non-word such as "crow" and "treel," and a rhyming word and non-word such as "meal" and "treel." The boys were asked if the word pairs rhymed or didn't rhyme and if the pairs contained two real words or one real and one non-word. They responded by raising a hand to indicate yes or no. In the music test, the boys heard pairs of notes and raised one hand if they thought the notes were identical and the other if they believed them to be different.
While the dyslexic boys exhibited nearly five times more brain lactate activation during a language task that asked them to interpret the sounds of words, there was no difference in the two groups during the musical tone test. This means the difference between the dyslexics and the normal children relates to auditory language and not to nonlinguistic auditory function, according to Richards and Berninger.
They also said the findings are important because they shed new light on brain mechanisms involved with dyslexia at a developmental stage when it is still amenable to treatment. In addition, the functional differences between dyslexics and control subjects add evidence that dyslexia is a brain-based disorder.
"When a child has a brain-based disorder it is treatable, although it may not be curable, just as diabetes is," said Berninger. "Dyslexia is a lifelong condition, but dyslexics may learn to compensate for it later in life. We know dyslexia is a genetic and neurological disorder. It is not brain damage. Dyslexics often have enormous talents in other parts of their brain and shine in many fields. Einstein was a dyslexic, and so were inventor Thomas Edison and financier Charles Schwab.
"While it is useful to show there are brain differences between dyslexic and non-dyslexic children, considerably more research is needed to precisely define the chemical and neurological markers of dyslexia. What we found is a metabolic marker, but there could be a more fundamental cause. We need to understand the molecular and neural mechanisms underlying dyslexia," she added.
Other members of the UW research team and co-authors of the study are Stephen Dager, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science; David Corina, assistant professor of psychology; Cecil Hayes, professor of radiology; Robert Abbott, professor of educational psychology; Susanne Craft, adjunct associate professor of psychiatry and behavior science; Dennis Shaw, assistant professor of radiology; and Stefan Posse, affiliate assistant professor of radiology. In addition, UW doctoral students Sandra Serafini, Aaron Heide, Keith Steury and Wayne Strauss participated in the research.
The study, part of a wider UW effort to understand the basis of dyslexia and develop treatments for it, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
For more information, contact Berninger at (206) 616-6372 or email@example.com or Richards at (206) 598-6725 or email@example.com


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We've been walking down memory lane as of late, and came across this gem by Anthony Skirvin of Ape Do Good done back in 2005 here in Fecal Face:
First thing, with screen printing, there is a bunch of different ways to achieve the same end result. What I am showing you here is only one way that I print posters, so this should be a considered an introduction, but know that there are plenty of different methods out there that will work just as well. ~continue reading


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Holy Thursday Liturgical Services in Chicago Deanery!
There are four events commemorated on Thursday of Holy Week: the washing of the disciples' feet, the institution of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, the agony in the garden of Gethsemane, and the betrayal of Christ by Judas.
The faithful of Chicago Deanery of the Western Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA were blessed to experience all four of these sacred commemorations, while attending the liturgical services of the day at St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago, IL.
Holy Thursday morning started at the cathedral with the Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, which was concelebrated by the clergy of the Chicago Deanery with His Grace Bishop Daniel. This Liturgy commemorates the institution of the Holy Eucharist, and it was spiritually uplifting to see the clergy of the Deanery (Very Rev. Bohdan Kalynuk – pastor of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Bensenville, IL; Archimandrite Pankratij – pastor of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago, IL; Very Rev. Raymond Sundland – pastor of Holy Archangel Michael Ukrainian Orthodox Pro-Cathedral in Hammond, IN; Rev. Fr. Walter Hwostik – pastor of Annunciation of the Birth-Giver of God Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Milwaukee, WI; Rev. Fr. Vasyl Sendeha – pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Palos Park, IL; Rev. Fr. Silouan Rolando – pastor of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Goshen, IN; Very Rev. Fr. Andriy Shelvakh and Rev. Fr. Taras Maximtsev, as well as Protodeacon Mykola Dilendorf and Protodeacon Andriy Fronchak of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago, IL) pray together at the Altar of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral. The bishop in his remarks reminded the faithful in attendance that "The Eucharist is at the center of the Church's life. It is her most profound prayer and principal activity. It is at one and the same time both the source and the summit of her life. In the Eucharist the Church manifests her true nature and is continuously changed from a human community into the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and the People of God… Our new life in Christ is constantly renewed and increased by the Eucharist. The Eucharist imparts life and the life it gives is the life of God."
Drawing near the conclusion of the Vesperal Liturgy, an ancient and sacred Rite of Washing of Feet took place in the nave of the cathedral. It appears that the Early Church had a ceremony of the Washing of the Feet annually on Great Thursday in imitation of the event at the Last Supper. For the most part, it was limited to Cathedral Churches and certain monasteries. In time, the service fell into disuse except in certain areas. It is now being recovered by many dioceses throughout the Orthodox world. The service is elaborate, dramatic and moving.
The bishop with the clergy processed from the sanctuary to the nave of the church in order to spiritually put into action the very example of humility and service to others that was preached by our Savior. By washing the feet of His disciples, the Lord summarized the meaning of His ministry, manifested His perfect love and revealed His profound humility. The act of the washing of the feet (John 13:2-17) is closely related to the sacrifice of the Cross. While the Cross constitutes the ultimate manifestation of Christ's perfect obedience to His Father (Philippians 2:5-8), the washing of the feet signifies His intense love and the giving of Himself to each person according to that person's ability to receive Him (John 13:6-9).
