Presentation on theme: "Planning for College What you need to know about the college admissions process."— Presentation transcript:
Planning for College What you need to know about the college admissions process
Simplify the College Planning Process College opportunities exist for everyone. These five steps can help simplify the planning process: 1. Understand your situation 2.Understand admissions factors 3.Learn about College Admission Testing 4.Explore college options 5.Develop a financial plan
What Do I Need To Know About Myself? G.P.A. G.P.A. SAT/ACT Scores SAT/ACT Scores Course Background Course Background Extra-curricular activities to support major interest Extra-curricular activities to support major interest Chances of acceptance if I meet general criteria Chances of acceptance if I meet general criteria Financial Resources Financial Resources Athletic or special talent Athletic or special talent Important school qualities Important school qualities Learning Style Learning Style
Factors colleges consider when looking at a student profile. Primary Factors -Quality/Rigor of Academic Courses -Academic Performance/ Grades Grade Point Average -Test Scores (ACT, SAT, SAT Subject Test, AP, etc.) Additional Factors -Extracurricular Activities -Essays -Letters of Recommendation -Demonstrated Interest
Explore College Options Now that you know what colleges are looking for, it’s time to put them to the test. Which colleges are right for you?
What to Consider Size and diversity of student body Location Academic programs Campus life –athletics, activities, housing Graduation and retention rates Financial aid and scholarship opportunities. Above all, think about where you will be the most happy and successful in your college life.
Visit Campuses Get to know a school from the inside: Take a campus tour. Speak with an admissions counselor. Ask about financial aid opportunities. Sit in on a class of interest. Read the student newspaper. Talk to students and faculty. Get to know a school from the inside. Explore College Options.
Get Organized and Apply Narrow and categorize your choices: -“Safety” schools (1 or 2) -“On Target” schools (3 to 4) -“Reach” schools (1 or 2)
Get Organized and Apply Know the deadlines for applications and application requirements. Review scholarship and financial aid requirements. Revise application essays and share drafts with a trusted teacher, advisor or family member. Ask for recommendations and set firm dates for their completion. Request transcripts and schedule interviews, if needed.
Community College 18% of SBHS students attend Community Junior Colleges Reasons why Community College is a good fit for some students: Cost Cost Grades Grades Readiness for College Readiness for College Uncertain Study Path Uncertain Study Path
FINANCIAL AID NIGHT DECEMBER 2, 2009 Presented by: Educational Funding Consultants Association 7:00 PM HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM
TESTING INFORMATION NIGHT JANUARY 20, 2010 PRESENTED BY REVOLUTION PREP 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM Understanding the PSAT Understanding the PSAT SAT vs. ACT SAT vs. ACT
Profile of SBHS Students Accepted Most Selective Very Selective Rutgers NJ State Schools (Ivy League) (EX: Duke, Tufts, Wellesley, TCNJ) (Main Campuses) (EX:Rowan, Ramapo, Montclair, Kean) (Ivy League) (EX: Duke, Tufts, Wellesley, TCNJ) (Main Campuses) (EX:Rowan, Ramapo, Montclair, Kean) Based on a sample of SBHS students who have been accepted to the above groups of colleges, here are the average statistics they presented - GPA # ACAD. UNITS UNITS # AP’s # HON’s SAT- V (CR) SAT- M
Research and Resources Naviance Naviance Test Prep Programs Test Prep Programs College Visits / Recruiting College Visits / Recruiting
NAVIANCE Powerful Web service for parents and students. College and career planning activities College and career planning activities Dynamic college search and comparison tools Dynamic college search and comparison tools Multimedia college profiles, with your school’s data Multimedia college profiles, with your school’s data Scattergrams of past applications from your school Scattergrams of past applications from your school Scheduled visits by college representatives Scheduled visits by college representatives Scholarships and aid opportunities Scholarships and aid opportunities News updates from your office or the school News updates from your office or the school
NAVIANCE Students can: Monitor college transcript requests Create resumes of their accomplishments Communicate with their counselor Conduct custom online surveys including personality profiles and career interests
College Representatives and College Visits College Representatives College Representatives Students should meet with reps of prospective colleges here or at fairs Students should meet with reps of prospective colleges here or at fairs Remember – every contact counts! Visit the Colleges you are interested in - Visit the Colleges you are interested in - First-hand experiences: significantly helpful in decision-making
Making a Decision Try to visit colleges where you’ve been accepted. Compare financial aid packages. Reply ON TIME and send your deposit. Get ready to graduate!
College Planning Recap Remember: College opportunities exist for everyone! Simplify the planning process: -Understand admissions factors. -Learn about College Admissions Testing. -Explore college options. -Develop a financial plan.
NOW WHAT? Your next steps should be to Register for SAT or ACT and plan to take 2 tests before the end of this year. Plan for SAT II- Subj. Area Tests if needed. Review your current grades and adjust your work level if needed. Assess your academic record prior to making course selections for senior year. Identify what about you makes you special (the “hook”).
Your next steps should be …… Clarify what you are looking for in a college and discuss criteria and parameters at home. Visit, visit, visit! Decide which teachers to ask for recommendations and do this before the end of junior year. Begin to develop resume of activities / honors – school and community. Oh, yeah …. Did we mention VISIT, VISIT, VISIT ?
GOOD LUCK Remember – there is no perfect school, nor is there just one “right” school for a student. Look for good matches and go with the best fit


Although Rubisco is responsible for the vast bulk of organic carbon on the surface of the Earth, its oxygenase activity can severely reduce photosynthetic efficiency. Some plants have evolved a way to minimize the oxygenase activity of Rubisco.
- Identify the conditions that increase oxygenase activity of Rubisco
- Describe how the oxygenase activity of Rubisco reduces photosynthetic efficiency
- Distinguish C3 and C4 schemes for carbon fixation
- Weigh the advantages and disadvantages of C3 versus C4
- Compare and contrast photosynthesis and respiration, and their relationship in the global carbon and oxygen cycles.
Rubisco’s oxygenase activity impairs photosynthetic efficiency
Rubisco has oxygenase activity as well as carboxylase activity; it sometimes fixes O2 to RuBP instead of CO2. The oxygenase activity occurs at low CO2, high O2 conditions, and becomes pronounced at high temperatures. As a result, organic carbon is oxidized, the opposite of photosynthesis, which reduces inorganic carbon to make organic carbon.
The oxygenation of RuBP produces 2-phosphoglycolate, a 2-carbon toxic compound which undergoes a series of reactions in the peroxisome and mitochondria, releasing CO2 and resulting in loss of organic carbon and energy production. This process is called photorespiration – an awfully misleading name for students, because it has nothing to do with respiration and yields no ATP. All Biol 1510 students need to remember about photorespiration is that it reduces photosynthetic efficiency, and that it occurs when Rubisco oxygenates RuBP instead of carboxylating RuBP.
Rubisco evolved even before oxygenic photosynthesis, when there was no oxygen in the atmosphere or in the ocean waters, so there was no selection against oxygenase activity. Nevertheless, in over 2 billion years, neither nature nor human genetic engineering has been able to eliminate or even significantly reduce the oxygenase activity of Rubisco without also affecting the carboxylase activity.
C4 plants have evolved a mechanism to deliver CO2 to Rubisco
In order for plants to take in CO2, they have to open structures called stomata on their leaves, which are pores that allow gas exchange. Plants also lose water vapor through their stomata, which means that they can die from dehydration in dry conditions as they keep their stomata open for photosynthesis. In response, plants close their stomata to prevent dehydration. The immediate* consequences of closed stomata in the short term are reduced CO2 concentration (CO2 levels decrease as it is utilized for photosynthesis) and increased O2 concentration (O2 levels increase as it is produced by photosynthesis). The rising O2 levels increase the rate of photorespiration (reaction of rubisco with oxygen instead of carbon dioxide), when then drastically reduces the efficiency of rubisco, which is already a very slow-working enzyme. So this means plants in dry conditions are at risk of dehydration if they open their stomata to promote gas exchange, or inability to produce sugar if they keep their stomata closed to minimize dehydration. (*the long-term consequence of permanently-closed stomata is death by suffocation as the mitochondria run out of oxygen to carry out respiration.)
Many plants which live in hot and/or dry conditions have evolved an alternative carbon fixation pathway to enhance the efficiency of rubisco so that they don’t have to keep their stomata open as much, and thus they reduce the risk of dying from dehydration. These plants are called C4 plants, because the first product of carbon fixation is a 4-carbon compound (instead of a 3-carbon compound as in C3 or “normal” plants). C4 plants use this 4-carbon compound to effectively “concentrate” CO2 around rubisco, so that rubisco is less likely re react with O2.
There are two important adaptations that allow C4 plants to do this:
- First, C4 plants use an alternate enzyme for the first step of carbon fixation. This enzyme is called phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) carboxylase, and it has no oxygenase activity and has a much higher affinity for CO2 than rubisco. As the name “PEP carboxylase” suggests, the enzyme attaches CO2 to a compound called phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP).
- Second, C4 plants have specialized leaf anatomy with two different types of photosynthetic cells: mesophyll cells (on the exterior of the leaf, near stomata) and bundle sheath cells (in the interior of the leaf, far away from stomata). Rubisco is located in bundle sheath cells, but not in mesophyll cells.
Here’s how all this works:
PEP carboxylase is located in the mesophyll cells, on the leaf exterior near the stomata. There is no rubisco in the mesophyll cells. CO2 entering the stomata is rapidly fixed by PEP carboxylase into a 4-carbon compound, called malate, by attaching the CO2 to PEP. The malate is then transported deeper into the leaf tissue to the bundle sheath cells, which are both far away from the stomata (and thus far away from oxygen) and contain rubisco. Once inside the bundle sheath cells, malate is decarboxylated to release pyruvate and CO2; the CO2 is then fixed by rubisco as part of the Calvin cycle, just like in C3 plants. Pyruvate then returns to the mesophyll cells, where a phosphate from ATP is used to regenerate PEP. Thus in C4 plants, C4 carbon fixation has a net added cost of 1 ATP for every CO2 delivered to rubisco; however, C4 plants are less likely to die of dehydration compared to C3 plants in dry conditions.
The image below illustrates the pathway we just described:
What Biol 1510 students need to remember about C4 is that these plants have added a CO2 concentration mechanism to feed rubisco and the Calvin cycle; the mechanism uses PEP carboxylase to initially make a 4-carbon compound, that then releases CO2 to rubisco in leaf cells that are exposed to little oxygen. While this mechanism reduces the oxygenase activity of rubisco, it has an extra energy cost in the form of another ATP per mole CO2 fixed.
If you want to know more, the video below gives a more thorough (albeit somewhat slow) illustration of this process:
Advantages and disadvantages of C4 and C3 carbon fixation
- C4 plants grow better than C3 plants under hot, dry conditions when plants must close their stomata to conserve water – with stomata closed, CO2 levels in the interior of the leaf fall, and O2 levels rise.
- C3 plants grow better than C4 plants under cool, moist conditions when plants can open their stomata, because C3 plants do not incur the additional cost of ATP of C4 carbon fixation.
Photosynthesis and Respiration: mirror images
The chemical equations for oxygenic photosynthesis and aerobic respiration are exactly the reverse of each other.
A balance between the global rates of photosynthesis (primary production) and global rates of respiration is needed to maintain stable atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and O2.
In eukaryotes, both photosynthesis and respiration occur in organelles with double membranes and their own circular genomes, that originated as prokaryotic endosymbionts.
Both processes have electron transport chains, chemiosmosis and ATP synthase powered by proton motive force.
The powerpoint slides used in the video screencasts are in the Carbon fixation slide set.


