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Instructional Practices of English as Second Language Teachers
The past decade has seen a significant increase in the emergence of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States. Nationally, a disparity in achievement exists between ELLs and non-ELLs. Relatedly, this problem was evident in a northeastern school district, where ELLs had not made Adequate Yearly Progress 2 years in a row. The purpose of this study was to examine how much time English as Second Language (ESL) teachers spend on a variety of best instructional practices. Constructivism, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, and Tomilinson's differentiated instruction were the frameworks used to guide this research. A within-group design was utilized to identify how much time 25 ESL educators spent on 5 types of instructional practices. The Survey of Instructional Practices for ESL/ELD Teachers for Grades K-12 was used to collect data. A 1-way analysis of variance revealed statistically significant differences between the amounts of time ESL teachers spent on the 5 instructional practices. The greatest time was spent on individualized instructional activities and a variety of educational tasks. Less time was spent on small group activities, and the least amount of time was spent on inquiry-based activities and technology activities. Findings supported the creation of a professional development for ESL teachers at the local site focusing on (a) best instructional practices for teaching ESL students, (b) professional learning community network of support, and (c) resources to support educators in their lesson planning of instructional activities. The study findings and culminating project may positively affect social change by improving ESL instruction at the local site and ultimately decreasing the disparity in achievement between ELL and non-ELL students. | <urn:uuid:376fa6b7-252b-44bc-bc18-3f3fcef06630> | {
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New Delhi, Jan. 13 (Reuters): India today marked three years since its last reported case of polio, paving the way for it to be declared free of the crippling virus and boosting efforts to wipe out the disease globally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
The country’s last case of the wild polio virus was detected on January 13, 2011, in a two-year-old girl in Bengal. Three years without any new cases means India can be declared polio-free.
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the only countries in the world where the disease remains endemic.
“We give huge credit to the government.... It makes us extremely proud and highly responsible for having helped the government to reach this incredible achievement,” India’s WHO representative, Nata Menabde, said.
Menabde said the WHO would officially declare India as polio-free by the end of March, when the legal process for certification was completed.
The highly infectious disease often spreads in areas with poor sanitation — a factor that helped it keep a grip on India for many decades — and children under five are the most vulnerable. But it can be prevented by population-wide vaccination. Menabde said millions were involved in the drive to immunise children by giving them polio drops.
Over 170 million children are immunised every year. The drive has cost the government $2.5 billion (Rs 1.53 lakh crore) since 1995.
In 2009, 741 Indians fell sick with polio, nearly half the world’s cases that year. The number dropped to 42 in 2010 and only one in 2011.
India’s success has given impetus to the global fight against polio, Menabde said. | <urn:uuid:260b064e-d462-4728-8efb-66c111096891> | {
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Founded on a decade of research and application, the Global Water Footprint Assessment Standard lays out the internationally accepted methodology for conducting a Water Footprint Assessment.
The standard has been applied and tested worldwide across many sectors and includes detailed instruction and guidance on the following:
The Global Water Footprint Assessment Standard will help us achieve fair and smart use of the world’s fresh water.
The Global Water Footprint Assessment Standard can be used to provide comparable quantification and robust analytics that will support companies on their corporate water sustainability journey.
It can be used at different geographic scales from the smallest sub-catchments to large river basins, for municipalities, provinces, nations and the whole world and can help governments manage water resources and achieve sustainable development.
The standard can be used by researchers to develop water footprint statistics, which can be found in our online database, WaterStat, and are useful in awareness raising as well as for conducting Water Footprint Assessment studies.
The Global Water Footprint Assessment Standard can be found in the Water Footprint Assessment Manual: Setting the Global Standard, published in 2011.
The book offers a complete and up-to-date overview of the global standard on Water Footprint Assessment as developed by the Water Footprint Network. More specifically it:
Additional guidelines for implementing the standard are being developed, for example Grey Water Footprint Assessment: Tier 1 Guidelines were published in 2013. The standard is being implemented in the Water Footprint Assessment Tool and the water footprint statistics available online from WaterStat have been developed using the standard.
Download a Portuguese or Chinese translation of the “Water Footprint Assessment Manual: Setting the Global Standard” here.
Order a Korean translation here.
A Spanish version will be available soon.
A first version of the Global Water Footprint Assessment Standard was completed in 2009 built upon extensive research and practical application. After consultations with practitioners and researchers and review by the Water Footprint Network’s Scientific Peer Review Committee, the current version of the standard was published in 2011. We continue to develop the standard. For example, we added “tier 1 grey water footprint guidelines” in December 2013 to refine the grey water footprint calculations.
Following the publication of the first version in 2009, the Water Footprint Network requested feedback on the standard. In addition, two working groups were formed. One addressed questions around the grey water footprint and the other studied issues pertaining to water footprint sustainability assessment.
In collaboration with the Water Footprint Network, a number of partners initiated pilot projects that aimed at exploring the practical implications of using Water Footprint Assessment in formulating a corporate water strategy or water policy in a specific geographical setting. On the basis of the feedback received – new scientific publications, experiences from practical water footprint projects and working group reports – the Water Footprint Network prepared a draft of the revised standard. Our Scientific Peer Review Committee reviewed the draft version and made specific recommendations. The current standard is based on the incorporation of those recommendations.
Research in this area is rapidly developing worldwide and a broadening base of Water Footprint Assessment applications are being initiated across all sectors of the economy, in many countries of the world.
In order to learn from the various on-going, practical Water Footprint Assessment projects and from new scientific publications, we invite everyone to provide feedback on the their experience with applying the standard. In this way, we hope to make best use of the diverse experiences that individuals and organisations have when conducting Water Footprint Assessment within different contexts and for different purposes.
We aim to further develop the Water Footprint Assessment methodology so that it best serves the various purposes that different sectors in society require whilst, at the same time, striving for coherence, consistency and scientific scrutiny.
If you would like support in applying the Global Water Footprint Assessment Standard or want to find out more about our training courses, please contact us. | <urn:uuid:a826bfff-5529-4a98-924f-61e5241780d5> | {
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Umm Al-Rihan forest
Permanent Delegation of Palestine to UNESCO
The Secretariat of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Heritage Centre do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other information or documentation provided by the States Parties to the World Heritage Convention to the Secretariat of UNESCO or to the World Heritage Centre.
The publication of any such advice, opinion, statement or other information documentation on the World Heritage Centre’s website and/or on working documents also does not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of UNESCO or of the World Heritage Centre concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its boundaries.
Property names are listed in the language in which they have been submitted by the State Party
Umm Al-Rihan Forest consists of a series of dense forests, which are estimated to be circa 60.000 dunums. The forests surrounding Jenin are considered to be the largest woodlands in the West Bank, forming approximately 86% of the forests. The area of Umm Al-Rihan is state-owned and part of the area is proposed as a natural reserve.
This region, with an environmental system that resembles the Mediterranean Seaforest, lies within the semi coastal region. The most important characteristic of this region is being a pathway and a stop over for migratory birds travelling from the coastal region and going to the depression areas. The most important birds that pass by the area are species that are threatened or declining throughout all or large parts of their range in theMiddle East, such as Lesser Kestrel, Honey Buzzard, Egyptian Vulture. In addition to other fauna species that are known to be endangered such as wolves and red foxes.
The woodland area is a reservoir of plant diversity, containing mainly the original wild species of barley and wheat, in addition to most of the original wild species of the fruiting trees.
Umm Al-Rihan Forest is located in the extreme of the West Bank, northwest of Jenin, bordering the 1967 Green Line. Its altitude reaches an average of 412 m above sea level.
Justification of Outstanding Universal Value
The site is the main and the biggest natural forest remaining in the West Bank that represents the Mediterranean bio-geographical ecosystem. Moreover, this site is considered as one of the main bird areas in the West Bank, mainly for migratory birds of which some pass in thousands yearly. This nature reserve is considered of high importance for wild genetic resources, in Palestine particularly the wild original species of barley, wheat and fruity trees.
criterion (x): the abundance of the endemic flora and fauna, including threatened and endangered species, in the area of Umm Al-Rihan makes of this site one of the last spontaneous Mediterranean forests in the Middle East. Therefore, the site is proposed to represent a case for on-site conservation and research of theEastern Mediterranean Basinin land forest ecosystem.
The indigenous plants that exist in the area of Umm Al-Rihan forest creates a special habitat that maintains diverse fauna species, becoming an area that is important as a roosting and nesting place for many passerines and other breeding or migratory birds.
Statements of authenticity and/or integrity
The woodlands at Umm Al-Rihan display a considerable degree of integrity according to conservation parameters of the flora and fauna.
Comparison with other similar properties
There are no Mediterranean Forests in the Eastern part of the Basin inscribed on the World Heritage list: similar properties for comparison are in Lebanon, Syrian Arab Republic and Turkey. | <urn:uuid:e048481f-a4b0-4d19-bb39-b51c0d916d01> | {
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1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data A thin film of oil (n = 1.50) is spread over a puddle of water (n = 1.33). In a region where the film looks red from directly above (λ = 626 nm), what is the minimum possible thickness of the film? 2. Relevant equations 2nt = (m+0.5)λ t = (m+0.5)λ/2n 3. The attempt at a solution t = (1+0.5)(626E-9m)/2(1.50) t = 313 nm Anyone please correct the solution. | <urn:uuid:a0f1a20c-70d3-404e-b1b4-a3aaa38eeafd> | {
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Irrigation alone is not enough to keep a grass plant healthy. Many other variables go into the equation for a beautiful lawn. Often we hear about different applications of fertilizer, lime, pest control, soil types, and how often you need to run your lawn sprinkler system. But when was the last time you got advice about mowing height?
Turf grasses are well adapted to frequent mowing, but mowing too short will reduce the vigor of the plants by reducing their ability to manufacture food. Also, there is a direct relationship between cutting height and the amount of roots a grass plant can maintain. Lowering the mowing height reduces the root system. This restricts the ability of the plant to absorb water and nutrients. In recent years, recommendations for mowing height have steadily increased for home lawns. Earlier recommendations for a cutting height of 1.5 inches were common. Current standards suggest between 2 and 3.75 inches. Higher cut lawn grasses are more stress tolerant. This is especially important during the summer heat period. Taller grass plants with higher density have a profound shading effect on the soil surface, which reduces germination of weed seeds, particularly crabgrass. This is an excellent way to reduce herbicide use, especially where the lawn is properly fertilized and watered to maintain vigor.
So consider raising the height of tour mower deck and cutting a little more frequently and your lawn might just reward you with less weeds, less need for applying chemicals, and a beautiful emerald green color. | <urn:uuid:ba70b5a6-be68-4b47-9983-0f78a2e34539> | {
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Before 2004, if you had heard the word Facebook, you might have envisioned some kind of high school picture directory or a picture book that teaches how to draw cartoon faces.
Seven years and 600 million users later, Facebook means a lot more than that: for both you and your teen.
Headlines like this, this, and this are very sobering. Unfortunately, stories like these are so common they are almost predictable: a teenager meets someone on the internet (many times pretending to be many years younger than he or she is), they exchange pictures and phone numbers, and agree to meet somewhere. The man (or woman) turns out to be much different than the person they portrayed online and abuses the child. Whether or not the criminal is caught, the biggest loss is suffered by the youth who often goes on to experience incomprehensible pain.
Facebook isn’t evil. In fact, it can be a wonderful way to keep in touch with friends and acquaintances when separated by distance. By being conscientious and using the tools Facebook has created, we can protect our teenagers online.
Facebook is continually working to improve privacy settings for their users, in order to allow them to better control what content is visible.
Rules for minors — Children younger than 14 aren’t allowed to have a Facebook account (according to both Facebook policy and national law). Many “tweens” and others evade this rule by simply entering an incorrect birth year when setting up their account. Unfortunately, there is no device yet invented to prevent people lying about their age. As a parent, you have the responsibility to monitor what your children do on the internet. This doesn’t mean you have to constantly be breathing down your kid’s neck, but you should pay attention to who they interact with, what sites they visit, etc.
Minors (anyone younger than 18) are automatically given tighter security settings than their older counterparts. They aren’t included in public search listings and only their basic information (name, profile picture, gender, networks, and username) is listed to “non-friends”.
Privacy Settings — You can specify who gets to see what information about you or your teen. For example, you can limit who sees your teens birthday to: everyone, friends of friends and networks, friends and networks, friends of friends, friends only, or you can completely customize a list of who you want to see. You can preview how your profile looks and even see how it looks to different people. When you are editing your settings, simply click, “Preview my Profile” and then type a friend’s name in the box near the top to see what information that friend can see. Then you can go back and customize it some more if it still needs tweaking.
Block — Jus as in real life, make sure you teach your children to be careful around strangers. There’s no need to add anyone as a friend, just to be be nice. Once in a while, an unwanted visitor may try to “friend” your teenager on Facebook. Make sure your children know of the dangers of interacting with strangers on the web and know how to use the “block” feature if someone is persistently giving them undesired attention. Blocked people will be unable to interact with or see your child’s profile on Facebook. Your child can also block obnoxious apps like FarmVille, PetVille, CityVille, FrontierVille, or Zoo World. You can go back and edit your block lists by clicking on the account drop-down menu, clicking privacy settings, then clicking “Edit your lists.”
Postings — Teach your children to be careful with what they post on their wall. Teenagers should avoid posting information on their current whereabouts, especially when they are alone. They should also be careful not to post extremely negative status updates or comments. Even though improving Facebook controls help you to limit who sees your posts, it doesn’t always work out the way you plan. In the case of Dan Leone, a negative comment about his employers (the Philadelphia Eagles) got him fired.Other stories have circulated around the news about similar experiences on Twitter. Teenagers should be prepared for any eyes to see what they post.
By playing it safe on Facebook, your children will not only be safer, but also have more enjoyable online experience. You won’t ever regret being proactive and involved in the lives of your kids.
About the Author
Derek Gurr is a writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them search for online degrees that can help them reach their goals.
We would like to thank our guest writers on the Online Security Authority Blog! We feel it’s a honor and pleasure, to have others participate and contribute to the great content, advice and opinions on and in this Online World, we all live in… help us, help them, by supporting and visiting their sites!
as always, be safe Online
Your Online Security Authority
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© 2006 – 2011 Online Security Authority | <urn:uuid:f9959f7d-f2fb-4c41-a47b-8e7d72fcc4e3> | {
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This MSAccess tutorial explains how to use the Access Max function with syntax and examples.
The Microsoft Access Max function returns the maximum value in a set of numeric values in a select query.
The syntax for the Microsoft Access Max function is:
Max( expression )
expression is a numeric value. It can be a field or a formula that evaluates to a numeric expression.
The Max function can be used in the following versions of Microsoft Access:
You can use the Max function in a query by clicking on the Totals button in the toolbar (This is the button with the summation symbol). The Max function is used in conjunction with the Group By clause.
This query would return the maximum UnitsInStock for each ProductName.
(scroll to see more) | <urn:uuid:4f770e40-fd6f-4ee3-b9cd-dd3e76624832> | {
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What a hoot: DNA tests show Tundra is a male snowy owl
Published: Friday, February 21, 2014 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 20, 2014 at 5:45 p.m.
A DNA test of Tundra the snowy owl, grounded near Rosman thousands of miles south of its breeding grounds, has revealed that “she” is actually a “he.”
“Most of us, including me, thought the bird was a female from the beginning, but I had my suspicions,” said wildlife rehabilitator Carlton Burke, who rescued the owl Dec. 9 and has been nursing him back to health in Mills River.
Adult male snowy owls are often completely white, to help camouflage them in their normal arctic habitat, while females sport distinctive barring on their feathers. But immature snowy owls of both sexes can have barred plumage, Burke said, making their gender harder to ascertain.
With heavy brown flecks covering her feathers, Tundra appeared to be female.
“The females are usually heavier than the males and since I needed to get the bird back to its target weight, it was important to get the sex right,” Burke said. So while doing blood work, Tundra's veterinarian sent a sample to a Davis, Calif. lab called Zoogen that does DNA profiling.
Fortunately, the nickname Burke picked for the owl was gender-neutral. “We could've called him Elizabeth or something that we couldn't change,” he joked.
Another blood test on Tundra indicated he is still fighting an infection that Burke suspects contributed to his stranding on Calvert Road. His white blood cell count has “come down dramatically,” but it's still too high, so Tundra continues to receive antibiotics.
However, Burke said Tundra has gained back most of the weight he'd lost. He now weighs just shy of 4 pounds, well within the normal range of most male snowy owls. Still, Burke said he wants him to gain more before he's released back into the wild in mid- to late April.
“The fatter the better, because they can lose weight incredibly fast, particularly if they're flying and exerting a lot of energy,” he said. “Then you can get to a critical level, like the bird was before.”
Once Tundra is infection-free, his next step is what Burke calls “Mouse School,” where live mice are released into his outdoor enclosure to make sure the young owl is capable of hunting his own food. Burke will put brush piles, bark and leaves for the mice to hide in, to simulate natural hunting conditions.
After that, Burke expects to transfer Tundra to another wildlife rehabilitation center with a “flight cage,” an enclosure large enough to allow the owl to exercise its wings and build up muscles for his long flight home.
Because of the red tape involved with releasing Tundra in his home country of Canada, Burke is planning on transporting the recovered owl by vehicle to a release site in northern Maine, New York or New Hampshire in April.
“If we get him up there, we've cut off 1,200, 1,300 miles off his journey home,” he said, adding the ideal spot will be remote enough that Tundra can acclimate for some time before his instincts carry him back across the border into Quebec.
To help pay for Tundra's continued rehabilitation and eventual transport up north, the Phoenix Restaurant in Brevard will host an “It's a Boy!” fundraiser from 1 to 9 p.m. Sunday. The event will feature kids' face-painting from 1 to 6 p.m., music and owl-themed menu items, with 10 percent of proceeds going to Tundra's care.
Three bands are scheduled to play, starting with Lotus Unfolding performing that day as “The Hoot Owls” from 1 to 3 p.m., Bradford Carson performing as “Hootie the Owl” from 4 to 6 p.m., and Spencer and the String Ticklers playing as “Spencer and the Snow Owls” from 7 to 9 p.m. Bird lovers can bid on owl photos and paintings during a silent auction that ends at 8:45 p.m.
Reach Axtell at 828-694-7860 or [email protected].
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:3ae4f71a-1b92-4d5d-8227-05756c630364> | {
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Every rational person knows that our planet is under ecological stress, and that human survival on planet Earth over the next several centuries is not assured. What constitutes a sustainable environment for human civilization on planet Earth? Geologists call the last 10,000 years — since well before the start of agriculture — the Holocene epoch. This period was characterized by much warmer temperatures and far less thermal variability than the other 400 thousand years about which we have reliable information. These unusually mild and stable environmental conditions may be necessary for the survival of human civilizations.
Eight years ago, 29 eminent environmental scholars (led by Johan Rockström of Stockholm University and Will Steffen of Australian National University) proposed nine quantitative planetary boundaries that, if not violated, would enable indefinite continuation of Holocene-like conditions (stockholmresilience.org). These nine planetary boundaries defined what these scholars called "a safe operating space for humanity." The nine planetary boundaries concerning these environmental conditions are: (1) climate change, (2) biosphere integrity (e.g. species extinction and genetic diversity), (3) land-system change (e.g. destruction of tropical, temperate and boreal forests), (4) freshwater use, (5) biogeochemical flows (e.
The environmental scholars defined three risk zones for each of these nine environmental conditions: a safe operating zone, a zone of uncertainty associated with increasing environmental risk, and a crisis zone characterized by high risk and serious danger. The nine planetary boundaries were originally located on the borders between the safe operating zone and the zone of uncertainty. However, information about these planetary boundaries was updated three years ago and published in the February 2015 issue of the prestigious journal Science.
According to the 2015 information, three of the nine ecological domains have not yet exceeded their respective planetary boundaries and are thus within safe operating zones: (4) freshwater use, (6) ocean acidification and (8) stratospheric ozone depletion. On the other hand, four of the nine domains have already surpassed their planetary boundaries: (1) climate change, (2) biosphere integrity, (3) land-system change and (5) biogeochemical flows. Climate change and land-system change still function within the zone of uncertainty, but biosphere integrity and biochemical flows are now within their hazardous crisis zones. Information about (7) atmospheric aerosol loading and (9) novel entities is currently insufficient to assign reliable global measures, but regional data about these conditions are troublesome.
The scholars who advance the planetary boundaries perspective resolutely maintain scientific objectivity and avoid unprofessional alarmism. Nevertheless, they emphasize that their nine environmental conditions are by no means independent and interact strongly with each other. These interactions could produce an unanticipated non-linear (e.g. exponential) response that might propel planet Earth far beyond the Holocene conditions that made human civilization possible. The scholars express particular apprehension about interactions involving climate change and biosphere integrity, which could each have truly disastrous consequences.
The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center's "Peace Train" runs every Friday in the Colorado Daily. | <urn:uuid:57ee6db2-faea-42d2-81ac-7237113507de> | {
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Textile mills can reduce their water consumption by up to 90 percent using the EColoRO technique, which consists of electrocoagulation followed by membrane filtration, to treat their wastewater and then reuse it. On June 1, 2015 a European consortium led by the Dutch company EColoRO BV in Almere and the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT) in Amersfoort, the Netherlands will commence a 3.5-year project to demonstrate the new technology on site at full industrial scale, first at a textile mill in Belgium and later at a textile mill in Italy.
The project, which is part of Europe’s Horizon 2020 research program, has a budget of €4.8 million, of which €3.7 million will be provided by the European Union. The remaining consortium members are a Belgian textile mill, Belgium’s VITO institute for technology research, Czech company INOTEX Ltd, Dutch company Morselt Borne BV, and EURATEX – the European Apparel and Textile Confederation. EColoRO will provide operational management and ISPT is responsible for overall project coordination.
Textile dyeing and finishing processes traditionally consumes significant amounts of water. Fabric is usually run through a dye bath to color it, followed by several rounds of rinsing to remove any dye that has not bonded with the fabric. In the most favorable situation, the rinse water, which contains reactive pigments and toxic chemicals, is routed to a public or private treatment plant. Once there, the dyes and other chemicals are often not fully removed from the water, however, which limits its reuse potential and creates a burden on the environment. The EColoRO technique will make this problem a thing of the past.
The core of the EColoRO technique is electrocoagulation, which enables the removal of 93 to 96 percent of the dyes and pigments in textile wastewater. Membranes can then be used to fully purify the water via ultrafiltration or reverse osmosis. As a result, up to 90 percent of the water can be reused. About 10 percent will be lost due to concentrated waste stream or escapes via evaporation.
The new technology has two major advantages: it enables textile mills to reduce fresh water consumption by up to 90 percent, and it lowers their wastewater treatment costs. Other advantages include relatively low energy consumption, no additional chemicals, and no required changes to existing processes. EColoRO’s innovative approach integrates electrocoagulation with systems that are already being used in industrial applications, accelerating the step to commercial market implementation when the project completes.
In addition to demonstrating the EColoRO concept, within the consortium INOTEX will investigate how textile mills can make optimal use of the treated water and VITO will look at ways to reuse the pigment- and iron-rich slurry generated by the purification process.
"This is an example of an environmental solution with a huge impact that generates money rather than costing money,” says Eric van Sonsbeek, EColoRO’s director and cofounder. He estimates that European textile mills will earn back their investment in two to four years.
"The EColoRO concept is an excellent alternative to existing energy-intensive wastewater treatment techniques,” says Tjeerd Jongsma, ISPT’s director. "The new technology is also a godsend for textile mills in water-deficient areas in Europe and other places where the provision of drinking water is a growing problem. It also aligns with the industry’s desire to increase the use of energy from renewable resources, in this case the use of renewable electricity to treat and reuse large quantities of process wastewater.”
EColoRO Water Treatment Solutions works with customers around the world to design and implement innovative water purification solutions. The company’s main focus is on reusing wastewater streams in order to decrease operational costs and reduce environmental pollution.
The Institute for Sustainable Process Technology is a collaboration between industry, universities, and knowledge institutes that works to accelerate innovation processes and make them more efficient than they are at present. In addition to fostering the generation and exchange of knowledge, the institute aids the development, demonstration and application of breakthrough technology with a special focus on process technology.
For more information, please contact [email protected] or 033-7009799. | <urn:uuid:1f412ffe-519b-4ce9-87a0-38f03db6ff4a> | {
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EINSTEIN's theory of gravity has so far never failed, but that could change as general relativity is set to face its most precise test yet.
The theory is founded on the principle that gravitational mass is the same as inertial mass, but testing this is not easy. Sava Dimopoulos of Stanford University in California and colleagues suggest that by letting two beams of atoms fall and interfere in a gravitational field, they should be able to measure even very minor deviations from the path predicted by Einstein (www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0610047). It should be possible to test the theory to an accuracy of 1 part in 1015. "That's 300 times more accurate than any astrophysical test can achieve today," says Dimopoulos.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content. | <urn:uuid:b76d7b37-f302-4ce5-9594-3f6b23e73886> | {
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FRIDAY, March 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Once a tolerance to peanuts has developed in kids considered at high-risk for developing a peanut allergy, it seems to last, new research suggests.
The children in the study developed a tolerance after they were fed peanuts for years as part of a supervised clinical trial. Now, the researchers are reporting that those youngsters maintained their tolerance for at least a year, even if they didn't keep eating peanuts.
"The therapy persisted, and after 12 months of avoidance there was no increase in the rates of peanut allergy. They maintained their ability to tolerate peanuts, even though they hadn't been eating it," said Dr. Sherry Farzan, an allergist with Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y. Farzan wasn't involved in the research.
This suggests that the immune system "learns" that peanut is not a threat to the body, and kids won't have to keep eating peanuts for the rest of their lives to maintain their tolerance, said Dr. Scott Sicherer. He's a pediatric allergy specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Sicherer also wasn't part of the current study.
Both Farzan and Sicherer warned that this allergy prevention strategy should only be pursued with a doctor's supervision. Doctors know the proper amount of peanut that will challenge the immune system without provoking a reaction, and can step in to protect the child if a reaction does occur.
And, this prevention therapy is only for kids at risk of peanut allergy, not for kids who already have developed the allergy, Sicherer warned.
"If you have someone who already had a peanut allergy and gave them peanuts, then they'd get sick and maybe end up in an emergency room," he said.
Findings from the study are scheduled to be presented Friday at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology meeting in Los Angeles. The study was also published online March 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The new study is an extension of the groundbreaking LEAP (Learning Early about Peanut Allergy) clinical trial. Last year, that trial found that feeding peanuts to at-risk babies for 60 months reduced their risk of developing a peanut allergy. The study determined an infant's risk of peanut allergy using an allergy skin test.
The initial findings turned allergy science on its head. Previously, doctors had told parents to avoid exposing kids to potentially allergic foods until they were older and their immune systems were more mature, Sicherer said.
But the LEAP trial found that exposing at-risk kids to peanuts regularly beginning in infancy actually prevented peanut allergies by the time they reached age 5, Sicherer said. Eating peanuts lowered the rate of peanut allergy by 80 percent in the now-preschoolers, according to the study authors.
"For this high-risk group, waiting longer and longer to eat peanut isn't good," Sicherer said. "It's better to get it into your diet as soon as possible."
But one outstanding question remained from the initial study, Sicherer said -- would these kids have to eat peanuts regularly for the rest of their lives to maintain their tolerance?
To answer this question, the researchers followed more than 500 of the original 640 children for a one-year period of peanut avoidance. Half of this group included previous peanut consumers. The other half had always avoided peanuts.
After 12 months of peanut avoidance, only 5 percent of the original peanut consumers were found to be allergic, compared to 19 percent of the original peanut avoiders, the findings showed.
"This study offers reassurance that eating peanut-containing foods as part of a normal diet -- with occasional periods of time without peanut -- will be a safe practice for most children following successful tolerance therapy," said Dr. Gerald Nepom. He is director of the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), the consortium behind the LEAP trial.
"The immune system appears to remember and sustain its tolerant state, even without continuous regular exposure to peanuts," he added in an ITN news release.
Farzan said there appears to be a "critical period" between 4 and 11 months where "we can push the immune system around a little."
Farzan and Sicherer both said that by the time kids reach age 5, the immune system appears to have accepted that peanuts aren't a danger to the body.
"After following this pattern, it may not be that important anymore, at least after age 5, to worry if someone isn't keeping up," Sicherer said. "It may not be necessary to keep up with such consistent ingestion."
For more on peanut allergy, visit the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
SOURCES: Sherry Farzan, M.D., allergist, Northwell Health, Great Neck, N.Y.; Scott Sicherer, M.D., pediatric allergy specialist, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City; Immune Tolerance Network, news release, March 4, 2016; March 4, 2016, presentation, American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology annual meeting, Los Angeles; March 4, 2016, New England Journal of Medicine, online | <urn:uuid:ba8c99c7-f66e-4360-9105-05702fb99446> | {
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A brief essay on curiosity, experiential engagement, and gradual transformation.
Self-doubt is commonly synonymous with lack of confidence, low self-esteem, and a belief in one’s own inefficacy. Lack of faith in oneself makes it very difficult to engage constructively with challenges. Doubt and faith, on first examination, exist in opposition to one another, but they are really synergistic.
Self-doubt is generally considered a negative trait. Yet doubt is intellectually and emotionally essential. Questioning is adaptive for survival, allowing for testing the environment for safety and for navigating social currents. Questioning is at times a matter of survival, when it represents the first awareness that, without change, disaster awaits. In the social sphere, it is important to learn to gauge trustworthiness, and gullibility makes one a target for misuse.
Questioning experiential avoidance
Questioning goes hand in hand with curiosity, and helps with cognitive flexiblity. Flexibility, in turn, bolsters resilience and is associated with better mental health. If things are pretty good, there isn’t much reason to tip the apple cart, but when things kind of suck, curiosity is the tinder which re-ignites development.
Curiosity and experiential avoidance are inversely related. Experiential avoidance is a psychological concept associated with pathology in many research studies. Avoiding one’s own experience is a way of avoiding paying attention to oneself. Experiential avoidance covers all the bases—thoughts, feelings, self-recognition in many forms, creating blind spots about oneself and others. When people use experiential avoidance as a defense, whatever it is we are fending off tends to come out in other ways, often in the form of maladaptive behavior, and emotional and physical symptoms.
Curiosity shines a light on unawareness, and may be a revealing spotlight or gentle illumination, allowing us to grasp aspects of ourselves and our lives which have not been available. But curiosity is often accompanied by anxiety about many things, particularly when it comes to contemplating important areas shrouded in uncertainty. Curiosity is the foundation for experiential engagement.
Self-doubt is a useful tool where curiosity is concerned, and can remedy experiential avoidance. Questioning oneself is an examination—not in the sense of a test—but a cautious and thoughtful examination someone in a helping profession might make as the first step in assessment.
Making the unconscious conscious
The edge of the unconscious mind is a shifting surface and curiosity is a catalyst which acts on that unconscious ocean to convert it into conscious experience. As curiosity can take any form the imagination desires, it can flutter gently over the surface, be warm and soft as living fur, pierce, diffuse into, etc., even, jump discontinuously around until patterns begin to form out of formlessness.
When curiosity encounters a road block, self-doubt comes in handy. This is just one example, doubting psychological blocks. What is really going on around here? Are they actual blocks, or just illusions, mental phantasms given their power by fear? Maybe they are a self-protective ruse, used on oneself. With gradual, persistent application, self-doubt can erode through barriers to self-development. Curiosity is the antidote to ignorance and blame.
Self-doubt is a process which might be running in the back of the mind all the time. It works well when combined with an element of compassionate humor about oneself, without rancor. Self-doubt works best in the presence of a secure sense of self, but paradoxically is also required to arrive at a secure sense of self. | <urn:uuid:d4628769-063d-471b-9826-2487d7fa02c9> | {
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Go pieces are black and white lens-shaped discs called stones. The Go board can either be a flat table board or the more traditional floor-board with legs (Go-ban). Either way, the board is simply a grid of 19 x 19 lines, the pieces being placed upon the intersections of the lines.
Go is a game of territorial capture - the primary objective is to encircle as much territory as possible. In doing so, opposing stones may be captured and the winner is the player at the end with the greatest amount of territory and captured stones.
The most essential terms to understand are "group" and "liberty".
A group of stones is any set of stones of the same colour that are connected orthogonally. So three stones in a row along a line forms a group because every stone sits orthogonally next to at least one other stone. However 2 stones next to each other diagonally are not connected in any way and so simply form two groups of one stone each. If a third stone were to be added to the two diagonal stones so that it sat next to both of them, however, a group of three stones would be formed. Groups can get quite large and convoluted but the principle remains the same - if a stone lies orthogonally next to another stone then both stones are part of the same group.
Any empty point orthogonally adjacent to a group of stones is said to be a liberty of that group. A single stone by itself in the middle of the board therefore has 4 liberties, 1 in each of the 4 directions. A group of 3 stones by itself in a line on the edge of the board has 5 liberties - 1 at either end and 3 towards the middle of the board. And a group of 8 stones set in a square by itself has 13 liberties - 12 around the outside and 1 in the middle. But each stone laid by the opponent next to a group reduces the number of liberties by 1. So a single stone with opposing stones North, South and East of it has only 1 liberty.
Go is not only pleasing to the eye, the game itself is also beautifully aesthetic in its simplicity. In fact, in essence there are really only 3 rules to the game:
So a single stone is captured if the opponent places four stones on the four orthogonal points surrounding it. And a group of 2 stones on the edge of the board is captured by 4 enemy stones.
An important point to realise is that a group of 8 stones set in a square is difficult to capture because if the opponent places a stone in the middle of the group, under most circumstances, that stone is immediately captured by the surrounding group. Consequently, no player would ever normally make such a play. The unoccupied point in the middle of the group is an example of an "eye". An eye is any empty point that is surrounded orthogonally by pieces of the same colour - always difficult for an opponent to capture. However, eyes are not impossible to take - the group of 8 stones can be captured by an opponent who first occupies the 12 surrounding points. After this, the group of 8 stones is vulnerable - if the player who owns it plays to the middle of the group, the group of 9 stones would be immediately captured having no remaining liberties. And this is the only situation where it is legitimate for the opponent to play a stone to the middle since in doing so, the last remaining liberty of the group is eliminated and the group is captured. The stone just played would be left surrounded by 4 liberties.
Derived from this is the key factor in Go defence - any group containing two eyes is safe and can never be captured. This should be easy to understand after a moments thought - in order to capture the group all liberties must be eliminated and so both eyes would need to be occupied. But since a stone played to either eye would immediately be captured, it is impossible for both eyes to be occupied. QED.
In conclusion, eyes are useful and a group with 2 eyes is invulnerable.
"Ko" is a local situation in which a position can be repeated indefinitely. For an example, lay a white stone on the edge of the board and a black stone three points away from it also on the edge. Lay another white stone diagonally next to the first white stone in the direction of the black stone. Finish the pattern symmetrically by laying a second black stone diagonally next to the first black stone. Now play a white stone on the edge next to both black stones. This situation is Ko. A black stone played to the remaining point in the middle captures the white stone but the white player can then play another white stone back to the same spot capturing the black stone in the same way and putting the position back to how it started. And so on. Of course, due to the third rule above, the black player would not be allowed to do this immediately after the capture of the black stone - at least one stone must be played elsewhere before black could play otherwise the a previous position would be repeated.
"Seki" is another local situation. This term applies to an area into which neither player dare play because to do so would cause the opponent to capture territory or stones.
To have "Sente" is to be in a position to make a move that will force the opponent to take a counter-action. If a player with sente makes the play in question and the opponent, instead of responding in the predicted way, makes a different play with an even greater threat, the opponent is said to have "assumed Sente".
Any group of stones that is under threat of imminent capture i.e. having only one liberty left is said to be in "Atari".
A "dame" point is an empty point between territories. When there is a dame point there is no benefit to either player. Dame points are left alone until the end of the game and then ignored in scoring.
Go employs a simple and effective handicapping scheme. The weaker player always plays black but also places an amount of stones onto the board before the start of the game according to the amount of the handicap. The board has nine highlighted intersections in a square shape marked on the board called "star" points. The requisite number of stones are placed the star points in the following way:
Beginning the game in Go is both critical and very difficult to do well. Players try to play stones far enough apart so that they form the beginnings of territory encirclements but close enough so that they can be linked up into groups should they come under attack. Initial stones tend to be played near the corners - corners are the easiest places to capture territory because they only have to be surrounded on two sides. Good players will begin by positioning stones seemingly at random across the board but in reality they are staking their claims to particular areas. After this initial period, local skirmishes and larger battles will form in areas of contention. Players need to be able to comprehend and deal with all the smaller conflicts while never becoming distracted from the overall picture of the war.
Eventually, the players agree that no more stones can be played since all territory is claimed and all local battles have been played to their conclusion. Play continues until both players agree to this. At this point the winner and the margin of victory is determined. Essentially, each player scores the number of points of territory plus the number of prisoners captured. The totals are unimportant - it is the difference between them that is measured and it is customary to calculate this in a special way.
Firstly, the stones on the board are moved around to form neater patterns, easier for counting. Players do this by sliding stones from one place to another taking care not to change the amounts of territory owned. Some of the black stones will be moved to a different point within black's territory so that the stone's new position reduces the territory by one but the point freed up increases it by one to compensate. White stones similarly. Once this repositioning has been done, all the captured prisoners taken are laid down into enemy territory, again in a neat way to make counting easy. This is done on the basis that losing a point for a prisoner is equivalent to reducing by one the number of points of territory held by the opponent.
Once the board and prisoners have been consolidated in this fashion, the winner and the margin of victory can be quickly determined by a count of the simplified territories.
Since it is generally recognised that black has an advantage by going first, non-handicapped games are often decided as the best of two games with players taking turns to play black. The margins of victory are summed after both games have been completed to determine the winner.
These rules are provided by Masters Traditional Games, an Internet shop selling quality traditional games, pub games and unusual games. For information on copying and copyright, see our disclaimer.
Our rules are comprehensive instructions for friendly play. If in doubt, always abide by locally-played or house rules.
Copyright Masters Games © 2012. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:b506b523-c005-4b6f-b840-dc48a4986ade> | {
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Sep 24, 2009 (CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today scaled back its estimate of how many doses of pandemic vaccine that producers will likely make over the next year and said it hopes to gather enough vaccine donations to cover about 10% of developing countries' populations.
Last week the WHO signaled that it would lower its estimate, which was originally 4.9 million. Today at a press conference, Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, the WHO's director of vaccine research, said the latest assessments indicate vaccine makers will make 3 billion doses over the next year, which would cover less than half of the world's population of 6.8 billion people.
These details about the WHO's efforts to collect vaccine donations for developing countries came the same day that the United Nations (UN) released a report detailing the urgent support needed to help developing countries respond to the pandemic.
Kieny said the WHO based its original estimate of global pandemic vaccine production on a survey it conducted in May of 26 manufacturers that indicated a willingness to make pandemic H1N1 vaccine. Some of the original assumptions weren't realistic, she said.
For example, yields from the original seed strain were about a third to a half that of typical yields for seasonal strains. Though she said new seed strains are producing better yields, they still aren't on par with what manufacturers get when they make seasonal flu vaccine.
Though dose-sparing assumptions were on target, the original estimate didn't take into account that manufacturers would also be producing seasonal vaccine for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Kieny told reporters.
WHO officials will conduct another survey among vaccine producers in October to refine its projection of global pandemic vaccine yield, she said.
Despite decreased projections, there are several promising vaccine developments, Kieny said. For example, a handful of countries, including China and the United States, have already approved pandemic H1N1 vaccines, and China is already administering the vaccine, with other countries, such as Hungary, soon to follow.
She also added that clinical trial findings showing that most people will need only one dose of the vaccine will help stretch the world's supply.
So far, China has immunized 44,000 people with the pandemic H1N1 vaccine and has received 14 reports of adverse events, she said. The effects so far are mild and similar to what health experts expect to see with the seasonal flu vaccine, she said, adding that some may not be associated with the vaccine.
The vaccine may need to be administered to millions of people to detect any rare but serious side effects, she said. If such events occur, they will need careful analysis to determine which ones are really related to the vaccine and which are coincidental, Kieny said.
Teams are already working on the logistics of distributing donated vaccine to developing countries, the WHO said in a press release today. The WHO said it has surveyed its regional and country offices to determine which countries have the greatest need for vaccine donations and initially will distribute about 300 million doses of vaccine to more than 90 countries.
In 2007, Indonesia's health minister raised awareness about pandemic vaccine sharing issues when she vowed to stop sharing H5N1 avian influenza samples unless countries developed a mechanism for sharing vaccine made from the samples with poorer nations that can't afford or don't have access to the shots.
Some pandemic planning experts have also said that pandemic vaccines for people in developing countries may help preserve the chain of supplies and services on which businesses in developing countries depend.
Two vaccine makers have already donated 150 million doses to developing countries, and on Sep 17 the United States and eight other nations announced they would share some of their vaccine supply as doses come available.
Kieny projected that the donations from the countries would total 50 million doses, though she said she anticipates that more countries will sign on to the donation push. She added that the WHO could round out the supply by purchasing vaccine from manufacturers that have offered a discount for developing countries.
Kieny said the WHO won't dictate how developing countries should set their priority groups to receive the vaccine, but she said it has strongly recommended that healthcare workers be first in line. However, she said that before vaccine is sent to the countries, the WHO will assess if the nation is ready to distribute the vaccine and if it has a plan to give it to priority groups. "No one wants it to sit in a warehouse," she said.
Developing countries will likely start receiving their first doses at the end of October or in November, Kieny told the media.
The United Nations, in its Sep 17 report posted today on the urgent support needed for developing countries, predicted that pandemic effects to poorer nations will include increases in poverty and hunger, increases in child and maternal mortality, and a strain on health services that are already burdened with treating diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.
The UN estimated the cost of providing the vaccines to developing countries at $600 million. Besides vaccines and other pharmaceutical measures to limit the effects of the pandemic, the UN report outlined measures that can strengthen developing countries' readiness, such as operational plans for vaccine campaigns and increased laboratory capacity.
Sep 24 WHO briefing note
Sep 17 UN report on urgent support for developing countries' response to H1N1 flu pandemic | <urn:uuid:419130ec-7be3-4bd2-ab6b-cce2d6d774d4> | {
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A new way of beating the web’s censors
STEGANOGRAPHY, the art of hiding things in plain sight, is a trick as old as espionage. Unlike its cousin, cryptography, which makes no attempt to disguise the existence of a message, but rather hides its meaning, a steganographic message need not be enciphered. What it does need to be is invisible—at least to those who are not the intended recipients. And that, in the modern world of the internet, is a crucial distinction. A censor can block a message he mistrusts, even if he cannot read it, thus putting the onus on the recipient to justify both the message and the fact it is encrypted. A well-crafted steganographic message, though, will never come to the censors' attention in the first place. Which is the purpose of Collage, a system devised by Nick Feamster and his colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Traditional steganography hides its message as, say, every 20th word in a letter, or as the colour of every hundredth pixel in an electronic image. Sophisticated analysis of such things might, though, notice something odd and thus flag a document for closer examination. Collage escapes notice by dividing the message into pieces, and then hiding these in electronic files posted to public websites, such as Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.
Scattering the message among many files and websites offers a number of advantages. For instance, the small amount of data in each file makes it difficult for a censor to notice anything odd unless all traffic on the network is subjected to advanced analysis techniques. Though possible in theory, the cost and effort of doing so makes this unfeasible in practice. More importantly, Collage's design allows reconstruction of the original message even if only 60-80% of the files hiding it are recovered. Thus, even if a censor manages to block some of the files, users are still able to communicate.
To pull a message together requires the execution of what Dr Feamster refers to as a “task sequence”—a series of actions, chosen not to arouse suspicion, that must be performed to locate the files hiding the message. For example, if images of the Himalayas are used as cover media, the associated task sequence might be to search specific sites for images tagged with the words “mountain” and “glacier” and download a defined number of images in a set amount of time. The weak point of the system is the transmission of the initial task sequence. That is probably best done offline. Once the system has been “bootstrapped” into existence, though, subsequent task sequences can be passed on as part of the hidden messages.
Although much of Collage's design focuses on avoiding detection, it also provides a measure of deniability should detection occur. The cover media used to hide data and the actions performed to locate and recover messages mimic those of innocent users, allowing those using Collage to pretend that they were unaware of the presence of hidden data. Collage also aims to mimic the traffic patterns of innocent users, so that digital fingerprints which may suggest illicit behaviour are not produced.
Finally, hiding messages widely amid otherwise-legitimate content makes it difficult for a censor to block communication effectively without also causing significant disruption to innocuous users. For governments trying to walk the fine line between access and censorship, this reluctance to block large quantities of legitimate content in the hope of also blocking prohibited content can be crucial. Even if the hidden messages are known to be present, there may be little the censor can do about it. | <urn:uuid:2d8f379c-71df-436a-90bb-4cd1b39ef513> | {
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chemistry question #1774
Charl Mai, a 20 year old female from Vancouver, Canada asks on January 4, 2004,Q:
Do herbal medicines interfere with the effectiveness of prescription medicines? If so, how does it affect one another?
viewed 14898 times
Yes. As far as we know, chemically and physiologically, the active ingredients in herbal and prescription medicines work the same. Hence they must interfere, or better we say interact. For thousands of years, people boiled willow bark and drank the tea to get rid of headaches and fever. At some point in the 1800s a German chemist figured out that the active ingredient was a chemical called acetylsalicylic acid--now also known as Aspirin, or ASA. So if you were to drink a cup of willow bark tea and also have a couple aspirin for a headache, you would be getting a double dose. It's important to realize that about 75% of all prescription medicines originally came from traditional herbal sources belonging to many cultures around the world, especially those in tropical rainforests where the natural herbal sources are the most abundant.
Any herbal medicine mixed with any prescription medicine can have an effect. The interactions could be complex. They could be good or bad. Herbal medicines may also have other active ingredients that work together with the main ingredient in a way that is not yet understood scientifically.
If you are concerned about combining herbal with prescription medicines you should consult your chemist, doctor, or pharmacist because many factors may be involved requiring individual attention for reliable advice. | <urn:uuid:1ef7887d-5a4a-4c47-b18b-0f37a0a7e214> | {
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The Palma ratio measures income inequality, comparing the world’s richest 10 percent with its poorest 40 percent. Economists at the Center for International Development have concluded that the middle 50 percent (i.e. the middle class) is stable across all countries surveyed, while the distance between the wealthiest and poorest grows.
According to the IMF, the United States has the world’s greatest nominal GDP, and its GDP per capita is ranked tenth. Of the 86 countries compared by the Palma ratio, the United States’ income equality ranks 44th, far below the other developed countries — no doubt it would rank lower had Scandinavian countries been included. Palma data reflects strong trends that the countries with greater income equality than the US have one of two common traits:
1. Countries in the Global North with more punitive progressive taxation rates
2. Countries in the Global South with lower GDP per capita
Further, the countries with less income equality than the US are all in the Global South.
Americans don’t handle not being the best well. But rather than immediately lament the US rank, one must consider whether more income equality is something worth having. Income inequality between the rich and the poor is a natural growth; social elites are the best-educated, most well-connected, and healthiest individuals in any society and are able to maintain these resources by “hoarding” opportunities.1 Income equality, however, can only be created through government policies designed to make everyone equal. Such policies have natural order all backwards — man ought to be equal under the law, despite being unequal of ability. When considering that the state’s proper function is to establish justice, it would seem that the only form of taxation which perfectly realises the universal virtue of justice is a flat rate. Unlike progressive taxation, the flat tax treats citizens as legal equals — whether taxes are low or high, in a just government, everyone pays the same share.
The United States’ Palma ranking is right where it should be*, and is indicative of the country’s uniqueness. The US features 132 companies on the 2013 Forbes Global 500 list, substantially more than any other country. The top five are rounded out by China (86), Japan (62), France (31), and Germany (29). The US is still a place where, by and large, the best have the greatest chance to succeed, in a way not present in countries with greater or less economic equality.
Living and studying in The Netherlands, I’ve observed a general complacency among the Dutch not found in The States. University tuition fees are heavily subsidised by the government, so Dutch students pay only €1,835 per year for tuition. Whereas the high cost of studies in the United States pressures American students to graduate on time or early, Dutch students, lacking a financial burden, have less urgency to do the same. To a greater extent, the tax system contributes to a complacent society — households annually earning upwards of €55,695 pay a 52% income tax rate. The Dutch welfare state provides such a breadth of services and taxes at such steep rates that it produces a largely unmotivated, hunger-less society. Dutch people know that they’re all going to come out approximately the same in life, so why should they work hard? That attitude is reflected in OECD data from 2011, which shows that the Dutch work fewer hours per week than anywhere else in the world, at 30.5. The system itself disincentivises innovation, as evidenced by the mere twelve Dutch companies among the Fortune Global 500.
“Whether they realise it or not, people want to be able to understand that there are people higher and lower than they are on the socioeconomic totem pole; those above them may motivate them to work harder in pursuit of their goals, and those below them may remind them that they could have it worse off. The need for hierarchical order is with us from birth. The basic unit of human social existence, the nuclear family, is a hierarchy, evidence enough that social status is not learned behaviour.”2
Social mobility, not income equality, is what we ought to value. However, it needs to be considered in relative, not absolute, terms. Absolute social mobility considers one’s income compared to his parents, whereas relative social mobility considers that, and also frames it within the gains of everyone else — a class rank, if you will. Absolute mobility can grow for everyone as the economy expands, and relative mobility is a zero-sum game — when someone climbs the ladder, someone else slides down a chute. This is often lost in the discussion, given the link between upward social mobility and the American Dream.
I know what it’s like to take the slide. In the late 1990s my father lost his job (justifiably) as an executive at a multi-billion dollar defence contractor and my life became a lot harder after that and my parents’ divorce. There were immediate impacts, like switching to public school and moving from a six-bedroom house to a townhouse, as well as future consequences, such as difficulty affording my undergraduate and graduate studies. Am I happy this happened to me? Of course not, although it has played a role in my character development. However, I recognise that it is important for members of the upper and upper-middle classes to backslide and thus make upward mobility possible.
“When it comes to the economic malaise facing America, the biggest problem is not the widening gap between rich and poor, but the stagnation of social mobility. When the income gap of one generation becomes an opportunity gap for the next, inequality hardens into social stratification.”3
— Richard V. Reeves, Brookings Institution
Regarding income inequality, the United States is between two undesirable extremes. China, whose wealth is disproportionately held by elites, has a largely poor population, and a GDP per capita ranked 87th, despite its nominal GDP ranking 2nd. At the other end of the spectrum, France has a relatively classless society because of punitive tax rates, which subvert the natural order of humanity, inhibit growth, extend state power, and create income-based legal distinctions among citizens. Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, that the moderate choice between two vicious and opposite extremes is the most virtuous, indicates that the United States is right where it should be with regard to global income equality.
Although there is one supreme and perfect form of justice, it, like all universals, does admit of degrees. Justice in economic policy must prioritise outcomes over intent. Even though it does create legal distinctions among citizens, progressive taxation — that is, temperate progressive taxation — enables the greatest number of citizens to live comfortably. This utilitarian approach is not a Marxist attempt to bludgeon the wealthy and erase class existence, but straight from perhaps the greatest American to ever live. In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson suggested that a “means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to…tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise”.4 Jefferson was concerned that without this variety of progressive rate, the political foundations of the Republic would be in jeopardy, as more and more wage labourers, dependent on proprietors with an egregious concentration of wealth, would have their political and economic autonomy eroded. In a state which (moderately) takes a greater share from some individuals than others, the legal distinctions among citizens are real, but are nominal when compared to the potentially deleterious effects of a flat tax.
Arguments for a flat national income tax based on theoretical appeals to justice can only amount to hypothetical posturing; no elected officials in a representative government would pursue such, whether because of held principles or concern for expediency. You want to lower taxes on the wealthy and raise them on everyone else? Good luck with that. Even if that did happen, the state’s noble intentions would foreseeably contradict my positions that A. social mobility is important (for an economy and a society), and B. that, in the United States’ case, the country is approximately where it should be with regard to income equality (and thus shouldn’t take drastic steps in either direction). If everyone in a given state pays a 25% annual income tax, that one-fourth of lost income does more to damage the quality of life for a wage-earner than a 33% rate would harm the well-being of someone north of the 90th income percentile. A high flat income tax would stagnate and calcify socioeconomic status, contributing to the “sticky floor” that renders upward mobility increasingly out of reach, the poorer one is.
Depending on your perspective on tax policy, either flat or progressive taxes could be seen as just. Here we find that policy which aims toward justice and has ends which justify the means. An appeal to temperance, as used to consider income equality, reveals that the most just form of income tax is a softly progressive one, and partakes more in moderation than in European practice. | <urn:uuid:6abcb047-3695-470d-8050-db02e78ca5d0> | {
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POSTED: Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - 10:30am
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - 10:34am
CNN — Millions of high school-aged girls and women binge drink, behavior that can have disastrous results including long-term health effects, the CDC warns in a report released Tuesday.
For females, binge drinking means consuming four or more drinks in one sitting. For males, it's five or more drinks.
Previous reports have focused on higher rates of binge drinking among males, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in its report, aims to raise awareness of binge drinking among women as a serious problem that's held steady for more than a decade.
"Although binge drinking is more of a problem among men and boys, binge drinking is an important and under-recognized women's health issue," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, CDC director.
Of the estimated 23,000 annual deaths attributed to excessive alcohol use among women and girls, binge drinking was responsible for more than half of those deaths, said Frieden.
Americans binge drinking more
Binge drinking is the most common and most dangerous pattern of excess drinking, he said.
Women process alcohol differently than men and tend to be smaller, meaning they are more susceptible to effects of drinking, including heart disease, cancer, stroke and liver disease, to name a few. Other unintended consequences might include pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, the report said.
To describe the prevalence of binge drinking, the CDC analyzed data from its 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an annual telephone survey, and the national 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, an anonymous questionnaire completed by high school students nationwide.
While most binge drinkers are not alcohol-dependent, it can also lead to dependence.
About 50% of all the alcohol consumed by adults, and about 90% of all the alcohol consumed by young people is consumed during a binge drinking session, according to Frieden.
In 2011, when the data was collected, more than 12.5% of U.S. adult women engaged in binge drinking an average of three times per month, drinking an average of six drinks. That's nearly 14 million women. One in 8 women binge drink, according to the report.
One in 5 high school girls binge drink, which is nearly as high as the binge drinking rates among high school boys.
While binge-drinking rates have fallen among boys over the past 10 years, "binge-drinking rates among girls really haven't changed much over a 15-plus-year period," said Dr. Robert Brewer, of the alcohol program division of the CDC's national Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
The greatest frequency of binge drinking is found among women aged 18-34 and high-school-age girls. About 62% of high school senior girls reported binge drinking, according to Frieden.
So what can be done? Effective strategies combating binge drinking would include health care providers speaking to women and girls about their drinking habits, Frieden said.
Medical caregivers should encourage less consumption for girls and women if they suspect they are consuming too much.
Parents need to play a role in preventing their children from drinking.
Pregnant women and underage youth should not drink at all, Frieden stressed.
U.S. dietary guidelines recommend drinking in moderation -- up to one drink daily for women and up to two for men.
"What we really want to do is encourage people to follow those guidelines for drinking," said Dr. Robert Brewer, of the alcohol program division of the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. | <urn:uuid:b01c2f9a-ad73-40da-9e12-fd3550da8fe4> | {
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Testing of substances to replace fly ash in concrete will continue at 3M’s plant in Corona.
Fly ash is a component of burning coal added to concrete to strengthen it.
Because less coal is being used to generate electricity, states, including California, are beginning to experience shortages of fly ash. Those shortages threaten to slow road construction and drive up the price of the kind of work managed by Caltrans.
Companies such as 3M are working to develop new pozzolans or natural pozzolans derived from volcanic rock.
Two weeks ago, 3M, the city of Corona and the Corona Chamber of Commerce partnered on a symposium to bring together experts on pozzolan. It concluded with road construction at 3M’s Temescal Canyon quarry. Workers laid 13 slabs using various mixtures of concrete.
Concrete made with natural or new pozzolan has performed similarly to concrete made with fly ash, a good sign according to Jay Lukkarila, mining engineer for the 3M Co.
“The minimum compression strength for Caltrans for this concrete mix design is 4,000 psi in 42 days,” he wrote in an email. “All of these mix designs will most likely reach that minimum strength in less than 28 days.”
A mixture made with 100 percent cement, the substance that binds concrete and that pozzolan is used to cut, went from 1,605 pounds per square inch on day one to 3,890 psi in seven days. Other mixtures, including 3M’s five experimental products, were in the low 3,000s after seven days. But Lukkarila said that concrete made with pozzolans usually gains more strength over time than concrete made with straight cement.
Lukkarila said 3M would take cylinders from concrete poured at the demonstration for two years.