The eparchial bishop, having taken off his outer vestments approached each priest and in Christ like manner washed the feet of his clergy, dried them up with a towel and prayerfully kissed them, thus as a spiritual father of the Eparchy and a successor to the Apostles he instructed the clergy and the faithful in attendance the importance of humility, love and sacrifice in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


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Dick Clark Dead -- Death Caused by 'Massive Heart Attack' at 82
Dick Clark -- famed TV producer and "New Year's Rockin' Eve" host -- died from a massive heart attack this morning ... TMZ has learned.
Clark's rep tells TMZ, the TV icon had been in St. John's hospital in L.A. after undergoing an outpatient procedure last night. Clark suffered the "massive" heart attack following the procedure. Attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.
Clark was 82.
Clark's health had been on the decline since he suffered a significant stroke in 2004 -- forcing him to retire from his hosting gig at "New Year's Rockin' Eve," which he created in 1972. Ryan Seacrest took over in 2006. Dick has appeared on the show sporadically ever since. His final appearance was in 2011.
Months before suffering a stroke, Clark told Larry King he also suffered from Type 2 diabetes.
Clark got his first big break in 1956, hosting what was called "Bob Horn's Bandstand" ... what would later be renamed "American Bandstand." Clark continued to host and produce "American Bandstand" until 1989.
Dick hosted Miss USA from 1989-1993 -- and Miss Universe 1990-1993.
In addition, Clark also hosted a bunch of game shows -- like "Pyramid," "Scattergories," "The Challengers," and many more.
Clark had been inducted into practically every hall of fame on the planet -- including the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.
Clark had also received a total of 5 Emmy Awards for his work, as well as a Peabody Award. One Emmy was a lifetime achievement award.
Clark was married 3 times -- and has 3 children from his first two marriages. He is survived by his current wife Kari Wigton.
"For now, Dick Clark ... so long."
5:20 PM PT: Dick Clark's rep tells TMZ, there will be NO public funeral. In lieu of flowers, Dick's family asks that donations be made to the National Parkinson's Foundation based in Miami.
Ryan Seacrest just tweeted, writing, "I am deeply saddened by the loss of my dear friend Dick Clark. He has truly been one of the greatest influences in my life."
Donny Osmond tells us, "The industry lost a legend today, but I feel like I've lost a very close friend. Dick was a mentor to me."
The President of Miss Universe Paula Shugart -- who started working for Dick Clark Productions in 1985 -- tells TMZ, Dick "gave me my first break in TV. His death is hitting all of us hard."
The Internet's EXPLODING with reactions from celebrities -- click here for live updates.


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"During the siege of Leningrad in WWII, two young men are sent on an improbable errand. The horror of war is only heightened by the lightness with which Benioff handles their evolving friendship and the grim task that evolves from their mission. Great characters and authentic historical background make this a surprisingly winning novel."
— Russ Lawrence, Chapter One Book Store, Hamilton, MT
"I have just met two of the most likable and remarkable characters, Lev and Kolya, young Russian men trying to survive the Siege of Leningrad who are given a chance to save themselves from death if they can find a dozen eggs for the wedding cake of the daughter of a powerful and ruthless Russian colonel. Thus begins an odyssey that is at times disturbing, but the beauty of this novel is in the writing. It contains humor along with sadness, and these two men forge a friendship that is priceless."
— Carol Katsoulis, Anderson's Bookshop, Naperville, IL
"Set against the war-torn backdrop of Leningrad, two teenage boys end up, through stranger and stranger twists of fate, traveling cross-country to find a dozen eggs in exchange for their very lives. In the process, they learn more about human nature, both in themselves and others, than can possibly be explained. Wickedly funny and incredibly sad, it's far too short to be this lovely -- and yet it is."
— Russ Marshalek, Wordsmiths Books, Decatur, GA


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Blue Microphones' Mikey is a new plug-in stereo condenser mic for Apple's iPod.
Strangely, it doesn't worth with the iPhone or iPod touch, for which several recording applications are available (notably Sonoma Wire Works' new FourTrack), but owners of other models might find that it's a useful add-on for recording song ideas, gigs and practice sessions.
Mikey has three user-selectable gain settings, while the inclusion of a speaker means that you can immediately hear your recordings without the need to plug in a set of headphones.
The head can be positioned as required, and Blue says that Mikey will work with most protective iPod cases.
Mikey is compatible with iPod 4G, 5G, 6G, iPod Nano 2G, 3G and iPod Classic. It should be available in December and will cost $80.


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FAMILY lodges have opened their doors at Prospect Hospice allowing relatives to remain close to their loved ones throughout treatment and up until their very last moments.
Construction of the two bungalows began in November in an attempt to bring comfort to terminally-ill residents during their stay in the hospice's in-patient unit by providing a place for their families to be near them at all times.
The Wroughton charity was awarded £452,000 by the Department of Health in April 2013 towards the project.
While convenient for relatives travelling a long distance to visit patients, they will also enable families living much closer to enjoy as much time together while they can.
"Families will be able to stay much closer to their loved ones when they are moving towards difficult times," said Jo Hyde, of the Family Support Team. "Some families have to travel to come here and even if they do live locally the worry of being away from them is there.
"The lodges will allow them to stay in contact and know what is going on. You don't want to miss a moment; every moment is so precious. They can be self-sufficient but with support from staff."
The one-bedroom lodges are equipped with a small kitchen area and have a homely feel with their lounge spaces.
Each is also fitted with a disabled bathroom.
Prospect Hospice chief executive Angela Jordan added: "There can be no doubt that the opening of the two new lodges here at Prospect Hospice is very good news indeed for the families of patients who are concerned about where they will stay when a loved one is being cared for at the hospice.
