Sun

28

Apr

2013

Jonathan Winters, Unpredictable Comic and Master of Improvisation, Dies at 87

Jonathan Winters: Unpredictable

The New York Times

 

Jonathan Winters, the rubber-faced comedian whose unscripted flights of fancy inspired a generation of improvisational comics, and who kept television audiences in stitches with Main Street characters like Maude Frickert, a sweet-seeming grandmother with a barbed tongue and a roving eye, died on Thursday at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 87.

 

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Sat

27

Apr

2013

Sichuan

0 Comments

Sat

27

Apr

2013

Baoxing gets back to business, but quake fears linger

Shu Wei, his wife Yang Xiaoli and younger daughter mourn the family’s 5-year-old elderdaughter who was killed in last Saturday’s earthquake in Lushan county, Sichuan province.CUI MENG / CHINA DAILY

 

SEE MAP of SICHUAN

 

Article In China Daily

Updated: 2013-04-27 02:28

By Tang Yue and Yang Wanli

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Thu

25

Apr

2013

Listing of URLs of Poison Control Sites

Michigan - Childrens Hospital of Michigan

http://www.childrensdmc.org/PoisonControl

 

American Association of Poison Control Centers

http://www.aapcc.org/

 

Find Your Local Poison Control Center

http://www.safekids.org/safety-basics/safety-guide/medication-safety-guide/find-a-poison-control-center.html

 

American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC)

http://www.medicinenet.com/poison_control_centers/article.htm

0 Comments

Thu

25

Apr

2013

Comma - Anne's question

START

I got a message from an long standing friend of mine.  She is educating some youngsters in her home country, China, and trying to make sense of English in order to pass it along in a correct fashion.

 

Anne(Luly)  Hi, Roger. I have two questions to ask you, OK? 

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Tue

23

Apr

2013

Noam Chomsky: How Close the World Is to Nuclear War

Author, historian and political commentator Noam Chomsky. (photo: Ben Rusk/flickr)Author, historian and political commentator Noam Chomsky. (photo: Ben Rusk/flickr)

From Reader Supported News (RSN)

An Excerpt

By Noam Chomsky, Laray Polk, Seven Stories Press

19 April 13

 

 

A powerful excerpt from the new book, "Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe."

 

aray Polk: What immediate tensions do you perceive that could lead to nuclear war? How close are we?

 

Noam Chomsky: Actually, nuclear war has come unpleasantly close many times since 1945. There are literally dozens of occasions in which there was a significant threat of nuclear war. There was one time in 1962 when it was very close, and furthermore, it's not just the United States. India and Pakistan have come close to nuclear war several times, and the issues remain. Both India and Pakistan are expanding their nuclear arsenals with US support. There are serious possibilities involved with Iran - not Iranian nuclear weapons, but just attacking Iran - and other things can just go wrong. It's a very tense system, always has been. There are plenty of times when automated systems in the United States - and in Russia,it's probably worse - have warned of a nuclear attack which would set off an automatic response except that human intervention happened to take place in time, and sometimes in a matter of minutes. That's playing with fire. That's a low-probability event, but with low-probability events over a long period, the probability is not low.


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Fri

19

Apr

2013

Beach Water Testing at Risk!

 

Surfrider Foundation info@surfrider.org

The EPA is proposing to eliminate their Beach Grants Program that funds water testing to protect swimmer safety at beaches across the country. 

 

Don't let the federal government drown the beach program.   You have the right to know if a day at the beach is going to make you sick!

 

0 Comments

Wed

17

Apr

2013

One of Three deaths in 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings

From CHINA DAILY   One Chinese dead in US marathon blasts

Updated: 2013-04-17 08:03

( Agencies/Xinhua)

 

An official at the consulate's press section, who was not authorized to give

his name, said thatone Chinese student was injured and another died in the

blast.

 

The official said a work group from the consulate was in Boston to investigate the situation andassist relatives of the victims.

 

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that relatives have

requested that thedeceased not be identified.

 

Zhou Danling, the Chinese student injured in the Boston Marathon blasts,

is out of danger.Zhou was injured in the stomach and was sent to a local

hospital.

 

She is now in stable condition. The Chinese Consulate General in New York

went into emergency mode after the blasts, sending staffers to Boston and getting casualty informationabout Chinese nationals

 

0 Comments

Tue

16

Apr

2013

Boston Marathon 2013 - Bombing attack

0 Comments

Mon

15

Apr

2013

Muzzling scientists is an assault on democracy

From: 

David Suzuki FoundationDavid Suzuki Foundation <subscribers@davidsuzuki.org>

 

Science Matters : Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 9:02 AM

Access to information is a basic foundation of democracy. Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms also gives us "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication."

