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The Drupal Impact
Transitioning to Drupal: read about how we helped a publishing company shift off their legacy, proprietary system into the world of Open Source.
The editor's perspective: "It's an absolute dream!"
Over the last year Redactive Media has been migrating a number of sites away from their legacy Easysite CMS to Drupal. Code Enigma has been assisting in this, providing mentoring and extra development resource. We spoke to their digital and editorial teams to find out how this had worked out, and whether Drupal had proved an effective replacement for Easysite.
Background to the project
Redactive describes itself as the leading provider of magazines, digital media and live events for membership and professional services organisations. Some example organisations serviced by Redactive are the Royal College of Midwives, and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Its main business used to be in publishing print magazine and while that remains a significant area, there's an accelerating move towards digital first.
Originally Redactive built their online magazine sites using a system called Easysite but in 2013 they took the decision to move to Drupal. As they already had an in-house digital team they wanted a Drupal agency that could help them to skill up in Drupal rather than just build sites for them. Their original request was to watch us build a site but we suggested instead that we put a senior developer on site with them so that we could train their team and get them working on Drupal immediately.
The Digital Manager's View
We interviewed their head of digital – Aaron Davies - to find out how the process had worked and whether Drupal had fulfilled their expectations. We started by asking what had made them go to Drupal in the first place and cost was a major consideration in two ways, proprietary licensing and the availability of freelancers. On the question of whether Drupal had vindicated the choice to go Open Source, he has no doubts. The speed comes from Drupal's modular structure, but also from building sites where as much as possible is exported to code. Aaron can already see how Drupal features will allow for productizing features. Some of the needs of magazine clients are predictable so there's potential to package these.
Another impact of Drupal on use of time is that the digital team are no longer burning time helping editors grapple with an unwieldy CMS. The benefit of this reduced build time is that more focus can be given to user-centred design as on the recent rebuild of the Royal College of Midwives site where they had the benefit of working with a focus group to get things like section titles right. The other benefit Aaron can already see with Drupal is that it's much easier to build custom functionality such as smart forms or integrations with external membership databases, and that means they can provide added value for customers – particularly useful when the traditional incentive of banner advertising is no longer delivering as much. Increased user interaction opportunities also improves data capture; customer information is potentially much more valuable than general advertising. As Aaron puts it "we've now got blog sites that can compete with our titles so we have to be smarter to deal with competitors".
We discussed the impact of some of the processes we introduced to Redactive, including Agile methodology. The user centred model has proved really useful with the concept of the user story being embedded. That's also reflected in a wider re-organisation of editorial teams to cover specific sectors such as health, acknowledging the need to have a more sophisticated understanding of user needs and behaviour.
We also introduced detailed task breakdowns and time-based estimating, and again that is bearing dividends. As head of digital Aaron has an internal market to manage and editorial teams really value having an understanding of what things will cost to implement. It means everyone can make more informed decisions, particularly the new business section where they have an improved sense of what's worth chasing. As Aaron explained "nobody benefits from over-promising". Detailed estimating followed by auditing of what actually happened also helps identifies time that used to get lost in activities such as planning. This is also helped by using logging tools such as scrum diaries so that the team know how they spent their time.
Of course, it's not all perfect. The digital team may be trying to work Agile, but their customers still like fixed price: "We've gone Agile but our clients haven't" Also, if working to a tight schedule late change requests are a pain, Agile or not.
In retrospect Aaron also reckons that we seriously underestimated how long would be needed for the initial mentoring. The length of time needed to master Drupal was also raised by the developers particularly in a context where they are also learning new tools like Git. Looking to the future, we wondered what was on the roadmap as use of Drupal gradually beds down. The most important area seems to be better use of metrics. The previous CMS was so hard to work with that all the focus was simply on getting stuff produced. Now they can start to really drill into how people are using sites. Aaron explained that quite a lot of design decisions in the past had been best guesses based on general web use: "The BBC has a news carousel so that's probably a good thing". Now Redactive can carry out analysis of user journeys, implement A/B testing, and optimize markup.
Wrapping up with the head of digital one of his observations that we found really interesting was that the move to Drupal has changed his sense of what he needs in the digital team: "People must be communicators – they must be multi-disciplinary". Maybe another way to think of this is that Drupal makes a lot of tasks easy so digital team members can cover more bases. Admittedly, that might apply less in a large team where there's scope for things like UX specialists but in a most organisations, this logic makes sense.
We get a better use of time with Drupal – it still take 22 weeks to do a complete new site but the actual build only takes 4 to 6 weeks.
The developer view
We were interested in finding out how the development team at Redactive has taken to Drupal so spoke to Pierrick Senelaar and Bhanu Chawla. No surprise to find that they're enjoying Drupal, particularly its flexibility to build virtually anything. They're particularly positive about using features and the Drush command line tool to speed up work and re-useability. In fact, as a result of working with Code Enigma, they are using a lot more command line in general. That no doubt is partly associated with moving away from Windows, as the team are now standarised on Macs, and the continuous integration system that has their local environments matched to the linux hosting environment.
They did admit that learning Drupal has proved a challenge. It's easy enough to get started but then it gets harder. They reckon it took a full eight months to reach the point where they'd consider themselves free-standing Drupal developers. The process of learning was also new:
"mastering Drupal requires a problem solving mentality – the solution is out there but you have to go find it."
One real advantage they identify when learning Drupal is the community, which was something new to them. Pierrick pointed out that when you google a Drupal problem, the chances are you'll find the results on drupal.org, indicating that it's an active community.
Apart from Drupal the development team were very positive about the continuous integration systems we introduced, using Git branches and three stage deployment automated with Jenkins. They thought our use of IRC to communicate within the development team was amusingly old-school but actually works.
They also approved of Agile-scrum although they do find our model of very detailed task production can be tedious. On the other hand, they recognise that detailed task breakdowns make for great metrics so you can't have everything. Also, for a team supporting multiple sites there's lots of scope for re-use of task backlogs so they can already see things speeding up. As their knowledge increases they can see how they can re-use and improve features to get productivity gains. But, like every other developer who has to use features, they've also hit problems:
"Features is the best and worst thing in Drupal"
Mastering Drupal requires a problem solving mentality – the solution is out there but you have to go find it.
Editor view
"It's an absolute dream!" Talking to Helen Bird from the digital team, the picture of Drupal was positive but they also acknowledged challenges around learning and adopting it. Talking to an editor, we couldn't find a serious complaint. "It feels self-explanatory. I was shown it once. Anyone could do it."
This feels like a real endorsement not only of Drupal, but of the work done by the digital team to tweak it so that it's really easy for editors. Back in 2009 when Drupal 7 was being developed, there was usability research carried using a theoretical user called Verity, who was the archetype for someone who has to use a Drupal site on a day-to-day basis to get stuff done. What emerged then was that Drupal was seriously problematic for Verity. Without intending any insult, Helen's work puts her in the Verity category, and the fact that she finds Drupal so easy reflect how much better Drupal 7 was over previous versions, and how much can then be done by developers to customize the editorial interface. In particular, Redactive are using Workbench module to provide workflow. The fact that Helen can make changes to a draft document without taking things offline or having to go through a cumbersome republication process directly addresses the user needs of a busy editor. She also likes how easy it is to drop images into the wysiwyg text editor. Speak it softly but her kindest words were "it's almost like working in Word". Hopefully by Drupal 9 we'll have genuine inline text editing, at which point it should be Word is almost like working in Drupal!
It's almost like working in Word.
Our view
At one level, assisting a company to move from a legacy CMS to Drupal can feel like shooting at an open goal. We know in advance that Drupal will make things much quicker and more flexible. In part this is simply because Drupal represents an update to a legacy system, and the immediate benefits would be very similar if we used Wordpress or a modern proprietary CMS like Expression Engine. For us, some of the more interesting aspects of adopting Drupal emerged during our initial onboarding with the client, and through the process of mentoring and coaching the internal team.
During onboarding, we got the opportunity to speak to various stakeholders with the result that what seemed initially like a technical exercise to be handled by the digital team became much more an exercise in business analysis looking at what the potential value of moving to Drupal might be, and more importantly, how that might be evaluated. We produced detailed business plans for the initial stages of the move and we believe that helped our client to take a more strategic approach to the process. Lessons for us that emerged from coaching the in-house team are that learning Drupal properly takes a while - no surprise there – but what also takes time is learning and adopting what we'd class as professional development practice.
The core of this is working as a team, which requires people to work in line with an agreed and consistent system rather than relying on individual knowledge: i.e. no more "oh, let's just wait until Frank is here - he knows how to do the database changes". This covers things like version control, and getting everything into code to achieve zero-touch deployment (i.e. the developers never need access to the production site's edit interface to make configuration changes, and deployment to live can occur without any down time). It also covers using tools such as terminal commands with Drush in order to speed up the development process.
A further potential complication is that we take a fairly custom approach to Drupal development, relying heavily on panels to achieve semantic markup and responsiveness. However, where an in-house team has no previous experience of Drupal this turns out not to be a problem because there is nothing to unlearn, whereas site builders who are used to traditional theming can find panels quite intimidating. Finally, we've been struck by how our project management processes have proved useful to Redactive's digital team. This isn't to say they have adopted our models wholesale but they have definitely cherry-picked ideas. For us this really vindicates a collaborative model between client and agency, working in an integrated way to share ideas.
What also takes time is learning and adopting what we'd class as professional development practice.