"In future, the two lodges will offer a safe, comfortable and, perhaps most importantly, nearby place when their loved one is a patient here. We are certain that this will be a very welcome development.
"What should not be overlooked are the other refurbishments that the NHS England grant have enabled us to complete. We have already opened a sixteenth bed designated for patients who are fast approaching the end of life, and completely refitted a patient bathroom which is also already in use on the in-patient unit. Additionally we have been able to modernise our patient catering facilities, and create a dedicated rest-room for nurses taking a break from their shift.
"We believe that patients and their families will greatly benefit from the new developments this one-off funding have enabled us to complete at Prospect Hospice."
For more information visit www.prospect-hospice.net
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• anachronism •
Pronunciation: ê-næ-krê-ni-zêm • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Something or someone misplaced in time, out of chronological order, either old-fashioned or futuristic, though "old-fashioned" is more commonly intended. A horse-and-buggy is an anachronism on today's modern highways, though we see them frequently here in Amish country.
Notes: Please do not confuse today's Good Word with achronism "timelessness or a lack of time", often heard in the phrase, "an achronism". See the problem? Spats, top hats, bustles, and blunderbusses are anachronisms today. Today's word offers two adjectives to choose from, anachronistic [ê-næ-krê-nis-tik] and anachronous [ê-næ-krê-nês]. The suffix -ly added to either gives you a perfectly formed adverb.
In Play: This word most often refers to people and things that are behind the times: "Andy Belham is an anachronism who still uses paper and a typewriter to compose his poetry." However, let's not forget that this word may refer to timely misplacement in the future: "Leonardo da Vinci was a futuristic anachronism in his day."
Word History: Today's Good Word can be traced back through the history of European word trading to Greek anakhronismos, made up of ana- "not" + khronos "time" + ismos, a noun suffix. No one really knows where Greek khronos comes from; no related terms have been found in other Indo-European languages. What it went on to become, however, is obvious. English uses it in chronic, chronicle, chronology, and synchronize—and the complete list is much longer. (However, we cannot wait to thank Amy Frits, who avoids an anachronistic vocabulary by subscribing to our series and contributing excellent Good Words like today's from time to time.)
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!


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Square enix wrote:
How will grinding vs. quests work for leveling? Will players find
more reward from taking on quests as opposed to just grinding?
We will be moving away from a grind-oriented leveling system to a quest/
content-driven leveling system.
No longer will randomly defeating public monsters be the most efficient way
to level your character.
What do you guys think? Something along the line like Leves in 1.0? I have literally not a single clue what they are gonna do. all i know is i'm hyped and pumped up for 2.0 lol :)
I always loved the grinding, And that was only in FFXI to be honest! and ffxiv also for a bit. i've played ALOT of mmo's but none i could bare the grinding. How ever in FFXI i had multiple jobs 75. i soloed SMN to 75. had SMN/DRG/RDM/DNC and some other jobs 75 as well. i loved it.
Seeing they are working on some changes on the combat in FFXIV makes me even more excited. What do you guys think or hope they will do?^^


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[Editor's note: IMG MGMT is an annual image-based artist essay series. Today's invited artist wishes to remain anonymous.]
Is it still necessary to define art by intent and context? The gallery world would have us believe this to be the case, but the internet tells a more mutable story. Contrary to the long held belief that art needs intent and context, I suggest that if we look outside of galleries, we'll find the actions, events and people that create contemporary art with or without the art world's label.
Over the past 20 years, the theory Relational Aesthetics (referred to in this essay as RA) has interpreted social exchanges as an art form. Founding theoretician Nicholas Bourriaud describes this development as "a set of artistic practices that take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context"[1]. In reality, art erroneously known to typify RA's theorization hasn't strayed far from the model of the 1960's Happening, an event beholden to the conventions of the gallery and the direction of its individual creator. In her essay Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, Claire Bishop describes Rikrit Tiravanija's dinners as events circumscribed in advance, using their location as a crutch to differentiate the otherwise ordinary action of eating a meal as art[2]. A better example of the theory of RA succinctly put into action can be seen in anonymous group activities on the internet, where people form relations and meaning without hierarchy.
Started in 2003, 4Chan.org is one such site, and host to 50 image posting message boards, (though one board in particular, simply titled '/b/', is responsible for originating many of the memes we use to burn our free time.) The site's 700,000 daily users post and comment in complete anonymity; a bathroom-stall culture generating posts that alternate between comedic brilliance, virulent hate and both combined. Typically, the content featured is a NSFW intertextual gangbang of obscure references and in-jokes where images are created, remixed, popularized and forgotten about in a matter of hours. 4Chan keeps no permanent record of itself, making an in the moment experience the allure of participation. For all of the memes that have leaked into our inbox from it, 4Chan maintains a language, ethics and set of activities that would be incomprehensible to the unfamiliar viewer. Induction to /b/'s world is not fortified and understanding it merely requires Google searching its litany of acronymated terms or participating regularly enough to find out for yourself.
"It is up to us as beholders of art to bring [unforeseen associations] to light, ["¦] to judge artworks in terms of the relations they produce in the specific contexts they inhabit" [3] concludes Bourriaud in his 2001 book, Postproduction. One of the unforeseen relationships he mentions is that of the contemporary artist and contributive internet surfer (the kind of Photoshop bandit you can find on /b/). Bourriaud understands each as methodological equals, calling them "semionauts". He uses this term to define those who create pathways through culture by reorganizing history to bring forward new ideas[4]. In a digital environment equally defined by information categorizing and shopping, a case for surfing-as-art neatly falls between two historical precedents: Duchamp's specification-as-art and 1980's artists' (such as Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, or Heim Steinbach) interest in consumption-as-art. Surfing-as-art and RA both enact Peter Bürger's description of the avant-garde's intention to merge everyday life with the aesthetic realm.