I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time tracing the alleged “mysteries” of Muslim and African “discoveries” of America, based largely on misconstrued texts from the journals of Christopher Columbus. After debunking nearly everything on the standard list of “evidence” for Muslim exploration of the pre-Columbian Caribbean, I need a little break. So today, let’s look at Columbus and Greek mythology. First, a fun passage from Columbus (as redacted by Bartolomé de Las Casas) on the events of January 9, 1493, during his first voyage:
El día passado, quando el almirante yva al río del oro dixo que vido tres serenas, que salieron bien alto de la mar; pero no eran tan hermosas como las pintan, que en alguna manera tenían forma de hombre en la cara. dixo que otras vezes vido algunas en Guinea en la costa de la Manegueta.
This passage has been used in the mermaid literature (and, sadly, there is an entire genre of mermaid pseudoscience) to suggest that Columbus actually saw mermaids, but even the Spanish authors who immediately followed in Columbus’s wake doubted this. Las Casas himself made note that these were almost certainly manatees. Columbus’s description echoes that of Oviedo in the Natural History of the Indies, where the writer describes (chap. 85) manatees as “of an ugly appearance.” Certainly, most later authors have understood this as referring to manatees.
It’s interesting that Columbus (via Las Casas) uses the word “serenas”—from the Sirens—to represent the mermaids. Sirens, of course, were bird-women in Greek myth, while mermaids were fish-women most fully developed in medieval lore. But since the sirens were associated with the sea, they became confused with mermaids.
Columbus also recorded an interesting legend of the native peoples of Cuba, about one-eyed men who lived somewhere to the southeast, in a land called Bohio, which Las Casas and later writers have suggested was meant to represent Hispaniola. From standard translations:
He also understood [from the Indians] that, far away, there were men with one eye [hombres de un ojo], and others with dogs’ noses who were cannibals, and that when they captured an enemy, they beheaded him and drank his blood, and cut off his private parts. (Nov. 4, 1492)
While this is hardly news—stories that the people beyond the shore were zany mutants and cannibals are nearly a human universal—what is interesting is that some Victorian writers tried to make this into proof of Greek mythology! Mary H. Hull, in her children’s book Columbus and What He Found (1892) renders these fellows into “one-eyed giants” before adding that “Homer couldn’t have invented the one-eyed man, for we see the North American Indians had the same story. How does it happen? Can anyone tell how it is that the Norsemen, the Arabians, the South Africans, the Greeks, and our Indians were always scaring themselves about the one-eyed man?”
Well, the obvious is that she’s pulled together unrelated ideas. The Greek myths have the Cyclopes, and these carry over to the Arabs, who borrowed the Polyphemus incident from the Odyssey wholesale for the voyages of Sinbad. That accounts for the Arabs. The Norse didn’t fear the one-eyed man, they worshiped him—the chief god, Odin, who gave one eye for wisdom. I will confess to being ignorant of what South African group had Cyclops myths.
But there is plenty of doubt whether the story Columbus reported the Taino people as relating to him is actually true. Columbus did not speak the language, nor did the Taino speak Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, or Aramaic, the languages of Columbus’s interpreter—who at any rate wasn’t there when the old man supposedly told Columbus about Cyclopes and dog-men.
Remember, Columbus thought that he was sailing to India, and he would have read up on what he should have been finding in India. Among the ancient testimonies would have been that of Ctesias whose account of India was preserved in Pliny’s Natural History (7.2) and more fully in Photius’ Library and described dog-headed men called cynocephali. Pliny: “On many of the mountains again, there is a tribe of men who have the heads of dogs, and clothe themselves with the skins of wild beasts. Instead of speaking, they bark; and, furnished with claws, they live by hunting and catching birds.” Photius’ version adds that they eat only raw meat. It’s probably worth mentioning that the same chapter of Pliny also discusses cannibalism and Cyclopes, though not in connection with India, as well as one-legged men and men with eyes in their shoulders, this time placed in India itself.
Columbus owned an Italian translation of Pliny published in Venice in 1489, and he quoted from Pliny in his writings. But we need not necessarily posit Pliny as the direct origin for the dog-nosed men of the Columbus account. The story continued through the Middle Ages, become ensconced as a staple of travel writing. Marco Polo cited them as well, placing them specifically on islands near India:
Angamanain is a very large Island. The people are without a king and are idolaters, and no better than wild beasts. And I assure you all the men of this Island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in the face they are all just like big mastiff dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel generation, and eat everybody that they can catch, if not of their own race.' They live on flesh and rice and milk, and have fruits different from any of ours. (Travels 3.13, trans. Henry Yule)
A nearly identical account occurs in John Mandeville and Friar Odoric, though without the spices. Now, what was Columbus looking for when he “heard” that dog-headed cannibals had an island nearby? Spices! In fact, the natives “told” him that the cannibal dog men lived where the cinnamon tress grew: “The Admiral showed the Indians some specimens of cinnamon and pepper he had brought from Castile, and they knew it, and said, by signs, that there was plenty in the vicinity, pointing to the S.E.” (Nov. 4, 1492). They then told him that the same direction was the home of cannibal dog people, as quoted above.
Surely this is no coincidence that the two accounts align point for point, from spices to dog faces to cannibalism. Columbus, remembering the passage from Marco Polo, has applied Polo’s geography of India to the Caribbean and imported with it the dog-faced men. (Different scholars suggest an origin in Ctesias/Pliny or naturally-occurring upturned noses and curly hair for Polo’s description.) Most modern scholars believe Columbus was applying European ideas of some type to half-understood Taino efforts at communication; several scholars have also linked this claim specifically to Polo’s passage, though so far as I know without linking in the coincidence of spices. (Someone must have noticed this, but I am unaware of who might have done so.)
Later, Columbus would return with drawings of dog-headed men to show the native people in the hopes of finding these medieval myths. Other Spanish conquistadors and missionaries claimed to hear tell of the entire bestiary of John Mandeville and Pliny, from the one-footed men (said to be in the Amazon jungle), to men with faces in their stomachs (in Venezuela, allegedly). As for the dog-men, well even Cortes had orders to search them out, though he failed to find them. A memorial to the search stood in the Franciscan monastery at Tepeaca, where the friars carved four of them into their fountain. The Turkish admiral Piri Reis, on the strength of Portuguese accounts and the records of Columbus, drew a dog-headed man in South America on his famous world map.
For nearly a century, the Spanish still tried to apply Pliny’s India to the Indies, until slowly but surely the old Classical stories faded before facts.
I am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.
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The History of New Iberia
by Glenn R. Conrad September 3, 1932 - June 4, 2003
What's in a town's name? Some names say little about the town or its inhabitants; others tie together diverse heritages to form a community. New Iberia is one of the later.
New Iberia was founded on the banks of Bayou Teche in 1779 by a group of Spaniards from Malaga. It is the only extant town in Louisiana to be founded by Spaniards during the Colonial Era. The Spanish pioneers called their town "Nueva Iberia" in consideration of their homeland. Their French neighbors along the Teche referred to the town as "Nouvelle Ibérie". Then, after the Louisiana Purchase, incoming English-speakers dubbed the site "New Town". In 1814, the Federal Government opened a post office here, and it was officially known as "New Iberia". Postmarks shortly thereafter reveal that the town was being called "Nova (Latin for new) Iberia" and "Nueva Iberia". Then, in 1839, the town was incorporated by the state legislature as "Iberia," to the consternation of French speakers who supported "Nouvelle Ibérie" and English speakers who favored "New Town". A compromise was worked out in 1847, and the legislature designated the town's name to be "New (not Nueva, Nova, or Nouvelle) Iberia". This exercise in nomenclature is, nevertheless, reflective of the town's varied cultural history. It does not, however, take into account the African-American contribution which was present from the beginning.
The Spanish pioneers found that most of the lands bordering Bayou Teche had already been granted to others. In time, however, they found a place for settlement on the third great bend of Bayou Teche. The site proved to be too small for the number of settlers, and many of the Spanish families began to move out onto the nearby prairies, particularly those to the south and west of a small lake which came to be called Spanish Lake. Here, they became planters and ranchers.
But the site of New Iberia, while it might not be able to support agriculture and ranching, remained a potentially good location for commerce. As the area around New Iberia became inhabited and merchants began to establish businesses in St. Martinville, some ten miles away, commercial interests set up warehouses at New Iberia for transshipping merchandise from New Orleans to the vast prairie country to the west. New Iberia was important in this regard because it was located at the start of a 25-mile bend of the bayou that flowed first easterly, then northward, and finally westward where the stream passed less than 2 miles from where the bend began. For merchants transporting goods in keelboats, flatboats, and schooners, it was far less time consuming and less expensive to land at New Iberia, unload their cargo onto carts and wagons, cross the narrow portage and reload boats waiting to take the merchandise upstream.
At the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth, some of the original owners of the large land grants began to subdivide them into small tracts, each having frontage on the bayou. Before long the west bank of the bayou in present-day downtown New Iberia became lined with the homes, warehouses and ancillary buildings of merchants or their agents. As late as 1819 the government surveyor, Leander Cathcart, reported that there were six houses, a general merchandise store, and a saloon at the place called New Iberia.
But 1819 marked a turning point in New Iberia's fortunes in that the Attakapas Steamboat Co. was organized. The following year the steamboat Teche arrived in New Iberia loaded with merchandise for the local merchants and prepared to take on freight for the return trip to New Orleans. Steamboat traffic increased measurably for the next 60 years transporting not only items of commerce but travelers as well. Only with the coming of the railroad in 1880 did steamboating begin to decline. The last working steamboat, a towboat, passed through New Iberia in 1943. An era had ended. Since then diesel-powered towboats pushing barges of sugar continue to ply the bayou.
The years between 1820 and 1860 saw the town grow and prosper. But town expansion was hampered by the fact that the still unincorporated town was hemmed in by plantations on the east and the west. Between these larger plantations were smaller ones which today would be in the heart of downtown New Iberia's commercial district. The first of these plantations was subdivided and lots were sold in 1829. Next to this first subdivision was the plantation of Frederick Henry Duperier, who in 1831 subdivided a portion of it and donated land in 1837 for the construction of St. Peter's Catholic Church. In March 1839 acting upon the petition of Duperier, the state legislature incorporated the town, bestowing on it the name "Iberia", to the consternation of the French-speaking population who thought it should be "Nouvelle Ibérie" and the English speakers who opted for "New Town." Finally, in 1847 the legislature compromised and gave the town the name New (not Nueva, Nova, or Nouvelle) Iberia.
In September 1839 New Iberians experienced their first bout with yellow fever. The epidemic spread up and down the Teche. Almost every family counted at least one victim of the scourge with others greatly debilitated by it. During the epidemic, a black woman named Félicité, a native of Santo Domingo, Haiti, apparently immune to the virus, worked day and night nursing the sick, comforting the dying, and arranging for burial of the dead. Today, a marker stands before City Hall attesting to the heroism of this angel of mercy in a time of pestilence.
The 1840s and 1850s passed quietly for New Iberians. Portions of the two large plantations flanking the town were subdivided in the 1850s providing more town lots for anticipated future growth. What New Iberians did not know was that these years were the proverbial calm before the storm. Elsewhere in the country, however, the 1850s witnessed the growth of intense sectionalism which ultimately would rend the Union and result in civil war. The war not only brought death and destruction to New Iberians and their neighbors, it also brought economic stagnation to the region. Throughout the four years of the Civil War, the Teche country fell prey to the foraging of both Confederate and Union armies. The plantation system was completely disrupted as slavery ended and the freedmen sought to forge a new future for themselves. New Iberia was occupied briefly by Union forces in April and May 1863 during the Teche Campaign. The campaign had been designed by Union commanders to strip the Teche region's capability of supporting Confederate forces. Thus anything of any value was gathered together and placed on wagons which resulted in an eight-mile-long wagon train headed for Morgan City and then to New Orleans. The countryside lay prostrate.
New Iberia was again occupied by Union forces in October, 1863, as part of the Great Texas Overland Expedition and would remain in federal hands until the end of the war. The war had brought death and misery and with its end New Iberians and their neighbors hoped that the time had come for a return to normalcy. The next decade or so would dash their hopes.
Agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, was so disrupted by the war emancipation of the African-American workforce, and lack of investment capital, that it would take two decades to recover. Mississippi River floods in 1865 and 1866 destroyed much of the cotton, corn, and sugarcane of the region. Crops that escaped the floods froze in the fields in the winter of 1865-66. There was no one to harvest them. In 1866 and 1867 insects ravaged corn and cotton, resulting in little or no harvest.
If nature dealt bodyblows to New Iberians and others in the region, the worst was yet to come. Beginning in July 1867, a yellow fever epidemic swept the Teche country and within four months resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. In June 1870 a fire broke out in a store on New Iberia's Main Street, resulting in the destruction of approximately one-half of the town's commercial district. Truly, in the 1860s New Iberia had been visited by the sword, fire, and pestilence.
But before the end of the decade, change was in the wind. In 1868 Iberia Parish (county) was created and New Iberia was named the seat of parish government. At first, only rented space served as the courthouse, but by 1884 a new courthouse stood on a beautifully landscaped lot in downtown New Iberia, the present-day site of Bouligny Plaza. This courthouse served the parish until 1940 when the present courthouse was built on Iberia Street, two blocks from the downtown commercial district. Before the century ended, New Iberians built the town's first city hall which stood next to the first courthouse. In 1937, this building was demolished and the second city hall was built on the site. The present City Hall located on East Main St., some two blocks from downtown, was constructed in 1965.
An event of major importance to New Iberia was the coming of the railroad with its impact on the economy and transportation. The railroad was originally scheduled to be built through New Iberia in 1859, but the onset of the Civil War and its aftermath delayed that construction for 20 years. In late 1879, the first passenger train pulled into New Iberia from New Orleans. The following year it was possible for New Iberians to travel by rail to Houston. A few years later a spur line was built to Avery Island and then on to Abbeville. The products of those areas now flowed into New Iberia for trans-shipment to other parts of the nation.
The railroad helped introduce a new industry to New Iberia in the 1880s—lumbering. The great virgin cypress forests within a few miles of the town attracted the attention of northern lumber companies. They were soon on the scene and the harvest of these magnificent trees had begun. Sawmills, planing mills, shingle mills, sash and door factories hummed day and night for the better part of forty years. New Iberia was given an opportunity to pull its economy up by the bootstraps after the dismal years of the Civil War and Reconstruction. It is said that New Iberia produced trainload after trainload of cypress shingles to roof homes in Kansas and Nebraska and supplied homeowners of the Midwest with cypress cisterns.
During the 1880s and 1890s New Iberia was home to five brick factories manufacturing bricks and tile pipe. Foundries built and repaired steamboat and sugar mill machinery. Food processing and packaging plants became an important part of the town's economy. Three rice mills operated in the town at the turn of the century. A wagon works, founded in the late 1870s, operated for nearly one hundred years. These wooden wagons were indispensable for sugarcane, rice, and cotton farmers until the era of mechanization dawned. In the 1930s and 1940s, many of these wagons were sold to Hollywood and appeared in "cowboy " movies. Finally, in 1920, the town became host to the Charles Boldt Paper Mill, which manufactured boxboard from rice straw.
In the early 1900s New Iberia was abuzz with activity as salesmen and buyers visited the town to buy and sell. Main Street, though as yet unpaved, was filled with buggies, wagons, carts, and jitneys, all horse or mule drawn. But with the new century came new ideas in the area of transportation. The automobile appeared on Main Street in 1903, and a few years later, a interurban trolley line was laid on Main Street and ran twelve miles to Jeanerette. Now, people living in the countryside could easily ride the "streetcar" to do their shopping and enjoy sporting events in New Iberia. Children could attend New Iberia and Jeanerette schools without a thought given to the condition of roads.
But if this was an evolving picture of the ideal small American town, an ugly stain was appearing— not only in New Iberia, but also in towns and cities across the South—racial segregation. Jim Crow came to town in the 1890s and, like the man who came to dinner, extended his stay—for seventy-five years or more. Three generations of African Americans were condemned to live as outcasts in their homeland—simply because their skin was black. Their industry, their ideas, and, indeed, their feelings were not to be a matter for consideration for decades. Only with the passage of time "on the cross" did this minority and others come to be regarded as individuals, as a community, and as Americans entitled to our country's bounty.
As New Iberians looked forward to the turn of the century with expectations of progress and prosperity, tragedy enveloped the town on the night of October 10, 1899. Shortly after 6:00 p.m., someone in a downtown store screamed "Fire"! Storekeepers and customers raced into Main Street just as the flames leaped above the roofs of this primarily wooden commercial district. With no municipal water system yet installed (voters had approved a bond issue for this purpose the previous August), New Iberians and people from St. Martinville and Jeanerette fought to contain the fire in a one square block area. After six hours of struggle by bucket brigades and a small fire brigade, the fire's spread was halted. Ironically, an hour later, after months of drought, rain began to fall on the town. As the century closed, New Iberians began rebuilding the stores of nearly one-half of the commercial district. A lesson had been learned concerning wooden structures crowded together. The rebuilt stores were constructed of brick with metal roofs and decorative metal facades. Today many of the buildings built in 1900 still stand, albeit with updated facades. One building, which served as a firebreak because it was constructed of brick and had a metal roof, the Gouguenheim Building, has been recently restored to its original turn-of-the-century appearance. Restoration work is proceeding on other downtown buildings.
An event of major importance to New Iberia and all of Southwest Louisiana was the discovery of oil and natural gas that led to the development of the present-day oil industry that plays such a major role in the state's economy. Oil exploration near New Iberia resulted in the opening of the Little Bayou Oil Field in 1917. Nearly ninety years later that field is still in production. A great boost to the industry occurred just after World War II when the technology became available for off-shore drilling. Drilling platforms began to dot Vermilion Bay and steadily marched out onto the continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico. All of this activity led directly to the development of the Port of Iberia. Today, the port is a beehive of activity with 70 industries producing over $200,000,000 in retail sales annually.
All along New Iberians have worked hard, but beginning in the twentieth century found more time for entertainment. Although bands, dances, showboats, horse races, and other entertainment were well known in New Iberia before the Civil War, these pastimes were usually small in scope and attendance. Only the Centennial Celebration of American Independence was done on such a scale as to attract thousands to the events occurring in New Iberia. After the Civil War, however, there were few displays of patriotism, with the exception of the Centennial Celebration. For the most part, the old pastimes seemed to persist together with a circus now and then. Beginning in the last quarter of the nineteenth century brass bands became quite popular, particularly the municipal brass bands. As was happening all over America, Sunday afternoons in New Iberia usually found a brass band playing in front of the courthouse. City bands were a part of the towns entertainment for nearly 100 years. In the 1890s and the first two decades of the twentieth century, a favorite entertainment for New Iberians were wild west shows. Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show thrilled New Iberians in 1895. The most famous wild west show, "The King of Them All", Col. W. D. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, came to town in 1902.
But perhaps the favorite pastime of the community, as it was across America, was baseball. The game was played on sandlots dotting the town and led to the formation of a municipal team that challenged similar teams from nearby. The first recorded intercity contest was between the New Iberia Quicksteps and the St. Martin Attakapas Club in the 1870s. Semi-professional baseball came to New Iberia in 1920 when the local team became a club in the Texas League. The team dissolved in 1924. Ten years later professional baseball was introduced into New Iberia as the town's team and became a charter member of the Evangeline League. It served as a farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals. Prior to dissolution of the club in 1957, the New Iberia franchise furnished a host of players to St. Louis, including pitchers Mel Parnel, Red Monger, and Terry Fox.
Football was introduced into New Iberia in 1904 when the Central High School team was organized and played in intercity contests. These contests continue to the present with teams drawn from the city's high schools. A long-standing pastime of New Iberians has been and remains the little theater productions of the New Iberia Little Theater beginning in 1923 and continuing to today with the Little Theater's successor IPAL. Fishing and boating in the myriad waterways of south Louisiana not only bring relaxation and enjoyment but also an array of delectable seafood for the regions outstanding cuisine.
Movie theaters have a long history in New Iberia. A local opera house sponsored the first silent movie in 1905. By 1914 there were three movie houses entertaining local folk. Then, fans of motion pictures increased significantly with the coming of the "talkies". By the late 1930s, and throughout the World War II years, the town boasted four movie houses that were usually jammed with patrons in the evenings and on the weekends. Only with the coming of television and later the home video did the town's patronage of the traditional movie house begin to wane. Nevertheless, a modern movie complex with six screens offers the townspeople the opportunity "to go to the movies."
Parades, pageants, and special events have always fascinated New Iberians who give widespread support to these activities. In 1979 townspeople celebrated the bicentennial of the founding of the town. Ten years later there was a week-long celebration of the sesquicentennial of New Iberia's incorporation. Today, there are carnival krewes that annually provide lavish parades and balls. The three-day annual Sugarcane Festival and Fair, occurring in late September, sponsors street parades on two days of the event and a boat parade on Bayou Teche. The Sugar Festival also includes the staging of a contest among representatives from the sugar parishes for the title of Queen Sugar. In October the town enjoys the annual Gumbo Cookoff, a contest that pits culinary skills of participants to determine who is the very best gumbo maker in the world. Throughout the year Shadows-on-the-Teche, an antebellum home that is the property of the National Trust For Historic Preservation, is the site for many public exhibitions, lectures, children's programs, and re-enactments.
New Iberians enter the twenty-first century proud of their many past accomplishments, prepared to meet the challenges of the new century, and devoted to the concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.