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Within minutes of 41-year-old Trzebinski's death - delivered by one neat shot to the heart - rumours were running out of control in Nairobi's white suburbs. The police did nothing to quell them. This did not bear the hallmarks of a bungled carjacking - an everyday hazard in Nairobi. The car was of a type unpopular with thieves; the murder scene was an unlikely one for such a crime; and Trzebinski's body was found with £180 on it and a Rolex watch. Police considered a love triangle intrigue a more probable explanation. There was also talk of a drugs killing. Nothing was being ruled out.
Erroll made Kenya famous for murder. And this latest killing inevitably invites comparison with his death in 1941 (which was never solved, and still obsesses Kenya to this day) - though there are profound differences. Josslyn Victor Hay was 22nd Earl of Erroll and hereditary high constable of Scotland - the second highest-ranking Scotsman after King George VI. This time the key players are not aristocrats, but they are perhaps more glamorous than Erroll's middle-aged friends. Trzebinski, whose Polish grandfather arrived in Kenya penniless after the second world war, was a fanatical surfer, a big game fisherman and an artist, with a mop of ringlets and a muscular physique.
Erroll was killed after a very public affair with Diana, wife of Sir Jock Delves Broughton (later tried for his murder, but acquitted). On the night he was killed, Trzebinski was visiting Natasha Illum Berg - blonde, beautiful and a professional hunter. The pair lived near each other in Karen, the exclusive, mainly white suburb built on Karen Blixen's doomed coffee estate (made famous by another film, Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep).
Trzebinski and his wife Anna (nee Cunningham Reid; a distant relative of the Delamere family, Kenya's colonial pioneers) had argued over his friendship with the 30-year-old Swede a few weeks before - she then left to spend time alone in Arizona. "They were both talented, good-looking, smart, madly in love but just couldn't find a way to live together," says one of their closest friends. "The plan was for him to leave Anna, for a trial separation, to see where things went from there."
On his last evening, Trzebinski took his children, Stas, nine, and Lana, eight, to meet friends at a Japanese restaurant. After going home to put them to bed, he drove round to Illum Berg's house in his wife's white Alpha Romeo, with a tray of sushi on the back seat.
Erroll's body was discovered in the front of his car. He had been killed by a single bullet which entered just below his ear.
According to police reports, at around 9.15pm on October 16, Illum Berg's nightwatchman recognised the sound of Tzrebinski's car approaching and opened the gates. But it stopped short. Almost immediately, there was a single shot and a choked scream. After a short pause, there came the sound of a car being revved furiously; and then cutting out. A second car then accelerated up the dirt track to the main road. One minute later, armed guards from a private security firm, alerted by the watchman's alarm, arrived. This was around four minutes after the shot was fired. They found Tzrebinski's car facing away from the house. The keys had been flung five metres in front, and his body was lying 10m behind. The knees of his blue jeans were stained red with dirt as if he had been dragged. But nothing had been taken, except possibly his mobile phone.
Trzebinski had a small group of particular friends; most, like him, white, male and successful. They took charge after his killing, retrieving the body from the dilapidated city mortuary (minus its shoes), and sending the children to friends in Mombasa. They instructed the police not to speak to the press.
The body was embalmed and lay in state for four days in a tent filled with flowers and jasmine candles, pitched on the Trzebinski grounds - part of a wooded giraffe sanctuary - with 150 selected guests in attendance. The body was cremated at sunset on an open pyre overlooking the Rift Valley. Friends put his surfing shorts, motorbike crash helmet, a painting and photographs among the cedar poles, and topped the pyre with one of his surf boards. They read poetry, sang and gave eulogies - while guards barred the way to journalists and unwanted guests. Finally, Trzebinski's son and closest friends set the pyre alight with flaming torches. Illum Berg, who was not invited, flew past twice in a light aircraft.
The secrecy surrounding these extraordinary scenes was entirely alien to most Africans, who regard funerals as a community affair. Perhaps this led police and local journalists to the conclusion that Trzebinski's friends had something to hide. "Never have I encountered such hostility," says Stephen Muiruri, senior crime reporter at the Daily Nation newspaper. "These people have a criminal mentality - they don't want anyone to know what they are doing."
It hasn't helped that the victim was not popular with everyone in Karen. With Nairobi a bothersome 30-minute drive away, gossip has become something of an occupation in the area - the suburb's nickname is Karen-ation Street. Trze binski and his friends, all outdoor types - devotees of safari, shooting and fishing - despised this society. In turn, it despised them. "Tonio was arrogant and rude. What with the women and all the drugs... nobody is very sorry he's dead," says one resident.
The police believe the murder was premeditated. According to Dr OA Kirasi Olumbe, who carried out the postmortem, Trzebinski was shot at the wheel, with his arms by his sides, and with the pistol or revolver pressed tight against him. "Carjackers only shoot if there is a panic situation," he says. "Here there was no evidence of a struggle."
But Tzrebinski's friends claim - rightly or wrongly - that a bungled robbery is the only likely explanation. First, they say, there was no jealous lover. Despite the row with his wife, they say Trzebinski's relationship with Illum Berg was not sexual. (She is taking legal advice in response to claims to the contrary.) And in spite of many lurid rumours, they claim Tzrebinski was a very modest womaniser: one well-publicised affair with a neighbour was his only transgression in 11 years of marriage. "I know that Tonio was not having an affair with Natasha at the time of his death," says one close friend. "He wanted to make his marriage work and above all he absolutely loved his kids." Meanwhile, Illum Berg's British fiancé, Sebastian Willis-Fleming, had been out of Kenya for three and a half months with a UN peacekeeping team in Nigeria.
Equally absurd, say these friends, is a rumour that Tzrebinski was killed over a drugs debt. "In the past we'd dabbled in everything, like everyone else," says one friend. "But he'd been clean for weeks when he died - he'd refused a glass of saki that night." Moreover, Tzrebinski was not short of cash. He had a furniture workshop employing 15 craftsmen; and forthcoming painting exhibitions in Houston, London and the aouth of France. His career, for which he had trained at the Slade school of art, had taken off.
Some accuse the police of branding Tzrebinski's murder a strictly white intrigue in order to avoid having to solve it - or admit to the nightmarish level of crime in Nairobi. Certainly, if human passions have not changed since Erroll's day, Nairobi has. The city sees 50 to 60 carjackings and up to 70 firearm deaths each week. Hiding behind razor wire and costly private security firms, Karen's residents tend to escape relatively unscathed. But the threat of violent crime is there, even at the most serene of times: Karen is currently plagued by a "Sunday lunch gang", so-named after the timing of their burglaries.
And, of course, a bungled carjacking cannot be ruled out. Unlikely cars are sometimes targeted to be used in further robberies and abandoned. It is also hard to explain why his body was dragged from the car unless his killer wanted to make off with it; or why the car had been turned around. Perhaps a man tried to steal it but gave up when he realised it was a notorious staller and difficult to restart. Perhaps the keys were thrown down in disgust. Perhaps it was by then too late to steal anything from the body. The police have yet to explain these oddities. But whatever his friends may think, it is too soon to rule out something more sinister. Tzrebinski's family have hired Greg Love, a private detective, to work alongside the police. "There is no firm indication of whether this was a vengeful hit or a bungled car-jacking," he says. "I have no gut feeling."
John Lee, the undertaker who embalmed Tzrebinski (and considered him a friend), hesitates to push a lurid murder theory. "But among us white Kenyans, who have lived our lives, day-to-day with all the carjacking and crime, this one doesn't quite ring true."

subset: commoncrawl


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Tag Archives: cpc bid
Ryan Moothart // 8 Apr, 2011
Bid by Position Preference – Post AdWords Feature Removal
Most of the time, I love Google. But sometimes they throw a curve ball at me and make my life more difficult. On Tuesday, Google announced it's removing the preferred position bidding feature from AdWords starting in early May and accounts can no longer begin using the feature effective immediately. And I was having such… Read More


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Stephen Silver is a proud sponsor of the Big Game Big Give event benefitting Stanford Cancer Institute, Four Rings Montana Family Foundation and The Giving Back Fund.
Skipping the Big Game Big Give Event?
Visit our boutiques at the Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel for your chance to win a commemorative SUPER BOWL 50 game ball, 64" strand of freshwater pearls and a bottle of champagne OR fill out the form below.
Winners will be chosen on Super Bowl Sunday and must pick up prizes in the Stephen Silver Watch Boutique Located in the Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel.
Attending THE BIG GAME BIG GIVE EVENT?
Stop in to see the extraordinary timepieces and jewelry we will have on exhibit. A percentage of event sales will be donated back to Stanford Cancer Institute, Four Rings Montana Family Foundation and The Giving Back Fund.
As a part of the fundraising, Stephen Silver is offering the opportunity for event attendees to win big with a $66,000 prize to one lucky Big Give donor. The prize includes a stunning pair of diamond hoop earrings and Ulysse Nardin Executive Dual Time watch. At the event, look for Stephen Silver representatives holding incredible strands of pearls to buy tickets. Each ticket holder will receive a 64" strand of freshwater pearls.