Marcin Ramocki's essay Surfing Clubs: organized notes and comments describes the rapid conversations on group posting websites using jpgs, gifs, video, links, and text as a material;
The older the club the more convoluted the semiotics of communication between surfers becomes. This communication entails posting organized content by a challenger, and a decoding of it by other participants, who respond with a posting where both syntagms and paradigms of the challenge post are identified and playfully manipulated.[5]
The medium, practice and logic of surf clubs outlined in Ramocki's essay matches 4Chan's /b/ message board identically, though the circumstances are obviously different. While /b/ anonymously concerns itself with people and events popularized on the internet, the individuals who manage surf clubs have social and professional connections to the art world, making their primary point of reference art historical. Reference should not be the sole criteria for understanding surfing-as-art, however. Ramocki, like Bourriaud, premises his belief in surfing-as-art not on the type of allusions made in content, but on the production method of a post and its network environment. Both describe this environment as continuously active, altering or re-contextualizing information and making it public with hope for further use by peers.
With this condition in mind, it's fair to call /b/ a massive surf club whose conceptual language is determined by those without connections to the art world or the need for validation from it. As artist and blogger Eryk Salvaggio puts it, "The net can't handle the pretense of art, or anything that seems manufactured, because it has a keen bullshit mechanism."[6] Though /b/ doesn't need us, contemporary art does need a dose of /b/'s refined understanding of actively anonymous group creation for us to advance the "bullshit" we cherish.
This notion of ongoing use in surf clubs is also fundamental to RA's attempt to create an art that takes place through the continuous social interactions participants have within an environment. Ramocki describes surf clubs as more than a dump site for disparate images, but as a location where highly specific visual languages are formed and conversed in. This corresponds with Bourriaud's description of the future of Relational art;
artists intuitive relationship with art history is now going beyond what we call "the art of appropriation," which naturally infers an ideology of ownership, and moving toward a culture of use of forms, a culture of constant activity of signs based on a collective ideal: sharing.[7]
From this quote we can draw another relationship: /b/ and other surf clubs are digital examples of Relational Aesthetics, artforms that rely on social interaction and feedback to take place. But before /b/ can totally fall under the hood of RA, there is one last hurdle in aligning it with Bourriaud's theory. Relational Aesthetics reflected Bourriaud's distrust for technology, a feeling so deep he even criticized automatic public toilets as instruments that distance the public from itself. Bourriaud saw the 1990's generation's drive to initiate an art consisting of intimate human relations as a reaction to the disembodying effects of the digital age.
These theories are now out of date. Understanding our only 'real' relations as those that occur through physical encounters becomes arbitrary when considering the behavioral and situational norms each physical encounter presents. Each of these norms acts as an intermediary between others and ourselves (though some would argue these norms do not regulate, but are our personalities). Like the digital world, physical interaction is full of socially bound 'interfaces', operating methods that determine the substance of relationships. As any millennial can attest, the idea that there is an in-person 'real' version of you that comprises your full identity and an online personage that bears no impact on your 'real' self, isn't an accurate description of contemporary life. The inclusion of digital sites of interaction as a development of Relational Aesthetics is an idea not so strange considering the method's practitioners' past interest in the economics of mass exchange, intermediary points of being during travel and the collision of global cultures.
An expansion into the digital world could also help clarify RA in practice; it is a theory with an open disdain for art's commodification, though is often exhibited within the shelter of an art institution. This discrepancy was best articulated, oddly enough, by dealer Gavin Brown, sharply saying in an interview with the BBC:
Don't you think that if you wanted to look at the possibilities of an art that's theoretical horizons encompass the realm of human interactions in a social context, wouldn't you want to just go out and meet people and have a good life? I mean, to me it seems as though a lot of this work is made by people who are scared to live life in the first place— incredibly unradical people[8] who play a game of a radical life in the safe confines of some Kunsthalle or other museum in Germany or France.[9]
Despite Bourriaud's interest in collaborative art making, his theory's purest realization has been put on hold by institutions that must place emphasis on individual creators to maintain their financial well-being. While inside of a Liam Gillick exhibit, have you ever forgot that you were attending a Liam Gillick exhibit? I haven't. Ending the viewer/creator dichotomy requires no less than the end of the art-star system and a participation format that makes room for the errors inherent in free will. In his essay Postchronist Manifestation, Dominick Chen states
as long as there exists an asymmetry (or distance) between producer and receiver, the modality of cultural production would inevitably lead back to a religious power structure.[10]
An art of Relational Aesthetics "far from the classical mythology of the solitary effort"[11] would be anonymously produced and give all participants the greatest degree of choice possible when determining the course of their own experience. Here we arrive again at 4Chan.
In addition to the constantly evolving visual and textual language on 4Chan's message boards, there is another /b/ activity that exemplifies group production in line with RA's theory. These activities are called 'raids'— projects where a person or institution is chosen and a mass of anonymous people contribute to bringing on the manipulation of its digital existence.
While a surf club may screen capture and edit material in Photoshop to post to their board, /b/'s raids are concerned with bringing on an evolving change in the source itself, not a visualized hypothetical. Surf-clubs have a Relational structure of communication among members, but they still maintain the individual creation of static art within a designated space. In contrast, raids are a breach of boundaries—a way of altering the work's 'real life'. William S. Burrough's proposition that art manifest itself ("What if a painting of a bomb exploded in a gallery?") is fitting for raids[12]. These site-specific alterations may take place through cracking passwords, using the open editing features on a website like Wikipedia, or hacking. Sometimes they even take place in person.