|Born||May 18 1915|
|Died||May 12 1984|
|Birth Location||Kauai, HI|
Dr. Tamie Tsuchiyama (1915–84), a Nisei born in Kaua'i, Hawai'i, was the only Japanese American woman to work full-time for the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS). Because of various constraints, including the then clandestine nature of the project, Tsuchiyama suffered a great deal of anxiety and stress while carrying out research in the War Relocation Authority camp known as Poston (Colorado River). By 1944, she resigned from JERS, left camp, and volunteered for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps [WAAC]. Although she never published anything on mass incarceration, Tsuchiyama kept an extensive "sociological journal," and generated a series of short ethnographic reports that have been utilized by later generations of scholars.
Before the War
Tamie Tsuchiyama, was the youngest of three siblings, born on May 18, 1915 to Issei immigrant parents who lived near the town of Lihue on the island of Kaua'i, then Territory of Hawai'i. Although somewhat sickly as a child, Tsuchiyama was scholastically oriented and did well in her studies. After graduating from Lihue Grammar School, she attended Kauai High School where she pursued an academic track and graduated in 1933.
Starting her undergraduate studies at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa campus, she discovered anthropology there after studying with Dr. Felix M. Keesing. When Keesing encouraged Tsuchiyama to apply to UCLA to continue her studies, she transferred in 1936 and worked with Dr. Ralph Beals. But because Beals had just started the anthropology department, Tsuchiyama decided to transfer again to the University of California, Berkeley campus because it had one the largest and most established programs on the West Coast. Arriving in the fall of 1937, Tsuchiyama finished her B.A. "with honors" in one year, and then was admitted to graduate school in anthropology in 1938. She studied with some of the top anthropologists of the day, including A.L. Krober, Robert H. Lowie, and Paul Radin. When the war broke out, Tsuchiyama was an advanced Ph.D.-level student who only needed to complete her dissertation to finish her degree.
Working for JERS
When the war broke out, Tsuchiyama decided not to return to Hawai'i. Observing the impending crisis, she told her mentor Robert Lowie that she felt a great sympathy for the Japanese Americans who were being removed. Lowie recommended her to Dorothy S. Thomas as a possible fieldworker for the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS). Tsuchiyama decided to let herself be incarcerated, partly with the idea of studying first-hand what was going on.
Removed from Los Angeles in May 1942, with her good friend Edith Kodama's family, Tsuchiyama was sent to and did an initial stint of fieldwork in Santa Anita, a Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) camp (a.k.a., "assembly center"), writing up brief reports on different topics. In the process, she decided to work for JERS full-time, and start fieldwork at one of the ten more permanent War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps.
Assigned to the WRA camp known as Poston (a.k.a., The Colorado River Relocation Center), she arrived there on August 11, 1942.
Briefly recruited by Alexander Leighton for the Bureau of Sociological Research, Tsuchiyama considered working for both research units. After a three month trial period, however, Tsuchiyama found that she preferred JERS, and so she re-confirmed her status as Dorothy Thomas's full-time researcher in Unit I of the Poston camp.
For the next year, Tsuchiyama did extensive fieldwork in Poston's Unit I; kept a wide-ranging sociological journal; and composed a number of topically-specific ethnographic reports for Dorothy Thomas. During that period, she ran into one of her elder sister Hisako's acquaintances: a younger oya-no-yobiyose Issei (or an Issei who had been called to America by his parents) named Richard Shigeaki Nishimoto.
A bilingual, biliterate Issei, Tsuchiyama recognized Nishimoto's great potential as a research associate so she formally hired him to work for her in April 1943. Between them, Tsuchiyama and Nishimoto did a great deal of useful documentary research for Thomas having to do with daily life in Poston. Because they wanted to avoid being labeled as spies for the government or the WRA, Tsuchiyama and Nishimoto kept their research activities a secret.
Despite their constant level of data production, by 1943 Tsuchiyama's letters to Thomas began to delineate the tremendous stress that she was experiencing as a clandestine fieldworker in Unit I. Tsuchiyama began to complain about the intolerable Poston heat, the pressures of getting access to inside information, and having to write high-quality reports. Eventually, the pressure became too much. Tsuchiyama send in her letter of resignation in July 1944, and sought release from Poston in order to join the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps [WAAC]. Initially sent to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, Tsuchiyama studied Japanese intensively, and then worked translating materials for the United States Army at the Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section at Camp Richie, Maryland.
After the War
After release from service, Tsuchiyama returned to Berkeley where between 1946 and 1947 she finished her Ph.D. dissertation. A treatise on Athabascan folklore, Tsuchiyama became the first Japanese American and the first Asian American to complete a doctorate in anthropology at Berkeley, one of the leading departments in the country.
In late 1947, Dr. Tsuchiyama sought employment with the U.S. government overseas operation run by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). She spent three years working for SCAP as a researcher in occupied Japan. In that capacity she carried out extensive fieldwork, some of which was published by Arthur F. Raper in a study titled The Japanese Village in Transition.
Returning to the U.S.A. in late 1951, Dr. Tsuchiyama was unable to find a job in academia. She thus decided to return to school, again to UC Berkeley, this time earning a master's degree in library science in 1954. After taking a series of different jobs as a university librarian, in 1956 Dr. Tsuchiyama decided to move to Texas. There she joined her older sister, Hisako, who was married and living near Austin. Because of her language skills, Dr. Tsuchiyama was able to secure a position at the University of Texas, where she oversaw what was then called the "Oriental Library" that held the campus's large Asian language collection. She remained there until she retired in the mid-1970s. Almost ten years later, nearly blind, and still in Texas, Dr. Tamie Tsuchiyama passed away on May 12, 1984.
Because she never published anything based on her JERS research, Tamie Tsuchiyama's Poston fieldnotes and reports had been largely forgotten. In the 1980s, encouraged by the late Yuji Ichioka, scholars began to re-consider the vast amounts of data that had been generated by JERS fieldworkers in various WRA camps, including Richard S. Nishimoto and Tamie Tsuchiyama's Poston research. Specifically, Ichioka encouraged Lane Hirabayashi to research and write biographies of both Nishimoto and Tsuchiyama since nothing biographical had even been published about either individual by the late 1980s.
Publishing a short critical biography, The Politics of Fieldwork, Hirabayashi proposed that Tsuchiyama's relationship with Thomas and JERS could well stand as an example of how race, class, and gender operated in terms of the traditional relationship between a Euro-American professor and researcher, and an aspiring person of color who was hired as an assistant: typically the data collection efforts of the latter were never really acknowledged, either in print or in terms of facilitation into a professional career. Hirabayashi also echoed Ichioka's caveats: while it is easy to condemn JERS researchers for lapses, especially if one adopts today's ethical standards, one needs also to assess the quantity and quality of JERS data before throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
For More Information
Hayashi, Brian M. Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese American Internment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo. Politics of Fieldwork: Research in an American Concentration Camp. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1999.
Raper, Arthur F. The Japanese Village in Transition. General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, 1950.


