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by Josephine Laing
Two hundred years ago women and slaves were property. If a woman was raped, she had no recourse under the law because she had no rights. However, her husband, the property owner could sue her rapist for damages if he chose. If a slave ran away, he was guilty of theft, having stolen himself from his rightful (full of rights) owner. When we have no rights we can not govern ourselves.
The Declaration of Independence grants all of us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Two hundred years ago this did not include women or people of color. Corporations have been granted personhood and have progressively accrued human rights and legal privileges which seriously undermine our ability to democratically govern ourselves.
[For more information on this aspect of this topic, please connect with the Move to Ammend Group in SLO.http://www.facebook.com/pages/MOVE-TO-AMEND-of-San-Luis-Obispo-County/189896431102174 ]
And just like two hundred years ago, once again we face the privileged few who have unjustly claimed the right to own as their property our air, our drinking water and the quality of of very lives. Back in the 1950's, Rosa Parks refused to acknowledge the unjust rights of the privileged ones and asserted her right to sit anywhere she like on the bus. She met the opposition of those who chose to uphold unjust laws and then gained support from others who saw the injustice there and joined her cause and changed the course of history.
Well, here we sit, once more confronted with injustice, laws that protect the privileged few to the detriment of many. And these laws are the ones that created the BP oil spill disaster, have allowed Nestle corp to suck every drop of water out of the wells of entire communities, have allowed big oil interests to pollute our air to the point of climate change, give the coal industry and mining corporations the right to buy up and blow up entire mountains destroying habitats and water quality downstream and have allowed the meat and paper industries to strip gigantic forests systematically from the face of the planet. And those same unjust laws are about to bring us Fracking right here in SLO.
When they were originally formed, corporations were supposed to do public service. And back then laws were written to protect the rights of people. But somehow that original intent has become distorted and instead we are left crippled to fight for our own communities well being and the laws are written to protect business interests at the expense of basic human rights. How did all of this go so wrong? And what can we do to change it?
Shannon Biggs who is the Director of the Community Rights Program for a group called Global Exchange, works with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and helps communities to reclaim our basic rights to Self Govern ourselves in the places where we live as is indicated in our countries Declaration of Independence. She was invited to speak at the Ludwick Community Center (http://www.slocity.org/parksandrecreation/reccenter.asp.) by the Transition Town folks here in SLO and came to help us learn how we can begin to turn around the tide of those kinds of corporate-rape-for-profit schemes, right here in San Luis Obispo.
Shannon came at our request because of our communities concerns over the imminent threat of Hydraulic Fracturing otherwise known as "fracking," which is about to take place in our county. Fracking has been making notorious news as it has swept through our nation leaving a tail of destruction, all the while generously padding the pockets of big oil.
Quite probably within this next month, our Board of Supervisors will be considering plans to Frack here. A local Water Resource Advisory Council (WRAC) is already in place and poised to address the "allowable level of harm." This process which has already happened in numerous counties across our nation is about to happen right here and right now in SLO and will potentially seriously endanger our water quality and most likely drastically affect our ground stability.
[On May 17th, National Public Radio (NPR) announced that the entire state of Vermont passed a law banning fracking. http://vtdigger.org/2012/05/04/vermont-legislature-passes-prohibition-on-fracking/ ]
A good friend of mine recently moved here from seven years in Arkansas where fracking took place over the later half of those years. When she first moved there, they never had any earthquakes. That was just a California phenomenon. Now, after several years of fracking, Arkansas has earthquakes everyday, often many times per day. They are little ones, like 3.0, but still they are daily. We live with a nuclear power plant here, one that was plunked right down on top of, not one, but at least three, major fault lines (and there are quite possibly many more.) Earthquakes and nuclear power plants don't mix well.
[See the film GASLAND, all about fracking that also won best documentary in 2010, on netflix, PBS, Movie online and other online systems.]
Fracking drills deep down into the ground into ancient shale beds of solid rock. Then they drill horizontally along the bed of shale, which breaks up and destabilizes the rock, that's why they call it fracturing. After that they pump in a mixture of sand and undisclosed toxic chemicals, (I saw a report showing 18 pages of fine print naming the toxic chemicals used in fracking, many of which are known carcinogens.) These are combined with millions of gallons of our beautiful local water, which is then forced deep into the shale to further break up the rock and force out the gas and oil. And that is when they take their profit, leaving all of the toxins and polluted water along with the destabilized upper crust of the earth behind. Just like a veritable legal gang rape of nature, it destroys her most likely for all time while it gives them a false sense of superiority and a momentary pleasure.
The 2005 Bush-Cheney Energy Policy Act exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. This is known as the "Halliburton Loophole."
Dick Cheney was a former CEO of Halliburton which is one of the leading gas drillers. Additionally, fracking is also exempt from regulation under the Clean Water Act.
And fracking corporations have big plans for the massive shale bed which runs much of the length of California from Monterey to Los Angeles. And they've already begun in Monterey county just north of Paso Robles. And they are perched and ready to pounce on our SLO County Board of Supervisors to pass the final formalities soon. So, there you have it. This is the big problem with non-local governance.
Just in the last two months, Mother Jones and both the Huffington and Washington Posts came out with the startling front page reports that the entire state of Pennsylvania had just passed a gag-rule preventing all of their medical professionals from telling their patients that the symptoms that they might be experiencing, like skin rashes or nausea are the result of poisoning from chemicals dumped into their water and aquifers from fracking.
Ten years ago, when an earthquake here caused the parking lot of the Paso Robles library to collapse into the hot springs aquifer located just below the town. Some scientists released a few radioactive particles into the water to see if they could trace the path that the water traveled underground. Within four or five days, their particles turned up at Avilla Hot Springs, some forty miles away. We know so little about the natural world and one thing that we are very ignorant about is how big, how deep, how multilayered and how interconnected our aquifers are. These are the pristine waters that were captured in the earths crust as the glaciers receded with the last ice age. These are the waters that our wineries use for their grapes, our agriculture uses to produce our food, our ranchers use for their drinking water and for bathing their children. And the frackers are about to be allowed to come into our county and pump unrevealed quantities of various types of toxic chemicals potentially right into our aquifers.
What is wrong with this picture? Well, rights, of course. Currently they have the right to destroy our environment and we have not yet legally proclaimed our right to protect ourselves and our communities well being. As it stands right now, we are just like the slaves, or women, two hundred years ago.
But thank goodness this is just now starting to change and Shannon Biggs is standing like the Goddess herself arising on a new wave of human understanding. When Shannon first began to try and support communities who were seeking to protect themselves from corporate injustices, she noticed sadly that over 80% of the battles being fought were lost and the 20% who did win often received shallow victories. She shared with us that one community successfully stopped a sweat shop. HooRay! But four others still remain on the same block, making it a very shallow success indeed.
Petitions and protests by community activists nation wide rarely gain more than the realization that the current structure of the law lets big corporations in to our communities to do their dirty work. Big business doesn't like loosing lots of little battles so they went for corporate rights where one win resulted in major successes for all corporations. Meanwhile we battle thousands of local fights each day across our nation with only shallow victories to show for our tremendous cumulative efforts.
Right now, fifty counties in the vicinity of Nestle corp are slatted to have their communities water supply sucked dry in order to fill all of those plastic arrowhead water bottles we buy. Two of them have fought to retain their water by claiming their local rights and so far they still have it. But what about the other forty eight communities? And how long can the two who resisted hold on? Wasn't it just two months ago that President Obama said No to the Keystone Oil Pipeline? Now, just a half a second later he is saying yes. Why? Laws protecting corporate profits have in recent history taken precedence over the protection of people and our ecosystems. And that is because we don't have laws in place protecting ourselves. We have not yet claimed our rights. But we could. We can claim the right to clean air, clean water, safe conditions for our children to grow up in, freedom from worries regarding our basic needs and our access to healthy food. And Shannon reminded us that We The People are not separate from nature, we are a part of it. We can not live outside of our ecosystems. We can't live outside of our planet without jumping through major billion dollar totally unsustainable hoops and placing ourselves in infinitely uncomfortable and vulnerable tin cans out in space somewhere. So, what are we doing? Clearly the wrong thing.
Fortunately, early on in her research, she found a very conservative rural farming community in the Borough of Tamaqua, in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania that asserted the right to ban the spreading of toxic sludge by corporate interests on their counties land. One of their council members, Cathy Miorelli, ran on the ticket of stopping the dumping. As a nurse, she had studied disease patterns and saw an association with toxic dumping in local mining pits. The borough's legal council advised against taking action for fear of suit by the polluters, citing state law. But Cathy garnered the support of her fellow Tamaquans and they flooded the city council chambers with citizens and won the deciding vote.