Raids have no leaders and the course of their action is decided by the collective will(s) of all participants. Without a chain of command, a raid is an event constantly in flux. They may end before they even start or begin with one plan of action and later morph into many splintering reactions. A raid's anti-hierarchical fragmentation is similar to the antagonism Claire Bishop describes in Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics. Separate from the temporary microtopias attempted by some RA artists, Bishop calls the social works of art that reveal natural oppositions between participants an example of relational antagonism. She explains that this art making is a way of "exposing that which is repressed in sustaining the semblance of harmony."[13]
Antagonism is a byproduct of free choice and speech— an inefficient but necessary way of relating if a project wishes to remain as open as possible. 4Chan users tend to value personal liberty above all, making the prime targets of their raids people or companies who engage in censorship or moral zealotry[14]. Disgust for authority is so engrained in /b/'s culture of anonymity that users who attempt to demand raids for their own personal gain have became the target of backlash attacks themselves. While some group interventions are petty, others are thought provoking and intelligently executed, like 2009's mARBLECAKEALSOTHEGAME raid, which is /b/'s finest work yet.
When TIME Magazine offered 4Chan's founder, m00t, as a candidate for 2009's 100 Most Influential People of the Year online readership poll, /b/ wasted no time launching an attack to propel him to the top spot. The resulting campaign included likely thousands of participants' manual labor, the creation and dispersion of sophisticated ballot-stuffing software programs and several strategic changes[15] in online manipulation methods from March to April of 2009. m00t not only took first place, but all of the top 21 people listed in the poll were intentionally ordered in such a way that their first names spelled out a secret message: 'mARBLE CAKE ALSO THE GAME'[16]. 'Marble cake' is alternately described as the name of the chat room where the anti-Scientology raid Project Chanology was born, or as an unsanitary sex act. 'The game' is an inside joke that requires you to not utter or think of it to be able to win. You mostly likely just lost the game.
The mARBLE CAKE raid was an impulsive assembly of a group to simultaneously make reflexive commentary while literally revising who the public thought they voted to be the most powerful that year. The ranked influence of the names listed in the top 21 becomes subservient to the order of /b/'s encrypted message. This echoes the commonly launched criticism of TIME's yearly "Influential" issue that many of the people included are merely entertaining figureheads or patsies who act at the behest of even more powerful, discrete interests. More specifically, the raid is a work of Relational Aesthetics. Just as the empty bottles left over from Rikrit Taravanija's meals are later used as sculptures in their own right, the resulting alteration of TIME's poll becomes a digital monument to /b/'s successfully group-orchestrated intervention. /b/'s influence on Time magazine's website is the Relational given form through their own activity.
What we witness by looking at the mARBLE CAKE raid is the result of a group of computer programmers who used their knowledge to make a mockery of a flawed media structure without retaining individual credit for themselves. With this equally creditless result, I'm reminded of the symmetrical creativity Dominick Chen calls for in his essay Postchronist Manifestation. Chen situates Relational Aesthetics as the second to most current form of art making in history. The newest, he claims, is as-of-yet unmade, though differs from RA in that it is created and interpreted collectively without hierarchy. This 'new' form of art does not exist inside of traditional institutions and confronts the conditions of its participants' lives within their own environment. What Chen describes is in fact Relational Aesthetics as ideally theorized by Bourriaud, highlighting the contradiction between the reality of RA's art-star-filled, institutionally reified present incarnation and the hope for an emancipatory future inherent in RA's theory. Chen calls this 'new' form of art 'X' but he might as well have named it /b/.
[1] Nicolas Bourriaud. Relational Aesthetics, (Les Press Du Reel, France 1998) p. 113
[2] Clare Bishop. Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, (OCTOBER 110, Fall 2004) p. 69
[3] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 94
[4] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 18
[5] Marcin Ramocki. Surf Clubs: organized notes and comments. (Self published, May 27, 2008) p. 5
[6] Comment by Eryk Salvaggio on Rhizome.org discussion board May 12, 2008. http://www.rhizome.org/discuss/view/37290
[7] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 4
[8] It should be mentioned that his gallery, Gavin Brown Enterprise represents several Relational artists, calling into question whether this answer was hypocritically sincere, ironic or Sophist.
[9] BBC News. Relational Art: Is it an Ism? 2004. http://www.ubu.com/film/relational.html
[10] Dominick Chen. Postchronist Manifestation. Video Vortex Reader Responses to Youtube. Edited by Geert Lovink and Sabine Neiderer (Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2008) p. 74
[11] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 10
[12] William S. Burroughs, The Fall of Art from The Adding Machine: Selected Essays. Arcade Publishing, 1993. P. 62
[13] Clare Bishop. Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, (OCTOBER 110, Fall 2004) p. 79
[14] Julian Dibbell describes 4Chan's ethos as "radically authorless, furiously remixed and compulsively serious" while imagining their antithesis as "a strictly disciplined, hierarchical organization founded on the exact reproduction of relentlessly earnest, fiercely copyright-protected words" in his Wired article The Assclown Offensive.
[15] Because the poll took account of both the number of votes and the average rating of influence (a number up to 100 at best), the ballot stuffing software distributed among participants needed to take use complicated algorithms to insure each of the 21 names would stay high or low enough on the list for the mARBLE CAKE message to be spelled properly. As the raid continued, TIME caught on to these attempts and upped their security measures. Throughout the month the mARBLECAKEALSOTHEGAME message became illegible many times, forcing raiders to adopt new methods to combat Captcha Codes and time restrictions. As the amount of manual labor increased, many lost interest in the project and moved on. Participants came and went all throughout the raid— free choice includes the possibility of refusal.