Contact the writer: [email protected] or 951-368-9551 | <urn:uuid:1de8c59f-6478-464b-93e8-e28e13b20128> | {
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by Matt Slick
Salvation, in Roman Catholicism, is a process with many steps: Actual Grace, Faith, Good Works, Baptism, Participation in the Sacraments, Penance, Indulgences, and Keeping the Commandments. Basically, salvation is attained through baptism and good works. It is maintained by good works and participation in the sacraments. If lost, it is regained through the sacrament of Penance which only a Roman Catholic priest can administer. Add to this purgatorial cleansing after a person dies, and you can see that salvation is an arduous process.
In Catholicism, a person can gain salvation and lose it many times depending on the number of sins committed, their severity, and how much of the sacraments that they participate in--in order to regain grace which enables them to do good works by which they are justified. Furthermore, justifying grace is infused into the Catholic upon baptism and via the sacraments. This grace can be gradually lost through venial sins or forfeited all together with mortal sins.
In light of all of this, I've written three interrelated articles:
- Part 1, Attaining Salvation in Roman Catholicism
- Part 2, Maintaining Salvation in Roman Catholicism
- Part 3, Regaining Salvation in Roman Catholicism (this article)
- See also, Summary of process of salvation in Roman Catholicism
Salvation, or the state of being in sanctifying grace (infused grace that makes a person holy and acceptable to God), can be entirely lost if Mortal Sin is committed. Mortal sins are extremely serious sins such as murder, adultery, homosexuality, etc. Mortal sin is a transgression of God’s law that is willful, knowledgeable, and on purpose. Mortal sin results in the complete loss of all grace. The person’s relationship with God is severed. Mortal sins damn a person. If the person dies in a state of mortal sin, he goes to hell and will never escape.
- “Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell,” (CCC 1861).
- “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell,’” (CCC 1033).
In the article Maintaining Salvation in Roman Catholicism, penance was a means to replenish the lost grace due to venial sins. But, in regards to mortal sin, the Catholic must also perform penance in order to regain the sanctifying grace that is needed for salvation.
- "Penance is “necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism," (CCC 980)
- “The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God's grace . . . Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose and effect of this sacrament,” (CCC 1468).
- "As a means of regaining grace and justice, penance was at all times necessary for those who had defiled their souls with any mortal sin,” (Council of Trent, Session 14, c. i.).
- "As regards those who, by sin, have fallen from the received grace of Justification, they may be again justified, when, God exciting them, through the sacrament of Penance they shall have attained to the recovery, by the merit of Christ, of the grace lost: for this manner of Justification is of the fallen the reparation: which the holy Fathers have aptly called a second plank after the shipwreck of grace lost," (Council of Trent, Session 6, Decree on Justification, Chapter 14).
In order for penance to work, the person must be sincerely repentant and willing to perform the necessary actions given by a priest. In this process, a priest absolves the person’s sins and assigns penance--a series of things he must do.
- "In the forgiveness of sins, both priests and sacraments are instruments which our Lord Jesus Christ, the only author and liberal giver of salvation, wills to use in order to efface our sins and give us the grace of justification," (CCC 987).
- “Penance is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ in which forgiveness of sins committed after baptism is granted through the priest’s absolution to those who with true sorrow confess their sins and promise to satisfy for the same,” (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Penance).
- "the absolution given by the priest to a penitent who confesses his sins with the proper dispositions remits both the guilt and the eternal punishment (of mortal sin)," (Catholic Encyclopedia, Penance).
Penance can take different forms including reading scripture, restitution to the offended party, saying certain prayers such as the “Our Father” or the “Hail Mary” a specified number of times.
- “The penance the confessor imposes must take into account the penitent's personal situation and must seek his spiritual good. It must correspond as far as possible with the gravity and nature of the sins committed. It can consist of prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear. Such penances help configure us to Christ, who alone expiated our sins once for all. They allow us to become co-heirs with the risen Christ, "provided we suffer with him." “The satisfaction that we make for our sins, however, is not so much ours as though it were not done through Jesus Christ,” (CCC 1460).
What is important to note is that the works of Penance performed by the Roman Catholic help “make satisfaction” for sins.
- “Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must "make satisfaction for" or "expiate" his sins. This satisfaction is also called "penance," (CCC 1459).
The Catholic Catechism says that Penance is a work when it says, “works of penance” (CCC 1430). Therefore, we can see that Penance is, essentially, taking care of your own sins by undergoing a work that releases you from sins’ debt. This is works' righteousness, no matter what the Roman Catholic Church teaches!
There is nothing we can do in any way to merit the forgiveness of God. All that we need has been accomplished in the person of Christ who was made under the law (Galatians 4:4) and fulfilled the law perfectly having never sinned (1 Pet. 2:22). Because of the work of Christ, we receive his righteousness (Phil. 3:9) by faith (Rom. 5:1). What the Roman Catholic Church does is add a huge burden of works by which a Roman Catholic attempts to attain, maintain, and regain salvation. It is a hopeless process because it cannot save.
- "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law." (Rom. 3:28).
- "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness," (Rom. 4:5).
- “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly," (Gal. 2:21).
- "You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? 2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:1-3).
The addition of works to salvation invalidates salvation. Essentially, is saying that the work of God in flesh is not sufficient. This is why we have such verses that condemn salvation based on faith and works . . .
- “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'" (Matt. 7:22-23).
- “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. 11 “The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. 12 ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 “But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ 14 “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted." (Luke 18:10-14).
In essence, the Roman Catholic is supposed to perform works under the Roman Catholic system of law . . . it cannot save.
- "Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law," (Gal. 5:2-3).
- "For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them," (Gal. 3:10).
- "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all," (James 2:10). | <urn:uuid:9925a00a-00bd-43e8-abb8-57d59478367b> | {
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Technology Trappings: Is It Effecting Your Health?
You stuff your smartphone in your back pocket. You park it in your desk chair for 8 hours a day, almost non-stop. Your commute to work is accompanied by earbuds and an iPod on shuffle and repeat.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that we are living—breathing, sleeping, playing—more with technology than ever before, and it stands to reason that this must be affecting our health. How could it not?
Between mental and physical adaptation, technology has us changing our nature, and here’s the facts about what’s happening and on what you can do about it.
- The Mental Consequences
It’s true that technology has made our world’s so much more organized, efficient, and most importantly, connected, but it’s had it’s fair share of effecting our world as well.
You know how you get when you have something that looks like a blister from new shoes but you Google it and end up thinking you have cancer? It happens to everyone; the go-to search engine for everything is trustworthy enough for a little research, right? Wrong.
When you consult the World Wide Web instead of your physician, you end up with lots of different ideas that may be completely far from the truth—but it can still stress you out like the truth. Hypochondriacs everywhere know the feeling, and trying to self-diagnose through Google is exactly how to increase your anxiety. In this instance, we recommend not doing it; just pick up your phone and make an appointment, it will save you time, effort, and sanity.
If you think self-diagnosing is the biggest threat to your mental health with technology, think again; spending time with technology regularly is actually rewiring your brain. No, we are not making this up.
Due to the hours we spend on our devices, the hardwiring in our brains is constantly updating, teaching us what to do with our technology addiction, and freaking out when we go without it, just like real withdrawal. Special bootcamps in Korea have become internet famous for taking teens out of their virtual, video game playing worlds and tearing them from technology by going cold turkey. And it’s not pretty.
With Millenials spending up to 18 hours a day using technology, this fix is a simple one: just unplug. Whether you commit to having a technology free dinner, or insisting that you and your families have a specified time limit to spend on technology everyday, make sure you’re getting those hours away from the phone as well.
Sure, it will be difficult at first if you’re used to satisfying every down moment without an update of your Facebook newsfeed, but it’s not worth it to become addicted. Trust us, even Pixar can’t make the consequences look pretty.
- The Physical Consequences.
While your company’s SIP trunking system may be making it easier to network from home, and therefore increase your productivity on those days you are sick, or just can’t get out of your pajamas, it doesn’t mean the ease isn’t taking a toll on your body from the couch.
From pimples caused from the bacteria on your smartphone to weakened eyesight due to staring at a screen all day, it’s true all the tech hours are taking a toll.
You think you’re chatting with friends but you could be increasing acne and triggering eczema, putting pressure on your spine, or lowering your sperm count. And although it’s not official yet, “tech claw” (which is surprisingly similar to carpal tunnel) is caused by the exact curvature of your fingers and wrist when you work on a keyboard, tap on a screen, or click a mouse, and it’s wreaking havoc with your digits.
And while all of these things are bad, we like to think that you just need to put this information into perspective and not get scared away from the inevitable need for technology use (we’re not expecting everyone to recreate the plot line of The Village). If you take heed of these problems and plan accordingly, there’s no need to worry, because the answers for the mental consequences are the same for the physical ones; put your phone down every once and a while, it’s just good for you. | <urn:uuid:398571a5-f69b-4df3-948e-81a196a2801c> | {
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KIITEE Syllabus for Computer Science and Engineering
Unit-I: Programming Language C, C++:
Functions, array, storage classes, structure, file handling, union, data types, input and output operators, variables, control structure, operators, operator overloading, inheritance, function overloading, destructor, polymorphism, concepts of OOP, operators, classes, objects.
Unit-II: Data Structure and Operating Systems:
Linked list, time and space complexity, different sorting and searching techniques, tree, array, stack, string, graph, queue. Process, memory management, CPU scheduling, synchronization dead lock, virtual memory, real time system, time sharing system, distributed system, multiprogrammed system, concepts regarding batch system.
Unit-III: Digital Electronics and Microprocessor:
Flip flop, number system, Boolean algebra, different coding methods, sequential logic design that is counters and shift registers, logic gates, combinational logic design and minimization techniques. Assembly language programming, pin diagram and block diagram of 8085 microprocessors, instruction set addressing modes, interfacing peripheral devices, introduction to 8086 microprocessor, data transfer schemes, 8257 DMA, 8255 PPL, Dealy subroutine.
Unit-IV: Computer Organization and Architecture:
Interpreter, design of function units like ALU and CU, basic organization of computer, introduction to compiler, classification of computer, loader.
Memory Organization: Types of memory, ROM, RAM, Mapping functions, virtual memory, cache memory, secondary memory.
Input-output Organization: Data transfer techniques, methods of interfacing, interrupts, address-space partitioning.
Unit-V: Computer Network and Dbms:
Switching, error detection and correction, multiplexing, IEEE LAN standards, OSI reference model, Network topologies, TCP/CP model, routing methods, transmission media. Hierarchical, relational algebra, normal forms, network, SQL query, calculus, E-R models, introduction to database, different models-relational, advantages of database system, architecture of database, data independence. | <urn:uuid:db89e0d5-41d4-429f-83b0-d7731908f6c8> | {
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ROMANIAN ASTROHUMANISM (IX)
An essay by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe &
(Vice-President of the International Meteor Organization
and Meteor Section Director of Britainís Society for Popular Astronomy)
Design: Gabriel Ivanescu
Following on from Ade Dimmick's most interesting review of
draconic eclipse myths in The Dragon Chronicle 16 (1999, pp.33-35),
we thought it might be useful to expand on the points
he made about the Romanian eclipse dragons, the Varcolaci, and to explore
further types of eclipse myths containing draconic beasts in Romanian tales.
As Ade mentioned, the Romanian peasants' belief as described by Ion Ottescu
in Chapter 6: Eclipses of his "Romanian Peasants' Beliefs in the Stars & Sky"
(1907; unpublished English translation by the current authors, 1998)
is that solar or lunar eclipses occur when the Sun or Moon is eaten by
unearthly monsters called Varcolaci (from the Latin for "worm-like creatures",
proceeding from Vermicolacius, or Varkolak in Slavonic).
These creatures are explained in various ways as being either a kind of animal
smaller than a dog (or simply small dogs), balauri or zmei (on which
dragons see our TDC 13 article (1998, pp.21-23)),
animals with many mouths like octopus suckers, or ghosts called Pricolici.
They also have various origins, including appearing from children who
die unbaptised, from children born to unwed parents,
if someone chews maize while poking the fire,
if someone brushes dust towards the Sun while sweeping their house,
or if a woman spins without a candle in the night.
These lists read almost like pocket dictionaries of folkloric fears and taboos!
Ottescu comments further that the Romanian etymology of the word varcolac
indicates it derives from "wolf",
thus the little dogs should actually be little wolves.
Even this has its draconic element, since as we discussed in TDC 12
(1998, pp.13-19), the dragon battle standards from Dacia,
Romania in the time of ancient Rome,
consisted of a metallic wolf's head attached to
a serpentine cloth "windsock" body,
designed to roar and howl fearsomely at the Dacians' enemies.
According to Ottescu, some peasants think that eclipses of the Sun and Moon
happen when God commands the Varcolaci to eat them, in order to
scare people into abandoning their sinful ways.
A more poetic belief runs: "As Saint Sun and Saint Moon are very beautiful,
some monsters that live in the sky [the Varcolaci] desire to kiss them.
When they try to do so, however, they actually swallow them,
but the Sun and Moon are able to draw out of the monsters' mouths,
and return more beautiful than before."
"Kiss" here may be intended in a euphemistic sense,
rather like a vampire's kiss,
initially pleasurable but ultimately catastrophic.
Yet another explanation is that the Varcolaci gnaw at the Sun and Moon
so they can descend to harm the Earth-dwellers
in the ensuing perpetual darkness.
Fortunately the Sun and Moon can run very quickly,
and thus avoid permanent damage.
This touches on the important question of how the Moon or Sun remains
whole after being eaten.
One explanation is that as the Moon is more powerful than the Varcolaci,
she can only be bitten by them, because if she were to be swallowed,
it would mean the end of the world.
This is why the peasants make a terrific din when there are eclipses,
in order to scare away the Varcolaci.
However, some peasants prefer to light Easter candles and pray instead.
Another idea is that because the Moon is so great, she tires out the Varcolaci
which attack her, forcing them to release her out of exhaustion.
Alternatively, some peasants maintain that it can all be explained
through running; the Moon runs very quickly, while the slower-running Varcolaci
can only nip briefly at her, before falling behind.
In a solar eclipse, the Sun is saved
because in Romanian belief, he rides across the sky daily on a lion,
and the lion fights with the Varcolaci, protecting him.
In myths, we sometimes come across expanded versions of these ideas,
as for instance in "The Amulet Myth", a well-known tale most recently
published in Romanian under this title as Volume E 99 by the
Carmen Sylva High School, 1998.
In this, the Sun disguises himself as a handsome young man, and descends to
a village to dance a Hora.
We discussed the traditional Romanian ring-dance of the Hora in "The Great
Romanian Sky Dragon" (TDC 11, pp.11-14, 1997, especially see p.13).
We should note here that the Hora is also a symbol of Romanian national unity
(officially since the regions of Wallachia and Moldavia joined to become Romania
in 1859, though in fact the dance was of considerable importance long before then,
perhaps even from prehistoric times, as a Cucuteni-culture sculpture
from the 4th millennium BCE, found at Frumusica, eastern Romania,
is in the form of a Hora of six naked women).
More importantly here, it is also a solar symbol.
A commonly shouted chant during the dance is
"Play the Hora with your feet/ For the Sun to rise again!"
Having come down to Earth for the dance,
the Sun is abducted by a zmeu in its dragon-man form.
The zmeu and its captive are followed by a hero,
who tracks them all through the summer,
autumn and winter, before finally catching up with the dragon.
The ensuing fight thus occurs just before the beginning of spring, and naturally the
hero kills the zmeu, but he is fatally wounded during the combat, falls into the snow
and dies, reddening the snow with his blood.
In his memory every year between March 1st to 8th, Romanian men and boys
offer the women and girls an amulet with red and white tassels.
This is similar to the Bulgarian custom of the martenitsa, though for a different
reason (see "The Zmey of Bulgaria", Alastair McBeath & Eva Bojurova,
A similar myth, though with a happier ending, is "Greuceanul"
(translated into English here from Petre Ispirescu's collection
"Romanian Legends and Tales", Bucharest, 1882).
In this, a gang of zmei abduct the Sun and Moon.
Desperate, the Red Emperor (a curious, often very distant, character in
Romanian folklore, whom we discussed briefly in our article on
Mihai Eminescu's poems in TDC 16, 1999, pp.13-14) promises that
his daughter will marry whoever can liberate the celestial lights.
The brave hero Greuceanul, assisted by his friend the Craftsman of the Earth,
discovers the castle of the zmei, and after many adventures,
he defeats them one by one, firstly the youngest little zmeu,
then the older big zmeu, the father-zmeu, and each of their wives,
Finally, he must battle Scorpia, Mother of the Zmei (see our
"Gheonoaia & Scorpia" article in TDC 14, 1998, pp.25-27
for more details on her).
Here, Greuceanul fools Scorpia into swallowing a golden copy of him
made by the Craftsman, on which she chokes.
Having rescued the Sun and Moon, he naturally goes on to marry the
Red Emperor's daughter.
Lastly for this time, draconic eclipses, especially lunar ones, sometimes form
the backdrop for other tales, as a time suitable for magic or unusual,
One such is a tale turned to poetry in 1842 by Vasile Alecsandri (1819-1890;
he also composed the Romanian Unity Hora lyrics, was the founder of
Romanian poetic drama, and in 1881 was awarded the Latinity Prize in France).
This is "Baba Cloanta", literally "Old Mother Beak", first published in the
magazine Propasirea, in 1844.
Baba Cloanta usually appears in myths as an ancient, ugly, evil woman
with magical powers, the archetypal powerful, black-magic wielding,
She is sometimes treated as identical to Muma Padurii (Mother of the Forest),
who sleeps in serpentine coils around a fire, feeding her tree-sons with
sleep stolen from insomniac people.
In this story, Baba Cloanta falls in love with Fat Frumos,
the traditional Romanian hero we have frequently mentioned before.
She tries to bewitch the hero to fall for her,
as she hides in a bush by night.
A single shooting star sweeps across the firmament,
and then a dark spot appears on the Moon.
She begins her magic just as
"The varcolac is broadening/ Up there, on the Moon, like a cloud",
beginning the eclipse.
Of course, Fat Frumos is not so easily captured, and Baba Cloanta sells
her soul to the Devil to get her revenge on him,
but before she can catch him,
a cock crows signalling both dawn and the end of the eclipse,
as the Moon has returned to its normal bright silvery-whiteness
and the Sun comes up.
© 2007 SARM
(Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy) | <urn:uuid:bb2df98e-d556-4642-8bf9-b3440a2508fd> | {
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188.8.131.52 Subsidies and incentives
Direct and indirect subsidies can be important environmental policy instruments, but they have strong market implications and may increase or decrease emissions, depending on their nature. Subsidies aimed at reducing emissions can take different forms, ranging from support for Research and Development (R&D), investment tax credit, and price supports (such as feed-in tariffs for renewable electricity). Subsidies that increase emissions typically involve support for fossil fuel production and consumption. They tend to expand the subsidized industry, relative to the non-subsidy case. If the subsidized industry is a source of GHG emissions, subsidies may result in higher emissions. Subsidies to the fossil fuel sector result in over-use of these fuels with resulting higher emissions; subsidies to agriculture can result in the expansion of agriculture into marginal lands and corresponding increases in emissions. Conversely, incentives to encourage the diffusion of new technologies, such as those for renewables or nuclear power, may promote emissions reductions.
One of the significant advantages of subsidies is that they have politically positive distributional consequences. The costs of subsidies are often spread broadly through an economy, whereas the benefits are more concentrated. This means that subsidies may be easier to implement politically than many other forms of regulatory instruments. Subsidies do tend to take on a life of their own, which makes it difficult to eliminate or reduce them, should that be desired.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that in 2001 energy subsidies in OECD countries alone were approximately 20–80 billion US$ (IEA, 2001). The level of subsidies in developing and transition economy countries is generally considered to be much higher. One example is low domestic energy prices that are intended to benefit the poor, but which often benefit high users of energy. The result is increased consumption and delayed investments in energy-efficient technologies. In India, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) subsidies are generally intended to shift consumption from biomass to modern fuels, reduce deforestation and improve indoor air quality, particularly in poor rural areas. In reality, these subsidies are largely used by higher expenditure groups in urban areas, thus having little effect on the use of biomass. Nevertheless, removal of subsidies would need to be done cautiously, in the absence of substitutes, as some rural households use kerosene for lighting (Gangopadhyay et al., 2005).
OECD countries are slowly reducing their subsidies to energy production or fuel (such as coal) or changing the structure of their support to reduce the negative effects on trade, the economy and the environment. Coal subsidies in OECD countries fell by 55% between 1991 and 2000 (IEA, 2001). (See Chapter 7 for additional information.) About 460 billion US$ is spent on agricultural subsidies, excluding water and fisheries (Humphreys et al., 2003), with OECD countries accounting for about 318 billion US$ or 1.2% of the GDP. These subsidies result in the expansion of this sector with associated GHG implications (OECD, 2001, 2002).
Many countries provide financial incentives, such as tax credits for energy-efficient equipment and price supports for renewable energy, to stimulate the diffusion of technologies. In the USA, for example, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 contains an array of financial incentives for various advanced technologies; these financial incentives have been estimated at 11.4 billion US$ over a 10-year period.
One of the most effective incentives for fostering GHG reductions are the price supports associated with the production of renewable electricity, which tend to be set at attractive levels. These price supports have resulted in the significant expansion of the renewable energy sector in OECD countries due to the requirement that electric power producers purchase such electricity at favourable prices. The US Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act of 1978 requires electric utilities to buy renewable energy at “avoided cost”. In Europe, specific prices have been set at which utilities must purchase renewable electricity – these are referred to as ‘feed-in tariffs’. These tariffs have been effective at promoting the development of renewable sources of electricity (Ackermann et al., 2001; Menanteau et al., 2003). As long as renewables remain a relatively small portion of overall electricity production, consumers see only a small increase in their electricity rates. Incentives therefore have attractive properties in terms of environmental effectiveness, distributional implications and institutional feasibility. The main problem with them is cost-effectiveness: They are costly instruments, particularly in the long-run as interests and industries grow to expect the continuation of subsidy programmes. See Chapter 4.5 for a more extensive discussion. | <urn:uuid:0b315f2b-a47a-4181-977b-e8ff2bd8734a> | {
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Social scientists trying to understand what makes Americans tick often turn to cross-national surveys to compare Americans’ opinions to those of people in other countries. Such surveys show us, for example, that Americans are generally more religious, more patriotic, and more suspicious of government than are people most elsewhere.
A recent conference devoted to designing such international surveys made concrete an important point that I had perhaps appreciated too abstractly: There are deeper differences underneath the different answers Americans give. The very assumptions behind the questions that are asked, whether the questions even mean the same things, differ profoundly from nation to nation.
What is Heavy?
The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a consortium of top-notch survey organizations from nearly 50 countries. Each year, these organizations collaborate to mount parallel surveys asking the same questions to respondents around the world. They cover a range of topics, each year devoted to a particular theme. The 2012 meetings (which I attended as one of the two representatives of the U.S. General Social Survey) focused on the upcoming survey dealing with national identity and on the one after concerning citizenship.
One obvious concern the researchers have is making sure that the translations of questions from one language to another, or to variants of a language (Spanish in Spain is not exactly the same as Spanish in Chile), carry the same meanings. Sometimes, however, there are deeper issues than getting the translations right.
Take, as a relatively simple example, asking people in nations around the world whether they are proud of their country’s military. Complications arise. For one, there are a few countries with no military. For another, in a some countries, the military spends all its time on what we would consider local National Guard work or on UN peacekeeping and none actually fighting wars. And, in some countries, the military is so involved in domestic politics that to express an opinion about the military out loud to an interviewer is to take a stand on a very sensitive, risky topic.
Sometimes, cultural variations can be amusing. Sociologist Deborah Carr attended an ISSP conference that focused on designing questions about health. She wrote me,
One of my all-time favorite academic memories is witnessing an intense debate at ISSP regarding health behavior items. The eastern European contingent scoffed at the western European’s notion of “heavy drinking” while the Italian and French rep’s chuckled at the U.S./Canadian perspective that 2 packs a day constituted “heavy” smoking.
A more complex and sometimes darker example is the notion of “ethnic” – as in identifying one’s own ethnic group or discussing ethnic conflict.
Although the term, ethnic, has ragged edges in the U.S., we generally understand that it refers to something about biological descent, to categories like African-, Asian-, Latin-, and Native-American. In other nations, however, the term’s closest translation either makes no sense or, at best, points to a different social dimension altogether – to a person’s religion (say, Muslim vs. Hindu, Protestant vs. Catholic, Shia vs. Sunni, etc.); caste (as in India’s Dalit); tribe (or tribal alliance in places like Kenya); nation of long-ago immigrant ancestors (“Kiss me, I’m Irish” on March 17); nation of long-ago territory that was later absorbed by another (say, “Germans” living in a region of Poland that was once part of Germany); indigenous versus colonial ancestry; language spoken at home; and a host of idiosyncratic cases (for example, the Roma people who camp throughout Europe). Some small countries are so homogenous that their “ethnic groups” may be a tiny few percent of the population and the whole topic is relatively unimportant. Elsewhere, in sharp contrast, the term closest to “ethnic” is such a hot topic that just asking or answering a question about it can put the interviewer and the interviewee in danger.
Similar confusions can occur in asking people what their “nationality” is. We Americans assume that the correct answer would be what it says on your passport – your citizenship. But in some places in the world, people affirm “nationalities” that challenge what it says on their passports. In parts of the world, eastern Europe for example, many people claim that their “nationality” is the country that their town or village used to be part of, before the latest war or border changes. Try and correct them and you could start a fight.
There is an even deeper level yet to the cultural variations in survey answers. Westerners, especially Americans, take it for granted that each individual has his or her own personal opinion and is willing, maybe eager, to tell it. This assumption makes sense in our culture, where we believe that we are all unique individuals who are independent, self-governing, and ultimately self-responsible (see this earlier post).
However, in many other cultures still today – although fewer of them as western ideas spread across the globe – this is an odd notion. A person is just part of a whole. The very idea of asking an individual for a personal opinion is confusing when the individual is not expected to form separate opinions (especially on topics far from daily life) and when it’s the group’s or the leader’s opinion that means anything. Indeed, if an interviewer really wants to know the right answer to a question – say, what the country’s foreign policy ought to be – wouldn’t a group provide a better analysis than a lone person? Psychologist Patricia Greenfield noted this challenge to western research methods in her studies of indigenous weavers in Chiapis, Mexico (abstract):
I envisioned each girl and each mother as an individual participant with an individual interview protocol. But that is not how my participants saw it. The notion that a girl would have an independent viewpoint, an independent piece of knowledge, or an independent perspective was not within their world view. Instead, they expected more knowledgeable mothers to answer for young girls and for members of the family grouping to answer questions cooperatively. . . . [The] information would be as valid as possible because of it being the product of a group effort. The partitioning of this information individual by individual was at odds with their world view.
The implication of all this is not to discredit surveys. Certainly, the ISSP researchers who unearth and struggle with these complexities persist in developing, mounting, and analyzing their polls. They – we – do so, however, quite aware of the different layers of meaning. Indeed, the surveys themselves reveal and help us understand these deeper levels of difference.
(Re-posted by The Berkeley Blog, July 13, 2012.) | <urn:uuid:1b144509-a181-40cb-8c9b-a164162c7187> | {
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In 1955 Ethel Gagi Mosby-Anderson (1937-2004) became the first islander typist at the office of the Director of Native Affairs on Thursday Island. She is seen here using an Imperial 50 standard typewriter.
Thursday Island is in the Torres Strait Islands archipelago 24 miles north of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia.
A referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia's constitution will be discussed at a summit in Sydney on Monday. Leaders from the Indigenous community and both sides of the nation's politics will attempt to find common ground on the details of the proposal. About 40 Indigenous representatives are expected to attend the consultations, which will be crucial to settling a question to put to voters. One plan is to hold the vote on the 50th anniversary of the successful May 1967 referendum that granted increased rights to Indigenous Australians, but the vote could be held at the next federation election, possibly as early as next year.
That it took until 1955 for an islander to be appointed a typist in the office of the Director of Native Affairs on Thursday Island says something about Australia's poor race record.
The Australian referendum of May 27, 1967, determined whether two references in the Australian Constitution, which discriminated against Aboriginal people, should be removed. This resulted in the highest 'Yes' vote ever recorded in a federal referendum, with 90.77 per cent voting for change. Because the majority of parliamentarians supported the proposed amendment, a 'No' case was never formulated for presentation as part of the referendum campaign.
Aboriginal people did not become Australian citizens until 1949, when a separate Australian citizenship was created for the first time (before that time all Australians, including Aborigines, were British subjects). The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1949 gave Aborigines the right to vote in federal elections if they were able to vote in their state elections, or if they had served in the defence force. However, Aboriginal people in Queensland were disqualified from voting until 1965, and in Western Australia and the Northern Territory the right was conditional (Indigenous people voted in the West Australia election in 1962). The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 gave all Aborigines the option of enrolling to vote in federal elections. It was not until the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 1983 that voting became compulsory for Aborigines as it was for other Australians. One result of the two constitutional amendments in 1967 was that Indigenous Australians ceased to be mentioned at all in the national constitution.
An Aboriginal girl, using a Royal, is among those being supervised by a nun in a typing and adding machine class at the Home of the Good Shepherd in Ashfield, Sydney, in 1963.
It has always been a very different story in neighbouring New Zealand, as this 1906 photograph of a Māori woman at a Remington standard typewriter in Christchurch perhaps reflects.
Māori gained ‘all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects’ under Article Three of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. When the position of Māori was challenged because of their ‘non-British’ (communal) form of land tenure, their status as British subjects was confirmed by the Native Rights Act 1865. For New Zealand’s first election, in 1853, voters had to be male, aged 21 or over, and British subjects who either owned or rented property worth a moderate amount of money. Only a few Māori could vote, as most Māori land was owned collectively. In 1867 the government created four Māori electorates which covered the whole country. All Māori men aged 21 or over became eligible to vote for these Māori seats. Separate Māori seats still existed in the early 2000s, voted on by people registered on the Māori electoral roll. Since 1974 Māori have had to choose whether to be on either the Māori roll or the general roll. | <urn:uuid:64bda37e-5edc-49a6-8d87-1cf4d8995cdc> | {
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Where do I begin ?
A common question asked by a newbie is "I've just unpacked this huge tarball, and I want to help out, but I don't know where to start!"
It may seem daunting to be confronted with such a large amount of source code, but bear in mind, that very few kernel hackers understand every area of the kernel tree.
People specialise. If you're interested in TCP/IP, you'll not be needing to read the filesystem code. Figure out what it is you want to be working on, and focus on that.
Linux is a professional-quality kernel. This makes it difficult to come up with small "student projects" by which you can learn: often features are already implemented, and at a level that requires a good level of understanding before you can hack on them. However, there are several practical things and useful things you can do until you have learned enough to really start hacking :
Test and benchmark
- New code is constantly evolving, benchmark it. You will certainly notice some odd behaviours: there is your impetus to understand where the behaviour is coming from. Profile things, trace it (e.g. LTT), see if you can work out what might be causing problems. You'll learn the code by accident. Try out experimental patches posted to linux-kernel and trees like mjc's. Try and understand what a particular patch does, and how it does it.
- Sounds boring ? Maybe, but you'll be doing everybody a favour, not least yourself. Forcing yourself to explain things crystalises your own understanding. Documentation of behaviour requires you to understand code. You'll find code a lot easier to read if you are directed to answering a specific question. Write articles for kernelnewbies and get them peer-reviewed in the IRC channel. Identify inaccuracies in the current man-pages, and fix them. Add source docs to the kernel source.
Kernel janitors is a project to fix mis-use of kernel APIs as the code mutates. This can quickly get pretty interesting. An educational talk on the project can be read here
For more tips, see the CompleteNewbiesClickHere page.
Start reading the LKML (Linux Kernel Mailing List). Read all sorts of different threads and gradually you'll pick up on the lingo - you'll probably also learn a thing or two about the kernel at the same time (and it's a great way to pick up info on things that need doing - if you see something discussed that you think you can fix, then you can jump right in and offer to fix it - but don't forget to let people know if you give up so someone else can take over). Don't worry if you don't understand everything at first, just start following the list and pick up the bits you can. (ohh and when you post to the list, don't top-post).
You can also take a look at http://www.kernelnewbies.org/KernelGlossary for a list of the most common terms with short explanations.
Let me see if I can give you some ideas on easy things to start with.
There are lots of things that need doing and some of them don't even require programming skills.
You can help improve the documentation. Even a simple thing such as fixing spelling errors or correcting grammar is worth doing.
It's also helpful if you dig for Kconfig help entries that are blank, work out what the config option is for and write a patch that add a suitable help entry.
You can also help out by simply running the daily git snapshots and/or latest -mm kernels on a regular basis. Use them as your every-day kernel, watch for regressions and bugs (build them with some of the debugging options enabled). Then if/when you spot a regression or bug (make it a habit to check dmesg once in a while), write up a detailed bug report and submit it to the list and relevant maintainers. That's a *very* useful thing to do. You can also try to actively provoke bugs by stressing different areas of the kernel or just by trying out unusual things. Personally the first thing I do every morning when I turn on my PC is fetch the latest git snapshot from kernel.org, build it, install it, boot it and then use that as my kernel for the day (ok, maybe not every day, but at least I do it every other day). It's perfect if you are able to fix the bug you found and can submit a patch along with your bug report, but it's in no way required. If you can submit a detailed and well written bug report then that is worth it's weight in gold.
You can also take a look at the Kernel janitors TODO list - http://kernelnewbies.org/KernelJanitors/Todo - it lists a lot of minor things that need to be done. Some of it seems trivial and tedious work, but it's often a great place to find some beginners projets to cut your teeth on.
You can also dig through the source looking for files that don't conform to the official kernel CodingStyle (see Documentation/CodingStyle for details). Then clean up the file so it does conform (hint: scripts/lindent is helpful to get started but don't assume it gets everthing right, it needs manual verification and correction).
Another easy thing to get started with is simply build a lot of kernels, log all the output from the build process, look for any warnings or errors that show up, pick one at a time, investigate *why* the compiler warns or errors out, create a patch to fix the problem, submit it, listen to the feedback you get (possibly correct the patch), then move on to the next warning/build error. "make randconfig" is useful to generate a bunch of random configs to build and is an easy way to gather lots of warnings and errors to investigate (just make sure you don't waste time on configs that are generated with CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL set - skip those). This is useful work.
As you get more experienced you can try to get involved in projects discussed on the LKML (you should be following this list regularly by now) that interrest you.
I'd say doing a little bit of all of the above is a good way to start. It'll let you get aqainted with a lot of different parts of the kernel. It'll let you get comfortable with submitting patches and working with other developers and you'll be doing useful work fairly quickly.
Some more general advice;
Before you do anything else make sure you have (as a minimum) read the following documents :
From the kernel source:
I should probably also stress the importance of keeping up-to-date backups of any important data you have on your machine or using a sepperate development machine when running development kernels. Although bugs that end up eating your files and/or filesystems are rare these days they still happen from time to time, so just make sure that that's not a problem.
Also, when running development kernels you *will* run into Oops'es (crashes) more often than when only running the stable kernels. And when you do, capturing the Oops output is very important, but often the system will be in no state to write it to your logs or you may be in X and don't even see it get printed on the console or the system just hangs. Be prepared to capture bugs, either by running a serial console on another machine where you can record the Oopses when they happen or use netconsole (useful, but not as reliable as serial console in my experience). If you have a printer, then console on line printer can also be useful. If you can do none of those, then taking a photo of the screen with the Oops on it or writing it down by hand (*all* of it) will have to do. You probably also want to make sure your kernels have magic sysrq support build in so you can (at least attempt to) do an emergency flush, and unmount of your filesystems when the box hangs followed by an emergency reboot... That's a lot better than just hitting the power button. sysrq can also be used to capture stack traces for running programs, get memory dumps etc. See Documentation/sysrq.txt for details.
Also, please always submit patches in plain text generated with "diff -up" inline in a plain-text email. No HTML mails. No attachments. Plain text with patch inline (and do test send the patches to your self first the first few times and try applying them to make sure your mailer doesn't mangle them). Also always include a diffstat and a Signed-off-by: line (the above documents have details on this). You also don't want to mix different types of changes in the same patch. If for example you have been doing a warning fix as well as a general CodingStyle cleanup of a file, then don't include both in the same patch but submit two distinct patches instead (in 2 emails) that each do just one thing. Also always include in the description of your patch not just what it does but also *why* it does it.
At some point in time you probably also want to learn how to use git - http://git.or.cz/ - which is what Linus and lots of other core developers use to manage the kernel source.
Some additional pages to visit online for more info etc : | <urn:uuid:a9a45884-09ba-41ed-ab6e-abece3334665> | {
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LiveMD recognizes the fact that clean, safe drinking water is one of the most important factors to good health and a lack of it is one of the leading causes of sickness and death in developing countries. Today we look at the importance of potable water and discuss the health issues that arise due to drinking from contaminated sources.
Why is Clean Drinking Water so Important?
There are close to 900 million people across the globe that do not have easily accessible, clean drinking water. These people are are being exposed to chemicals, bacteria, and parasites by drinking contaminated water which is leading to dehydration, diseases and death. 65% of the human body is made up of water. It is a necessity for life in order to flush toxins out of our body and assists in the digestion of food. Without consuming water, a person can live for only 3 days.
How Does this Issue Affect Women?
The lack of clean drinking water is a major issue for women and young girls. The majority of the people that are affected by this problem live in rural areas and must travel many miles, by foot, in order to obtain safe water. Heavy buckets of water must then be carried back to their homes. This task is usually assigned to the women of the communities meaning that young girls do not have time for schooling and education and older women do not have the time to find proper employment to assist in supporting their families.
What Diseases are Caused by Contaminated Water Sources?
There are many diseases that can be caused by drinking contaminated water. Some of the most common are:
- Arsenicosis and Fluorosis – High levels of arsenic and fluoride in water supplies are extremely common and can be very toxic. Long-term exposure to these chemicals can cause severe health complications such as painful lesions on the skin, bone disease and certain cancers.
- Diarrhoea – Diarrhoea is caused by ingesting bacteria through unsafe water supplies. The soft and runny stools that it causes can cause severe dehydration and accounts for 4,000 deaths every day around the world. The people most affected are those under the age of 5.
- Cholera – This is an infection that occurs, due to the ingestion of bacteria, in the intestinal tract. It causes very severe diarrhoea that can quickly lead to dehydration and death.
- Guinea Worm Disease – Also known as Dracunculiasis, this disease is contracted from drinking water that is contaminated with the dracunculus larvae. This larvae enters the body and begins to mature. It can grow to measure up to 3 feet in length. When the worm is ready to exit the body and lay eggs of its own, it begins to burrow out through the skin leaving large sores and ulcers which are painful and can become infected. The best method of prevention for this disease is by always drinking through a specialized, filtered straw.
- Intestinal Worms – Intestinal worms are another common problem that are ingested through contaminated water. These parasitic worms live in the intestines and cause stunted growth in children, anemia and malnutrition.
- Schistosomiasis – This disease, also known as bilharzia, is caused by a parasite that lives in water. A person who bathes or washes their clothes in the infected water or ingests this water can contract this disease. After contraction, damage can occur to the liver, lungs, bladder and intestines.
- Trachoma – Often because of a lack of clean, fresh water, people suffer from poor sanitation and hygiene. Trachoma is a disease that is common in those lacking good hygiene practices and is characterized by blindness. Over 6 million people in the world today are blind because of this disease. Access to safe water sources can prevent this disease.
- Typhoid – Characterized by headaches, nausea and a loss of appetite, Typhoid fever occurs when water sources become contaminated with this disease and are then ingested. Over 12 million people suffer from this disease each year.
LiveMD is aware of the dangers of living without access to clean water supplies. Our doctors are here to provide you with advice on how to minimize your risk of contracting diseases associated with contaminated water and can provide the best possible treatment options for those who have already fallen ill. Visit www.mylivemd.com and book your appointment today and talk to a doctor by phone, video, or text.
Select a LiveMD doctor below and talk by Phone, Text, Video Chat, or In-Person. | <urn:uuid:9292e540-7423-45d3-8ecd-502c3316d805> | {
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The National Quality Framework (NQF) reforms acknowledge that good outcomes for children can only be supported by qualified and professional educators, who regularly reflect on their own – and their colleagues’ – practice. As with any profession, research and knowledge is always changing and being updated. It’s important that educators, no matter what their qualifications or experience, always remember to give themselves time and space to discuss and analyse their own work.
Reflection is a significant underlying foundation of the NQF. The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is not a set and structured curriculum, but a guide to help services and educators develop their own approach to children’s learning that will best support the specific children, families and communities that they work with. Even the National Quality Standard (NQS) can be interpreted and applied in different ways in different contexts – there are many ways to Meet or Exceed the NQS. Successful interpretation and implementation can only be achieved through critical reflection.
The NQF acknowledges how important critical reflection is in several ways. “Ongoing learning and reflective practice” is one of the Principles of the EYLF, and the Educator’s Guide to the EYLF features an entire chapter on “Reflective practice for improvement”. Element 1.3.2 of the NQS ensures that “Critical reflection on children’s learning and development, both as individuals and in groups, drives program planning and implementation. .”
The EYLF also specifically acknowledges the importance of using critical reflection to challenge practice from a social justice perspective – for example, it can be challenging to take an accepted practice like celebrating Christmas in Australia, and think about what that may mean to many families in your service. Why is one cultural celebration prioritised over another?
Interestingly however, it seems that critical reflection is an aspect of professional practice that as a sector we most struggle with. Data from ACECQA reveals that NQS Standard 1.2, which includes Element 1.2.3, is the Standard that is the most likely to be rated as Working Towards of all 18 Standards (under the old NQS system).
It’s hard to determine exactly why that is the case, and every service and jurisdiction is different. My own experience working in the sector suggests that we’re still not comfortable with being critical about our own work, and the work of our colleagues, in ways that are positive rather than negative. Working in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a physically and emotionally demanding job, requiring a daily and continual focus on the wellbeing of others rather than yourself. It’s entirely understandable that to then have to sit down and discuss what needs to improve can be daunting.
It could also be a reaction to a lack of professional recognition of the important role educators undertake in our community. Particularly prior the NQF, and even now, we were “child care workers”, or “child minders” – little better than babysitters. There is still a huge way to go in the community properly valuing early childhood education and the work of educators. So for many, critical reflection may be seen as another negative “attack” on their work, rather than a crucial part of ongoing professional development and recognition. The more reflective and open to improvement we become, the better we become at our roles. Which means better outcomes for children, families and communities – and in the end, a greater understanding and valuing of our work.
The key is to find ways to be critical, without being negative. To reflect, without becoming upset. To focus on the professional, not the personal. Critical reflection isn’t a choice, it’s an integral part of the NQS. So educators and services need to find some ways to support that process in ways that make sense for their own individual teams and communities.
Reflecting as an individual educator can be achieved in a large variety of ways, and educators should try to find a way that works best for them. This might be a reflection journal, a conversation with a mentor or colleague, voice recordings or even painting or drawing. If you’re a part of a team, you might need to discuss this requirement with your Director or Manager – you may have to share some of your reflections with others.
Sharing in teams can present the most challenges, as it can be a confronting experience sharing your own reflections and reflecting on the practice of others. Teams need strong and clear leadership to be able to engage in critical discussions – Centre Directors (and other leaders) should reflect on the culture within their teams. Is there scope for a culture of critical inquiry?
This culture can be helped by providing clear guidelines for discussions – to always focus on the professional, and not the personal (e.g., talking about a specific piece of documentation in a way that reflects on the actual documentation, not the person who wrote it); for it to be a requirement of all of the team, including leaders; and for possible solutions and positives to be offered as part of any critical discussion.
Every team is different, but ways to start might be:
- for learning documentation to be displayed in the staff room for comment, discussion and support. Becoming comfortable with sharing our work with our colleagues is vital for critical reflection, and having our work open in a safe and collegial space could help those who struggle with discussing their work;
- To make it a requirement to include discussion of at least one positive and one “room-for-improvement” item in every professional discussion, until it becomes everyday practice;
- To provide educators with “questions to guide reflection” from the Guide to the National Quality Standard on a regular basis, and share the answers as a team.
- To pick a topic and ask these important questions from the Early Years Learning Framework: “who is advantaged when I work this way? Who is disadvantaged?” (EYLF, p. 13).
The only way to become comfortable with critical reflection is to do it regularly, in safe and professional spaces. Educators and teams need to work together to find the means that will support this to happen. | <urn:uuid:bb721337-6cbc-4250-a341-9263d0d8ef14> | {
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Soil Properties and Native Plant Communities in a Kansas Prairie
Gordon, Carol Sue
Weil, Ray R.
MetadataShow full item record
I hypothesized that the relative proportion of grasses and legumes in native prairie communities are associated with physical and chemical soil properties. In a greenhouse study, I determined species responses to differences in soils ex situ by individually growing three grasses, two legumes, and two composites in soils from four sites on a never-plowed prairie at The Land Institute in Saline County, KS. The highest organic matter (OM) soil produced the highest plant dry matter for five of the species. In a field study, I measured 20 soil properties in 24 quadrats (0.5 m2) with high, low, or no legume cover on the same four sites. After incubation, NH4 in subsurface soils was lower for high legume cover suggesting higher nitrification. Discriminant multivariate analysis showed the ratio, active C as a percent of total C, and percent OM were the most closely associated surface soil variables with percent legume cover. | <urn:uuid:09b923c2-0b5c-46fc-b4ae-989cc7b17662> | {
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A Piece of Ocean in a Landlocked City
The Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium of its kind in the world, opened its doors in late 2005 as a gift to the people of Atlanta from the co-founder of Home Depot, Bernard “Bernie” Marcus. Determined to bring the ocean 300 miles inland to the metropolis capital of this southern state in which his company originated, Marcus donated 250 million dollars to the venture, declaring that this facility would educate visitors of all ages about the animal world, promoting “stewardship in conservation”.
Quickly becoming one of Atlanta’s most popular attractions, the Georgia Aquarium is the only facility in the western hemisphere to house whale sharks. The largest fish in the ocean, whale sharks can grow to be over thirty feet long and weigh roughly twenty tons, and the Georgia Aquarium’s Ocean Voyager exhibit boasts four of these animals.
Dinner Is Served
While imposing in size, this animal is a filter feeder, meaning that it scoops small fish and plankton, but not much else is on the menu. In fact, though these animals’ mouths can be up to four feet wide, the size and shape of their esophagus inhibits them from swallowing anything larger than a quarter.
These feeding restrictions and habits have forced the aquarists at the aquarium to implement some rather unique techniques when lunchtime rolls around. The sharks’ caretakers cannot simply toss buckets of food into the water and cross their fingers that each individual gets its share. Every ounce of food for each animal is calculated every day and is prepared with the same accuracy in cleanliness that your food is in a restaurant. The USDA even evaluates and inspects the kitchen, which, in the zoological world, is called a commissary.
The sharks also lack the ability to sit in front of the aquarists with its head tilted upwards waiting for an afternoon snack. Whale sharks must constantly be on the move as it is this movement that forces water into their mouths and over their gills, giving them the ability to breathe.
Being that the sharks cannot be stationary, at feeding time, the aquarists climb into inflatable boats and use what could be described as shark-sized spoons to deliver a mixture of krill, shrimp, and nutrient-rich gel to each shark as it swims alongside. The hardworking aquarists use a cable or line system to pull themselves, the food mixture, the very large utensil, and, of course, the boat across the exhibit (which is about as long as a football field). Alice, Trixie, Yushan, and Taroko, the four whale sharks at the aquarium have been trained to follow their own boats, each only being fed from a specific “lane”. This activity occurs several times a day and, in total, the whale sharks are offered nearly twenty thousand pounds of food each year!
Not only does each shark get a specific diet, tailored just for them, but for each animal in its care, the Georgia Aquarium develops a healthcare plan to ensure their residents’ wellbeing. For the whale sharks, that means a variety of data collections, including behavior analysis, body measurements, and blood draws.
Because the Georgia Aquarium is in the unique position of being one of the only aquariums to care for and study these animals (the only one outside of Asia), it has the opportunity to research and discover many “firsts” that help us learn more about the specifics of this species.
For example, it was the first in the world to study and assess the biochemistry of whale sharks. By comparing the serums of healthy animals to those of unhealthy animals, researchers from the Georgia Aquarium were able to determine that certain markers in a whale shark’s blood could indicate its general health. Implementing a science known as metabolomics, which involves identifying substances necessary for metabolism, and using advanced technology such as a mass spectrometer, the researchers discovered that the metabolite homarine, as well as twenty-five more compounds, was a meaningful indicator in evaluating the health of a whale shark.
Now, that’s a lot of aquarist/biologist/shark-expert jargon (and, if you understood, feel free to read more about it here), but basically, what that means is that, not only does this information assist those who work with these animals every day, but it also has the ability to aid the scientific community in the field as they continue the attempt to conserve this species.
Listed as vulnerable on the IUCN’s red list, whale sharks are still hunted in some parts of the world. The Georgia Aquarium acquired its four sharks from Taiwan, a country that, at one time, killed sixty whale sharks in one year, but has now reduced that figure to zero. The government of Taiwan has since partnered with the Georgia Aquarium in hopes of leading as an example for other countries to follow suit in whale shark conservation.
Conducting research on whale sharks in the wild is no easy task. The whale shark population continues to trend downward and scientists still know very little about their ecology, including growth rates, longevity, and migration patterns. The Georgia Aquarium is not only doing research on property, where the Ocean Voyager exhibit provides the opportunity to observe these animals as researchers learn about their growth rates, age at maturity, and behavioral tendencies, but also in the field, as they have become official partners with Project Domino, an organization that uses satellite tags to track individual sharks. Early studies have shown that one individual traveled over eight thousand miles, a journey that took more than three years to complete.
Let’s Do Our Part!
If you are interested in the Georgia Aquarium and their research projects revolving around whale sharks, there are a couple ways you can help. The Georgia Aquarium, which is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, relies on the public’s support through donations and attendance. So, one way to help is to go and witness these animals up close. You can even learn about these animals from a diver while he/she is inside the exhibit!
But, there are even more immersive ways to learn! If standing outside the habitat still feels too far away, you can get even closer by snorkeling or scuba diving inside the exhibit.
Thank you for being interested in whale shark research, of which so much could not have been conducted without the help and expertise of the Georgia Aquarium.
And, of course, thank you for visiting Zoos Are Important! | <urn:uuid:1709e9f7-2aa9-4fa9-aa1b-cf95e8ba4caa> | {
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Infectious Tracheobronchitis, commonly known as kennel cough, is a bronchitis illness characterized by a harsh, hacking cough. Most people say the cough sounds as though their dog has something stuck in his throat.
Kennel cough is similar to a chest cold in humans and will generally resolve itself on its own with no medications necessary. Under certain circumstances, however, it can be deadly, and requires effective treatment. Here are the basics on the condition, and how to know when to seek help.
How do dogs become infected with kennel cough?
The respiratory tract of a normal, healthy dog has substantial safeguards against invading infectious agents.
The most important safeguard is called the mucociliary escalator. The escalator is made up of tiny, hair like structures, called cilia, which protrude from the cells lining the respiratory tract.
There is a coat of mucus over the hairs and this mucous traps debris, including infectious agents, and the cilia move the mucus and the trapped debris up to the throat where it is either coughed up and/or swallowed.
The mucociliary escalator can be damaged by:
- Stress from being shipped
- Stress from overcrowding
- Exposure to heavy dust
- Exposure to cigarette smoke
- Infectious viral agents such as reovirus, adenovirus, parainfluenza, and distemper
- Prolonged exposure to cold temperatures
- Poor ventilation
Without the mucociliary escalator, invading bacteria can simply invade the dog’s airways unimpeded.
A bacterium called Bordetella bronchiseptica can cause much distress in dogs because it has defenses against the mucociliary escalator:
- Within three hours of contact, it can attach to the cilia, leaving them unable to move.
- It then secretes a substance that disables the immune cells that normally consume and destroy bacteria.
Since Bordetella usually invades the dog’s body with another bacteria or virus such as the ones mentioned above, kennel cough is actually the result of multiple attacks rather than by one agent.
Most dogs are infected when they are contained in a hot, crowded area that receives poor air circulation but lots of warm air, such as a boarding kennel, obedience class, an animal shelter or hospital, or a grooming parlor. Most acute coughing in dogs is due to infection and usually is some form of kennel cough.
How contagious is kennel cough?
Bordetella infection is not contagious to humans (although it is similar to whooping cough), but it can be passed through many animals. It is particularly contagious among dogs who are stressed, have not had vaccinations against it, and have been exposed to other minor viruses.
Dogs should be kept current on their Bordetella vaccinations because you cannot always be sure when they might be placed in a situation that exposes them to the virus.
How is kennel cough treated?
Most cases of kennel cough go away on their own, but some doctors will prescribe antibiotics in hopes of killing the Bordetella organism. You can also give the infected dog vet-approved cough suppressants to provide comfort while he battles the illness. Your veterinarian may prescribe a combination of antibiotics and cough suppressants for optimal comfort and recovery time.
When is kennel cough considered a serious condition?
It can be very serious for young puppies, especially if they have been shipped recently, such as pet store puppies. They are especially prone to severe cases of infectious bronchitis that frequently progress to pneumonia. Moreover, since the virus incubates for two to twelve days, an owner may suddenly find himself with a very sick puppy.
If a dog that has the distemper virus is exposed to Bordetella the potential for serious problems is extremely high.
There are two options for kennel cough vaccination:
An injection is the method of choice for aggressive dogs, who may try to bite if their muzzle is restrained. Injections provide good systemic immunity if dogs are given two doses after they are four months old and receive an annual booster. It’s possible that an injected vaccination may only lead to less severe infection, rather than complete prevention of infection.
Intranasal vaccination can be administered to puppies as young as two weeks, with immunity generally lasting for ten to twelve months. Typically, your dog should receive a booster dose annually. The advantage of the intranasal vaccination is that immunity is stimulated in the nasal passages, right where the natural infection tries to take hold.
Intranasal vaccination needs four days to become effective, so try to anticipate when your dog may be exposed and vaccinate accordingly. Some dogs will sneeze or have some nasal discharge for up to a week after the intranasal vaccination. Usually the nasal vaccination provides faster immunity than the injected vaccination.
If your dog is already incubating kennel cough, the vaccination is useless.
My dog’s been infected. What if the symptoms aren’t improving?
While kennel cough usually clears up on its own, there should be partial relief after one week of treatment. If there is no improvement, consult your veterinarian about bringing your dog in for a re-check. He may advise doing chest x-rays at this time.
Source: Adapted from Veterinary Information Network | <urn:uuid:9a8096db-48cd-4aa3-b6f5-736dd95ef74f> | {
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Sunday, July 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Wednesday, February 05, 2014
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Thursday, November 21, 2013
DNA indicates Eurasian roots for Native Americans, new study says:
Saturday, October 26, 2013
1513 - 1600"
Considering the important part played by interpreters in facilitating contact, communication, cultural exchange, and conflict resolution in the early colonial period, there have been surprisingly few individual or collective historical biographies of these influential individuals.Although a few anthropologists and historians recently have taken up the cause of these "conduits" of the colonial frontiers, many of their monographs tend to depict these individuals either as "victims" – "weathercocks buffeted by the shifting political winds in one or both cultures," or as "heroes" – "master mediators" who had been "culturally-enlarged" into "150% men."While there is some truth to both of these views, neither characterization does justice to the colorful lives, complex roles, and checkered careers of the diverse peoples that ethnohistorians have begun to lump together under the generic label of"cultural brokers."To date, only one historian, Eugene Lyon, has directly addressed (if briefly) this important subject in the context of the Spanish borderlands frontier as this paper will endeavor to do in a more comprehensive manner.
In examining the culturally ambiguous characters that served as interpreters in La Florida's early contact period, it is not possible to construct a single composite portrait that would sufficiently represent the diversity of their motives, choices, and life experiences.On the other hand, at least six distinct types of interpreters may be identified: abducted Amerindians, captured and redeemed Castilian castaways, foreign prisoners, youthful catechists and missionaries, acculturated Indian caciques and cacicas, and Spanish garrison soldiers.As often as not, these individuals did not choose the career of cultural broker, but were kidnapped, enslaved, or compelled to assume the role of interpreter or intermediary by Spanish conquistadores and Indian caciques.Since the interpreter figured prominently in the negotiation of truces and peace-settlements, conquistadores and caciques had to be prepared either to win the go-betweens' loyalty with generous gifts and kindnesses, or to coerce their cooperation with threats of punishment.Although the linguistic skills of these "middlemen" may have made them more sensitive to the cultural values of both parties, it is important to remember that the extraordinary individuals acting as mediators were ordinary men and women in pursuit of their own self-interest.Collectively, however, their individual actions and "personal dramas influenced, changed, and sometimes even dictated the course of colonial development."