Their document opens with this line. "An ordinance to protect the health safety and general welfare of the citizens and environment of Tamaqua Borough by banning corporations from engaging in …(toxic dumping)… by removing constitutional powers of corporations within the borough, by recognizing and enforcing the rights of residents to defend natural communities ecosystems."
Shannon shared another story about another Pennsylvania town wherein two children died after playing in toxins that were dumped there. That community didn't have ballot initiatives, so using the legal boundary of their municipality, they convened the township of elected officials in a Town Hall Meeting and basically said to them, "Either you will sign this paper banning the dumping of toxins by corporations on our land or you will sign this paper which is your resignation." So they signed, knowing that they might face litigation as a result, but also knowing that they had the full and powerful support of their townspeople behind them, should ever a challenge arise.
And that is how it is done. That is how we demand community rights and strip all corporate rights and give nature the right to be protected from corporate abuse. As they said in Tamaqua, "Just as children don't have full legal rights, but deserve to be protected, nature too needs to be protected." And thus has begun the trend of "Wild Law" that has spread across our country, protecting the rights of nature, one municipality at a time.
Once these first community rights for nature were set into place, the Legal Defense Fund, brought the same language from Tamaqua Borough to the South American Country of Ecuador. There Bolivian President Evo Morales with the help of Shannon's allies like Tom Goldtooth along with others whom she mentioned wrote into law a Bill of Rights for Nature. This was then included in the Constitution of Ecuador, in 2008, thereby letting that country become the first in the world to grant nature the right to exist and persist and to regenerate it's natural cycles. There is still a lot to do, but it's finally heading in a more sane direction.
Shannon's work involves helping communities protect their own right to clean air, clean water, a livable and safe environment by working at the community level, using the rights granted us in the Declaration of Independence, the right to govern ourselves in the places where we live, as a way to grant rights to nature.
[Ordinance to Deny Corporate Personhood : New Jersey (http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/newjersey)]
Shannon reminded us that our rights are inalienable and our birth gives them to us. The job of law in government is to uphold rights. Just like with women and African Americans, so much would be different, she said, if nature was seen in the eyes of the law as having rights.
But now, who writes the laws for deep sea oil drilling, or nuclear power? It's not the state legislators, they don't know anything about it. So they go to the deep sea oil drillers or the nuclear industries and ask them to write their own regulations. Then we have to beg our legislators and regulatory bodies to get corporations to uphold their own rules. This is exactly what is going on right now with Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant and the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions plans to relicense a plant located on an active earthquake fault line. How many times do the Mother's For Peace have to go to bat on our behalf here? Whose going to step up to try to mitigate the damage from fracking? Do we merely want less fracking? Or should we try to fight to get them to disclose the chemicals that they are using? Maybe what we really want is to say, like they did in Tamaqua Borough, "You don't get to decide what goes on here in our town!"
We can assert our community rights and thereby protect our local municipalities by stripping corporate rights when we give rights to nature. And that is the title of Shannon Bigg's book, which she cowrote with others, Rights For Nature, The Case for a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. She told us that the power lies in the grassroots. Communities standing behind their local governmental officials and empowering them to reflect our local values. She said that at the local level we are waking up and recognizing that we've been doing nature a huge disservice by saying that nature is property. Nature is a system, one that governs our well being. Having rights for that is not a radical idea at all. In fact it could hardly be more rational.
Shannon finished her talk by saying that she will come to San Luis Obispo as many times as we need her. The Community Environmental Defense Fund will help us write our ordinances. They will provide the language and they will do all of it for free. All we have to do is show up and rally the support for our local elected officials and let them know that we will stand behind them with our public support once the laws are in place. If we do that, there will be no fracking here. If you'd like to join in, leave your contact information here in the comment section below and I will be sure to get it to the Transition Towns organizers for you, or you can reach them directly at http://slotransitiontowns.org/
Josephine Laing teaches classes on Intuition, Psychic Abilities and other classes and workshops. Please contact her at 546-3132 or visit www.communityprograms.net . This piece will be also printed in the print version of Women's Press.


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Loved the history and long bore baths.
Stewart and Kerry
Can't thank you enough for an amazing experience. What a wonderful place you have.
Jane and Richard
We stayed for 2 nights at the prosaically named "Hot Bore Camp". No power, but a hot bore, that was wonderful. Be prepared for pit toilets, and the flushing ones come as a welcome surprise. A working station in the grip of drought, but friendly and welcoming, and prepared to go the extra mile to provide the stay you want. A wonderful family destination but could just as easily be a romantic get-away for a couple (both were amply accommodated while we were there.) Whether staying at the bore camp…
Must do Again!!

subset: commoncrawl


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Indoor Track & Field
Indoor Track & Field
LHSAA Indoor Track & Field State Meet
February 20, 2021
Carl Maddox Fieldhouse, Baton Rouge, LA
State Indoor Meet Information
Team Media Coverage
Attention coaches!!! The upcoming season is here, and with that comes the opportunity to get the word out about your team like never before. Make sure your team gets the media coverage they deserve!
Your local media outlets and The Associated Press are asking for your continued assistance in covering high school Indoor Track in the 2019-20 season. For your team and athletes to receive detailed and accurate coverage, make sure you contact your local newspaper, tv or radio stations. Coaches, please provide a roster with first and last names to the media, and report final scores at the end of every contest to local media and the AP.
Click HERE to view a listing of media outlets across the state as well as a contact number for the AP.
Spectator Guide
LSU has provided a Visitors Guide with information to assist with additional questions while attending track meet events. Please select the link below to view the guide.
Indoor Track Season Dates
- 12.14.2020
Indoor Track & Field Earliest Practice
- 01.02.2021
Indoor Track & Field First Meet
- 02.13.2021
Indoor Track & Field End of Regular Season
- 02.20.2021
Indoor Track & Field State Championships


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Mighty Rocket Studio
Obscure and sequel arrive on Steam next month
Classic survival horror games Obscure and Obscure: The Aftermath are on their way to Steam, developer Mighty Rocket Studio has announced.
Mighty Rocket Studio headlines
Final Exam is bringing old school beat 'em up action on November 6
Final Exam is a new fighter from a new developer, Mighty Rocket Studio, which consists of nine people and was founded just to make this game. It pits four archetypal teenagers against a variety of monsters, with the simple task of staying alive. It's now been announced that it'll be available on PS3, Xbox 360, […]
Obscure reboot now called Final Exam, new art & screens inside
Obscure's reboot has undergone a name change. The 2D zombie bashing brawler is now called Final Exam, and there's a batch of new screens to go along with the announcement.
Obscure getting reboot on PC, PS3 & Xbox 360: trailer revealed
Remember Obscure? The horror game that starred four students fighting a manner of mutated beasts? It's being rebooted as a colourful, gory and rather insane-looking 2.5D action game on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this Spring. Developer Mighty Rocket Studio has revealed the game's first teaser trailer.


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Siteimprove Named One of Minnesota's Top 100 Businesses to Work For
Jun 16, 2014
Bloomington-based software company, Siteimprove, was named as one of Minnesota's Top 100 Businesses to Work For by Minnesota Business Magazine for the third consecutive year. Since opening their doors in 2007, Siteimprove has grown from a team of just three to a family of 55 in order to keep up with the growing demand for their website governance tools.
Siteimprove's Web Governance Suite, offered via Software as a Service (SaaS), helps organizations manage and maintain their websites from a single, intuitive online dashboard with a variety of tools and reporting functions.
"It's a very exciting time for us. We've been fortunate to grow as quickly as we have, and to find very talented people to build our team," said Siteimprove CEO, Torben Rytt. "This award means a lot to us because it's based on our employee's feedback. Without them we wouldn't be here."
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Creating this tag, and finding the right title for it made me think...
It's never too late - there's always time for new beginnings, there's always time to make a change...
Don't give up... Don't think that you're too old for something...
If you want something - make it happen!
It all starts NOW!
Thursday, December 26, 2013
New tag: It all starts now
8:20 AM Posted by Unknown
0 comments labels DCWV, fabric tape, Julie Nutting, Prima, Tsukineko, יעל יניב
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'I don't expect to be next pope,' Cardinal Sean O'Malley says
Date for Papal Conclave not yet set
Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley said he and his colleagues have been spending time at the Vatican learning about each other and the process of choosing a new pope before heading into the conclave that will elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
"It's an opportunity for us to hear also from the retired cardinals who have a wealth of experience," O'Malley said at a Tuesday news conference in Rome.
See a slideshow of contenders to be pope
"There have to be enough discussions in the general assembly before going to conclave, so they (the cardinals) will have a particular idea of who they will vote for," he said.
O'Malley said the cardinals want the public to understand what the process is. A date for the conclave of the College of Cardinals has not yet been set.
"This is most important decision some of us will ever make," he said.