All images shamelessly stolen from Encyclopedia Dramatica, except for the ones stolen from Google image search.


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B.C.'s minimum wage has risen 20 cents to $10.45 an hour, the first annual increase since the the provincial government tied it to the B.C. consumer price index.
It's the first increase since 2012, when the wage was increased to $10.25. For restaurant and pub servers, the minimum wage rises from $9 to $9.20. Jobs Minister Shirley Bond has said the discount from the general minimum wage will remain at $1.25 to account for income earned in tips.
Piece rates for seasonal piece workers also receive proportional increases, as do day rates paid to live-in camp counsellors and residential caretakers at apartment buildings.
NDP labour critic Shane Simpson called the increase "dismal" and "paltry." B.C. Federation of Labour president Irene Lanzinger said by the end of 2015, B.C. will have the second lowest minimum wage in Canada.
"Seattle will reach $15 an hour by 2017, Alberta by 2018," Lanzinger said. "B.C.'s minimum wage will reach $15 per hour by 2034."


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Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program in the United States, 1999 (ICPSR 2994)
Version Date: Mar 30, 2006 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
The Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program, the successor to the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) Program (DRUG USE FORECASTING IN 24 CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1987-1997 [ICPSR 9477]), measures levels of and trends in drug use among persons arrested and booked in 35 sites across the United States. The data address the following topics: (1) types of drugs used by arrestees (based on self-reports and urinalysis), (2) self-reported dependency on drugs, (3) self-reported need for alcohol/drug treatment, (4) the relationship between drug use and certain types of offenses, and (5) the relationship between self-reported indicators of drug use and indicators of drug use based on urinalysis. Participation in the project is voluntary, and all information collected from the arrestees is anonymous and confidential. The data include the arrestee's age, race, gender, educational attainment, marital status, and the charge at the time of booking. The modified ADAM/DUF interview instrument (used for part of the 1995 data and all of the 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 data) also collected information about the arrestee's use of 15 drugs, including recent and past use (e.g., 3-day and 30-day drug use), age at first use, and whether the arrestee had ever been dependent on drugs. As part of the ADAM program, arrestees were asked to provide a urine specimen, which was screened for the presence of ten drugs, including marijuana, opiates, cocaine, PCP, methadone, benzodiazepines (Valium), methaqualone, propoxyphene (Darvon), barbiturates, and amphetamines (positive test results for amphetamines were confirmed by gas chromatography).
Citation View help for Citation
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
St. Louis data are not included in this data collection, because the city was temporarily on hiatus from the ADAM program in 1999.
The term "arrestee" is used in the documentation, but because no identifying data are collected in the interview setting, the data represent numbers of arrests rather than an unduplicated count of persons arrested.
Users are encouraged to refer to the documentation and reports for the DUF data (ICPSR 9477) for specific information on the DUF program from 1987-1997.
The user guide, codebook, and data collection instruments are provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program was designed to estimate the prevalence of drug use among persons in the United States who are arrested and booked, and to detect changes in trends in drug use among this population. ADAM is an expanded and redesigned version of the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) Program (DRUG USE FORECASTING IN 24 CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1987-1997 [ICPSR 9477]) that has been upgraded methodologically and was expanded to 35 cities in 1998. Research addressing the prevalence of drug use typically does not include the population of offenders and therefore may underestimate levels of drug use in the United States. The ADAM program makes a contribution to research on the prevalence of drug use by sampling persons who are not sampled by other surveys of drug use. Moreover, the ADAM data provide information that may be used by law enforcement and drug treatment officials to allocate resources, design prevention strategies, and gauge the impact of local efforts to reduce drug use. The following is a sample of the questions addressed by the data: What types of drugs do arrestees use? Among arrestees reporting drug use, how many report that they are dependent on drugs? To what extent do arrestees report a need for alcohol/drug treatment? Is the likelihood of drug use greater for persons arrested for certain types of offenses? Finally, what is the relationship between self-reported drug use and indicators of drug use based on urinalysis?
Study Design View help for Study Design
The ADAM program is a nonexperimental survey of drug use among arrestees. In addition to supplying information on self-reported drug use, arrestees are asked to provide a urine specimen at the conclusion of the interview, which is screened for the presence of ten illicit drugs. Between 1987 and 1997, the ADAM/DUF program collected information about drug use among arrestees from booking facilities in 24 sites across the United States, although the number of data collection sites varied slightly from year to year. Prior to 1998, samples of arrestees for the ADAM/DUF program were drawn from booking facilities within each of the sites and thus were limited to the types of arrestees booked at these facilities. In 11 sites (Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Omaha, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Washington, DC), the catchment area represented the central city. The data from the city of Denver included Denver County in its entirety, and the St. Louis data also encompassed a county. (Kansas City ceased being a DUF site after 1992.) In ten additional sites (Dallas, Ft. Lauderdale, Indianapolis, Miami, New Orleans, Manhattan [New York City], Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio, and San Jose), the catchment area was the county, parish, or borough. In 1998, ADAM expanded to 35 sites, making a concerted effort to add sites west of the Mississippi River. The 12 new sites were Albuquerque, Anchorage, Des Moines, Laredo, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Spokane, and Tucson. The data collection area for each site included the county within which the city is located. Anchorage and New York are the exceptions: Anchorage represented the city only and New York included all five boroughs, which represents five separate counties. The name of the New York site was changed from Manhattan to New York City to reflect the inclusion of all boroughs. In 1999, St. Louis was temporarily on hiatus from the ADAM program, resulting in a total of 34 sites for 1999. Data collection took place four times a year (once each calendar quarter) in each site on a staggered schedule, with collection periods for any single population (male, female, or juvenile) generally lasting 1-2 consecutive weeks. Data collection for the various populations did not necessarily run concurrently. Interviewing typically occurred over 4- to 8-hour shifts every day for a 1- to 2-week period. Trained local staff at each site administered voluntary, confidential interviews and obtained anonymous urine specimens from detained arrestees who had been in a booking facility for not more than 48 hours. The number of persons interviewed and the demographic composition of those interviewed varied somewhat across the 34 sites participating in the 1999 ADAM program. On average, each site attempted to obtain a sample of 225 adult males per quarter. Data were collected from approximately 100 adult females each quarter at 33 of the 34 sites. In addition, nine sites collected data from juvenile males and six collected data from juvenile females. These data are provided in Part 2, Juvenile Arrestees Data. At sites in which juveniles were interviewed, staff attempted to obtain samples of 100 boys and 100 girls, although in many sites these quotas were not met due to the small number of juvenile detainees from which to draw samples. Beginning in 1998, all arrestees booked into a facility within the previous 48 hours were eligible to be interviewed, including those arrested on warrants only. This represents a substantial change from the eligibility criteria used in past years. Users are encouraged to consult the user guides for ICPSR 9477 to compare the eligibility criteria used from 1987-1997.