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7 Reviews
Trail style, everyday.
Just because you aren't able to spend every day on the trail doesn't mean you can't pretend that's where you are. Lace up the Chaco Fields Boot to bring a little trail style to your everyday wardrobe. With a tucked-in pair of jeans and a cozy fleece, you'll have that off-duty thru-hiker look dialed, plus plenty of traction for whatever Mother Nature throws your way. A full-grain leather upper promises to mold to your foot over time, while Chaco's renowned Luvseat footbed and a springy EVA midsole support your foot through long days of errands. The non-marking, skid-resistant rubber sole and its capable tread give you plenty of stability when you head off-road, even if it's just for a quick lunchtime walk through the park.
- Hiking-inspired boot brings trail style to casual life
- Full-grain leather upper improves with time
- Luvseat footbed supports and cushions bottom of foot
- Grippy, non-marking sole adapts to bad weather
- Item #CHA004P
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My favorite all-season boot.
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
It says that it fits "true to size", but I'd say to size down a half-size. I'm normally a 7 and ordered a 6.5 and they fit perfectly, even with heavy wool socks. With the 7, I'd have way too much extra room.
What the other reviews are saying is true: there's definitely a break in period. Give it at least 5 days to get used to the arch supports and ankle supports. At first, the arch felt like it was in a completely wrong spot on my foot, but the more I wore them, the more they mellowed out. The ankle supports do dig into your achilles at first, but they broke down and softened up after the first couple of days I wore them. And they do scuff super easily, but I like how it looks.
One thing to be weary of is the super deep tread. It's great for walking over ice and snow, but you'll definitely keep mud tucked up there for longer than you (or your white carpets) would normally like. Just remember to either take off the boots before going inside, or scrape your feet for a good minute on the doormat.
All in all, these are are great all-season boot. Especially if you lather them up with some SnoSeal or some other waterproof wax for winter.
Great Gift
- Familiarity: I gave it as a gift but have feedback to share
- Fit: True to size
I gave these shoes a gift to my mom for mothers days and she "loves them to pieces". These shoes are sturdy for doing a fair amount of casual walking but very trendy and hippy mom that she feels very comfortable in them.
Awesome boots for the price!
- Familiarity: I've used it once or twice and have initial impressions
- Fit: True to size
These boots are excellent for their price. Similar boots can go for double so if these hold up over time they are a great value. Just like any other tough boot they take a while before they become comfortable so give them some time to break in before you doing any serious traveling.
Chacos for the win!
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
- Fit: True to size
I love these boots as much as my other Chaco sandals. They have the same great arch support and they're super cute, too! I've only worn them a couple times, so far, but they are really comfortable and didn't need breaking in.
super cute
- Familiarity: I've put it through the wringer
- Fit: True to size
- Size Bought: 9
- Height: 5'10"
- Weight: 150lbs
I love these boots and they keep my feet warm and dry in slushy winter weather. They did take a few wears to break in for me but definitely worth it. They also seem to grip snow and ice safely for those sketchy parking lots.
Chaco everyday!
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
- Fit: Runs large
- Size Bought: 7.5
- Height: 5'7"
- Weight: 135lbs
I had high expectations for these boots. And they lived up to them! I have worn them a handful of times and I was expecting to have to break them in, but they were comfy the first time I wore them, which means they will only get better with time. I am on my second pair of chaco sandals, and once I saw these I just could not wait to be able to have chaco on my feet all year round! I am usually an 8 in the sandals, but i went with a 7.5 because they felt better to me. I highly recommend the Chaco brand to everyone!
Everyone will compliment your shoes!
- Familiarity: I've put it through the wringer
- Fit: True to size
- Size Bought: 7.5
- Height: 5'2"
- Weight: 112lbs
Ohhh I love these boots! I have some great things to says and one constructive. These boots are comfy! No break in needed really and the leather is soft. The foot bed is perfect for people with narrow feet and high arches. I also went up a half size and the boots fit perfectly with room for some thick wool socks. The only draw back is the wear on the leather. It is a very soft leather. I had these on for a week and was bummed to see a scuff or mark on the boot when ever it would grace a surface even just slightly. I'm not sure if this is intentional by the designers or not because people do love that worn look that leather can get. It's cool and all but after a week, it looked like I had owned these shoes for years. Ending on a positive note, the soles of the shoes are beefy, grippy and solid! That's one of the reasons I love Chaco so much, the soles! Great boot :)


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CLEVELAND (AP) — A clutch comeback in front of a packed ballpark ended in disappointment for the Cleveland Indians.
Two-time American League MVP Miguel Cabrera singled home Ian Kinsler with one out in the 10th inning, giving the Detroit Tigers a 5-4 victory over Cleveland on Saturday night.
The Indians tied the game in the with three consecutive two-out singles off Detroit closer Joe Nathan. Michael Bourn drove home David Murphy with the tying run, sending the sellout crowd of 40,712 into a temporary frenzy.
Cleveland closer Cody Allen (3-2) entered to start the 10th and gave up a leadoff single to Kinsler, who scored two batters later on Cabrera's drive to the wall in left-center.
"Kinsler hit a pretty good pitch right there, so you're trying to pitch around damage after that," Allen said. "You've got Miguel Cabrera, who is the best hitter any of us have ever faced and a back-to-back MVP winner. I made a bad pitch to Miggy and he made me pay for it."
Indians manager Terry Francona agreed with Allen's assessment.
"Cody misfired on that pitch," he said. "He tried to come up and in, and left it right down the middle. He missed his spot by a lot, and when you do that, that's what Cabrera does."
Francona was faced with a tough decision — pitch to Cabrera or walk him intentionally and go after Victor Martinez, who homered in the second and had an RBI single in the sixth.
"Sometimes you have to choose which one you are going to pitch to," Francona said. "You'd rather not face both of them, but sometimes you've got to. Sometimes you've just got to get them out."
The Indians only managed four hits in seven innings against Tigers right-hander Justin Verlander, who exited with a 4-2 lead. Al Alburquerque replaced him in the eighth and hit Bourn with a pitch, then gave up an RBI double to Asdrubal Cabrera to make it a 4-3 game.
Rookie reliever Blaine Hardy kept Cleveland from getting closer — and stranded Cabrera at third base — by retiring Brantley, Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana on three straight groundouts.
Nathan (4-2) struck out Lonnie Chisenhall and Nick Swisher to start the ninth, but Bourn, Yan Gomes and Murphy each singled to prevent Verlander from posting his first June victory.
In the bottom of the 10th, Carlos Santana singled with two outs off Tigers reliever Phil Coke before Chisenhall fanned to end the game.
Santana hit a solo homer in the fourth off Verlander, who also allowed an unearned run in the second.
The Indians fell four games behind the first-place Tigers in the American League Central Division, also dropping their second straight in the three-game series.
The Indians recorded their second sellout of the season, thanks mostly to Omar Vizquel being inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in a pregame ceremony. Vizquel, who played for the Indians from 1994-04, is Detroit's first base and infield coach.
Indians right-hander Trevor Bauer started and went 6 1-3 innings, striking out five while allowing four runs. He surrendered a career-high three homers as Victor Martinez, Kinsler and Rajai Davis all went deep.
"He made some mistakes and paid for them," Francona. said. "He had trouble throwing strike one. He had Rajai Davis 1-2 and tried to bounce a breaking ball, but left it up and over the middle of the plate. I don't think he was out of gas. Before that he threw two fastballs right by him."
Brantley, who returned after being sidelined with a concussion Monday, was 0 for 5 to end his nine-game hitting streak.
NOTES: Indians C Yan Gomes threw out Davis at second base in the fifth, the sixth straight time he has caught a runner trying to steal. Gomes hasn't made an error in 35 games after committing nine in his first 29. ... RHP Vinnie Pestano has retired all three batters he faced since being recalled from Triple-A Columbus on Friday. ... The Indians have lost three of four at home since winning 10 straight at Progressive Field. ... Tigers RHP Max Scherzer (8-3) meets RHP Josh Tomlin (4-4) in the three-game series finale Sunday.