O'Malley, who is seen as a long-shot among the contenders to be the next pope, continued to deflect questions and speculation with humor.
"I've worn this uniform for over 40 years," said O'Malley, referring to his Capuchin robes. "I presume I will wear it until I die, because I don't expect to be elected pope."
O' Malley did say time is of the essence. Pope Benedict XVI waived the customary waiting period expressly so cardinals could return before home before Easter.
"We want to get voting for the Holy Father so we get back for Holy Week at our dioceses," he said.


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User talk:220.127.116.11
Hello! Welcome to Wikitravel. Unfortunately I had to remove your listing from the Zanzibar page, as it was not written accoring to our guidelins. To help get you started contributing, we've created quick contribution guide and a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page. The owners of hotels, restaurants, bars, attractions, and other businesses useful to travellers can welcome share information that helps others in their travels. However, they should adhere strictly to our policies and guidance. If you need help, check out Wikitravel:Help, or post a message in the travellers' pub. -- Adzas (talk) 06:38, 23 October 2013 (EDT)
This is the discussion page for an anonymous user who has not created an account yet, or who does not use it. We therefore have to use the numerical IP address to identify him/her. Such an IP address can be shared by several users. If you are an anonymous user and feel that irrelevant comments have been directed at you, please create an account or log in to avoid future confusion with other anonymous users.


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Perriello protests: Police warn of arrests for trespassing
Congressman Tom Perriello faces a heated run for re-election in November for his votes on health care reform and the economic stimulus package. Locally, he faces another controversy from those who contend his Charlottesville office doesn't adequately allow constituents to assemble to petition their government.
The Jefferson Area Tea Party scratched a June 14 "Right to Redress Rally" after the group received a letter from Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo warning that protesters in the privately owned parking lot outside Perriello's office could be arrested for trespassing.
"I thought it would be irresponsible to show up [Monday] and not think that through," says Carole Thorpe, Jefferson Area Tea Party chair, who rescheduled the rally for June 21 and has appealed to the civil liberties group, the Rutherford Institute.
"We're not contesting that it's Ms. [Lisa] Murphy's property," says Thorpe. "I believe every group should have equal access. What we've seen is unequal access."
Thorpe refers to a May 19 demonstration and street theater in the parking lot of the so-called Glass Building by members of the left-leaning Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice in which no police showed up to tell them to leave the lot and which was filmed by Keith Drake with Albemarle Truth in Taxation Alliance.
"For two-and-a-half minutes a bunch of liberal protesters performed a skit," says Lloyd Snook, Murphy's lawyer. "Nobody complained. Lisa Murphy was not aware of it. No one seemed aware of it except Keith Drake."
Adds Snook, "It seemed like an ineffectual place to have a protest."
Snook himself attended a counter-protest in the parking lot on November 10, when a national group called Americans for Prosperity pulled a bus into the lot, which was filled with health care reform protesters–- and supporters, much to the consternation of business owners in the Glass Building.
After several large rallies in November, Murphy called the police, who warned the groups to stay on the public sidewalk approximately 180 feet from Perriello's office, or to assemble in the Congressman's office.
"Why is it when the conservative groups are there, the police are called," wonders Thorpe.
The same Longo letter went to the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, which has planned a June 16 protest of House legislation to fund an additional $33 billion for the war in Afghanistan.
"We don't plan to use the parking lot," says the Center's David Swanson. "We plan to go inside." However, he says he supports the Jefferson Area Tea Party's right to assemble, and calls the location of Perriello's office "unfortunate." (And he invites the Tea Party to join the CCPC in protesting government spending on the war.)
The Tea Party and the Rutherford Institute have called on Perriello to move the office from the back of the Glass Building on Garrett Street to a location where citizens can more easily petition their government without having to go on private property.
"It happens across the country that Representatives shield themselves by putting their offices on private property," says Thorpe. "It inserts a third party when it should be between the Congressman and us."
Perriello has no immediate plans to move, according to his press secretary, Jessica Barba, who notes the space is leased until January 2011.
"It's 90 degrees outside," she says. "I don't know why they'd want to stand outside when they're welcome to come inside and directly petition their Congressman."
Not the same, counters Thorpe. "I think being outside the Congressman's door is a unique platform," she says. "If we take it inside, it's beyond the media's attention." And protesting on the street doesn't carry the same weight because it's farther away from his office, she maintains.
"Something about that doorstep–- there's no confusion about why we're there," says Thorpe. "His name is over the door. That office represents him."
Perriello won't be in Charlottesville when the two protests are scheduled. "I'm confused," says Barba, "and not sure what their goal is. We've given them every opportunity to petition their Congressman."
She points out that Perriello has had more town hall meetings than anyone else in Congress. "If people feel 100 hours of town hall meetings are not enough," she says, "I'm not sure I can say anything to convince them."
42 comments
The Tea Partiers are simply the latest incarnation of the John Birch Society. What a shame it would be if they became the media face of Charlottesville, a place whose residents are overwhelmingly decent and reasonable people. The extremism of the Tea Partiers is anti-American and the local group of Tea Partiers should not have the name Jefferson associated with their antics.
Of course, it is Charlottesvile. One cannot expect equality in anything at all.
Ah, then there are the Democratic Party voters and their endless hate-mongering of people they do not know. Endless, juvenile sticks-and-stones.
All par-for-the-course here. Nothing changes, no progress, no common sense.
SamA- all of that money was approved by Congress. Guantanamo Bay is a necessity to keep that wonderful Castro democracy in check. ("You can't handle the truth"-Col. Jessep).
Never said he has to work out of his car, but 5 offices? And that is the norm for these wanna be elitists. After a session, they should go back to their farms, or vineyards, or Cape Cod estates, or whatever they own, and WORK! Just like their predecessors.
Remember, it is "we the people"..........
Why have we not had an apology from all the animals stealing oil from BP? They just jump in the oil and they won't even learn English and they are taking profits away from a very important corporation. Dumb birds...
Expressing opposition to Obama and his minions (inc the Pelosi puppet Perriello) is extreme and anti-American but I'll bet you had no problem whatsoever with the despicable, hateful things the libs said about Bush, did you? Look up the word "hypocrite" in the dictionary. It might be very enlightening to you. The motto of the Obamabots should be "Obey, resistance is futile".
Much ado about nothing. Perriello doesn't give a rat's rump what the majority of his constituents want or think, so why waste time protesting in front of wherever his office might be? Obama or Pelosi calls him, says "jump" and he says "how high?". Doesn't matter....the little puppet will lose November 2nd unless Jeffrey Clark has a tantrum and decides to run as an independent. That will be one expensive ego trip. Another two years for Perriello to help destroy our economy
It is clear: Perriello is NOT supposed to have an office!
Let's see.....I called and emailed T.P. about the healthcare bill.....no response (except the form letter he sent to everyone after the fact). I called and emailed him about the Cap and Trade bill, with a question that was pretty time sensitive.....no response. I'd say I have reason to be dissatisfied with his responsiveness, but I don't want to be called an "ignorant racist."
...and another thing. He had the gall to say in his letter that he sided with us instead of the special interests in Washington. I believe every fluff piece of mail I've received in the last year (you know, "Thank Congressman Perriello for being so wonderful...") was paid for by SEIU. It said so right on the mailers in small print. If SEIU isn't currently the most powerful special interest in Washington, I'll eat my hat!
One very important fact people seem to be overlooking. Whose parking spaces were the protesters blocking? III Esthetics and Hair Care, which has mostly ceased to operate (as detailed in this blog). Perhaps, just perhaps, it has nothing to do with unequal access so much as no one left to care.
@ Sally Grevalt,
I am not a member of the tea party, but I certainly agree with many of their greviences. What I see at the tea parties are all walks of life in America that are simply fed up with over taxation and endless government regulation. To make generalizations such as you have is patently simplistic.
Forget doing any more protest at Perriello's office's.Lets work hard to give him a pink slip on November 2nd.If Perriello won't listen to the people of the 5th lets elect someone who will.
Yeah, Periello is a Democrat: he should have to work out of his car! Oh, he does? Whatever. At least spending at Gitmo is reasonable. "The cost of the marquee, along with a smaller sign positioned near the airfield: $188,000. Among other odd legacies from war-on-terror spending since 2001 for the troops at Guantanamo Bay: an abandoned volleyball court for $249,000, an unused go-kart track for $296,000 and $3.5 million for 27 playgrounds that are often vacant.
The Pentagon also spent $683,000 to renovate a cafe that sells ice cream and Starbucks coffee, and $773,000 to remodel a cinder-block building to house a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant.
The spending is part of at least $500 million that has transformed what was once a sun-beaten and forgotten Caribbean base into one of the most secure military and prison installations in the world. That does not include construction bonuses, which typically run into the millions.