Sample View help for Sample
The data were collected from the following: 31,210 adult male arrestees at 33 sites, 10,278 adult female arrestees at 32 sites, 2,514 juvenile male detainees in 9 sites, and 434 juvenile female detainees in 6 sites. All arrestees were eligible for the ADAM program.
Universe View help for Universe
Arrestees in 34 sites in the United States during 1999.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
arrest records, personal interviews, and clinical records
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
The data include the age, race, sex, educational attainment, marital status, employment status, and living circumstances of a sample of persons arrested and booked in the United States. The modified ADAM/DUF interview instrument (used for part of the 1995 data and all of the 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 data) also includes detailed questions about each arrestee's self-reported use of 15 drugs. For each drug type, arrestees were asked whether they had ever used the drug, the age at which they first used the drug, whether they had used the drug within the past three days, how many days they had used the drug within the past month, whether they had ever needed or felt dependent on the drug, and whether they were dependent on the drug at the time of the interview. Data from the new interview instrument also include information about whether arrestees had ever injected drugs and whether they were influenced by drugs when they allegedly committed the crimes for which they were arrested. Further, the data include information about whether the arrestee had been to an emergency room for drug-related incidents and whether he or she had prior arrests in the last 12 months. Data that continue to be collected with the new version of the ADAM/DUF instrument provide information about each arrestee's history of drug/alcohol treatment, including whether they ever received drug/alcohol treatment and whether they needed drug/alcohol treatment. In addition to the survey, a urine specimen provided by the arrestee was screened (by the drug testing system EMIT, Enzyme Multiplied Immunoassay Testing) for the following ten drug types: marijuana, opiates, cocaine, PCP, methadone, benzodiazepines (Valium), methaqualone, propoxyphene (Darvon), barbiturates, and amphetamines. All positive results for amphetamines were confirmed by gas chromatography to eliminate positives that may be caused by over-the-counter drugs. Finally, the following variables included in the data were collected for use by local law enforcement officials at each site: precinct (precinct of arrest) and law (penal law code associated with the crime for which the subject was arrested).
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Approximately 80 percent of eligible arrestees agreed to be interviewed. This agreement rate is down from approximately 90 percent in previous years of the DUF program due to a change in the sampling method. With all arrestees eligible for the ADAM program, an increased number of arrestees did not agree to participate. Of those who consented to the interview, approximately 80 percent provided a urine specimen. The dataset includes only those persons who both agreed to be interviewed and provided a urine specimen.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
Version History View help for Version History
- United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice. Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program in the United States, 1999. ICPSR02994-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02994.v1
2006-03-30 File CB2994.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.
2000-11-15 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Performed consistency checks.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.


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by Hannah Radosevich, Student Contributor
Alice Lloyd College is pleased to announce that Megan Burnett, Assistant Professor of Speech and Theatre, has been awarded a Faculty Fellowship for 2014-15 by the Appalachian College Association (ACA).
The ACA is a non-profit consortium of 36 private, four-year liberal arts institutions spread across the Central Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Fellowships named in honor of Jean Ritchie, Wilma Dykeman Stokely and John B. Stephenson are awarded annually and provide from $3,000 to $30,000 for pre- or post-doctoral study.
The award will aid Burnett as she travels the Eastern seaboard, researching the life of Mattie Browne, a Kentucky abolitionist, who is known for writing a highly respected pseudo-slave narrative titled Autobiography of a Female Slave. The ACA fellowship will provide Burnett the funds needed to travel and pay housing and food costs, as well as cover the price of copying records and other documents relevant to her project.
"This is a significant honor," Burnett said. "I'm truly grateful to be supported in my research efforts in this manner."
From Kentucky to New York and Massachusetts, Burnett will be visiting courthouses and libraries, including the Harvard University Library in Boston, where she will be wading through articles, photographs, various government and genealogy records, as well as letters Browne wrote and received to get a complete understanding and timeline of the woman's extraordinary life.
Born in Owensboro, KY and raised in Louisville, Mattie Browne and her sister inherited half a dozen slaves upon the death of their parents. As ardent abolitionists, the sisters worked to raise the money needed to emancipate their slaves and resettle them in free territory. They used all of the proceeds from the sales of Autobiography of a Female Slave, an account many believed to be authentic, to fund their emancipation efforts. The Brownes were cited several times in court for "lax management" of their slaves, and Mattie Browne also went on to become a noted suffragist, joining the fight for equal rights for women and voting rights for everyone, regardless of skin color or gender. She would eventually become vice president of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Burnett hopes to use her findings to write the very first biography of Browne. However, her plans do not end there. The professor also intends to publish an anthology of Browne's works and to create a one-woman show in which she herself will play Browne.