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A Tale of Two Sweeteners – Stevia and Aspartame
A Tale of Two Sweeteners – Stevia and Aspartame – The Facts
There is a secret war going on in this country of which most consumers are unaware. It is a David versus Goliath type action between the FDA-supported giants of the artificial sweetener industry versus those manufacturers who want their market share of the profits and retail shelf space by offering the public a safe, natural alternative to those synthetic sweeteners produced in a chemist's lab. It is about money and power – greed and avorice.
At stake are billions of dollars spent by health-conscious American consumers, most of whom admirably wish to avoid as many things "chemical" and "artificial" in their food supply – and that of their children – as possible. Two key warriors in this bitter battle are: Product A [Stevia] and Product B [Aspartame].
Product A [Stevia]:
[Stevia rebaudiana Bertoli]
Shoved into the "Dietary Supplement" category by the FDA in 1994 when DSHEA [Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act] went into effect, stevia remains in a sort of "halfway house" while the FDA struggles to keep it off the market as a sweetener. It has been used for centuries in the rest of the world as a low-calorie, no adverse reactions reported – sweet herb. It can be found in stores as crushed leaves, a dark liquid, a clear liquid or a fluffy white powder. Unlike aspartame, stevia is safe to cook with. But, without guidance on ratios and conversions – the average consumer is at a loss to know how to use it. Stevia is lots less expensive to use than its synthetic counterparts. More and more consumers are rejecting the pharmaceutical "versions of sugar" and are searching for the ideal "healthy" sweetener. This makes Product A [stevia] a very real threat to Product B [aspartame].
FDA points to only two questionable studies as their absolute proof stevia is not safe. The first, ineptly done by a graduate student in South America, says it may have [are you ready for this?] a mild contraceptive property. The other, published in 1988 in a Brazilian pharmacological journal, was extremely sloppy science and no one but the FDA gives it any credence whatsoever. On the offchance the public does not share FDA's "concern" about stevia's possible contraceptive qualities, they have come up with some strictly "hearsay" evidence, which they've never seen, through the South American "grapevine" that stevia might be unsafe for having a hypothetical hypoglycemic effect on some individuals. These are extremely flimsy "straws" the FDA is grasping to support their ban on stevia as a sweetener.
FDA claims no petitions have been filed by product manufacturers seeking to use stevia as a Generally Recognized as Safe [or GRAS] ingredient in their product.
What they really mean is the FDA has never accepted a petition filed by a food or beverage manufacturer seeking to use stevia as a sweetener in their product. Several, including Lipton have filed petitions only to be denied acceptance for some FDA-invented "technical error."
FDA ignores the overwhelming evidence of its benign and beneficial character. Usage in the rest of the world for centuries with no reported ill affects, counts for nothing in the closed "regulatory mind."
FDA even went so far as to attack one importer and distributor of stevia for perceived "violations" of the rules and regulations governing dietary supplements. The crime? Three books were being distributed by Stevita Co. of Arlington, Texas [owners of the Brazilian patent on stevia manufacturing] which described the history and usage of the sweet herb, stevia.
Not only was the business-owner ordered to destroy his inventory of books – he was also forced to remove all links to other sites on his internet website. A clear violation of First Amendment rights by the FDA?
Could all this controversy over stevia be related to FDA's defensive attitude over aspartame?
Monsanto has bought and put on hold the U.S. patent on stevia manufacturing. While investigating the FDA banning of books at Stevita Company in Arlington, Texas, Aspartame Consumer Safety Network founder, Mary Nash Stoddard, discovered that Monsanto's NutraSweet Company, manufacturers of NutraSweet and Neotame, hold Patent #435889 – NDN #0190522-9510-4, dated: Oct. 12, 1982, related to manufacturing of a stevia sweetener in the U.S. From earlier research, Stoddard knew stevia to be a healthy, low cost, logical alternative to aspartame and neotame. The manufacturers of the neurotoxic sweeteners can make more profits from producing the unhealthy sweeteners, and as long as they hold the patent, no one can produce a stevia sweetener in this country. Besides, the FDA, with Monsanto's blessing, will not approve stevia for use as a sweetener, so that it might be used in children's medications, chewing gums, soft drinks, etc. as a low-calorie sweetening agent instead of aspartame or neotame.
With the release of the new studies from Italy by the Ramazinni Foundation, showing aspartame is capable of causing multiple forms of cancers, including lymphoma and leukemia, even in normal doses – seeing to it that stevia gains FDA approval as a legal, generally recognized as safe sweetener is needed more urgently than ever.
Product B [Aspartame]:
[aka NutraSweet/Equal/Natrataste, etc.]
FDA continues to fiercly support Monsanto's artificial sweeteners aspartame [aka NutraSweet/Equal]and the new artificial sweetener, neotame, based solely on industry-sponsored tests showing "safety." And, when neotame was approved in 2002, by FDA, it was done with absolutely no requirements that it had to be listed on the ingredient label.
FDA's official position is: absolutely nothing is wrong or harmful about aspartame or neotame, despite the undisputed fact that approximately 80% of all adverse reaction complaints to FDA are aspartame related. Unlike pharmaceuticals – serious adverse reactions to a food additive are not required by law to be reported by physicians. FDA lists over 92 symptoms consumers have tied to aspartame consumption – including deaths. Reports show that when individuals get off of aspartame, their symptoms usually go away.
"Junk Science" or worse was used by G.D. Searle to gain approval for aspartame in the first place as a tabletop sweetener in 1981 & 1983 for aquaeous solution [soft drinks]. Some FDA toxicologists even went as far as to show the tests were "falsified" to get aspartame approved in the first place. Aspartame was first FDA-approved in 1974, but that approval was rescinded before it could get to market because of concerns about one of the breakdown products, DKP causing brain tumors in the laboratory animals. At a Washington D.C. News Conference, November, 1997, John Olney, M.D., noted brain researcher presented his compelling findings of a 10% increase in brain tumors since the advent of aspartame on the market.
Further troubling to many independent scientists is the fact that virtually all the studies showing harm are "corporate neutral" as one aspartame researcher put it. Many studies are available to show harm caused by aspartame's toxic breakdown products: methanol – formaldehyde – formic acid and diketopiperazine. Tens of thousands of consumers and others have reported serious adverse reactions to the FDA and consumer advocacy organizations collecting reports such as the Dallas-based Aspartame Consumer Safety Network.
Woodrow Monte, R.D., Ph.D., a former director of the Arizona State University Food Sciences and Nutrition Laboratory, is uncomfortable with the methanol content of aspartame. In a 1986 interview, Monte called aspartame "a crime against humanity." "Humans are 100 times more sensitive to methanol than animals. When you ingest aspartame, it breaks down into methanol within one hour of ingestion. Methanol forms as soon as aspartame goes into solution and increases the longer it is in solution." according to Monte. Because heat speeds the breakdown of aspartame into methanol, if aspartame is added to coffee or tea at 80 degrees C (145 degrees F), one half of the amount breaks down into methanol in 10 minutes, according to Monte. This raises serious concern about ASPARTAME 'S 1993 approval for use in baked goods and other heated products, like hot cocoa and tea. Although aspartame came about as the result of a search for a drug, and its compounds were the basis for a potential prescription medication, the petition for approval of NutraSweet was based on the premise that it was a food additive. The FDA followed its precedent of permitting manufacturers to conduct their own product safety research.
Monte feels that aspartame was mislabelled from the beginning. "aspartame is a drug, not a food additive," he said. "One hundred million people, from little babies to the elderly, are consuming this stuff in megadoses, more than they ever would if it were labelled a drug." [Informed Consent May/June '94]
Conclusion: FDA's ability to evaluate any substance objectively has been called into question by consumers and independent researchers alike. Senator Metzenbaum called FDA officials mere "Handmaidens to Industry" in the 1987 Senate Hearings on the Safety of aspartame. Corporate megabucks influence and determine the actions of that government agency created to protect the consumer from harm. Corporations routinely "cover themselves" by donating millions to organizations such as: American Dietetic Association, American Diabetic Foundation and others. FDA officials routinely hop with jumping-bean-like ease from government to private industry and back.
Outspoken critcs of this government agency are suggesting – not that we rid ourselves of a Food and Drug Administration – only that we rid ourselves of the present "corrupted" Food and Drug Administration thus changing the current FDA focus of protecting the profits of the giants of industry to one of protecting the American public, which it is charged to serve.
Who will win the Sweetener Wars? It's up to the consuming public. Tell everyone you know. Let your grocer know you want a healthy choice when it comes to sweeteners. Take aspartame-sweetened items back to the store to exchange for something healthy. One person can make a difference. Try the sweet taste of stevia – many say it's the safe alternative to the unhealthy chemical sweeteners.
WOR radio NY; Transcript of Interview. Dr. Robert Atkins and Mary Nash Stoddard, founder Aspartame Consumer Safety Network. Mar. 21, 1992
Congressional Record – S. Hrg. 100-567 Examining the Health and Safety Concerns of NutraSweet Aspartame
Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology, Vol. 55, No. 11; November, 1996 pp. 1115-1123 Increasing Brain Tumor Rates: Is There a Link to Aspartame? John W. Olney, MD
The New England Journal of Medicine, May 5, 1988 p. 1200; Aspartame and Headache
Biol. Psychiatry, 1993-13-17. Adverse Reactions to Aspartame: Double Blind challenge in Patients from a Vulnerable Population. Ralph G. Walton, MD
Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol. 36, 1984 – Aspartame: Methanol and The Public Health. Woodrow C. Monte, Ph.D., R.D.
Extraordinary Science, Vol. VII, Jan. Feb. Mar. 1995. p. 36-39. Mary Nash Stoddard and George Leighton
P.J. Shaw, "Excitatory amino acid receptors, excitotoxity, and the human nervous system," Current Opinion In Neurology and Neurosurgery 1993, 6:414-422 UK.
T.J. Maher & R.J. Wurtman, Possible Neurologic Effects of Aspartame, A Widely Used Food Additive, Environmental Health Perspectives, V. 75, p. 53-57, 1987
R.J. Wurtman, E.R. Walker, Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function MIT Press, May 1988
B.A. Mullarkey, Bittersweet Aspartame, A Diet Delusion, NutriVoice, Inc., 1992
R.L. Blaylock, M.D. Excitotoxins The Taste That Kills. Health Press. Santa Fe, NM
Deadly Deception Story of Aspartame, Audio Tape Series, author and expert medical witness, Mary Nash Stoddard relates history and aftermath of aspartame approval by FDA.
H.J. Roberts; Aspartame, NutraSweet Is It Safe? The Charles Press Dec. 1989
M.F. Drake, Panic Attacks and Excessive Aspartame Ingestion The Lancet; p. 631 Sept. 13, 1986
National Cancer Institute Statistics Review 1973-87, Bethesda, NIII Pub. No. 89-2789
Congressional Record, Senate. Saccharin Study and Labeling Act Amendments of 1985. May 7, 1985, p. S5489-5516
Congressional Record, Senate. Aspartame Safety Act of 1995, Aug. 1, 1985, p. S10820-10847
D. Remington, B. Higa, The Bitter Truth About Artificial Sweeteners, Vitality House Press, 1987
The Facts, Newsletter, Dr. Lendon Smith
Association of Birth Defect Children, Fall Vol. 14, 1989. The Aspartame Controversy.
Diamond, Pamela. Sweet Talk. Working Mother p. 78. October 1987
Federal Register, Vol. 49, No. 36. Feb. 22. 1984
Elsas, J.L. and Trotter, J.F., Changes in Physiological Concentrations of Blood Phenylalanine Produce Changes in Sensitive Parameters of Human Brain Function. Div. of Medical Genetics. Dept. of Ped., Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanga, GA 30322
Kraus. W. Halminski, M. MacDonald, L. et al. Biochemical and Neuropsychological Effects of Elevated Plasma Phenylalanine in Patient with Treated Phenylketonuria. Clin Investigation Vol. 75. Jan. 1985, pp. 40-48
Paul, T.D. Brandt, I.K., Elsas, L.J. et al, Phenylketonuria Heterozygote Detection in Families with Affected Children. Am J. Hum Genet. 30:293-301 1978
Epstein, C.M., Trotter, J.F., Averbrook, A., Freeman, S., Kutner, M.H. and Elsas, L.J. EEG mean frequencies are sensitive indices of phenylalanine effects on normal brain. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 1989. 72:133-139. Elsevier Scientific Publishers Ireland, Ltd.
Neurology 1992;42:1000-1003 Aspartame exacerbates EEG spike wave discharge in children with generalized absence epilepsy: A double blind controlled study. P.R. Camfield, MD et al
Dermatology Rounds, Vol. 22 No. 8 August 1991; Skin & Allergy News. Aspartame Associated With Case of Lobular Panniculitis; Scott Air Force Base, IL.
Neuroncology and Teratology. Vol 11, pp. 413-416. Pergamon Press, 1989. Diana L. Dow-Edwards, et al. Impaired Performance on Odor Aversion Testing Following Prenatal Aspartame Exposure in the Guinea Pig. Jan. 13, 1989. Lab. of Cerebral Metabolism. Dept. of Neurosurgery State Univ. of NY. Health Science Centr, Brooklyn, NY 11203 and Dept. of Psychology, San Diego Univ., San Diego, CA
Bud Kane, MD, Pharmacist – Children's Medical Center, Dallas, TX. List of Children's Medications Containing Aspartame Deadly Deception Story of Aspartame, 1998
Transcript of Aspartame Lecture, UT Southwestern Medical School, Continuing Ed. Series; Stoddard, Jan. 23, 1997. Deadly Deception Story of Aspartame 1998
Flying Safety; Aspartame Alert; May 1992 p. 20-21 and August, 1992 p.13 Mail Call, Stoddard
Aviation Medical Bulletin, Oct. 1988 Pilots and Aspartame
Canadian General Aviation News, P. 28, Mar. 1990
General Aviation News, NutraSweet Too Good To Be True, Megan Hicks, July 31, 1989 and Letters, Sept. 11, 1989
International Council of Air Shows, ICAS Issues Warning To Its Members About Diet Drinks, Mar. 1995 ; p. 82, 1995.
Catalyst magazine, Salt Lake City, UT
Nutrition Week, On Top of Things; Vol. XXI, No. 19, May 10, 1991; Washington, D.C.
Vegetarian Times, Aspartame Is Still Bittersweet, Laura Mazzuca, ; Sept. 1991
Idea Today, Diet Soda Issue – Do You Know What You're Drinking? p. 4, Sept. 1991
Fed. Register: Monsanto Co.: Filing a Food Additive Petition; Feb. 10, 1998; Vol. 63, Number 27, Notices, p. 6762
Health and Healing Tomorrow's Medicine Today, Julian Whitaker, M.D.
ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners; Fifteen Years After the Gumball Rolled Our Way – What Do We Really Know About Aspartame? Michael Gerchufsky, Editor. p. 32-35. June 1996.
Deadly Deception Story of Aspartame – Shocking Expose of World's Most Controversial Sweetener [Odenwald Press] Stoddard, 1998
Low-Carb Cooking With Stevia [The Naturally Sweet & Calorie-Free Herb] by James Kirkland "The Stevia Gourmet"
Mary Nash Stoddard: Journalist/Expert Witness/Award-Winning Consumer Advocate/ News Anchor and Talk Show Host/Former Appointed Judge for State of Texas/Food Safety Consultant and Lecturer at leading Universities/President's Council on Food Safety
Following the brain tumor death of her 42 year old husband, in 1985, Stoddard suffered a life threatening illness [eosinophilia-myalgia] she and her doctor attributed to her consumption of aspartame. She had given up her freelance work with Hollywood film producers in 1984, to devote time helping her husband, Mike, through radiation and chemotherapy treatments. After he died, she sought treatment for serious neurological and physical symptoms. With her doctor's blessing, she gave up using the artificial sweetener, aspartame and gradually began to improve. Using her skills as a journalist, Stoddard began to investigate and found others with similar stories. July, 1987, the Dallas papers ran a front page story on Stoddard's organization – Aspartame Consumer Safety Network, which she cofounded with successful Washington Consumer Advocate, James S. Turner, Esquire..
Over two decades, Stoddard has worked with thousands of people who believe they, or a loved one, have been harmed by the artificial sweetener, aspartame. Respected researchers and health care professionals work with ACSN to address this health issue. Stoddard has traveled to three countries as an invited keynote speaker, and spends thousands of hours giving interviews all over the world, to network and independent television news producers, radio talk show hosts, reporters for newspapers, wire services, and writers for dozens of magazines.
In 1987, Stoddard was among the experts giving testimony at a Senate Hearing on the safety of aspartame. In 1998 and 1999, Stoddard was a select member of the President's Council on Food Safety. Stoddard and Turner are the only consumer advocates who have qualified in court as Expert Medical Witnesses on aspartame. A career highlight was being asked by the Mexican Government to be the keynote speaker at their Conference on Sweeteners in 1998. Although she is a popular lecturer at many colleges and universities, the ultimate honor came when she was engaged to teach a course at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, in Dallas, January, 1997.
In 1987, Stoddard initiated a worldwide Pilot's Hotline for reporting adverse reactions to aspartame, after being asked by an F-16 pilot she met at the Senate Hearing in Washington, to address the issue of flying safety and aspartame ingestion. Hundreds of calls have now been registered on behalf of the international flying community.
website: www.aspartamesafety.com
Stevita Co. – Arlington Texas
Summer 1996
Imported first shipment of Stevia spoonful (blend of stevioside and maltodextrin) with registered trade name of STEVIASWEET. FDA office in Dallas detained the shipment of approximately 3,000 jars saying that we could not use the trade name STEVIASWEET because the word SWEET on the name implied that stevia could be used as a sugar substitute. Changed the labels (at American Airlines warehouse) to STEVITA brand. Products with new labels released.
Early 1997
Started importing Stevita chocolate flavored and Stevita cappuccino flavored. First shipments passed through customs with no problems. Around October, 1997, a shipment of Stevita cappuccino flavored was detained by FDA. They claimed we were selling coffee instead of Stevia. We submitted a new label (MAGIC) that removed the word coffee. After changing all the labels (about 5,000) the shipment was released.
November 12, 1997
FDA inspectors, Martha Baldwin and Pauline Logan inspected Stevita facilities and took samples of the books and some scientific literature.
March 6, 1998
Received warning letter from FDA saying the presence of literature, including the information on our website, was rendering the stevia products "adulterated." Stevita Co. was given 5 days to reply. James Turner's office (Swanken & Turner lawfirm) requested a 15 day extension.
March 26, 1998
James Turner's office submitted an answer to the Warning Letter from FDA, agreeing with all the requests, with the exception of the destruction of the books and cessation of Stevita product sales.
April 1, 1998
Two shipments that had been detained by FDA had labels approved by FDA in Washington D.C.. However, Mr. James R. LaHar of the Dallas District office orders the shipments to continue being put on hold, because in his opinion, our product is now contaminated by current literature already in circulation.
April 27, 1998
FDA Inspector, Martha Baldwin inspected Stevita's facilities and collected labels and documents. She also took an inventory of Stevita Co.'s products. In desperation to get the shipments released by FDA, Oscar Rodes told Stevita Co. attorney, James Turner to inform FDA that as of May 13 we were ceasing distribution of all the books.
May 19, 1998 (9:00 AM)
A fax was received from James R. LaHar, Compliance Officer in the Dallas District Office of FDA, stating that "investigators from his office were coming to Stevita's facilities to witness destruction of the literature and books.
May 19, 1998 (11:30 AM)
FDA inspectors, Pauline Logan and Margarito Uribe walked into the office. They proceeded to take inventory of all products and literature. Oscar Rodes believed they were sent by Mr. LaHar to witness destruction of all the books. Stevita Co. employees videotaped most of the "inspection" – including the part when one of the inspectors is "marking" the cookbooks (Cooking With Stevia by James Kirkland) for destruction.
May 20, 1998
Both inspectors return to Stevita's facilities for more inspection and counting of inventory.
May 22, 1998
Both inspectors arrive again at Stevita Co. at 3/30 PM – asking Oscar Rodes to sign some typewritten affidavits. They also told me they wanted to "look around."
June 6, 1998
Cookbook author, James Kirkland presented his "banned book" at a Town Hall Meeting in Arlington Texas, conducted by Congressman, Joe Barton (Chairman of Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee in Washington) who oversees the Food and Drug Administration. Media covered the event and that evening the CBS TV News affiliate in Dallas aired a story showing the "banned books" and telling the Stevita Co. story of harassment by FDA. This news segment was picked up by other CBS affiliates and aired around the U.S..
Mary Nash Stoddard and James Turner, Esq., founders of Aspartame Safety Consumer Network were instrumental in getting the book ban and the embargo of stevia products lifted through the legal system and placement of numerous stories in the national media spotlighting this issue.
© 2005 -2007 Aspartame Consumer Safety Network – Dallas, Texas
Stoddard Media Services
P.O. Box 2001 – Frisco, TX 75034
tel. 1.214.387.4001
email: email@example.com