From the outset of expansion from the islands to the mainland, the Spaniards recognized the importance of training Indians to act as intermediaries and spokes persons.One of the earliest acculturative strategies they employed in attempting the conquest and colonization of La Florida involved abducting a few "savages" from the coast, transporting them to Spain or a nearby colonial capital, and indoctrinating them in the Castilian language, culture, and Catholic faith.The Spanish monarchs and their colonial councils confidently assumed that Amerindians transported to Europe would be so impressed by the material culture, powerful navies, architecture, and mode of living they witnessed, that these Indians would become zealous advocates as well as eager interpreters for the Spanish colonists upon their return to their homelands.
Colonial administrators recognized the importance of winning the favor of these linguistic and cultural mediators and expended much time, money, and flattery to ensure that their "savage" guests came away with a favorable impression.Trans-Atlantic transportees were generally provided with fine clothes, food, and housing for the duration of their visit, traveled in the company of religious chaperones responsible for schooling them in religious and cultural etiquette; and were regally entertained. Occasionally visits were arranged to populous cities, court palaces, imposing gothic cathedrals, and other sights intended to inspire awe for the majesty, power, and piety of their new political and religious overlords.Carefully packaged tours often included an audience with the royal sovereigns and frequently culminated with the ceremonial baptism of the captive catechumen under the sponsorship of the king or an important noble, colonial promoter, or ecclesiastic.While a trip abroad occasionally achieved the desired effect of winning cultural converts, more often Spanish expectations were frustrated by Amerindians who proved all too susceptible to the cultural equivalent of "peer pressure" on being reunited with their kin.Such Indians tended to shed European clothes and customs as soon as they safely could, and often spearheaded native resistance to their former sponsors and patrons.
The first recorded contact between the Castilians and Florida natives took place when the Spanish conquistador, Juan Ponce de León, sailed around the southern-most part of the peninsula in 1513.To satisfy both their inquisitive and acquisitive instincts, the conquistadores required Indian guides, informers, and interpreters, and so Ponce de León's early reconnaissance was very much shaped by hostage dynamics.According to the chronicler, Antonio de Herrera, Ponce de León and his crew stopped to take on fresh water, and when hindered by some Indians armed with bow and arrow, he seized "one of them for a pilot, so that he might learn the language." This captive and other Indians seized during several other hostile encounters proved to be important (if reluctant) informers, since the captain apparently picked up some tantalizing information on this trip concerning a cacique of the Calusa Indians of Southwest Florida reputed to be rich in gold.
Of course, since a strong (or stealthy) offense was often the best defense, Indian chiefs also took the initiative in securing the services of interpreters.While Ponce de León was awaiting a favorable wind to continue his search for the cacique of the Calusa, the wily chief sent out an interpreter to determine the intentions of the strangers in the great canoe that had trespassed into his territorial waters.This Indian interpreter, who had no difficulty understanding the Spaniards, "was believed must be from Hispaniola, or from another island inhabited by Castilians."As a refugee from one of the islands under Spanish domination, the interpreter undoubtedly had experience and knowledge that made him a valued counselor to the cacique of his adopted homeland.On board the foreign vessel, the Castilian-speaking Indian did his best to convince Ponce de León's crew to remain at anchor, promising that his chief would willingly trade with them from his store of salvaged gold.The interpreter's insincerity soon became apparent, however, when a large flotilla of war canoes intent on intercepting and overwhelming the boat left the shore just after the Indian interpreter paddled away to safety.This would not be the last time that an Indian interpreter would play a decisive role in determining the success or failure of a colonial venture.
When Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón sailed to Spain in 1523 to secure a patent to colonize the southeast coast of North America, he took with him an Indian servant from a group of 140 natives illegally seized from the land called "Chicora" (present-day South Carolina).This Indian had learned to speak Spanish, had been converted to the Catholic faith, and had been christened Francisco Chicora by Ayllón, who intended to use him as a guide, interpreter, and informer.While traveling with his master, Chicora met and conversed with Spanish historians, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés and Peter Martyr, entertaining them with imaginative descriptions of his homeland.As a captive intent on securing his freedom, Francisco learned to parrot back whatever answers he believed his gullible interrogators wanted most to hear.To that end, he captivated them with tall tales, tribal myths, and spun yarns of gold-rich peoples ripe for plunder – all designed to secure a speedy passage home.
Not wanting his colonial venture to be hindered by the hostility engendered by kidnapping and hostage-taking, Ayllón ordered the pilot Pedro de Quexós to return the illegally enslaved Indians – Chicora excepted – to their native lands.De Quexós was also instructed to reconnoiter the coast for some two hundred and fifty leagues, to plant stone crosses to mark possession of the land Allyón intended to settle, and to persuade one or two Indians from each linguistically distinct coastal province to ship back with the pilot for training as interpreters.Francisco Chicora and the other Indian translators returned to Chicora with the 500 colonists in Ayllón's party, but deserted almost as soon as they set foot on shore.The defection of the Indian interpreters and the death of the adelantado soon thereafter resulted in the dissolution of the venture.
As Hernando de Soto prepared for the conquest of La Florida in 1539, he also recognized the importance of securing Indian interpreters, by fair means or foul, to assure the success of his venture.While outfitting his expedition in Cuba, the governor dispatched Juan de Añasco with a caravel and two brigantines with orders to reconnoiter the coast and to "seize" several Indians to serve as "guides and interpreters."The captivity experience was not, however, conducive to congenial service, and while the Spanish expeditionary force was encamped in the Indian town of Ucita in North Florida, the two Indian interpreters captured along the coast "escaped one night through the carelessness of two men who were guarding them."Although de Soto immediately ordered several forays with the intent of capturing other Indians to serve in this capacity, they did not succeed.Fortunately for de Soto, his men later rescued the Castilian castaway, Juan Ortiz who served him admirably until his death.While de Soto continued to seize Indian hostages at virtually every village his army visited, these unfortunate men and women were almost invariably chained and pressed into service as porters and prostitutes.Rarely was an Indian singled out for the special treatment reserved for those with valuable linguistic skills.It was only after the death of Juan Ortiz, for example, that de Soto was forced to rely on an Indian "youth who had been seized in Cutifachiqui, and who now knew something of the language of the Christians."This Indian youth proved to be less-than-adequate in this important role, so that the Spaniards described Ortiz's death to be so "great a misfortune" with regard to "exploring or trying to leave the land, that to learn from the Indians what he [Ortiz] stated in four words, with the youth the whole day was needed; and most of the time he understood just the opposite of what was asked...."
Even those who sailed to La Florida with the aim of peaceable conversion found their "soul saving" missions frequently betrayed by the very same Indian interpreters upon whom they set their highest hopes.The miraculous return of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca to New Spain at the head of an entourage of Indian disciples inspired members of the Dominican and Franciscan orders with a fervor for attempting the peaceful spiritual conquest of the Indians of La Florida and the Southwest.Eschewing a military escort, Fray Luis Cáncer de Barbastro, Fray Diego de Peñalosa, and a lay brother named Fuentes sailed from New Spain to the Gulf coast of Florida, stopping off in Cuba just long enough to pick up an interpreter – an Indian woman who had been taken from that region, baptized, and christened Magdalena.Although the missionaries accounted her conversion to Catholicism to be a sign of her good faith, it is unlikely that Magdalena appreciated captivity and servitude in Cuba.Once having secured the missionaries a friendly first reception, soon thereafter Magdalena, Fray Peñalosa, Brother Fuentes, and a sailor mysteriously disappeared into the bush.The situation grew more ominous when Magdalena alone returned to the anchorage, having cast off the cotton trappings of her Christian life.Although she claimed that all was well with the shore party, her attempt to lure the remaining missionaries ashore was foiled by the unexpected shipboard arrival of a Castilian castaway, Juan Muñoz.Having been captured by the Indians more than a decade earlier during the de Soto entrada, Muñoz ran away from his Indian master and escaped by canoe to the ship, informing those onboard that the shore party had been slain and scalped.Ignoring Muñoz's cautionary counsel and the pleas of his brethren, Cáncer accepted Magdalena on her word, and waded through the shallows only to find martyrdom awaiting him in the form of a wooden war club.Although the suspect loyalty of a captive Indian interpreter had directly contributed to the demise of another Spanish venture in La Florida, it would take some time for the Spaniards to realize that a ceremonial baptism often was insufficient proof of transculturation.
When Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano made plans to colonize La Florida some decades later, even before sailing from New Spain he petitioned the Mexican viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, for permission to take one or two female Indian servants along as interpreters.Permission was granted although it is not known conclusively if either Indian woman actually sailed with de Luna or even if either woman was at all familiar with the native languages of La Florida.Whether or not these Indian women accompanied the expedition, less than three months later, Fray Domingo de la Anunciación reported to Velasco that the "interpreters whom we had brought" had managed to effect a cordial reception among the Coosa Indians of the Gulf coast.
Of course, de Luna had not abandoned the earlier strategy of capturing local Indians to serve as linguists.On returning from an expedition into the interior, de Luna's captains "brought [back] an Indian woman whose name was Lacsohe as an interpreter."Not only did de Luna authorize such abductions, but when the Dominican vicar, Fray Pedro de Feria, intervened to force the release of several other Indian men and women captured by one of his captains, de Luna wrote a letter of complaint to the Mexican viceroy.Viceroy Velasco not only approved de Luna's policy, but agreed that "Inasmuch as it was intended to do them no harm by bringing them, but good, and for the purpose of making them understand this and to acquire the language of the country, it was a mistake to set them free."While Velasco did not recommend taking action against the priest, he did warn de Luna to "take care that such a thing does not happen again."
Even as de Luna's Gulf coast venture was beginning to fall apart, a ship was dispatched to the Atlantic coast of La Florida in 1560 in anticipation of colonization.Somewhere in the vicinity of the Chesapeake Bay region, this vessel picked up two Indians, one of them the young son of a "petty chief."This Indian youth, Paquiquineo, and his companion were taken to Spain, where the young heir was dressed up at royal expense, and taken to the Spanish court where the king and his courtiers lavished attention on him.Following his audience with the king, the Indian youth traveled back to the New World in the company of the Dominicans.While in the custody of these religious in New Spain, the Indian took sick and fearing death, was baptized "at the instance of the Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco," who acted as his "godfather and gave him his name."
The young Algonquin (now most likely in his mid-to-late twenties) had lived a closely-guarded and monastic existence for close to ten years, reportedly confessing and taking communion regularly as a good Catholic, and appeared to be sincere in wishing to convert his kin to the new faith.When the Dominicans failed to plant a colony in his Chesapeake homeland, Don Luis ingratiated himself with members of the Society of Jesus, the order that Adelantado Menéndez was now recruiting for his own colonial venture in La Florida.Don Luis managed to convince his Jesuit chaperones to return with him to his native land, bragging of the fertility and natural wealth of the soil, and promising to act as their "interpreter" and to afford them the help which "Timothy gave to St. Paul."Upon landing in the Chesapeake with the unprotected missionaries, Velasco continued to demonstrate good faith, declining to assume the role of chief and "asserting that he had not returned to his fatherland out of a desire of earthly things but to teach them the way to heaven which lay in instruction in the religion of Christ Our Lord."Although the zealous Indian interpreter and catechist expected his kinsmen to be impressed by his new set of clothes, his powerful new friends, and his messianic message, his long-estranged Indian relatives responded with "little pleasure."Eager to win back their respect, seduced by the opportunities for sexual indulgence, and "chafing under Christian discipline," Don Luis soon apostatized and abandoned his Jesuit brethren.Stung by the rebukes of the missionaries some months later, the apostate reluctantly returned at the head of a war party to slaughter the persistent proselytizers.Almost single-handedly, the Indian interpreter, Don Luis Velasco, brought a quick and violent end to Spanish colonial ambitions in the Chesapeake region.
When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés received the asiento to colonize La Florida to forestall a French Huguenot settlement in 1565, he was confident that he would be able to persuade the friendly chiefs of the land to allow him to transport their sons abroad to be educated as civilized Christians.Menéndez believed that it was essential not only to train a cadre of Indian interpreters, but also to educate and Hispanicize the heirs of La Florida's natural leaders.He reasoned that a trip to Havana or Spain would inspire them with awe for Spain's naval power and might.In July 1567, Menéndez arrived at the court at Valladolid with six Florida Indians, still carrying their bows and arrows.The Adelantado had not, however, brought the Indians along to amuse the king with demonstrations of their archery skills, but to entice the Jesuits to his marquisate in La Florida.As he explained to an audience of Jesuits at the College of Seville, he hoped that the Indians he brought from the region would be the first of a hundred such "sons of the chiefs" who could be instructed in isolation in a Jesuit school for the purpose of "teach[ing] them to speak Spanish and to be good Christians, thus benefitting their parents" as well as providing "hostages so that the Christians entering the country would not be harmed."
A year later, Jesuit tutors proudly announced that one of the Tequesta Indians left in their care and christened Don Diego, "had become a Christian and from all appearances intends to persevere in Christianity and to convert all his subjects."This same Indian and his cousin returned to their village in Biscayne Bay to act as interpreters for the Jesuit Vice Provincial, Father Bautista.When their relatives first caught sight of the two, they rejoiced and treated them as if raised from the dead.After helping to negotiate a truce between the Spaniards and the Tequestas, Don Diego pledged that he would "try to have a church built there for the Father who was coming, and they would pacify them all and strive to convert them."While the convert attempted to make good on his promise, the mission to the Tequesta proved to be short-lived owing to the tensions between the haughty Spanish soldiers of the presidio and the intractable Tequesta tribesmen.
There was an element of both absolute naiveté and profound cynicism in the Spanish policy of abducting Indians to be trained as interpreters.One cannot but think it the height of cultural arrogance for the Castilians to assume that captive Indians would be so impressed by Europe's material culture and technology as to forget the injustice of capture and captivity.Moreover, to believe that a new set of clothes, a ceremonial baptism, and a new Christian name and godparent would cause an individual to abandon all feeling for his own customs, family ties, and homeland defies common sense.Most of the Indians taken abroad must have clearly sensed their position as "precious pledges" for the good behavior of kin at home and must have dreamed of little else than escape.Given the ill-will often generated by hostage dynamics, it is little wonder that these captivity experiences most often failed to engender faithful cultural converts, and why Spaniards were encouraged to look elsewhere for trustworthy interpreters.
It should not be forgotten that in the earliest period of contact, the necessity of establishing communication fostered a bilateral campaign of abduction and captivity, in which the Indians also captured, enslaved, and attempted to acculturate European castaways and invaders with varying degrees of success.Where the Castilians could offer the Indian interpreter fancy clothes and material goods as means of inducement, the Amerindians could only offer their reluctant "guests" friendship, familial affection, and the promise of freedom.In terms of negative reinforcement, there was the ever-present threat of ritual torture and sacrifice to see to it that the captives were obedient, even as it also provided a strong incentive for them to pray and work for deliverance.Rescue and redemption were very real possibilities given that virtually every Spanish conquistador and colonizer made immediate inquiries and offered handsome ransoms hoping to secure the invaluable services of such individuals in whom they could trust implicitly.Given the numerous wrecks and unsuccessful entradas along the Florida coast, Castilian castaways and captives with the prerequisite language skills were not in short supply in the early contact period.
When Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three other survivors of the disastrous Pánphilo de Narváez entrada of 1528 were stranded and left to the mercy of the Indians of the Gulf coast, they discovered that, unlike their countrymen, who generally distrusted all non-peninsulares, the native peoples through whose territory they traversed considered outsiders to be ideal interpreters and cultural intermediaries since they could truly act as nonpartisan negotiators and disinterested brokers.The messianic Núñez Cabeza de Vaca had towards the end of his long and arduous trek across the American southwest become so tanned and altered in both appearance and attitude that upon his arrival in Spanish-held territory, his entourage of Indian disciples refused to believe that he was truly a Spaniard.
When news circulated of Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's triumphal cross-country pilgrimage, it inspired other Castilians with visions of gold to be won and souls to be saved.Even as Nuñez was at court reporting on the disastrous outcome of the Pánphilo de Narváez entrada and secretly vying for permission to return to La Florida at the head of another expedition, Hernando de Soto was securing permission and making preparations for his own conquest of the region.Recognizing the importance of communicating with the Indians of the land he hoped to colonize, de Soto tried to convince Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca to serve as interpreter and guide.Towards that end, de Soto offered him "an advantageous proposal; but after they had come to an agreement, they fell out because de Soto would not give him the money which he asked of him to buy a ship."Many historians have completely ignored or overlooked the significance of this failed negotiation between de Soto and Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.This was de Soto's first chance to secure a knowledgeable and trustworthy interpreter and guide before sailing for the province.The terms set by Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca were extremely high, and their initial acceptance by de Soto reflects the importance both parties attributed to the position of the interpreter in facilitating the conquest of a newly opened region.That the man in question was a Castilian and had the repute of an hidalgo undoubtedly accounted for the lofty demands of his asking price.
Soon after landing in on the Gulf coast of Florida, an advance guard of de Soto's cavalry unit found Juan Ortiz, a Seville native of noble family who also had been stranded among the Indians in the wake of the disastrous Narváez campaign.Ortiz's second Indian master, the Indian chief Mocoço, recognized Ortiz's usefulness as an informer, and in return for Ortiz's loyal service, the chief promised to allow the Spaniard to rejoin his countrymen should they ever reappear along the coast.In setting such just and reasonable terms of servitude, ço was able to secure Ortiz's loyalty, to curry favor with the Spanish invaders, and to avoid the unpleasant prospects of invasion, battle, and occupation.Ironically, after living among the Indians for twelve years, Ortiz had become tanned, tattooed, and so Indian-like in appearance, that he was very nearly slain by the Spaniards before stammering out some barely recognizable Castilian phrases.
Clothing and outward appearance were extremely important determinants of social status and cultural allegiance in the sixteenth century.To demonstrate how much he valued Ortiz's services and value to the expedition, de Soto "immediately gave the man a suit of black velvet, but that since he had gone naked for so long a time, he could not bear to wear it and in consequence wore only a shirt, some linen pants, a cap and some shoes for twenty days while gradually accustoming himself to being dressed."Invested with "some good arms and a beautiful horse," Ortiz served as de Soto's chief interpreter throughout the long and bloody trek through La Florida, passing from one linguistic frontier to the next with amazingly little difficulty.Although de Soto continued to seize Indian guides, porters, and interpreters, and to force them along in chains, the governor relied most heavily on Ortiz since he could be trusted not merely to translate truthfully, but to evaluate the motives and intentions of the Indians.On at least one occasion, his ability to eavesdrop and report on Indian conversations provided the Spaniards with advanced warning of ambush and contributed significantly to their initial diplomatic and military success.According to the gentleman of Elvas, Ortiz's death in the Indian province of Autiamque (near the banks of the Mississippi) was "felt deeply" by the governor, since "without an interpreter, not knowing where he was going, he feared lest he enter a region where he might get lost."In fact, the expedition's luck went from bad to worse precisely on account of the lack of a reliable interpreter.
When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés anchored off the coast of occupied by the Calusa Indians of South Florida in 1566, he too made immediate inquiries about Europeans held captive by the Indians, hoping to find among them his own son, Juan, who had been shipwrecked in a hurricane the year before.Owing to the dangerous shallows and reefs of Southwest Florida, numerous Castilians sailing back to Spain had been lost in that region, and one unidentified captive, "naked and painted like an Indian," paddled out in a canoe to greet Menéndez' expedition and to beg the adelantado to rescue him and the other men and women held captive by Cacique Carlos.Having secured the freedom of seven or eight surviving Christian captives, Menéndez "ordered some shirts and chemises to be given at once," and directed his tailors to make proper clothes for them all, and bestowed many presents on the European women "rescued" from the "savages."One of the means by which the Indians attempted to acculturate and win the allegiance of Castilian captives was to adopt them and encourage them to take a native spouse.Apparently, this strategy proved to be somewhat successful, since in spite of Menéndez generosity and fine treatment, when the opportunity for deliverance arose, all of the former captives expressed mixed feelings about returning with the Adelantado, and two of the women had actually "gone back to the Indians, from the longing they had for the children that they were leaving behind."
Another of the captives, however, had no compunctions about leaving the Indians, and immediately offered himself as an interpreter for the Adelantado.Hernando d'Escalante Fontaneda had been shipwrecked and stranded among the Calusa Indians at the age of thirteen and had been held captive by those Indians until his rescue at the age thirty.During his captivity, he learned to "speak four languages" and served his Indian captors as interpreter.In that capacity, he claimed to have preserved the lives of numerous Christians lost in those parts by helping "them to understand those brutes" who otherwise killed as "rebellious" those shipwreck victims who, out of ignorance of the language, did not immediately comply with their commands.Following his rescue by Menéndez, he advocated a strategy of taking these "faithless" Indians "in hand gently, inviting them to peace; then putting them under deck and selling them as slaves until their number become diminished."
Fontaneda was not the only rescued castaway Menéndez employed as an interpreter.Other Calusa captives with language skills included Juan Rodriguez (a native of Nicaragua), and an unidentified "free negro," and mulatto.But it was the services of another former Indian captive, Pedro Vizcaíno, that Menéndez relied most heavily on in negotiating peace between himself and the Indians of South Florida.This young Basque had been shipwrecked in 1546 on Cape Canaveral, adopted by the Aís Indians and married to a daughter of the cacique.In 1565, hehad been "rescued" by the French captain Jean Ribault and taken to France following the Spanish capture of Fort Caroline. Abducted and smuggled out of France by the Spanish ambassador, Vizcaíno was charged by the Spanish monarch, Philip II with the mission of returning to Florida to act as Menéndez's interpreter to the Indians.Although rarely mentioned by name, this interpreter appears on most every page of the chronicles and memoirs written by Menéndez' captains and biographers, acting as the all-important conduit of otherwise incomprehensible cross-cultural conversations and negotiations.
Because of his previous contact and relations with the Aís, Vizcaíno was detailed to the task of reestablishing peaceful relations following an Indian uprising that resulted in the loss of Fort Santa Lucia in Aís territory.It is possible that the divided loyalties and "conflicting demands of too many conflict-ridden intercultural borderlands" took too great a toll on him, reducing his ability to act.The Basque's competence was called into question by Fontaneda who claimed that had it not been for his own knowledgeable, "true and trustworthy" actions as unofficial interpreter in 1566, Menéndez and his company would have been "betrayed" to and slain by the Calusa Indians but for his discovery of the "treason" of the Adelantado's Viscayan interpreter.Fontaneda's charge of treason may not have been mere professional jealousy since Vizcaíno sailed back to Spain soon after the Adelantado threatened to hang him for spreading falsehoods.
Fontaneda himself did not remain long in La Florida.Disenchanted at not having "received the consideration" he believed his linguistic abilities merited, he complained about the "unjust treatment to the interpreters" in being forced work "without pay."Fontaneda and several others abandoned the country and returned to Spain rather than "serve without any recompense."According to his own valuation of his services, Fontaneda claimed that had it not been for his own intervention, "Pedro Melendez [sic] would not then have died in Santander [in 1572], but in Florida, in the province of Carlos."He believed, moreover, that had his advice been followed and had he (and not a lesser man) been rewarded according to his abilities, the "Indians of Aís, Guacata, Jeaga, and their vassals, would already have been subjugated, and even many of them made Christians."Even granting that Fontaneda exaggerated his own imagined ability to conquer the land, one cannot help but recognize the important role he and other interpreters played in negotiating peace and facilitating Menéndez's diplomatic conquest of the region.Lacking their assistance, Menéndez doubtless would have had to rely more heavily on the sword than on flattering words.
The Adelantado's nephew and successor in Florida, Pedro Menéndez Marqués, also relied heavily on the linguistic skills and services of ransomed captives.Fray Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo, a Franciscan missionary and author of an epic poem about La Florida, claimed to have interviewed one such rescued castaway and (doubtlessly taking some poetic license) incorporated his personal history into his heroic verse.While the Indians of south coastal Florida put to death numerous shipwreck survivors, Escobedo related that this individual escaped the unhappy fate of his shipmates by developing a "comradeship with the Indians" over the course of his eighteen-year "captivity."At their insistence, he assumed the occupation of a jeweler and silversmith, took an Indian woman for his concubine, and fathered two daughters.While he confessed to having succumbed to "the pleasures of vice" and to have "in every way adapted" himself to their customs and mores so that his "appearance soon took the form of a slovenly and idle Indian," he also claimed to have observed the sacraments in secret and to have prayed ceaselessly with his daughters for deliverance.When Menéndez Marqués landed along the coast, the castaway believed his prayers had been answered; for his part, the general was so thrilled at having found a trustworthy ready-linguist that he "gave orders" that the man be given "clothing of the best material" in order to transform him "from a semi-Indian to a Spaniard."Owing to the fact that he was "very fluent in the language of these Indians," Marqués recruited him to serve as his "intermediary" and considered his services so indispensable that he reportedly begged him "not to separate yourself from me for one day."
While Christian castaways continued to be the most reliable source of cultural intermediaries in the early colonial period for both conquistadores and caciques, not every shipwreck survivor living among the Indians was a native Castilian.French Huguenot designs in the Carribean and eastern seaboard resulted in a large number of Frenchmen being marooned in La Florida and both Florida caciques and Spanish colonial officials attempted to cajole them into serving as informers and interpreters.Friendly Indian chiefs offered these informers shelter and refuge from their Spanish enemies, while the Spaniards were able to extort the grudging cooperation of French prisoners by reminding them of the sentences for heresy and piracy.The willingness of a prisoner to re-embrace the Catholic faith became the litmus test for loyalty and potential change in status from despised prisoner to valued and salaried interpreter.
As the de Luna expedition was expected to establish a settlement at Santa Elena on the Atlantic coast of La Florida (the Carolinas), the Mexican viceroy offered to send de Luna an unidentified English interpreter who had sailed to those parts in his youth, had married in France, and was now living in Campeche.Born in Bristol, this well-traveled individual had served as a cabin boy aboard an English ship at the age of ten; this ship had anchored off the coast of the Carolinas in 1546 and had traded with the Indians for more than a week.While the Spanish were loath to rely on foreigners, the viceroy added that this man was "well informed concerning navigation, and to us here it appears that he tells the truth."Velasco arranged for the English sailor to be brought to de Luna in La Imposición with General Pedro Menéndez.Although illness appears to have prevented his shipping out in time to serve Luna, it is possible that he may have accompanied Menéndez when the captain-general undertook the colonization and settlement of La Florida in 1565.
Menéndez most certainly had the advantage of having secured the linguistic services of Guillaume Rouffi, a French Huguenot who previously had been stranded in La Florida in the wake of Jean Ribault's 1562 reconnaissance of the Carolina coast.One of a score of Frenchmen left behind to occupy the land until reinforcements arrived, this youth wisely decided to take his chances with the Indians rather than risk sailing back to France in a makeshift boat when his companions abandoned their post.Rouffi married the daughter of the chief of the Orista and became a valued member of that community.Picked up by a Cuban coastal patrol, the youth was taken back to Havana, converted to Catholicism, and afterwards assigned to Menéndez' expedition as an Indian interpreter.Known to the Spaniards as Guillermo or William Ruffin, his faithful services in that capacity helped assure the adelantado's diplomatic success in establishing friendly relations with many tribes and even helped to counter and eliminate the threat posed by other French Huguenots stranded among the Indians of the east Florida coast.
One of the French Huguenots marooned in La Florida with whom the adelantado had to contend had been born in Cordova, although he had fled to France, married at Havre de Grace, and took to the sea for his livelihood.Spending six years in Antarctic France "learning the language of the [Brazilian] Indians," this individual had managed to escaped to the Indies following the Portuguese destruction of the colony.Rescued and returned to France, his linguistic skills were noted by the French Huguenot Admiral Coligny, who detailed him to a fleet sailing to La Florida led by Jean Ribault.The latter commander had left him behind in the Indian province of Guale (Coastal Georgia) to serve as interpreter, and he became a man of influence among those people.When the Spanish adelantado landed in this territory, he was grieved to see this man going about naked as an Indian, and "gave him a new shirt, a pair of breeches, a hat, and some food," promising to treat him as one of his own if he re-embraced the Catholic faith and served him as a faithful interpreter.Through the covert services of his French Catholic interpreter, Guillermo Ruffin, the adelantado was informed of the duplicity of the "Lutheran" interpreter.Although the adelantado would have liked to have immediately killed this dangerous individual, because the chief's eldest son "had more authority than his father, and liked that interpreter very much," the adelantado arranged for the interpreter to be garroted in great secrecy so as not to anger the Indians or provoke them to war.Guillermo Ruffin, on the other hand, continued to enjoy the trust and support of Menéndez and proved to be an invaluable translator during the 1566-1568 explorations of the Indian provinces of "Tama" (the Carolinas and Tennessee).The degree of trust placed in Ruffin, however, appears to be unusual, and can be chiefly attributed to his sincere conversion to Catholicism.
In the years immediately following the founding of St. Augustine and the establishment of ephemeral presidios, settlements, and mission villages, the Spaniards considered Frenchmen stranded among the Indians to be a very real threat to their security and their Indian pacification program.As a result, colonial officials used bribes, threats, and even surprise attacks designed to capture or force the surrender of all Frenchmen living among the Indians.In the earliest years, their own lack of linguists occasionally prompted the colonial governors to treat a few of these men with leniency, giving some young prisoners the option of serving out their prison term as interpreters to avoid being sentenced to slavery in the galleys or being condemned to death at the stake.Historian Eugene Lyons has identified several men on the ration lists for 1565 and 1566 that were either French prisoners or Spaniards freed from captivity.Juan Bivete and another Frenchman simply identified as Pierres, for example, were listed as acting as interpreters to the Mayaca Indians, while a Francisco de Monbalarte served in the same capacity for the Saturiwa Indians.A decade later, French sailors were still being taken prisoner by the Spaniards.While pirates and heretics were immediately executed, several youths were spared on account of their usefulness as interpreters.Even after royal officials recommended that the remaining French prisoners be sent to the galleys in Spain, colonial officials dragged their feet (invoking the standard Spanish colonial response of "I obey, but do not comply"), claiming that local needs required their continued service.
Another means of training interpreters involved leaving cabin boys, drummer boys, or young catechists behind in friendly Indian villages long enough for them to immerse themselves in the Indian idiom.While some adelantados distributed youths as a pledge of good faith and peaceful intent, or merely to conform to the dictates of Native American protocol and the demands for a mutual exchange, most were loath to leave even a few of their countrymen behind in Indian villages for fear that they would wind up as hostages in the hands of hostile Indians.Missionaries and their young acolytes, on the other hand, were by virtue of their "vocation" ideally suited to the idea of waging a war for the hearts, minds, and souls of the Indians in the midst of the enemy camp.Rather than being intimidated by the prospect of living at the mercy of the Indians, many of these zealots often relished the idea of martyrdom should their Indian hosts turn hostile.Since younger persons generally had an easier time learning new languages, Spanish missionaries often recruited, traveled with, and depended on young acolytes, brothers, and novices to act as their tutors and translators and to help them master the native languages.While this strategy worked very well on the whole in fostering the rise of a new generation of ready-trained linguists and missionaries, there was also a very real danger that the more impressionable of young novices and acolytes left in isolation in Indian villages might succumb to the bad example of their hosts, become culturally disoriented, and develop a confused and divided sense of allegiance as a result of the immersion experience.
Recognizing that younger people had more of an affinity for learning new languages than adults, an eagerness to learn frequently became a more important consideration than maturity and experience in the selection of missionaries.Such, at least, was the case when Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano began organizing an expedition to colonize the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of La Florida.As neither de Luna nor the Mexican viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, intended to see the project hampered by a lack of interpreters, in 1558 the viceroy selected six Dominicans deemed young enough "of age to be able to work among the Indians and learn their languages."As de Luna and the Viceroy would discover, the self-same traits of youthful idealism and religious zeal could make these natural linguists and intermediaries prone to adopting uncompromising stances and refusing to cooperate with the secular authorities over policies concerning the treatment of theirIndians.
When Menéndez undertook the colonization of La Florida in 1565, during his first goodwill tour of the Indian provinces he distributed a few drummer boys and other youths to learn the Indian languages, to familiarize the Indians with the symbols of Christianity, and to teach them to recite the creeds and prayers of the Catholic faith.While the policy of billeting Spanish youths in Indian villages had its drawbacks in terms of guaranteeing their safety, it did succeed as an alternative strategy for creating a cadre of fluent native language speakers.Although conceived as a temporary measure to be abandoned upon the arrival of trained linguistic specialists from the Jesuit Order, the early missionaries became almost immediately dependent on their language skills and knowledge, and strongly encouraged them to sign on as acolytes, altar boys, and interpreters.When, for example, one of the Jesuit missionaries traveled to the northern-most Indian province of Escamacu on the Carolinian coast, he took with him "a boy of ten years of age, named Juan de Lara, a son of a settler, in order to learn the language."
Another youth, Juan de Lara's older brother, Alonso de Olmos,accompanied the Jesuits to the Chesapeake Bay region on their fateful mission to convert the kin of the Indian interpreter, Don Luis Velasco in 1570; he alone lived to tell the tale.The Indians, in fact, decided to spare his life "Because he was a boy and they knew he had not come to preach and take away their idols," and probably assumed that he might be more easily adopted andacculturated into native society.Following his rescue and deliverance, Alonso served as translator during the shipboard interrogation, summary baptism, and execution of several Indians held responsible for the murder of his Jesuit brethren.
Undeterred by the death of his fellow religious, Padre Juan Rogel questioned the youth to determine whether he would prove willing to serve as interpreter should his Jesuit superiors decide to reestablish a mission among the chastised and presumably pacified Chesapeake Indians.Considering that the boy had "almost forgotten his Spanish" during two nearly years of captivity, Rogel even considered retaining an Indian boy from the region to serve as Alonso's companion in order "to make sure that he retains the language and does not forget it."Nothing came of either of these plans, however, and Rogel noted in the margins of a letter to the Jesuit General, Francis Borgia, that Menéndez had decided to take the Indian back with him to Spain, and that with regard to Alonso's commitment, "I was deceived in this respect, since he has been quite spoiled after living alone with the Indians," "does not want to be one of us," and "is not suitable."Alonso's linguistic skills did, on the other hand, make him a welcome addition to the garrison troops stationed in Spanish Florida although his services in that capacity proved short-lived.According to Bartolomé Martínez, who claimed to have been a close neighbor and frequent dinner guest of the Olmos family in Santa Elena, reported that Alonso was among the score of Spanish soldiers in Lieutentant Hernando Moyano's command slain while bullying the Orista Indians into handing over food in 1577.
Experience showed that leaving youthful catechists and unprotected missionaries behind in native villages for language immersion lessons produced as many hostages and martyrs as interpreters and Indian converts, however, and Menéndez and his successors tended to shy away from the earlier policy.Even the Franciscan friars who would take the place of the Jesuits in the mission fields of La Florida in the last decades of the sixteenth century, tended to be a more pragmatic and careful lot depending more on Indian grammars and confessionarios than on the services of young catechists.Menéndez's reluctance to lodge young drummer boys or altar boys in native villages was well-founded.As late as 1580, his son-in-law and successor, Pedro Menéndez Marqués reported that there were still "two men who are captives, and who, when they were boys and interpreters, had been placed by the adelantado...with two friendly caciques, to teach them the doctrine; and these caciques afterward rose in rebellion, and made them prisoners."
Once the Spaniards managed to establish a viable settlement at Saint Augustine, they worked diligently to acculturate influential Indian chiefs hoping to use them to forward their colonial policies and goals.In the last decade of the sixteenth and first decade of the seventeenth centuries, their proselytizing efforts began to bear fruit.Convinced of the advantages of associating and aligning themselves with their new neighbors, several Indian chiefs accepted baptism and used their influence to foster the spread of Catholicism and Castilian culture among their own peoples.Generous gifts of trade goods were sometimes held out as inducements to secure the loyalty of these influential Indians.
The Indian cacica, Doña María Melendez, became an important "go-between" and cultural broker following the establishment of Saint Augustine by the Spanish.When the English corsair, Francis Drake, burned and ravaged the presidio in 1586, it was the loyalty and support of this chieftainess that preserved the lives of the settlers from starvation and hostile Indian attack.When Doña Maria was wedded to a Spanish soldier, Clemente Vernal, Spanish officials in the presidio gave their enthusiastic approval in the mistaken belief that native matrilineal inheritance patterns would assure that Spaniards would ultimately dominate the native caciques.The royal governors at Saint Augustine were especially pleased by Doña Maria's acceptance of Catholicism and her willingness to use her language skills and influence to propagate the faith among her subjects and neighbors.
From her own point of view, Doña Maria also had much to gain from her relationship to her new neighbors and kin.While the Saturiwa were accustomed to fighting interminable blood feuds with their Utina neighbors, the total war waged by the Spanish intruders in the 1560s and 1570s had proven to be far more disruptive of their way of life.By marrying one of the foreigners, Doña Maria managed to turn deadly foes into powerful allies and supporters.In the wake of the onslaught of disturbing new diseases, submitting to baptism and embracing the "cult of the cross" probably seemed a small price to pay for securing the patronage and protection of the Spanish spiritual healers and guaranteeing continued occupation of ancestral lands.Even Catholic indoctrination in the mission village of Nombre de Dios did not require cultural suicide, but was a more syncretic blending of religious elements that might also have helped revitalize the demoralized natives.Archaeological evidence from mixed dwelling units in Saint Augustine (albeit from a later period) suggest that native spouses dominated the domestic sphere and thereby assured the continuance of many traditional traits that they passed on to their mestizo children.
Even as Doña Maria supported the presidio in times of need and regularly entertained Indian delegations at her home in order to spread the Christian faith, she was as quick to promote her own political interests as a tribal leader as she was in forwarding the diplomatic interests of her patrons in the presidio.A letter written to the crown on February 20, 1598 requesting reimbursement for entertainment expenses incurred on such occasions suggests that this cacica muy ladina was fully capable of moving between the social worlds of her Indian subjects and Spanish relatives and sponsors.Moreover, while Doña Maria originally held sway over the mission village of Nombre de Dios on the outskirts of Saint Augustine, by 1604 she had used the power of her Spanish patrons to extend her chiefly authority over the Tacatacuru peoples of Cumberland island and the coastal Georgian mainland.
A brief history of the life of Chief Don Juan of San Pedro Island [modern Cumberland Island, Georgia] also illustrates the effectiveness of presents in securing the loyalty of Indian chiefs and in forwarding Spanish colonial interests.Don Juan's predecessors and people had suffered greatly during decades of war with the Spaniards settling La Florida.Raised under the tutelage of Fray Baltasar López, this acculturated young chief learned from an early age the advantages derived from a close alliance with the Spanish.He adopted many Castilian customs and used his political power and influence to order the people of his caççgo to embrace the Catholic faith.In order to reward his efforts in propagating the faith and to further incline him toward Spanish interests, the Consejo de Indias wrote to the king in 1596 in favor of the suggestion of the governor and some friars to take the unprecedented action of paying this Indian "the rations and salary of a soldier of thatpresidio."The Spanish policy paid off the following year.When Don Juan's neighbors to the north rose in rebellion, killed the missionaries living in their midst, and pressed their campaign southwards, Don Juan organized the defense of the province and led a successful counterattack that routed and forced the Guales to retreat.Once again, the fidelity of an influential Indian interpreter and cultural broker was decisive in the defense of Saint Augustine and outlying mission stations in the early colonial period.
While necessity might lead colonial officials to turn a blind eye to the nationality, race, and gender of the individuals they used as interpreters, they preferred to depend on Spanish soldiers on the crown payroll.Several Spanish soldiers assigned to the backwater provinces of the Spanish empire learned to speak one or more Indian languages – often with the invaluable assistance of Indian wives or concubines – and therefore enhanced their position and status.Often their knowledge of Indian languages allowed them to supplement their meager rations and poor salaries by negotiating transactions between the communities.
One such soldier was Alonso Díaz de Sevilla, who was fluent in both the Guale and Orista Indian languages.Captain Vicente Gonçalez, the Portuguese pilot who transported the Indian, Don Luis Velasco, and the Jesuit missionaries to the Chesapeake in 1570 and led the punitive expedition that rescued young Olmos a year and a half later, had a long history of experience in La Florida.In the course of his duties as navigator, the captain had apparently learned to speak several Indian languages – at least well enough to deliver messages and ultimatums.While such a skill most certainly increased his importance to the Spanish garrison and coast guard force, it also had a tendency to put him in harms way during times of trouble.Following an uprising among the Orista Indians, for example, Menéndez Marqués deemed it prudent to dispatch Gonçalez to the Guale coast to gather information and to forestall trouble in that Indian province.Although the captain "spoke with the Indians and with a French or English man" living among them, he was unable to persuade them to come out to his launch: "on the contrary, from the shore they insulted Captain Biçenteçalez, telling him that the Spaniards were worth nothing, and were hens, and that they [the Indians] had with them many friends, who would aid them."
Another soldier, Juan Ramirez de Contreras also gained a reputation for himself during the sacking of St. Augustine in 1586 by the English corsair, Sir Francis Drake, on account of his position as "Indian interpreter for the district around the city."Because of his linguistic skills, Ramírez was ordered by General Menéndez Marqués to recruit a band of local Indians and to lead them in an attack on the English camp.With the assistance of a small band of Indian archers, this Spanish soldier harassed and killed some of the English pirates in a series of night raids.The Spanish soldier distinguished himself in battle by dismounting Captain Anthony Powell, a friend and relative of Drake's, killing him with a dagger and taking his head back with him as a trophy.Ramírez must have been a gifted linguist because in addition to being "very fluent" in the Timucua tongue and its various dialects, he also was reputedly proficient in the language of the Aís Indians of Cape Canaveral.Ramírez' language skills allowed him to supplement his income as a garrison soldier, and between 1592 and 1594 he engaged in the Indian trade, representing the interests of the Indian cacique, Don Alonso, and negotiating in the sale of his maize crop to the presidio.While Ramírez's linguistic skills made him a valued member of the presidio, they also caused him to be detailed to potentially dangerous treaty negotiations with hostile Indians.In fact, it was on just such a tour of duty in September 1597 that he was captured and killed by the Aís, who, according to his widow, used his skull for a drinking cup.
The intermarriage of Indian cacicas with Spanish garrison soldiers further strengthened the ties between the communities and provided several generations of reliable, trustworthy interpreters and culture brokers firmly in the Spanish sphere of influence.This was certainly the case when Clemente Vernal took an acculturated Indian woman, Doña María Melendez, for a wife.Doña María's Spanish husband also benefited from her language tutorials, mastering both the Timucua and Guale idioms and assuming the duties of interpreter.Many years later, their son and heir, Clemente Bernal would be sent to negotiate peace following the rebellion of the western Timucuan Indians.
Throughout the early contact period, the interpreter and cultural broker played a crucial and often decisive role in determining the success or failure of Spanish colonization ventures in La Florida.Many of the early entradas ended in disaster largely because their promoters abducted and alienated those individuals they need to rely on most as their informers, interpreters, and mediators.The so-called "central" and leading characters could not help but recognize the power these individuals wielded, and consequently went to great lengths to secure the services, allegiance, and loyalty of these culturally ambiguous individuals.The chronicles, relations, memoirs, and reports from the early contact period abound in references to anonymous "interpreters" who, if standing in the shadows of more renowned historical figures, literally had the undivided attention of their ears.If few historians today have given much consideration to these "go-betweens," the adelantados, conquistadores, and colonial promoters had no choice but to recognize that the loyalties, decisions, personal choices, and actions of these pivotal characters more profoundly affected the outcome of the early struggle for the domination of that land than has hitherto been acknowledged.The central part played by these "marginalized" men and women in shaping the destinies of not one, but several cultural traditions and histories, is a rich and complex subject deserving of further acknowledgment and scholarly examination.
.Many of the older generation of "patrician" historians writing about the conquest of the Americas extolled the virtues and trumpeted the accomplishments of a few "great white men" to the exclusion of all other voices and traditions.The histories they and their "consensus school" successors wrote considered only the deeds of the European "discoverers," explorers, conquistadores, colonial founders, and missionaries as worthy of their pens and ignored or marginalized the more culturally ambiguous men and women of the borderlands frontier.Not surprisingly, the only full-length historical biographies written in this period about interpreters focused on European diplomats: Paul A. W. Wallace, Conrad Weiser, 1696-1760, Friend of Colonist and Mohawk (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1945) and Nicholas B. Wainwright, George Croghan: Wilderness Diplomat (Chapel Hill, N.C.: 1959).Only in the last year has any historian compared and contrasted the experiences of European and Native American interpreters in a single work.See James Hart Merrell, Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999).
.Anthropologist Malcom McFee was the first to argue that the bi-cultural individual had more options and less constraints in his article, "The 150% man: a product of Blackfoot acculturation," American Anthropologist 70 (1968): 1096-1107; historian J. Frederick Fausz took the opposite view, depicting these individuals as "marginal men" in his article, "'Middlemen in peace and war': Virginia's earliest Indian interpreters, 1608-1632," published in the Journal of American History 75 (June 1988): 41-64.Anthropologist James A. Clifton quickly counter-attacked, debunking the "older popular stereotype" that "culturally marginalized people became psychologically diminished," and arguing instead that as masters of two (or more) cultures, interpreters actually became "culturally enlarged."See the introduction to his Being and Becoming Indian: Biographical Studies of North American Frontiers (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1989), 28-29.Other historians have chosen – much like their "cultural broker" subjects – to straddle the fence between the warring camps, rather than take one side over the other.See, for example, Nancy L. Hagedorn and Alan Taylor's characterization of a Stockbridge Mohican mediator, respectively published as "'A friend to go between them'": the interpreter as cultural broker during Anglo-Iroquois councils, 1740-1770," Ethnohistory 35 (Winter 1988) and "Captain Hendrick Aupaumut: the dilemmas of an intercultural broker," Ethnohistory 43:3 (Summer 1996).
.Historian Margaret Connell Szasz, ed., Between Indian and White Worlds: the Cultural Broker (Norman: London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), and linguist Frances Karttunen, ed. Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, c.1994) wisely ignored the debate altogether, and as a result have produced more informative and complex look at the varied lives, survival strategies, and experiences of the interpreters included in their studies.
.See "The captives of Florida," and "Cultural brokers in sixteenth-century Spanish Florida," in Eugene Lyon, ed., Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (New York: London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1995), 171-190, 329-336.
.See the editors' introduction in David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash, ed., Struggle and Survival in Colonial America (Berkeley: University of California Press, c.1981), 1-13.
.Carolyn Foreman appears to have been the first historian to write a history of Indians transported to Europe; unfortunately, her work is anecdotal in its treatment of the subject.Carolyn T. Foreman, Indians Abroad: 1493-1938 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943).Only a few historians have followed her lead.See "Amerindians in Europe," (Chapter 10), in Olive P. Dickason, The Myth of the Savage and the Beginnings of French Colonialism in the Americas (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1984 [reprinted 1997]), 203-229; and Harald E.L. Prins, "To the land of the Mistigoches: American Indians traveling to Europe in the Age of Exploration," American Indian Culture and Research Journal 17:1 (1993): 175-195.
.Of course the Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English were equally ethnocentric in their assumptions.For examples of similar sentiments regarding Amerindians educated abroad, see, Ruben Rold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Exploration of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791.73 Vols. (Reprinted in New York: Pageant Book Co., 1959), and John Hemming, Red Gold: the Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500-1760 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978).
.Foreman, Indians Abroad, 1-7.
.Antonio de Herrera, quoted in Edward W. Lawson, The discovery of Florida and its discoverer Juan Ponce de León (St. Augustine: Edward W. Lawson, 1946), 16.
.Paul Quattlebaum, The land called Chicora: the Carolinas under Spanish rule with French intrusions, 1520-1670 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1956), 12-17, 21.
.James Alexander Robertson, trans. and ed., True Relation of the Hardships Suffered by Governor Fernando de Soto & Certain Portuguese Gentlemen during the Discovery of the Province of Florida.Now Newly Set Forth by a Gentleman of Elvas 2 Vols. (DeLand: The Florida State Historical Society, 1933): II: 29-30.
.Ibid, II: 35.
.Ibid, II: 207.
.Ironically, Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's black companion, Estevanico (or Stephen) did not have much luck in taking advantage of the linguistic skills he acquired in the course of the long journey to New Spain; traveling ahead of a Franciscan missionary expedition aimed at converting the Pueblo Indians, this unfortunate African-American interpreter was judged to be dishonest and put to death by the Indians who thought it "unreasonable" for him "to say that the people were white in the country from which he came and that he was sent by them, he being black."Pedro Castañada, The journey of Coronado (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc., 1966).
.Andrés González de Barcia Carballido y Zúñiga, Barcia's Chronological History of the Continent of Florida: Containing the Discoveries and Principal Events Which Came to Pass in this Vast Kingdom, Touching the Spanish, French, Swedish, Danish, English, and Other Nations, as Between Themselves and With the Indians Whose Customs, Characteristics, Idolatry, Government, Warfare, and Stratagems Are Described; and the Voyages of Some Captains and Pilots Through the Northern Sea in Search of a Passage to the Orient, or the Union of That Land with Asia.Translated with an introduction by Anthony Kerrigan.(Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1951), 26-27; Michael V. Gannon, The Cross in the Sand: the Early Catholic Church in Florida, 1513-1870 (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1983), 9-13.
."Velasco to Luna," Mexico, May 5, 1560 and "Fray Domingo de la Anunciación and others to Velasco," Coosa, August 1, 1560 in Herbert Ingram Priestly, trans. and ed., The Luna papers: documents relating to the expedition of Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano for the conquest of La Florida in 1559-15612 Vols.(Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1971): I: 121, 237-239.
.Ibid, II: 303.
."Velasco to Luna," Mexico, October 25, 1559 in Ibid, I: 65-67.
."Velasco to Luna," Mexico, May 6, 1560 in Ibid, I: 105.
."Relation of Juan Rogel" in Clifford Lewis, S.J., and Albert Loomie, S.J., ed., The Spanish Jesuit mission in Virginia, 1570-1572 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 118.
."Relation of Juan de la Carrera, sent to Bartolomé Pérez, S.J., from Puebla de los Angeles, March 1, 1600," in Ibid, 131.
."Relation of Juan Rogel," in Ibid, 118.
."Borgia, the third part of the history of the Society of Jesus," by Francisco Sacchini, S.J.," in Ibid, 222.
.Ibid.Only the youngest Jesuit acolyte, Alonso de Olmos, was spared on account of his age.
.Barcia, Chronological History of the Continent of Florida, 143-144.
."Account of the visit of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to the College of Seville, sent from the same college," [Undated 915670], in Rubén Vargas Ugarte, S.J., ed., "The first Jesuit mission in Florida," Historical Records and Studies, The United States Catholic Historical Society, 24 (1935): 128.
."Letter of Father Juan Rogel to St. Francis Borgia, Havana, July 25, 1568," in Ibid, 83-84.
.Ibid.The fate of the ten-year old daughter of the chief of Tequesta also sent to Spain to be educated and Hispanicized remains a mystery.Kathleen Ann Deagan, "Sex, Status and Role in the Mestizaje of Spanish Colonial Florida," Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology.(Ann Arbor, Michigan: Xerox University Microfilms, 1974), 14.
.J. Leitch Wright, Jr., The Only Land They Knew: The Tragic Story of the American Indians in the Old South (New York: The Free Press, c.1981), 42.
.Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986).
.Robertson, trans. & ed., True Relation by a Gentleman of Elvas, II: 9.
.Ibid, II: 38-39, 44.
.Garcilasco de la Vega, [el Inca], The Florida of the Inca: A History of the Adelantado, Hernando de Soto, Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Florida, and of Other Heroic Spanish and Indian Cavaliers, Written by the Inca, Garcilasco de la Vega, an Officer of His Majesty, and a Native of the Great City of Cuzco, Capital of the Realms and Provinces of Peru (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1970), 78-81.
.Robertson, trans. and ed., True Relation by a Gentleman of Elvas, II: 46.
.The chronicler, Bartolomé Barrientos claimed that "a total of two hundred Christians had been lost on this coast," but that only a handful (five women and four men) had been spared the sacrificial rites of the Calusas.See Bartolomé Barrientos, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés: Founder of Florida.Translated by Anthony Kerrigan.(Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1965), 82.
.Barcia, Chronological History of the Continent of Florida, 102-103.
.Gonzalo Solís de Merás, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés: Memorial (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1964), 142.
.Ibid, 142, 151.
.Hernando D'Escalante Fontaneda, Memoir of d'Escalante Fontaneda Respecting Florida.Written in Spain, about the year 1575.Translated by Buckingham Smith.(Miami: University of Miami and the Historical Association of Southern Florida, 1944), 17.
.Vizcaíno was also referred to in some documents as Pedro de Bustincury.
.Bustincury's colorful career is summarized in Lyon, ed., Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, 177-178, 331.
.James A. Clifton's characterization of another intercultural broker seems to be an equally appropriate description of the dilemma faced by Vizcaíno.See Clifton's "Personal and ethnic identity on the Great Lakes frontier : the case of Billy Caldwell, Anglo-Canadian," Ethnohistory, 20 (1978): 69-94.
.Escalante Fontaneda, Memoir, 18.
.Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo, Pirates, Indians and Spaniards: Father Escobedo's "La Florida."Edited by James W. Covington, and translated by A. F. Falcones.(St. Petersburg: Great Outdoors Publishing Co., c.1963), 87.
. Ibid, 89.
. Ibid, 89-93.If Escobedo's heroic verse does not take too much poetic license, this redeemed captive proved his loyalty to his Spanish rescuers by informing Menéndez Marquez of a planned surprise attack on the makeshift fort of Santa Lucia.According to Escobedo, the Spaniards made a preemptive strike during a feast organized by the interpreter, putting many unsuspecting Indian "guests" to the sword before abandoning the land for good.
.Lyon, "The captives of Florida," in Lyon, ed., Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, 171-190.
."Velasco to Luna," Mexico, September 14, 1560, in Priestley, ed., Luna papers, II: 157.
."Velasco to Luna," Mexico, August 20, 1560, "Velasco to Luna," Mexico, September 13, 1560, "The narrative of the Englishman signed by the Viceroy," and "Velasco to Luna," Mexico, September 14, 1560 in Ibid, I: 193; II: 149, 157, 177-179.
. Solís de Merás, Memorial, 165-181; Barrientos, Founder of Florida, 98-105, 149, n. 3.
.Solís de Merás, Memorial, 180-181.
.Hardly a paragraph goes by in the depositions of those expeditions in which Ruffin's services as interpreter are not acknowledged, and on at least one occasion his eavesdropping abilities are credited with saving the Spaniards from ambush and massacre.See, in particular, "The 'Long' Bandera Relation, A.G.I., Santo Domingo 224 cited in Charles M. Hudson, The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566-1568.With documents relating to the Pardo Expeditions transcribed, translated, and annotated by Paul E. Hoffman.(Washington: London: Smithsonian Institution Press, c.1990), 205-296.
.Lyon, ed., Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, 180.
."Pedro Menéndez Márques to the King," Havana, May 15, 1580 [Document XLVII. A.G.I. 54-4-9-13] in Jeannette Thurber Connor, ed. and trans., Colonial Records of Spanish Florida: Letters and Reports of Governors and Secular Persons2 Vols.(DeLand: The Florida State Historical Society, MCMXXV): II: 299.
.See Barrientos, Founder of Florida, 100.
.Vargas Ugarte, S.J., ed., "First Jesuit mission in Florida," HRS 15: 64-65.
."Extract of a letter from Don Luis de Velasco to His Majesty," Mexico, September 30, 1558, in Priestly, trans. and ed., Luna papers, II: 259.
.Vargas Ugarte, S.J., ed., "First Jesuit Mission in Florida," HRS 15: 64-65.
."Relation of Luis Gerónimo de Oré," inLewis and Loomie, ed., Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia, 1570-1572, 179.
.It was not unusual for brothers to acquire different family names, one following the father, the other the mother.For some background on the two young catechists, see Ibid, 164, n.19.
. "Life of Father Francis Borgia, third general of the Society of Jesus Book III, Chapter 6 by Pedro de Ribadeneyra, S.J.," in Lewis and Loomie, ed., Spanish Jesuit mission in Virginia, 1570-1572, 146.See also the "Brief narrative of the martyrdom of the fathers and brothers of the Society of Jesus, slain by the Jacán Indians of Florida," (Cf. Life of St. Francis Borgia, by Father Pedro Rivadeneira, S.J. Bk. 3, ch. 6), in Vargas Ugarte, S.J., ed., "First Jesuit mission in Florida," HRS 15: 129-148.
."Letter of Juan Rogel to Francis Borgia, from the Bay of the Mother of God, August 28, 1572," in Lewis and Loomie, ed. Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia, 1570-1572, 111.
.Ibid, 114 n.17, 18.