Huge Maya City found near Belize and Mexico border line: Noh Kah
According to Mexican Newspapers the Archaeologists from the National Institue of Anthropology and History (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) (INAH) confirmed today that there is an Ancient Mayan City approximated to be about 84 acres and is located in the jungles around the border line of Quintana Roo and Belize. The Ancient Mayan City was named Noh Kah, meaning Large City, and is believed to have existed more than one thousand five hundred years ago.
In a statement released, INAH claim that with the assistance of members of the communities of San Francisco Botes and Rovirosa, specialists were able to perform a topographic survey of the Ancient Mayan City, which is covered by the forest on the bank of the Rio Hondo. Noh Kah is located about 7 miles from the Belize / Mexican Border line and about 37 miles away from the city of Chetumal.
Members of the communities of San Francisco Botes and Rovirosa first discovered the Ancient Mayan City when they found a huge wall made of stone and covered in vines hanging over the side, which for them was clear that it was evidence of an Ancient City that had been eaten by the jungle long ago. According to archeologists there is data showing that Noh Kan existed since the Early Period (250 – 600 AD). The institute also reported that for the past two years, specialists from the National School of Anthropology and History (Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia) (ENAH) in coordination with the National Institue of Anthropology and History (INAH) managed to collect various ceramic materials.
According to archaeologist Javier Lopez Camacho who is in charge of the survey, Noh Kah belongs to a very important area of Quintana Roo, which is the bank of the Rio Hondo River located adjacent to the country of Belize where monumental sites are extended with data relevant the historical reconstruction of what is now known as Dzibanche and Kohunlich as well as others. Noh Kah may even provide knowledge about the influence of the Kaan Dynasty in Southern Quintana Roo as they have found glyphs of a serpents head similar to ones found at Mayan Sites such as El Resbalon, Dzibanche, Pol Box and even at Los Alacranes in Campeche.
According to archaeologist Javier Lopez Camacho there are a total of six smaller cities located inside the huge city of Noh Kah which have been named:
- El Corozal
- El Pich
- El Paredon
- El Pocito
- El Viente
- Hop Na
All six cities are seperated by a distance ranging between 0.5 and 3 miles.Archaelogist Javier Lopez Camacho also claims that it is interesting that Noh Kah was built in a way that allowed the huge city to be very difficult to be seen by air which is believed why it has not been found until now. The smaller cities within Noh Kah are made up of different groups that assisted in the survival of the entire city.