"My goal with this project is to raise awareness of the work attributed to American women who shaped this country's social justice and arts history, " Burnett said. "Women were not only present, but took action — often at great peril to themselves — to effect change in the world, and history needs more evidence, scholarly and artistic, of the role of women in early American history."


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Commonly known as the 'Boob Job'; Breast Augmentation / Breast Enhancement / Breast Enlargement Surgery or Breast Implants are the terms used to describe increasing the size and/or changing the shape of the female breasts. A surgical procedure where silicone or saline implants are inserted behind the breast tissue or beneath the chest muscle. With both techniques, the implant is behind the milk ducts so that future breastfeeding is not affected.
The silicone implant is by far the most popular choice as they're considered to appear more natural when compared to saline implants, however, silicone implants require a slightly larger incision. Different types are available based on the shape and the size, with the two most common being the Round and Teardrop Implant.
The decision to have a breast augmentation should be an informed one that takes into account the potential risks and side effects. You should also have realistic expectations about the results of breast implant surgery to avoid disappointment. Find out about the procedure, the recovery period and any possible complications – ask your doctor or surgeon if you are unsure about anything.
The Procedure
A Breast Augmentation is performed by inserting implants behind your breast tissue or below your chest muscles, both of these surgical techniques will position the implants behind your milk ducts to prevent any complications in the future, especially when breastfeeding. Your breasts may continue to develop as you reach your late teens and right up to your early twenties, which is why the FDA requires women to be at least eighteen years of age and older to undergo this type of surgery.
Prior to the breast enhancement procedure, you would have had to undergo a consultation and medical evaluation with your surgeon. During this time, your surgeon will help you decide what type of implants and what size best suits your breast condition. This is also the time to discuss incision options. The incision will depend on the type of implants, size and of course, the surgeon-patient preference. There are 3 types of incision that each patient must be aware of:
- Transaxillary incision – in the armpit
- Periareolar incision – around the nipple
- Inframammary incision – in the crease under the breast
There are two basic types of breast implants with both being performed under general anesthetic:
Saline implants composed of silicone shells filled with sterile salt water (saline). Saline-filled implants can be pre-filled or filled during the placement procedure. This type of implant will give your breasts an even shape and more of a natural feel and firmness. Saline implants have been known to rupture over time, they may also wrinkle at an early stage as compared to other types of implants. However, if this type of implant leaks, its shell will collapse and eventually, the saline will be absorbed and expelled naturally by your body.
Silicone Implants, on the other hand, are silicone shells filled with a plastic gel (silicone). The preferred implant type as it is considered to feel more like a real breast than compared to Saline Implants. Silicone implants can also be pre-filled or filled during the placement procedure. Furthermore, it is also FDA approved for augmentation in women aged 22 and above. On the flip side, if this type of implants leak, its gel will either stay inside the shell or leak into the breast implant pocket. Compared to Saline-filled implants, a leaking silicone-filled implant may or may not collapse and revision surgery will be required.
Length of Stay in Destination
Breast augmentation surgery can be performed as an outpatient procedure but is usually inpatient with a one night stay in the hospital included. The typical surgery time is between 1-1.5 hours. It is important to have regular check-ups with your surgeon during your immediate recovery time. This is especially important to patients who have undergone silicone breast implants; you have to make sure that your implants are properly functioning. An MRI screening or ultrasound may be required to assess its condition.
Removal of the stitches will be decided upon during your one-week checkup. Be aware that you will need to stay local until you get the go-ahead from your surgeon that you can travel back home, but it's safe to say 7-10 days post-op is sufficient enough time when booking a round trip.
Recovery Time
Every woman's body is unique, so it is important to know that there is no exact timeline for recovery. Usually, the first 3-5 days are the most uncomfortable; your Doctor will prescribe pain medications to ease your discomfort. It is most likely advisable that you take 2 weeks off work after the operation to fully help the recovery.
Keeping in mind that breast implants are not designed to last for a lifetime, it is important that you maintain a regular check-up with your local Doctor. Most patients are usually fully cleared to resume all their normal activities after two months. In terms of exercise, you will be able to return back to your full routine in about 6-8 weeks.
But it is vital that you strictly follow your Doctor's aftercare instructions so that you will not have any complications and your implants will be able to heal properly.
Success Rate
Breast augmentation surgery has always been one of the most popular cosmetic procedures, the world over, with ~98% of women expressing positive feedback, benefiting from a more desirable appearance and a huge boost in confidence. Common postoperative complications are usually concerned with the scar healing areas and positioning of the implants, so it is necessary that you undergo at-home physiotherapy during the recovery period. Your breasts will look and feel natural within a few months as your breast tissue, muscle and skin slowly stretch to accommodate your implants.
Alternatives to Breast Augmentation Procedures
Fat transfer is one alternative to breast implants, in this procedure, unwanted fat tissue from a part of your body is removed by liposuction and then injected to your breast area. Fat grafting has now also been widely adopted in both plastic and reconstructive surgery.
For an in-depth analysis of the pros and cons of breast surgery, watch this short video
Patient reviews: The vast majority of patients are extremely pleased with the level of professionalism and emotional support with the entire process leading up to and following the surgery. Often the increase in self-confidence is considered the biggest positive from the procedure. Before and after photos are available online with patient comments.
To check prices or to book a Breast Augmentation Procedure in Thailand or anywhere else in the world, head on over to MyMediTravel now!