."Relation of Bartolomé Martínez," in Ibid, 160-161.Martínez claims that the soldiers were seeking pearls and other riches and laments that it "would have been much better [for Alonso] to have died in the glorious martyrdom of his companions."While a muster roll of soldiers serving in St. Augustine in November 1578 lists an Alonso de Olmos, native of Colomera, this must have been Alonso de Olmos, Sr., or else another individual altogether."Report on the uprising of the Indians of Florida, and loss of the fort of Santa Elena," [Document XIX] in Connor, ed., Colonial Records, I: 193-203, II: 193.
. See Francisco Pareja, Francisco Pareja's 1613 Confessionario: a Documentary Source for Timucuan Ethnography.Edited by Jerald T. Milanich and William C. Sturtevant, and translated by Emilio F. Moran.(Tallahassee: Division of Archives, History, and Records Management, Florida Department of State, 1972).
."Pedro Menéndez Márques to the King, Havana, May 15, 1580" [Document XLVII. A.G.I. 54-4-9-13] in Connor, ed., Colonial Records, II: 299.
. Deagan, "Sex, Status and Role in the Mestizaje of Spanish Colonial Florida," 12, 23.
.Doña Maria's example lends support to the thesis that native women frequently served as agents of acculturation and were largely responsible for the confluence of cultures that resulted from the "many tender ties" established through their relationships with male colonists.See Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women inFfur Trade Society, 1670-1870(Norman: London: University of Oklahoma Press, c.1980).While other feminist historians have argued that Native American women were more likely to resist colonial exploitation and challenges to their traditional way of life than their male counterparts, this does not appear to have been the case in La Florida.See also Karen Anderson's Chain Her by One Foot: the Subjugation of Women in Seventeenth-Century New France (London: New York: Routledge, c.1991), and Carol Devens' Countering Colonization: Native American Women and Great Lakes Missions, 1630-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, c.1992).
.Deagan, "Sex, Status and Role in the Mestizaje of Spanish colonial Florida," 16-18, 22-23.
."Doña Maria Menéndez, Cacique, writes the King asking aid in meeting the expenses of instructing the Indians in Christianity and good government" in A.M. Brooks, ed., and Annie Averette, trans., The unwritten history of old St. Augustine: copied from the Spanish archives in Seville, Spain (s.l.: n.p., n.d.), 32-33.Officials in Spain concurred in the reasonableness of her claims and wrote to her directly, and then to Governor Gonzalo Mendez de Canço authorizing a gift of cloth valued at 150 ducados to offset her expenses. Cedulario, 9 November, 1598, Madrid, 1 page, A.G.I. 86-5-19 and Cedulario, 9 November 1598, Madrid, 10 pages, A.G.I. 86-5-19 Stetson Collection, University of Florida, Gainesville.(Microfilm, Florida International University).
.Manuel Serrano y Sanz, ed., Documentos de la Florida y la Luisiana, siglos XVI al XVIII (Madrid: Librería General de Victoriano Suárez, 1912), 171-172.See also Kathleen Deagan's section on the Tacatacuru Indians in her article, "Cultures in transition: fusion and assimilation among the Eastern Timucua," published in Jerald Milanich and Samuel Proctor, ed.,Tacachale: Essays on the Indians of Florida and Southeastern Georgia During the Historic Period(Gainesville: The University Presses of Florida, 1978), 102-104.
.Luís Gerónimo de Oré, The Martyrs of Florida (1513-1616).Translated by Maynard Geiger.(New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc. Franciscan Studies 18 (July 1936): 71.
.Consejo de Indias to King, 20 June, 1596, Madrid, 2 pages, A.G.I. 53-1-6, Stetson Collection, University of Florida, Gainesville.(Microfilm, Florida International University).(My translation).
.Oré, Martyrs of Florida (1513-1616), 94-95.
.Lyon, ed., Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, 332.
."Pedro Menéndez Marqués to the King, Santa Elena, October 21, 1577" [Document XXVI. A.G.I. 54-5-16, 17] in Connor, ed., Colonial Records, I: 269.See also Lewis and Loomie, ed.,Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia, 1570-1572, 162, 163 n.9, 193-199.
."Alonso Sancho Saez and Miguel de Valdés, depositions made at San Agustin, August 12, 1586," [Document No. 51], Irene A. Wright, ed. and trans., Further English Voyages to Spanish America, 1583-1594: Documents from the Archive of the Indies at Seville Illustrating English Voyages to the Caribbean, the Spanish Main, Florida, and Virginia (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1949), 198-201.
.Fray Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo celebrated the heroic battle between the Castilian and Englishman in his epic poem "La Florida." See Covington, ed., and Falcones, trans., Pirates, Indians and Spaniards, 108-109.
.Memorial of Maria Junco, viuda de Juan Ramirez de Contreras, Madrid? 1606, 49 pages, A.G.I.53-2-9and Madrid, Consejo de Indias to King, Aug. 16, 1598, 10 pages, A.G.I. 53-1-6,Stetson Collection, University of Florida, Gainesville.(Microfilm, Florida International University).
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The problems of the euro turned critical when the Greek government nearly defaulted in May 2010 and the International Monetary Fund and European Union agreed to a bailout. In truth, the 17-nation euro area had deep troubles long before that. Its oversized and undercapitalized banks, its common monetary policy but diverse and fragmented fiscal policies, the persistent economic imbalances among nations that use the euro, and a cumbersome decision-making structure all made the euro-area economy vulnerable. The crisis, which still bears the mark of the Greek tragedy that first set it off, has now spread far beyond Greece.
The euro was created for normal times, but the EU lacked good mechanisms for crisis management. At every step of the Greek drama, policy-maker responses have remained behind the curve of economic deterioration. Slowly but surely, this erosion of confidence ensnared other countries, such as Ireland and Portugal, then spread to Spain and Italy, both perceived to be fiscally vulnerable. If European leaders cannot resolve Greece’s problems, they can hardly save the much larger economies of Spain and Italy.
As the Greek crisis unfolded and the focus shifted to sovereign debt, the pressure on policy--makers to tackle the endemic capital and liquidity problems in EU banks temporarily eased. However, EU–wide bank stress tests carried out in 2010 were discredited when Irish banks had to be bailed out just months after receiving a clean bill of health. The next set of stress tests in July 2011 were better but still did not inspire confidence, and EU leaders failed, yet again, to adequately address the problems of Greece in a summit at the end of July. Predictably, the money markets began betting against both the securities of banks and the sovereign debt of weaker EU member states.
The fates of the banks and the debt of member states are intimately linked. European banks are not required to hold capital against their investments in holdings of an EU country’s debt, so they keep a large amount of sovereign bonds on their books. As the rising borrowing costs of an increasing number of European nations have driven down the market value of their bonds, bank balance sheets have suffered accordingly.
Sovereign states and banks in Europe are now engaged in a dance of death where weak sovereigns pull banks down and weak banks push countries ever closer to default. Bold action is now needed on multiple fronts to break this downward spiral and restore growth and confidence in the euro-area economy. But the unfolding Greek disaster, an ill-suited institutional structure, and the poisoned political atmosphere among EU leaders all limit their room for maneuver as they grapple with multiple challenges.
Greece's problems are mostly fiscal—tax collection is terrible, and public spending is both high and inefficient. Public debt, at nearly 158 percent of gross domestic product and rising, is clearly unsustainable and unpayable. Yet the EU stubbornly refused to acknowledge this obvious truth and treated Greece as though it only had a temporary liquidity problem. This denial hurt the credibility of EU leaders and institutions. They now insist that Italy and Spain are solvent—but they said the same of Greece, which is not, making it much harder to restore market confidence in sovereign debt. The EU will need to go far beyond anything that is currently on the table—in restructuring the Greek debt, restoring growth, recapitalizing banks, building confidence in European sovereign debt, and reforming the EU system of governance.
By viewing the larger European problems through the lens of the special case of Greece, policy--makers have emphasized the fiscal aspects of the crisis. Lingering problems in the financial sector as well as failures of governance were left to fester. Instead, the EU prescribed austerity as a cure for all troubled member states including Spain and Ireland—which in fact had banking but not fiscal crises.
This fashionable austerity mantra has now been applied across Europe, even in countries like Germany that do not face a near-term public-debt problem, and in the U.K., where excessive austerity is driving the economy deeper into recession. All this has brought growth in Europe to a standstill, worsening the sovereign-debt crisis. Troubled countries desperately need growth but are forced to cut spending, hurting their near-term growth. Meanwhile, countries such as Germany that do have fiscal room to finance expansion are unwilling to spend. As growth falters, the debt overhang worsens.
The additional capital needs of EU banks, and the serious funding problems they face, have been belatedly recognized at a time when the market’s capacity to raise capital could hardly be worse. Most member nations are hesitant or unable to provide additional bank capital from public funds, except after a bank collapses, as in the case of Dexia. The European Central Bank (ECB) has reluctantly bought some sovereign debt but can only provide liquidity, not capital support to banks.
The EU’s approach has put Greece in a downward spiral from which, no matter what Greece does, it cannot extricate itself. The EU, IMF, and ECB have advanced the Greeks just enough money to keep current on their payments to creditors but have not supported sufficient restructuring to allow them to leave the debtor’s prison or grow. The bailout decision was accompanied by the politically convenient rhetoric of “lazy Greeks” in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. This has now come back to haunt leaders as the public opinion that they themselves helped stoke now makes it more difficult to get even modest improvements in the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which provides emergency financing to distressed economies.
European finance ministers and leaders have now met countless times to discuss Greece’s growing problems. These fraught discussions have not just used up precious time but worse, have sown personal mistrust and exhausted scarce political capital. This has poisoned the atmosphere and seriously limits the ability of the 17 euro-area countries to make decisions that are collectively sensible but individually difficult.
The institutional conflicts among the European Council (which represents member states), the European Commission, and the European Central Bank have further complicated the already-difficult politics. The ECB, for example, refuses to allow the mandatory restructuring of Greek debt needed to reach sustainable levels. As a result, EU leaders have tied themselves in knots trying to get a fair sharing of the financial burden between the EU public sector that is aiding Greece and the private bondholders holding Greek government bonds. Even more important, while the ECB has provided some support to troubled countries by buying their bonds in the market, total ECB purchases of euro-member bonds is puny—much smaller than the purchases of U.K. government bonds by the Bank of England. The refusal of the ECB to act as a proper lender of last resort to euro-area governments and to allow a proper restructuring of Greek debt seriously limits sensible solutions to the larger crisis of the euro area.
The October 23 European summit followed the pattern of doing too little, too late. Under the plan, private-sector holders of Greek debt will face restructuring losses of 40 percent to 60 percent, up from the 21 percent agreed to in July. But this is not enough to restore Greek debt to sustainability. Second, the EFSF will be allowed to offer partial guarantees for new borrowing by illiquid countries such as Spain and Italy to reduce their borrowing costs. This plan, at best, will offer only temporary relief and buy some time. The recapitalization of EU banks, in the amount of 100 billion euros or so, will disappoint markets and analysts. Finally, the governance reforms will not tackle the fundamental problems facing the euro area.
To solve the crisis, four big interrelated issues need to be tackled, urgently: halting the vicious sovereign debt/bank death spiral; rekindling growth without encouraging fiscal incontinence; ending political parochialism, pettiness, and procrastination; and finding a workable governance structure that addresses the structural deficiencies in the euro area. We cannot tackle fundamental issues without restoring confidence first, yet the panic will not go away unless Europe charts a credible path to improving governance.
More support for illiquid but solvent countries such as Italy, which are weighing down EU banks, will reduce the amount of capital needed for banks. Additional capital can then be mobilized through imposing a moratorium on bonuses and dividends, mandatory rights issues for shareholders and, for weak banks in weak states, support from the EFSF. In the longer term, strong legislation to allow resolution of failing banks will stop banks from bringing down entire nations. Allowing the issuance of eurobonds, jointly issued sovereign bonds of euro-area member states, could limit the damage weak countries could inflict on banks by reducing direct bank exposures to any sovereign bonds.
On the economic front, an open-ended ECB commitment to purchase troubled sovereign bonds would work best, though a more limited role may also work in combination with EFSF, at least temporarily. Using EFSF guarantees may make it politically easier for the ECB to ramp up its support.
In order to restore growth, weaker nations must be given more time to adjust fiscally, and healthier countries should reverse their austerity. An EU–wide agreement to coordinate ongoing country-level initiatives against tax evasion would generate substantial additional revenues; new taxes on carbon emissions and financial transactions would also help. Doubling European Investment Bank capital to finance pan–EU infrastructure will generate much-needed structural growth.
None of the short-term fixes or longer-term structural plans would be credible without a major improvement in the fractious politics of the euro area. Good economics has repeatedly fallen victim to bad politics. Making difficult but binding political commitments would signal a seriousness that has been missing thus far.
Greece’s problems, having cost Europe dearly, must be addressed decisively. A much deeper haircut of private debt, an EU–led investment program, and deeply concessional public support would make tomorrow look promising in Greece. Germany needs to swallow a bitter political pill and map out a medium-term route to adopting eurobonds. This will allow the euro area to exploit the fact that its fiscal situation looks healthier than that of the U.S., when Europe is considered as a single economy. Eurobonds would lower borrowing costs for all euro-area nations, though they are not a silver bullet. In exchange for this commitment, the ECB must stop playing a high-stakes game of chicken with leaders and increase its own support for sovereign bonds. This will provide countries the economic space to enact essential structural reforms.
The European Commission for its part must lay out clear plans for the closer fiscal coordination that complements a single monetary policy. At the same time, it needs to put special fast-acting crisis institutions in place since slow-moving EU institutions are designed only for normal times. Accelerating the creation of the European Stabilization Mechanism, a kind of European Monetary Fund, and giving it more powers and flexibility would help.
Most of all, a sustainable solution must be found to the structural problem of having diverse and divergent economies follow a single monetary policy without causing instability. Allowing the ECB to impose different, inflation-specific reserve requirements in different member states, using customized capital buffers for banks across countries with different growth rates, and making smarter use of old-fashioned tools such as maximum loan-to-value ratios would all help address the structural flaws of the euro area.
Without all countries and EU institutions pulling their weight, this could be the beginning of the end. Parochialism and pettiness cannot deliver stability in Europe; only the series of urgent short-term measures and sensible medium-term reforms suggested here can. Good policies and good politics must reinforce each other. United, the EU will stand; divided, we will fall and take the world economy down with us.
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I just returned from running workshops in Queensland, Australia and the group of teachers and I had a fantastic discussion around safety, connection and learning.
Let me tune you in to how we got into it by reproducing a bit of the morning of the Advanced Inquiry Workshop.
Our brain is designed to to ensure the safety and survival of our bodies. So it…Continue
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Rubric (noun): “perscribed guide for conduct or action”
One of the most significant challenges that teachers are experiencing at the moment in the Australian education system is shifting the paradigm of how they approach delivering education. Most schools suffer the schizophrenia of knowing that the development of essential skills and…Continue
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Added by Brad Flickinger on May 3, 2010 at 5:30am — No Comments | <urn:uuid:3ccd7583-5f76-4aa6-9db0-c071c79c66e6> | {
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Garnaut's muddled report
Professor Ross Garnaut's original interim report into climate change was 63 pages. His first draft report has ballooned out to a 537 page behemoth and there are two more iterations to go!
The draft report is largely about the science and politics of measures that bring higher prices for carbon dioxide. It says nothing about what the price one will have to pay for emitting carbon, and has only the crudest of modelling to estimate the costs to Australia. Even where it ventures into the economics of emission taxes and charges, the report is muddled.
Garnaut makes the inexplicable statement that we have to start enduring the pain as soon as possible as delays will mean we are closing off early opportunities to make the lowest cost savings. This, however, contradicts his basic storyline, which is of a relatively low cost, carbon constrained economy being made possible by technological developments in the future.
The reality is that as time goes on, it's supposed that we will have technological advances to allow a cheaper mitigation of carbon dioxide.
The report also transgresses basic economic theory with its approach to limiting the number of trading permits. Think about taxis and how when the cost of a license becomes exorbitant, governments hand out more of them. It keeps the price down. However, Garnaut rejects such a solution.
The lead up to the proposed development of a carbon permit policy has included many alternative schemes. Among these have been requiring the use of wind power, giving tax breaks those who install solar panels on their homes and regulations that force people building a new home to make it green.
But now we are coming to a point with decision making that will have a colossal impact on major investments. Almost everyone agrees that the best approach involves a price tag on emissions. Forcing the consumer to buy a PC TV or a five-star energy fridge is extremely costly.
Basically, over time, the idea is to close down conventional coal-powered stations and get people to use alternative energy. There are two ways of forcing the close-down, both of which involve higher costs for consumers.
The first involves permitting fewer of the emissions, giving the power stations these emission rights, which can they can they sell, pocket the money and exit the market. The other option is placing a high tax on the emissions (which would be the same as the value of an emission right), which would see power stations close down due to lack of profit.
Garnaut prefers a tax on emissions compared to the EU approach of an allocation of emissions to existing players. Garnaut also wants a wider coverage than the EU scheme, which does not include petrol (but where petrol prices already incorporate a tax very much higher than Australia's).
The efforts to close down the conventional power stations will entail electricity becoming very expensive. These are the only conditions in which the alternatives like wind or coal, which has its carbon dioxide removed, can enter the market without being undercut in price by conventional
coal-based power stations.
Garnaut's tax penalty rather than an incentive to encourage firms to exit has already caused grief to the NSW Government's electricity privatisation program with Michael Costa recognising that the proposals devalue the state's assets.
Generators claim the tax approach will leave them bankrupt within a matter of months. It would be a rash government that did not test these claims further.
Garnaut also wants a carbon tax to be incorporated into the costs of almost all goods and services. One exception is where the tax would increase a company's operating costs by say 30%. He proposes to exempt such companies. But the point is that all sectors are vulnerable to even relatively small cost changes.
Take a big company like Adidas, for example. They will move their factories from Cambodia to China to just save a few cents per shoe. Profits are vital drivers of business decisions and dictate plant location decisions well before cost differentials of 30% are reached.
This draws into relief the colossal international ramifications of carbon emission suppression. No measures make sense without an international treatment where a common penalty is imposed on all. Without this, industrial activities will head to countries with lower taxes.
Australia accounts for one per cent of world emissions. Its total cessation of emissions would have no effect on global levels so it makes no sense to act alone.
The Garnaut report does touch upon the enormity of the international task. Stabilisation means world emissions at around two tonnes of CO2 equivalent per capita. At the moment, the US emits 20 tonnes, China four which is about the world average. Australia emits 16.2 tonnes per capita.
At an international level the measures to force compliance foreshadow the end of the global trading system. Garnaut cites, with apparent approval, the suggestion of the economist Joseph Stiglitz that a tariff be placed on goods for recalcitrant countries which are not playing the game. Garnaut also notes that the head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy supports this as a "distant second best solution" - i.e. as a background threat if a voluntary solution does not emerge.
We have no conception of how we might achieve the cuts Garnaut sees as necessary and he offers few clues. | <urn:uuid:89cbf7f5-2256-40cc-8fdc-0a673c482560> | {
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The latest data from the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) show that 18.5% of children and teens and 39.8% of adults age 20 and older were obese in 2015–2016 — similar figures to 2 years earlier, but still above national targets.
“The observed change in prevalence between 2013–2014 and 2015–2016 was not significant, among both adults and youth [aged 5 to 19],” Craig M Hales and colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) report in the October 2017 Data Brief.
However, “the prevalence of obesity in the United States remains higher than the Healthy People 2020 goals of 14.5% among youth and 30.5% among adults,” they stress.
Obesity — defined as a body mass index (BMI) > 30 kg/m2 in adults and BMI > 95th percentile for children or teens of the same age and gender — has increased among children, adolescents, and adults in the United States over the past decade but now appears to be leveling off.
Specifically, in 1999–2000, close to a third (30.5%) of adults in the United States were obese, and obesity rates increased significantly at each NHANES survey (done every 2 years) over the next decade.
However, the rise in obesity from 37.7% in 2013–2014 to 39.6% in 2015–2016 was not significant.
Similarly, in 1999–2000, more than one in 10 (13.9%) children and teens in the United States was obese, and these rates continued to climb. However, the increase from 17.2% in 2013–2014 to 18.5% in 2015–2016 was not significant.
Highest Obesity Rates in Middle Age, Blacks, Hispanics, Women
In the most recent NHANES survey, about one in 10 toddlers and two in five middle-aged people in the United States were obese, Dr Hales and colleagues report.
Specifically, obesity rates among 2- to 5-year-olds, 6- to 11-year-olds, and teens increased from 13.9% to 18.4% to 20.6%, respectively.
Among adults, obesity rates increased from 35.7% to 42.8% and then dropped slightly to 41.0% among 20- to 39-year-olds, 40- to 59-year-olds, and people aged 60 and older, respectively.
Black women, Hispanic women, and Hispanic men had higher obesity rates than their peers.
More than half of all adult black women (54.8%) and just over half of all Hispanic women (50.6%) in the United States in 2015–2016 were obese, compared with 38.0% of white women and 14.8% of Asian women.
Among men, 43.1% of Hispanic men vs 37.9% of white men and 36.9% of black men were obese, compared with 10.1% of Asian men.
For children, similar percentages of 2- to 5-year-old boys (14.3%) and girls (13.5%) were obese, but among 6- to 11-year-olds, more boys were obese (20.4%) than girls (16.3%). Obesity rates were similar in adolescent boys (20.2%) and girls (20.9%), with around one in five affected.
By ethnic group, among youth aged 5 to 19, obesity rates were high in Hispanic boys (28%) and girls (23.6%) and black girls (25.1%) and boys (19.0%). Obesity rates were lower in white boys (14.6%) and girls (13.5%) and Asian boys (11.7%) and girls (10.1%).
The high but plateauing obesity rate in children and teens in the US is consistent with findings from a global study reported this week to coincide with World Obesity Day, as reported by Medscape Medical News.
This paper was simultaneously published in the Lancet, and during a press briefing in London earlier this week, lead author Majid Ezzati, PhD, chair in global environmental health, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, said that in high-income countries, mean BMI in children and teens has leveled off, albeit at high levels, since 2000.
In contrast, there have been large increases in rates of overweight and obese children and teens in countries in East Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North Africa.
National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief. Published October 13, 2017. Article | <urn:uuid:a8138059-1b89-4d37-add0-a5cc01588e8e> | {
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A traditional Fantasy theme dating back to medieval times, in which a ship – the Narrenschiff or Ship of Fools – carries all sorts of persons on an endless voyage in search of Utopia, providing an easily visualizable literal vehicle for allegorical Satire on the follies of humanity, the most famous such vehicle probably being "The Ship of Fools" (before 1500) by Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450-1516). The definitive literary realization of the topos is Die Narrenschiff (1494; trans Alexander Barclay as The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde 1509) by Sebastian Brant (1457-1521); there are many later (much improved) translations, as partially described in Aurelius Pompen's The English Versions of the Ship of Fools (1925) [for Ship of Fools in general also see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. As a controlling metaphor, the "ship of fools" has subtended many subsequent works. Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) is set on a Mississippi riverboat easy to trace from Brant's original. Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876) is a comic though ultimately disquieting example. The eponymous ship-like island at the heart of Jules Verne's L'Île à hélice (1895 2vols; trans W J Gordon as The Floating Island; or, The Pearl of the Pacific 1896) is a full-blown ship of fools. Bird Life at the Pole by Commander Christopher Robin (1931) by Wolcott Gibbs (1902-1958) satirizes the 1930s Media Landscape. The Noah's Ark legend is occasionally seen in such a light, as in H G Wells's All Aboard for Ararat (1940), T H White's The Elephant and the Kangaroo (1947) and Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (coll of linked stories 1989).
Sf novels set on sea-vessels which to a greater or lesser degree echo the Ship of Fools theme include Fenner Brockway's Purple Plague: A Tale of Love and Revolution (1935), Countess Gabrielle Hessenstein's Monkey Paradise: A Tale of the Jungle (1945), John Bowen's After the Rain (1958), Martin Bax's The Hospital Ship (1976), Richard Cowper's Profundis (1979), Damon Knight's CV (1985), James Lovegrove's The Hope (1990), Melvin Jules Bukiet's Signs and Wonders (1999) and Antonia Honeywell's The Ship (2015). A non-sf instance is Terry Southern's The Magic Christian (1959), loosely adapted as a 1969 film with the same title. In Frank Herbert's The Dragon in the Sea (November 1955-January 1956 Astounding as "Under Pressure"; 1956; vt 21st Century Sub 1956; vt Under Pressure 1974), the literal and psychological pressures of a voyage deep Under the Sea push folly to the brink of insanity. The very many nautical homages in China Miéville's The Scar (2002) include an expansion of the Ship to a vast Armada of Fools with a hubristic mission. Switching modes of Transportation, the film Snowpiercer (2013) directed by Joon-ho Bong is set on an enormous train whose passengers or inhabitants comprise a traditional spectrum of fools.
In science fiction, the theme is easily and logically extended to a Spaceship of fools. Some examples are the deluded amateur Scientists of Theodore Sturgeon's "The Pod and the Barrier" (September 1957 Galaxy as "The Pod in the Barrier"; vt in A Touch of Strange, coll 1958), the bickering star-travellers in John Brunner's Mysterious Stranger tale Sanctuary in the Sky (1960 dos), the brasshats and bureaucrats in Eric Frank Russell's The Great Explosion (fixup 1962), and the lunar expedition crew of William F Temple's Shoot at the Moon (1966). Thematic resonances are also felt in Gene Wolfe's The Urth of the New Sun (1987), which opens aboard a vast space-traversing ship with sails, where intimations of Transcendence are blurred by relatively petty assassination plots. More distant echoes of the Ship of Fools are found in many a Generation Starship (which see) whose inhabitants have forgotten or slipped into denial about their true mission, a late example being Richard Paul Russo's Ship of Fools (2001; vt Unto Leviathan 2003). [DRL]
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Do you want to know how to stop bleeding gums? It means you are not caring properly for your gums. In fact, there are many people who really forget the value of caring for their gums, as it is an important oral hygiene regimen. Your gums start bleed mostly due to the oral health issues. Gums are the foundation of a healthy mouth, so there is a need to taking care of them properly. If you don’t do so then keep in mind that you are really at risk for oral health issues.
While brush or floss, you might notice that your gums bleed and you instantly shrug it off or think it is normal. No or not at all! The fact is that bleeding from the gums indicates an underlying problem. No-doubt that gum disease affects the entire surrounding tissues that support the teeth. There are bacteria around the gums turn into tartar and then build-up plaque. The most important thing is to adopt the top quality oral hygiene that is really effective to cures bleeding gums. Before knowing how to stop bleeding gums, you should aware from the main and other causes of bleed in gums.
Causes of Bleeding Gums:
Most often bleed in gums are caused due to the harmful plaque and there are millions of bacteria found at or around the gum line which is developing gingivitis. You need to treat gingivitis and improved oral hygiene to eliminate this mild form of gum disease. If you ignore it or left untreated then gingivitis and bleeding gums can become more harmful and turns into the more serious form of gum disease called periodontists.
- Bleeding disorders
- Vitamin K & C deficiency
- Hormonal Changes
- Scurvy or the use of blood thinners
- Poor oral hygiene
- Poor nutrition
- Tobacco use
How to Stop Bleeding Gums:
Get ready to know the best methods that help to get rid of bleeding gums.
Step Up Your Oral Care Game:
As mentioned earlier the most common reason behind bleeding gums is plaque build-up that irritates your gums and begins bleeds in gums within no time. So, the tremendous approach is that you adopt the legitimate way by step up your oral care. Keep in mind never ignore your oral care otherwise your gums can lead to some serious kind of problems:
Oral Health Care Includes:
- Brush properly (twice a day)
- Use fluoride toothpaste
- Treat flossing
- Consider mouthwash
- Eat Crunchy Foods
- Drink plenty of water
- Avoid sugary and acidic foods
- Consult your doctor at-least twice a year
Increase Your Intake of Vitamin C:
Obviously! Vitamin C deficiency can also lead to bleeding in gums even you are caring or practice good oral habits. So, if you not getting enough vitamin C then you should begin eating the foods that are rich in vitamin C. For your kind of information, vitamin C can prevent the gum infections and also fight off the infection of gums that causes the bleeding gums.
The Vegetables That You Need To Eat:
- Parsley and thyme
- Mustard greens
- Brussels sprouts
The Fruits That You Need To Eat:
- Kiwi Fruits
- Oranges and strawberries
Increase Your Intake of Vitamin K:
Vitamin K can also help to alleviate bleeding gums. The deficiency of vitamin K can lead to gum infections even if you are at top quality oral hygiene. So if there is a deficiency then you should increase your intake of vitamin K immediately.
Vegetables Rich in Vitamin K:
- Swiss Chard
- Collard Greens
- Beet Greens
Fruits Rich in Vitamin K:
Reduce Stress Level:
A study recommended that periodontal disease and emotional stress both are linked with each other. Experts or doctors say that emotional stress has affected your immune system or has a negative impact on it. This begins weakening of the body defenses and becomes at the point where your body can’t fight with an infection of gums.
Keep in mind that emotional stress can also cause to neglect the oral health, so there is a need to stay relax and happy.
Everybody knows that tobacco is quite injurious for health. In fact, use of tobacco can harmful for your gums and begin damaging your gums within no time. If you are a smoker or intake tobacco then you should eliminate it immediately to stop bleeding in gums otherwise you might to face some serious kind of gum infection.
Making a Salt Water Mouth Rinse:
You can easily make a solution of salt water, this method is really best to stop bleeding in gums. Many experts also recommended this method for curing bleeding gums. You can just add ½ tsp of salt into a cup of warm water and begin to rinse your mouth with this solution. You can repeat this twice a day.
You Can Use The Rinse to:
- Soothe and heal mouth infections.
- Whiten Your Teeth
- Immediate stop the bleeding gums
- Remove the bacterium
Drink Green Tea:
The people who are looking for treat periodontal disease and wants to stop bleeding gums must start drinking green tea on daily basis. It contains catechin and due to natural antioxidants, it can lower the body’s inflammation response to bacteria around the mouth.
To notice any improvement in health you ought to daily intake of green tea, three to four cups. Although some experts recommended that you need to drink up to 10 cups a day to get the best health results.
When to See a Doctor:
If you follow the above tips and your gum bleeding doesn’t improve within 7 to 10 days then you should consult with your doctor. There are might need to remove plaque and tartar. Maybe you need deep dental cleaning to promote gum healing.
You should ask your doctor to check for any vitamin deficiencies and the things that cause gum bleeding.
Thankfully – here you come to know how to stop bleeding gums. You can follow the above tips and get cure your gum infection immediately. | <urn:uuid:8bac1d3a-2b01-4125-9305-9fde0eecf0ea> | {
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Negotiations halfway complete on UN high seas treaty, with far-reaching impacts for seafood industry
Time is running out for the fishing and seafood industries to weigh in on a United Nations treaty that will govern fishing and other activities on the high seas.
The treaty is being developed as part of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and is formally known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement. It could raise costs for fishermen by adding administrative and reporting requirements for those who fish outside of countries’ national waters.
Several key provisions in the treaty would also affect where and how vessels fish on the high seas by setting up mechanisms to create area-based management tools, such as marine protected areas, and outlining when and where environmental impact assessments must be completed.
Negotiators from more than 200 countries have completed two of four negotiating sessions so far – the first in September last year and the second in March and April of this year. A third round will run from 19 to 30 August at the U.N. headquarters in New York, with a fourth and final round in early 2020. The draft text of the treaty was released earlier this summer.
So far, the fishing and seafood industries have not contributed substantially to the treaty negotiation process, according to Paul Holthus, founder and president of the World Ocean Council, a business alliance that advances corporate responsibility in regard to the oceans.
“The treaty development is thus moving forward steadily to realizing a legally binding agreement that significantly revises the ‘freedom of the seas’ concept that has defined human involvement in the high seas for centuries,” Holthus told SeafoodSource. “There is not much time left in the process for the fisheries, seafood, and other ocean industries to provide their input.”
The World Ocean Council has been the only ocean business organization that has consistently engaged in the treaty process during the last decade, Holthus said, adding that the council will continue to provide input on the negotiation of the treaty text.
The draft treaty’s current requirements for environmental impact assessments are far-reaching, Holthus said. They outline which activities do and don’t require an assessment, who makes determinations on if an activity is allowed to proceed, and how results of an assessment can be challenged.
The environmental impacts considered go beyond a specific site or activity and include considerations of cumulative and transboundary effects, such as impacts that cross from national waters into international waters, Holthus said. The draft treaty text also allows for more stringent assessment requirements in areas that are designated ecologically or biologically significant.
Negotiators have debated which U.N. agency should administer the treaty, or whether a new body should be established, Holthus said. Aspects of monitoring and verifying are still being discussed, along with details related to which areas and activities will require an environmental impact assessment. Certain contentious issues may not be fully resolved in the treaty itself, which would then contain a broad outline and process for sorting out details later.
“It is important to remember that this will be a legally binding instrument under the Law of the Sea, effectively the most encompassing ocean regulation since the Law of the Sea itself was adopted,” Holthus said. “The fishing and seafood industry should thus be concerned that they have not provided a lot of input to the drafting of the treaty thus far.”
Currently, human activity on the high seas is managed by a patchwork of international bodies and treaties that vary greatly in their mandate, scope and objective. During the negotiations, disagreements have arisen over how the new treaty will mesh with those other bodies, according to Liz Karan, who heads the treaty delegation for The Pew Charitable Trusts, which is acting as an official NGO observer.
Various regional fisheries management organizations have made interventions or participated in side events, Karan said, while representatives from domestic fishing industries and interests have participated in government stakeholder consultations in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Discussion of how to manage the high seas has been ongoing at the U.N. for more than a decade, even though formal negotiations started just last year and are now halfway complete.
“There have been some tense moments during that period, but the current tenor of the negotiations is collegial with an eye towards achieving a practicable agreement,” Karan told SeafoodSource. “There also seems to be an increased momentum to successfully finalize the treaty text in 2020, based in part on the growing public attention and awareness that the health of our global ocean is declining.”
Photo courtesy of Yarygin/Shutterstock | <urn:uuid:f5f85dc2-51c8-4270-b395-1a76a8b41690> | {
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In 1497, Pope Alexander had a crisis of his own making that was threatening to undermine his ability to govern the Catholic Church. A romantic rivalry between two of his sons (he had at least six children) had become a source of intrigue around Rome. In fact, this scandal was so lurid, it was appalling even to those accustomed to flagrant immorality from the papacy.
The two sons in question were Cesare and Juan, and they were both in love with their sister, Lucrezia. The plot thickened, as the Pope refused to let either of his sons marry his daughter, as he was sleeping with her himself. As the famous biographer and historian William Manchester wrote, “Even for those times, this was scandalous.”
When one of the sons, Juan, turned up murdered, suspicion was split between the father and brother. When Lucrezia turned up pregnant, that same divided suspicion remained. Rome had long been accustomed to assassinations, orgies, and public rioting from the Pope’s family. But this scandal involved all three simultaneously, and even the public was beginning to demand change. Alexander decided he needed to marry his daughter off to a powerful Duke, consolidating the Pope’s power, and ending the scandal.
There were numerous problems with this plan. First, Lucrezia was already married (technically speaking…it was a political alliance thing). No problem, that marriage could be annulled by the Pope. But in order for that to happen, the Pope and a Vatican council had to certify that she was a virgin. This would be impossible to do with a straight face, seeing as how she was known to be the Pope’s lover, was six months pregnant, and visibly showing. So the Vatican council acted without the straight face, and when they declared her a virgin, witnesses said that laughter echoed throughout the Vatican. One poet, Jacopo Sannazaro, wrote a poem commemorating the declaration. Translated from the Latin, it reads:
Here lies Lucrezia, who was really a tart,
The daughter, wife, and daughter in-law of Alexander.
In Latin it rhymed. But regardless, the third obstacle was insurmountable, and the marriage was halted when the groom was murdered by Cesare.
This lead to the uncomfortable development that the Pope’s daughter gave birth to a son, Giovanni, and there was no way of knowing if the father was the Pope’s son or the Pope himself. By the time the child was 3 years old, his mother was 21. It became necessary politically for the Pope to marry her off, and the Pope chose the Duke of Ferrara. The new problem was that Canonical Law forbade the Pope from recognizing his own illegitimate children (only if they were fathered while he was Pope, which in this case was obvious; in fact the public labeled Giovanni “the Roman Child”). That difficulty here was notably compounded by they fact that the mother of his son was also his daughter. But…if the Pope recognized Cesare (his other son and her other lover) as Giovanni’s father, then the Duke of Ferrara would likely not marry Lucrezia for fear of losing his title as Duke.
If that is confusing, here it is simply: The Pope was in a Catch-22. Either the Giovanni was his, or his son’s. One option was permissible legally, the other was possible politically. So what would he do?
Here is his solution, in the words of William Manchester:
The Pope, deciding to legitimatize his daughter’s child, issued two extraordinary bulls September 1, 1501. The first, which was made public, identified the three-year-old boy as the offspring of Cesare and an unmarried woman… The second, a secret bull, acknowledged Giovanni to be the son of the pope and the same woman.
In other words, Giovanni had two fathers. And, don’t loose sight of the fact that he was born only three months after the Vatican and Pope had declared his mother a virgin. That is a truly immaculate conception!
I was alerted to this story by reading E. R. Chamberlin’s book The Bad Popes. Believe me when I say that this affair is not even in the top five as far as radically immoral acts committed by the Popes of that time. In fact, some of the stories were so graphic and stunning that I paused to ask myself why I was even reading them. The answer is two-fold. First, it is a powerful reminder that Luther’s Reformation was not in a vacuum. Theology has consequences, and bad theology destroys lives. In this case, bad theology had the potential to destroy a continent, which it did. The dark ages were so backwards and perverse, in large part because of the rampant immorality of the Popes.
Secondly, it is a reminder that the strongest argument that Catholic Apologists use today-that the Catholic Church has an unbroken chain of tradition stretching back to the Apostles-is pure fabrication. Not only is it fabrication in the historic sense (because the papacy did not being in any recognizable way until the 400′s), but it is fabrication in the ethical sense. Many Popes, Luther said, “have so often contradicted themselves,” and he did not simply mean on the finer points of theology. When Alexander declared his daughter (whom he had been sleeping with) to be a virgin, only to see her give birth 3 months later, Luther was 16 years old. When Alexander issued official Church Bulls declaring that his son had two fathers, Luther was 19 years-old. He entered the monastery four years later.
It would be another twelve years before he posted his thesis on the church door. From that point forward, it is simply no longer feasible to maintain that Catholics and Protestants essentially believe the same things. There are substantive differences, one of which is the concept of papal authority, and another of which is the claim that the Roman Catholic Church has a glorious and unbroken continuity of being Christ’s seat on Earth.
They may have a tradition, but is neither glorious nor unbroken.
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Think of your house or apartment as the center of a Tic-Tac-Toe diagram, with eight spaces around you being residences surrounding you.
Can you name all of the people living in the 8 houses or apartments closest to you?
If you answered the first question, can you think of something about their life that is not visible from the outside of their house?
If you were able to answer the second question, do you know any superficial facts not seen from the outside?
If you answered the first two questions, do you know anything personal about them? Would you consider them a friend and do you help them when needed and they help you?
Results from this exercise
- Less than 10% of the people know the names of their eight surrounding neighbors.
- Those that do, only one or two can tell you anything superficial about their neighbors.
- Maybe one can tell you something deeper about their neighbors and these people have been intentional about getting to know their neighbors.
Most people don’t know the names of their neighbors, let alone anything personal about them. It’s typical for many people to have lived in their current residence for a short time. It’s easy for people to feel isolated and not care if they know their neighbors or not. People find it difficult to know who to go to if they need help.
How Many Different Places Have You Lived in during your lifetime?
Asking hundreds of people in US cities this question, we found the following:
- Less than 10% have lived in fewer than five places in their adult life.
- 33% have lived in 5-10 places.
- 40% have lived in 10-15 places.
- 15% have lived in 15-20 places.
- 10% have lived in 20 or more places
This shows us that Americans are very transient. Many people only live in one place for two or three years. Most people are very busy at work and with their kids, taking them to their different activities. Therefore, they don’t have time for their neighbors, so why make the effort?
Even those who have lived in a place a long time, who used to take cookies to their new neighbors or helped their neighbors, have stopped. They once knew most of their neighbors but today they know they won’t be there long, so why go through the effort.
Are you interested in learning how you can be intentional about meeting your Neighbor? If so click below to download an article on how to Know Your Neighbors. | <urn:uuid:e337cab1-39c1-4cb3-84c3-f4da2904584a> | {
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The average adult gets between two and four colds a year. That's a lot of coughing, congestion, headaches, and runny noses. Some of this suffering is unavoidable — there's no cure for a cold — but that doesn't stop everyone from swearing by one remedy or another: loads of vitamin C, hot tea, a hard run and a long sauna, zinc, a hefty pour of whiskey, a bowl of chicken soup. But what actually stops, prevents, or shortens colds? We talked to a number of experts and pored over the hard science (there are 65 serious studies on vitamin C alone) to get to the bottom of what really works.
Not getting a severe cold requires two things: avoiding viruses and keeping your immune system strong. Avoidance is straightforward: Give a wide berth to people sneezing, coughing, and blowing their noses. The specific thing you're trying to evade is virus-carrying mucus, which sounds easy enough – but it's not. Mucus from runny noses, hacking coughs, and sneezes can protect viruses for hours as they sit invisibly on surfaces everywhere. Wash your hands frequently. Soap and water are best, but if you're in a bind, hand sanitizer (containing alcohol) will do. And don't worry as much about direct saliva – swapping spit by, say, kissing or sharing a drink probably won't get you sick, says Dr. Gailen D. Marshall Jr., the chair of allergy and immunology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, because saliva alone doesn't carry pathogens.
Keeping your immune system strong in cold season is tougher. To start, you need to sleep more. People getting less than seven hours in the weeks before they're exposed to a cold are three times more likely to get sick than people sleeping eight hours or more. Exercise is trickier. A number of studies have indicated that frequent exercisers get about a third fewer colds than more sedentary people, but don't push it too hard – research also shows that too much (90 minutes or more) can reverse the benefits. Additionally, the immune system needs a variety of nutrients to function. The best way to get all you need is to follow a Mediterranean-style diet, full of whole fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, and fish. Studies have pointed to the benefits of some specific foods, too, such as onions and apples, which, according to Jo Robinson, author of 'Eating on the Wild Side,' contain a range of vitamins as well as quercetin, an antioxidant that may help reduce the incidence of colds. Pass over the multivitamins for whole foods, which have a wider array of nutrients and whose benefits are better documented.
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| Bactris (BAHK-triss) |
Habitat and DistributionBactris gasipaes is found in Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Bactris gasipaes grows erect, with a single slender stem or, more often, several stems to 8 in (20 cm) thick, caespitose (growing in tufts or clumps); generally armed with stiff, black spines in circular rows from the base to the summit. There are occasional specimens with only a few spines. It can typically grow to 20 metres (66 ft) or taller . The leaves 8-10 per crown, are pinnate, 3 metres (9.8 ft) long on a 1 metre (3.3 ft) long petiole. The fruit is a drupe with edible pulp surrounding the single seed, 4–6 cm long and 3–5 cm broad. The rind (epicarp) of the fruit can be red, yellow, or orange when the fruit is ripe, depending on the variety of the palm. Highly regarded today as a source of nutritious food, the pejibaye, Bactris gasipaes HBK. (syns. B. speciosa Karst.; Guilielma gasipaes L.H. Bailey; G. speciosa Mart.; G. utilis Orst.), family Palmae, is also called peach palm. It is known as pejivalle in Costa Rica; peach-nut, pewa or pupunha in Trinidad; piva in Panama; cachipay, chichagai, chichaguai, contaruro, chonta, choritadura, chenga, jijirre, pijiguay, pipire, pirijao, pupunha, or tenga in Colombia; bobi, cachipaes, rnacanilla, melocoton, pichiguao, pihiguao, pijiguao, piriguao, or pixabay in Venezuela; comer, chonta, and tempe in Bolivia; chonta dura, chonta ruru, pijuanyo, pifuayo, sara-pifuayo, pisho-guayo in Peru; amana, in Surinam; parepon in French Guiana; popunha in Brazil. (Borchsenius, F. 1998)/Palmweb. Editing by edric.
The pejibaye attains a height of 65 to 100 ft (20 30 m), and usually produces suckers freely. The leaves, with short, spiny petioles, are pinnate, about 8 to 12 ft (2.4-3.6 m) long, with many linear, pointed leaflets to 2 ft (60 cm) long and 1 1/4 in (3.2 cm) wide; dark green above, pale beneath, spiny on the veins. The inflorescence, at first enclosed in a spiny spathe, is composed of slender racemes 8 to 12 in (20-30 cm) long on which the yellowish male and female flowers are mingled except for the terminal few inches where there are only male flowers. The fruit, hanging in clusters of 50 to 100 or sometimes as many as 300, weighing 25 lbs (11 kg) or more, is yellow to orange or scarlet, yellow-and-red, or brownish at first, turning purple when fully ripe. It is ovoid, oblate, cylindrical or conical, 1 to 2 in (2.5-5 cm) long, cupped at the base by a green, leathery, 3-pointed calyx. A single stem may bear 5 or 6 clusters at a time. The skin is thin, the flesh yellow to light-orange, sweet, occasionally with a trace of bitterness, dry and mealy. Some fruits are seedless. Normally there is a single conical seed 3/4 in (2 cm) long, with a hard, thin shell and a white, oily, coconut-flavored kernel. Rarely one finds 2 fused seeds.
Subcanopy palm. Stems solitary or clustering, but often cespitose (growing in tufts or clumps), 5-15 m tall, 10-20 cm in diameter. Leaves 8-10 per crown, leaf blade 2-3.5 m long; pinnae 100-125 on each side, inserted in groups and spreading in different planes, the central ones 60-80 cm long and 3-5 cm wide. Inflorescences 40-75 cm long; branches 50-80, to 35 cm long. Female flowers scattered along the branches. Fruit globose to ovoid, yellow to red, smooth, 1.5-5 cm long; fruiting perianth with a very small calyx and a much longer, briefly lobed corolla; staminodial ring absent. (Borchsenius, F. 1998)/Palmweb.
Includes two varities, more or less identical vegetatively, but different in the size of their fruits: a cultivated/domesticated large fruited form, var. gasipaes, and a native, small fruited form, var. chichagui. (Borchsenius, F. 1998)/Palmweb.
Young plants must be protected from ants which will destroy the tender shoots. The palm grows rapidly and reaches 43 ft (13 m) in 10 to 15 years. At low altitudes, seedlings begin to bear in 6 to 8 years. In cool regions, bearing may not begin until the plant is 10 to 12 years old. Productive life is said to be 50 to 75 years.
Comments and Curiosities
There are two subspecies; Bactris gasipaes var. chichagui, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Disjunct between Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and the SW Amazon region in Peru, Brazil and Bolivia. Distribution in Ecuador. In Ecuador it is found only W of the Andes, in dry and moist forest. Considered the native form of the domesticated Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes. Fruit globose to ovoid, yellow to red, smooth, 1.5-2.5 x 1-2 cm.
Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes, Bolivia, Brazil North, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, French Guiana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, and Venezuela. Planted or naturalised, always near human settlements, in humid lowland areas throughout tropical America. Subcanopy palm. Stems clustered, to 15 m tall and 15 cm in diameter. Leaves 2-3.5 m long; pinnae to 125 on each side, inserted in groups and spreading in different planes, the central ones to 80 cm long and 4 cm wide. Inflorescence 40-70 cm long; branches up to 50, to 35 cm long. Fruit red, smooth, 3-5 cm in diameter; fruiting perianth with a very small calyx and a much longer, briefly lobed corolla; staminodial ring absent. (Borchsenius, F. 1998)/Palmweb.
Every Indian dwelling has a patch of pejibaye palms. The palm has also been planted as partial shade for coffee. It is not as common anywhere else in Central America, though it is fairly abundant in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, and has long been grown in commercial plots in Panama to furnish fruits for local markets. In Colombia and Peru, great quantities of the fruits appear in the markets and vendors sell them along the streets. There are large stands of this palm in the Orinoco region of Venezuela and equatorial Brazil. The Indians of Colombia and Ecuador hold festivals when the pejibayes are in season, though in the latter country the fruits are valued more as feed for livestock than as food for humans. The United States Department of Agriculture received seeds from Costa Rica in 1920 (S.P.I. #50679), but those in the first lot had lost viability. The United Fruit Company shipped whole fruits but they fermented en route and were mistakenly thrown overboard at New York, the stevedores not being aware that they were imported only for their seeds. Another shipment was made with adequate instructions and 1,000 seedlings were grown in greenhouses in Maryland and distributed. Today there are scattered specimens in southern Florida, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Trinidad. The palm was introduced into the Philippines in 1924. In the 1970's, the possibility of growing pejibayes in India was inspired by settlers of East Indian lineage in Trinidad and South America who produce and sell the fruits. In 1978, Brazilian horticulturists undertook a study to determine the feasibility of establishing pejibaye plantations in the State of Sao Paulo with a view to exploiting the fruit and the tenninal bud (heart, or palmito). There has been much interest generated in recent years in the cultivation of the palm solely for its hearts which are of high quality. Costa Rica is a leader in this enterprise and there the hearts are being canned commercially. Varieties: There is much variation in form, size, color and quality of the fruits. Some with longitudinal scars (pejibaye rayodo) are considered of superior quality. These scars indicate low water content, firmness and a minimum of fiber in the flesh. In Costa Rica there are palms that bear clusters having a majority of seedless fruits. These are called pejibaye macho (male pejibaye) and are much prized. It has been found in surveys that only 30 to 60 palms in a seedling planting of 400 will yield highgrade fruit. As many as 100 may yield fruit of such low quality that it is not marketable for human consumption. In recent years, germplasm collections have been initiated in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Brazil, and there is a great potential for crop improvement and standardization. Spineless forms (tapire), especially, are being sought for breeding purposes. Climate: The pejibaye requires a tropical climate. It is generally restricted to elevations below 6,000 ft (1,800 m). Fruiting is reduced above 5,000 ft (1,500 m). The ideal average annual temperature ranges between 64.4° and 75.2°F (18°-24°C). At low elevations with excessive rainfall, the palm cannot succeed. Optimum rainfall is 78 to 156 in (200-400 cm), rather evenly distributed the year around. Soil: The palm does well even on poor soils but thrives best on fertile, well drained land. In a favorable producing region of Costa Rica, the soil varies from clay loam to nearly pure clay. However, riparian, alluvial soils are deemed most desirable. Propagation: The pejibave is grown from seed or from suckers. Seeds can be shade-dried for a few hours, packed in moist sphagnum moss or charcoal and shipped to any part of the world. When planted, they will germinate in 3 months. In fruit plantations, the palms are set 20 ft (6 m) apart. After a few years the suckers emerge and only 2 to 4 are allowed to remain to maturity. When they are 4 to 6 ft (1.2-1.8 m) high and about 3 in (7.5 cm) thick at the base, excess suckers are taken up, cut back severely, kept in the shade and watered until new roots are formed, and then transplanted to new locations. Weeding is done 2 or 3 times a year. For the production of palm hearts, the spacing is closer, from 5 to 10 ft (1.5-3 m), as the terminal buds can be harvested in 2 1/2 to 3 years. Researchers have found that an application of flurenol (10 ppm) will induce formation of lateral shoots. At 200 ppm, shoot growth is inhibited. Season: In Colombia, the fruits of cultivated palms mature in January and February. Wild palms may bear twice a year. There are 2 crops a year in Trinidad, one without seeds, the other with seeds. In Costa Rica, the flowers appear in April, May and June in the lowlands, later in the highlands, and fruits mature from September to April. Harvesting: Because of the spines on the stems, the fruits are knocked down with long poles or harvested with long poles equipped with cutters, unless ladders are available and the bunches can be cut intact and lowered by rope. If the bunch is dropped down, it is caught in a leaf-lined sack held by 2 men, or may land on a deep pile of banana leaves. When the palm gets too tall, the farmer usually cuts it down to obtain the fruits and the heart. If he is fortunate enough to have a number of nearly spineless palms, the spines can be trimmed off and the palm can be climbed. If all the spines are cut off the spiny trunks, the palm will die, but 5 to 8 ft (1.5 2.5 m) of trunk can be despined safely. Special gear of rope and stirrups has been devised to facilitate climbing. Then, too, if the palms have single trunks and are close enough together, the worker need climb only every other tree, using a specially equipped pole to cut bunches from the neighboring tree. Johannessen (1966) provides details of the modes of handling the crop and the economic role of the pejibaye in the lives of Costa Rican farmers. In the period 1948 to 1963 in Costa Rica, the harvesting cost was calculated as representing 11.4% of the total cash value of the crop. Hunter (1969) has developed data showing that, efficiently managed, the pejibaye crop, in terms of financial return to the grower, compares favorably with maize (corn). Yield: A palm with 4 or 5 stems may produce 150 lbs (68 kg) of fruit in a season. Keeping Quality: Undamaged, raw fruits keep in good condition in a dry atmosphere with good air circulation for a long time, gradually dehydrating. Roughly handled and bruised fruits ferment in only 3 to 4 days. The cooked fruits, as commonly marketed, can be held for 5 or 6 days. In refrigerated storage at 35.6° to 41°F (2°-5°C), uncooked fruits can be kept for 6 weeks with a minimum of dehydration or spoilage. Pests and Diseases: In Costa Rica, a stem borer, Metamasius hemipterus, sometimes penetrates the stalk of the fruit cluster, causing the fruits to rot. There have been no reports of diseases attacking the palm. Fruits injured during harvesting or transport are soon invaded by rot-inducing fungi. Food Uses: The fruit is caustic in its natural state. It is commonly boiled; in fact, it is customary to boil the fruits for 3 hours in salted water, sometimes with fat pork added, before marketing. Boiling causes the flesh to separate easily from the seed and usually the skin as well, though in some varieties the skin adheres to the flesh even after cooking. It is only necessary to remove the skin from the cooked flesh which can then be eaten out-of-hand. The pre-boiled fruit is sometimes deep-fried or roasted and served as a snack garnished with mayonnaise or a cheese-dip. It is also mixed with cornmeal, eggs and milk and fried, and is often employed as stuffing for roasted fowl. Occasionally it is made into jam. Oven dried fruits have been kept for 6 months and then boiled for half an hour which causes them to regain their characteristic texture and flavor. Peeled, seeded, halved fruits, canned in brine, have been exported to the United States. Dried fruits can be ground into flour for use in various dishes. A strong alcoholic drink is made by allowing the raw, sugared flesh to stand for a few days until it ferments. This is prohibited in some parts of tropical America. Young flowers may be chopped and added to omelettes. The cooked seeds are eaten like chestnuts but are hard and considered difficult to digest. The palm heart is excellent raw or cooked. It is served in salads or prepared with eggs and vegetables in a casserole. It is a traditional food of the Indians and its harvesting has greatly reduced the stands of wild palms. Food Value: One average pejibaye fruit contains 1,096 calories.
Scientists believe it is a cultivated form of Bactris macana. It is used in crops for palm heart. http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_12/issue_13/dining_01.html
- Glossary of Palm Terms
- MODERN BOTANICAL LATIN
- "Just To Be Clear"
- Info at end
Phonetic spelling of Latin names by edric.
Special thanks to Geoff Stein, (Palmbob) for his hundreds of photos.
Special thanks to Palmweb.org, Dr. John Dransfield, Dr. Bill Baker & team, for their volumes of information and photos.
Glossary of Palm Terms; Based on the glossary in Dransfield, J., N.W. Uhl, C.B. Asmussen-Lange, W.J. Baker, M.M. Harley & C.E. Lewis. 2008. Genera Palmarum - Evolution and Classification of the Palms. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. All images copyright of the artists and photographers (see images for credits).
Borchsenius, F.1998. Manual to the palms of Ecuador. AAU Reports 37. Department of Systematic Botany, University of Aarhus, Denmark in collaboration with Pontificia Universidad Catalica del Ecuador.
Many Special Thanks to Ed Vaile for his long hours of tireless editing and numerous contributions. | <urn:uuid:6f579a48-b947-43a0-998a-16c2d19e2655> | {
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Having read the first seven chapters of The Kite Runner (2003), you have probably started to get to know some of the important characters. Who is the protagonist? Who is the antagonist? Who is your favorite character and so forth…
A character sketch is a short description of a character based on what the book has told you so far. Remember that you get to know a character not just from descriptions the book makes of him/her, but also through actions, thoughts and conversations this character is shown to have.
Choose a character from The Kite Runner: Amir, Hassan, Baba, Ali, Rahim Khan, Assef, or someone else, and write a character sketch. Find quotations from the book to emphasize your points.
Example of the beginning of a character sketch. Amir is the narrator of the story. He lives in San Fransisco, but grew up in Kabul in the 1970s with his father, Baba, and servants Ali and Hassan. He has a complicated relationship with his father, “He’d close the door, leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups’ time with him” (p.4). Amir seems lonely, and it seems like his father wants very little to do with him, or takes little interest in him.” … and then it continues | <urn:uuid:d804c79e-ed80-411a-8abf-34a63c9ea0ee> | {
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HPC without coding in MPI is possible, but only if your problem fits into one of several high level frameworks.