text: Is there a question about freelancing that you can't quite figure out, but are afraid to ask? Maybe you're considering starting a freelance business, but you're not quite sure that you know enough to get started. You need some help finding your answers. Fortunately, we're going to help you find those answers to your questions. Of course, at Freelance Folder we've already created a few really great … [Read more...]


text: This article is taken from my blog which I won't be linking to as that's not the point of sharing; I'm interested in what you guys think of this. Everyone is familiar with the concept of blog comments, forum profiles and directories but these types of back links don't carry much weight and are increasingly difficult (debatable) to get due to services like Akismet. I've used well crafted, content relevant, spun comments in programs such as Scrapebox with only a little success (success being defined by ranking in the top 3) and some of my mini sites have 25,000 - 50,000 back links and rank very well in Yahoo & Bing but are nowhere to be seen in Google... it's interesting to see but I care very little where I rank in those other 2 search engines, it's nice to have but whatever. Again, the concept I'm going to share is nothing new nor do I take credit for it but the reason I mention it is because reading about something or being told is completely different to implementing it and seeing real results for yourself. From that point you tweak things, try new things, run tests and see what works best. So what have I been doing to get others to build back links for me? Using new but popular memes and Google. Meme sites are a pretty good source for this sort of stuff. I'm not trying to rank for the meme but simply get an image show up in the serps for the keyword. A heavily optimised article (title, image alt text, file name etc etc all in the name the meme is known by) about the picture seems to do the trick most of the time. This is an image listing in the serps and not Google images by the way. Here is an example from my analytics account for one example. I was averaging about 10-20 visits a day prior to implementing this strategy and I'm now getting between 200-300. In a period of one month that has translated into almost 1000 back links to the image, the post that mentions the image and the domain itself. Prior to doing this, I had a around 20. Now, I guess the question is do these type of links carry any type of value? I'm not sure in all honesty. They're not anchor text links so it might not help much for ranking for specific keywords but may help build authority to the site in question which will gain PR and can then be used to link to other domains I own. Many of the links are people posting/linking the image in forum threads or linking to it from their own website instead of hosting it on their own server. I have an idea to include html code to link to the image with my anchor text like many sites do with info graphics that are popular on sites such as digg. It might work, it might not. I won't know until I test it.


text: Sign up with RewardSurvey to get a FREE magazine subscription. You can choose from titles like Shape, Outside, ESPN, Men's Fitness and more! Just take a quick survey, then you'll earn Rewards Points that you can spend on the magazine subscription(s) you want. Make your selection and enter your mailing address to get your FREE Magazine Subscription!


text:
LATAM Digital Media Awards 2018
WAN-IFRA'S LATAM Digital Media Awards 2018 are Latin America's media industry most prestigious competition. Their fourth edition is almost here! Finalists will be announced on July 18. We will discover the winner during the #DML18 conference, in Bogota.
The region's winners will participate at WAN-IFRA's World Digital Media Awards 2019, getting a chance to compete with the world's best.
Discover all the important information about the LATAM Digital Media Awards 2018 here. At check out the finalists videos here.
Why does your company need to attend Digital Media LATAM?
The smartest investment to get up-to-date in the industry's latest media trends
The latest and most successful digital monetization strategies
The world's best speakers brought to LATAM
A concise, carefully-tailored, rich and relevant programme
A perfect mix of business, editorial and technology topics
Unique social events designed to make invaluable contacts hosted in one of LATAM's most vibrant cities
"I was very impressed by the scale and turnout of WAN-IFRA's Digital Media Conferences. Lots of inquisitive minds and thought-provoking questions."
Ryan Kellett, Director of Audience Growth, The Washington Post
"WAN-IFRA's Digital Media conferences bring together some of the best thinkers on media in the Western hemisphere. I was impressed with the energy, ideas and camaraderie and look forward to the next time these excellent journalists and publishers get together."
Mike Wilson, Editor, The Dallas Morning News
"It's a unique, invaluable forum on global trends in the news industry"
Founder & Director of the Knight Center for Journalism, University of Texas, USA


text:
Price: $199.00
The Francis' rounded silhouette and keyhole bridge are flattering on a wide range of face shapes. Unique to our Acetate Collection, this unisex style is a great choice for those seeking a classic but contemporary look. The Francis looks best on Square, Oval, Rectangle, Diamond, and Heart face shapes.