Also not included are annual operating costs of $150 million ââ?¬â? double the amount for a comparable U.S. prison, according to the White House. Add in clandestine black-budget items, such as the top-secret Camp 7 prison for high-value detainees, aptly nicknamed Camp Platinum, and the post-Sept. 11, 2001, bill for the 45-square-mile base easily soars toward $2 billion." Not "wasteful washington spending". Nope.
I knew it would happen. As soon as Terry Teabagger was outed for posting ridiculous things to make us conservatives look like mouth breathing Neanderthals, he changed his username to King Ralph. Nice try, but I see through it and I know I'm not alone.
WOW- Let's get one think straight!
Perriello does lease anything- WE lease it for him. Not one dime comes from his pocket for that office- he lives in Ivy, why not work out of a "home" office, saving US some money.
If the expression tea-bagger is acceptable, then everyone should be permitted to use the expression "fudge" right before "packer" to refer to gay men. Also, we should be allowed to refer to "carpet" immediately preceding "licker" for gay women. If lewd sexual descriptions are allowed, at least let them be accurate.
realist, this 2010 not 2000 those jokes are a bit dated.
Here is a thought, how about if he moves his office across the street into Garrett Square/Friendship Court, he could rent out a whole unit. How many of those angry white people would dare set foot into a public housing project
The "protest" in front of the glass building was an exercise in free speech.
Lisa Murphy owns a piece of private property and does not want trespassers.
Tom Periello leases an office from the private sector, thereby stimulating the economy.
The tea party has a problem with which of these facts, exactly? I'm a little confused as to what these people are supposed to be upset about.
Is it about the fact that people expressed themselves in front of the glass building? Is that a good or a bad thing?
Is it about the fact that Lisa Murphy does not want people violating her property rights? Is that a good or bad thing?
Perhaps they are saying that Lisa Murphy should be forced to allow people she disagrees with to have a forum on her private property. Perhaps they are saying that because Lisa Murphy doesn't agree with their views, she should be forced (presumably by the government) to forfeit her right to peaceably assemble with whomever she chooses and are suggesting that her right to private property is not sacred and inalienably bestowed upon her by Our Creator?
Thomas Jefferson would frown greatly upon these psuedo-patriots, these fair-weather acquaintances of freedom, these tin-pot foster children of liberty!!
Doesn't matter. He will be out of office in 5 months anyway.
Maybe the group can take the property by using emminent domain laws. They only have to prove that it is for the good of most citizens.
Before you start screeching research Va emminent domain laws.
The lack of property rights in this state is ridiculous.
Lesee, the Tae Party is all about individual property rights and how the gummint is robbing them, support a man who think businesses should have the right to discriminate, but feel cheated of equal access when someone exercises the rights they happen to support.
Oh, wait, it's all about we can do to others but they can't do to us. I forgot.
I wonder where Perriello is supposed to have his office, if NOT in some private office.
@ watical obedient wefty
I don't understand how people can blindly follow such a raciest administration, can you not see the writing on the wall.
It is you the follower who will be singled out next.
Periello is a fantastic human being, period. But the teabaggers need someone to blame/something to do...
@Not a Bagger
After Clinton's shenanigans in the Oval Orifice, err Office, Dems are more oriented to using terminology related to oral sex.
The Upstart is absolutely right - if Thorpe's issue is really "inserting a third party" between the Congressman and the protesters, then she should have no problem going inside and protesting in the Congressman's office. What she wants is the media attention (i.e. a third party, only a different third party) involved. Take your pick. Do you want a media show or do you want to communicate directly with your representative? So Perriello's office is next to a privately owned parking lot - deal with it. Make it a two-pronged attack with a protest in another location, followed by a direct visit to Perriello's office. Boom. Problem solved. This is a non-issue.
If the Tea Party is so concerned about upholding the US Constitution, maybe they should try reading it once in a while. Specifically the last line of the Fifth Amendment ... "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." And sorry, there's no proviso that renders the Constitution null and void if it causes less-than-adequate media coverage of your protest event.
TJ- if TP is such a fabulous human being, then why does he not do the right thing- as mentioned above? His position certainly does not require an office (yet alone 5 offices) outside of his home- actually- we as the funders of these un-needed offices should require that they work out of their homes and the one taxpayer funded office in DC- the virtual office is indeed a money and energy saver.
Perriello has 5 offices- he can only use one at a time.......................perhaps he thinks manning those offices is "creating jobs"
@ wow, I believe that was a publicity stunt perpetrated by the DP.
It has their MO all over it.
Am I missing something? It's a private parking lot, private property, and the rightful owner is allowing some people to assemble there and not others?
That's perfectly acceptable. What is the deal?
Stop politicin' yo
Wait. The street is too far away from the office, but inside the office isn't good enough? Thorpe says "it should be between the Congressman and us" but still does not want to go into the man's office. This makes no sense.
If you want the public's attention, stand on street corners or on the mall. If you want the Congressman's attention, make an appointment, call into one of the conference call town hall meetings, or go to one of the physical town hall meetings.
Perriello work for John Podesta and Center for American Progess. If they want to get Tom he will be there collecting his campaign cash. Usual suspects the unions, emily list, and la raza. Best thing for Tom would be for a la raza to catch Tom out in DC and have an expericne to remember for our hoegrown boy.
Perriello should do the right thing.......close the office, save the taxpayers the rent and work out of his house- then he can make the rules, letting everyone and anyone on his property to support or protest his deeds or lack thereof.
@Casey Keenan:
Shhhhh! Please don't confuse Sally Grevalt with facts. She lives in her own little dream world where all who oppose Dear Leader are ignorant racists foaming at the mouth.
Any american citizen who pays taxes should be thrilled and excited that there is a third party movement. It is a sign of a healthy democracy.
You just keep telling yourself that as you whistle past the graveyard. Anybody who doesn't like Dear Leader's policies or the votes of his acolytes like Tommy Boy HAVE to just be ignorant racists according to those who think like you. It couldn't possibly be that they oppose his radical policies and associates. Usually 45-55% of the electorate oppose ANY sitting President's policies and vile epithets aren't hurled at them. But THIS time around, if the approval rating is less than 100%, those who oppose just HAVE to be ignorant racists. You sound like Andrea Mitchell, who labeled all those in southwest Virginia the same way you label Tea Party supporters. I guess if you're in central Virginia you're just a dumb hick, a step above ignorant redneck. So you might look down on tea party people, but the snotty elite liberals up north look down on YOU. How does it feel?
wellduh obviously hasn't researched VA's eminent domain laws. They don't allow any such thing.
Quick, name someone you know who is smart that is a member of the so called Tea Party??? They are just a bunch of angry white people or
God, what a bunch of freakin' babies. Grow up.
I would love to see pictures or documents that show Pelosi puppetry when it comes to our Congressman. This is just silliness that ignorant people spew to scare those even more ignorant.
He leans moderate...as does the 5th district. Granted, most people who comment on blogs/websites are passionate about one side or the other, but the fact remains that this district has been moderate for many years.
Make that "doesn't lease anything....."
"why not work out of a ââ?¬Å?home" office, saving US some money"
Because the teabaggers tried to blow up his house.
Of course, we see a list of hate-filled messages from Democratic Party voters who have the unmitigated gall to call themselves "Liberals".
"Blow up his house" - ah you mean the fuel line on his brother's outdoor propane grill. That's ok, we understand that Democrats think all Italians look alike.


text:
Tribes India offer a wide range of assorted gift items which are combination of age old craft tradition and modern design with utility in focus. The Tribal artisans have exemplary design skils. Made ofmix alloy, this door handle is very sturdy and is very resistive to corrosion. Please Note:- Althrough , artisan do take care to maintain pattern and colour scheme however, being this is a handmade product therefore , to create identical products a little variation could be seen. These are unique & original Products created by Indian Tribal artisans to earn their livelihood. Warm Tip :- Please be reminded that due to lighting effects, mointor's brightness/ contrast setting etc, there could be some differences in the colour tone of the website's photo and the actual item.
Further product descriptions are mentioned below:
Country of Origin:India


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The French people aren't what they were. Today, faced with one of the greatest insults to their national pride of recent times, not one of them is building a barricade or setting fire to an overturned Renault Clio. Not one has the couilles to stand up, as Charles de Gaulle did when confronted with the intolerable prospect of Britain becoming a member of the EEC in 1967, and say "Non!"
What is this outrage? David Beckham has signed for Paris Saint-Germain, currently the best team in France. It's a club that, thanks to being bankrolled by Qatari money, offers the best hope that a Gallic club team has had in decades of performing on the international stage with the success of Real Madrid, Manchester United, AC Milan or Bayern Munich. The problem for French football is that the successes of its club teams in Europe have rarely kept pace with the triumphs of its national team (in part because many of the best French players have been lured to Spanish, German, Italian and English clubs). The hope for France was that the vast sums spent by PSG in the last 18 months (at least £200m) building up a squad that includes such players at the top of their games as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, Lucas Moura and Ezequiel Lavezzi would pay dividends and send French club football to the next level.