Most people know Cellular Automata (CA) from the game of Life developed by mathematician John Conway at Cambridge in the late 1960′s and popularized by Martin Gardner in Scientific American. The concept is quite simple. A grid of cells each have a state. The state of a cell is determined by using a set of rules whose input are the state of neighboring cells. Each generation represents the application of the rules to all cells. The game of Life uses a simple set of rules and helps illustrate some basic is ideas behind CA. When using the right set of rules, complex behavior can be observed for a CA. This complexity from simplicity is what makes CA so interesting.
To illustrate a CA, the rules for Life are given below. Consider a square 2D grid (although CAs have been run on triangular or hexagonal 1D and 3D grids as well). In the game of Life, a cell is either alive (on state) or dead (off state). An initial pattern is usually placed on the grid and then the automata is started. Each generation represents one pass over the entire grid.
- If a space is populated (on state):
- Any cell with one or zero neighbors dies, (death from loneliness).
- Any cell with four or more neighbors dies, (death from overpopulation).
- Any cell with two or three neighbors survives.
- For a space that is unpopulated (off state)
- Any empty cell with three neighbors becomes populated. (birth)
If you want to play with Life on-line you can go to sites like this one and enter patterns to see what happens. One thing to note is that small variations in patterns can cause huge changes in outcomes.
A popular and controversial book by Stephen Wolfram called A New Kind of Science was mostly about the properties and possibility of CAs. In general, CA works well when you want to model complex things with lots of little parts. Of course there are other ways to model complex things, but CA has one advantage that it starts out with “simple rules” and generates complex results. There are CA’s for fluid flow, ecosystems, populations, environmental systems, urban growth, and even traffic. There are other areas as well. CA are often used to study “emergent systems” — those systems that start out simple but then self organize.
As you can imagine a CA can be executed in parallel. There are really no restrictions on how far a neighbors interaction can reach, but in general, most interactions are very local, i.e. interactions take place between close neighbors. This type of interaction keeps the dataflow local and thus makes parallel execution possible. If the grid is broken in to parts, only the boundaries need to communicate. Like, Genetic Algorithms, CAs are naturally parallel and can take advantage of the cheap and plentiful parallel computing cycles that clusters offer. There are even parallel CA programming languages like CAOS (which stands for Cells, Agents and Observers for Simulation).
There is a certain appeal to using CA as a tool to simulate large systems. Indeed, CA’s can even produce pseudo randomness as part of their behavior. Cellular automata provides an alternative method to study the behavior of dynamical systems. Traditionally such systems are studied with differential equations. While differential equations are the work horse of such systems, difficulties arise from non-linear behavior, round-off errors, and variations in initial conditions. Because CAs are “simple rules” they are easier to analyze than differential equations and can tolerate modifications without affecting the stability of the analysis.
Keep the CA approach in mind when you have some extra cycles and want to play with an new idea. For instance, what if you try to simulate cluster queuing algorithm. You never know what may happen. The often noted problem with CA’s, which is similar to Genetic Algorithms, is you can find something that works, but you are not sure why. If you want find more information about CA’s then have a look at a 2003 Survey of Cellular Automata or take a gander the old but still useful Cellular Automata FAQ
Our last sledgehammer approach to HPC is currently quite popular. If you have searched for anything on the web, you have probable used a MapReduce algorithm. The idea is basically the same thing *nix users have been doing for years, but MapReduce does it on much larger scale. A good example is given by Steve Staso Sun Microsystems, Inc. in a Hadoop Primer. (Hadopp is a free implementation of MapReduce, see below). Consider the following “piped” set of commands:
cat * | grep | sort | unique -c | cat > file
Nothing fancy there. Now try this on 20 TBytes of data. MapReduce works by distributing the work across multiple servers. Think of it as a partitioned file system where files are broken in to large blocks. Each block is often replicated on several data nodes (for reliability). With this arrangement, searching can be done in parallel. Figure One shows the general MapReduce algorithm.
Figure One: MapReduce Algorithm
In terms of our command string above, the MapReduce algorithm can be thought of as the following
|cat * ||| grep ||| sort ||| unique -c ||| cat > file|
|input ||| map ||| shuffle ||| reduce ||| output|
A MapReduce operation works with key/value pairs. It is primarily used for log processing, web search indexing and ranking, and Ad-hoc data queries. Because the search is distributed and independent, MapReduce algorithms can have near linear scalability. As mentioned the idea is simple, by breaking the data up across servers (hard drives) you can spin many disks at that same time. Another MapReduce trick is to move the processing to the data and not the other way around. This drastically improves performance. Another key aspect of MapReduce is the assumption that the data is static, i.e. it is not going to change while the search is in process. Because the data are often redundantly stored, there is also a level of fault tolerance in a MapReduce clusters.
The most popular MapReduce package is the the Apache Foundation Hadoop project. (Named for project creator Doug Cutting’s child’s stuffed elephant.) Hadoop has two major components, The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and MapReduce engine with JobTracker and TaskTracker.
The HDFS is built from a cluster of DataNodes. DataNodes can talk to each other to re-balance data, to move copies around, and to keep the replication of data high. There is also a central NameNode serves as both directory namespace manager and “inode table” for the HDFS. Currently the NameNode is a single point of failure in HDFS.
The MapReduce Engine sits above the HDFS. Clients submit MapReduce jobs to the JobTracker which attempts to keep the work as close to the data as possible. HDFS is rather unique in that it is “rack aware.” The JobTracker pushes work out to available TaskTracker nodes in the cluster. This step is where the MapReduce gets its performance — the search is done by multiple tasks. If an individual TaskTracker fails or times out, that part of the job is rescheduled. If the JobTracker fails, the entire job is lost and must be resubmitted. Hadoop is an active project and represents a powerful way to search through reams of data quickly. The trick, by the way is the HDFS. Hadoop has even been integrated with Sun Grid Engine.
If I Had A Hammer
While the three methods I mention above are not typical uses for HPC clusters, they are none the less capable of throwing large amounts of compute power at an appropriate problem. In each case, the user is also removed from much of the parallel computing minutia all to familiar to many HPC users. Such an advantage only really works if you swing your hammer and hitting a round peg in a round hole. If you have a square peg and round hole, a sledgehammer may make it fit, but it may not give the best result. Swing carefully. | <urn:uuid:5c9b1566-02e5-4397-9b86-2548e972f576> | {
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Las comunidades aborígenes son las que corren con más desventajas en Australia.
Aboriginal residents in the district of Redfurn in Sydney, Australia rioted after the death of a teenager. They believed the police were responsible for the death of a 17 year old boy Thomas Hickey.
Redfern has been at the heart of Sydney's Aboriginal community for generations. Large sections of property, known locally as the Block, were bought with the help of the federal government in the early 1970s. The inner city district is within sight of the centre of Sydney. Over the years thousands of people came from all corners of this vast continent looking for work and to meet up with relatives and friends.
The disturbances have come against a backdrop of widespread poverty and a dependency on welfare in many native communities across the country. Aborigines are the most disadvantaged group in Australia. They die on average twenty years younger than their white counterparts and suffer disproportionately high rates of ill health, imprisonment and unemployment. Large numbers of people have self-destructed through the abuse of alcohol and drugs.
Relations between the police and many young Aborigines are often strained at the best of times. What is certain is this violent episode will be a major setback for efforts to improve relations between black and white Australians.
inner city district
en este caso, las zonas más pobres
all corners of this vast continent
todos los rincones de este vasto continente
have come against a backdrop
en este caso, se producen en un contexto
personas blancas de la misma edad y otras características similares
disproportionately high rates
índices desprorcionadamente altos
se han destruido a sí mismos
What is certain is
Lo que resulta claro es que | <urn:uuid:0df44973-0e3c-4289-9f87-e7a3cbbed8b2> | {
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This practical challenge invites you to investigate the different
squares you can make on a square geoboard or pegboard.
This activity investigates how you might make squares and pentominoes from Polydron.
If you had 36 cubes, what different cuboids could you make?
Emma from St Paul's Girls' School sent in a very good solution. She says:
Are you sure that when B is first in the line there will be six ways, Emma? Remember that there are two As... Perhaps someone else can help here?
Very well done, Emma, you have gone about this in a very ordered way. | <urn:uuid:be23c94e-9591-4ba2-8b26-de5718947ac6> | {
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Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria
Born in Condé-sur-Noireau, France, on 23 May 1790, died in a train accident in France on 8 May 1840 (Maiden, 1910b, gives the latter date as 12 May 1842).
First visited Australia with Louis Duperrey in Coquille, staying at Port Jackson, New South Wales, for two months from 17 January 1824. His collecting included a trip to Bathurst, New South Wales. He later commanded a French exploring expedition to the Pacific in Astrolabe (Coquille renamed) in 1826-1829. The expedition called at King George Sound (Western Australia), Western Port (Victoria), Sydney (New South Wales) and Hobart (Tasmania), where collections were made by d’Urville and L.A.Lesson (better known as a zoologist). He commanded a third expedition in 1837-1840 (Astrolabe and Zélée), on which the botanists were J.B.Hombron, H.Jacquinot and E.J.F.LeGuillon. This expedition touched on northern Australia and also visited Hobart.
Collections from these expeditions are now housed in P and PC, with lesser numbers in B, G, G-DC and W.
Extracted from: A.E.Orchard (1999) A History of Systematic
Botany in Australia, in Flora of Australia Vol.1, 2nd ed.,
ABRS. [consult for source references] | <urn:uuid:8897392a-3c28-4696-8a7a-fb04a8106405> | {
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Storm season is upon us, and the recent tornado that touched down in San Marco and Southside is a reminder to be prepared for the upcoming tropical storms and bad weather.
The tornado that touched down on April 25, 2015 left a 300-yard wide wake of destruction for 3.5 miles from San Marco to Englewood High. The National Weather Service (NWS) categorized the severity of the tornado as moderate. The NWS uses the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale to determine the strength of tornadoes in the United States and Canada. The EF scale is based on the damage caused, and from EF 0, the least severe, to EF 5.
The San Marco tornado was rated an EF 1. The low rating can be deceptive. Winds associated with the storm were up to 104 mph in the path of destruction, with 70-80 mph winds outside the path of the storm. High winds caused lots of damage, uprooting trees and snapping power lines. About 18,000 Jacksonville residents lost power. Even though this tornado was luckily not that severe, many residents are faced with extensive repairs and clean up.
Mother Nature Can Be Very Unpredictable
Predicting the severity of storms is not always possible. The National Weather Service had no time to issue a tornado warning on April 25. While there was a severe thunderstorm warning in effect, the tornado developed so quickly that there was no time to warn residents.
Severe thunderstorms always carry a risk of tornadoes, and it is important to be alert and aware of any storms developing in the area. In addition to potential tornadoes, other serious developments can occur.
Flash flooding is a risk, especially in saturated areas or low-lying places.
High winds can cause damage from blowing debris, and can loosen and break tree limbs.
Limited visibility can cause drivers to be unable to see other drivers or obstacles in the road.
Hail can develop quickly, damaging property and causing injury.
The “H” Word
Thunderstorms are not the only severe weather to be on the watch for. We know that hurricanes, even offshore, can cause flooding, high winds, and dangerous conditions. Some of the most devastating storms in history have been hurricanes.
Colorado State University recently released a report saying that the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season may be one of the least severe in many years. It is important to remember, however, that this report is an overview of all hurricanes in the Atlantic, whether they reach landfall or not. Fewer hurricanes does not necessarily mean less destruction. In 2014 there were only 8 tropical storms and hurricanes, but three of them made landfall and caused extensive damage. In 2010 there were 19 storms, and only one tropical storm reached land. The number of storms predicted has no real bearing on projected insurance premium increases, since it can’t be known for sure which storms will reach land and which will do no damage out at sea.
June, July and August are heavy storm months, but September is normally the peak time for hurricanes. The list of hurricane names has been released for 2015, beginning with “Ana” (has Ana been already named) and working through the alphabet to “Wanda.” Tropical Storm Ana, which made landfall in May as a tropical storm off Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is the second earliest land-falling tropical storm on record in the Atlantic.
Don’t Panic – Prepare
Unpredictable weather incidents and the extensive damage they can cause, not to mention injuries and possible fatalities, can leave you feeling insecure and unsafe. It’s important to prepare for an emergency.
Prepare Your People
Keep a supply of water and food to last for 72 hours. Have an emergency first aid kit available as well.
Make a communication plan with your family, and make sure all family members have emergency contact information for you either on their cell phones or in their wallet.
Prepare Your Property
Your roof is vulnerable. Before you need a qualified roofing contractor, find a trusted professional and have the number on hand.
Get a check-up on your insurance policy. Know what is covered, and whether additional coverage can give you peace of mind.
Schedule periodic roof inspections as part of regular home maintenance. Your roof should be evaluated every three years, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Choose a roofer that is reputable, experienced, and local. A roofer that shares your community with you is as concerned about protecting your home and family as you are, and will not suggest repairs that aren’t necessary.
Trees, pests, and weather can make your gutters, downspouts, and roof more vulnerable. A good roof inspector will give you an overall look of the health of your home.
When assessing damage and going through the repair process on your home, be sure to choose a contractor that provides a very detailed estimate that includes scope of work, debris removal, labor, etc. in your quote. There are many things to consider when determining the extent of the damage to your home. Check out some valuable tips to help you through the process.
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July 11, 2006
CDC advisory panel recommends Gardasil vaccination for female patients
A federal advisory panel unanimously recommended that female patients ages 11 and 12 receive Merck’s Gardasil as part of routine vaccinations given in that age group. The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), said girls as young as nine, and women up to age 26, should receive the vaccine to protect against cervical cancer caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) even if they have already become sexually active. Gardasil is designed to protect against HPV strains 16 and 18, which account for 70% of cervical cancer cases and strains 6 and 11, which account for 90% of genital warts cases. There are, however, more than 100 strains of HPV, so Gardasil would not offer full protection against cervical cancer and genital warts. The panel’s recommendations will next go to the CDC director and the Secretary of Health and Human Services for final approval. These officials often follow ACIP’s recommendations. The FDA approved Gardasil for use in girls and women ages 9-26last month. Analysts have predicted sales of Gardasil could reach the $1.5 billion mark -- a figure that could help a beleaguered Merck offset some of the losses it incurred following the withdrawal of its $2.5 billion painkiller Vioxx. | <urn:uuid:dc4e919f-e800-4536-93b0-75dfd803df88> | {
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Just calling a patient on the phone does not prevent patients from being re-admitted!
Hospitals are very interested in preventing a patient from returning to the hospital (called a re-admission) within 30 days from discharge due to the financial penalties from Medicare.
For example, if a patient is hospitalized with a serious problem called congestive heart failure (fluid retention that causes shortness of breath) the hospital will be penalized financially if the patient gets the condition all over again and has to return.
The government idea is to force hospitals to be more accountable — it’s like a 30 day guarantee from an auto repair shop! So hospitals are looking for ways to improve their performance (and avoid paying money).
There is no question frequent visits to a physician can reduce re-hospitalizations. However, a recent hospital study found that hospital nurses who talked to patients before discharge and who called them after discharge did not help the readmission problem — in fact there were more re-admissions!
a) How can this be?
b) Do well meaning nurses actually make the problem worse?
c) Does this mean hospitals should not be penalized?
The answers are: a) bad science b) yes and c) no, perhaps they should be penalized more!
The “bad science” part is because there was no intervention to adjust medications or treatments that might prevent readmission. A hospital nurse only has one option for a telephone intervention: “you better get checked at the ER”. The conclusion from the study should have been stated “chatting with a patient does not prevent re-admission” — brilliant deduction.
The outpatient care provider’s office is where action can be taken to stop re-admissions. That’s where medications can be prescribed. If the hospital wanted to prevent re-admissions they should have made an appointment and given the patient a coupon for a taxi ride to and from the outpatient office. This is not rocket science. | <urn:uuid:670062cf-d2e5-4a55-a237-82deda3c7c0a> | {
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Esperanza Aguirre has called on UNESCO to offer bullfighting protection – similar to that given to sites and attractions such as the Terracotta Warriors in China.
The move comes as the Catalan parliament is to debate whether to put a stop to what Spaniards call the "corrida".
It also provided an opportunity for, Mrs Aguirre, one of Spain's most prominent conservative politicians, to portray herself as a champion of tradition.
"Bullfighting was a source of inspiration for Goya, Picasso, Garcia Lorca, Hemingway and Orson Welles," said Mrs Aguirre, who political commentators say harbours ambitions to lead the main opposition Popular Party, as she posed with a pink matador's cape.
"It's an art that has been in our culture for as long as we can remember," she said, calling on UNESCO to declare bullfighting part of the world's cultural heritage.
The Catalan debate began after a petition by animal rights activists, and has already provoked passionate argument. Speaking in the Catalan parliament, philosopher Jesus Mosterin compared bullfights to "the primitive and abominable custom" of female circumcision.
With Catalan regional elections due in the autumn, the issue has been picked up by some politicians who favour independence from Spain.
"Esperanza Aguirre takes any opportunity she can to jump on the populist bandwagon and wave the Spanish flag. These gestures play very well with PP voters," said Justin Burn, a historian at New York University in Madrid.
Bullfighting has been losing popularity for some years in Barcelona and the northeastern region of Catalonia, which already enjoys considerable autonomy and strongly promotes its own culture and language.
The corrida still retains a big following in other parts of Spain, and big festivals each year in Seville, Madrid and Pamplona are packed.
But, while leading matadors are treated as celebrities and major newspapers carry pages devoted to the day's events, bullfighting's popularity is now dwarfed by that of other activities such as soccer. | <urn:uuid:5a637cf2-6f92-489f-b214-b40885b629fa> | {
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Don’t be an oxymoron. Know your literary terms.
Over 200 literary terms, Shmooped to perfection.
A euphemism is a nice way of saying something not so nice. We see euphemisms all the time, especially when talking about things that are, um, kind of hard to talk about, like sex, death, and race.
Examples? Check out all of the hilarious ways Shakespeare talks about sex in The Taming of the Shrew, the many euphemisms for death in Thomas Hardy's poem "Afterward", or the United States Constitution's rather feeble attempt to avoid saying "slave." | <urn:uuid:d24b24df-763b-45a4-972b-71a4662943df> | {
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Galileo's fourth flyby of Ganymede (also known as the Ganymede 8 flyby because it took place during Galileo's eighth orbit around Jupiter), the largest of Jupiter's Galilean satellites, occurred on 07 May 1997 at 15:57 UTC. At that time, Galileo came about 1485 km from the surface of Ganymede (or about 1.6 Ganymede radii from its center). As measured to the center of Ganymede, this is 0.4 times farther away than Galileo came to Ganymede during its closest approach on its second orbit back in September 1996. During this time, observations were also made of the Jovian magnetosphere as well as of the other satellites of Jupiter. Especially noteworthy during this particular orbit will be images of Jupiter's satellites Elara (approximately 40 km in size) and Metis (about 20 km).
The following timeline is a list of different events which will occur beginning with the official start of the Ganymede 8 encounter and proceding until the last data from the encounter are played back. The times are given in Universal Time (UTC) of the event at the spacecraft.
Date/Time Instrument Event ________ __________ _____ 04 May 16:00 Start of Ganymede 8 encounter 16:30 Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 26 05 May 00:00 UVS Elara observing 10:10 Science Turn (Io plume monitoring) 06 May 09:33 SSI First Io monitoring observation 11:13 NIMS/UVS Callisto south pole observation 12:08 SSI Callisto south pole imaging 12:11 Callisto closest approach (35,900 km) 12:56 PPR Callisto polarimetry/thermal observation 22:30 F&P Plasma sheet/aurora recording 23:37 NIMS/UVS Jupiter auroral asymmetry map 07 May 01:10 UVS Jupiter auroral variability map 07:31 Io closest approach (956,000 km) 11:17 UVS First south polar haze zone observation 13:18 NIMS Ganymede Osiris observing 13:38 PPR Ganymede dayside thermal observation 14:35 SSI Ganymede Tiamat Sulcus 15:38 F&P Ganymede closest approach recording 15:56 Start Earth occultation by Ganymede 15:57 Start Sun occultation by Ganymede Ganymede closest approach (4,120 km) 16:03 End Earth occultation by Ganymede 16:05 End Sun occultation by Ganymede 19:04 Turn to return to Earth point 19:58 NIMS Last Io monitoring observation 08 May 09:49 Europa closest approach (1,290,000 km) 11:42 Jupiter closest approach (663,000 km) 16:34 SSI Metis imaging 10 May 23:18 NIMS Last south polar haze zone observation 11 May 02:00 Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 27 16:00 Start of data playback (Ganymede 8) 13 May 14:00 F&P End Ganymede 8 real-time survey 25 May 05:04 RS Start Earth occultation observing 09:36 Start Earth occultation by Jupiter 26 May 03:52 End Earth occultation by Jupiter 08:25 RS End Earth occultation observing 02 Jun 16:00 F&P Start second magnetosphere mini-tour 03 Jun 03:00 Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 28 18 Jun 05:30 First Callisto 9 approach OPNAV 21 Jun 01:45 Last Callisto 9 approach OPNAV 22 Jun 16:00 End of data playback (Ganymede 8)
| NSSDCA Galileo page | NSSDCA Planetary page | | <urn:uuid:d5a86988-6e71-4e2a-afc2-bbc4c47aaaa2> | {
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Strengthening Immunization Systems
An estimated 130 million infants are born around the world each year. Protecting these newborns from vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) requires an organized, accessible, and well-functioning immunization program.
Why it Matters
Immunization programs often serve as the entry point for primary health care in many countries, often providing the only access to mothers and young children on a regular basis. However, immunization programs in resource-poor countries are faced with many barriers to success, including: shortages of trained staff and supervisors, vaccines, and reliable power supply. The result? Each year about 24 million children miss necessary vaccines, leaving them vulnerable to disability and death from serious infectious diseases. If vaccination programs do not reach these children, they are also unlikely to receive other needed health services.
CDC works to strengthen immunization systems by partnering with countries to provide evidence-based technical knowledge to strengthen and expand the routine delivery of immunizations. Our field stories show how we achieve our goals and how important it is to reach every child. | <urn:uuid:6d438938-48a6-4fdc-a02f-e5e85a480743> | {
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It’s no secret that Facebook is a huge distraction. For a lot of teens, it’s easy to become a little bit obsessed with checking their Newsfeed and updating their statuses. How many times have you gone on the computer with good intentions to do your homework, and instead found yourself on the site?
Research has now found that using Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period is linked to lower grades for students in middle school, high school and college. But that’s not all: the use of Facebook is also linked to narcissism and psychological disorders such as mania and aggressive tendencies. Also, teens who use media and technology every day are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. WTH?
According to researchers, the best way to continue using Facebook and doing good in school is to allow one minute tech breaks every 15 minutes. It might sound crazy, but researchers say that when kids know they can go online for at least one minute, they’re less distracted and more focused on their work.
WDYT, gURLs? How often do you go on Facebook? Do you think it’s affected your grades at all? Are you surprised that using technology so often can lead to depression and anxiety? Will this new research make you think twice before you go online? Discuss below!
Oh, and when you’re NOT studying, make sure to “Like” gURL.com on Facebook. K? | <urn:uuid:c109ecd3-666c-4b19-9d3b-4c0a7b2c3879> | {
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An unusual and authoritative 'natural history of languages' that narrates the ways in which one language has superseded or outlasted another at different times in history. The story of the world in the last five thousand years is above all the story of its languages. Some shared language is what binds any community together, and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. Yet the history of the world's great languages has rarely been examined. 'Empires of the Word' is the first to bring together the tales in all their glorious variety: the amazing innovations - in education, culture and diplomacy - devised by speakers in the Middle East; the uncanny resilience of Chinese throughout twenty centuries of invasions; the progress of Sanskrit from north India to Java and Japan; the struggle that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe; and the global spread of English. Besides these epic achievements, language failures are equally fascinating: why did Germany get left behind? Why did Egyptian, which had survived foreign takeovers for three millennia, succumb to Mohammed's Arabic?
Why is Dutch unknown in modern Indonesia, given that the Netherlands had ruled the East Indies for as long as the British ruled India? As this book engagingly reveals, the language history of the world shows eloquently the real characters of peoples; it also shows that the language of the future will, like the languages of the past, be full of surprises. | <urn:uuid:ad52a0e2-789d-4cb0-9ded-55fbe2249d11> | {
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“And fruit Of every kind He made In pairs, two and two.” [Al-Qur’aan 13:3] Fruit is the end product of reproduction of the superior plants. The stage preceding fruit is the flower, which has male and female organs (stamens and ovules). Once pollen has been carried to the flower, they bear fruit, which in turn matures and frees its seed. All fruits therefore imply the existence of male and female organs; a fact that is mentioned in the Qur’aan. In certain species, fruit can come from non-fertilized flowers (parthenocarpic fruit) e.g. bananas, certain types of pineapple, fig, orange, vine, etc. They also have definite sexual characteristics.
Phalon mein bhi nar aor madaah hote hain.. “aor usmein har qism ke phalon ke jode dohre dhore payda Kar diya hain AL Quran 13:3″”... Phal ya samar Har alaa nasal ke poude ki hatmi paydawar hoti hai.. Phal lagne se pahle poude par phool aate hain jiske nar aor madaah anasar hote hain…. Ek bar jab xarda ne phool tak pohnch jate hain to phir poude par Phal lag jate hain.. Ye Phal phir pak Kar beej axad Kar dete hain tamam tamam phalon mein nar aor madaah anasar paye jate hain.. Is haqiqat ka xikr Quran pak mein bhi aya hai.. Phon ki kaie kismein hain Jin mein ghair bar awar phalon se bhi Phal hasil kiye jate hain.. Maslan kele, ananas, ki Chand qisme anjeer, maalta, angoor, waghyra inhein makhsoos jinsi aosaf bhi paye jate hain.. | <urn:uuid:359c8415-c647-4983-8a78-f57c584d16dc> | {
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Butterfly and moth wings are covered with many individually colored scales that make up the pattern designs and coloration characteristics for each species. Browse butterfly wing posters inspired by six spectacular butterfly genera.
Class Insecta – Educational Insect Articles
Mention “bugs” in any classroom and you’re bound to gain the instant attention of your students. Because of the incredible way insects have woven their way into just about every subject of human study, insect-related curriculum represents a wealth of subjects to motivate and inspire students of all ages. The Class Insecta will build an assortment of articles and modules for your educational enjoyment.
With ever increasing frequency, insects are appearing on stamps of the world. Not surprisingly, butterflies and moths constitute the majority of these topical issues. View a collection of insects on stamps. | <urn:uuid:a7d2e3e9-b298-4fb8-94e7-3b30422936ba> | {
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The benefits of sustainable lighting appear to be relative. There has been an evolution of lighting from the incandescent bulb to the compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb, and now to the light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. Also, the European Union (EU) Ecodesign Directive and U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act have both lead the market and consumers to energy saving technologies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But it wasn’t until recently that I appreciated the realities of sustainable LED bulbs. Of course, we have all heard about the energy savings that CFLs and LEDs technologies have over incandescent bulbs, and this translates into economic savings for consumers over the lifespan of the bulb. http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html.
Yet some of the arguments for not buying incandescent bulbs might also redirect consumers away from CFLs, as compared to buying LEDs. For example, the focus of some articles has been whether consumers save money in the short-term or over the long-term. http://cleantechnica.com/2011/09/01/led-vs-cfl-which-light-bulb-is-more-efficient/. CFLs are less expensive than LEDs in upfront purchase costs. This article also notes that LEDs should be used in locations which are difficult-to-reach because they last about 3 times longer than a CFL, but the article also notes that CFLs are 3 times less expensive in initial upfront costs. However, the upfront-cost argument can just as easily be used to direct consumers to continue to buy the significantly less expensive incandescent bulbs, and perhaps this is why some consumers have stocked up on incandescent bulbs before these bulbs are no longer available on the market.
Yet in other articles, the focus does break down into energy efficiency/costs, environmental impact, and light output. http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html. As for energy efficiency/costs. LEDs are noted as using less power per lumen and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and lower electric bills. However, some articles indicate that CFLs and LEDs are comparable in power consumption. As for environmental impact, this chart notes that LEDs have about 10% of carbon dioxide emissions that incandescent do and less than 50% of that of CFLs. This article also focuses on toxicity and RoHS compliance based on the fact the CFLs carry mercury, yet neither LEDs nor incandescent bulbs have mercury. The popular media also question the quality and longevity of CFLs. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/will-led-light-bulbs-best-cfls-and-incandescents.
However, when turning to the peer-reviewed research literature, there continue to be sustainability issues with even the LED bulb. Lim et al. (2013) acknowledge that CFLs and LEDs are more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs, but they also note that these lighting technologies require more metal-containing components. And perhaps the most significant observation is that “there is uncertainty about the potential environmental impacts of these components and whether special provisions must be made for their disposal at the end of useful life.” (Lim, Kang, Ogunseitan, & Schoenung, Potential environmental impacts from the metals in incandescent, compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), and light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (2), pp. 1040–1047). Lim et al. found that “both CFL and LED bulbs are categorized as hazardous” due to excessive levels of metals, (e.g., lead, copper, zinc), while the incandescent bulb is not hazardous, so the “CFLs and LEDs have higher resource depletion and toxicity potentials than the incandescent bulb due primarily to their high aluminum, copper, gold, lead, silver, and zinc.” They concluded that “conservation and sustainability policies should focus on the development of technologies that reduce the content of hazardous and rare metals in lighting products without compromising their performance and useful lifespan.”
Yet even with these findings, choosing a sustainable lighting alternative is a relative choice. LEDs are dimmable and do not take time to become fully bright, which is a significant advantage for consumers with aging eyes. However, the most significant factor that made me change almost all my residential lighting to the more expensive LED lighting was my concern about toxic metals.
In the attached picture, there is a CFL bulb that was used for less than 1 year in my home. Looking closely, I noticed that mercury appeared to have been leaching out of the bulb at various points. This astounded me and made me want to go fully LED. Also, this past year, a U.S. company introduced more affordable LED bulbs in the 75 and 100 watt-equivalent range which provided brightness at either the 2700K (soft white) or 5000K (daylight) ranges, which was helpful for my aging eyes. These were recently being carried by the local hardware store at a more reasonable price. When I say “more affordable”, this is a relative term as LED bulbs are still considerably more expensive than CFLs and incandescent bulbs. At this time, I have moved most all my home lighting (over 50 bulbs) to the improved LED bulbs because of this “little” mercury issue, but having learned LED bulbs also have issues, I await the next technology which will lead to a more sustainable lighting alternative which show more mettle and less metal issues. | <urn:uuid:587c27d1-3152-4f7e-8494-ebfdfe0b4e65> | {
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Fall officially begins on September 23, 2010 with the autumnal equinox. What does this mean, exactly? In simple terms, it means that the sun moves southward and crosses the “celestial equator” so that the northern hemisphere (which is where we live) will experience less daylight, colder weather, and less direct sunlight. For folks who live in Alaska, this is the time of year that daylight becomes illusive and short lived each day. At the time of the equinox, “the earth’s axis of rotation is perpendicular to the line connecting the centers of the earth and the sun.”
What does this mean for after-school?
It means that we are clearly establishing routines and schedules that will carry us throughout the year. Of course you want schedules and routines to be flexible, but if you don’t establish them to begin with, no one will know that you are flexible, it will simply be perceived that you haven’t bothered to establish the routine needed to be a high-quality program.
It means that “dark-thirty” will soon be upon us and we will again need to consider students who walk home from the program, and how we can get them home before dark. In California you need to have a policy around this very real occurrence so you are handling this situation the same way every time, and always in the “best interest” of the young people that you serve. You will want to craft this “Early Release” policy to allow youth to leave before sundown during this period of time.
It means that we can naturally encourage our youth to look at college life, especially as it is supported by home coming events, fall sports, and the eagerness of students during the first semester. With older youth have them select a college or university that they are interested in learning more about, and then have them follow the college or university online and in the newspaper. Invite students from a nearby college or university to come and talk with the students about college life. You might even want to consider a field trip and a campus tour.
Fall is a wonderful time of the year. Enjoy each and every day with the students in your program.
Fall can be back-to-school for after-school staff as well. Check out our Vocational Training and Online Instruction opportunities at www.consultfourkids.com
The September Equinox Explained. http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/september-equinox.html August 23, 2010. | <urn:uuid:2917559f-454e-4fdd-9dd2-c6349efadbed> | {
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ON THIS PAGE: You will find a list of the common tests, procedures, and scans that doctors can use to find out what’s wrong and identify the cause of the problem. To see other pages, use the menu on the side of your screen.
Doctors use many tests to diagnose cancer and find out if it has metastasized (spread).
Some tests may also determine which treatments may be the most effective. For most types of cancer, a biopsy is the only way to make a definitive diagnosis of cancer. If a biopsy is not possible, the doctor may suggest other tests that will help make a diagnosis. Imaging tests may be used to find out whether the cancer has metastasized. Your doctor may consider these factors when choosing a diagnostic test:
- Age and medical condition
- Type of cancer suspected
- Severity of symptoms
- Previous test results
In addition to a physical examination, the following tests may be used to diagnose vulvar cancer:
Pelvic examination. The doctor feels the uterus, vagina, ovaries, fallopian tubes, bladder, and rectum to check for any unusual changes.
Biopsy . A biopsy is the removal of a small amount of tissue for examination under a microscope. Other tests can suggest that cancer is present, but only a biopsy can make a definite diagnosis. The sample removed during the biopsy is analyzed by a pathologist (a doctor who specializes in interpreting laboratory tests and evaluating cells, tissues, and organs to diagnose disease). The type of biopsy performed will depend on the location of the suspicious tissue.
If the biopsy indicates that vulvar cancer is present, the doctor will refer the woman to a gynecologic oncologist, who specializes in treating this type of cancer.
Lymph node sampling. The lymph nodes are tiny, bean-shaped organs that help fight infection. To determine whether a cancer has spread, it may be necessary to remove lymph nodes for a biopsy. The procedure for determining if cancer has spread to the lymph nodes is the sentinel lymph node biopsy. In this procedure, the first, or sentinel, lymph node is sampled. Recent research has shown that if the first lymph node is free of cancer, then the cancer most likely has not spread.
X-ray. An x-ray is a way to create a picture of the structures inside of the body using a small amount of radiation.
Endoscopy . This test allows the doctor to see inside the body with a thin, lighted, flexible tube called an endoscope. The woman may be sedated as the tube is inserted through the mouth, anus, vagina, urethra, or a small surgical opening.
Computed tomography (CT or CAT) scan . A CT scan creates a three-dimensional picture of the inside of the body with an x-ray machine. A computer then combines these images into a detailed, cross-sectional view that shows any abnormalities or tumors. Sometimes, a contrast medium (a special dye) is injected into a patient’s vein to provide better detail.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). An MRI uses magnetic fields, not x-rays, to produce detailed images of the body. A contrast medium may be injected into a patient’s vein to create a clearer picture.
Positron emission tomography (PET) scan . A PET scan is a way to create pictures of organs and tissues inside the body. A small amount of a radioactive substance is injected into a patient’s body. This substance is absorbed mainly by organs and tissues that use the most energy. Because cancer tends to use energy actively, it absorbs more of the radioactive substance. A scanner then detects this substance to produce images of the inside of the body.
Find more about what to expect when having common tests, procedures, and scans .
After these diagnostic tests are done, your doctor will review all of the results with you. If the diagnosis is cancer, these results also help the doctor describe the cancer; this is called staging . Learn more about the first steps to take after a diagnosis of cancer .
The next section helps explain the different stages for this type of cancer. Use the menu on the side of your screen to select Stages, or you can select another section, to continue reading this guide. | <urn:uuid:58d5073a-41fd-4fed-948e-418df460db4e> | {
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15 Warning Signs Your Blood Sugar Is High That Most Medical Professionals Don’t Even Know!
Don’t get tricked thinking that high blood sugar is something that only diabetics should worry about.
Anyone can experience spikes in their blood sugar levels when they eat certain foods that are loaded with sugars. The real danger is when your blood sugar stays high for an extended period of time.
If your blood sugar levels are constantly higher that the normal range, you may have mild symptoms of high blood sugar, which can lead to diabetes or other serious health problems.
You may urinate more often if you drink plenty of liquids. But, if you know some of the symptoms of high blood sugar and recognize them, it can motivate you to take the necessary steps to keep it under control.
What are the causes of high blood sugar?
There are a number of different factors that contribute to high blood sugar symptoms including:
- Poor diet
- Lack of physical activity
- Use of certain medications
- Certain health conditions
What are the symptoms of high blood sugar levels?
If you are able to identify the early symptoms of high blood sugar, you can be safe from diabetes and all the negative effects that accompany this disease.
When a person has high blood sugar, it doesn’t always mean they have diabetes. Below is a complete list of symptoms that indicate that you may have high blood sugar:
- Increased thirst
- Dry mouth
- Always being hungry
- Frequent urination and/or urination during the night
- Dry and itchy skin
- Daily fatigue or extreme tiredness
- Difficulty concentrating
- Excess abdominal fat/weight gain
- Recurrent infections
- Blurred vision
- Hearing loss
- Slow healing of cuts and wounds
- Nerve problems
- Stomach problems
It this article I have mentioned 15 warning signs is which diabetes occurs, so make sure to take some action in case you notice any of these signs.
Event though all these symptoms may not be related to diabetes, they are indicating that there is a high chance of developing this disease. You can use this information to make changes in your lifestyle that will keep you healthy. | <urn:uuid:377d1a60-70ef-4989-a1a0-0310b1deceea> | {
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30 June 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the Independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). An all-day seminar organised by Congo for Peace was held at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Great Hall. Khulumani Support Group was invited as a representative of victims and survivors of the apartheid government-multinational corporates collusion.
The seminar was attended by some 500 members of the Congolese Diaspora including Congolese students studying at nine South African universities, human rights defenders from the DRC, and the Ambassadors of the DRC and of Belgium.
The struggle of the Congo for independence from a particularly brutal period of colonisation by Belgium was reviewed. During this time more than 10 million Congolese people were killed due to a combination of famine, forced labour and systematic violence. This must surely count as a holocaust — but it has not generally received recognition as such, compared to other holocausts.
The day commenced with a commemoration of the role played by Patrice Lumumba as president of the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in the negotiations, and his subsequent election as the state’s first President. Lumumba survived only six months in office before being ‘eliminated’ by a firing squad organised by Belgian officers on January 17, 1961. An arms company surely knowingly aided and abetted this assassination.
Lumumba’s thwarted dream of a peaceful nation in which the needs of the people would be prioritised, was remembered. The seemingly unending conflicts driven by ambition for control of the DRC’s extraordinary mineral wealth undermined this hope and ideal.
The invasion of the country by the armies of Uganda and Rwanda in 1997 to overthrow the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, and the subsequent invasion the following year to overthrow Laurent Kabila were seemingly motivated by this desire to access the DRC’s resources. The DRC’s neighbours, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia sent their armies in to defend Kabila. By the time all these armed forces had withdrawn in late 2002, the country was left in shambles, corruption was rife and the illicit trade in conflict minerals was thriving.
Armed rebel groups, supported primarily by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, exploited this chaotic situation. Another approximately 5,4 million people are said to have been killed. The lucrative illicit trade in ‘blood minerals’ includes coltan (columbite-tantalite) used in cell phone technology, diamonds, gold, cassiterite and wolframite. The minerals continue to haemorrhage out of the country — eventually reaching the pockets of multinationals mainly in the UK, the USA and possibly South Africa as well.
While rebel groups exploit the illicit trade in the eastern DRC, multinational corporations are apparently colluding with Congolese political elites to profit from extensive copper, uranium and other minerals’ mining operations in areas such as Katanga Province. Multinationals have even established and equipped their own private armies to provide security for their operations and these paramilitary groups have been involved in perpetuating the violence in the country.
The multinational companies are accused by the people of knowingly committing human rights violations with the support of political elites. Could they one day face similar litigation as the South African apartheid litigation (Khulumani international lawsuit)? Will the global movement for justice and corporate accountability facilitated by changes in international human rights law become strong enough to challenge these essentially criminal activities?
The people of the DRC are increasing their civic presence inside and outside the country. They are demanding that democratic institutions become increasingly responsive to the citizenship’s needs. They are also demanding a military and police force that provides real protection to the people.
The experiences and support of Khulumani, which is taking the struggle for justice for victims forward in the law courts of New York City will hopefully set precedents for multinational corporates’ accountability and liability — for knowingly aiding and abetting gross human rights violations.
Khulumani alongside Congolese civil society is outraged by the murder of respected human rights defender, Mr Floribert Chebeya Bahizire on June 2, 2010. Mr Bahizire was apparently invited to a meeting with the Chief of Police. Some hours later his body was found in his car with the body of his dead driver at another site. Mr Bahizire was director of Voice of the Voiceless, an organisation similar to Khulumani.
Victims everywhere draw strength from the memories of those who have given their lives for a vision of a society that benefits all. We commit to struggling in solidarity to end the impunity of individuals and companies that have violated international human rights norms, and to secure reparations for the damage and destruction they have caused.
This is surely a situation where an initiative of strategic importance requires urgent action involving the international community, local governments and civil society including human rights organisations. A large scale resumption of armed conflict in the African Great Lakes region threatens the stability of the entire sub-region. | <urn:uuid:942687aa-31a9-48cb-9bfa-327580d61012> | {
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January 26, 2011
Support Not Punishment Is The Key To Tackling Substance Abuse And Addiction Among Nurses
As many as ten to 20 per cent of nurses and nursing students may have substance abuse and addiction problems, but the key to tackling this difficult issue - and protecting public safety - is support and treatment, not punishment. That is the key message in a paper in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.
Researchers have recommended six key points that could be built into alternative-to-dismissal (ATD) strategies after reviewing the latest research and professional guidance from countries such as the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.They believe that ATD programmes provide greater patient safety, as they enable managers to remove nurses from the work environment quickly, unlike traditional disciplinary procedures that can take months, if not years. ATD programmes also provide non-judgemental support and treatment that encourages nurses to seek help and improve their chances of staying in the profession.
"Addiction among nurses has been recognised by professionals in the field for over a hundred years" says lead author Dr Todd Monroe from the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, Tennessee, USA. "While research consistently reports incidence rates of 10 to 15 per cent, some studies suggest that this could be as high as 20 per cent.
"Doctors and nurses are only human and face the same problems as everyone else, which can include chemical dependency. The fact that they work in a highly stressful environment with easy access to powerful drugs can expose them to an increased risk of substance misuse and abuse. They are expected to show compassion when caring for patients who are alcohol and/or drug dependent and they should extend the same compassion to colleagues struggling with chemical dependency, which is an illness."
Research suggests that ATD programmes help many nurses recover from addiction, reduce the chance of dismissal and return to work under strict monitoring guidelines, with random substance checks, support and meetings with managers and regulators. ATD programmes can also lead to a 75 per cent reduction in practical problems, like obtaining liability health insurance after disciplinary action, and they usually help nurses to re-enter the workforce.
"ATD programmes appear to be the best way to protect patients and retain nurses at a time when the profession is facing serious shortages of experienced professionals" says Dr Monroe.
The review covers nearly three decades of research papers and professional guidance from nursing regulators and brings together a number of previous studies by Dr Monroe on substance abuse policies in the nursing profession.
"We believe that the incidence of substance abuse among nurses, and especially nursing students, is both under-researched and under-reported, partly because it is considered taboo among many healthcare providers and nursing school faculty and staff" he says.
"Poor or ineffective policies that mandate punitive action are more likely to endanger the public, as they make it more difficult for impaired nurses or students to seek help.
"That is why we support ATD strategies that motivate individuals to voluntarily seek assistance for their dependency or encourage colleagues to urge them to seek the help they need."
Dr Monroe teamed up with Dr Heidi Kenaga, from The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, to come up with six key points that they believe should be incorporated into ATD programmes developed by regulators, educators and healthcare facilties:
1. Promoting open communication by discussing substance abuse in healthcare and nursing education settings.
2. Encouraging an atmosphere where people feel they can report problems confidentially.
3. Providing information about the signs and symptoms of impairment.
4. Conducting mock interventions to help people feel less fearful or uncomfortable about approaching a colleague or fellow student about suspected chemical dependency.
5. Inviting ATD experts to speak to hospital or school administrators.
6. Participating in scholarly forums about addiction among healthcare providers.
"We believe that these key points will help to transform perceptions of substance abuse among nurses, so that they are seen as a medical disorder requiring treatment, rather than a moral failing" says Dr Monroe.
"There is a long history of substance abuse in the medical profession and ignoring the problem may perpetuate fear, anxiety, poor outcomes for the nurses and risks for the people they care for.
"Providing early intervention and assistance is essential to help nurses and nursing students to recover from an addictive disorder. And providing a confidential, non-punitive atmosphere of support may well be a life-saving step for nurses and those in their care."
The full paper contains a detailed checklist of the warning signs to look out for, including issues with attendance, performance, use of controlled substances, behaviour and physical signs.
On the Net: | <urn:uuid:918af6e1-5d0e-47dc-9788-a9412543276d> | {
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A possible crater 🕳 caused by a meteor ☄️ impact lies buried beneath more than a mile of ice in Greenland. It’s more than 22 miles 📏 wide, which would make it the 22nd largest impact crater ever found on Earth 🌎 http://go.nasa.gov/2N7buA9
Why is this step necessary? quey.org might not be the server where you are registered, so we need to redirect you to your home server first.
Don't have an account? You can sign up here | <urn:uuid:4bd98b98-6ad6-4401-9e30-39c4f3135b4d> | {
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Centralization and Blockchain Control
One of the driving factors behind cryptocurrency is the fact that it is decentralized, meaning that no individual or group controls it. Instead, it is controlled by everyone participating in the particular cryptocurrency's network. The more people in the network, the more resistant it is to different kinds of attacks.
A cryptocurrency itself has no “single point of failure,” as it would be said in the computer security world. This means that in order for someone to compromise a cryptocurrency as a whole, they would need to compromise more than one aspect of it.
For example, let's say that someone managed to break into a single Bitcoin wallet; they have not compromised the network and they have not compromised every Bitcoin wallet. They have only compromised that one Bitcoin wallet and nothing else; the Bitcoin network stays strong! That is the beauty of cryptocurrency!
Centralization in Proof-of-Work: 51% Attack
Unfortunately for Bitcoin and other Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptocurrencies, people figured out that if they “pool” their computing power together for the sake of mining, they can make money faster.
I am all for working together, but when it comes to mining a cryptocurrency, only one person can mine a new block at a time; if you attempt to split the reward for mining a new block among multiple miners through the blockchain, you need some proof of their work on the blockchain, which leads to blockchain bloat that nobody wants.
So, to effectively pool mining power together in a PoW system, everyone who wants to pool together needs to give control of their mining power to a central wallet, which claims the reward for all the blocks the pool mines and whose owner (hopefully) splits it among the miners based on their contribution.
Aside from the obvious trust issue involved with this kind of centralization, there is another major issue: the whole blockchain could become centralized!
Most cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, follow a “Longest Valid Blockchain” rule. This means that if two blocks are competing for the same position in the blockchain, the network will adopt whichever block has the most blocks attached after it, so long as the block is valid. Because of this, if any individual or group can get enough mining power to mine faster than the rest of the network combined (more than 50% of the total mining power), then they can modify a block and make a new blockchain based on it, which is longer than the original blockchain.
If their modified blockchain is longer than the original blockchain, then it becomes accepted by the network. If they can do this repeatedly, then they can modify the blockchain at will and have complete control over it; the blockchain becomes centralized. This is the infamous “Greater Than 50%” or “51%” attack.
Before people started pooling their mining power, this type of attack was infeasible. But now, with pools, it has become possible for pool owners to collude and break that 50% barrier. The last I checked (May 5, 2015), there are four major Bitcoin pools each controlling at least 10% of the mining power and up to 19% of the mining power. Together, they control 58% of the mining power. That means that if the four individuals operating these pools decided to work together, they could rewrite the Bitcoin blockchain!
Centralization in Proof-of-Stake: Rich Get Richer
Proof-of-Stake (PoS), when it was first released by Peercoin and then used by Nxt, seemed to be a solution. In Proof-of-Stake, someone's chance of getting a block depends on how much stake they have so in order for someone to get more than 50% of the forging power (“forging” is the process by which new blocks are made just like “mining” but the exact method in PoS is different so it was given a different name for Nxt), they would need to control more than 50% of the coins in existence.
This seems even more infeasible than controlling 50% of the mining power in a PoW currency! Further, members of the Nxt community boast that Nxt will still be safe for up to 90% of the forging power upon full implementation of a new feature called “Transparent Forging!”
This being said, even if a PoS currency is safe for up to 99.9999999999999999999999999%, someone will eventually get enough stake to manipulate the blockchain.
Here is why:
In Proof-of-stake, the rich get gradually richer.
If the rich are more likely to get a block, they are more likely to collect the reward for the block. Every block they get, the richer they become. The richer they become, the more likely they are to collect the reward for a block.
This keeps going on for the life to the cryptocurrency and if the cryptocurrency lives long enough, it will see 51% stake holders, or 91% stake holders, or even 99.91% stake holders. It is only a matter of time.
A Mathematical Example with NXT
Speaking of time, how long will this take? The current top stake holder of Nxt is account NXT-THLJ-CYAL-JQST-6FNS5 with a balance of 50,020,753.04 NXT. The current average transaction fees (which make up the block reward in its entirety) per day is 6,207.25 NXT. Assuming that all 1,000,000,000 NXT is being used to forge and that stake is directly proportional to the percentage of blocks forged, then this account gets about 5.002075% of the 6,207.25 NXT today. This is 310.4913 NXT. Tomorrow, this account will get even more: 5.002106% of 6,207.25 NXT. This is 310.493225 NXT. It follows this equation:
In this equation si is the current day's stake as a percentage of the total amount of coins in existence, tdays is the number of days, including today, that have passed, pi is the previous days profit, and p0 is 0 NXT. To figure out at how long it will take for si to exceed the acceptable limit, we simply find when tdays at which this happens.
How Long NXT Can Last
If that is the case, this user should control 50% of the stake in about 1,015 years and 90% of the stake in 1,275 years. In reality, it is probably less because not everyone stakes but that gives a rough idea about how long NXT can potentially last.
Alternative Algorithm Options
Thankfully, Nxt's PoS algorithm is very adaptable to other types proof. It works by making a “target” value for every account, which is a multiple of its balance and the number of seconds that have passed and a universal “base target” value, which applies to all accounts that I will ignore for the sake of simplicity. Every account also gets a single “hit” value, which is unique to the account but based on the signature of the previous block. When the account's “target” value exceeds its “hit” value, the account earns the right to make the next block and claim the transaction fees it contains.
All one has to do in order to adapt this algorithm is pick a value unique to each account other than its balance! The rest of the algorithm can stay the same! Of course, there may be more unique ways to do this by creating an algorithm from scratch that may offer additional security. That is a good thing to think about for the more technically inclined, but for the time being, let's focus on some options using this algorithm as a base.
Proof of Hodl (PoH)
What about using the number of blocks an account has gone without making a transaction instead of its balance? This value may be pretty uniform across accounts at the beginning but is likely to change quite a bit over time. A coin like this would appear to make a nice long term investment and might be pricey to buy because no one would want to spend it and reset their hodl count to zero. The only real problem with this is that in order for an economy to thrive, people need to use their money to buy things. Without spending, an economy can't improve; it can't get worse either but who wants to live in a “so-so” economy? Let's consider the opposite.
Proof of Use (PoU)
What if generating new blocks was based on how many transactions someone has made and/or received over a certain number of blocks? This certainly encourages people to spend and/or buy! This may, however, be unfair to those who can't afford to make many transactions due to transaction fees and the fees would have to be high enough to prevent people from spamming the blockchain with transactions to accounts they own. The fees for using it would have to outweigh the benefit gained by spending that would change every block so fees would have to be variable, which requires some math.
Proof of Stake-Time (PoST)
Vericoin has recently implemented a new algorithm they call Proof-of-Stake-Time or PoST. It is very similar to a variant of PoS used in Peercoin which multiplies the stake by its age. Peercoin calls this “PoS” but I would classify it under the title “PoST” because mining is based off of an account's Stake and the Time for which it has belonged to the account so really, Vericoin is just the first to use the term PoST. That being said, Vericoin's PoST has a wildly different effect on the network than Peercoin's PoST despite their similarities!
The biggest difference is that Vericoin adds a fractional multiplier to the transaction's age. The math is a little complicated, but what you need to know is that the larger portion of the entire network weight that the value of the number of coins multiplied by their age takes up, the sooner the probability to mine a block starts to drop. If not active, everyone's chance of mining a block will eventually start to drop rather than grow.
For the rich this happens sooner and for the poor this happens later but it will happen to everyone if they aren't active. The effect, as it is said in the Vericoin PoST whitepaper is that you get the “active rich” against the “vested poor” as opposed to the “rich ruling” the poor or “poor attacking” the rich. This still isn't the ideal outcome but it is a much better situation than you get with regular PoS.
Proof of Minimum Aged Stake (PoMAS)
What if the right to make the next block was based only on the fact that an account has some minimum balance rather than how much balance they have? As long as an account has had some minimum balance for a period of time a multiplier for the “target” value could be chosen in a similar way the “hit” value is chosen: a way that is unpredictable but verifiable. This certainly seems fair as every account meeting those requirements has an equal chance for winning the next block.
The problem is that people with large stakes can split it among multiple accounts to improve their odds so there needs to be a way to discourage this behavior. Fees for funding an account with zero balance would have to outweigh the benefit gained by having multiple accounts and that would depend on how many accounts have balances above zero.
This, however, allows miners to manipulate the block to maximize their “target” value multiplier and “hit” value if they can still get it in fast enough. Plus, there is still the problem of finding another value that is unpredictable but verifiable. For these reasons, a second block signer who can sign the block but not make other changes to it can be used. This provides a second signature to be used that neither miner can manipulate so it is fit to be used for either the “target” value multiplier or the “hit” value, but it cannot be used for both.
So, in this version of PoMAS, a third block signer is necessary to provide the basis for the other value. This is kind of like adding two extra transactions to every block, even empty ones, so it could lead to block-chain bloat.
I have actually have been working to design a version of PoMAS that has no “target” value so it only requires two signatures. It is not complete and the details are beyond the scope of this article. I just wanted everyone to know that something like this might show up in the cryptocurrency world one day and it was originally my idea.
Full disclosure: the author of this article, Colin Lacina, is a former member of NXT Organization
Editor's note: This article was modified to include Peercoin as the original PoS cryptocurrency.
Follow Cointelegraph in Facebook | <urn:uuid:3b4b199a-3ed6-43bd-8274-01a60985c331> | {
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1. If fruit trees have had diseases like peach leaf curl, do not compost the leaves, as this keeps the nasties alive over winter. As dahlias and perennials finish flowering, cut the foliage down to ground level, weed and apply compost or a mulch of pea or barley straw.
2. Don’t leave odd potatoes in the ground. The odd “volunteer” spud will produce the earliest possible crop but the downside is that they can be reservoirs for disease, including tomato/potato psyllid (TPP). Dig out capsicums and tomatoes that have finished fruiting, as they are also TPP hosts. Poroporo harbours TPPtoo, but is more susceptible in summer when growth is at its peak.
3. Broad beans sown in autumn give the earliest crops. The seeds can germinate at very low temperatures and although they make little growth over winter, especially in colder parts of the country, they leap away when the soil warms up in spring. Autumn-sown broad beans are generally more resistant to rust.
4. When deciduous shrubs, such as azaleas, lose their leaves, it is easy to see what needs to be done to improve a plant’s shape, so some light autumn pruning to get rid of lopsided growth is recommended. Every cut thicker than a pen should be dabbed with pruning paste to prevent disease getting into the tree.
5. As tomatoes and other greenhouse crops get to the end of their run, remove the plants and replenish the soil by digging out the old growing medium (it makes a good top-up for the vegetable garden) and replacing it. Tomatoes and capsicums can be grown in pots or bags, which use a little less of the special mix in which they thrive.
6. Autumn-sown sweet peas give an early show. Unlike garden peas, which don’t care for heavily fertilised soil, sweet peas will gobble up well-rotted manure and – as a result – produce bigger flowers. The old system was to fill a trench at least 30cm deep with stable manure and top it up with earth. The modern gardener may prefer simply to add lots of compost where the sweet peas are to grow.
7. Some perennials, notably Anemone hupehensis var. japonica (pictured) and chrysanthemums light up the garden in autumn. Many attract bees and butterflies.
8. Some climbers don’t get a second glance until their leaves turn to flame before falling. One of the most popular is the Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), pictured, whose name denotes its origins in the eastern United States, although strangely Boston ivy (P. tricuspidata) is native to Asia. Of the ornamental grape vines, Vitis vinifera ‘Purpurea’, has better-than-average foliage, starting olive green before turning purplish-bronze in summer and claret in autumn.