SEWAGE SLUDGE INCINERATION WILL BECOME AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE ENERGY LANDSCAPE IN GERMANY.
SEWAGE SLUDGE INCINERATION WILL CONTRIBUTE TO RENEWABLE ENERGY THROUGH PHOSPHORUS RECOVERY AND ENERGY PURCHASE AGREEMENTS.
1. The future of mono-incineration plants for sewage sludge treatment looks bright
In my last article, I have outlined why mono-incineration plants for sewage sludge will grow in importance. I want to explain this in more detail. Sewage sludge has to be dried before it is being used in mono incineration plants, and although it has a very low calorific value, it is possible to generate electricity from the incineration process which can be fed into the electricity grid. Another major advantage of sewage sludge is the production of biogas and methane, which can be used in industrial plants nearby.
One of the major disadvantages is that sewage sludge plants are often found near major urban agglomerations, whereas in agricultural areas, there is still significant potential to exploit sewage sludge, but the very fact that the sewage plants are at quite a distance to urban centers means that it is more costly to transport the material to the mono-incineration plants. With growing distance, it becomes more and more unattractive to deliver the material to mono-incineration plants, where sewage sludge can be used to produce energy, and to remove phosphorus from the input material.
In some countries, Austria is one good example that comes to my mind, it is not very common to deliver sewage to sewage plants, simply because the pipes only exist in urban agglomerations. That also means the sewage has to be stored at storage sites, and is collected by municipalities that transport the sewage material to treatment facilities. Due to transportation issues it is generally preferred to transport dried residuals, which eliminates some of the toxins.
2. Agricultural usage and sewage sludge treatment
As we now know, toxins are a major issue limiting the use of sewage sludge in agriculture. It has been found that the uranium content, for example, contained within the sewage sludge has risen over time due to the fact that certain layers of rock in Western Sahara contain significant amounts of uranium. That is partly the reason why the German government has ruled that sewage sludge can no longer be used as fertilizer in agriculture, even though it also contains significant amounts of nitrogen.
Just as phosphorus, nitrogen is a natural fertilizer for plants. As the soil depletes of nutrients over time, as has happened in the United States for the past 100 years, especially in the American Midwest, more fertilizer is needed to keep up agricultural production. It is fairly easy to produce nitrogen, but extremely difficult for producers to find more phosphorus, which cannot be produced synthetically at an industrial scale like nitrogen.
The stakes are high; and mono-incineration plants help increase energy production from environmentally-friendly sources, while at the same time they get rid of waste, and produce phosphorus rock as a suitable alternative to mining. It helps reduce one’s dependence on one sole supplier supplying this commodity globally. But it will not help the long-term decline of phosphorus found on fields, because phosphorus is washed out and fed into rivers, which deposit phosphorus in the oceans.
3. The phosphorus cycle
The phosphorus cycle means that phosphorus is used up much much faster than it can be replenished by us. In essence, mining non-detrital sedimentary rock will not solve the problem of replenishing phosphorus, nor will the fact that we incinerate dried sewage sludge to obtain phosphorus, and produce energy while we are doing it.
One can easily see that there is great potential to use mono-incineration plants to burn sewage sludge world-wide. There is enormous potential in the U.S., which has been pointed out by Jordan Peccia and Paul Westerhoff in their paper on “We Should Expect More Out of Our Sewage Sludge” which was published by Environmental Science & Technology in 2015. In the U.S. alone, 7.2 dry tons of sewage sludge are produced every year. A lot of it is being wasted, the phosphorus is washed out from the soil. In the United States, only 15% of all sludge from sewage plants are being incinerated.
What makes matters even worse is that the United States first uses up its domestic supplies of phosphorus, making the U.S. more dependant on imports, and in the period from 2013 to 2016 imports from Morocco alone accounted for 32% according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Whereas the U.S. produced 27,700 tonnes of phosphorus rock in 2017, Morocco produced 27,000 tons, which is roughly the same amount. The real differences are staggering: United States reserves stood at 1 million tons, while Morocco’s reserves were 50 million tons! The Moroccan figures obviously include Western Sahara.
Germany and Austria also incinerate roughly 15% of their sewage sludge, similar to the U.S., but Germany is expected to increase that ratio significantly due to a new regulatory measure in place which says that by 2029 no sludge will be allowed to be used in agriculture. This was detailed in a research study by the German government.
4. Future growth potential of sewage sludge treatment
But the benefits of treating sewage sludge through incineration go much further, because the sewage sludge ash (SSA) produced from the incineration process can be incorporated in cementitious materials such as Portland cement, as has been pointed out by D. Vouk, D. Nakic, N. Stirmer and C.R. Cheeseman. Sewage sludge ash is particularly suitable for Portland cement admixture and to use can be used as a substitute for other materials. Sewage sludge ash will become more widely available in the European Union, as more sewage sludge is thermally treated.