Where, though, does a 37-year-old English winger in the twilight of his professional footballing career fit into this plan? Surely Beckham, a player with no recent top-flight experience who would struggle to make it into the starting lineup of an English premiership team (not even Aston Villa's), has no place in PSG's footballing revolution? What next – Eric Cantona as PSG's fortysomething fox in the box? If Beckham were a goalkeeper, there would be no problem: he could be 65 and stand between the Parc des Princes goalposts smoking Gauloises for 90 minutes, then use his free bus pass to get home, and no sensible PSG fan would object (I exaggerate but only slightly). But an outfield player? The destiny of latethirtysomething outfield players, unless they're Ryan Giggs, is to play out their declining years in Accrington Stanley reserves until their spirits are totally crushed.
Perhaps then Beckham's signing is a British plot as sinister and successful as sending Jane Birkin on a secret mission to destroy Serge Gainsbourg's artistic credibility. The British, after all, have previous in offloading questionable products in France. Think of that episode of The Apprentice in which one team crossed the Channel on a mission, namely to slay shoppers at a French market armed only with lumps of rubbery Cheddar. It was the opposite of an Agincourt moment, as Lord Sugar pointed out in the boardroom inquest. Nor did British designer John Galliano's stewardship of Christian Dior in Paris end well.
There is another possibility. Maybe the export of Beckham is part of a policy to improve Anglo-French relations. Beckham perhaps is a British cultural ambassador to France like Charlotte Rampling, if not quite as hot, or like Kristin Scott Thomas, if not as posh, or like a reverse Cantona, if not quite so engagingly surly. By this account, it doesn't matter that he's too old to play for PSG. As if to give substance to this possibility, Beckham announced on Thursday he would give his PSG salary – estimated at £150,000 a week, which is a lot of citrons pressés however you look at it – to a French children's charity. It's the kind of astute diplomatic move that, along with his pretty face, good manners and chiselled abs that makes one suspect Beckham isn't British at all. It seems that France, like Spain and the United States before it, is poised to be charmed by a man who, with his un-British attention to grooming, muscle tone and non-novelty underwear, may become an honorary Frenchman before his six months in Paris are up. Is it a PR mistake for his fashion-conscious, unsmiling wife to remain in the UK for the sake of the kids while he plays in Paris? Probably: if she's as unsmiling and fashion-conscious as the last sentence suggests, she'd fit right in.
Only one problem: like Girls Aloud, Beckham can't speak French. Such are Beckham's language skills that there are Spaniards still laughing away a decade on from his Real Madrid post-match interviews in what purported to be their native tongue. How British hearts swelled with pride though, when Beckham was sent off during a Spanish league game in 2004 after calling a linesman a "hijo de puta" (son of a bitch) – even though we knew, really, that he remained a monoglot yeoman with a squeaky voice. To really be beloved in France he needs to learn to swear with the virtuosity of a Frenchman who's mislaid his linen Agnes B scarf in the Rue du Bac. He'll need to shrug at reporters at press conferences and say: "Il m'emmerde avec ses questions à la con" rather than, as he has done until now, politely answering them. And he needs to leave his obliging permasmile at home. He won't be needing that. If he adheres to these simple rules, France won't be able to say "non" to Dagenham Dave for long.


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Last month, Judge Thomas Wingate of Kentucky's Franklin County Circuit issued an unusual order that, if upheld, could have a tremendous impact on the online gambling industry. The order gave Kentucky the right to seize control of some 141 gambling website domains on the grounds that accessing these websites was illegal within Kentucky's borders. The lawsuit was filed by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, who campaigned heavily on promises to bring casino gambling to Kentucky. At a hearing this week, a group of trade executives, interested parties, and the Internet Commerce Alliance testified on behalf of the gambling websites, advocating that they be allowed to continue to operate.
Gambling—specifically, horse racing—is a huge source of income and a long-standing tradition in Kentucky. As such, it holds special status compared to other forms of betting, and provides a significant number of Kentucky's jobs, particularly in the Lexington area (the state's second-largest city). Beshear's stance, and Judge Wingate's reticence to reverse his previous order, however, are at least partially driven by Kentucky's economic situation as a whole, rather than merely being a result of the Commonwealth's obsession with horseflesh.
Kentucky is a state with wide disparities in per capita income (PCI) and an average PCI that ranks 44th out of the 50 US States (Suggested new state motto: "We're still trouncing Mississippi!"). Regionally, average PCI ranges from $32,000+ (Louisville and Lexington), down below the $20,000 mark, as shown in the graph below. A 2006 study (PDF) of this disparity concluded that it would take 154 years for KY to reach the US average PCI assuming current growth rates do not change, and further noted that the wide income differences across the Commonwealth are the result of very different industrial bases. There are, in other words, no cheap and easy ways to raise per capita income in these regions. The state must either find ways to lure new companies to build new facilities in the targeted regions (typically done through tax subsidies and/or exceptions) or provide job training and incentives to aid local economies in their transition. Both options would cost a significant amount of money, and none of the US states are exactly running around with billions in surplus income.
The state estimates that its residents currently spend some $170 million gambling online per year. From the government's perspective, that money is being doubly wasted: it isn't being fed directly into the economy to help create jobs, and it isn't taxable, meaning the state gains no revenue from it. Gov. Bashear isn't claiming that the state's fortunes would improve if all the folks in the eastern part of the state got jobs in (or on) casinos, or that they should line up to drop their paychecks off, but the new gambling laws he has pushed for are touted as a way to increase overall state revenue and provide enhanced services to some of the areas that need them badly.
Thus far, the state is holding fast to its claim that domain names represent gambling "devices," and are therefore a seizable asset. Officials with the state Justice Department have confirmed that the state is seeking unspecified damage from the various online operations, but the primary purpose of the department is to force online gambling sites to prevent state residents from accessing their venues. As Jennifer Brislin, of the state Justice Department, told the Washington Post, "We think [the ability of these websites to operate within Kentucky] creates a tremendous disadvantage for our legitimate, licensed and taxed gaming interests, and there are some damages that are due to the commonwealth as a result."
Thus far, the state has successfully claimed two domains—Luckypyramidcasino.com and pyramidlounge.com—and has met with officials from GoDaddy.com, which serves as registrar to 20 of the 141 websites named in Judge Wingate's order. GoDaddy is stuck in an unenviable position in this case, as Christine Jones, the company's general counsel, explained to the Washington Post: "We issued a registrar certificate to the state that says the court has jurisdiction over the issue, but it doesn't have control over the domains, other than the ability to exercise judgment so that when there is a final adjudication on the merits of the case or a settlement by the parties, we will honor that outcome," Jones said." Read between the lines, and GoDaddy is trying not to throw its customers under a bus without sticking up for them at least a little, but definitely isn't willing to directly contest the final outcome of the case.
Trade groups and online gambling advocates made their case to Judge Wingate on Tuesday. The judge now has about a week to make up his mind; he can either choose to dismiss the case or allow it to proceed to a forfeiture hearing. If he chooses the latter, you can bet the case will be appealed. It's currently illegal for US financial institutions to process payments for online gambling sites, but only one other state—Washington—has made it illegal for citizens to gamble online. If Kentucky were to win on appeal, however, it would set an enormous precedent, and could significantly affect the ability of US citizens to access online gaming sites at all.
Attorneys opposing the state, however, say Kentucky doesn't have jurisdiction on a case that could have international ramifications. "These domain names do not exist here," said Jerry Stouck, an attorney representing the Interactive Gaming Council, to Forbes. "They can't be found in Kentucky and therefore they can't be seized here."


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David Ruth
Mike Williams
Rice researchers develop paintable battery
Technique could turn any surface into a lithium-ion battery; may be combined with solar cells
HOUSTON – (June 28, 2012) – Researchers at Rice University have developed a lithium-ion battery that can be painted on virtually any surface.
The rechargeable battery created in the lab of Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan consists of spray-painted layers, each representing the components in a traditional battery. The research appears today in Nature's online, open-access journal Scientific Reports.
"This means traditional packaging for batteries has given way to a much more flexible approach that allows all kinds of new design and integration possibilities for storage devices," said Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry. "There has been lot of interest in recent times in creating power sources with an improved form factor, and this is a big step forward in that direction."
Lead author Neelam Singh, a Rice graduate student, and her team spent painstaking hours formulating, mixing and testing paints for each of the five layered components – two current collectors, a cathode, an anode and a polymer separator in the middle.
The materials were airbrushed onto ceramic bathroom tiles, flexible polymers, glass, stainless steel and even a beer stein to see how well they would bond with each substrate.