9. Fire up the garden with trees that have rich autumn foliage tones. Claret ash (Fraxinus oxycarpa ‘Raywoodii’), English beech (Fagus sylvatica) and scarlet oaks (Quercus species) are suitable only for large properties but other gardeners can opt for the Japanese maples (Acer palmatum), pictured, and flowering cherries such as ‘Accolade’, ‘Falling Snow’ , ‘Kanzan’ or ‘Hillieri Spire’. These smaller trees also have interest in spring from leaf colour (the maples) or flowers (Prunus cultivars).
10. Enjoy autumn-flowering bulbs and think of planting more. Consider naked ladies (Amaryllis belladonna), pictured, nerines (red, pink or white) or little Cyclamen hederifolium. Colchicums, which are not related to true crocuses, are sometimes called autumn crocuses, as is yellow-flowered Sternbergia lutea. Two true crocuses that flower in autumn are saffron (Crocus sativus) and C. speciosus, which has fine pale lavender flowers, just like the spring ones, but much longer leaves. | <urn:uuid:0a68a2cd-5805-469a-b6c8-8382291cafa3> | {
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The world is full of analogies, similes and metaphors which can help us understand the dynamics of our spiritual life. Jesus used them all the time. More often than not, he used images from our everyday life which operate as windows into the eternal truths of the Kingdom of God. This coming Sunday at S Giles we'll hear one of these in our Gospel lesson.
In the parable of the labourers in the vineyard the extraordinary generosity and compassion of God is revealed. In first century Palestine, workers often had to wait each day in the marketplace until someone hired them - more often than not just for that one day. The expression "no work, no eat" was an economic reality, more than a moral principle. Throughout the day the householder (or employer) goes into the marketplace, hiring some in the morning, some in the afternoon, and some just an hour before the work day ended. All seems to go as expected in the story, until the very end.
And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, `Call the labourers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
What is the point Jesus is making? God is generous. Period. There are no limits to his generosity. When he invites us into relationship with him, the invitation has no qualifiers - there is no small print. The thief on the cross will enjoy the same God in paradise as will St Paul himself! It is tempting to try and delve into the psychology of the labourers that started working in the morning. The Gospel says they "they grumbled at the householder." But St John Chrysostom warns us:
But we ought not to pursue through every particular the circumstances of a parable; but enter into its general scope, and seek nothing further. This then is not introduced in order to represent some as moved with envy, but to exhibit the honour that shall be given us as so great as that it might stir the jealousy of others.
The point of the parable, Chrysostom says, is not the envy of the labourers, but the generosity of the householder. This seems to fit well with the words of the householder at the end of the parable: "do you begrudge my generosity?" The labourers who started working in the morning forgot one vital fact: it was the householder's generosity that employed them in the first place!
This Sunday's Sermon
This Sunday's Notice Sheet
This Sunday's Children's Sheet | <urn:uuid:2c2e4eef-9808-4d65-a9a0-375600a7b2d5> | {
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IMPRESSIVE AND ILLUMINATING' TOM HANKS This is the definitive account of the heroic Apollo programme. When astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their 'giant leap for mankind' across a ghostly lunar landscape, they were watched by some 600 million people on Earth 240,000 miles away. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the astronauts and mission personnel, this is the story of the twentieth century's greatest human achievement, minute-by-minute, through the eyes of those who were there.
From the tragedy of the fire in Apollo 1 during a simulated launch, Apollo 8's bold pioneering flight around the moon, through to the euphoria of the first moonwalk, and to the discoveries made by the first scientist on the moon aboard Apollo 17, this book covers it all. 'An extraordinary book . .
. Space, with its limitless boundaries, has the power to inspire, to change lives, to make the impossible happen. Chaikin's superb book demonstrates how' Sunday Times 'A superb account .
. . Apollo may be the only achievement by which our age is remembered a thousand years from now' Arthur C.
Clarke 'The authoritative masterpiece' Los Angeles Times | <urn:uuid:01be736e-da52-412c-99be-ea0b98d822d2> | {
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Nicolaus, Marcel; Haas, Christian; Willmes, Sascha (2009): First-year and second-year snow properties on sea ice in the Weddell Sea during POLARSTERN cruise ANT-XXII/2 (ISPOL) during the drift. PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.759716, Supplement to: Nicolaus, M et al. (2009): Evolution of first-year and second-year snow properties on sea ice in the Weddell Sea during spring-summer transition. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 114, D17109, https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011227
Always quote above citation when using data! You can download the citation in several formats below.
Observations of snow properties, superimposed ice, and atmospheric heat fluxes have been performed on first-year and second-year sea ice in the western Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Snow in this region is particular as it does usually survive summer ablation. Measurements were performed during Ice Station Polarstern (ISPOL), a 5-week drift station of the German icebreaker RV Polarstern. Net heat flux to the snowpack was 8 W/m**2, causing only 0.1 to 0.2 m of thinning of both snow cover types, thinner first-year and thicker second-year snow. Snow thinning was dominated by compaction and evaporation, whereas melt was of minor importance and occurred only internally at or close to the surface. Characteristic differences between snow on first-year and second-year ice were found in snow thickness, temperature, and stratigraphy. Snow on second-year ice was thicker, colder, denser, and more layered than on first-year ice. Metamorphism and ablation, and thus mass balance, were similar between both regimes, because they depend more on surface heat fluxes and less on underground properties. Ice freeboard was mostly negative, but flooding occurred mainly on first-year ice. Snow and ice interface temperature did not reach the melting point during the observation period. Nevertheless, formation of discontinuous superimposed ice was observed. Color tracer experiments suggest considerable meltwater percolation within the snow, despite below-melting temperatures of lower layers. Strong meridional gradients of snow and sea-ice properties were found in this region. They suggest similar gradients in atmospheric and oceanographic conditions and implicate their importance for melt processes and the location of the summer ice edge.
Median Latitude: -67.877675 * Median Longitude: -55.266792 * South-bound Latitude: -68.191870 * West-bound Longitude: -55.666840 * North-bound Latitude: -67.352670 * East-bound Longitude: -54.836800
Date/Time Start: 2004-11-28T12:00:00 * Date/Time End: 2008-12-31T12:00:00
PS67/2-track * Latitude Start: -33.911860 * Longitude Start: 18.434600 * Latitude End: -33.911865 * Longitude End: 18.434600 * Date/Time Start: 2004-11-04T00:00:00 * Date/Time End: 2005-01-20T12:00:00 * Elevation Start: -999.0 m * Elevation End: -999.0 m * Location: South Atlantic Ocean * Campaign: ANT-XXII/2 (PS67 ISPOL) * Basis: Polarstern * Device: Underway cruise track measurements (CT) | <urn:uuid:75292551-4203-49e8-9a74-6736a2278b5d> | {
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A team of researchers has developed a new strain of yeast that could make the production of biofuels two times more efficient by breaking down an elusive sugar chain present in plant stems called xylose. Up until now, two processes have been used to break down all of the sugars contained in plants — one for simple sugars and one for complex sugars. This new yeast has the ability to break down simple and complex sugars at once, making the production of biofuels faster and yielding more end product.
Researchers at University of Illinois, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California and the energy company BP joined together on the study. Conventional yeasts go for simple sugars first, leaving more complex sugars behind. This makes the process of fermenting plants time and energy consuming. Xylose is present in the stalks and stems of plants and is a complex wood sugar: “a five-carbon sugar that is very abundant in lignocellulosic biomass but not in our food,” said Yong-Su Jin, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Illinois and a principal investigator on the study, “most yeast cannot ferment xylose.”
Jin and his colleagues sought to create a yeast that could co-ferment both single and complex sugars at once, therefore speeding along the process. The team genetically engineered the yeast to draw xylose into its cell walls where the fermenting process takes place and then created an isoenzyme that helped decrease a harmful by-product of the process. “We don’t have to do two separate fermentations,” Jin said. “We can do it all in one pot. And the yield is even higher than the industry standard. We are pretty sure that this research can be commercialized very soon.” One of the biggest arguments against biofuels is the energy that it takes to create them — if Jin and his colleagues can commercialize this yeast as quickly as they believe, they’ll be one step closer to making the world of biofuels even more efficient.
Via Science Daily | <urn:uuid:d6609efb-eebb-4186-b407-c6a54815954d> | {
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WHEN doctors told Emma Hawley they might never be able to tell her what was wrong with her daughter Jessica she was devastated.
“Without a diagnosis, no one could tell us what the future held for our baby,” says Emma.
Consultants classed Jessica, now 18 months old, as a child with Swan (a syndrome without a name).
She is one of an estimated 30-40 per cent of special needs children in the UK who come under this “umbrella” as they do not have a specifi c diagnosis.
Children with Swan can suffer all sorts of issues such as poor mobility, delayed speech, and neurological and behavioural problems. Because their symptoms don’t precisely fit a particular known condition they get no fi rm diagnosis or prognosis and parents often struggle to access any support.
The repetitive movements of bouncing and splashing provide a great stimulation for a baby’s sense of motion and balance.
“Jessica has been assigned play therapy and physiotherapy but without a name for her condition there is no long-term treatment plan for her,” explains Emma.
“So I’ve turned to what I know best to aid her development myself, swimming.”
Emma, 32, from Stafford, runs her own baby swimming classes and she has seen fi rst hand how it can aid a baby’s mental and physical development.
As well as strengthening an infant’s cardiorespiratory system and aiding muscular strength a study by researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found that “water babies” had better balance and grasping skills than non-swimmers.
Paul Thompson, the founder of Water Babies swimming classes (www.waterbabies.co.uk), says:
“The repetitive movements of bouncing and splashing provide a great stimulation for a baby’s sense of motion and balance.
“The lack of gravity means they exercise more muscles more effectively than on land.
“Learning to respond to voice commands used in swimming lessons can make babies sharper mentally and increase levels of understanding.”
Emma is convinced it has helped Jessica’s development.
“She has changed from a child who just used to lie there to a little girl who can now sit up unaided and play happily with her toys,” she says.
EMMA and husband Ben, 32, a pensions administrator, have an older daughter Natalie, five. They first noticed a problem when Jessica was four months old.
“She had always been diffi cult to feed but she stopped putting on weight,” says Emma.
She was treated for silent reflux but by the time Jessica was six months she was thin and not reaching any new milestones such as rolling over or sitting up.
“She lay on the floor and barely lifted her head,” recalls Emma.
An MRI scan showed Jessica had global brain atrophy meaning her brain was smaller than average and that it might not grow further.
Doctors began genetic testing but all subsequent DNA and blood tests searching for recognised chromosome and genetic abnormalities came back negative.
Eventually consultants told Emma they might never be able to give Jessica a definite diagnosis.
“They said Jessica may never walk or hold an adult conversation but there were no certainties. There were no children or adults we could compare her with,” Emma says.
Parents of children with unknown syndromes are often left in limbo struggling to cope with an uncertain future but Emma is determined to defy the prognosis.
“In the pool Jessica is just like any other child her age. She is even able to swim a few yards underwater and has learnt to respond to verbal commands, holding her breath in readiness for being dunked underwater.
“She was unable to use her hands and arms much at all but after beginning to splash her arms freely in the water she has now transferred this skill to the home by using her hands to play.
“Her arms have grown stronger and she can even push herself up on them, the fi rst step to crawling. Jessica can also sit up unsupported.
“And she has recently begun kicking her legs hard in the water and bearing down on my knees with her legs.
“I’m sure swimming has strengthened her body and as a result has grown to love using a ‘standing frame’ in the house. I’m hopeful it will lead to her standing unaided and taking her fi rst steps.”
Emma has been teaching another child with Swan to swim who has developmental problems similar to Jessica’s.
“Her mum is convinced swimming has helped her. She took her fi rst steps at two.
“I’m certain the more Jessica does in the water the more she’ll be able to do on land. I’d like to see all disabled babies given the chance to access specialist warm pools to help their development.”
Emma still hopes for a diagnosis.
“Meantime Jessica will keep swimming and smiling,” she says. “Even if we never get that I’ll never stop believing in what she can achieve.”
● For information on Swan, visit www.undiagnosed.org.uk | <urn:uuid:524aadef-ff73-42d6-906a-fd1d2cf9c4d4> | {
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"When your dog is staring at you, she may not just be after your sandwich." That's how evolutionary anthropologists frame a new study that describes just how powerful a bond humans and dogs share. In two experiments, described in Science, both dogs and their owners saw an increase in oxytocin, also known as the "love hormone," just by staring into each other's eyes—the same reaction that occurs when a mother looks at her newborn baby. It's a surprising find considering that domesticated dogs and wolves usually only make eye contact amongst themselves to establish dominance, and the researchers believe it may explain how humans managed to domesticate dogs in the first place. It's possible, they say, that a group of friendly canines looked into the eyes of humans and "unwittingly tapped into the natural human system designed for parent-child bonding," as LiveScience puts it.
Researchers first observed 30 dog owners and their pets and found that after 30 minutes of play, more eye contact between the two during that interaction translated into higher oxytocin levels in both human and canine urine, the Los Angeles Times reports. Such a response was missing in a similar experiment involving wolves and the handlers who'd raised and played with them. In another experiment, researchers sprayed oxytocin into dogs' noses before a play session. Though there wasn't much response in male dogs, female dogs afterward made more eye contact with their owners, whose own oxytocin levels spiked. "These results suggest that humans may feel affection for their companion dogs similar to that felt toward human family members," a researcher explains, per the Telegraph. (You may be benefiting from your dog's germs.) | <urn:uuid:3971858e-3257-455e-92ad-f9b59e630c11> | {
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As the Sesquicentennial Commemoration of the Civil War enters its fourth year, many significant events will be honoring the 150th anniversary of Civil War battles. Among the most significant are at Olustee, FL (February 20), Fort Pillow (April 12), The Wilderness (May 5-7), Spotsylvania Courthouse (May 8-21), Yellow Tavern (May 11), New Market (May 15), Cold Harbor (May 31 – June 12), Kennesaw Mountain (June 27), Monocacy (July 9), Fort Stevens (July 11-13), Atlanta (July 22), Second Kernstown (July 24), The Crater at Petersburg (July 30), Chaffin’s Farm (August 30-31), Third Winchester (September 19), Second Franklin (November 30), and Nashville (December 15-16) to name a few.
Major commemorations, historic forums, reenactments and informative programs are planned in many areas starting with the largest reenactment in the South at Olustee, Florida will be held on February 14-16. The Olustee Festival takes place at Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park a few miles from Lake City, FL.
At the Battle of Yellow Tavern, VA, this year commemorates the 150th anniversary of the death of Confederate General J. E. B. Stuart was shot and killed.
While the state of Tennessee doesn’t have a particular commemoration in mind for Fort Pillow, where many U. S. Colored Troops died unceremoniously, it has been suggested that a quiet contemplation of the massacre that took place could certainly be important to the healing – even 150 years later.
For a plethora of other Sesquicentennial events, a great source for information is Civil War Traveler.
If you are interested in the Civil War, please subscribe to my posts by clicking on the “subscribe” button. Subscribing is free. You will receive an e-mail each time I post another article. Or “like” my articles on your Facebook/Twitter account. | <urn:uuid:f2a40d15-0aea-4ba8-8633-b9802758aa9e> | {
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From the Research Center and Experimental Surgery Department, Universidad Latinoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnolog[[iacute]]a Costa Rica (Dr Feoli); Departments of Surgery, Universidad de Ciencias M[[eacute]]dicas and Universidad de Iberoamerica (Drs Badilla and Mendez); Services of Orthopedics and Trauma (Dr Badilla) and Thoracic Surgery (Dr Mendez), Hospital Mexico; Emergency Clinic Pavas (Dr Bermudez); and Department of Epidemiologic Vigilance, Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (Ms Badilla), San Jos[[eacute]], Costa Rica.
This article describes how surgery developed in Costa Rica and how it was nurtured to its present status. The practice of surgery in Costa Rica developed slowly as a charitable service. In the past 3 decades, it became accessible to 87.6% of the population through the creation of a national health service system. Our objective herein is to give the reader an understanding of how surgical practice originated and matured in Costa Rica, viewed in the broader context of medical practice in a fledgling and poor New World colony. Also discussed are social and political sentiments in the country that are thought to have helped evolve the present surgical standard.
Costa Rica is a democratic republic, with its capital in San José. It has a literacy rate of 94.8%, an infant mortality of 11.2% per 1000 live births, and a birth rate of 20.3% per 1000 population (available at: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cs.html). The republic is ranked 41st in the Human Development Index of the United Nations. It has an ethnic composition of 94% white (including mestizo), 3% black, 1% American Indian, 1% Chinese, and 1% other. In 2001, the population was almost 4 million. Age demographics included: 0 to 14 years, 31.4% (605 728 male and 578 128 female); 15 to 64 years, 63.4% (1 209 084 male and 1 181 754 female); and 65 years and older, 5.3% (92 314 male and 106 049 female). The life expectancy is 77.5 years. The climate is tropical and subtropical, with a dry season (December to April) and a rainy season (May to November), and is cooler in the highlands. The per capita income is $3124, and electricity production is 5.3 billion kW per hour annually.
During the first 3 centuries of colonization, after Christopher Columbus arrived at Costa Rica during his fourth voyage in 1502, the country was considered a laggard with respect to the other provinces in the realm of Guatemala.1,2 Because little gold was found in Costa Rica (despite its suggestive name) and no mines were available for exploitation, little attention was paid to this region. An economy of survival prevailed, based on small clusters of self-sufficient working families.2- 4 With the help of the scarce native population still remaining in the 17th and 18th centuries, the agriculture-based economy grew around these families of settlers. Costa Rica matured into a more homogeneous and equitable society compared with the neighboring provinces. This affected how medical practice was established in Costa Rica.2,4,5
Despite the fact that a physician, Maestre Bernal, landed on Costa Rican soil with surgeon Juan Camacho in 1502 with Columbus, only 348 physicians would sojourn in the province during the next 398 years. One hundred fifty came from Europe, and most of the others came from the United States. Twenty-five came from Guatemala and 20 from Nicaragua, demonstrating the modest contributions of the region itself.2,4
The first Costa Rican physician was Pablo Alvarado Bonilla, who graduated in 1823 from the University of San Carlos, Guatemala City, Guatemala. The first Costa Rican to train in Europe was José Maria Montealegre, who studied in England, started practice in 1840, and eventually became president of Costa Rica between 1859 and 1863.1,2
Well after its independence from Spain in 1821 and because of a lack of local medical legislation, all public health undertakings were dependent on Guatemala and the Real Protomedicato, which were in turn dependent on the Spanish empire and the Real Protomedicato in Madrid. The Protomedicatos had their origin in a body of legislation concerning medical practice during the Roman empire. They can be considered predecessors of the modern medical colleges or associations and the groups of laws that regulate them.6 The first Protomedicatos enjoyed the professional autonomy that has characterized these groups, duly conferred by the senate or the Roman emperor himself. Under the guidance of the Protomedicato of Guatemala, smallpox vaccination in the Americas, begun by the king of Spain in 1802, continued in Costa Rica between 1825 and 1852. Five years later, the Protomedicato of Costa Rica was founded on October 19, 1857. Because of earlier models in Mexico, Peru, and other countries, the Protomedicato was born reasonably mature; nevertheless, the Costa Rican executive power named all its directors. It oversaw the quality of medical practice in the country and evaluated new candidates and their fitness for the profession. This body became the Faculty of Medicine of Surgery and Pharmacy in 1895, combining regulatory and academic functions. In 1940, when the University of Costa Rica, San José, was founded, it was named Colegio de Médicos and attained full autonomy and self-government, and it is now the regulatory body of the medical profession in Costa Rica.2,4,5,7
Because its Protomedicato was born late, Costa Rica was spared much of the strife that kept physicians and surgeons apart in the Americas. In 1608, surgeon Manuel Farfan arrived in Costa Rica. However, it is likely that he did not possess any formal training or licensing. In the early 17th century, medical licensing in the Americas operated by extension of a 1593 Spanish sanction by Felipe II, similarly applied to the colonies, which mandated that surgeons be certified for surgical practice in Spain. The ordinance specified certain venues for surgical examinations and alluded to "Latin surgeons" (referring to an academic education in Latin). "Romancist surgeons," not having received formal training in Latin, could be licensed for 4 years by a "Protomedicato," despite not having completed all the prerequisites for Latin surgeons, provided that the location seeking the licensee had a demonstrated need of surgeons. Stories in Havana, Cuba (1602), and Buenos Aires, Argentina (as late as 1779), disclose how difficult it was to pass the examinations and obtain a surgical license. Stipulations were enforced in Mexico and in Lima, Peru, under the direction of the conquistadores. Records indicate that surgeons had been appointed there since 1610. Nonetheless, the first application registered in Mexico for a Latin surgeon to be examined by the Protomedicato was around 1695. Therefore, it can be presumed that before this date most surgeons were Romancist surgeons.6 Farfan lived in the area of Puntarenas and Guanacaste, in the western coast of the country, isolated from San José at that time, and unquestionably was without a local surgeon or a Protomedicato to certify him.
However, warfare and the opening of new territories created a high demand for surgeons, leading to the foundation of surgical colleges in Cadiz (1749) and Barcelona (1764), in Spain, and the Surgical College of Mexico, Mexico City, in 1770. The main objective of the colleges was to teach anatomy and dissection and to pursue excellence in surgical operating techniques. To be accepted to these colleges, students were not required to have academic degrees. They received a combination of apprenticeship and formal education and had to pass a final examination at the end of their training. After graduation from surgical college, they would no longer be considered Romancist surgeons, but neither would they have earned an academic degree. With time, these surgical graduates were considered well trained and gradually became scornful toward simple Romancist surgeons and eventually toward physicians graduating from the best medical schools in New Spain. Between 1770 and 1813, the Surgical College of Mexico graduated 201 surgeons. The dark days of midwifery, tooth extractions, bone setting, embalming, phlebotomy, and barber sweat were left behind. Eventually, surgeons would try to oppose the physicians and gain independence from the Protomedicatos. However, after 2 legislative bills by the king of Spain in 1801 and 1804 separating the entities, a confusing period followed of claims and counterclaims between surgeons and physicians, involving the Council for the Indies. Overburdened with other issues, the crown finally settled the matter and reconfirmed the Protomedicatos to oversee surgical training in the Americas and control the licensing for surgical practice. During the rest of the 19th century, universities gradually assumed teaching of both branches of medicine, and surgical colleges disappeared.6
As meaningful as these events might appear toward the ordainment of surgical practice in the New World, in essence it meant a relapse to the early experiences of the colony. The Spaniards encountered a surprisingly advanced knowledge of the Aztecs in surgical treatment of battle wounds, advanced treatment of fractures, and an extensive herbal pharmacopoeia to maintain asepsis of wounds and induce anesthesia during surgical procedures. Initially, Hernando Cortés wrote to Carlos V that they needed few physicians and surgeons because medicine was so advanced in the New World, and similarly Carlos V encouraged Spaniards to attain knowledge in native medicine. Despite establishment by Cortés of a hospital as early as 1521, it became preferable in some instances to have battle wounds of Spanish soldiers treated by native healers.8 A Jesuit, Alonso López de Inojosis, wrote (among other medical treatises) a book about native surgery during the first half of the 16th century and described 50 herbs that were used in surgical treatments.9 Other New World texts on anatomy and medicine were written in an attempt to understand the medical concepts that the Spaniards confronted. However, the long arm of Spanish orthodoxy gradually reached across the Atlantic, and by the time Europeans landed in New England, Mexico was back to bloodletting and purging.6
Nothing more is heard about surgeons in Costa Rica until 1874. Similarly, there are references to only 3 surgeons in 1766 working in the realm of Guatemala, 2 of them of advanced age. This paucity of surgeons characterized territories removed from Mexico and Lima for centuries. However, late in 1874, Costa Rican surgeon Carlos Duran Cartin returned to the country as a graduate of the Royal College of Surgeons in England. With his modern training, he established the first operating room in the country, at the Hospital San Juan de Dios in San José. This hospital, inspired by the Order of Hospitallers of St John and founded in 1852, did not become truly functional until many of its departments were defined or reorganized by Cartin.1,2,4,5,7 He initiated a surgical department and introduced modern anesthesia and measures to maintain asepsis and antisepsis in surgical procedures. He performed the first eye operations, created a sanatorium for 100 patients to fight tuberculosis, and advanced the cause of the creation of the Ministry of Health.
Late in the 19th century, Costa Rica entered the era of modern surgery, although the population would have to wait for almost another century until benefits would be accessible to them at large. Services at Hospital San Juan de Dios were funded by charity and would so continue for decades. The Sisters of Charity of Guatemala were brought in by the Fraternity of Charity to run the hospital.1,2 This association was conceived in 1845. Subsequently, it became the Junta of Public Charity, and, by the initiative of Duran in 1885, a public lottery was established by the government to fund the hospital. There were sufficient funds to run the hospital but not to pay the physicians. Eminent surgeons for decades worked part-time for free.
In 1942, the bill of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) was passed by President Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia, a physician with strong social convictions. This law laid the foundations of a national health system in Costa Rica. It mandated financing of the system by workers' pay, employers, and the state, so that coverage would be only for working persons and their families. In 1961, a new law made the health coverage universal.3- 5,7
Charity hospitals would continue to be financed by the lottery for some time. In 1964, Children's Hospital, San José, was created, with full surgical facilities. The CCSS then established Hospital Mexico, also in San José, where specialized medical and surgical services became widely available to the population in late 1969. Finally, in 1973, management of all hospitals was transferred to the CCSS, and the charity organization, now called Junta of Social Protection, would redirect its resources to specific sociomedical projects.
A 2000 report indicates that the facilities of the CCSS comprised 23 hospitals with 5861 beds, or 1.5 beds for each 1000 inhabitants of Costa Rica (CCSS, written communication). In addition, the system had 97 outpatient clinics and 787 centers for integral or primary care providing curative and preventive care. For every 100 individuals in the population, 8.6 were discharged from hospitals per year. Individuals consulted the outpatient departments 2.0 times per year, and 0.4 person per year consulted a private physician. For every 10 individuals, 8.7 annually visited an emergency department.
In the hospitals where surgery was performed, there were 327 675 discharges per year, with a mean length of hospital stay of 5.5 days and an occupancy rate of 81.7%. The mortality among discharged patients was 1.9%, and the surgical procedures performed corresponded to 48.5% of all discharges. The 2000 report cites an annual 158 890 operations performed, or 4.2 operations per 100 individuals (CCSS, written communication).
Costa Rica spends 8.6% of its gross national product annually on health services. According to data in the 2000 report, this expenditure totaled $786 million for services of the CCSS, not including preventive services of the Ministry of Health (CCSS, written communication). Of this, 50.8% annually was spent on hospitalization and 28.5% on outpatient services. The cost per operation was $1901, with a cost per capita of $79 for surgical services. Services rendered by the CCSS extend to 87.6% of the population (CCSS, written communication).
In Costa Rica, 5273 physicians are registered, and 4200 of them are employed by the CCSS, 824 of whom are involved in surgical practice (data from Data Management Department, furnished by Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos, written communication, June 2002). These are delineated in Table 1.
In its evolution in Costa Rica, cardiovascular surgery has seen a shift from the classic repair of calcified valvular defects as sequelae of rheumatic fever in younger individuals, to the repair of ischemic coronary vessels in older individuals. The primary cause of death at the end of the 20th century in Costa Rica has been ischemic coronary disease. The country has the capacity to train 3 residents in the specialty per year.
Peripheral vascular surgery was initiated 30 years ago by general surgeons trained in the specialty and by thoracic surgeons. Shortly afterward, the first fully trained vascular surgeons arrived from abroad. Subsequently, rudimentary aortic synthetic prostheses were implanted, aortoiliac and carotid endarterectomies performed, and lower leg venous bypasses have become commonplace. Presently, shared stents are used for treatment of coronary and carotid obstruction, aided by cardiologists and hemodynamic laboratory data. The specialty relies on the Centro de Desarrollo Estratégico e Información en Salud y Seguridad Social (CENDEISS) to furnish future surgeons for the specialty (see "Medical Schools and Graduate Training" section).
General surgeons constituted the backbone of surgical practice until the 1970s. Many specialties initiated from the forays of these surgeons into more specialized fields and from younger surgeons tutored in the specialties. General surgery in Costa Rica has followed the world trend toward endoscopic surgery, principally performed on the biliary tract. The first laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed in mid 1992. Many general surgeons now perform gastrointestinal endoscopies.
Orthopedics in Costa Rica underwent an early demarcation of practice venue, based on whether the surgeons were trained in Europe (France and Italy) or the United States. Limitations of the public health care system through the years had blunted expansion of the practice countrywide. The specialty in Costa Rica now comprises general orthopedic physicians managing trauma (the fourth leading cause of death in the country) at the regional hospitals, with more specialized surgeons providing advanced care at the central hospitals. Better equipment at these centers allows performance of joint replacements and specialized tumoral procedures. The specialty is investigating the introduction of minimally invasive procedures and recruitment of specialized surgeons to expand spinal surgery, which presently is performed to a small degree. Also, a bone bank is planned with the assistance of the bone bank at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotà, Colombia. Rehabilitative surgery is practiced at a specialty hospital, Centro Nacional de Rehabilitacion in San José, providing integral care of disabled persons.
Since its inception in 1963, neurosurgery has expanded to most of the health system. The most challenging surgery is practiced in the central hospitals, where procedures involve trauma of the central nervous system and treatment of epilepsy, malformations, and vascular and tumoral abnormalities. Neurosurgeons have access to positron emission tomography, computed axial tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and subtraction digital angiography for establishing diagnoses.
Plastic and reconstructive surgery has developed since the early 1960s and is now common practice. Specialists trained in Latin America, the United States, and Europe provide this surgery, including microvascular techniques, through the CCSS at the central hospitals. It is also prevalent as a private practice, with several internationally recognized specialists offering services to foreign individuals looking for quality surgery at a reasonable price. This international activity is monitored closely by the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos.
After three quarters of a century during which only a few urologists in Costa Rica diagnosed and treated the simplest urologic abnormalities, these specialists now have access to modern x-ray, ultrasound, radioactive isotopes, and magnetic resonance imaging for diagnosing urologic conditions. Early-stage tumors can now be detected. Use of laparoscopic and percutaneous techniques has lagged. However, lithotripsy and pediatric urologic services are well developed. Urologists at Hospital Mexico, and to some extent at other central hospitals, have led the kidney transplantation program in Costa Rica and now perform the largest number of these transplantations in Latin America per specific population served by the surgical facility. Professionals come to Costa Rica from other countries to be trained in kidney transplantation.
Ear, nose, and throat specialty services are offered in the outpatient departments of the central hospitals. Flexible endoscopies of the pharynx and larynx and functional endoscopies of nasal and paranasal cavities are performed for diagnosis or as minor procedures. Complete audiological examinations can also be performed. When pathologic conditions are detected, otoneurological techniques and surgical procedures of the ear, base of the skull, nose and annex cavities, pharynx, and neck are available. Oncologic surgery of the head and neck is performed by these specialists in some hospitals. Some are maxillofacial surgery specialists, and others are plastic and bucodentomaxillary surgeons.
Ophthalmologic surgery has seen much progress since the 1970s, when only rudimentary procedures using rigid devices were performed on cataracts. Today, extracapsular technique requiring incisions of 6.0 mm has been replaced with techniques using incisions of only 2.5 mm, some of which do not need to be sutured. Phacoemulsification is now commonplace, and fragments of cataracts can be extracted without damage to neighboring structures. Argon laser surgery is available for patients with diabetic retinopathy. Vitrectors are used to treat detachments and hemovitreous and macular holes. Corneal transplantation is available from a corneal bank of the CCSS. Finally, CCSS is opening a new eye clinic at Hospital Mexico, funded by revenue from a public lottery. This clinic has been completed and is about to start operation. It will provide surgical services comparable to those of more developed countries.
A national cancer institute (Instituto Costarricense Contra el Cancer at La Uruca, province of San José) has been recently created. Plans are to build an oncologic hospital for comprehensive treatment of neoplastic diseases, including diagnostic, radiotherapeutic, and pharmacological services, and training and research. The surgical aspect of the discipline was originally founded and funded by Cancer Care International of Toronto, Ontario and was the most developed practice found in the country. Patients will continue to be treated surgically at the central hospitals, followed by state-of-the-art care at the oncologic hospital. In a fourth phase, the new hospital will provide most of the cancer surgery. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Costa Rica, and 10 000 new cases are expected by 2010. There are presently 20 oncologic surgeons in Costa Rica.
Gynecologic surgery flourished in the closing decades of the 20th century, when it was practiced by general surgeons. At the end of 1950, a maternity hospital was created that housed the first gynecologic service. Gradually, gynecologic services began to function in CCSS hospital centers. Not until 1974, when the CENDEISS was founded, did sufficient specialists become available so that the needs of the population could be thoroughly met. Since then, fully developed services have been established in all central hospitals, and the specialty is widely available, including oncologic surgery provided by gynecologists. Around 1970, diagnostic and operative culdoscopy was initiated, and laparoscopy soon followed. In the mid 1970s, a group of gynecologists from the staff of Hospital Mexico who were receiving training in laparoscopy at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md, established programs in Latin America, Caribbean countries, Spain, and Portugal. Laparoscopy is now taught by surgeons locally trained in Costa Rica or by Costa Ricans trained abroad. At present, laparoscopic gynecologic procedures are common in the country. A cervical cancer detection program covers more than 90% of women, with emphasis on age and risk groups. In 2000, 379 635 cytologic examinations were performed.
Obstetrics has reported an increase in the number of cesarean sections performed, because of the improved safety of the procedure and the potential of delivering more viable newborns in high-risk mothers. The incidence has increased from 5% to 25% during the last 12 years. Limited intrauterine perinatal procedures are performed to correct defects detected early during pregnancy. In vitro fertilization has been banned by the Costa Rican Constitutional Court, but the subject is being discussed at the International Court of Human Rights.
Pediatric surgery has progressed since 1964, when Children's Hospital in San José was founded. At this hospital, most specialty surgeries are provided, with multidisciplinary attention. This has enabled a diffuse practice of heart surgery and kidney transplantation. Programs for liver and thoracic organs are also being introduced. Surgical treatment for epilepsy and monitoring of this condition are available, as well as treatment of bone malignancies. The specialty is equipped to handle major pediatric trauma in a multidisciplinary fashion led by surgeon Marco Vargas, specially trained for the task, and to treat newborns with antenatally detected defects. The specialists also will treat congenital lesions, trauma, and burns. The surgical department at Children's Hospital performs 14 500 operations annually.
The issue of surgical complications is difficult to analyze because statistics about this escalating problem are underreported. During the first quarter of 2002, most surgical services reported 1 or 2 events at most. However, statistics from the infectious disease service at Hospital Mexico indicate that nosocomial infections on surgical wards averaged 12.7% for the same quarter. A retrospective study analyzing presumably clean hip fracture surgery wounds in 341 cases shows that the prevalence of deep infections in these patients reached 4.2%. Therefore, it can be conjectured that surgical site infections may occur in 10% of all types of surgery.
There are 9 medical schools in Costa Rica, 1 public and the rest private. Except for the public school created in the 1960s, most schools have been established in the past 20 years.
As the predominant medical employer in the country, the CCSS foresaw the necessity of overseeing graduate training to guarantee a supply of trained professionals in accord with medical specialization trends. Therefore, in 1972, its board of directors created the CENDEISS.
Although the CENDEISS spends only 0.9% of its budget on training professionals, it has accomplished several landmark achievements in graduate training at social security institutions. The CENDEISS controls the number of residents in the institutions, therefore also controlling the evolution of specialties. Fifty-two percent of CENDEISS' budget is allocated to resident training and 11% to internships. Periodic strategic studies in collaboration with the University of Costa Rica Medical School (San Pedro de Montes de Oca, San José) assess the allotment of resources for graduate teaching. Since 1995, 1288 specialists have graduated from the CENDEISS. Candidates are selected for admission based on general medical science and specialty written and oral examinations and an interview. They are certified by the University of Costa Rica Medical School and licensed ultimately by the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos. Distribution of university internships is determined by a commission representing the Academia Nacional de Medicina, Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos, Medical Manager of the CCSS, Union Médica Nacional, and officials of the CENDEISS. Training opportunities are sought with international experts and health institutions willing to participate in mutual cooperation for improving the quality of life worldwide.10
Despite the efforts made by the CCSS to provide its own specialists, it is widely regarded by peers that further brief training abroad should be pursued to elevate graduates to the standards of international excellence.
Although 2 hospitals have facilities in which to conduct research in animals, and some surgical research was conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, this was terminated a decade ago. The reasons are complex and beyond the scope of this article. Clinical research has virtually ceased in the country, denounced by some legislators who claim that Costa Ricans were being used as servile subjects to serve international interests in medical research. Costa Rica was considered a country in which clinical research could be facilitated. Subsequently, the Ministry of Health unauthorized most institutional review boards functioning in Costa Rican hospitals. Since the denouncement, no new ethical committees were accredited during the past year and a half, but, recently, 5 new committees have been approved.
Only 5% of physicians have access to e-mail or the Internet. At 3 leading hospitals in San José, telemedical centers with audio and video facilities provide consultations via satellite, providing links to rural areas for discussion of difficult cases and hosting training teleconferences with experts. The telemedical facilities do not provide remote instruction in surgical procedures.
Some 10 000 other operations are performed annually in several private facilities comprising no more than 200 beds.
Anesthesiologists provide adequate services for surgery in the country. Two hospitals have cardiac surgery services that require complex anesthetic management. A third hospital has installed the equipment and is concluding training of assigned personnel to begin this level of surgery early in 2003. Intensive care units are also available for critically ill patients for anesthesia recovery and care of postoperative conditions.
The Asociacion Costarricense de Cirugia has existed since 1953 and has close links with the Federacion de Cirugia de Centroamerica y Panama and the Federacion Latinoamericana de Cirugia. It organizes a yearly national and other regional surgical congresses. In association with the Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, the Asociacion Costarricense de Cirugia has developed a training program for surgeons in trauma management. Occasionally, the Asociacion sponsors young surgeons' attendance at the annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Through the Federacion Latinoamericana de Cirugia, residents may rotate in different training programs in diverse Latin American countries. The Central American Surgical Congress is held every 2 years. The last regional congress held in Costa Rica was in 1995. The society has 150 active members.
In 3 decades, Costa Rica has increased its number of physicians 10-fold and now adequately provides specialists to meet the surgical needs of the country. The present capacity is a mean of 192 procedures annually per surgeon. However, as in some European health systems, waiting lists for surgical procedures are typical in Costa Rica. These delays characterize the past 10 years, despite ambulatory programs and quality control efforts introduced by the CCSS. These delays have been broadcast by the media, although recent reductions in waiting time by 13% have been reported.
The favorable cost-benefit relationship that the country expends on a per capita basis should be emphasized. Compared with health care in more developed nations, it is commendable that surgical services are available to seven eighths of the population. Perhaps the fact that the system keeps patients healthy and away from the hospital—in view of the minimal 1.5 beds per 1000 inhabitants and respectable 77.5-year life expectancy—makes this ratio possible. Efforts are being made in quality control and in information technology development to allow the CCSS to better integrate and manage its resources to improve performance. A pilot project at a tertiary care hospital is being conducted to develop an electronic medical record system. Information technology projects have already been implemented in other administrative areas. The aim is to provide widespread analysis of information, leading to informed decisions that should result in better use of resources.
Although the discipline was first established through charitable work by eminent surgeons, and continued thus for almost a century, most accomplishments in surgical services for Costa Ricans have been achieved in the past 3 decades. In this short span, resources have become available to Costa Ricans in an effective cost-benefit manner. Most Costa Ricans receive adequate to good quality surgical services. The symbol of the institution representing a motherland caring for its progeny seems not to be fanciful.
We thank our colleagues for their opinions on the surgical specialties: Edgar Mendez, MD, Rodolfo Esquivel, MD, Eduardo Flores, MD, Vladimir Badilla, MD, Carlos Cabezas, MD, Alvaro Saenz, MD, Guido Alvarez, MD, Julian Chaverri, MD, Carlos Jimenez, MD, William Hernandez, MD, Carlos Prada, MD, Arturo Esquivel, MD, and Gerardo Mora, MD.
Corresponding author and reprints: Enrique Feoli, MD, Research Center and Experimental Surgery Department, Universidad Latinoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnología Costa Rica, PO Box 5840-1000, San José, Costa Rica (e-mail: [email protected]).
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Summary and Keywords
The birth of the United States through a successful colonial revolution created a unique nation-state in which anti-imperialist sentiment existed from the nation’s founding. Three broad points are essential in understanding the relationship between anti-imperialism and U.S. foreign relations. First, the United States obviously has had more than its share of imperialist ventures over the course of its history. Perhaps the better way to address the matter is to remark on—at least in comparison to other major powers—how intense a commitment to anti-imperialism has remained among some quarters of the American public and government. Second, the strength of anti-imperialist sentiment has varied widely and often has depended upon domestic developments, such as the emergence of abolitionism before the Civil War or the changing nature of the Progressive movement following World War I. Third, anti-imperialist policy alternatives have enjoyed considerably more support in Congress than in the executive branch.
The founding of the United States dated from a successful colonial revolt, and anti-imperialist rhetoric was embedded within the nation’s founding documents. “When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce [the colonists] under absolute Despotism,” the Declaration of Independence asserted, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.” A historian of Thomas Paine has noted that the propagandist was “deeply influenced by imperial misdeeds, not only in North America, where he arrived late in 1774, but also in South Asia.1
This background both strengthened and weakened the nature of anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States. On the one hand, the Revolution established anti-imperialism as a founding American principle, and all but ensured that opposition would develop to any subsequent attempt to acquire foreign territory by force. Obviously, many such acquisitions nonetheless occurred throughout U.S. history, but almost always amidst a sharp domestic debate and on a more limited scale than might have been expected given the overpowering U.S. position in the Western Hemisphere after the mid-19th century. On the other hand, mainstream anti-imperialist ideas in the United States have tended to focus on questions of political freedom, reflecting more general ideas about international affairs in the late 19th century. Issues associated with informal empire or economic protectorates have tended to arouse far less concern among the American public or among legislators.
Anti-imperialist ideas shaped public policy in at least one key initiative of the Articles of Confederation regime: the Northwest Ordinance (1787) established a principle that the new nation would not hold colonies; , instead, all territories eventually would gain admission to the Union as co-equal states. At a time when the British government denied representation in Parliament to all colonies (and, in practice, to cities whose population had been swollen by the beginnings of industrialization), the U.S. commitment to political equality for all territories under its possession was notable.2
The creation of the Constitution maintained the tension between realism and idealism that bedeviled the period when the Articles were written and ultimately helped lead to their collapse. But here, too, structural factors enhanced the influence of anti-imperialist perspectives. In contrast to all other 18th century powers, the United States, through the Constitution, vested primary authority over foreign affairs in the legislative branch. Congress received the exclusive power to declare war and appropriate moneys for defense. After a late compromise at the Convention, the Senate lost the ability to negotiate treaties but retained authority to offer advice and consent, while it appeared (through the letters of marque clause) that Congress retained jurisdiction over undeclared wars.3 Finally, a persuasive argument exists that the Framers did not intend to grant Congress the power to authorize the forcible annexation of foreign territory.4 In effect, if not intent, this constitutional structure maximized the ability for forces outside the executive branch to influence the new nation’s foreign policy. And judged by the ratification debates, increased public involvement in policymaking seemed likely to tilt pressure against imperialist ventures abroad. While Alexander Hamilton advocated for a more robust presidential role on security matters, the Anti-Federalists dominated most of the ratification debate related to foreign policy; Federalists attempted to neutralize the criticism by downplaying the national government’s potential for acting contrary to American ideals.5
The Early Republic
As with so much of the U.S. constitutional structure regarding foreign policy, expectations about how the new nation might respond to international affairs differed from the reality. Congress did not dominate foreign policy. And the emergence of the First Party System featured both parties, for differing reasons, eschewing affiliation with anti-imperialist principles. Alexander Hamilton’s financial system envisioned a robust federal role in promoting trade abroad. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison envisioned the United States as an “empire of liberty,” in which territorial expansion would maintain the nation’s agrarian (and thus republican) core.6 The most prominent foreign policy dissenters from the Jeffersonian mainstream, the Old Republicans, had scant influence and declined precipitously after opposing U.S. entry into the War of 1812.7
The treatment of Native Americans also evidenced little concern with upholding anti-imperial principles. The odd nature of the Constitution left the Indian nations neither wholly foreign nor wholly domestic; but the newly independent United States aggressively dismantled the treaty system that had given the Indian nations a degree of international independence between 1763 and 1783. Despite the requirements of the treaty-making clause, the Senate proved more than willing to give the executive maximum leeway in the process. The first treaty considered in U.S. history came in 1789, negotiated by the Washington administration with Southern Indian nations. When the president arrived, unannounced, on the Senate floor seeking advice, the senators declined his request, citing a lack of knowledge about the negotiations. No president would subsequently solicit advice in such a formal fashion, and with the demise of the treaty system, Indian issues moved largely outside the anti-imperialist framework.8
Similarly, concerns about race and ethnicity weakened the early U.S. commitment to an anti-imperial cause. The United States played a complicated role during the revolution in Haiti, but there was one consistent element in U.S. policy; Washington policymakers had no desire to see Haiti become the Western Hemisphere’s second independent country. Sentiments changed little from the Federalist Washington and Adams administrations to that of Thomas Jefferson; and virtually no voices—in Congress or among contemporary commentators or pamphleteers—publicly urged the United States to vindicate its anti-colonial ideals by supporting Toussaint L’Ouverture’s rebellion.9
The questions of race and ethnicity also paved the way for a renewal of anti-imperial sentiment. During the 1830s, anti-slavery advocates invoked Article I’s protection of the people’s right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” and started flooding the House with petitions urging the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In response, the House adopted a new procedure—which came to be known as the “gag rule”—in which all petitions related to slavery automatically would be tabled. “I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States,” proclaimed former president and then-congressman John Quincy Adams (Whig-Massachusetts). But the gag rule remained in place. Seeking a way around it, abolitionists started petitioning for the recognition of Haiti, hoping for the symbolic move of a black minister received by the State Department. These petitions, too, had no impact on policy; Haiti would not be recognized until Southerners had withdrawn from Congress during the Civil War.10
Though unsuccessful, advocates for Haitian recognition established two important precedents. First, they demonstrated how domestic politics could increase interest in an anti-imperialist foreign policy. Second, the gag rule fight previewed the important role that Congress would play in placing anti-imperialism on the national policy agenda.
Anti-Slavery and Anti-Imperialism
A far more intense discussion about anti-imperialism and the American identity occurred in the 1840s and 1850s. The first sign came in the presidential election of 1844, which in many ways was fought over the question of American empire. In the Democratic nominating contest, former President Martin van Buren failed to secure the nomination after the party changed its rules to effectively provide Southern Democrats with veto power over the nominee. Van Buren had antagonized Southerners with his insufficient support for the annexation of Texas, which seemed likely to enter the union as a slave state. In his place, the Democrats turned to House speaker James Polk, a protégé of Andrew Jackson who campaigned on a platform of annexing territory in both the southwest and the northwest. The Whigs countered with Henry Clay, whose comparatively moderate (for the time) views on race, coupled with his heading the ticket of a party beset with deep internal divisions over slavery, led him to flirt with an anti-imperialist approach to Western Hemisphere expansion.11
Polk, of course, won the election, and soon initiated a war of conquest against Mexico. He did not seek congressional authorization until fighting had already begun. This strategy coupled an intense debate over anti-imperialism with a constitutional battle over whether the executive or Congress should have supremacy in international affairs.
Even once fighting had commenced, the Polk administration, working in cooperation with the House leadership, maneuvered to minimize dissent, ensuring that the two hours of debate over the war resolution precluded any opponents from speaking. But over the next several months, many of the fourteen Whigs who voted against the declaration of war explained their rationale. In the process, they revealed the convergence of anti-slavery with anti-imperialist thought. The de facto leader of these Conscience Whigs, John Quincy Adams, deemed the conflict a “most unrighteous war.” Adams would pass away in 1848, but his approach would be carried on by another war opponent, Joshua Giddings (Whig-Ohio), who maintained that Polk’s policies violated the Constitution; Giddings charged Polk with having “falsified” claims of Mexican aggression to race the United States into war.12
Frustrated in their attempt to block the war resolution, congressional dissenters turned to the legislature’s spending powers. During the Mexican War, the best example came through an amendment to the military funding bill, sponsored by Representative David Wilmot (D-Pennsylvania). The Wilmot Proviso seemingly accepted the possibility of imperialism, in that it did not demand that the United States eschew all territorial acquisitions from the war. But in reality, it sought to impose restrictions—ensuring that all territory would be admitted as a free state—that would have fractured the imperialist coalition. The measure passed the House, twice failed in the Senate, and further polarized national politics.13
Coupled with the belief that slavery needed to expand to survive, the aftermath of the war with Mexico stimulated strong grassroots support for imperialist ventures throughout the South. New Orleans hosted multiple “filibustering” ventures, with private operations—sometimes headed by figures of considerable influence, such as former Mississippi governor John Quitman—attempting to seize Cuba or Nicaragua for a slave-holding empire. (William Walker’s brief conquest of Nicaragua remains the most famous of these undertakings.) All of these operations, of course, violated the Neutrality Acts, but local juries in Louisiana refused to convict. In turn, the prominence of the filibusters provided further evidence in the North to link imperialism with the expansion of slavery.14
Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism in the 1850s
The intersection between competing ideological conceptions of whether the United States should assume an imperial role and dueling constitutional interpretations of which branch should control the making of U.S. foreign policy intensified during the 1850s. As occurred during the Polk administration, executive aggressiveness in advancing an imperialist agenda triggered a strong backlash from congressional anti-imperialists. Debate over imperialism peaked in response to the ambitious agenda of President James Buchanan. The former secretary of state envisioned a realpolitik foreign policy in which the United States would acquire Cuba and the executive would obtain the right to unilaterally send troops to weaker states. Amidst the ideological chaos of the 1850s, realizing this agenda would prove impossible.15
Congressional anti-imperialists checked Buchanan on two separate occasions. The first came in 1858, when Buchanan exploited a diplomatic controversy with Paraguay to propose a measure granting the President unilateral authority to send troops to Latin America. The bill cleared the House, which the Democrats controlled, but encountered stiff resistance in the Senate. Jacob Collamer (R-Vermont) countered with an amendment to strip from the bill Buchanan’s effort to use force absent congressional sanction. The Vermont senator, nicknamed “Green Mountain Socrates” for his oratorical skills, argued that such treatment of Paraguay, “a nation which we acknowledge as a civilized people,” would violate constitutional norms. In a major surprise, the Collamer amendment passed by a 21-to-19 margin. Southern Democrats furiously maneuvered to reconsider the vote, but were forced to concede that Buchanan would not use the authority to send troops to get the Collamer vote reversed.16
The next year, the outcome was even worse for the administration. Despite a setback for the Democrats in the 1858 midterm elections, Buchanan requested from the lame duck Congress a $30 million appropriation to lubricate negotiations with Spanish diplomats over a possible purchase of Cuba. Anti-imperialists responded forcefully. Typifying the group’s appeal, Senator John Hale (R-New Hampshire) denounced Buchanan’s policy as “the plea of tyrants,” or the “doctrine of the highway; it is the doctrine of power and might.” Hale reasoned that, while he might not oppose expansion in all circumstances, he could countenance the United States acquiring additional territory only “on just, honorable, honest, and patriotic principles.” In the end, the opposition was so intense that Buchanan supporters declined to bring the bill up for a vote.17
The Buchanan years perfectly illustrated the nature of pre-Civil War anti-imperialism. First, while it drew upon traditional American anti-imperial sentiments, the movement derived its strength from anti-slavery attitudes on the domestic front, and in particular, from the belief that a central purpose of 1840s and 1850s territorial expansion was to acquire new territories that could serve as slave states.18 Second, anti-imperialist sentiment was based (for political reasons) in Congress, and thus anti-imperialists championed a more robust legislative role in the making of U.S. foreign policy.
A robust anti-imperialism, therefore, depended upon the political conditions of the 1840s and 1850s persisting. But as anti-slavery sentiments diminished after the Civil War, and as the Republican Party grew more conservative on economic issues, the ideological conditions that had sustained anti-imperialism atrophied. Perhaps the final 19th century example of this left-wing anti-imperialism occurred in 1870, when Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner used his influence as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to block a proposed annexation of the Dominican Republic.
With Collamer, Hale, and virtually every other pre-war anti-imperialist no longer in the Senate, Sumner represented an ideology that fast was becoming passé. He maintained that the treaty would violate international law and worried that U.S. annexation of the Dominican Republic would eventually threaten the independence of Haiti. The victory came with a cost: in 1871, Sumner lost his chairmanship. Three years later, the Massachusetts senator died. By then, the Republican Party Senate caucus that he once had personified displayed little interest in the type of foreign policy activism that had characterized the anti-imperialist movement between the gag rule fight and the onset of the Civil War.19
The Gilded Age, of course, remains best remembered for the strongly pro-business orientations of administrations from Hayes until McKinley. On civil rights questions, meanwhile, Republicans grew increasingly unwilling (or, given the tenor of the Supreme Court, unable) to enact legislation to protect African-Americans in the South. The Democrats who came to dominate the region’s politics resolutely defended the emerging Jim Crow system, while challenging—on constitutional grounds—the idea of federal power.20
The post-Reconstruction partisan realignment dramatically changed the nature of anti-imperialist activism in the United States. In the years before the Civil War, suspicion of Slave Power and anti-imperialism complemented each other, with a more reformist vision at home accompanying a vision for a less militaristic foreign policy. During the Gilded Age, however, anti-imperialism became more associated with the right, especially Southern Democrats. Their interest in the cause was almost entirely cynical: a fear of creating a precedent for a more powerful national government that could, at least in theory, be applied against the racial caste system that they so strongly defended. The result was a dizzying array of imperialist ventures launched by Republican administrations eager to expand U.S. economic might that were reversed during the Gilded Age periods when Democrats dominated Congress or the White House.21
The clearest example of the pattern involved the Frelinghuysen-Zavala Treaty, in which the United States sought a protectorate over Nicaragua to facilitate construction of a trans-Isthmian canal. But Republicans narrowly lost the 1884 presidential election to Grover Cleveland, and the new president promptly withdrew the treaty from consideration. His secretary of state, former Delaware senator Thomas Bayard, reflected post-Civil War sentiments on the need for a limited government, including in foreign affairs, and retained a cautious approach diplomatically for the next four years.22
The best-known Gilded Age debate about imperialism revolved around the U.S. relationship with the Kingdom of Hawai’i. The strategically located islands had generated a strategic, economic, and cultural rivalry between the United States, Britain, and eventually Japan, which intensified as the 19th century proceeded. In 1893, with the tacit support of Republicans in Washington, U.S. business interests launched a coup against Queen Liliuokalani, and proclaimed a Hawai’ian “republic.” The new entity quickly petitioned the U.S. government for formal annexation.
By the time of the coup, the 1892 election had replaced Benjamin Harrison with Cleveland—who, as he had earlier with regards to Nicaragua, refused to endorse an imperialist venture. But Cleveland’s anti-imperialism was of a limited variety. His administration declined the queen’s request to help restore her to power, a venture in which congressional Democrats likewise displayed little interest. When Cleveland’s Democrats lost power following the 1896 elections, the new administration of William McKinley revived the annexation idea, and Hawaiian independence ended.
An Imperial Moment
The limits of this more conservative version of anti-imperialism became clear in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. McKinley’s administration accompanied a conflict with Spain over Cuba with an ambitious plan to seize Spanish colonies in Puerto Rico and the Philippines—the latter despite existence of an anti-colonial revolt that envisioned an independent republic under Emilio Aguinaldo. The war ended with an 1899 treaty that transferred Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines (and Puerto Rico) to the United States. Though Republicans possessed a Senate majority, McKinley needed some Democratic support to get the requisite two-thirds for approval.