Your Financial Future:
Single Older African American Women And Poverty
Since the 1970s, the number of people over age 65 who are poor has declined dramatically—from more than one in four to fewer than one in ten today. Unfortunately, these numbers do not provide the whole picture. For single older women, the reduction in poverty has not been nearly as positive.
While the poverty rate for all women aged 65 and older is 10.7 percent—just over one in ten—the poverty rate for single women (“unrelated individual females”) is almost twice as high at 17.4 percent.
African American Women and Retirement Income: Statistics
- By the year 2050, experts are projecting that there will be at least five times more minority women and men aged 65 and older.
- Black women earn an average of $471,000 less than the average white man over a 35-year career. As low-income workers, they are less likely to have access to employee benefits. (1)
- Minority women are less likely to work in jobs covered by pensions. Eighty percent of African American women received none of their income from private pensions or annuities in 2008.(2)
- The poverty rate for single African American women over age 65 is 32.5 percent, for single Hispanic women, 43.7 percent, while for white women, it is only 15.3 percent. (1)
- The average Social Security retired worker benefit received by black women is only $997 monthly or $11,964 annually—well below the poverty threshold.
- Almost half of all single older women receive less than $750 a year in asset income.
Sources: (1) Census, 2010.
(2) Social Security Administration. Income of the Population 55 or Older, 2008. April 2010.


A year ago, Alaska Senator Tad Stevens became the dunce of the day when he referred to the Internet as a “series of tubes" on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Stevens's wording might have been crude, but it raised an honest question. What, exactly, is the Internet?
Recently in Subfeatures 1 Category
Neuroscientist Dan Kersten works to understand how the space in front of us is processed visually by the brain, allowing us to negotiate on a second-to-second basis--driving a car through traffic, maneuvering a pen over paper, dribbling a basketball toward a net. Learn more.
Kale Fajardo finds that despite the idea that we live in a small world, the connections that space and technology facilitate can also reinforce cultural identification.
On a recent stroll down the Mall in Washington, D.C., Elaine Tyler May flashed on a conversation she'd had almost two decades ago inside the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. Her son Daniel, ten at the time, had been gazing, mouth agape, at the planes suspended from the ceiling.
We may take for granted the spaces we inhabit, but CLA scholars who study space and place don't. From the cul-de-sacs of suburbs to the berths of trans-Pacific cargo ships, we shape and inhabit space—and are shaped by it—in ways that have profound implications in our lives.
By Danny LaChance


Bamboo can play an important role in sustainable development. By avoiding the introduction of running species through a robust assessment of the risks of invasion and the introduction of good forestry management practices, countries can enjoy the full benefits, while substantially reducing the risks of invasiveness. – Bamboos and Invasiveness (2016)
When the topic of bamboo is discussed, the issue of invasiveness often arises. How safe is it to introduce bamboo species into a country, and what are the risks? As one of the key causes of biodiversity loss, invasiveness is an important question to consider in countries which are considering bamboo, such as in Europe and North America.
The short answer to this question is that there are some 1600 bamboo species, with a huge variety of characteristics. Bamboo is already used in many countries around the world as a key tool for reforestation, land restoration and poverty alleviation. Rather than avoiding bamboo, we need to better understand which species pose a risk, and how these can be managed.
A recent piece of research, commissioned by INBAR and published in 2016, analyses the types of invasive bamboo and the methods that countries can adopt to mitigate these risks. The report shows that, “although some bamboo species are known to be invasive, particularly ‘running’ bamboo species… many are not invasive and pose no threat to natural environments.” Moreover, the main cause of bamboo invasiveness is through intentional introduction, rather than accidentally – meaning that with proper guidelines and management, it is possibly to vastly decrease any threat to the environment.
There are two main types of bamboo: sympodial (clumping) and monopodial (running). With a few exceptions, tropical woody bamboo species that are found mostly in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia are clumping types and are not invasive. Running bamboo species, particularly those belonging to the genus Phyllostachys, are responsible for the majority of cases of aggressive spread. This is because of their extensive rhizome systems, which enable running bamboos to spread easily and make it harder to remove all parts of the plant.
Fortunately, there is a wealth of advice available on how to recognize and manage invasive species. Governments and organisations have access to knowledge resources on the ecology, distribution, pathways of introduction, spread, impacts and management of invasive species. The INBAR report lists a number of strategic resources which stakeholders can consider and summarises some of the relevant case studies from Australia, Japan, and the USA.
As the report makes clear, there are a number of easy ways to reduce the risks of bamboo invasion. Prevention is the first line of defence. Preventative measures include outreach and awareness raising – for example, on the types of bamboo that display invasive traits, suitability of species for the stated purpose, and advocating responsible use; assessing the risks of introducing bamboo species by undertaking location and species specific risk assessments; and enacting legislation and regulations have been used by countries to restrict the planting and use of certain species of bamboo.
Even in situations where invasive species are present, the risk posed to the environment can be substantially reduced through effective management strategies. For areas where invasive species have taken root, there are a number of options for removal: from digging up clumps and roots, to creating physical barriers which prevent the spread of rhizomes, and the use of specific pesticides. Put together, these methods “substantially reduce” the threat to the environment.
As Dr Arne Witt , Coordinator of Invasive Species Management (South) on behalf of the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, makes clear, the key to managing invasive risks is to introduce species carefully, and only when needed: “There is a need to address the real drivers behind land degradation, including deforestation, instead of trying to address the symptoms with short-term solutions [like introduced species] which will not resolve the issue in the long-term.” Witt also mentions the need to support developing countries in assessing risks, as “developing countries often lack the capacity to undertake detailed risk assessments and don’t have the means to develop and implement early detection and rapid response systems.”
With a spread of over 30 million hectares, growing locally to some of the poorest communities in the world, bamboo can be a hugely effective tool for rural development, climate change mitigation and environmental protection. The sooner countries understand and manage the risks, the sooner we can work to realise bamboo’s full potential for the Sustainable Development Goals. INBAR welcomes anyone with questions to get in touch at email@example.com.
To read the INBAR-commissioned report, Bamboos and Invasiveness, please click here.
Dr. Witt’s work on invasiveness can be read in full at: Witt, A.B.R. 2016. Use of non-native species for poverty alleviation in developing economies. In: M. Vilà, P.E. Hulme. (Eds.) Impact of Biological Invasions on Ecosystem Services. Invading Nature – Springer Series in Invasion Ecology, 12, 295-310. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-45121-3_19