text:
On 7/30/01 8:50 AM Delbert Matlock (email@example.com) wrote: >Down the road, it is possible to imagine automated receiving stations that >pump data directly into the database. All a user would need to do is go >to the site and enter a call sign and location. Up would come a list of >receiving stations and their distance information. > At present there are at least 5 full time stations sending their live ISS data to the APRS Internet System, and from there into the findu.com database. Many others occasionally send their data to the system. While this system isn't set up to do exactly the query you are asking for, it comes pretty close, look at: http://www.ariss.net With APRS, the focus is on the information itself, not the path, so the APRSIS does not track the receiving station. Still, the important part of this contact is the user getting heard by ARISS, and as long as the echoed packet is heard by at least one Internet Gateway, it will appear on the page. Knowning how many ground stations heard the echo and where they were located is not all that useful. Steve K4HG ---- Via the sarex mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA. To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe sarex" to email@example.com
AMSAT Home


text:
New to HTPC -> Questions!
View Single Post
March 8, 2011, 03:59 PM
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Montreal
Posts: 28
Alright guys I popped open a couple computers and here's what I got:
E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz, Dual Core CPU (LGA 775) with stock heatsink / fan
2x 1 gb no name ram sticks at 667 mhz
This setup is running on a no name mobo that has room for two more ram sticks and what seems to be a 16x PCI lane and two 8x lanes.
200 gb western digital hard drive.
No name 350W PSU.
In a really old gaming rig the only thing worth salvaging was the video card, it's a 5700 LE 256 MB nvidia card with a DVI connection.
If I popped the video card in the above mentioned rig would that be enough to stream 1080p on a 37" TV? I'm gonna try it anyways but i'm hopping so.
Before I decide to go ahead and buy some parts, if any are needed, I wanna test this out and see how well it works. For the time being seeing as storage capactiy would be an issue, I'm just gonna network the PC and use storage from my main computer.
My System Specs
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text:
Your secret success fantasy
A lot of people want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.
I want to create the next hot thing. I want to be sitting in a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. #daydreamer
— Sara (@Duke_Saragono) September 25, 2012
I want to be the next Bill Gates/Mark Zuckerberg/Steve Jobs, but everything's already invented and can't think of something new
— Brian (@NoSckress) October 28, 2013
What part of Zuckerberg's success do they want? Maybe it's the money. If you're struggling to pay the bills, Mark's billions are tantalizing. But once you get past $200k, $500k, $1 million a year… does the money still motivate you?
It's also odd that the same names keep coming up: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page.
Why not Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen? He's worth $9.4 billion, and his family started LEGO. There's also Carlos Slim Helu. He's worth more than Zuck ($72.9 billion). Have you heard of Ingvar Kamprad? He founded Ikea. Nobody seems interested in them.
There's something we want more than money.
Imagine you're walking down the street. You're about to duck into a coffee shop when someone stops you. Nervously, they whisper:
I just want to say, I really admire your work.
How does that make you feel?
Now imagine you're at your high school reunion. An old acquaintance approaches and asks: "So what are you doing now?"
Which would you rather be: a janitor or business owner?
Statistically most folks will choose "business owner." Is this because an entrepreneur is wealthier than a janitor? It goes deeper than that. Let's do the exercise again, but with these two choices:
- Funeral director
- College professor
Funeral directors make more money, but "college professor" feels more appealing, doesn't it?
Even though Carlos Helu has a greater net worth, the public is more interested in Mark Zuckerberg.
We want something greater than wealth: we want to be known.
"Individual behavior is motivated in large part by the desire for prestige, esteem, popularity, or acceptance."
What's your status?
I'm fascinated by how our culture defines success.
Sociologists tell us that humans use power, property and prestige to measure status. Of the three, our culture is increasingly focusing on prestige.
The recent phenomena of internet fame is a good example. We join Instagram hungry for "likes." We post on Snapchat, hoping for views. Getting "recommends" on Medium boosts our ego. We aspire for retweets.
"We want strangers to want to meet us, as much as we want to meet a famous stranger."
Is it bad to want to be liked?
I don't buy this nonsense that being well known isn't helpful. I've noticed a direct correlation. The more people that appreciate my work, the more opportunities I seem to get. It's disingenuous to say that stature doesn't matter.
It's not "bad" to want to recognition. That's normal. What's unhealthy is the desperation:
- teens desperate for compliments on Instagram
- authors desperate to have a best seller
- software entrepreneurs desperate to be #1 on Product Hunt
It's a viscous cycle. Everyone is focused inward. There's less outward praise, which results in more people being starved for attention.
There's a huge opportunity here. While everyone else is chasing internet fame, you can be different. You can focus on understanding people better.
Because human beings are hungry for connection. Deep down, they want to be understood.
The better you understand people, the better you'll be able to serve them. You'll create better art, write better books, and build better software.
"Steve [makes product decisions] based on a sense of people."
Self-focus doesn't produce good work. Use your work to care for others.
Don't try to be well known; try to know other people well.
Justin Jackson
PS: if you like this post, you might like my newsletter.
Thanks to Simon Doggett for the photo, and to everyone who gave me feedback on this article!Published on March 16, 2016


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Sweet Potato and Cranberry Casserole
When I think sweet potatoes, I immediately think radiant skin and well-nourished insides. Sweet potatoes are a comfort food for a reason; they contain the minerals iron and magnesium which both help to reduce stress. They also play an important role in ourRead More
Calabacitas Casserole with Polenta and Cheese
Eight years ago after the birth of my middle child, Cameron, a dear friend dropped off a casserole to help make our days a little easier with a toddler and a newborn. I was not the hugest fan of squash at the time, but this casserole, which is mostly comprised of zucchini and […]Read More


text: Triten Real Estate Partners is a privately held real estate subsidiary of the Triten Corporation. Founded in 2011, with offices in Houston and Dallas, the company invests in all parts of the capital stack. Its approach centers on identifying special situations that exhibit superior risk-adjusted returns including capital market inefficiencies, value add enhancement or ground up development.


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Self-Determination in International Mediation: Some Preliminary Reflections
- Citation data:
Cardozo J. Conflict Resol., Vol: 7, Page: 277
- Publication Year:
- 2005
- Usage 529
- Downloads 447
- Bepress 447
- Abstract Views 82
- Bepress 82
- Repository URL:
- http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/284
- Author(s):
- Publisher(s):
- Tags:
- self-determination; informed consent; Dispute Resolution and Arbitration; International Law; Law; Law and Society
article description
Few concepts have generated as much discussion in the post-war international legal system as that of "self-determination." Scholars debate the proper identity of the "selves" endowed with this right, its boundaries, and its normative relevance. When the focus turns to mediation, the discussion becomes murky because the concept of self-determination has both procedural and substantive components, and is noticeably different in the private and public sectors. The generic concept of self-determination relates to ideas of democratic governance and the Enlightenment belief that legitimate government depends upon the consent of the governed. As adapted to private mediation theory, the right of self-determination allows parties to participate in decision making and voluntarily decide the outcome of their disputes. This understanding of self-determination is rooted in the philosophical principle of personal autonomy and is expressed through the legal doctrine of informed consent. The simple version of the normative story states that those who are affected by a dispute should voluntarily consent to the outcome of that dispute. In short, "party" self-determination in mediation gives ownership of the conflict to the disputants.


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In my new book, which you may possibly have heard about, I include the deliberate provocation that Strauss-inspired political scientists are the most formidable and serious people in the academy today. Although I can defend this proposition, I plopped this out as an assertion, imagining the howls of indignation that might ensue among anyone who caught this sentence.
This is preface to noting that twice in the last few weeks the New York Times has taken mostly respectful—but still bewildered—notice of two important conservative institutions partly influenced by conservative political science. On February 1, the Times wrote about Hillsdale College, "a 'Shining City on a Hill' for Conservatives." This "hidden gem" is less and less hidden every day—even from the Times it appears.
What [conservatives] admire is the college's concentration on the Western philosophical and literary canon (sometimes disparaged as the Great Books of dead white men) and its reverent treatment of the American founding documents as the political culmination of that tradition — a tradition that scholars at Hillsdale say has been desecrated by a century of governmental overreach, including the New Deal and Obamacare. . . From the official catalog: "The college values the merit of each unique individual, rather than succumbing to the dehumanizing, discriminatory trend of so-called 'social justice' and 'multicultural diversity.' "
Paul Rahe, one of Hillsdale's faculty luminaries, adds yesterday what he told Times reporter Erik Eckholm:
"My answer to the charge that we do not promote 'social justice' is that we don't and that I am proud that we don't," Dr. Paul Rahe, professor of history and Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale, told PJ Media in an email statement. "Justice is owed individuals, not groups. There is no such thing as 'social justice.' The phrase is a slogan used by those intent on looting."
"In any case, Hillsdale is an educational institution. It is improper for such an institution to promote a partisan agenda in the classroom," Rahe added. "When such an institution does so, it substitutes indoctrination for education. Our aim is to turn out well-informed, intelligent citizens capable of making up their own minds."
Good for Paul!
This is just a warmup for yesterday's long Times story about the Claremont Institute and the Claremont Review of Books, "'Charge the Cockpit or You Die': Behind an Incendiary Case for Trump."
Suddenly, The Claremont Review, an erudite journal with a mere 13,000 subscribers, was being hailed as the bible of highbrow Trumpism — "crucially important," as the journalist Damon Linker wrote, "for anyone seeking to understand the evolution of the Republican and conservative movement."
Read the whole thing. And savor how the Times is likely getting worried that all of this might be catching on. Can paranoia be far behind? (And shhhh: No one tell Paul Krugman: I doubt his paranoia can survive an escalation.)
Meanwhile, if you have a spare hour, here's video of last night's lecture here in Washington:


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Jay GrudenWashington Redskins
Head Coach
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News | Stats | Stat vs. Team | Targets | Injury | Depth Chart | Roster
|Redskins | Jay Gruden likely to keep job
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 12:13:20 -0800
Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden is expected to remain in his current post for the 2018 season, according to multiple sources.
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|| Source: NFL.com - Ian Rapoport
|Redskins | Doug Williams to help make roster decisions
Sat, 08 Jul 2017 07:51:43 -0700
Washington Redskins senior vice president of player personnel Doug Williams is expected to have equal say on roster decisions with head coach Jay Gruden and team president Bruce Allen.
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|| Source: The Washington Post - Liz Clarke
|Redskins | Jay Gruden receives extension
Sat, 04 Mar 2017 21:50:28 -0800
Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden has signed a two-year extension, according to a source.
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|| Source: ESPN.com - John Keim
|Redskins | Washington eyeing a running back?
Sat, 04 Mar 2017 18:28:27 -0800
Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden said he likes his current group of running backs but added that a great running back takes a team from a "pretender to an immediate contender."
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|| Source: ESPN.com - John Keim
|Redskins | Jordan Reed will visit a doctor
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 12:55:49 -0700
Washington Redskins TE Jordan Reed (concussion) will visit an independent doctor Tuesday, Oct. 18, according to head coach Jay Gruden.
Fantasy Tip: Reed doesn't want to rush back, especially since he's dealt with so many concussions during the course of his football career. If he sits again, then Vernon David will start again. Davis scored last week, but he doesn't receive enough opportunities to be a TE1.
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|| Source: Redskins.com
|Redskins | Matt Jones receives vote of confidence
Sat, 26 Mar 2016 14:43:38 -0700
Washington Redskins RB Matt Jones (hip) appears to be the prohibitive favorite to shoulder the load in 2016, according to head coach Jay Gruden. "Matt played well and we're very excited about him; we let a heck of a running back, and a very productive running back (Alfred Morris), go because we have Matt. … We're taking a bit of a gamble here, but based on our professional opinion, we believe he can handle it and be very, very effective at it, toting the rock," Gruden said.
Fantasy Tip: General manager Scot McCloughan likely drafted Jones with the intention he would eventually become a carbon copy of Marshawn Lynch, who McCloughan traded for when he was in the Seattle Seahawks' front office. While Washington will probably let Chris Thompson and perhaps Pierre Thomas steal some occasional snaps in 2016, it appears Jones will be given a shot to be a featured back. Owners should view him as a solid RB2 - with RB1 upside - at the moment.
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|| Source: CSN Mid-Atlantic - Tarik El-Bashir
|Redskins | Washington addressing Matt Jones' fumbles
Sat, 19 Mar 2016 15:20:41 -0700
Washington Redskins RB Matt Jones is positioned to start 2016 as the team's every-down back, but he will need to cut down on his five fumbles (on 144 carries) during his rookie season - tied for the second-highest total in the NFL. "When he's in traffic, he protects it pretty well, it's when he gets outside he gets a little bit loose with it and the guys that he doesn't see are the ones that pokes it away. So he's just got to be more secure with the ball all the time, not just when he's in traffic," Washington head coach Jay Gruden said.
Fantasy Tip: Jones had plenty of highs (123 yards rushing and two touchdowns in Week 2; 131 yards receiving and a score in Week 10) during his rookie season, but his inability to keep the ball secure forced him into a committee with Alfred Morris and Chris Thompson. Morris appears unlikely to return to the team and Thompson is recovering from shoulder surgery, so Jones will have plenty of time to make an impression this spring and summer. The second-year back is a high-upside RB2 at the moment.
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|| Source: Redskins.com - Stephen Czarda
|Redskins | DeSean Jackson sore but OK
Sun, 13 Dec 2015 15:52:33 -0800
Washington Redskins WR DeSean Jackson (knee) hurt his knee making a catch as he went out of bounds in the fourth quarter. Coach Jay Gruden said Jackson was sore but all right.
Fantasy Tip: Jackson ($6,000, 12.0% of cap) will be worth looking at in the next day or two to make sure he is just fine. Keep an eye on his progress.
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|| Source: The Associated Press - Andrew Seligman
|Redskins | Connor Halliday visits
Mon, 13 Apr 2015 23:13:29 -0700
Washington State QB Connor Halliday will visit the Washington Redskins this week to meet with general manager Scot McCloughan and head coach Jay Gruden.
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|| Source: The Washington Post - Mike Jones
|Redskins | Robert Griffin to start
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 10:16:43 -0800
Washington Redskins QB Robert Griffin III will go into the season as the team's starting quarterback, according to head coach Jay Gruden.
Fantasy Tip: Owners should probably not count on Griffin as their starting quarterback heading into next season, but he probably should be considered as a No. 2 quarterback option on draft day. He also could have good value in FantasyScore depending on the price and matchup.
|Comment (0)
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|| Source: NFL Network - Albert Breer
Also see
01/09 - Fantasy Football Daily Rundown: Thursday, Jan. 9
01/08 - Fantasy Football Daily Rundown: Wednesday, Jan. 8
01/06 - Fantasy Football Daily Rundown: Monday, Jan. 6
01/03 - Fantasy Football Daily Rundown: Friday, Jan. 3
01/11 - Fantasy football players in the news
01/12 - Fantasy football players in the news
10/27 - Fantasy football players in the news


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Why should I track my time everyday? I'm sure almost every manager has been asked this question at some point in their career. No employee wants to have that one manager looking over his or her shoulder during every minute of the day. So how do you motivate your team to track their time on a daily basis without being overbearing?
Explain the importance
Make sure your team understands how beneficial it can be for the company, as well as the employee by consistently tracking their time. Time tracking can be the ultimate insight into the progress of a project. Your team will become better at estimating and prioritizing tasks for future projects if they understand the importance. Daily time tracking will set clear objectives and increase performance by eliminating procrastination. It allows you to take appropriate action if scope creep occurs. It's not about trust, but making sure the company remains healthy, and everyone is properly recognized for all their hard work.
Ease of use
First you must understand the team you are working with. Does your team work remote or onsite at a client? Do they already have to log time in other time management systems? Usually when a team member is working onsite at a client they have to log time in other time tracking systems. This can often create conflicts between systems for reporting. You want to make time tracking convenient and as easy as possible. Make sure the time tracking tool you pick is ideal for your industry and can easily integrate with company calendars or project management tools. We prefer to use Jira here at Karbyn for tracking time.
Jira is accessible from any mobile device and has plenty of add-ons for time tracking. We've created custom dashboards where users can log their time within seconds without having to search through projects and issues. This makes reporting extremely easy for managers but also gives team members insights into their own productivity.
Jira is just one option, other popular time tracking tools include TrackingTime, Timely, and Harvest.
Be consistent
Yes, there are times where team members become forgetful and need to either go back through old emails, check recent commits or rely on their fellow peers to remember what they worked on. If team members can stick to one time a day where they consistently log their time it will become routine. They will no longer have to spend multiple hours finding out what they spent their time on and instead use those hours to their benefit. If some people have trouble being consistent try to set reminders. We like to use Slack /remind here at Karbyn.
Practice discipline
Adding time at the end of everyday ensures that your team members do not forget what they have done and the hours they have worked. Being disciplined with time entry, your team members will become more efficient. It will take less time and be less of a disruption to enter their time. The more everyone practices discipline the more accurate and actionable time records become.
Goal oriented
Make logging time goal oriented so team members can see how well they perform against their personal goals. Praise team members who consistently enter their time. Keep track of streaks and make it more than simply entering time. Do not become negative should a team member forget to enter their time, rather reinforce the importance and try to be helpful. Pitch in and help team members if necessary by offering to enter their time should a project be very busy.
Make it personal
Get to know your team members outside of the work environment. Take the team out for a happy hour or host an event. Team members tend to open up more when they're outside of the office and can give you some insight on why constant time tracking can be so disruptive during their day. If the team finds certain aspects of time entry monotonous, then maybe some automation can be built into the time tracking application. Listen to what they have to say and come up with a strategy that will help them follow the company guidelines.
In conclusion managing a team can be a difficult task without having the ability to look back on their progress throughout a project. Explaining the importance of time tracking to your team from the beginning of a project will go a long way. Knowing where you can improve and where you can excel are all major factors for logging time. Being consistent, disciplined, and goal oriented will help grow your team members professionally and set them up for success.


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Broxbourne Borough Council provides two schemes to help people on a low income pay their rent and Council Tax.
These can be paid at the same time to someone who is liable to pay rent and council tax. The amount of Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support you get will depends on your circumstances and how much rent and Council Tax you have to pay.
If you are making a new claim for help with your rent, are of working age and not living in supported accommodation, or have more than two children living in your household, you will need to claim Universal Credit. To do so, contact the Department for Work and Pensions on 0345 600 4272. You can also find out how much you may be entitled to by visiting www.gov.uk/universalcredit.
Please note that to claim Council Tax Support, you will still need to apply to Broxbourne Council.
Look at our frequently asked questions page for further information on Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support.
Use the online calculator to check whether you qualify for housing and / or council tax support.
How to make an application
Residents living in the Borough who need help paying rent and/or council tax support can make an application for benefit in several ways.
The online benefit claim form is the easiest and quickest way to claim Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit. The secure online facility will allow you to save a partially completed form to finish later, as well as providing handy tips and hints to make completing the form easier.
Paper application forms are available from the main Council Offices and One Stop Shops or you can download a benefit claim form.
Alternatively, you can email email@example.com or telephone 01992 785503.
If you require assistance completing the form you can visit the benefits reception at the main Council offices or one of the Council's One Stop Shops. Please complete as much of the form as you can before you arrive.