In the first experiment, nine bathroom tile-based batteries were connected in parallel. One was topped with a solar cell that converted power from a white laboratory light. When fully charged by both the solar panel and house current, the batteries alone powered a set of light-emitting diodes that spelled out "RICE" for six hours; the batteries provided a steady 2.4 volts.
The researchers reported that the hand-painted batteries were remarkably consistent in their capacities, within plus or minus 10 percent of the target. They were also put through 60 charge-discharge cycles with only a very small drop in capacity, Singh said.
Each layer is an optimized stew. The first, the positive current collector, is a mixture of purified single-wall carbon nanotubes with carbon black particles dispersed in N-methylpyrrolidone. The second is the cathode, which contains lithium cobalt oxide, carbon and ultrafine graphite (UFG) powder in a binder solution. The third is the polymer separator paint of Kynar Flex resin, PMMA and silicon dioxide dispersed in a solvent mixture. The fourth, the anode, is a mixture of lithium titanium oxide and UFG in a binder, and the final layer is the negative current collector, a commercially available conductive copper paint, diluted with ethanol.
"The hardest part was achieving mechanical stability, and the separator played a critical role," Singh said. "We found that the nanotube and the cathode layers were sticking very well, but if the separator was not mechanically stable, they would peel off the substrate. Adding PMMA gave the right adhesion to the separator." Once painted, the tiles and other items were infused with the electrolyte and then heat-sealed and charged.
Singh said the batteries were easily charged with a small solar cell. She foresees the possibility of integrating paintable batteries with recently reported paintable solar cells to create an energy-harvesting combination that would be hard to beat. As good as the hand-painted batteries are, she said, scaling up with modern methods will improve them by leaps and bounds. "Spray painting is already an industrial process, so it would be very easy to incorporate this into industry," Singh said.
The Rice researchers have filed for a patent on the technique, which they will continue to refine. Singh said they are actively looking for electrolytes that would make it easier to create painted batteries in the open air, and they also envision their batteries as snap-together tiles that can be configured in any number of ways.
"We really do consider this a paradigm changer," she said.
Co-authors of the paper are graduate students Charudatta Galande and Akshay Mathkar, alumna Wei Gao, now a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and research scientist Arava Leela Mohana Reddy, all of Rice; Rice Quantum Institute intern Andrea Miranda; and Alexandru Vlad, a former research associate at Rice, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
The Advanced Energy Consortium, the National Science Foundation Partnerships for International Research and Education, Army Research Laboratories and Nanoholdings Inc. supported the research.
Watch a video about Rice's paintable batteries: http://youtu.be/qJDI5cAdhys
Related links:
Read the paper at www.nature.com/srep/2012/120628/srep00481/full/srep00481.html
Images for download:
An electron microscope image of a spray-painted lithium-ion battery developed at Rice University shows its five-layer structure. (Credit: Ajayan Lab/Rice University)
Conventional lithium-ion batteries wrap active layers into a canister or other portable container. But Rice University researchers have found a way to paint those layers onto any surface, which opens up the possibility of turning those surfaces into storage devices. (Credit: Neelam Singh/Rice University)
Rice University graduate student Charudatta Galande wires an array of LEDs to a set of batteries painted on the surface of ceramic tiles. A team of Rice researchers has invented a form of paintable lithium-ion battery that can be applied to virtually any surface. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)
Rice University graduate student Charudatta Galande, Professor Pulickel Ajayan and graduate student Neelam Singh show off the first test device for their paintable batteries, an array of standard ceramic tiles combined with a solar cell and an array of LEDs, which the batteries powered for six hours. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)
Ceramic tiles coated with battery paints and then heat-sealed powered LEDs spelling out "RICE" for six hours in an experiment at Rice University. The lithium-ion batteries can be painted on virtually any surface. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)
A beer stein served as an able substrate for a paintable battery developed at Rice University. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.


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Wendy writes in with an email I considered using in today's mailbag, but my response kind of grew into a full post:
When well-meaning relatives give gifts to your children, do you always allow your children to keep those gifts? My mother-in-law (who lives 20 hours away and only sees us a few times a year) not only gives gifts that are not age-appropriate or do not meet our standards for marketed characters or quality of play, but she gives so many at birthdays, holidays, and throughout the year that I feel like the boys would drown in toys, even before the other family members add to it. My mom has happily adjusted by providing 'experience' gifts for the grandkids- swimming lessons, zoo pass, etc., but my MIL really likes new things and does her absolute best to instill the love of something 'new' in our kids.
My sister in law thinks we are excessively prohibitive when it comes to toys and sweets. Rather than talk to us about what kind of toys or gifts we would like our kids to have, she gets mad when she finds out we get rid of some of the gifts after a couple of days. She also ignores what tips I've tried to provide in the past. I know they both love our kids dearly, and I know they are frustrated by the different priorities and values my husband and I are trying to instill in our kids.
The worst part of this is that they both seem quite willing to do what they think is appropriate even when it is at odds with what we've told them we allow or don't allow. Neither of them have taken the kids on her own because I can't even trust them to follow our guidelines when we are present. I feel like my SIL is just itching to sit my son in front of a DVD to show me that he really does like it; i know he probably would, but that doesn't mean there aren't better things he would like as much or more.
Right now, our kids are young enough that they aren't attached to most 'things' they encounter. We openly or quietly give the excess away to friends and sell or donate what our friends don't want. I know this will become more difficult as they get older.
How do you deal with gifts for your kids that don't fit in with your lifestyle?
This is actually an issue in our own life, something we've puzzled over quite a lot.
Our two (very soon to be three) children have a lot of relatives who adore them. They have four grandparents, a great grandparent, four aunts, two uncles, and a small army of cousins who just adore our kids. Many of them give them gifts at a seemingly constant rate.
Here's the thing, though. These gifts are given out of love. People give our kids gifts because they love them so much and it's their way of expressing it. For me, telling them not to do so is akin to saying, "Please don't express your love and caring for our children."
I'm just simply not going to do that. I might not particularly like the method they use to express their love for our kids, but it's not a harmful way of doing it.
Instead, I focus on passing my values on to my kids. My children both choose what they most enjoy playing with and play with that, but part of that equation also involves what toys they're likely to see Mom and Dad playing with and approving of, too. I often play ball games in the yard with the kids. I also will get involved in a lot of the more open-ended toys, like Legos and craft/art projects.
Unsurprisingly, over a long period of time, my kids prefer these toys. My son loves nothing more than playing with a football out in the yard, throwing it around. My daughter – at two years of age, no less – will literally spend periods of an hour or more playing with her Magna-Tiles.
Why? We encourage our kids, more than anything, to play with open-ended stuff that encourages their creativity and their engineering skills or gets them physically active. That's what we value and thus we focus on it ourselves.
Hand in hand with that, we explain to everyone who gives them gifts that we often off-load the toys that wind up in the bottom of the toy box. If my daughter keeps choosing the Magna-Tiles, then other toys are going to slowly wind up at the bottom of the toy box – and will eventually head to Goodwill or to a charity that will accept them. When they come to visit, let them witness what stuff is on the top of the toybox and what is on the bottom.
With regards to sweets, we follow the same philosophy. If a grandparent gives them a sweet treat, they can eat a bit – no problem. However, we don't give them such sweets on any sort of regular basis. We have a "candy tub" that gets filled with candies from such events (like Easter and Halloween) and we allow them one piece a night if they remember and if they behaved well and ate adequately at supper. The result? We still have candy from Halloween.
From there, we carry it forward. We talk to the grandparents and other relatives about what our kids are obviously enjoying.
"Our son's favorite food is black olives."
"Does he eat candy?"
"Not really. You like bananas, don't you, Joe?"
"Kate really, really likes her Magna-Tiles."
"What are those?"
"They're kind of a building block toy. She just gravitates to those kinds of things."
"What did you do this weekend?"
"We let the kids choose and they wanted to go to the Science Center and the zoo. They just love going out and experiencing stuff instead of playing at home all of the time or just watching videos."
"Don't they like watching movies?"
"On rainy days, maybe sometimes. But if the weather is nice, we'd rather be out in the yard. Even on indoor days, we usually wind up making pictures and building stuff."
Repeated over and over, attentive grandparents and relatives start to get the hint. We value open-ended toys. We don't value sweets beyond moderation. Experience-oriented things are really loved around here, while passive toys aren't valued as much.
This accomplishes a lot of things at once. It includes the people who care about your kids in their life. I know that both sets of grandparents – as well as the aunts – constantly want to know more about what our kids are up to, so we tell them. It also reveals in a pretty strong way what the kids enjoy – and what they don't enjoy.