As had occurred in the 1850s, the existence of aggressive political and ideological defenses of imperialism stimulated a powerful anti-imperialist dissent. But by this point, the ideological focus of anti-imperialism had shifted considerably. Sumner’s successor in the Senate, George Hoar, charged that imperialists believed that “we have outgrown the principles and the interpretation which were sufficient for our thirteen states and our 3 million people in the time of their weakness,” thereby embracing an imperialist doctrine that “would make of every war between civilized and powerful nations a war of extermination or a war of dishonor.” As for his own attitudes toward imperialism, the Massachusetts Republican was blunt: “You have no right at the cannon’s mouth to impose on an unwilling people your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution and your notions of freedom and notions of what is good.”23
In the end, however, Hoar was one of only two Republican senators to vote against the treaty. Its fate—reflecting the new politics of anti-imperialism—came down to Southern Democrats. While most pro-slavery Democrats had supported imperialism before the Civil War, this sentiment had not been unanimous: South Carolina senator John Calhoun, the most prominent example, had opposed the Mexican War on grounds that it would aggrandize the federal government and increase the number of non-whites under U.S. jurisdiction.24
Democrats who opposed acquisition of the Philippines borrowed from Calhoun’s approach of stressing racism and limited government to make their case. But this anti-imperialism was of a limited variety—most Southern Democrats did not oppose imperialism per se. Instead, they feared how an imperialistic foreign policy could threaten Jim Crow, both ideologically and constitutionally. This viewpoint provided an opening for the McKinley administration to get the treaty approved—persuading some Democrats that supporting the treaty would serve their constituents’ domestic interests. The president ultimately got the treaty approved through a deal with Louisiana Senator Samuel McEnery, in which McEnery agreed to vote for the treaty in exchange for McKinley granting him control over federal patronage in the state.25
The battle over the Philippines also stimulated the largest grassroots foreign policy organization in American history until that time. The Anti-Imperialist League, which claimed a membership of 250,000, deemed McKinley’s efforts in the Philippines a “criminal aggression” that would “extinguish the spirit of 1776 in those islands,” given that the “United States have always protested against the doctrine of international law which permits the subjugation of the weak by the strong.” In addition to its membership base, the League attracted some high-profile support, including philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and satirist Mark Twain. “I am an anti-imperialist,” Twain proclaimed. “I am oppose to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” He worried that “we have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.” But the League was, in many ways, of a different era; its mostly Northeastern base harkened back to the ties between abolitionism and anti-imperialism. Its internal divisions were intensified by debates over endorsing Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1900 election. Although Bryan had opposed acquisition of the Philippines, his economic agenda enjoyed scant support in the Northeast. After McKinley’s victory in 1900, the organization continued its efforts exposing the excesses of the occupation—chiefly the use of water torture against captured Filipino prisoners—but it did not survive to challenge the imperialist ventures of Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson during the Progressive Era.26
As opponents of acquiring the Philippines warned, imperialism and the Constitution’s promises of equal protection and due process could not be easily reconciled. In a series of decisions collectively known as the Insular Cases, the Court held that since the new “possessions are inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation, and modes of thought, the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible.”27 Three years later, addressing the question of constitutional rights for residents of the colonies, the Court ruled, “If the United States, impelled by its duty or advantage, shall acquire territory peopled by savages, and of which it may dispose or not hold for ultimate admission to statehood, if this doctrine is sound, it must establish there the trial by jury. To state such a proposition demonstrates the impossibility of carrying it into practice.”28 The era’s “great dissenter,” John Marshall Harlan, opposed the Insular Cases from the same perspective as he dissented from Plessy v. Ferguson. But—as with Jim Crow—Harlan was in the minority.
As with the fate of left-wing anti-imperialists in the Civil War, broader political changes ultimately undermined the late 19th century right-wing anti-imperialism. The last vestiges of the Gilded Age pattern came during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, as Southern Democrats resisted the president’s efforts to expand U.S. influence in the Caribbean Basin. Roosevelt’s most ambitious policy in this regard started in 1905, when the United States—fearful of European intentions after a Hague Court decision regarding Venezuela appeared to justify military action on behalf of bondholders—attempted to secure a customs receivership over the Dominican Republic.29
Since the proposal was presented in the form of a treaty, it required Senate approval—which meant that Roosevelt needed to obtain some Democratic support. (The 59th Senate had 59 Republicans and 31 Democrats.) But the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Georgia Senator Augustus Bacon, joined by Maryland Democrat Isidor Rayner, resisted. Rayner criticized Roosevelt’s policy as unfairly benefiting financial interests and worried about the administration transforming the Monroe Doctrine into “an instrument of terror and oppression.”30 After two years of frustration, Roosevelt changed tactics, and implemented the customs arrangement through an executive agreement—so as, he remarked during the debate, to sidestep the “average yahoo among the Democratic senators” who had blindly backed Bacon and Rayner.31
While Bacon, Rayner, and their party allies prevented a customs receivership treaty, Democratic senators showed less willingness to resist the wishes of a Democratic president. Woodrow Wilson’s election in 1912, followed by the new President’s enunciation of a bold international vision, broke the power of right-wing anti-imperialism in the South. Instead, over the course of his presidency, Wilson enjoyed near-monolithic support from Senate Democrats, with only a small number—most prominently Mississippi’s James Kimble Vardaman and Missouri’s James Reed and, after 1918, David Walsh of Massachusetts—questioning the President’s handling of international affairs.
The High Point of Anti-Imperialism
Few, if any, presidents featured as wide a gap between rhetoric and action as did Wilson on questions of imperialism. Wilson probably devoted more thought than any other President to the question of how the United States—as a country founded in revolution—could, or should, interact with an international environment in which self-determination and anti-imperialist principles were becoming more potent. As the historian Thomas Knock has most persuasively argued, Wilson sought to integrate domestic reform principles (ranging from progressivism to the American brand of socialism) into his international vision.32
Wilson’s decision to enter the war as an associated power rather than as a formally ally of Britain and France was designed in part to give him maximum flexibility in the postwar peace settlement—and, at least in theory, to distance the United States from the imperial powers. In the Treaty of Versailles, he championed mandates (Article XXII of the League of Nations Covenant) to allow the major powers to guide former German colonies or sections of the dismembered Ottoman Empire to self-determination. And he authored Article XI, which held that “any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations,” in the hopes of peacefully resolving conflicts between League members and entities that did not belong to the League, including colonies.33 This article, the President maintained, would ensure that the League Covenant did “not… preclude the right of revolution.”34
Yet Wilson’s policies often fell well short of these high-minded ideals. Over the course of his presidency, and apart from World War I, Wilson sent troops to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico (twice), and Russia (twice). Only one of these operations (the first Mexican intervention) was approved by Congress, and even then the authorization resolution did not reach the Senate until Marines had landed in Veracruz. While Wilson’s rhetoric inspired anti-imperial uprisings in North Africa and East Asia, as historian Erez Manela has pointed out, the president seemed disinterested (at best) and hostile (at worst) to anti-colonial uprisings.35 It seemed as if his version of self-determination stopped at Europe’s frontiers and did not apply to people of color.
Wilson’s foreign policy generated strong opposition from conservatives, culminating in the successful efforts of Senate Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Massachusetts) to deny approval to the Treaty of Versailles. But as his presidency developed, Wilson also faced an intensifying critique from the left. A handful of peace progressive senators, some from the Midwest, others from the South, began a revival of a left-wing version of anti-imperialism that rivaled and at times surpassed the strength of the anti-imperialist movement from the two decades before the Civil War.36
The anti-imperialist critique of Wilsonianism emerged forcefully during 1919. Wilson’s decision to send troops to Russia—ostensibly to assist Czechs stranded in the country when Russia withdrew from World War I, but actually to influence the course of the Russian Civil War—triggered a backlash in Congress. Hiram Johnson, a Republican senator from California who often worked with the peace progressives in the late 1910s and early 1920s, introduced an amendment to cut off funding for the military operation. Anti-imperialists joined with Republican partisans; the measure failed by a tie vote, with the Vice President casting the tiebreaker to sustain the funding. But administration officials understood the message that Johnson had sent: Acting Secretary of State Frank Polk reasoned that the “critical spirit in Congress” meant that no additional appropriations for the Russian operation would be forthcoming.37
For Wilson’s left-wing critics in the Senate, the Russian policy previewed the type of colonial interventions that the League of Nations might sanction. Accordingly, and despite their general interest in promoting a peaceful world order, they irreconcilably opposed both the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. As Wilson attempted to defend his handiwork amidst criticism from conservatives and right-wing nationalists in the Senate, the peace progressives attacked the treaty from the left, denouncing its compromises with imperialism. Why, they wondered, had Wilson compromised with the Japanese, and signed the treaty despite its granting German concessions in Shantung to Japan? Why, they asked, had Wilson allowed the British and French to implement the Skyes-Picot accords, which carved up much of the Ottoman Empire into European protectorates?
Wilson defended himself on the grounds that the League, once it had begun its work, could handle such difficult issues. But the peace progressives saw the League as a pernicious institution, which would uphold rather than challenge the interests of imperialists. They seized on Article XI, noting its odd wording in deeming it “the friendly right of each Member of the League”—but not non-members—“to bring to the attention of the Assembly or of the Council any circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends.” Citing this linguistic vagueness, William Borah (R-Idaho) deemed Article XI “altogether the most dangerous provision of the treaty.” To Robert La Follette (R-Wisconsin), the “cunningly conceived” article would allow colonial powers to cite any movement toward self-determination as a threat to “international peace,” and thus invoke the League’s collective security powers.38
The battle over the League also created conditions for a new look at some of Wilson’s earlier imperial ventures. In the 1840s, concerns about racist foreign policies led abolitionists to criticize first Polk and then Buchanan’s foreign policies; in much the same way, in the late 1910s and early 1920s, early civil rights advocates turned toward anti-imperialist activities to bolster their critique of American society. The NAACP played a critical role in exposing human rights abuses in the U.S. occupation of Haiti, which in the four years after the United States had sent Marines in 1915 had received scant attention from either Congress or the media.39
As scholars such as Akira Iriye have demonstrated, despite the fact that three consecutive Republican administrations followed Wilsonian principles and continued to guide the U.S. approach to East Asia and (apart from the continuing refusal to join the League of Nations) Europe.40 In the Caribbean Basin, 1920s GOP policymakers sustained, and even intensified, Wilson’s imperialistic vision toward the region. The United States refused to withdraw from Haiti, threatened war with Mexico, and sent Marines to Nicaragua. These policies—especially the Nicaraguan intervention—drew vociferous opposition from congressional anti-imperialists, who used the peculiar legislative politics of the 1920s to maximize their influence.41
Imitating the strategy of Hiram Johnson toward the intervention in Russia, the peace progressives rallied around an amendment sponsored by William King (D-Utah) to terminate funds for the Haitian occupation. The measure failed badly, largely because Southern Democrats refused to cast a vote that could symbolize support for Haitian self-determination. (Most Democrats abstained on the King amendment.) Later in the 1920s, the Senate dissenters enjoyed more success in using appropriations riders. Calvin Coolidge’s decision to send U.S. Marines to Nicaragua (without obtaining authorization from Congress) became a cause célèbre in the United States due in part to the efforts of anti-imperialist journalists, who romanticized Nicaraguan rebel leader Augusto Sandino. The realities of domestic politics also weakened the administration’s position, as congressional Democrats exploited the issue in the run-up to the 1928 presidential election. With the peace progressives effectively holding the balance of power in the Senate following the 1926 midterm elections, the Senate debated amendments to block funding for the Marines in 1927, 1928, and 1929; the 1929 amendment, sponsored by C. C. Dill (D-Washington), marked the first time that the Senate had voted, since the Collamer amendment in 1858, to cut off funds for an overseas military operation still in operation.42
The tussles over Nicaraguan policy simulated a high-level debate about the relationship between imperialism and traditional American ideals. Coolidge’s hapless secretary of state, Frank Kellogg, struggled to articulate a convincing rationale for the administration’s Caribbean Basin ventures. But Senator Hiram Bingham (R-Connecticut) proved more than capable of the task. An expert in Latin American history who had discovered the remains of the Incan city of Machu Picchu, Bingham migrated from the Yale faculty to Republican politics in the 1920s, when he won election as Connecticut’s lieutenant governor, governor, and finally junior senator. An aggressive defender of U.S. imperialism, he considered himself far more knowledgeable than his colleagues about Latin American affairs, and he eagerly lectured them on the proper U.S. role in the region. When the peace progressives, the Connecticut senator lectured, wanted “to be technical about the use of the term ‘war,’ [they] should be careful to distinguish the use of the word ‘marines,’ who, everyone recognizes, may be properly used in foreign countries for the protection of American life and property.” The intervention in Nicaragua, he maintained, was one such instance.43
As had occurred in the 1850s, the articulation of an aggressive agenda for imperialism triggered an eloquent rebuttal. Indeed, a case could be made that Senate debate over 1920s Nicaragua policy featured the high point of congressional anti-imperialist discourse at any point in U.S. history. John Blaine (R-Wisconsin), for instance, all but sympathized with the rebels, charging that “the blood of these [Nicaraguan] boys, of these men, of these women and children, is upon the hands of those who have directed the hostile and war activities against the Republic of Nicaragua, acts contrary to all precedent in the history of this Republic, contrary to the law and the Constitution of this Republic, contrary to the rules and customs that prevail among the nations of the world.” Burton Wheeler (D-Montana) described Sandino’s revolt as based upon “exactly the same principles of liberty and free government” as the American Revolution.”44The strength of the peace progressives came, in part, from the quality of their arguments and the unusual political strength they derived as the balance in a Senate divided between conservative Republicans and Democrats. But they also benefited from an unusually powerful level of grassroots anti-imperialist activism throughout the decade. Some of this effort came from established peace organizations, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) or the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), both of which devoted far more attention to issues of imperialism during the 1920s than they had in the previous decade. The 1920s also featured new organizations, such as the Committee on Cultural Relations with Latin America (CCRLA), which grew out of Protestant missionary activity in Latin America to advocate anti-imperialist principles in inter-American relations on the basis of enhanced cultural exchange among residents of the Western Hemisphere.45
The Depression ended the influence of the peace progressives over U.S. foreign policy. Massive Democratic gains in the 1932 elections, aided by the landslide election of Franklin Roosevelt, eliminated the dissenters’ role as the de facto balance of power in the Senate. And the economic downturn altered priorities in the Midwest, as voters demanded legislators who would focus on their immediate distress rather than worry about the well being of Nicaraguans or Haitians. Those who had led the opposition to the Nicaraguan intervention were particularly affected: Blaine failed to win re-nomination to a second Senate term in 1932, while Dill retired rather than risk a re-election bid in 1934. The NAACP and other civil rights activists attempted to generate an anti-imperialist critique of the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, but had scant impact on either Congress or broader public opinion.46 As the United States inched closer towards involvement in World War II, inter-American relations—which traditionally had provided the most passionate debates over anti-imperialism and U.S. foreign policy—diminished in importance. In any case, strategic concerns were dictated by Roosevelt, who avoided 1920s-style imperialist ventures and did what he could to preserve good relations with key potential allies such as Mexico and Brazil.
Perhaps the clearest example of an anti-imperialist policy move during the Roosevelt years also illuminated the departure from the more radical anti-imperialism of the 1920s. In 1934, Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which promised independence to the Philippines within a decade. (Because of World War II, independence ultimately would not arrive until 1946.) In this respect, the law, which Roosevelt supported, vindicated the demands of the anti-imperialist movement from the turn of the century. But freedom came with conditions; an independent Philippines would permit major U.S. military bases, transforming the islands into a protectorate for much of the postwar period. Many of the Tydings-McDuffie Act’s supporters, meanwhile, acted less from altruistic concerns or from a vision of the United States as an anti-imperialist power. Instead, they backed independence for economic reasons (since a tariff could then be applied to Filipino sugar, aiding American sugar producers) or from nativist impulses, as the law set a quota of 50 Filipinos per year, who could emigrate to the United States once independence occurred.47
The Cold War and Beyond
The changing nature of the U.S. role in the world during World War II and the immediate post-war era dramatically diminished the role that debates over imperialism played in broader discussions about foreign policy. The Atlantic Charter, which articulated what would become the nation’s war aims, referenced anti-imperialism, but only in an oblique fashion (the signatories would “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live”), largely to accommodate British imperialism. Franklin Roosevelt made a token gesture toward addressing some of the controversies raised by the Versailles Treaty in his support for trusteeships—an updated form of mandates—under the newly created United Nations. And Roosevelt himself expressed strong skepticism about allowing France to reclaim its empire in Southeast Asia, a rare instance in which a President forcefully adopted an anti-imperialist policy. (More gently, the president urged Winston Churchill to consider the prospect of post-war independence for India.) But Roosevelt’s death, Harry Truman’s deference to Europeanists in the State Department, and the perceived Cold War requirements for accommodating the French generated an almost complete reversal in the U.S. approach, and by the early 1950s, the United States was funding a considerable portion of the French war effort in Vietnam.48
Anti-imperialist principles and Cold War realities also existed in a state of tension regarding postwar U.S. policy toward Africa. As both Penny Von Eschen and Mary Dudziak have explained, civil rights activists agitated for more aggressive U.S. support for African decolonization, although some anti-colonial advocates, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, were dismissed as communist sympathizers amidst a high point of the Cold War.49 The issue attracted far more attention among the political classes in 1957, when John Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), in perhaps his highest-profile speech in the Senate, chastised the Eisenhower administration’s approach toward the French colonial war in Algeria. Deeming imperialism the “enemy of freedom,” Kennedy described “the challenge of imperialism, what we do to further man's desire to be free” as “the single most important test of American foreign policy today.” The Massachusetts senator argued that not backing Algerian independence would contradict the ideals about the Declaration of Independence, which served as “man's noblest expression against political repression.”50
Kennedy’s position on Algeria generated sharp criticism from Cold War architects in both parties; Dean Acheson chastised the senator’s “impatient snapping of our fingers” as the “wrong way to treat our oldest ally,” whose support the United States needed in the struggle against the Soviet Union.51 The strained debates about Africa in the late 1940s and 1950s demonstrated how significantly Cold War debate had constricted consideration of anti-imperialist alternatives to mainstream foreign policy. But an anti-imperialist perspective resurfaced—to a limited extent—in debates about Vietnam. One of the two senators who voted against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska), had a long record of anti-imperialist activism, dating back to his time in the early 1920s, opposing the occupation of Haiti. As a journalist for the Nation and as a scholar of the Mexican Revolution, he crusaded against Coolidge’s policy toward Mexico and Nicaragua. And as a federal bureaucrat in the 1930s, he oversaw an ambitious, if ultimately unsuccessful, effort to reform Puerto Rico and, in the process, to show how the United States could improve the lot of its colonial possessions. Banished after his Puerto Rican setbacks to the Alaskan territorial governor’s position, Gruening revived his political career. He borrowed from his anti-imperialist heritage in demanding Alaskan statehood, arguing that “now that the United States has assumed world leadership, it has shown through the expressions of its leaders its distaste for colonialism.” Denying statehood, he submitted, would contradict those anti-colonial ideals.52
While Gruening’s fellow Tonkin Gulf dissenter, Wayne Morse (D-Oregon), offered a more legalistic argument against the resolution, the Alaska senator drew on his longstanding anti-imperialist critique of U.S. foreign policy. Gruening framed the U.S. escalation in Vietnam as nothing more than a continuation of the French colonial war. As such, the “allegation that we are supporting freedom in South Vietnam has a hollow sound.”53 Both Gruening and Morse lost their seats in 1968; their early opposition to the war contributed to both outcomes, although other factors (age, poor relationships with President Lyndon Johnson, the senators’ votes against all defense appropriations) also played a role.54
By 1968, a broad-based, grassroots anti-war movement had developed, which among other things helped to drive Lyndon Johnson from his re-nomination bid. The movement was primarily based in anti-militarist sentiments, oriented around opposition to the war itself. But an anti-imperialist critique supplemented the anti-war crusade. Signs emerged as early as 1964 and 1965, when teach-ins at colleges and universities around the country featured experts on Southeast Asia, such as Cornell’s George Kahin, who framed the U.S. effort as a continuation of France’s imperial crusade.55 Youth groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society organized protests; the anti-war movement went mainstream with Moratorium Day protests (1969), which drew hundreds of thousands of people around the country. Anti-war activism also spread to military veterans, most prominently through the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. With the exception of the early teach-ins and some of the most extreme grassroots activists, most of this movement was more anti-war than anti-imperialist, but given the nature of the conflict—the United States waging war against a far weaker state, in a conflict that traced its roots to France’s efforts to retain its colonial presence in Southeast Asia—anti-imperial themes complemented the anti-war rhetoric.56
The 1960s focus on the war in Vietnam gave way to a broader emphasis on anti-imperialism in the 1970s. The brutal military coup in Chile, where the resulting regime of Augusto Pinochet was guilty of extensive deprivations of human rights, triggered a widespread backlash in the United States. Established human rights groups such an Amnesty International joined with newer organizations, including Catholic social welfare groups, to raise national consciousness about Pinochet’s excesses and to demand the cessation of all U.S. aid to the regime.57 In Congress, the most significant anti-imperialist initiative came in 1975, after the Ford administration began covertly aiding anti-communist rebels in newly independent Angola. Legislators discovered the initiative accidentally, after funds for the operation expired prematurely, and the administration was forced to request additional appropriations. In response, Congress passed two amendments, introduced by Senators Dick Clark (D-Iowa) and John Tunney (D-California), to bring the operation to a close. While Clark persuaded colleagues that a show of respect for Angolan self-determination would provide a degree of penance for the earlier U.S. “lack of support for the struggle against colonialism,” skeptical Republicans suggested that the Iowa senator was too eager “to criticize the U.S. for not having contacted and assisted the ‘liberation’ movements in southern Africa.” In the event, the two amendments represented the high point of congressional anti-imperialism in the Cold War era; conservatives cited the quick triumph of the Angolan communists after the U.S. aid cutoff as illustrating the dangers of excessive congressional involvement in foreign policy, and both Clark and Tunney lost their subsequent re-election bids.58
While opponents of aid to the Nicaraguan contras in 1980s sometimes hinted at anti-imperialist themes, fear of another Vietnam—coupled with, on the activist left, what might be labeled an “anti-anti-communist” ideology—provided the greater motivation for opposition to Ronald Reagan’s Central American policy. Virtually no opposition emerged to either Reagan’s invasion of Grenada (1983) or George H. W. Bush’s invasion of Panama (1989), even though both operations seemed appropriate for an anti-imperialist critique.
The end of the Cold War, meanwhile, has changed how both the public and policymakers consider the U.S. role in the world in ways that have significantly downplayed a role for anti-imperialism. Among Democrats, the aftermath of the humanitarian catastrophes in Rwanda and Bosnia boosted support for a renewed emphasis on Wilsonian intervention to protect civilians; Samantha Power’s writing best reflects the idea, which also was associated with another prominent early supporter of President Barack Obama, Susan Rice.59 Another wing of the party, traumatized by the 9/11 attacks on the United States, sought to defuse foreign policy as a political issue and endorsed military intervention in the Middle East; Hillary Clinton’s vote for the war in Iraq provides the most famous example. Among Republicans, meanwhile, the realism of George H. W. Bush gave way to the neoconservativism of George W. Bush, which has been replaced in recent years by an almost reflexive nationalism, in which criticizing any element of U.S. foreign policy can be construed as apologizing for America. (Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign book distilled the theme.60)
In Congress, anti-imperialist themes have been reduced to the fringes of both parties, figures such as Representative Barbara Lee (D-California), Representative Water Jones (R-North Carolina), or former representative Ron Paul (R-Texas). At the grassroots level, anti-imperialist discourse has often veered into unconvincing economic determinism (as in cries of “no blood for oil” during the Iraq war) or into attacks of “imperialistic” Israeli policies as a kind of proxy for criticizing U.S. foreign policy. In recent years, this phenomenon has become increasingly common on U.S. college campuses.61
Given the ideology’s prominence in American history, we doubtless will see, at some point in the future, an anti-imperialist revival, but the prospects of such a development seem rather dim in the second decade of the 21st century.
Discussion of the Literature
Much of the earliest work on this topic tended to center on either the Anti-Imperialist League—which was, after all, the largest institution in U.S. history ostensibly devoted to the anti-imperialist cause—or opponents of the war in the Philippines, the sole conflict in U.S. history in which nearly all the opposition openly described themselves as “anti-imperialists.” Fred Harvey Harrington explores the topic as early as the 1930s; Robert Beisner and E. Berkeley Tompkins return to it in influential books published in 1968 and 1970.62 Richard Welch’s 1979 book provides a narrative history of the movement, which has continued to attract the attention of scholars; the most recent major book on the subject, by Michael Patrick Cullinane, argues that, in some respects, the anti-imperialist movement should be viewed as a success.63
Anti-imperialism also flourished during the Mexican War and its aftermath, another subject for which the historiography is rich. Scholarly coverage of the debate over imperialism in the 1840s dates to Frederick Merk’s (now outdated) Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History; Reginald Horsman brings attention to the role that racial attitudes played for both supporters and opponents of the war.64 Thomas Hietala’s book, which explores popular attitudes toward expansion and political consideration of the issue, remains the best study of the subject.65
The question of how imperialism related to domestic politics was first explored in detail by William Leuchtenburg, in a famous article tracing the connection between progressivism and imperialism.66 Drew McCoy performs a similar task for the Early Republic, examining how pursuit of empire was critical for realizing the domestic vision of the Jeffersonians.67 My work on the peace progressives and on Ernest Gruening explores how domestic impulses created a movement toward anti-imperialism in the 1920s, and how some of this mindset carried over into the Cold War.
In recent years, the study of U.S. diplomatic history has paid more attention to themes of race, gender, and ethnicity; of these three, the focus on race has been by far the most fruitful. Civil rights activists have periodically extended their interests internationally to focus on the plight of blacks in the Caribbean and Africa. Hans Schmidt’s book on the U.S. occupation of Haiti is the first to give sufficient attention to the NAACP’s role in opposing the intervention; Jonathan Rosenberg’s more recent study places the organization’s activities in greater context.68 Penny Von Eschen and Mary Dudziak present independent examinations of the impact of anti-imperialism and civil rights activism in the early Cold War.69
Finally, some scholars have examined the relationship between anti-imperialism in the United States and developments overseas. Akira Iriye traces such developments in East Asia; Richard Salisbury’s excellent book performs a similar task for the Caribbean Basin; and Erez Manela looks at the impact of Wilson’s anti-colonial rhetoric on post-World War I revolutions in the Middle East and East Asia.70
Despite this scholarly record, critical areas of anti-imperialism—chiefly the 1850s and the conservative anti-imperialism of the Gilded Age—have not received sufficient attention from historians.
No centralized archive of materials relating to American anti-imperialism exists, but, as with most matters related to foreign policy dissent, a starting point is the Swarthmore College Peace Collection (SCPC). The precise relationship between the peace movement and anti-imperialist activity differs depending on the scholar—contrast, for instance, Peter Brock’s Pacifism in the United States (which devotes scant attention to the issue) with Charles Chatfield’s For Peace and Justice (which covers anti-imperialism in a subsidiary role) to my book on the peace progressives (which suggests that anti-imperialism was critical to the 1920s peace movement).71 The SCPC hosts the manuscript collections of major peace organizations, most importantly for this issue, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
The NAACP Papers, critical for examining the connection between civil rights activism and anti-imperialism, are housed at the Library of Congress but are also available on microfilm. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, edited by Arthur Link, remains an extraordinarily rich source of material of executive branch thinking about anti-imperialism during a critical period.72
Finally, given the importance of the congressional role to anti-imperialism, congressional sources are of particular importance to the study of this issue. The manuscript collections of very few 19th century members of Congress have survived, though Charles Sumner (Harvard University) is an important exception. Among 20th century senators, the Library of Congress houses the papers of peace progressive anti-imperialists Robert La Follette, William Borah, and George Norris; other peace progressives, such as John Blaine and C. C. Dill, left scant collections. Ernest Gruening’s excellent collection is located at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Cullinane, Michael Patrick. Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism: 1898–1909. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.Find this resource:
Dudziak, Mary. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.Find this resource:
Iriye, Akira. After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far East. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.Find this resource:
Johnson, Robert David. The Peace Progressives and American Foreign Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.Find this resource:
Jones, Dorothy. License for Empire: Colonialism by Treaty in Early America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.Find this resource:
Manela, Erez. The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.Find this resource:
Miller, William Lee. Arguing About Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress. New York: Vintage, 1995.Find this resource:
Rosenberg, Jonathan. How Far the Promised Land? World Affairs and the American Civil Rights Movement from the First World War until Vietnam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.Find this resource:
Salisbury, Richard. Anti-Imperialism and International Competition in Central America, 1920–1929. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1989.Find this resource:
Tompkins, E. Berkeley. Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890–1920. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970.Find this resource:
(1.) “Declaration of Independence,” July 4, 1776; J. M. Opal, “Common Sense and Imperial Atrocity,” Common-Place 9 (2009); see also Michael A. McDonnell, “The American War for Independence and the American Revolution,” Oxford Research Encyclopedias (forthcoming).
(2.) “Declaration of Independence,” July 4, 1776; Robert Remini, “Northwest Ordinance: Bulwark of the Republic,” Indiana Magazine of History 84 (1988), 15–24; J. M. Opal, “Common Sense and Imperial Atrocity,” Common-Place 9 (2009).
(3.) On treaty making, see Jack Rakove, “Solving a Constitutional Puzzle: The Treaty Making Clause as a Case Study,” Perspectives in American History 1 (New Series) (1984), 223–281; on the letters of marque clause, see Charles Lofgren, “Government from Reflection and Choice”: Constitutional Essays on War, Foreign Relations, and Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
(4.) Daniel Rice, “Territorial Annexation as a ‘Great Power,’” Duke Law Journal 64 (2015), 717–768.
(6.) Drew McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980).
(7.) The most prominent Old Republican, Virginia representative John Randolph, opposed war with England by raising the following question: “What! Shall this great mammoth of the American forest leave his native element, and plunge into the water in a mad contest with the shark?” Richard Heath Dabney, John Randolph: A Character Sketch (Milwaukee: H. G. Campbell, 1903), 38.
(8.) Jessie Kratz, “The Senate Irritates the President,” The National Archives, Prologue: Pieces of History, August 21, 2014; on the treaty system, see Dorothy Jones, License for Empire: Colonialism by Treaty in Early America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); see also N. Bruce Duthu, Federal Indian Law; U.S. Indian Policy, 1783-1830, Oxford Research Encyclopedias (December 2014).
(9.) Tim Matthewson, A Proslavery Foreign Policy: Haitian-American Relations in the Early Republic (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2003); see also Phillippe Girard, Haiti and the Early United States, Oxford Research Encyclopedias (forthcoming).
(10.) William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress (New York: Vintage, 1995), 351–365; Leonard Richards, The Life and Time of Congressman John Quincy Adams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 160–175.
(11.) Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 701–743.
(12.) Congressional Globe, 29th Congress, 2nd session, (December 15, 1846), The Library of Congress, 34–36; see also Omar Valerio-Jiménez, The U.S.-Mexico War, Oxford Research Encyclopedias (forthcoming).
(13.) James Duff, “David Wilmot, the Statesman and Political Leader,” Pennsylvania History 13 (October 1946): 283–289.
(14.) Robert May, Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 1854–1961 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973).
(15.) Frederick Moore Binder, James Buchanan and the American Empire (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1994).
(16.) Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, 1st session, (April 21, 1858), The Library of Congress, 1727–1728, and (May 4, 1858) 1929; Allan Bogue, The Earnest Men: Republicans of the Civil War Senate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 32.
(18.) This belief was not unreasonable: see Robert May, The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 1854–1861 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002).
(19.) David Herbert Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (New York: Knopf, 1970), 435–455; Dennis Hidalgo, “Charles Sumner and the Annexation of the Dominican Republic,” Itinerario 21 (July 1997), 51–65.
(20.) Albert House, “Northern Congressional Democrats as Defenders of the South During Reconstruction,” Journal of Southern History 6 (February 1940), 46–71.
(21.) The classic text on Gilded Age Republican imperialism remains Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963).
(22.) Richard Welch, The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988).
(23.) Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd session, pp. 494–501 (February 5, 1899); Richard Welch, George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).
(24.) Thomas Hietela, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 161–163.
(25.) Michael Patrick Cullinane, Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism: 1898–1909 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 46–49; Paolo Coletta, “McKinley, the Peace Negotiations, and the Acquisition of the Philippines,” Pacific Historical Review 30 (November 1961), 348.
(26.) Ernest R. May, American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1991); E. Berkeley Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890–1920 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970); Jim Zwick, Mark Twain’s Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1992); Philip McFarland, Mark Twain and the Colonel: Samuel L. Clemens, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Arrival of a New Century (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), 54; “Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League,” in Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, ed. Frederick Bancroft (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1913), 77.
(27.) Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901); for background, see Juan Torruella, The Supreme Court and Puerto Rico: The Doctrine of Separate and Unequal (San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1988).
(28.) Dorr v. United States, 195 U.S. 138 (1904).
(29.) David Healy, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988).
(30.) Congressional Record, 59th Congress, 1st session, (February 10, 1906), 793–800.
(31.) Theodore Roosevelt to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, March 23, 1905, Elting Morison, ed., Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 1144–1145.
(32.) Thomas Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
(34.) Wilson address, New York City Opera House, March 4, 1919, Arthur Link, ed., Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966–1994), vol. 55, 413–421.
(35.) Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
(36.) For Senate debate over the League, see Lloyd Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
(37.) U.S. Dept. of State, “Siberia,” In Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1919, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections, 245–248.
(38.) Robert David Johnson, “Article XI in the Debate on the United States’ Rejection of the League of Nations,” International History Review 15 (1993), 512–514.
(39.) Jonathan Rosenberg, How Far the Promised Land? World Affairs and the American Civil Rights Movement from the First World War until Vietnam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 15–74.
(40.) Akira Iriye, After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far East (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967).
(41.) Richard Salisbury, Anti-Imperialism and International Competition in Central America, 1920–1929 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1989).
(42.) Robert David Johnson, The Peace Progressives and American Foreign Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 105–150.
(43.) Congressional Record, 70th Congress, 1st session, (February 24, 1928), 2411–2412; Thomas Karnes, “Hiram Bingham and His Obsolete Shibboleth,” Diplomatic History 3 (Winter 1979), 39–57.
(44.) Johnson, Peace Progressives, 133–143.
(45.) Charles Chatfield, For Peace and Justice: Pacifism in America, 1914–1941 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971), 210–240; Harriet Hyman Alonso, Peace as a Women’s Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women’s Rights (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993); Joyce Blackwell, No Peace without Freedom: Race and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915–1975 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Indiana University Press, 2004), 111–142.
(46.) Rosenberg, How Far the Promised Land? 101–130.
(47.) Nick Cullather, Illusions of Influence: The Political Economy of United States-Philippines Relations, 1942–1960 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 6–41; Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines (New York: Random House, 1989).
(48.) Auriel Weilgold, Churchill, Roosevelt, and India: Propaganda during World War II (London: Routledge, 2008); Gary Hess, “Franklin Roosevelt and Indochina,” Journal of American History 59 (1972), 353–368; “Atlantic Charter: August 14, 1941,” Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.
(49.) Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); Penny Von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
(50.) Ronald Nurse, “Critic of Colonialism: JFK and Algerian Independence,” The Historian 39 (1977), 306–327.
(51.) Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953–1971 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 70.
(52.) Robert David Johnson, Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 88–197.
(53.) Congressional Record, 88th Congress, 2nd session (August 6, 1964), 18413–18414.
(54.) Mason Drukman, Wayne Morse: A Political Biography (Portland: Oregon State Historical Society Press, 1997), 425–510.
(55.) “Gov’t Defeats Own Purposes, Kahin Says at U.S. Teach-In,” Cornell Daily Sun, May 17, 1965.
(56.) Andrew Hunt, The Turning: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (New York: New York University Press, 2011); Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 165–175; see also Leilah Danielson, The Peace Movement since 1945, Oxford Research Encyclopedias (May 2015).
(57.) Darren Hawkins, International Human Rights and Authoritarian Rule in Chile (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002).
(58.) Robert David Johnson, “The Unexpected Consequences of Congressional Activism: The Clark and Tunney Amendments and U.S. Policy toward Angola,” Diplomatic History 27 (2003), 222–227.
(60.) Mitt Romney, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness (New York: St. Martin’s, 2010).
(61.) Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm, eds., The Case against Academic Boycotts of Israel (New York: MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights, 2014); Robert David Johnson, “Confronting Anti-Israel Attitudes on Contemporary College Campuses,” Midstream 50 (2004), 11–15.
(62.) Fred Harvey Harrington, “The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898–1900,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 22 (1935), 211–230; Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968); Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States.
(63.) Richard E. Welch Jr., Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899–1902 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979); Cullinane, Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism, 1898–1909.
(64.) Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963); Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).
(65.) Hietela, Manifest Design. For a more limited perspective of the debate over imperialism in the era, see Amy Greenberg, A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 Invasion of Mexico (New York: Knopf, 2012).
(66.) William E. Leuchtenburg, “Progressivism and Imperialism: The Progressive Movement and American Foreign Policy, 1898–1916,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 39 (1952), 483–504.
(67.) McCoy, The Elusive Republic.
(68.) Hans Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995); Rosenberg, How Far the Promised Land?
(69.) Von Eschen, Race against Empire; Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights.
(70.) Iriye, After Imperialism; Manela, The Wilsonian Moment; Richard Salisbury, Anti-Imperialism and International Competition.
(71.) Peter Brock, Pacifism in the United States: From the Colonial Era to the First World War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968); Charles Chatfield, For Peace and Justice: Pacifism in America, 1914–1941 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971); Robert David Johnson, Peace Progressives and American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
(72.) Arthur Link, ed., Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vols. 1–69 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966–1994). | <urn:uuid:152fb16d-b929-48b6-a0e2-4183b4042afe> | {
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Beth Dunning's Story
"S" Is for Poetry
Each year our first-grade students research different ocean animals; this year we decided to research seals. My students spent three weeks researching, writing, sharing, editing, and then writing again. When it was finally done, we had a class book…ONE class book. I mentioned to another teacher about all of the hard work my students had done on their book. I wanted each of them to take their research home, but I couldn’t afford to make copies for each student. She suggested having my students write an acrostic poem about seals with one of ReadWriteThink.org’s student interactives.
Because of the wide range of ability levels in my class, I began the activity in a whole-group setting before we went to the computer lab. Students wrote one word that reminded them of seals on a sticky note and then we sorted the words by the letter they began with, paying special attention to words that began with the letters s, e, a, and l. Then, we worked together to create a class acrostic poem about seals, and afterward students worked on individual acrostic poems.
We went to the computer lab to use the interactive Acrostic Poems tool. When students got to the “brainstorming” page, I brought out the list of words we had created in the classroom. Students were able to look at our original list and choose which words they wanted to use. I gave students the option to use the poem they had created earlier in the day or to create a new one using the words they had recently brainstormed. Once the poems were written, students hit the “print” button and couldn’t wait to see the finished product!
Since then, my students have also used the interactive Diamante Poems tool to create poems about sharks, turtles, armadillos, and much, much more. Thanks, ReadWriteThink.org, for making my kids want to write and write and write…. I just hope I have enough ink to keep up with them!
Grades K – 12 | Student Interactive | Writing Poetry
This online tool enables students to learn about and write acrostic poems. Elements of the writing process are also included.
Grades 3 – 12 | Game & Tool
Diamante poems are poems where the longest line comes in the middle, creating a diamond-like shape. The Diamante Poems tool helps children write these patterned poems.
Sticky Note Chart
Students used sticky notes to brainstorm about seals before writing their Acrostic Poems.
Students brainstormed words about seals and we wrote them on the seal to take with us to the computer lab.
I have been teaching for five years, four of which have been in first grade. One of my passions is bringing the world into my classroom. If I can manage to get it there, it’s in there…no matter what! I have been married for 16 years, and I have three children: two daughters and a son. I enjoy spending time with my family at the ranch, volunteering, and scrapbooking. | <urn:uuid:64de9af4-ecab-4a02-b498-15a3c8bbb744> | {
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E. Cobham Brewer 18101897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Isenbras or Sir Isumbras.
A hero of mediæval romance, first proud and presumptuous, when he was visited by all sorts of punishments; afterwards penitent and humble, when his afflictions were turned into blessings. It was in this latter stage that he one day carried on his horse two children of a poor woodman across a ford. (See YSAMBRAS.) | <urn:uuid:19c6bf62-f0cf-4f3d-815d-742afd8f9528> | {
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Poland is named for the Polane, who were a Slavic tribe that lived more than a thousand years ago in what is now Poland. The name Polane comes from a Slavic word that means plain or field. Flat plains and gently rolling hills cover most of the country. Rugged mountains form part of the southern boundary, and thousands of small, scenic lakes dot the northern regions.
The people of Poland have a rich heritage that includes many folk traditions and a strong loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church. But the 1900's brought many changes to Poland, and some old customs disappeared from everyday life. Before World War II (1939-1945), Poland's economy depended heavily on agriculture. Today, agriculture remains an important economic activity. However, Poland has also developed into a major industrial nation, and most of its people live in cities and towns.
Poland has had a long and varied history. At one time, the people
of Poland ruled an empire that stretched across most of central Europe.
However, foreign powers conquered and divided Poland and brought an end
to its existence as a separate nation. After more than a hundred
years of foreign rule, Poland became an independent republic in 1918.
Poland became a Communist country during the mid-1940's. Its Communist
Party controlled the Polish government and placed many restrictions on
the freedom of the Polish people. Non-Communists came to power in
1989, and restrictions on the freedom of the Polish people were lifted.
In addition to the Communist Party, the country allowed only a few other small parties, and they supported the Communist Party policies. But in 1989, Poland held its freest parliamentary elections since the Communists took control. Non-Communist groups were allowed to organize and endorse candidates.
Solidarity, a non-Communist organization of free trade unions, received overwhelming support in the elections. Candidates endorsed by Solidarity were allowed to run for 35 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament and all the seats in the upper house. The remaining 65 percent of the lower house seats were reserved for members of the Communist Party and its allies. Solidarity candidates won all the lower house seats they contested, and all but one of the upper house seats. Solidarity leaders then formed a coalition government with the Communist Party and two smaller parties, and began to end Communist controls over society.
In 1990, the Communist Party dissolved itself. New parliamentary elections were held in October 1991. This time, all seats in Parliament were contested and none were reserved for members of any specific party. The Democratic Union party, which was formed out of a branch of Solidarity, won the most seats in both the lower house and the upper house, called the Senate.
Parliamentary elections were held again in September 1993. The Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish Peasant Party won the most seats. The two parties established a coalition government. The Democratic Left Alliance consists of a number of organizations, including the Social Democratic Party, which was formed by former Communist Party members. The Polish Peasant Party also includes former Communists.
In 1997 parliamentary elections, Solidarity won the most seats, defeating the former Communists who were in control of the government. Solidarity formed a new coalition government with the Freedom Union.
National government. Poland's parliament, which is called the National Assembly, has two houses. The lower house, or Sejm, has 460 members. The upper house, or Senate, has 100 members. The National Assembly's duties include passing laws, supervising all the other branches of the government, and electing the president.
The president is the head of state. The president's executive powers include the ability to declare a state of emergency, to veto legislation (which may be overturned by the Sejm), and to dissolve the National Assembly. The Sejm appoints a Council of Ministers, which carries out the operations of the government. The Council of Ministers includes a prime minister and other ministers. The prime minister is head of government. The prime minister and the president are the most powerful leaders in Poland.
Local government. Poland is divided into 49 voivodships (provinces). The provinces are divided into urban and rural communities. Each province and community elects a legislative body called a Council. The Council elects a major or an executive council to serve as the executive body.
Courts. The Supreme Court is the highest court of Poland. The Council of State appoints Supreme Court judges to five-year terms. The judicial system also includes province courts and county courts.
Armed forces. About 280,000 men serve in Poland's army, navy, and air force. Men may be drafted at age 19 to serve 18 months of active duty in the armed forces.
Population and ancestry. About 97 percent of the people of Poland are Poles. They are descended from Slavic tribes that settled on the Vistula and Warta rivers several thousand years ago. Polish, the official language, is related to Czech and other Slavic languages.
Minority groups make up about 3 percent of Poland's population. The largest groups are Germans, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.
After World War II ended in 1945, many Poles began moving from rural areas to cities and towns. Today, about 62 percent of the people live in urban areas, compared with only about 35 percent in 1950. Warsaw, Poland's capital, is also the country's largest city.
Way of life in Poland has changed in many ways during the 1900's. Before World War II, Poland was largely agricultural, and most of the people were poor farmers. After the war, Poland developed into an industrial nation. Many people took jobs in the cities. In the cities, most Polish families live in simple two- or three-room apartments. Small brick or wooden cottages provide housing in rural areas.
Bread, pork, sausages, potatoes, apples, and dairy products are favorite Polish foods. The Polish people enjoy meaty stews, hearty beet or cabbage soup, and mushrooms. Rich pastries and fish are eaten, especially on holidays.
Many old traditions have disappeared from everyday life in Poland. For example, folk costumes are worn only for special occasions or festivals. Most Poles, especially young people and city dwellers, prefer Western styles of dress.
But some traditions remain important. Religion, in particular, has had a strong influence on Polish life for more than a thousand years. For many Poles, social life centers around the church and family gatherings. Religious holidays, especially Christmas and Easter, are observed with festive celebrations.
Camping and hiking are some of the popular recreational activities in Poland. Poles also enjoy soccer and other sports.
Religion. The Poles adopted Christianity in A.D. 966. Throughout their history, they remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, though people in neighboring countries practiced Protestant or Eastern Orthodox religions. During the 1800's, when Poland did not exist as a separate nation, loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church helped hold the Polish people together.
In the late 1940's and early 1950's, Poland's Communist leaders tried to destroy the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. Religious practices were restricted, and many priests were imprisoned. Polish Catholics resisted these efforts, however, and after antigovernment riots in 1956, the Polish government discontinued most of its policies against the Roman Catholic Church. Today, Poles have complete freedom of religion.
A large majority of all Poles are Roman Catholics. There are about 15,000 Roman Catholic churches in Poland and about 18,000 religious instruction centers. The Roman Catholic Church also operates the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw and the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1978, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, a Polish cardinal, became pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The first Polish pope in history, he took the name of John Paul II. Religious minority groups in Poland include Protestants, Jews, and members of various Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Education. Poles have a long tradition of respect for education. Polish scholars, such as the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, have made important contributions in many fields. The first Polish university, the University of Krakow (now Jagiellonian University), was founded in 1364. Poland established a government ministry of education as early as 1773. Until the 1900's, however, education was reserved for only a small, privileged section of the population.
Today, about 98 per cent of all Poles 15 years of age or older can read and write. Most students attend free, goverment-operated schools. But an increasing number of students are enrolling in private schools. The law requires children from age 7 to 15 to attend school. After completing the elementary school program, students may attend vocational schools or four-year secondary schools. Secondary school graduates must then pass entrance examinations for entry into schools of higher education. Poland has 10 universities, as well as many technical institutes and other specialized schools.
The arts. Poland has produced many outstanding artists, musicians,
and writers. Cultural life in Poland flourished during the 1400's
and 1500's. In the 1500's, the poets Mikolaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski
were among the first writers to use the Polish language for their works.
Polish culture flourished during the 1800's, when the Polish national
identity was threatened by the Germans and Russians. The paintings
of Jan Matejko portrayed scenes from Polish history. The composer
Frederic Chopin wrote many works based on Polish dances, such as the mazurka
and the polonaise. Another composer and pianist, Ignace Jan Paderewski,
also became a leading Polish statesman. Outstanding Polish writers
of the 1800's included the poet Adam Mickiewicz, the playwright Stanislaw
Wyspianski, and the novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz. Sienkiewicz won
a Nobel Prize in 1905 for his works, which included Quo Vadis? Another
Polish novelist, Wladyslaw Reymont, won a Nobel Prize in 1924 for The Peasants
and other novels.
Beginning in the late 1940's, Poland's Communist leaders restricted
cultural activity that did not promote Communist goals. But a series
of antigovernment protests from the 1950's to the 1980's resulted in increases
in cultural freedom. Today, there are few restrictions on cultural
activities. The government has encouraged the preservation of traditional
folk arts and music. Many Poles have won fame in the graphic arts,
especially in poster design. Movies are also a popular art form.
Czeslaw Milosz, a Polish poet, won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1980.
The Coastal Lowlands extend in a narrow strip along the Baltic coast of northwestern Poland. Sandy beaches line much of the generally smooth coastline. The coast forms natural harbors at Gdansk, Gdynia, and Szczecin. These three ports are the only major cities located in the lowlands.
The Baltic Lakes Region covers most of northern Poland. This scenic, hilly area has thousands of small lakes. Forests and peat bogs (swamps made up of decayed plants) cover parts of the area. Most of the land is not good for farming, though some farmers raise potatoes and rye. Lumbering is the area's most important industry. The Baltic Lakes Region is thinly populated. It is a popular vacation spot, where many Poles enjoy camping, hiking, and fishing.
The Central Plains stretch across the entire width of Poland south of the Baltic Lakes Region. The low-lying plains make up Poland's major agricultural area, though other regions have richer soil. Farmers in the plains grow potatoes, rye, sugar beets, and other crops. The plains region has several of Poland's most important cities, including Poznan, Warsaw, and Wroclaw.
The Polish Uplands consist of hills, low mountains, and plateaus that rise south of the plains region. The densely populated uplands contain most of Poland's mineral wealth and much of its richest farmland. One of the world's largest coal fields lies around the city of Katowice. Coal-mining and metal-processing industries have made the Katowice area the most highly industrialized region in Poland. Copper, lead, and zinc are also found in the uplands. Fertile soil covers much of the area, especially in the east. Corn, potatoes, and wheat rank among the region's major crops.
The Carpathian Forelands lie within the branches of the Vistula and San rivers in southeastern Poland. Much of this region is densely populated. Crops thrive in the rich soil that covers parts of the gently rolling forelands. Iron and steel industries have developed in the area around Krakow, the region's most important manufacturing center.
The Sudeten Mountains border southwestern Poland. Forests cover the rounded peaks of the Sudetens, most of which are located less than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) above sea level. The valleys and foothills are used for crops and pastureland. Textile industries operate in a large number of the small cities and towns of the Sudeten Mountains.
The Western Carpathian Mountains form the southernmost region of Poland. These steep, scenic mountains rise up to 8,199 feet (2,499 meters) at Rysy peak, the highest point in Poland. Rural towns and villages are scattered throughout the region. Bears, wildcats, and other animals live in the thickly forested mountains, and the region has several national parks.
Rivers and canals form a network of navigable waterways in Poland. The longest river, the Vistula, flows 675 miles (1,086 kilometers) from the Western Carpathians to the Baltic Sea. Other important rivers include the Bug, the Oder, and the Warta.
Climate varies greatly from one part of Poland to another. In
general, the coast has milder weather than the inland regions, and the
mountainous zones are cooler than the lowlands. Temperatures throughout
Poland average 26 °F (-3 °C) in January and 73 °F (23 °C)
in July. The average annual precipitation (rain, snow, and other
forms of moisture) totals 24 inches (61 centimeters).
Before World War II (1939-1945), Poland's economy depended largely on agriculture, which employed about 60 percent of all Polish workers. After the war, the country's Communist leaders stressed the development of industry. New industrial regions were established around Krakow, Warsaw, and other cities. Today, industry employs about 36 percent of all Polish workers, and agriculture employs about 25 percent.
Most of Poland's industrial output consists of capital goods, such as
factory equipment. The country does not produce enough consumer goods,
such as clothing and furniture, to satisfy the people's demands.
As a result, the people of Poland have a lower standard of living than
do the people of most other nations that are industrialized.
Natural resources. Poland's most important natural resource is coal. One of the richest coal fields in the world lies in southern Poland. Poland also has deposits of copper, lead, salt, silver, sulfur, and zinc.
Farmland covers more than three-fifths of Poland. But much of the soil is of poor quality and must be fertilized. Forests cover about a fourth of the land.
Industry. The Communists established a system of government-owned industries in Poland. In 1990, the new government led by Solidarity began a program to sell these industries to private owners. Many government industries were sold during the early and mid-1990's.
The chief manufactured products of Poland include chemicals, food products, iron and steel, machinery, ships, and textiles. Poland ranks among the leading countries in the production of coal and silver.
Agriculture. Poland ranks among the world's leading producers of potatoes and rye. Other important crops include barley, sugar beets, and wheat. Farmers throughout Poland raise hogs. Cattle and sheep are raised mainly in the hilly regions of the south.
In 1948, the Polish Communist government began to take control of much farmland. Farmers were forced to give up their land and join collective farms that were managed by the government. However, many farmers resisted, and the collectivization program ended in the 1950's. Today, private farms occupy more than 75 percent of Poland's farmland. Most of the rest of the farmland is owned by the government and is leased to private individuals. The average size of the private farms is about 12 acres (5 hectares).
Service industries are those economic activities that produce services, not goods. The leading employer among service industries in Poland is the community, social, and personal services group. It includes such economic activities as education, engineering, and health care. The second largest employer among Polish service industries is trade. Other service industries include transportation and communication, government, and finance and insurance.
Transportation and communication. Railroads provide the chief means of transportation in Poland. The railroad network links most Polish cities and towns. Poland has an extensive system of roads. The country has an average of about 1 automobile for every 10 people. The chief seaports in Poland are Gdansk, Gdynia, and Szczecin. Polish Airlines (LOT), the country's only airline, operates both domestic and international flights. Poland's chief airport is at Warsaw.
About 40 daily newspapers are published in Poland. The country has an average of about 1 radio for every 2 people and 1 television set for every 3 people.
Foreign trade. Poland's leading trading partners include many
Western European countries, such as Austria, Britain, Germany, and Italy.
Its chief exports include coal, food products, machinery, ships, and sulfur.
Poland imports cotton, food products, iron ore, machinery, natural gas,
petroleum, wool, and other goods.
Slavic tribes probably lived in what is now Poland as early as 2000
B.C. During the A.D. 800's, several of the tribes united under the Polane,
one of the largest groups in the area.
The early Polish state. Members of the Piast family became the first rulers of Poland. By the mid-900's, Prince Mieszko I ruled over most of the land along the Vistula and Oder rivers. His son, Boleslaw I, conquered part of what is now the Czech Republic, and parts of what are now Germany, Slovakia, and Ukraine. In 1025, Boleslaw was crowned the first king of Poland. After his death later that year, Poland went through periods of warfare and disunity. By the mid-1100's, the country had broken up into several sections, each ruled by a different noble.
During the 1200's, various peoples invaded and conquered parts of Poland. Most of the country was finally reunified in the early 1300's. Casimir the Great, the last Piast monarch, ruled Poland from 1333 to 1370. Casimir formed a strong central government, strengthened the economy, and encouraged cultural development.
The Polish empire. In 1386, Queen Jadwiga of Poland married Wladyslaw Jagiello, the Grand Duke of Lithuania. Jagiello ruled Poland and Lithuania as king, but each country remained largely self-governing.
Jagiellonian kings ruled Poland for nearly 200 years. Under their leadership, Poland expanded its territory and made important advances in its cultural, economic, and political development. The Polish empire reached its height during the 1500's, when it covered a large part of central and eastern Europe, including Ukraine and Belarus. In 1493, the first national parliament of Poland was established. Poland and Lithuania were united under a single parliament in 1569.
The decline of Poland. In spite of the advances of the Jagiellonian period, signs of strain developed in Poland after the mid-1500's. The monarchy began to lose power to the nobles, who dominated the parliament. After the death of the last Jagiellonian monarch in 1572, Polish kings were elected by the nobles. Some of the elected kings were foreigners, and these kings proved to be ineffective rulers. Rivalries among the nobles weakened the Polish parliament, and costly wars ruined the economy. Poland lost much of its territory in Ukraine as a result of a rebellion there in 1648. In 1655, Sweden won control over most of Poland's Baltic provinces. A series of wars with Turkey finally ended with a Polish victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
The partitions. Poland's decline continued into the 1700's. In 1772, Austria, Prussia, and Russia took advantage of Poland's weakness and partitioned (divided) Polish territory among themselves. Austria seized land in southern Poland. Prussia took land located in the west part of Poland. Russia took land in the east. As a result, Poland lost about a third of its territory and half its population.
After the first partition, the Polish government adopted a series of reform measures to stop the country's decay. In 1791, a new constitution restored the hereditary monarchy. But the reforms came too late. In 1793, Prussia and Russia seized additional territory in eastern and western Poland. This second partition led to an uprising among Poles in 1794. Polish forces under Tadeusz Kosciuszko fought Russian and Prussian troops but were defeated. Austria, Prussia, and Russia carried out the third partition of Poland in 1795, dividing what remained of the country among themselves. Poland no longer existed as a separate country.
After 1795, many Poles joined the French forces of Napoleon Bonaparte to fight against Austria and Prussia. In 1807, Napoleon gained control of Prussian Poland and made it into a Polish state called the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. But after Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, Poland was again divided among Austria, Prussia, and Russia. A small, self-governing Kingdom of Poland was established under Russian control.
The struggle against foreign rule. In 1830, Poles in the Kingdom of Poland rebelled against the Russians. But Russia crushed the revolt. Other unsuccessful revolts were launched against Austria and Prussia. After a second revolt in the Kingdom of Poland in 1863, Russia tried to destroy Polish culture by making Russian the official language there. After 1871, when Prussia formed the German Empire, Poles under Prussian control were forced to adopt the German language.