Do Spirits Haunt Cincinnati Music Hall ?
If music can, indeed, calm the hearts of wild animals, might it not also calm the restless spirits of those who have died and wander the earth as ghosts? John Kachuba, author of Ghosthunting Ohio cannot think of any better place to find the answer to that question than at Cincinnati Music Hall.
Built in 1878, the redbrick Victorian Gothic structure rises majestically on the corner of 14th and Elm streets. Central Parkway runs parallel to the rear of the building now, but when Music Hall first opened its doors, that thoroughfare was actually the Miami Canal. Designed by a local architectural firm, the edifice is eccentric, with its garrets, turrets, gables, insets, nooks, broken surfaces and planes, and ornate rose window. Some witty Cincinnatians have dubbed the style “Sauerbraten Byzantine.”
The building is located upon the site where the tin-roofed wooden Sangerhalle once stood, a hall built by a German immigrant singing society, the Saengerbund, for its May Festivals. But there is also a more somber atmosphere associated with other former occupants of the site. The present Music Hall rests upon the foundations of the 1844 Orphan Asylum. Before that, it was the Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum with its Pest House, a section for the indigent with contagious diseases. A potter’s field also occupied the site, the final resting place for suicides and strangers, the indigent and homeless of Cincinnati, as well as those who died in the Pest House. These unfortunates were buried without the benefit of coffins; they were simply bundled up and dropped into the earth. Over the years, there have been many renovations to Music Hall and human bones have often been unearthed during construction.
“This rich yellow soil, fat with the human flesh and bone and brain it has devoured, is being disemboweled by a hundred spades and forced to exhibit its ghastly secrets to the sun…you will behold small Golgothas—mingled with piles of skulls, loose vertebrae, fibulas, tibias and the great curving bones of the thigh…All are yellow, like the cannibal clay which denuded them of their fleshly masks…Bone after bone…is turned over with a scientific application of kicks…dirty fingers are poked into empty eyesockets…ribs crack in pitiful remonstrance to reckless feet; and tobacco juice is carelessly squirted among the decaying skulls…by night there come medical students to steal the poor skulls.”
Hearn reported that the dead began to make themselves known to the living just shortly after these macabre discoveries were made. Shadowy figures roamed the halls at night, and ghostly dancers were seen in the ballroom on the second floor. One exhibitor at a business fair in Music Hall saw a young, pale woman in old-fashioned clothing standing by his booth. As he approached her, he felt a sudden rush of cold air as the figure became transparent then disappeared. Hearn wrote: “The tall woman had been sepulchered under the yellow clay below the planking upon which he stood; and the worms had formed the wedding-rings of Death about her fingers half a century before.”
Half a dozen skeletons were unearthed by workers in 1927, placed in a cement crypt and reburied, only to be discovered again during a renovation in 1969. The bones were placed inside another concrete box and reburied—and uncovered in 1988 for the third time when the shaft for the concert hall’s freight elevator was deepened. It seems the dead at Music Hall simply cannot rest in peace. Pieces, yes, but peace? No.
When my wife, Mary, and I lived in the Cincinnati area, we attended several performances of various kinds at Music Hall, but that was before we had ever heard the ghost stories, and we had never been behind the scenes. We were lucky enough, however, on a recent Valentine’s Day, to have a tour of Music Hall led by Marie Gallagher, a volunteer there for 25 years. It was a public tour, and we were joined by approximately two dozen people who were interested in seeing the grand old building. We gathered in the Main Foyer, with its checkerboard marble floor and graceful columns.
Marie knew every nook and cranny of Music Hall and regaled us with tales and anecdotes about some of the famous people who had performed there—John Philip Sousa, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Jascha Heifitz, Maria Callas, Andres Segovia, Luciano Pavarotti, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan; the list is endless.
The heart and soul of Music Hall is the 3,630-seat Springer Auditorium. Marie led us up into the gallery where we could look down at the burgundy colored seats and the stage. Even though larger than most concert halls, the acoustics in Springer Auditorium are said to be the best in the country, if not the world. Ed Vignale, Jr., Music Hall’s facilities engineer, told me in a later conversation that a person standing in the gallery of the empty auditorium could hear someone speaking from behind the stage as though he or she were only 20 feet away from the listener. Could it be that such perfect acoustics are the explanation for some of the ghostly sounds heard at Music Hall?
“I hear them when I’m on duty alone at night,” says Kitty Love, who has been part of the private police force at Music Hall for 21 years. “Footsteps, doors slamming, and music playing, and I know I was the only one in the building.”
Kitty has heard the footsteps and slamming doors in the stage area of Springer Auditorium and in other parts of the building’s south side, the side that was built over the cemetery.
As our tour group stood in the gallery of the auditorium, gazing out at the magnificent 1,500-pound crystal chandelier suspended from the dome ceiling and its Arthur Thompson oil painting, “Allegory of the Arts,” I thought of what Kitty had said and took a few pictures with my digital camera. (Later, when I download the images to my computer, I will find three beautiful but unexplainable orbs floating in the otherwise clear air above the gallery.)
Marie continued to lead us on the tour—the enormous backstage area with its vertiginous catwalks barely distinguishable in the darkness high above us, the massive workshop where stage sets and props are built, the costume room with its many rows of outfits of every description hung around and above us like an enormous dry cleaner, the dressing rooms that resembled high school locker rooms, and the more luxuriously appointed dressing rooms of the stars.
When the tour concluded back in the Main Foyer, Marie took us aside privately and brought us back into an office area. In this section was a freight elevator, the very elevator beneath which a small casket of bones from the old cemetery was uncovered.
“I haven’t seen or heard anything unusual in Music Hall and I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Marie, “but this is where a security guard said he heard strange music. He was so impressed by what he heard, he wrote it all down.”
She handed me a file folder containing a photocopy of security guard John G. Engst’s handwritten account of what he experienced on February 22, 1987. In it he tells how he was escorting three caterers from a party held in Music Hall’s Corbett Tower down to the first floor in the elevator. It was about 12:30 a.m. As they descended, the three women asked him if he heard music. He said he did not, but they asked him again when they reached the first floor and this time he said he had heard it. The women told John they had heard the same music when they went up to Corbett Tower a few hours earlier but didn’t think much of it then.
After the women loaded their truck and drove away, John went back to the elevator. The music, sounding something like a music box, continued to play a tune that John thought he recognized as “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” John stopped the elevator at different levels to see if the music would still be audible. It was. He wrote, “It was as beautiful as ever, but I’m getting more bewildered.”
John checked all the areas outside the elevator at the various levels but could not find any source for the music. He was so frightened and awed by his experiences that he wrote, “For nearly two weeks I could not approach the elevator shaft on the first floor late at night without my whole body tingling.”
In the final analysis, however, the experience was an affirming, life-altering one for John Engst. He wrote: “The experience is now all positive and will be forever, I now believe. I pray more intensely, don’t fear death and am glad to have had this profound experience.”
Kitty Love has heard similar ghostly music at Music Hall but in different locations from the freight elevator. “You hear music playing somewhere late at night when you know no one is there, but when you get there, you find it coming from some other place. You go to that place and then you hear it coming from yet another place.”
Ed Vignale said a musical greeting card had been found at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but that didn’t convince Engst that there was a rational explanation for the music he heard. Maybe John is right. Those greeting cards don’t usually last very long nor do they play continuously. Once opened they play only a few seconds before they must be closed and reopened to play again. Could a card have been heard continuously for several hours? And what about the ethereal music Kitty heard in other parts of Music Hall? Are there ghosts roaming Music Hall?
Even though Ed Vignale said that he has never seen nor heard spirits in the 34 years he has worked at Music Hall, he admits that some people have told him of seeing men and women dressed in late-19th-century clothing walking through the halls of the building. Other people have said that sometimes an extra unknown “cast member” may appear in an operatic production or that unusual looking figures may appear among the audience.
“There is definitely something strange going on here,” Ed said. “In all the time I’ve worked here, I’ve only seen two mice and one rat in the building, very unusual for a building of this size and age.” Ed went on to say that during a 1967 production at Music Hall called wild Animal Cargo, two baby snakes, a python and boa constrictor, somehow disappeared and were never found. The show left town without them and Music Hall was left with a unique system of rodent extermination.
How long do those snakes live anyway? One can only hope that, if they are still alive, those creatures have long ago been tamed by the musical charms of Cincinnati Music Hall’s resident spirits.
Copyrights: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons


What will my child learn in kindergarten or preschool?
Giving a child a good start on their learning journey is all about teaching them a wide range of essential skills.
Delivered through our play-based learning approach
, we place a strong emphasis on developing social and emotional skills which are essential for success in learning at school and in later life, as well as many of the more traditional skills that will be further developed at school.
The kindergarten and preschool curriculum at Goodstart program includes:
Language and literacy
- Working with and alongside others in small and large groups
- Building self-awareness and co-operation
- Sharing, caring and learning to empathise
- Conflict resolution skills and the ability to play co-operatively
- Social skills that help with making friends, such as sharing and listening
Science, technology, engineering and maths
- Learning language and literacy skills through storytelling and word play
- Understanding narrative and developing word recognition
- Developing communication skills and confidence in using them
Drama and pretend play
- Using numbers to understand the concepts of time, dates, money and measurements
- Sorting objects by size, colour, shape and patterns
- Learning through puzzles and counting games
- Investigating how the world works through games and activities
- Growing gardens, caring for animals, and learning to respect and care for things
- Creating shared pretend scenarios using dress-up and props
- Exploring rhythm, beat, tone and pitch, and developing social awareness
- Discovering more about their own and other cultures through dance and music
Physical activity and active play
- Expressing ideas in 2D and 3D through painting, drawing, collage and clay play
- Developing fine motor skills through the manipulation of 3D materials
- Developing gross motor skills, balance, hand-eye coordination and concentration through climbing, running, jumping, skipping and other physical activities
- Fostering well-being and better thinking
Preschool and kindergarten programs at Goodstart are geared towards helping children develop the foundational skills they need for a smooth transition to school. And best of all, our programs are fun and really help children to develop an openness and love of learning.


Summary: The scripture says Caleb had a unique spirit... this sermon explores that spirit.
The Character of Caleb
"But my servant Caleb because he had another spirit with him, followed me fully, him will I bring into the land he went to and his descendents shall inherit it"
Imperfections have distinguished some of the most eminent servants of God as shown in the scriptures.
Samson, Solomon, David, Abraham, Aaron, Peter, just to name a few.
Yet, there were those rare few whose lives were eminently holy, and free from public, moral deformities.
Enoch, Samuel, Daniel, Joshua, Job, etc.
We know that no man is perfect, but of these there is no record of their sin.
In fact, so holy was this man, Caleb, that God felt it necessary to give his own public estimate of the man.
We want to look at that estimate to see what we can take away from an encounter with Caleb.
I want us to look at...
1. The Spirit he possessed
2. The Course he adopted
and 3. The Distinctions he received.
I. The SPIRIT Caleb possessed.
God himself called it, "a different spirit..."
Different = not the same, not like the others, distinct.
Different or distinct from that possessed by the other 10 spies
and the people at large.
How was it different?
1. A spirit of FAITH and HOPE.
What does God want from His people?
One thing... OBEDIENCE!!!!
Where does obedience come from?
From hope and from faith.
Without faith it is impossible to obey God in the face of present problems and contradictions.
Without HOPE it is impossible to trust and obey God in the unknown. God wants to develop faith and hope in us.
The 10 spies and the people had neither.
They had NO FAITH to trust God in the face of giants, or walled cities, or armies, or the obvious problems.
Instead of having faith they were cowards.
They even admitted, 'We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and in theirs."
They had NO HOPE to believe that the invisible God could do things they could not imagine.
They could not have believed that the walls would fall by blowing trumpets, or that the armies would destroy themselves, or that the people were already in fear of them... the enemy felt like grasshoppers in their own eyes too.
No HOPE to trust God for the unknown.
So... they acted without hope and without faith and did the only thing one can do in such circumstances.... they cowered, they chose inaction, they chose to do without.
But what they were really doing, that only Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb understood was that they chose to DISOBEY GOD!!!
14:5 tells us, "Moses and Aaron fell down on their faces in front of the whole Israelite assembly, Joshua... and Caleb... tore their clothes and said, “Only do not rebel against the Lord.”
They showed them hope - "If the Lord is pleased he will give us the land"
Theirs was a spirit of disbelief - they accused God of tricking them.
And theirs was a spirit of hopelessness - WE CAN NOT!!
Which is your spirit??
The spirit of disbelief and distrust of God.
Or the spirit of faith.... of hope., and OBEDIENCE.
2. A Spirit of SELF-DENIAL
Caleb understood that the fight might be fierce, the battle might last long, there may be pain and suffering but those were secondary to obeying God.