Perhaps most worthwhile (in relation to The Simple Dollar, anyway), it saves everyone money. The relatives know what kinds of toys our kids like and value, so they get them things in line with that. Thus, they aren't spending their money on toys that won't get played with much (and thus get quickly sent to Goodwill).
I have no objection with (almost) any of our relatives watching our kids, even if I know they won't necessarily encourage the optimal activities I might want. Why? I know my kids. When they go there, they're going to gravitate towards the stuff that they like – playing in the yard, playing with building-oriented toys, and so on. They might be encouraged to do other stuff and they might go along, but I've seen my daughter gravitate to the building toys many, many times and I've seen my son ask for paper to draw on and crayons many, many times.
There's also another key lesson here that will help you in other areas of life: talk positively about what you value without talking negatively about what you don't value. You can actually have a civil discussion about politics or money or religion or parenting if you never go negative and just don't respond to negativity. The same is true with this discussion. Talk about what you value in a positive light without painting other viewpoints in a negative light and other people will be engaged. It works, I think, partially because people so rarely do it.
Instead of criticizing the gifts that your family gives, thank them for the gifts. At other opportunities, though, use positive comments to talk about the types of gifts that are in line with what you value. You'll be surprised how much positivity can help any situation like this – or in any situation.


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Published on: April 5, 2012
by The Halifax Courier
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs "could stave off the symptoms of Alzheimer's", according to The Daily Telegraph. The front page of the Daily Express even boldly reported: "Statins halt Alzheimer's."
These attention-grabbing claims could easily lead readers to assume there has been a major breakthrough in the fight to cure Alzheimer's disease. However, they are based on a small laboratory study which used mice that were bred to display signs of Alzheimer's.
The early-stage research showed that the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin could improve learning and memory in mice genetically engineered to produce excess levels of amyloid protein in the brain, a characteristic feature of Alzheimer's disease in humans. However, these improvements were only seen in younger mice, not older ones.
The researchers took this to mean that statins would only be effective for blocking early-stage disease. The research also demonstrated that simvastatin caused some improvement in blood vessel function, which some researchers believe to be involved in developing the condition.
Even though these seem like positive results in mice, research has already looked directly at whether statins can stop Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia in humans. For example, two recent high-quality reviews of research into statins and dementia suggest that there is no evidence that statins provide any specific benefit to humans with Alzheimer's.
While the new research suggests that the timing of statin use may allow it to have an effect, the evidence is far from conclusive and this would need to be explored further in a laboratory. Given the limitations of this research and the uncertainty over its results, the headline "Statins halt Alzheimer's" is wildly misleading.
Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, has put the study into context in a statement for Behind the Headlines. He said: "People should view the results with caution until further research has teased out how simvastatin might be working in these mice, and more importantly, until there is any significant new clinical trial data in humans."
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from McGill University, Canada, and was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The study was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Neuroscience.
Newspaper headlines about this research were generally misleading and suggested that it directly applies to humans. Most media reports took a few paragraphs, and in some cases half the article, to inform readers of the key fact that this research was carried out in mice and not humans. While the Daily Express' headline suggests that statins have been proven to "halt Alzheimer's", this is not justified by the newly published research. In fact, the current body of high-quality research on this topic suggests the opposite is true.
What kind of research was this?
This laboratory study assessed the effect of simvastatin on different signs and symptoms of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. Simvastatin is a widely used statin drug, which can control levels of cholesterol in the body. Around the world, many millions of middle-aged and elderly people take statins. To date, analysis of these populations has not detected any protective effect of the drug against dementia, including Alzheimer's.
Laboratory studies in mice represent the early stages of medical research. During these mice-based studies, researchers are able to manipulate mice into displaying key characteristics of human disease, which they can then study in detail to better understand the condition in humans. For example, mice may be genetically modify to have biological characteristics similar to a human disease. However, there are key differences between mice and men, and early, experimental results from studies in mice may not always translate into similar findings in humans.
Alzheimer's disease is characterised by the presence of deposits of the protein beta-amyloid in brain cells. These deposits are also known as amyloid plaques. These can interfere with the normal functioning of brain cells, causing the symptoms of memory loss and other deterioration in cognitive function commonly associated with Alzheimer's disease. The authors of this study also said that Alzheimer's is associated with problems in the blood vessels and blood circulation in the brain, and that previous research suggests this compromised blood flow could be related to the progression of Alzheimer's.
Because statins can help keep blood vessels free of fatty build-up, some people have speculated that they could have a role in preventing Alzheimer's disease. Previous reviews have not found an apparent link between statins and Alzheimer's. However, the authors of this new research say recent evidence suggests that the cholesterol-lowering drugs may have beneficial effects on the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease.
What did the research involve?
This study involved mice that were bred to produce excessive amounts of beta-amyloid protein in their brains, thereby mimicking the key biological characteristic of Alzheimer's in humans. The research looked at the effect of the statin drug simvastatin on the levels of amyloid in the brain, as well as its effects on blood flow and blood vessel function in the brain.
The study used three main types of mice:
Simvastatin was given to the treatment group mice in their drinking water, while controls were given the same amount of water without the statin. Simvastatin was administered at 20mg per kilo of body weight per day for 3 days. This was increased to 30mg/kg/day for 4 days, and then to 40mg/kg/day for the rest of the treatment.
The treatment group was further divided into two age groups: adult and aged. Adult mice were six months old and had been treated with statins from three months of age for a period of three months. Aged mice were twelve months old and had been treated from six months of age for six months. Total cholesterol levels were measured to assess the effect of the statin.
Spatial memory and learning were assessed with a commonly used water maze test. This involves placing a mouse into a small pool of water containing an escape platform hidden beneath the water's surface. Visual cues indicate its location, and researchers record how quickly the mouse learns the location of the platform on repeated attempts. The visual cues and platform location can be changed to further assess learning and memory.
Three days after they had completed the maze task, mice were anaesthetised and the blood flow in their brains was measured using a standard technique. This involved using lasers to gauge the amount of fluid moving through their blood vessels. In a subset of mice, a small sample of artery blood vessel tissue was taken from their brain and subjected to laboratory experiments. These were designed to assess its ability to contract and relax as a normal functioning blood vessel should.
The researchers then used appropriate statistical analysis techniques to examine their results.
What were the basic results?
The key finding of this study was that simvastatin fully restored short- and long-term memory in adult mice, but not in aged mice. The researchers found that these beneficial effects occurred without a decrease in the amount of amyloid plaque found in the brains of the mice.
In addition, simvastatin restored key aspects of the functionality of the arteries in the brains of mice with Alzheimer's disease. This functionality was impaired in mice that did not receive the statin.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers concluded that simvastatin, and possibly other brain-penetrating statins, show "high therapeutic promise" in early Alzheimer's disease and in patients with vascular disease who are at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
News reports of this research have ranged from optimistic to misleading. The study's early mouse-based results need to be viewed in context, particularly as no benefit of statin use on Alzheimer's has been found when directly examined in humans.
This study shows that the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin could improve blood vessel function and learning and memory in mice with features of Alzheimer's-like disease, but only when given "early in the disease process" (when the mice were at a younger age). However, improved performance in a water maze may not necessarily demonstrate reversal of Alzheimer's, particularly as the researchers found no decrease in the amount of amyloid plaque found in the brains of the mice. This means that even in mice, the statin had no effect on amyloid, a key characteristic in the human form of the disease.
Furthermore, a recent systematic review of the literature on statins and dementia (including Alzheimer's disease, which is one type of dementia with strict diagnostic criteria) concluded that the use of statins to prevent vascular disease did not appear to prevent Alzheimer's. It concluded that "there is good evidence [from randomised controlled trials] that statins given in late life to individuals at risk of vascular disease have no effect in preventing Alzheimer's or dementia." This review sought to identify all high-quality literature published on the topic, and it is unlikely that these conclusions would change on the basis of the new, small animal study.
Similarly, a systematic review also looked at whether statins were effective at treating dementia, using high-quality studies published before March 2009. It included a study that assessed the effect of simvastatin on Alzheimer's disease. It too concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend statins for the treatment of dementia, including Alzheimer's.
This research is bound to be of great interest to people with Alzheimer's disease and their loved ones, particularly given the impression they may have gained from reading newspaper accounts of it. Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, the UK's leading dementia research charity, has helped put the research into context in a statement issued to Behind the Headlines. He said:
"These kinds of studies, in which some characteristics of Alzheimer's in mice are prevented or reversed, are often interesting and can help to guide both understanding of the disease as well as future studies in people. While some studies in humans have suggested that statin users may have a lower risk of Alzheimer's, this has not been consistent.
"However, as with many trials for chronic diseases, there is always the issue of whether there is a critical time to give treatments that offers the best chance of success.