Poles under Austrian rule won some self-government in the late 1800's. In the 1880's and 1890's, Polish political parties formed in all three parts of Poland. Leading politicians included Jozef Pilsudski and Roman Dmowski.
World War I and independence. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Pilsudski led Polish forces on the side of Austria against Russia. The Russians were driven out of most of Poland by 1915, and the following year, Austria and Germany established a small Polish kingdom under their protection. In 1917, Dmowski formed the Polish National Committee in Paris to win Allied support for an independent Poland. After the Allied victory in 1918, an independent Polish republic was proclaimed. Pilsudski became the first chief of state.
Under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Poland regained large amounts of territory from Germany. The port of Gdansk was made the Free City of Danzig under the supervision of the League of Nations (see VERSAILLES, TREATY OF). The return of land in Pomerania, a region along the Baltic coast, gave Poland access to the sea. In the east, Poland tried to reestablish its prepartition boundary with Russia. This led to a war with Russia in 1919 and 1920. The 1921 Treaty of Riga represented a compromise. It established a border that gave Poland some of its prepartition land.
Rebuilding the Polish nation. The new Polish state faced many problems. Its leaders had to unify three regions that had been separate for more than 100 years. About a third of its population consisted of minority groups, some of whom resented Polish rule. In addition, the partitions and World War I had disrupted the country's economy. During the 1920's and 1930's, Poland slowly rebuilt its economy and developed uniform systems of government, transportation, and education.
The 1921 Constitution of Poland provided for a democratic government. But many political parties competed for power, and the government was unstable. In 1926, Pilsudski led a military overthrow of the government. He then took control. In 1935, Poland adopted a new constitution that confirmed many of Pilsudski's unrestricted powers. Pilsudski died in 1935. But his successors continued the policy of absolute rule.
In the 1930's, Poland began to be threatened by the growing military strength of Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (The U.S.S.R. had been formed in 1922 under Russia's leadership, and it existed until 1991.) In 1939, Adolf Hitler demanded that Danzig (Gdansk) be given to Germany. He also demanded transportation rights across eastern Pomerania. The Poles resisted Hitler's demands and formed an alliance with Britain. Britain and France, which had signed an alliance pact with Poland in 1921, pledged to defend Poland if its independence were directly threatened.
World War II. In August 1939, Germany and the U.S.S.R. signed a treaty in which they secretly planned to divide Poland between themselves. On September 1, Germany attacked Poland. Britain and France then declared war on Germany. The U.S.S.R. invaded Poland on September 17. The Poles fought bravely, but were defeated within a month. Germany and the U.S.S.R. then divided Poland. In 1941, Germany attacked the U.S.S.R. and seized all of Poland.
Shortly after the fall of Poland, a Polish government-in-exile was formed in Paris. Later, it was moved to London. Polish armed forces joined Allied forces in many campaigns. In addition, an underground Home Army operated inside Poland against the Germans.
After the German attack against the U.S.S.R. in 1941, Polish Communists formed an exile center in the U.S.S.R. Poles under the command of the U.S.S.R. fought against Germany on the eastern front. The Communists also formed their own small underground movement. In 1942, they established the Polish Communist Party. Wladyslaw Gomulka became the party leader in 1943.
In 1944, the army of the U.S.S.R. invaded Poland and began to drive out the Germans. Also in 1944, the Home Army staged an uprising against the Germans in Warsaw. But after two months of fighting, the Home Army had to surrender. That same year, a Polish Committee of National Liberation was formed in Lublin. The U.S.S.R. recognized the committee, which consisted almost entirely of Communists, as the provisional government of Poland. At the 1945 Yalta Conference, the Allies agreed to recognize the committee after it was expanded to include representatives of the London government-in-exile and other non-Communist groups (see YALTA CONFERENCE).
Poland suffered widespread death and destruction during the war. Much of Warsaw and other cities were destroyed. Millions of Poles, including most Polish Jews, were put into concentration camps when the U.S.S.R. and Germany occupied Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, over 6 million Poles died. About half were Jews.
Agreements reached at the end of the war shifted Poland's borders westward, and millions of Poles were resettled. The U.S.S.R. kept most of eastern Poland. In return, Poland received the German lands east of the Oder and Neisse rivers, including major industrial regions.
Communist rule was opposed by most Poles. But the Communists used police power and other methods to crush resistance. Communist-controlled elections in 1947 gave them a large majority in the new legislature. By 1948, Communist rule was firmly established.
During the late 1940's, the U.S.S.R. gained increasing influence over the Polish government. In 1949, a U.S.S.R. military officer, Konstantin Rokossovsky, was made Poland's defense minister. Polish Communists suspected of disloyalty to the U.S.S.R. were removed from power. They included Wladyslaw Gomulka, who, as first secretary, held the most powerful post in Poland. He was removed from his post in 1948 and imprisoned in 1951. In 1952, Poland adopted a constitution patterned after that of the U.S.S.R. The government took control of industries and forced farmers to give up their land and work on collective farms. As part of an antireligion campaign, the Communists imprisoned Stefan Cardinal Wyszyski, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland.
During the 1950's, many Poles began to express discontent with government policies and resentment of domination by the U.S.S.R. In 1956, workers in Pozna and other cities staged antigovernment riots. Wladyslaw Gomulka was then freed from prison and again became head of the Communist Party. He ended the forced take-over of farmland and eased the campaign against religion. Cardinal Wyszyski was released from prison, and defense minister Rokossovsky was dismissed.
In the 1960's, Polish intellectuals protested against government limits on freedom of expression, and new disputes erupted between the government and the Catholic Church. In 1970, strikes and riots broke out in Gdask and other cities. Thousands of Poles demanded better living conditions and economic and political reforms. After days of riots, Gomulka resigned, and Edward Gierek became the Communist Party leader.
Recent developments. Gierek's leadership brought better relations between the government and the Catholic Church. Although Poland remained a loyal ally of the U.S.S.R., its government took steps during the 1970's to improve relations with non-Communist countries.
In 1978, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, a Polish cardinal and the archbishop of Krakow, was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He took the name of John Paul II. He became the first Polish pope in history and the first non-Italian pope since 1523. He visited Poland in 1979, 1983, and 1987. John Paul II called on Poland's government to allow greater freedom to its people.
Poland has struggled with high prices and shortages of food and consumer goods since the mid-1970's. In 1976, Poles rioted after the government announced big increases in food prices. Government leaders then deferred the increases. Economic conditions worsened in the late 1970's. In the summer of 1980, thousands of workers in Gdask and other cities went on strike. They demanded higher pay, free trade unions, and political reforms. Communist leaders promised to meet many of the demands. In September, the Central Committee forced Gierek to resign and elected Stanislaw Kania to replace him. In November, the Polish government recognized Solidarity, an organization of free trade unions. This was the first time a Communist country recognized a labor organization that was independent of the Communist Party. Lech Walesa headed Solidarity.
Economic problems, including food shortages, increased. In October 1981, the Central Committee made Kania resign and elected Wojciech Jaruzelski, an army general, head of the Communist Party.
Jaruzelski's government faced continuing economic problems and demands by the people for economic improvements and greater political freedom. In December 1981, Jaruzelski imposed martial law, suspended Solidarity's activities, and had Walesa and hundreds of union leaders held as prisoners. In October 1982, the government officially outlawed Solidarity. Walesa and some Solidarity members were released in late 1982. The remaining prisoners were released over the next several years. Jaruzelski's government formally ended martial law in July 1983. But many controls over the people's freedom were retained.
In 1989, the government reached an agreement with Solidarity that led to the legalization of the union and to changes in the structure of the government. Under the agreement, a Senate was added to the parliament and an office of president with broad powers was created. Non-Communist candidates were allowed to compete for all Senate seats and some lower house (Sejm) seats. The remaining lower house seats were reserved for members of the Communist Party and its allies. Candidates backed by Solidarity were the most successful in the elections, the freest in Poland since the end of World War II. After the elections, parliament elected Jaruzelski president. Parliament appointed Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Solidarity leader, as prime minister. He became Poland's first non-Communist prime minister since World War II. The new government began to end Communist controls over the lives of the people.
Also in 1989, the government began a program to sell government-owned industries to private owners. Much progress was made in this program in the 1990's. In 1990, Poland's Communist Party was dissolved.
In June 1990, Solidarity split into two opposing groups. One group supported Mazowiecki, and the other supported Walesa. In November, Mazowiecki, Walesa, and Stanislaw Tyminski ran in a presidential election. Mazowiecki finished third and then resigned as prime minister. Walesa won a runoff election against Tyminski in December and became Poland's president. After the election, Walesa resigned as head of Solidarity. Parliamentary elections were held in October 1991. The 1989 system of reserving lower house seats for members of specific parties was abolished starting with the 1991 election. The Democratic Union, a party that formed out of Mazowiecki's branch of Solidarity, won the most seats in both the lower house and the Senate.
By 1993, many people were discouraged by economic hardship brought on by the change to a free-market economy. Elections were held in 1993. The Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish Peasant Party won the most seats in parliament. Both parties include many former Communist Party members. The parties formed a coalition government and said they would continue economic reforms. In 1995, Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Communist leader, was elected president.
In 1997 elections, Solidarity won the most seats in parliament and defeated the former Communists who were in control. Solidarity formed a new coalition government with the Freedom Union. | <urn:uuid:8e07ce22-f61f-40cf-bc6c-3b96c710f1fc> | {
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Too much sodium in your diet can result in high blood pressure.
The current recommended daily allowance for an adult is just 6g of
salt, equivalent to 2.4g of sodium, to keep sodium levels down and
help maintain a healthy high blood pressure.
Just as too much sodium in the diet can lead to high blood
pressure, too little potassium can also contribute. In fact,
there's evidence to suggest that increasing your potassium intake
can actually help to maintain a healthy blood pressure.
With the average British diet containing just 80% of the
recommended daily intake of potassium, any increase is likely to be
beneficial for most people.
Sodium and potassium work together to control your blood
pressure. Ideally, you need to moderate your sodium intake along
with making an effort to eat more foods rich in potassium.
Foods that contain potassium include fruit and vegetables
(including dried ones), potatoes, pulses, nuts and seeds, milk and
yoghurt, fish, poultry and wholegrain cereals. | <urn:uuid:76d2d7ca-a388-4675-acb6-cd028c78dd19> | {
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"A Great Day in Harlem" with a group portrait of 57 notable jazz musicians (photo credit-Art Kane)A Great Day in LALeimert Park Village Book Fair Celebrates the Harlem RenaissanceOn June 25th, thousands of book lovers will converge at the 5th annual Leimert Park Village Book fair to meet and greet over 200 African American authors, poets, spoken word artists, storytellers, and performers.The free event, which celebrates the written word and promotes literacy and education, will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Degnan Boulevard and 43rd Street in Los Angeles. This year's event, which is expected to surpass last year's crowd of nearly 5,000 attendees, will pay a special tribute to the Harlem Renaissance and one of its premiere literary giants, Langston Hughes.Cynthia Exum, founder and executive director of the book fair, will honor Hughes and the other notable writers of the Harlem Renaissance during a special presentation on the Main Stage at 4 p.m."The Harlem Renaissance represents an unprecedented ensemble of African American art and music," said Exum. "This period in time continues to have a profound influence on the African American community and artists all over the world."The Harlem Renaissance, which spanned the era from the middle of World War I through the early 1930's, chronicled an intense period of unparalleled artistic creativity in Harlem during a period in which African American writers, artists, musicians, dancers and poets celebrated black art and heritage and helped to foster black pride. It grew out of the changes that had taken place in the African American community since the abolition of slavery. These accelerated as a consequence of World War I and the great social and cultural changes in early 20th century United States. Industrialization was attracting people to cities from rural areas and gave rise to a new mass culture. Contributing factors leading to the Harlem Renaissance were the Great Migration of African Americans to northern cities, which concentrated ambitious people in places where they could encourage each other, and the First World War, which had created new industrial work opportunities for tens of thousands of people.During this time period, the musical style of blacks was becoming more and more attractive to whites. White novelists, dramatists and composers started to exploit the musical tendencies and themes of African-American in their works. Composers used poems written by African American poets in their songs, and would implement the rhythms, harmonies and melodies of African-American music-such as blues, spirituals, and jazz-into their concert pieces.The Harlem Renaissance was successful in that it brought the Black experience clearly within the corpus of American cultural history. Not only through an explosion of culture, but on a sociological level, the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance is that it redefined how America, and the world, viewed the African-American population. The migration of southern Blacks to the north changed the image of the African-American from rural, undereducated peasants to one of urban, cosmopolitan sophistication. This new identity led to a greater social consciousness, and African-Americans became players on the world stage, expanding intellectual and social contacts internationally.Considered as one of the most important figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes can aptly be described as a true renaissance man. He was a prolific novelist, poet, essayist, autobiographer, playwright, and writer of children's books whose published works span forty-one years, from 1926 until his death from prostate cancer in 1967.Hughes stated in retrospect he thought his start as a poet in elementary school was because of the stereotype that African Americans have rhythm. "I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet." During high school in Cleveland, Ohio, he wrote for the school newspaper, edited the yearbook, and began to write his first short stories, poetry, and dramatic plays. His first piece of jazz poetry, "When Sue Wears Red", was written while he was in high school. It was during this time that he discovered his love of books. Throughout his life he celebrated and championed black life, writing movingly and with great passion about African American's pain and joy, anger and love. He was one of the first poets to embrace the new movement of jazz poetry, wherein the rhythms and phrasings of jazz and blues were woven into his works.Hughes first gained national acclaim for his first book of poetry, "The Weary Blues," which featured what would widely be known as his signature piece, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." Other important works include his first novel, "Not Without Laughter," and two autobiographies, "The Big Sea" and "I Wonder as I Wander."Although he traveled throughout his life, Hughes made a brownstone in Harlem his home and was often spotted strolling on Harlem's streets. He frequently visited Harlem's churches, schools and clubs that spurred and inspired his work. During his lifetime, Hughes was honored by many universities and institutions, including the Library of Congress who deemed him as the guiding light of black literature around the world. He also received the Spingarn Medal for his lifelong achievements from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Other notable authors that came to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance included Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Jesse Redmond Fauset, Nella Larsen, Sterling Brown, and Zora Neale Hurston-all of whom were celebrated for chronicling the beauty and complexities of black life and whose literary efforts characterized and illuminated the experience of being black in America.In addition to celebrating the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, the Leimert Park Village Book Fair will feature live music, spoken word performance/poetry recitals, storytelling, readings, author meet and greets, writing workshops, panel discussions, theatre performances and film screenings. For more information about the Leimert Park Village Book Fair, visit www.leimertparkbookfair.com, event updates can also be found on Twitter @leimertparkbook. | <urn:uuid:f0523d5f-5d3d-4ad7-ac12-4535bc402031> | {
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For decades, the dream of programming computers without words or the ability to make syntax errors had eluded computer scientists. Today, is the dawn of a new era in block programming languages designed for children to learn with, control their world, solve problems, and express themselves.
Here are the languages worthy of your consideration. Each is a dialect of the Logo programming language. (Read What is Logo? by Seymour Papert)
We are deliberately rejecting commercial copycats of Scratch with puzzles, tests, scoring, and other mindless school-like activities built-in. (Tynker, Hopscotch, Code.org fall in this category) The point of a good programming language is that it should be usable for more than an hour or until your chicken nuggets arrive at Applebees. A good programming language has a low threshold and no ceiling; perhaps in the words of Scratch creator Mitchel Resnick, “also wide walls.”
Scratch (Mac, Windows, Linux)
Scratch 2.0 is the global phenomena designed for kids to remix culture via computer programming. Version 2.0 is browser based and features a library of more than 15 million projects you can play, explore, remix, and reuse for your own purposes. Scratch even translates its language blocks between countless languages.
Pros: A real programming language with an enormous community built around it. Runs in a browser and has two offline editors (versions). Great for animation, game design, and storytelling. Can be used to program LEGO WeDo robotics sets. Features are added judiciously and slowly.
Cons: Intended for children to learn on their own without adult intervention. Therefore, the language itself is not as powerful as others (such as SNAP!) Not as good for learning powerful mathematical ideas. For that MicroWorlds or SNAP! are a better option. Features are added judiciously and slowly.
- Scratch 2.0
- Download Scratch 2.0 Offline Editor
- Download Scratch 1.4
- Scratch Jr. for the iPad and Android
- The ScratchEd web site for educators
- Two fine books written about Scratch for kids:
- Other Scratch books
- Colleen Lewis’ library of Scratch YouTube tutorials
SNAP! (Mac, Windows, Linux, iPad, Android)
SNAP! is a browser-based version of Scratch created by Dr. Brian Harvey and Jens Mönig intended to be used to learn powerful computer science principles. It features first-class objects, recursion, and the ability to “build your own” blocks.
Pros: SNAP! is used to teach introductory computer science at UC Berkeley and as part of the Beauty and Joy of Computing Curriculum being developed to prepare high school students for the AP Computer Science Essentials (CS for non-CS majors) course/test coming soon. It works just like a Scratch, but is more powerful, is easier to extend via plug-in libraries of blocks, and runs on tablets. SNAP! is also a great way to program the Hummingbird Robotics Kit.
Cons: SNAP! projects can’t be shared in the web-based Scratch community. The cloud is occasionally unreliable, especially in schools. There are no cute sprites built into SNAP!, but your turtle can wear any shape you create or borrow, just like in Scratch.
- Run SNAP! now
- Check out the text and video based Beauty and Joy of Computing Course
- Use Devices with SNAP!
- Orbotix Sphero guide by Connor Hudson and Dan Garcia
- Lego NXT package by Connor Hudson
- Nintendo Wiimote package by Connor Hudson
- Finch and Hummingbird robots package by Tom Lauwers
- Parallax S2 robot package by Connor Hudson
- LEAP Motion by Connor Hudson
- Speech synthesis by Connor Hudson
- Arduino package by Alan Yorinks
Turtle Art (Mac, Windows, Linux, iPad)
Turtle Art is an ingenious software environment in which mathematical ideas become beautiful works of art. Kids from 5 to 100 immediately find objects to think with and explore powerful ideas as soon as they boot Turtle Art.
Pros: The elegance and focus of Turtle Art makes it possible to create art out of math without a lot of other interface or language distractions. Turtle Art is a limited set of Logo primitives. The software brilliantly saves the program and its artistic artifact in the same file. So, if you open the file in any other software, you see an image. Open it in Turtle Art, even by dragging a thumbnail from the Web and the code comes with the art!
Cons: The Java-based nature of Turtle Art makes it occasionally freeze while in-use. Wise Turtle Art programmers save often. You need to request the software from its creators.
- Turtle Art Image Gallery
- Turtle Art tutorials
- Gary Stager’s Turtle Art activity cards created by Brian Silverman and Artemis Papert
- Early mathematics activities for Turtle Art by Gary Stager
- Turtle Art for the iPad ($9.99 US)
Beetle Blocks (Mac, Windows, Linux, maybe tablets)
Beetle Blocks is a browser-based graphical blocks-based programming environment for 3D design and fabrication. Use code to control a beetle that can place 3D shapes and extrude its path as a tube. Then make a 3D print! Beetle Blocks is based on Scratch and Snap! By Eric Rosenbaum (co-inventor of MaKey MaKey, Drawdio, and a host of other cool tinkering toys) and Duks Koschitz, with software development by Bernat Romagosa and Jens Moenig.
Pros: Program something in 3D and then print it on a 3D printer!
Cons: Alpha software!
- Beetle Blocks web site
Pros: Runs on an iPad. Free. Controls cool toys!
Cons: App Store searching for Tickle is an unpleasant experience. Don’t know why the “turtle” is a killer whale. Sometimes updates kill off older connections to your toys.
- Get Tickle for the iPad
Pocket Code is a version of Scratch that allows you to program on and for your Android device, even a phone. The creators have done a monumental job of making the software work with an assortment of external devices.
Pros: Works on Android devices and allows you to program on the very same device. Performs a whole bunch of really cool tricks. Has its own Web-based library of projects, apps, and games created with Pocket Code.
Cons: Only works on Android platform and I have yet to be able to install it successfully on my Samsung tablet.
- Pocket Code web site
Google App Inventor (Android)
App Inventor, originated at MIT by a team led by veteran Logo pioneer Hal Abelson, allows users to create apps for Android devices. Creating an App Inventor app begins in your browser, where you design how the app will look. Then, like fitting together puzzle pieces, you set your app’s behavior. All the while, through a live connection between your computer and your phone, your app appears on your phone.
Pros: Kids who can make sense of Scratch or SNAP! can make working phone apps.
Cons: Android only. A bit more complex, especially on the design side. One never knows how long it will take for Google to lose interest in a product. Still listed as beta software.
- Try App Inventor
Turtlestitch is based on a browser-based educational programming language (Snap!) to generate patterns for embroidery machines. It is easy to use, requiring no prior knowledge in programming, yet powerful in creating nowels patterns for embroidery. It is usefull for designers to experiment with generative aesthetics and precision embroidery as well as tool for innovative workshops combining an introduction to programing with haptic output.
Turtlestitch web site
Blockly (Windows, Mac, Linux, tablets)
Cons: The open source nature of the software makes it hard to keep up with changes, improvements, etc. It is not intended as a learning language, but as a development one.
Blockly web site
StarLogo Nova (browser)
StarLogo Nova is a programming environment that lets students and teachers create 3D games and simulations for understanding complex systems. Using a programming language of colored blocks that fit together like puzzle pieces, StarLogo users create games and simulations to study diverse concepts in science and math – such as epidemiology, ecology, geometry, computational thinking, and more. StarLogo is free and runs in an Internet browser, with project sharing options – students can play games created by others, and teachers can use simulations developed by the StarLogo community to illustrate complex concepts. Users can create simple and large-scale simulations using the library of agents or importing their own custom sounds and Collada-format 3D models. Take advantage of StarLogo support materials to get started including:
StarLogo Nova web site
Turtle Blocks (Mac, Windows, Linux)
Turtle Blocks is an expanded version of Turtle Art developed by Walter Bender and a team at Sugar Labs. Originally intended for the XO ($100 laptop), Turtle Blocks may be run on a variety of platforms and can even control external devices.
Pros: More functionality than Turtle Art with a greater focus on mathematical problem solving than Scratch. Continuously improved and expanded.
Cons: May be a bit tricky to install on your computer and is a more complex system than Turtle Art. The interface may take a bit of getting used to.
- Turtle Blocks web site | <urn:uuid:0a0d79eb-3dc2-4618-a8d9-986e6f884cd5> | {
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This month’s history picks have a healthy collection of U.S Presidents, starting early with Joseph Ellis’s American Dialogue: The Founders and Us taking a look at the founding fathers of the country. Skipping ahead to the present day, we’ve got the last two Commanders in Chief with Jeanne Marie Laskas’s To Obama, and Greg Miller’s The Apprentice. If you need something a little more lowbrow than the high office of President, maybe try Ruth Goodman’s How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England, or take a left turn into a different kind of society and have a look at Our Woman in Havana by Sarah Rainsford, covering life in modern Cuba.
American dialogue : the founders and us / Joseph J. Ellis.
“What would the founders think? We live in a divided America that is currently incapable of sustained argument and is feeling unsure of its destiny. Joseph J. Ellis explores anew four of our most prominent founders, in each instance searching for patterns and principles that bring the lamp of experience to our contemporary dilemmas. Ellis reminds us that the founders’ greatest legacy lies not in providing political answers but in helping us find a better way to frame the question.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
To Obama : with love, joy, anger, and hope / Jeanne Marie Laskas.
“Every evening for eight years, at his request, President Obama was given ten handpicked letters written by ordinary American citizens from his Office of Presidential Correspondence. He was the first president to interact daily with constituent mail and to archive it in its entirety. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews Obama, the letter writers themselves, and the White House staff who sifted through the powerful, moving, and incredibly intimate narrative of America during the Obama years.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
The origins of the Anglo-Saxons : decoding the ancestry of the English / Jean Manco.
“What do we really know of English ancestry? Combining results from cutting-edge DNA technology with new research from archaeology and linguistics, The Origins of the Anglo-Saxons reveals the adventurous journey undertaken by some of our ancestors long before a word of English was spoken. Starting with the deeper origins of the Germani and how they fit into the greater family of Indo-European speakers and ending with the language of Shakespeare, taken to the first British colony in America, this chronicle takes a wider scope than previous histories.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
How to behave badly in Elizabethan England : a guide for knaves, fools, harlots, cuckolds, drunkards, liars, thieves, and braggarts / Ruth Goodman.
“Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers. As acclaimed popular historian Ruth Goodman shows in her madcap chronicle, Elizabethan England was particularly rank with troublemakers, from snooty needlers who took aim with a cutting “thee,” to lowbrow drunkards with revolting table manners. Goodman draws on advice manuals, court cases, and sermons to offer this colorfully crude portrait of offenses most foul.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
The allies : Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the unlikely alliance that won World War II / Winston Groom.
“By the end of World War II, 59 nations were arrayed against the axis powers, but three great Allied leaders–Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin–had emerged to control the war in Europe and the Pacific. Vastly different in upbringing and political beliefs, they were not always in agreement or on good terms. But in the end, these three men presided over a new world order. Best-selling historian Winston Groom returns to tell one of the biggest stories of the 20th century.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
The Oxford Illustrated history of the Holy Land / edited by Robert G. Hoyland, H.G.M. Williamson.
“The Oxford Illustrated History of the Holy Land covers the 3,000 years which saw the rise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and relates the familiar stories of the sacred texts with the fruits of modern scholarship. Beginning with the origins of the people who became the Israel of the Bible, it follows the course of the ensuing millennia down to the time when the Ottoman Empire succumbed to British and French rule at the end of the First World War.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
Our woman in Havana : reporting Castro’s Cuba / Sarah Rainsford.
“From inside this tightly controlled one-party state, Sarah Rainsford, the BBC’s ‘woman in Havana’ for three years, reports on lives shaped by Fidel Castro’s giant social experiment and how the nation feels as the six-decade rule of the Castros comes to an end. Seeking a window into pre-revolutionary Cuba, she searches for the ghosts of Graham Greene’s Havana and the paths walked by other visiting writers (chiefly Ruby Hart Phillips, who covered Cuba from 1937-1961 for the New York Times).” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
Carrington : an honourable man / Christopher Lee.
“Lord Carrington was Margaret Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary when the Argentinians invaded the Falklands in 1982. Absent in Israel on the eve of the invasion, he promptly resigned since it was, he said, a point of honour. The descendant of a famous banking family, Carrington served as a minister in every Conservative government from Churchill to Thatcher. In this full biography, authorised but not read by the subject, author of This Sceptred Isle Christopher Lee offers a fascinating portrait of a Tory icon whose career is a window into post-war British politics and life as a politician and diplomat.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary)
The apprentice : Trump, Russia and the subversion of American democracy / Greg Miller.
“From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post national security reporter Greg Miller, the truth about Vladimir Putin’s covert attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump win the presidency, its possible connections to the Trump campaign, Robert Mueller’s ensuing investigation of the president and those close to him, and the mystery of Trump’s steadfast allegiance to Putin.” (Abridged from Syndetics summary) | <urn:uuid:465283df-25ec-4480-ab45-331cd47de9e2> | {
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So I've been reading about namespace on w3schools and I understand they are to uniquely identify an element. But what is the point of having namespaces if you have to have prefixes along side them. Are you always required to have prefixes with namespaces? If not are you always required to have namespaces with prefixes? If so why?
<root xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/" xmlns:f="http://www.w3schools.com/furniture"> <h:table> <h:tr> <h:td>Apples</h:td> <h:td>Bananas</h:td> </h:tr>
<f:name>African Coffee Table</f:name> <f:width>80</f:width> <f:length>120</f:length> </f:table> </root>
Doesn't f and h uniquely identify the different element types?
Thanks for your help. I'm really at a loss at understanding why namespaces exists. | <urn:uuid:bcd6c195-7ca1-4799-b0ae-289136cc5204> | {
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A new edition of the illustrated compendium that is “a gift to serious dinosaur enthusiasts” (Science).
What do we know about dinosaurs, and how do we know it? How did they grow, move, eat, and reproduce? Were they warm-blooded or cold-blooded? How intelligent were they? How are the various groups of dinosaurs related to each other, and to other kinds of living and extinct vertebrates? What can the study of dinosaurs tell us about the process of evolution? And why did typical dinosaurs become extinct?
These questions and more are addressed in this new, expanded edition of The Complete Dinosaur. Written by leading experts on the “fearfully great” reptiles, the book covers what we have learned about dinosaurs, from the earliest discoveries to the most recent controversies. Where scientific contention exists, the editors have let the experts agree to disagree. The Complete Dinosaur is a feast for serious dinosaur lovers, from the enthusiastic amateur to the professional paleontologist.
Praise for the first edition:
“An excellent encyclopedia that serves as a nice bridge between popular and scholarly dinosaur literature.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Stimulating armchair company for cold winter evenings. . . . Best of all, the book treats dinosaurs as intellectual fun.” —New Scientist
“Useful both as a reference and as a browse-and-enjoy compendium.” —Natural History “Copiously illustrated and scrupulously up-to-date.” —Publishers Weekly
“The amount of information in [these] pages is amazing. This book should be on the shelves of dinosaur freaks as well as those who need to know more about the paleobiology of extinct animals. It will be an invaluable library reference.” —American Reference Books Annual | <urn:uuid:cc446c1a-fcfd-4f44-8b4e-0af561c2d495> | {
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Dyothelitism (a Greek loanword meaning "two wills") is a particular teaching about how the divine and human relate in the person of Jesus, known as a Christological doctrine. Specifically, Dyothelitism teaches that Jesus Christ had two natures and two wills. This position is in opposition to the Monothelitism position in the Christological debates. The debate concerning the Monothelite churches and the Catholic Church came to a conclusion at the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 681 CE. The Council declared that in line with the declarations of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, which declared two natures in the one Person of Jesus Christ, there are equally two "wills" or "modes of operation" in the one Person of Jesus Christ as well.
Dyophysite (Two natures) | <urn:uuid:ccf7b06c-8afc-4a9a-a209-8012373bcf3f> | {
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1. Brainstorm lists of inherited family traits.
Take a poll. Ask students how many of them can raise just one eyebrow and not the other. Then ask how many can wiggle their ears. Finally, ask how many can curl their tongues. Not all students will be able to do all three things. Ask: Can you guess why some of us can do these things and others cannot? Explain that these specialized skills are inherited. Have students brainstorm other traits that we inherit from our parents and grandparents. Write their answers on the board, sorting them into different categories. For example, students might come up with physical traits such as curly hair, eye color, and height; personality traits such as shyness or aggressiveness; and talents such as artistic and athletic abilities. Some students may suggest traits that have an environmental component in addition to a genetic component. If students suggest traits such as being good at a particular sport or good at spelling, explain that although there may be a genetic component, such as good hand-eye coordination in the case of sport, they may have learned some of this ability through teaching by their parents and others around them.
2. Discuss the role genes and DNA play in heredity.
Ask: How are traits like the ones on our brainstormed list passed on in families? Some students may mention “genes” or “DNA.” Both are correct. Make sure that students understand the following concepts:
- Genes determine what traits we inherit. They are blueprints for making everything the body needs.
- Genes are made up of long strings of complex molecules called DNA.
- DNA also contains regions where there are no genes. In fact, in humans, genes may account for as little as 25% of DNA.
3. Explore a chromosome.
Have students look at the provided website. Explain that genes are packaged in bundles called chromosomes, which are located in every cell of our bodies. Each chromosome contains thousands of genes, and each gene determines a different trait. Point out that the image students are looking at actually contains two chromosomes. Ask: Why would chromosomes come in pairs? Explain that every pair consists of one chromosome that we inherit from our mother, and one from our father. Then have students look at the small drawings of chromosomes at the top. Explain that each of us has 22 pairs of chromosomes carrying different genetic information, as well as a single pair that determines our sex.
4. Explain mutations and genetic markers.
Ask: Do you think there are ever mistakes as all this genetic information is passed from one generation to another? Would these mistakes continue to be passed on? Explain that mistakes occasionally happen. Information can get switched, dropped, or repeated. These mistakes are called mutations, and they are passed on to future generations. Explain that mutations passed down through generations serve as genetic markers, or clues, that researchers can use to actually reconstruct the routes early humans took as they spread around the world over the past 60,000 years. Explain that most mutations are "silent," meaning they have no detectable effect on the next generation. This is often because the mutations occur in regions of the DNA where no genes are located. It is usually these silent mutations that researchers in the Genographic Project use to trace ancestry.
5. Introduce the Genographic Project.
Explain that National Geographic’s Genographic Project has used genetic markers from thousands of people to create a map showing routes humans took as they populated the world. Show students the video “The Genographic Project.” Ask students to think about how the DNA samples were obtained and used to identify the ancestors of the four persons in the video. In this nine-minute video, project director Spencer Wells invites four strangers in New York City’s Grand Central Station to donate DNA that is then used to identify where their ancient ancestors came from. Afterward, discuss how the DNA was obtained, what different routes were identified, and how all the routes can be traced back to Africa.
Extending the Learning
- Show the video Journey of Man, about the Genographic Project. Go to the PBS website to find out where you can get the Journey of Man documentary.
Subjects & Disciplines
- list traits that they inherit from their families
- describe how genetic information is passed on from one generation to the next
- explain the relationship between DNA, genes, and chromosomes
- explain how genetic markers enable researchers on the Genographic Project to reconstruct early human migration routes
- Multimedia instruction
Critical Thinking Skills
- Geographic Skills
Connections to National Standards, Principles, and Practices
National Council for Social Studies Curriculum Standards
- Theme 3: People, Places, and Environments
National Geography Standards
- Standard 9: The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on Earth's surface
National Science Education Standards
- (9-12) Standard C-3: Biological evolution
What You’ll Need
The resources are also available at the top of the page.
- Internet Access: Required
- Tech Setup: 1 computer per classroom, Projector, Speakers
- Media Center/Library
- Large-group instruction
The Genographic Project studies where our early human ancestors came from and how humans came to populate the entire planet. Following genetic markers through thousands of human generations enables scientists to track our human origins back to Africa and to determine the pattern of routes by which humans migrated around the world. Understanding how genetic information is passed on within families and over long periods of times helps students understand how researchers use this information to reconstruct ancient human migration routes.
Recommended Prior Activities
strand of DNA and associated proteins in the nucleus of cells that carries the organism's genetic information.
(deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule in every living organism that contains specific genetic information on that organism.
part of DNA that is the basic unit of heredity.
gene that is located on a specific place on a chromosome.
sudden variation in one or more characteristics caused by a change in a gene or chromosome.
- Wells, Spencer. Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2006. Print.
- Wells, Spencer. The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2002. Print. | <urn:uuid:60285a16-bede-4405-bbca-8a83b80739b0> | {
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A new study reports that children who drink typically-fluoridated tap water have higher blood-lead levels (BLL) than children, who drink bottled water, according to dental researchers Sanders and Slade (American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Nov 2017).
While this wonky study is flawed, several previous studies link fluoridation chemicals to higher BLL; others link blood-lead to more tooth decay.
We're not sure if Sanders and Slade are protecting dentistry's sacred cow, fluoride, instead of America's children and future, when they oddly put tooth decay on the same level with brain damaging lead.
Without knowing the fluoride content of any of the water consumed by their test subjects, they imply that tap water drinkers have less tooth decay and the reason is the presumed fluoride content of tap water. They hint that parents might need to choose between damaging their children’s brains with lead or save their teeth with fluoride.
No! Cavities can be fixed but lead poisoning is irreversible.
Further, good diet and dental care can prevent cavities without exposure to fluoride’s adverse drug effects. For instance, vitamin D deficiency is linked to more tooth decay
But lead is a brain-damaging poison that can cause life-threatening diseases without any safe level (
of Pediatrics, Council
on Environmental Health). American Academy
Even low blood-lead-levels are linked to lower IQ, according to the CDC
The three artificial water fluoridation additives are fluorosilicic acid, sodium fluorosilicate (both silicofluorides) and sodium fluoride (CDC) All can contain contain lead when added to public water supplies.
Masters and Coplan (Neurotoxicology 2000) reported a link between fluoridation chemicals (silicofluorides) and children’s lead absorption.
A CDC study (Macek) attempted but failed to dispute Masters and Coplan’s findings. Macek’s research also revealed that fluorosilicic acid was associated with an elevated risk for high blood-lead-levels, according to the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Macek decided the findings weren't significant except among children living in houses of unknown age who had a 530% increased risk for high-blood-levels, reports FAN
A re-analysis of Macek's data, after placing children exposed to fluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate in one group (silicofluorides) and all others in another, Coplan et al. found that the children exposed to silicofluoridated water had a significantly elevated risk of having high blood lead levels.
Coplan explained to this writer that, since silicofluorides don’t come apart totally in water, a breakdown product may enhance the uptake of lead into children’s blood – lead that’s already in the environment (not necessarily in the water). Sodium fluoride completely comes apart in water.
An Environmental Health Perspectives 2002 study, supports Masters and Coplan’s findings. Children in the silicofluoridated
area have more tooth decay and higher blood lead levels than children in non-fluoridated
Boston . Farmington, Maine
Lead is linked to more tooth decay
Several studies link blood lead levels, even low amounts, to higher rates of tooth decay. (BMC Oral Health Jan 2017; Caries Research 2015; Journal of the American Medical Association 1999 ; Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry 2013 & 2017; Vojnosanit Pregled 2013 )
In fact, “Associations between childhood lead exposures and dental caries in children have been reported for over 30 years,” according to Science of the Total Environment (2007)
Children’s teeth with a high lead and high fluoride content had significantly more cavities than teeth with less lead and fluoride (Journal of Dental Research 1977).
Fluoride Can Increase the Uptake & Toxicity of Lead
Rats exposed to lead and sodium fluoride accumulates higher lead concentrations in their blood than rats only exposed to lead, according to NIH government researchers in 1976.
Lead intensifies fluoride’s teeth damaging effects causing a greater incidence and severity of dental fluorosis. (Leite 2011)
Exposure to lead exacerbates dental fluorosis. (Arch Oral Biology)
In fact, there's some evidence that fluoride caues cavities.
“Despite significant financial, training, and program investments, US children’s caries experience and inequities continued to increase over the last 20 years.” ( American Journal of Public Health 2017). This after 72 years of fluoridation, reaching 2/3 of Americans, promising to substantially reduce tooth decay, especially in poor children.
The Journal of the American Dental Association (Dye 2017) reports,
65% of poor 6-8 year-olds and 12-15 year-olds have cavities in their primary and permanent teeth, respectively.
“The prevalence of pediatric caries in the United States has remained consistent for the past 3 decades,” reports Dye.
"… there has been little improvement in preventing caries initiation," said Dye.
Perhaps Sanders and Slade are protecting organized dentistry or just can't believe the obvious. Fluoride is harming
’s children and America ’s future.
Fluoridation must be halted right now! America
It’s up to every individual to urge legislators and water departments to stop adding this unnecessary, health-robbing, ineffective and money-wasting chemical, fluoride, into your bodies via the water supply. If you don’t, nothing will change. It’s time to speak truth to power and see the dominoes fall just as the powerful predators are being taken down by courageous women in the workplace. | <urn:uuid:0ce17545-580b-4864-88c1-7c2828a7ebae> | {
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The composites based on plasticized starch and graphene oxide/reduced graphene oxide.
Ma, T., Chang, P.R., Zheng, P., and Ma, X. (2013). "The composites based on plasticized starch and graphene oxide/reduced graphene oxide.", Carbohydrate Polymers, 94(1), pp. 63-70. doi : 10.1016/j.carbpol.2013.01.007 Access to full text
The graphite was oxidized to prepare graphene oxide (GO), and GO was reduced by glucose to obtain reduced graphene oxide (RGO) sheet. There were abundant and residual oxygen-containing groups on GO and RGO, respectively. Compared to graphite, the GO and RGO sheets appeared flat and transparent, and the aqueous suspensions followed the Lambert-Beer's law well. The composites were also fabricated by using GO and RGO as the filler in plasticized-starch (PS) matrix. Because of more oxygen-containing groups, GO could form the stronger interaction with PS matrix than RGO. And GO/PS composites exhibited better tensile strength, elongation at break and moisture barrier than RGO/PS composites, but lower thermal stability. GO/PS composites could protect against UV light, while the conductivities of RGO/PS composites could reach 1.07 × 10-4, 6.92 × 10-4 and 0.01 S/cm, respectively stored at RH50, 75 and 100%.
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interact with the figure below: Click the
red button ()
on the figure to start the animation. Drag points A, C, and line
AC to change the figure. Press P and click the left mouse button to start the step by step
Given a triangle ABC, D, E, and F
are the points of contact of the incircle with the sides, as
shown. AC and DF meets at B', BC and EF meets at A', and AB and
DE meets at C'. Prove that A', B', and C' are collinear.
The line A'B'C' is called Gergonne Line and the points A',B'C'
are called Nobbs' points.
Dynamic Geometry: You can alter the figure
dynamically in order to test and prove (or disproved)
conjectures and gain mathematical insight that is less
readily available with static drawings by hand.
This page uses the
dynamic geometry software and requires
Adobe Flash player 7 or higher.
TracenPoche is a project of Sesamath, an association of French
teachers of mathematics.
Instruction to explore the
Animation. Click the red
to start/stop animation
Manipulate. Drag points A,
C, and line AC to change the figure.
Press P and click the left mouse
on any free area of the figure
above to show the
step-by-step bar and click 'Next
Step' button ()
to start the construction step-by-step:
Hide the step-by-step bar by
using again the combination P +
click left mouse. | <urn:uuid:52cbcf8a-877c-4183-a67e-6ff686ce1491> | {
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Introduction to vertical and horizontal axis
Cartesian coordinate system specify each point
individually in plane by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are signed distances from two axis-x-axis and y-axis. Two perpendicular lines represent the two
dimensional plane and a point in the plane is defined by two parameters-its distance along x-axis from origin and its distance along y-axis from origin. X-axis is the horizontal axis and
y-axis is the vertical axis. The point where they meet perpendicularly is the origin. x-axis and y-axis are calibrated by the same scale. Any point is represented by (x,y) coordinates which
define its position on the plane.
Vertical axis- straight lines on the coordinate plane wherever all points on the line contain the similar x-coordinate.
A vertical line is individual the go directly up and down, parallel to the y-axis of the coordinate plane.
Each and every one point on the line will have the similar x-coordinate. In the figure on top of, draw either point or note down that the line is vertical while they together contain the same x-coordinate.
Example for vertical axis
Finding the equation of the two points A, B on the line are at (-16,3) and (-16,20).
The first coordinate in both pair is the x-coordinate which are -16, and -16. Because they are identical, the line is vertical.
Given that the line passes the x-axis at -16, the equation of the line is
x = -16;
This can be read as for all values of y, x is -16.
Horizontal way smooth or level.In graph x-axis represents the horizontal axis.
The blue number line in the figure lower is the x-axis, the horizontal axis.
Example for horizontal axis
Point B is 6 units to the left of point A on the horizontal axis. Find the coordinates of B if A is at (9, 7).
(9, 7) = 9 on the x-axis and 7 on the y-axis.
Point B is 6 units to the left of point A on the horizontal axis, i.e. x-axis.
So, the x-coordinate of B is 9 – 6 = 3
the coordinates of point B is (3, 7). | <urn:uuid:4575f230-0b43-4394-81b0-ec58d41624c3> | {
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What is a staff infection in the blood
Septicemia, or a staph infection in the blood, is sometimes referred to as "blood poisoning." ChaCha for now! [ Source: http://www.chacha.com/question/what-is-a-staff-infection-in-the-blood ]
More Answers to "What is a staff infection in the blood"
- Is low white blood cells caused from staff infection??
- No, introduction of the Staph toxin or bacteria is the cause of a staph infection. Low WBC can be a contributing factor, but is not the sole cause.
- How can blood be capable of acquire into the bone easier to bring...?
- I need a style to get the blood into or through by bones quicker or even through them because i hold staff in my bones and antibiotics arn't strong satisfactory to get into the bone. Answer: About the solitary things you can do on your own...
Related Questions Answered on Y!Answers
- How can blood be able to get into the bone easier to get rid of a staff infection?
- Q: I need a way to get the blood into or through by bones quicker or even through them because i have staff in my bones and antibiotics arn't strong enough to get into the bone.
- A: About the only things you can do on your own is to exercise and use ice or ice water several times each day for about 5-8 minutes each time. Wait for things to warm completely before applying ice again. The cold causes a local increase in blood flow for several minutes until the area becomes too cool, and then blood flow decreases, so you don't want to use ice for very long. It only works if ice is applied in a way that most of the limb and body remains warm. This works great for muscles, and it might help for bones. There is no guarantee this will work for bones. Any type of aerobic exercise will also help, particularly those exercises that uses the parts of your body that are infected. There are surgical procedures to increase blood flow: drilling and grafting.
- what is mercer staff infection in the blood? And is it treatable?
- A: I think you mean MRSA (Methcillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus-sometimes pronounced like MERSA). Short answer is MRSA is a Staph infection that is no longer treatable with Methcillin. The Staph. has mutated to be resistant. It's a serious infection, but there are still drugs in the physicians arsenal to treat this infection. I suppose you or someone you know has MRSA? If so speak with your/their physician about how it's being treated. Best place for answers...
- can you get a staff infection in your mouth?
- Q: i got my wisdom teeth out and one of the cuts on the top got infected. normally the top teeth dont get infected. its usually the bottom ones. well, it oozes this horrible tasting yellow puss and sometimes a little blood. my oral surgeon has already reopened the cut 2 times and stitched it back up, thinking that it will fix the problem, but it hasnt yet. my cousin and friend both have/had staff infections. they oozed yellow puss as well and it would heal up then burst back open, the same way my mouth is doing. im just wondering if its possible to have a staff infection in my mouth. and if it is possible, do i have one?
- A: generally a staph.infection is yellow;staphylococcus AUREUS is the bug, the aureus bit meaning 'gold' hence the colour of the pus. There is little significance to a staph infection in itself, thoug obviously youve got colourful visions of MRSA (a type of staph aureus).Most spots are the same bug and most yeloow bogeys too................no doubt it will improve with time and [possibly the right antibiotic.;things either stay the same, worsen or improve...............
Prev Question: What can I do to avoid getting swine flu
People also view | <urn:uuid:2de942cd-7b59-44ed-b689-8417856c731f> | {
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The first type of problems comes from changes in the hormones which control menstruation. Their fine tuning is disrupted. This may be seen in the athlete whose periods slow or stop when she trains heavily. Another case may be the woman close to menopause who had irregular and heavy periods before they stop altogether.
Knowing how the normal menstrual cycle works helps one to understand how problems occur. The complete cycle is a series of timed events that prepare the uterus for pregnancy. There are three stages.
The first is the follicle stage. This lasts from the first day of menstrual flow until the egg is produced (ovulation) about two weeks later. During this time the levels of the female hormone estrogen rises and causes the uterine lining to thicken.
The second stage is ovulation, when the egg leaves the ovary to make its way toward the uterus. The few days close to ovulation are when a woman is most fertile, or most likely to become pregnant.
The third stage is the luteal stage, lasting from ovulation until the beginning of the next period. During this time, the female hormone progesterone is produced. It prepares the thickened lining of the uterus for a possible pregnancy. If one doesn’t occur, the progesterone level drops and the uterine lining is shed. One cycle ends and a new one begins.
Many women have some spotting around the middle of the cycle, during ovulation. This is normal and may be due to a fall in estrogen levels. Spotting just before or just after the menstrual period is also common and does not require treatment.
Some women with normal cycles bleed so heavily with their periods that their iron levels drops and they become anemic. The birth control pill or anti-inflammatory medication can help control this heavy bleeding.
Sometimes the ovary will not produce an egg during the menstrual cycle. This is a frequent cause of irregular periods. When an egg is not produced, the second and third stages of the menstrual cycle (ovulation and the luteal stage) do not occur. Instead, the first (follicular) stage when estrogen is produced lasts longer than the usual two weeks. This long exposure to estrogen causes the uterine lining to continue to thicken until it is so heavy that it sheds and menstrual flow results. This flow can be very heavy and last a long time. They may occur at random, not on a schedule as most normal cycles do. One can not predict when bleeding will begin when an egg has not been produced.
This type of bleeding is common in girls in the first few years of their periods when they do not yet ovulate on a regular basis. It is also common just before the menopause, as the ovaries stop egg production.
Treatment of irregular bleeding caused by lack of ovulation depends on the amount of bleeding. The birth control pill or other hormone pills may control heavy bleeding and cause a return of more normal patterns. Sometimes bleeding is so severe that a short stay in hospital is necessary.
A “D & C” (dilation and curettage, or scraping of the uterine lining) is often done in women with frequent heavy periods. In about half of women, this will stop the heavy bleeding while the woman waits for normal periods to resume.
The second group of problems causing abnormal periods are related to changes in the reproductive organs. In women aged 20 to 40 the other cause of irregular or very heavy periods is usually not related to the reproductive organs. The cause is usaly found elsewhere, for example an overactive or underactive thyroid gland.
Tumors: Growth in or around the uterus can cause irregular bleeding. Benign growths, such as fibroids or polyps, are common. They can grow into the wall of the uterus or into its cavity. When this happens, the periods may be quite a bit heavier than normal.
Cancer of the uterus or cervix can also cause unusual bleeding. Cancer of the cervix is more common in younger women. It can be detected with a pap smear. Regular pap smears can detect the problem at an early when it is more easily treated. Uterine cancer tends to occur in older women, usually after menopause. Unusual bleeding in women of this age should be reported to a doctor, as early detection of uterine cancer increases the chance of cure. A “D & C” may be done to take a sample of the uterine lining to examine under the microscope. A doctor may also thread a small tube into the uterus and collect a sample of the lining. This is called an endomentrial biopsy and it is usually done in the office.
Endometriosis: This is a disease in which bits of the lining of the uterus grow outside the uterus. These bits of tissue are still controlled by the hormones of the menstrual cycle. For reasons which we do not understand very well, endometriosis can cause abnormal menstrual flow.
Exercise and Nutrition: In women who exercise heavily, the periods may be interrupted. Exercise-related menstrual problems have become more common in the last 20 years. This is likely a result of increasing emphasis on fitness and athletic training.
Stopped menstruation is more common in women who do certain types of sports. Sports such as running, ballet and gymnastics cause the most problems, as they often require intense daily training and a thin body. Athletes in such sports may be more likely to limit the amount of food they eat to try to maintain a thin body.
This combination of heavy exercise and limited calories can cause periods to stop. It “turns off” the part of the brain that controls the menstrual cycle and the levels of female hormones, particularly estrogen, are reduced.
Women who are dieting, or those with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, may have no periods for similar reasons.
Estrogen has important effects on a woman’s long-term health. Among other things, it keeps the bones healthy and strong into old age. For this reason, women who stop menstruating because they are exercising too much or eating too little are encouraged to change their diet and exercise patterns so their cycle will return.
Problems related to pregnancy are the third cause of abnormal bleeding. Pregnancy, of course, is usually heralded by an absence of periods. However, pregnancy can sometimes be responsible for unusual bleeding. Miscarriage usually declares itself by cramping and bleeding. Tubal pregnancies can cause unusual bleeding and cramping as well. A doctor needs to determine whether or not a woman could have bleeding related to pregnancy before looking into other possible reasons for abnormal menstrual bleeding.
Infection in the body of the uterus can cause irregular bleeding. Infection in the cervix can make it fragile and can cause irregular bleeding.
Irregular or heavy periods can occur at any age. Treatment may not always be necessary. When it is, it is aimed at the particular problem causing the bleeding. Most of the time, pills such as the birth control pill or another medication such an anti-inflammatory will offer some benefit. Occasionally, as in the case of tubal pregnancy or some types of growths, surgery may be necessary to correct the problem. | <urn:uuid:6e89fbc9-2551-4477-93c1-8588f9327e53> | {
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High MCV and Alcohol Abuse
High MCV and alcohol abuse may be correlated, but there are too many intervening variables and factors for an
exact determination of alcohol intake.
A Laboratory Test That Can Identify Alcoholism
Unfortunately, there are few, if any definitive laboratory tests that can identify alcoholism.
Alcohol abuse and dependency are mainly diagnosed by doctors via screening surveys.
Lab tests help doctors, clinicians, and lab technicians evaluate organ function and help detect chronic and
relapse alcohol drinking in individuals who deny their drinking behavior.
For quite a few years, clinicians have had access to a group of biomarkers that indicate a person's alcohol
intake. MCV is one of these biomarkers.
Measure of mean corpuscular volume (MCV), an index of red blood cell size, increases as a person consumes more
Abnormality in the size of red blood cells typically confirms alcoholism.
Even though MCV has a high correlation with alcohol intake, however, this measurement, by itself, is not the
most accurate screening mechanism for alcoholism.
MCV, Hematocrit, Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse
The MCV index, then, is a not a definite or absolute lab indicator of alcohol intake. MCV is nonspecific due to
the fact that various factors may contribute to the change in size of RBCs.
Furthermore, because a person's MCV can remain elevated for several months after a person abstains from drinking
alcohol, it is possible that a person could be abstinent and still show an abnormally high MCV. Nevertheless, MCV
adds to the existence and evidence of alcoholism and alcohol abuse.
In other words, high MCV and alcohol abuse may be correlated, but there are too many intervening variables and
factors for an exact determination of alcohol intake.
Hematocrit is a measure of the number of red blood cells as well as the size of these cells. MCV is the
measurement of the average size of the red blood cells (RBC).
The MCV index increases when the RBCs are larger than normal (macrocytic) and decreases when the RBCs are
smaller than normal (microcytic).
The MCV index can be calculated by multiplying the hematocrit percentage by ten and then dividing the result by
the RBC (red blood cell) count. The result is typically reported in femtoliters (fl.). The normal MCV range for
people without increased or decreased RBCs is usually 80-96 fl.
Readings as high as 121 fl., however, can be observed in alcoholics. MCV that is calculated by automated
equipment is compared to RBC morphology on a peripheral blood smear. This determines the accuracy of the MCV test.
Any variation indicates either faulty equipment or technician error.
Conclusion: High MCV and Alcohol Abuse
Due to the fact that there are few, if any definitive laboratory tests that can identify alcoholism, doctors use
various tests to evaluate organ function and help detect chronic and relapse alcohol drinking in people who are
less than honest about their drinking behavior. Measure of mean corpuscular volume (MCV) is a lab test that
indicates a person's alcohol intake.
While high MCV and alcohol abuse are correlated, MCV does not result in an exact determination
of alcohol intake. It does, however, add important information that helps indicate the possible existence and
evidence of alcoholism and alcohol abuse. | <urn:uuid:4f084b72-8495-43fa-ad93-2f37f05821d9> | {
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|Reference classes, philosophy: is the set of objects, situations, or even data for which an expression stands and which can be exchanged with each other while the meaning of the expression and the context of its use are preserved. The so-called reference class problem arises when the class of the possible data is so extensive or so designed that several interpretations are possible which mutually exclude each other. See also reference system, uniqueness, indeterminacy, probability theory._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. |
Books on Amazon
Reference class problem/Nozick: E.g. reliability: the reference class of beliefs can not exist in the beliefs acquired so far, because it may have been a coincidence so far that the method was reliable._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution.
Philosophical Explanations Oxford 1981
The Nature of Rationality 1994 | <urn:uuid:8a29d354-559d-47fb-95a1-55b24b443d2e> | {
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|Name: _________________________||Period: ___________________|
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What does the fairy queen accuse her husband of when they first meet on stage?
2. What does Titania's husband want her to awake to after the potion is put on her eyes?
3. Who interrupts the conversation between Hermia and Lysander at the beginning of A Midsummer Night's Dream?
4. What does Oberon want to do to punish his wife in Act 2, Scene 1?
5. What did the Fairy King see striking a flower one night?
Short Essay Questions
1. What will happen to Hermia if she does not marry the man who Egeus has chosen for her to marry?
2. Why does Puck mistake Lysander for Demetrius when he sees him asleep in the wood?
3. Why is Flute unhappy with his assigned role when he first hears it?
4. What is so ironic about Bottom's name?
5. What caused the magical flower to get its powers?
6. What does Bottom do as Quince assigns all the roles in the mini-play?
7. How does Quince convince Bottom to not take the role of the Lion?
8. How does Titania fall asleep after her long day of journeying and fighting?
9. How do Hippolyta and Theseus feel about their upcoming marriage?
10. What does Lysander propose he and Hermia do to avoid the punishment laid out for Hermia should she choose to marry him?
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
What were some of the forms of foreshadowing used in this play, and how did those moments affect the course of the plot?
Essay Topic 2
Despair was a theme that was placed in a number of sensitive places in this plot. What are some of these places, and what role did despair play in this play?
Essay Topic 3
Lysander and Demetrius are almost mirror images of each other, and yet they have some notable differences. Using excerpts from the text, please compare and contrast these two characters and explain the significance they had in the plot.
This section contains 681 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:64b09ae0-54e1-447a-a638-551fbf836e0a> | {
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