What You Should Know About Your Child’s Bone Health
Bones are important structures for your body. They provide support, allow for movement, protect organs, produce blood cells, and store minerals. If you take care of your bones, you should expect a lifetime of use from them. If you don't, you may have problems, such as
. Parents should be aware of what osteoporosis is and why it concerns their children. There are steps you can take while they are young to protect children from getting osteoporosis later in life.
What Is Osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis is a disease that gradually weakens bones until they break easily, sometimes after little or no injury. The bones most likely to be affected are the hip, spine, and wrist. Osteoporosis is often called a silent disease because there are usually no symptoms of the disease until a bone breaks. Osteoporosis is generally associated with older women, but anyone can get it.
As your children grow into adulthood, certain habits and lifestyle factors will also play into their risk of increased loss of bone mass. These factors include smoking, lack of physical activity, and poor diet. Although genetics is not a risk factor that can be modified, others can be. It is important to maintain good bone health throughout life.
Why Do Children and Teens Need to Worry About It?
Osteoporosis is a disease that manifests in older adults, but health professionals now suspect that its origins may occur in childhood. The peak years for bone formation are during adolescence—between ages 9-18 years—when more calcium is added to bone than is lost. For both boys and girls, most of this bone formation is complete by the age of 20. By getting enough calcium and weight-bearing activity in these critical years, it is thought that children can reduce their risk of developing osteoporosis later in life.
Getting Enough Calcium
Since their bones are soaking up more
now than they ever will, children and teens have especially high calcium needs. Unfortunately, children today may not be getting what they need. The following table outlines the recommendations by the Institute of Medicine for calcium intake in children:
(milligrams per day)
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommends that children and teens eat a variety of calcium-rich foods. The table below lists some good calcium sources and the amount of calcium and calories that they contain:
|Low-fat yogurt, plain
|Tofu, prepared with calcium
|Low-fat milk (1%)
|Reduced fat milk (2%)
|Calcium-fortified orange juice
Getting Enough Vitamin D
While most people know that calcium is essential for building strong, healthy bones, many are not aware that
is also critical for bone health. Vitamin D can be obtained from the diet—mainly from vitamin D-fortified dairy products. Also, when your are exposed to the sun, your skin makes vitamin D.
The body can store vitamin D for weeks or months, so it is not necessary to consume it or be in the sun every day. In many cases, children and teenagers may not spend enough time outdoors to get their needed vitamin D intake. Sunscreens, which are vital for protecting the skin from the sun’s harmful rays, may reduce the skin’s ability to produce vitamin D. For these reasons, it is important for children and teens to eat food fortified with vitamin D. Supplements are also available. For children older than 1 year and adolescents, the recommended daily dose is 600 International Units (IU).
The table below shows major food sources of vitamin D:
||Vitamin D Content (IU)
|Cod liver oil
|Salmon (pink), cooked
|Tuna fish, canned in water
|Sardines, canned in oil and drained
|Milk vitamin D-fortified (nonfat, reduced fat, whole)
|Soy milk, calcium-fortified
Incorporating Weight-bearing Activities
Doing weight-bearing physical activities helps to build stronger, healthier bones by forcing your bones to work against gravity. The stress triggers bones to build more cells and become stronger. If you help your children find weight-bearing activities that they find enjoyable, then they will be more likely to do them regularly.
Some weight-bearing activities for children and teens are:
- Jumping rope
- Tae kwon do
By learning bone-promoting behaviors during childhood, like eating right and staying active, not only will children build strong bones while they are young, but they will also adopt habits that will keep their bones strong and healthy as they age.
National Institute of Child Health & Human Development
NIH Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases National Resource Center
About Kids Health
Caring for Kids
Calcium. EBSCO Natural and Alternative Treatments website. EBSCO Health Library website. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com/healthLibrary. Updated August 22, 2013. Accessed February 6, 2014.
Calicium. National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements website. Available at: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Calcium-HealthProfessional. Updated November 21, 2013. Accessed February 6, 2014.
Calcium. USDA national nutrient database for standard reference, release 25. USDA Agriculture Research Service website. Available at: https://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/SR25/nutrlist/sr25w301.pdf. Accessed February 6, 2014.
Calcium intake and supplementation. EBSCO DynaMed website. Available at: http://ebscohost.com/dynamed. Updated June 25, 2013. Accessed February 6, 2014.
The Surgeon General's report on bone health and osteoporosis: What it means to you. NIH Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases National Resource Center website. Available at: http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health%5Finfo/bone/SGR/surgeon%5Fgenerals%5Freport.asp. Published March 2012. Accessed February 6, 2014.
Vitamin D. EBSCO Natural and Alternative Treatments website. EBSCO Health Library website. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com/healthLibrary. Updated August 22, 2013. Accessed February 6, 2014.
Vitamin D. National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements website. Available at: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional. Updated June 24, 2011. Accessed February 6, 2014.
Vitamin D intake and supplementation. EBSCO DynaMed website. Available at: http://ebscohost.com/dynamed. Updated February 4, 2013. Accessed February 6, 2014.


Definition: A person who tends to take longer to understand things than the average person, or someone who requires multiple explanations before they get a concept. Can occasionally be wrongly accused of being a noob.
Usage: My grandma is a slow learner when it comes to the internet. It took her 2 hours to understand the concept of email when I explained it to her.
Posted by caggles on May 14, 2009 at 13:29:47 Pacific
Definition: Slow learners: are not a special people,they have just the problem of learning. They want to learn new things but have to face difficulty in learning and remembring new concepts quickly(Naila Aslam).
Posted by Naila Aslam on September 13, 2011 at 04:25:12 Pacific
Definition: A slow learner needs a special care by all the people there should me more affection and positive words can be used in communication and we need to mould him/her in a right way to the world its not a disease
Usage: for example you have all heard about a epic story about the birth of abimanyu while he is in subathara womb he heard the story of chakraviyuka he know to enter but dont know how to exit
Posted by Alagammai on March 3, 2014 at 07:12:27 Pacific
Definition: A child who is doing poorly in school,yet are not eligible for special education is called slow learner.A slow learner is one who does not learn successfuly due to general socio cultural problem,language problems,inadequate use of strategies,lack of interest,due to family background,illetrate parents,avoided by parents in early childhood or due to mental weakness etc.
Usage: 4 example a child who z not taking interest in anyway in his studies is a slow learner.
Posted by sumairayousaf on March 8, 2012 at 08:09:46 Pacific


History Of The Advent Calendar
Our modern-day advent calendars don’t usually begin on November the 30th but on December the 1st to mark 24 days until Christmas. Today, the majority of advent calendars include doors that open to reveal an image, piece of chocolate, small gift or more traditionally a bible verse.
It is said that the very first advent calendars may have originated in Austria, or in Germany. It is claimed that in Germany a mother stuck 24 sweets to a piece of cardboard for her son to eat throughout the period of advent. This idea is said to have remained with the boy into adulthood when he opened a printing office responsible for the first-ever printed version of an advent calendar in 1908. They then moved on to create an advent calendar with 24 little doors.
This simplistic calendar has informed those that we see today, no matter the difference in shape, size and the treats inside. Even our digital advent calendars are based upon the advent calendars history, with 12 or 24 doors which viewers can return to open every day to see the treats inside.


Would you agree that health care is a right, not a privilege?
The transgender community has experienced significant societal recognition in the last few years. Dramatic and reality TV shows have hit the small screen with huge ratings and viewership. Celebrities have come-out as trans. The Obama Administration has put measures in place prohibiting discrimination against transgender federal employees. Our president also named the first openly transgender political appointee, and he was the first president to use the word “transgender” in a speech.
Just a few years ago, the GLAAD/Harris Interactive poll reported that only 8% of Americans say they personally know someone who is transgender. Since all the current positive and not so positive news stories that have exploded onto news channels and social media, and since Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out last year, hardly a day goes by where we don’t hear a story about a transgender person.
In a 2015 HRC (Human Rights Campaign) survey, 66 percent of people who said they know a transgender individual expressed favorable feelings toward them—compared with 13 percent of people who don’t have trans friends, co-workers, or family members.
Yet, supportive, caring and knowledgeable health care systems still lack a basic understanding what it means to be transgender, what gender dysphoria really is and how it is NOT a mental illness. Transgender people are NOT getting the care they need.
Kelley Winters chats with Kathe Perez about WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) 2011 Standard’s of Care, about the updated ICD -10 codes (medical diagnostic coding), DSCM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders changes, and trans children and youth.
This podcast was adapted from a video interview. CLICK HERE to see the video.
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