"Although simvastatin is a cholesterol-lowering drug, this study in mice did not explain exactly how simvastatin was having its beneficial effect. Interestingly, there did not seem to be a reduction in cholesterol in the mice treated with simvastatin, suggesting that the drug may be acting through a mechanism independent of its ability to lower cholesterol. Therefore people should view the results with caution until further research has teased out how simvastatin might be working in these mice, and more importantly, until there is any significant new clinical trial data in humans."
Consequently, while the research may offer scientists some new clues on the development of Alzheimer's disease, front-page headlines that "Statins halt Alzheimer's" are not supported by this small animal study or by the weight of existing research on the topic.
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Film evening in solidarity with the Cuban Five: Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?
written by ACFS Perth at Sunday, May 13, 2012
|Join us on Saturday 7th July from 4pm and help us in making this function in solidarity with the Cuban Five a great success. Entry is free of charge, plate or drink to share is appreciated.
Learn about the long term efforts by the US to pu an end to the Cuban Revolution. All these efforts have been defeated by the Cuban people who united for self determination and freedom.


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MONTREAL — With Italian-sounding names recently having been featured in newspaper articles describing less than exemplary conduct, I asked an old Italian man if he felt integrated into Quebec society. He answered: "I have my integrity — that should be enough." Though a handful of Quebecers of Italian origin have been publicly implicated in activities outlawed by the established rules, the overwhelming majority are perfectly commendable citizens who work in all sectors of society. Yet it is not always flattering to be identified as Italian. So much so that an Italian who has improved his lot or, even worse, managed to become wealthy (especially in the construction business), is often suspected of maintaining ties with the Mafia. This sad combination, which has lasted too long, reflects the misunderstandings, conflicts and inevitable prejudices that have marked the long journey of Italians in Quebec.
The first Italians arrived in Montreal at the end of the 19th century. There were some 5,000 by 1905, most working in the mines, logging camps and on the railroad. Many were men who had no intention of settling here. They had hoped to go back as soon as they had saved enough money to buy a plot of land, or provide their daughters with a dowry. A good number of them were illiterate. Poorly paid and badly housed, they lived in "dangerous insalubrious conditions and promiscuity," according to the newspapers of the times. Looked down on and without resources, they (including my grandfather) became easy prey for powerful employment agents: a mafia that demanded a tax for jobs and whose role was to deliver docile, cheap labour to employers. A form of near-slavery.
More than 10 million Italians immigrated during that period (1890 to 1914) to the two Americas. Many of these immigrants came from southern regions of the country where, several years before, landowners had organized a militia whose goal was to repress peasant revolts and spread terror through the countryside. That's how the Mafia came to be. Among the indigent peasant class, these Mafiosi inspired both fear and admiration to the point that the expression "fare la mafia," today, means "strutting." This Mafia culture and the lack of civic spirit (or amoral familism that puts family interests over social responsibility), common in regions where the state is as corrupt as it is reviled, have long since crossed the Atlantic.
Italian immigration practically stopped during the fascist regime (1922-1943). Nevertheless, Montreal's small Italian community was subjected to its propaganda even within the churches, and except for a small minority, they adhered to the fascist ideology — less out of political conviction, and more to enjoy the psychological benefits of belonging to a nation whose Duce was adulated not only by the Vatican (after the Concordat), but also by the heads of foreign governments, including Mackenzie King. The party quickly ended when fascist Italy declared war on France. Hundreds of Italians, residents of Montreal, would be arrested and imprisoned in Petawawa.
When Italian immigration picked up again after the Second World War, 90 per cent of Italians who settled in Quebec between 1947 and 1970 were sponsored by a family member. Entire villages emptied out, creating such demographic imbalances and economic difficulties that emigration became a self-generating process. Sponsorship explains why nearly a third of all Quebecers of Italian background came from Molise. Others came from various regions, but many were from Calabria and Sicily where the 'Ndrangheta and the Mafia flourished, and spread from there across the world. Most of them chose to settle in Montreal alongside tens of thousands of rural Quebecers. This was a time of intense urbanization and a building boom (the Metropolitan Expressway, the métro system, new suburbs, schools, roads, etc.) whose apotheosis would come with Expo 67. Among the Italians who found work as labourers or skilled tradesmen, some became contractors, often ending up quite prosperous. They derived their wealth from within: at their disposal they had thousands of former peasants ready to accept the hardest working conditions. (My father, like so many others, had to work an hour or two every day without salary for the right to return to the site the next day.) It is, however, untrue to think, despite the great attention given in the media to a few individuals, that the construction industry is their exclusive domain. The 2001 census showed that there were only 6,595 Italians (including 860 women) in this sector, corresponding to some 5 per cent of the total.
I am part of the immigration wave of the 1950s, when fathers immigrated before the rest of the family. Arriving with children would have been too costly for the host society. (Will we ever know what the immigration of men and women, ready to work, with various skills and professions brought — and is still bringing — to the Quebec economy?) Our parents believed they were emigrating for a better life. For most of them, it only proved to be a different one. Poverty gave way to the illusion of abundance, with each settling for his meagre payday as he waited to be avenged by his children. In my case, I was happy in the place where I was born, and the promise of some better, other place seemed to be one lie among many. And I wasn't mistaken. After having been rejected by a French school (the same one my two sons would attend 30 years later), I was called a Wop on a regular basis in the bus that took me to the ghetto school in an Italian neighbourhood. That insult planted an anger in me that flares anew every time I'm told I'm not a francophone because French is not my mother tongue. Recognition is long overdue that many of us immigrants did not wait for the coming of Bill 101 to learn French and, as a result, put into practice some of the principles of interculturalism long before it became part of public discourse. Over the past 30 years, the progress of French among immigrants has been enormous, and despite that, the language crusaders insist on labelling us Lord Durham's agents of assimilation. More than irritating, I'd say!
Thousands of Italians came to Quebec in the 1950s and 1960s in an atmosphere of virtual indifference: no social structure existed for young people of school age or for adults, except single men. For them, there was the tavern, where they swapped addresses of bosses or bordellos. Under Québécois roofs, people told scandalous stories of promiscuous men, made fun of the fat, black-clad Italian mamma, and accused these immigrants of stealing jobs. ("If I could have stolen a job, I would have picked a better one," my mother used to say when she returned from her noisy, dirty factory.) But all that didn't prevent inter-ethnic marriages or harmonious relations in certain neighbourhoods. Some French Quebecers even agreed to rent from these spaghetti-eaters. With no law imposing the French language, these new Quebecers, who had never heard of French being the majority language in Quebec, overwhelmingly chose English schools for their children, and quite legally so. For a whole generation, no one protested. Then, suddenly, French authorities understood they had to integrate these immigrants. And as in a Greek tragedy, two legitimate points of view came into conflict, thus causing violent riots in Saint-Léonard (1969). From then on, the image of Italians as a group hostile to the legitimate demands of the French majority was added to the already unflattering hint of the presence of the Mafia and to the stereotypes linked to their rural origin and the conservative family values.
With the diversification of immigration at the end of the 1970s, Italians left centre stage. Due to the fact that Bill 101 did not contain retroactive measures, they could continue their isolation in English schools. Before long, they were practically the only ones left in the Montreal Catholic School Board, until it was abolished. They could go on learning English and speaking it in their particular way, in the process creating a network of friends just like them, whom they would encounter in their neighbourhoods, for better and sometimes for worse. Could it be that this tight community structure contributed, in certain cases, to retaining traditional values and adopting behaviour that sprang from amoral familism? Luckily, that didn't keep them from learning French. According to the 2006 census, 91.8 per cent of Italians knew French, compared to 73.7 per cent for English. In the home, 37.7 per cent used English, whereas 39.2 per cent used French. When it came to the workplace language, French clearly carried the day: 55 per cent against 31.8 per cent for English. If only Bill 101 had been voted in 30 years earlier! The picture is less rosy when it comes to education, since only 16.9 per cent of them had earned a university degree (sometimes a mere certificate), about the same percentage as French speakers.
Bill 101, two referendums and 30 years of debate have changed Quebec. The representations and perceptions of immigrants have become less simplistic and stereotyped. They correspond more closely to the complexities of identity of each group living here. No one has a monopoly over crime or virtue, and the mafia, in the broadest sense, is no longer a phenomenon limited to one ethnic group. The Italian community has evolved a great deal. In fact, the very notion of an Italian community hardly applies any more in today's Montreal. Of the 299,660 Quebecers of Italian origin (of whom 42 per cent are of mixed background), 71.5 per cent were born here, according to the 2006 census, while the very great majority of the rest have been living in Quebec for at least 30 years. Partly or completely, each person has been shaped by the limits and possibilities of this society. That holds true for the artist, the professional as well as the mafioso of Italian origin.
Marco Micone is a Montreal author and translator. Born in Italy, he arrived in Montreal in 1958, studied French literature, and taught at Vanier College for 30 years.