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FOXBORO – Come on in off the ledge, Patriots fans.
FOXBORO – Come on in off the ledge, Patriots fans.
Relax. Deep breath now.
Repeat after me: "My team is taking shape. My team is taking shape."
You found out yesterday the Patriots can run the ball when they stick with it.
You found out coach Bill Belichick hasn't lost his swashbuckling, gambling ways.
You saw quarterback Tom Brady finally complete a bomb for a touchdown – on a play drawn up on the sideline, no less, and with some added improvisation from its recipient, Chris Baker.
And maybe, most importantly, you saw a team bring balance to its game and put a crucial notch in the win column.
You saw a team with some pretty big – ah, let's call it intestinal fortitude – and one that didn't blink when the coach said go for it on 4th-and-1 from its own 24 with a 16-10 lead in the third quarter.
"I remember coach standing here and saying there was going to be a point in the season we were going to have to go for it and make it," said running back Fred Taylor.
Taylor, whose 105 yards led a 168-yard ground game, probably didn't think he meant in the third game of the season. And especially from deep in its own territory.
But you do those kinds of things when you understand there's a possibility your season could be starting to slip-slide away in Week 3.
With the rampaging Ravens of Baltimore coming to town next, you can't underestimate how important yesterday's game was to this Patriots season. September or not, New England had to have this one or risk being 1-3 after next week.
So why not gamble? (We take the editorial liberty here of acknowledging if Sammy Morris didn't pick up the first down on the play, and the Falcons went on to win, we could join the chorus of those vilifying Belichick for the decision.)
It seems there is something comforting about a game in the rain at Gillette for players and fans alike. Not that it was perfect by any stretch. Tom Brady was 3-for-10 in five trips inside the Atlanta 20.
The Patriots left points on the field by settling for four field goals. All you had to see was the frustration from Brady as he sat on the sideline after Stephen Gostkowski's second of four kicks gave them a 13-10 halftime lead.
"We can't keep kicking field goals. I know that," said Brady.
With this offensive talent, they won't be. The crystal ball says yesterday's 1-for-5 red zone efficiency will be long forgotten come December.
"We're still developing as a team," Baker said after his 36-yard TD reception from Brady settled the outcome in the fourth quarter. "There are a lot of new faces in the locker room. We still have a pretty explosive offense, but we're missing a few things that we shouldn't be. We just have to piece them together and start putting more points on the board."
Baker's two catches yesterday doubled his season output, and he was also in on bit of history. The TD pass he caught was Brady's 200th.
"I keep all my touchdown balls, so we'll have to talk about that one," said Baker, who came here from the Jets. He drew a lot of laughs, but he knows if Brady wants a milestone ball, he'll get it.
Good feelings ran through the locker room yesterday, and why not. Randy Moss, whose appearance on the injury list Friday caused more panic in Patriot Nation, caught 10 passes for 116 yards, and Brady threw to him 16 times. The defense, even with Vince Wilfork leaving with an ankle injury in the second quarter, held down Atlanta's high-scoring offense, which had been averaging 23.5 in its first two games.
Feel good about your team, fans. You know Belichick and his cohorts will be addressing those red zone concerns.
"I think it's always good to go over your mistakes with a 'W' instead of a loss," said veteran Kevin Faulk.
More positives than negatives, was how Brady described yesterday's effort.
Take a deep breath. The Patriots looked more like a good football team yesterday than at any time since the final five minutes of the season opener against the Bills.
Staff writer Russ Charpentier can be reached at 508-862-1263 or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Forty-four years after the March on Washington, the civil rights movement is in no danger of being forgotten. The image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is familiar to every American. Ground was broken on the national King monument in Washington, DC, in November 2006, within a year of huge media extravaganzas over the funerals of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. Nearly all American politicians pay lip service to the memory of the struggle–even President Bush had himself photographed hugging Mrs. King in front of King's tomb in Atlanta on King's seventy-fifth birthday in 2004, over a chorus of boos from protesters.
A rich crop of new books does much more than continue to remind the nation of its great radical movement. These works compel readers to see that civil rights leaders' choices were never as straightforward as people today nostalgically assume. One of the most durable clichés of recent history is that the age of Jim Crow, for all its horrors, had the virtue of moral clarity. Because racism was built into the law, it was simple–easy to identify and to fight. Since the abolition of legal segregation and disenfranchisement, however, racism went underground. According to the cliché, it became subtle, complex, elusive and insidious. These books demonstrate that racism was never simple and the fight against it never clear-cut. Civil rights protesters had to choose among untested strategies. Any choice tended to close off alternatives and was liable to provoke controversy among contending Black leaders. Few activists had full confidence that any strategy would work perfectly.
One strategy was to publicize the terrors visited upon black Southerners. That strategy lies at the heart of the most fascinating new book on the subject, Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff's The Race Beat, which won this year's Pulitzer Prize for History. The Race Beat brings the movement to life–and provides a sense of its wholeness–as no previous book has. There has long been a gap between great reads like Richard Kluger's Simple Justice (1976), which narrated the prehistory of the desegregation struggle up to the 1954 Brown decision, and J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground (1985), which laid bare the heartbreaking disillusionment with desegregation in the 1970s, when the focus of civil rights activism shifted to Boston and other Northern cities. At last Roberts and Klibanoff have filled the narrative gap with a beautiful, one-volume study of the main act of the civil-rights drama. In doing so they challenge some hitherto unquestioned assumptions about the movement.
The conventional wisdom on the American press's performance during the civil rights era was voiced by the eminent scholar Charles Payne of Duke University: "Rushing to tell the story, they missed much of its substance." Roberts and Klibanoff persuasively rebut this view. They vindicate the assessment of Congressman John Lewis, former Freedom Rider and president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). According to Lewis, the movement succeeded "because we had a group of men and women who were prepared to get up there to write the words or shoot the pictures."


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|Best Practice
Well, at least country music is alive and kicking every night south of Round Rock, Texas. (The sight of a youthful Dale Watson and the State Capitol restores a measure of my Texan dignity. That, and Chicken Shit Bingo.)
Best Practices in Risk Management Image courtesy of KoryeLogan.


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SABMiller, the world's largest brewer, has held informal discussions with Grupo Modelo and InBev to explore options including a merger of Modelo and SABMiller, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Discussions have included the possibility of SABMiller acquiring part or all of Modelo, in the event that InBev succeeds in its proposed $46.3 billion takeover of Anheuser-Busch , the sources said.
Anheuser-Busch, the largest U.S. brewer, which owns 50 percent of Mexico's Modelo, has also held talks with Modelo about acquiring the other half, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
If Anheuser were to acquire the rest of Modelo, which analysts have valued at roughly $10 billion, InBev could be forced to raise its $65-per-share offer for Anheuser or even withdraw its bid.
Officials at SABMiller and Modelo declined to comment, while a spokesman for InBev could not immediately be reached.
A spokeswoman for Anheuser did not immediately offer comment.
A combination of InBev and Anheuser would overtake SABMiller as the world's largest brewer and could usher in more consolidation in the global beer industry.
SABMiller, which bought Dutch brewer Grolsch in February and is working to combine its U.S. operations with those of Molson Coors Brewing, has a history of growing through acquisitions.
Anheuser is known for its Budweiser brand, while Modelo is known for Corona.
SABMiller makes Miller Lite and Pilsner Urquell, while InBev makes Stella Artois and Beck's.


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Gloria Timmer, the executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, summoned staffers to her Washington, D.C., office last February and calmly dropped a bombshell: She had breast cancer and it was spreading throughout her body.
"Eve ryone was just devastated," recalls Stacey Mazer, now NASBO's acting executive director. "There was always a feeling of, if anyone will beat it, it will be Gloria."
An iron will and extensive medical treatments weren't enough to save Timmer, a former Kansas budget director who died Oct. 11 in Lawrence, Kan., at the age of 49. She was highly regarded by those associated with state fiscal policy.
"I thought she was a real standout, both as a state official and one of the association people, and as a person," says Peter Harkness, editor and publisher of Governing magazine. "I thought the world of Gloria, although professionally we were not always on the best of terms."
Governing periodically grades states on their financial administration and one year during Timmer's 1991-98 tenure as Kansas budget director her state got `B.' Governing noted that Kansas' budget office was run in "exemplary" fashion, but took issue with some of the accounting rules the state chose to embrace.
"She got a pretty good grade, but with Gloria anything other than an `A plus' was not enough," says Harkness, who remembers Timmer for her rigorous intellect and "a smile that could melt an iceberg. And she loved to laugh."
Born Gloria VandeHoef on Jan. 23, 1951, in Sheldon, Iowa, Timmer earned a bachelor's degree from Hope College in Holland, Mich., in 1973. That was followed by a master's in business administration from Phillips University in Enid, Okla., in 1982.
A wife and mother of two daughters, Timmer moved to Kansas and got a job with the state's Legislative Post Audit office in 1982. The following year she became a fiscal analyst with the Division of Legislative Research.
In 1989, Timmer became a principal analyst with the Division of State Budget. Two years later, then-governor Joan Finney, a Democrat, made Timmer budget director for Kansas. After Republican Bill Graves succeeded Finney as governor in 1995, he asked Timmer to stay on.
"Gloria and I perfected the budgetary good cop/bad cop routine, and you can easily guess who played the respective roles," Graves said during a Kansas memorial service for Timmer. "I got to be optimistic and encouraging, while she played the role of pessimist -- or as she liked to call it, `realist.'
While overseeing Kansas' budgetary process, Timmer served as NASBO's president from 1996-97. "She was elected president of the organization, I think, in part due to recognition of her professionalism and integrity," says Mark Ward, Missouri's budget director. In 1998, Timmer was appointed NASBO's executive director.
Although she led the organization during an era of unparalleled state prosperity and tax-cutting, Timmer cautioned that the booming economy could be masking the long-term, "real impact" of devolution on state economies.
Her death was lamented by National Governors' Association executive director Ray Scheppach.
"The real unfortunate thing about this is that we have lost in the last three or four years three people who were probably gurus in state fiscal policy -- Steve Gold, Hal Hovey and Gloria," Scheppach says. "All three of them had a real in-depth understanding of state budgets. Gloria had stepped up to the plate in the last year quite a bit in terms of speaking out and being a voice in Washington for the budget officers."
Hovey was a former budget director for Ohio and Illinois who became president of State Policy Research, Inc. After becoming stricken with cancer, Hovey calculated that his treatments would cost $25,000, donated that amount to start a fund for young cancer patients, then took his life on Oct. 18, 1999.
Gold worked for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) for many years as an analyst of state fiscal issues, was a director of the Center for the Study of the States at the Rockefeller Institute, and a co-director of the Urban Institute's New Federalism Project. He died of cancer in August, 1996.
NASBO wants to ensure that Timmer's legacy endures, says NASBO president Robert Powell, deputy budget director for North Carolina. "We voted to establish the Gloria Timmer award," Powell says. "So she will be memorialized forever with NASBO."