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Mon

15

Apr

2013

Culture of the United States

Culture of the United States

The Declaration of Independance

 

Press to see the entire article

American culture is a Western culture, largely based on British culture with influences from other parts of Europe, the Native American peoples, African Americans and to a lesser extent Asian Americans and other young groups of immigrants. Due to the extent of American culture there are many integrated but unique subcultures within the U.S. 

Attitudes Society and economic attitudes Relationship to other countries/cultures Body contact and expression
Names Intra-national allegiances Food Popular culture 
Technology and gadgets Tobacco Sports Clothing
Education Public education Private education Higher education
Language Religion Work and jobs Housing
Romantic relationships Marriage ceremonies Divorce Death rituals
Gender roles Family arrangements Nuclear family living patterns Single-parent living patterns
Regional distinctions Variations Rural living patterns Suburban living patterns
See also


 

0 Comments

Mon

15

Apr

2013

HOW JON STEWART BLEW UP IN CHINA

Letter from China - Dispatches by Evan Osnos.

APRIL 12, 2013

HOW JON STEWART BLEW UP IN CHINA

POSTED BY 

To Original NEW YORKER Article

 

Jon Stewart has decided, as he put it this week, that he might be working the wrong continent. In a segment called “Big Ratings in Giant China,” Stewart expounded on his recent discovery that he is racking up millions of hits, and thousands of favorable comments, from Chinese viewers, who see the show in scattered subtitled clips posted on Chinese sites.

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Fri

12

Apr

2013

Big-picture thinking needed to protect nature

David Suzuki Foundation

March 21, 2013

 

Photo: Big-picture thinking needed to protect natureToday, more than 65 per cent of the Peace region has felt the impact of industrial development, leaving little intact habitat for sensitive, endangered species such as caribou to feed, breed or roam. (Credit: Gerry via Flickr)

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Fri

12

Apr

2013

Finding Nonduality: Meditation in Light of Neuroscience and Modern Psychology

Summary of a lecture by 

Zoran Josipovic, Ph.D.

Director, Contemplative Science Lab, Psychology Dept, NYU

 

Human experiences can be broadly divided into those that are external and related to interaction with the environment, and experiences that are internal and self-related. The cerebral cortex likewise appears to be divided into two corresponding systems: an "extrinsic" system composed of brain areas that respond more to external stimuli and tasks and an "intrinsic" system composed of brain areas that respond less to external stimuli and tasks. These two broad brain systems seem to compete with each other, such that their activity levels over time is usually anti-correlated, even when subjects are "at rest" and not performing any task.

 

Asian contemplative philosophies, going back to at least fourth century CE, and perhaps much earlier, have described the structuring of human experience along the subject- object dichotomy, accompanied by a competition between internally and externally related mental processes. According to this idea, it might be possible to use meditation to voluntarily alter this fragmentation. Our results suggest that practicing different forms of meditation can alter the anti-correlation between these networks and that their relationship can be modulated in either direction through the choice of a cognitive strategy. The results support the intuitive, but speculative, idea that the typical anti- correlation between the extrinsic and intrinsic systems might reflect the duality of external and internal experiences, and that nondual awareness meditation enables an atypical state of mind in which extrinsic and intrinsic experiences are increasingly synergistic rather than competing.

2 Comments

Thu

11

Apr

2013

Budget Proposal 2014

From:  Washington Post

President's 2014 Budget

2013/04/10

 

Read the full text of Obama's 2014 budget proposal

 

President Obama unveiled a 10-year budget blueprint Wednesday that calls for nearly $250 billion in new spending on jobs, public works and expanded pre-school education and nearly $800 billion in new taxes, including an extra 94 cents a pack on cigarettes. But the president’s spending plan would also cut more than $1 trillion from programs across the federal government — for the first time targeting Social Security benefits — in an effort to persuade congressional Republicans to join him in finishing the job of debt reduction they started two years ago.

0 Comments

Thu

11

Apr

2013

A View of Current Chinese Culture

From the New YorkTimes


OP-ED GUEST COLUMNIST

In China, Feudal Answers for Modern Problems

 

BEIJING

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Wed

10

Apr

2013

"Presidents"

0 Comments

Tue

09

Apr

2013

USA : Basic American Values and Beliefs (Part 2)

From Goldenline (a Polish publication)

 

IS AMERICA A CLASSLESS SOCIETY? DESCRIBE THE SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN THE US.

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Tue

09

Apr

2013

USA : Basic American Values and Beliefs (Part I)

From Goldenline (a Polish publication)

 

WHAT ARE THE BASIC AMERICAN VALUES AND BELIEFS?


Sociologist Robin Williams attempted to offer a list of basic values in the United States:

 
Achievement, efficiency, material comfort, nationalism, equality and the supremacy of science and reason, over faith. 


There are certain ideals and values, rooted in the country’s history, which many Americans share.
These are: FREEDOM, INDIVIDUALISM, PRAGMATISM, VOLUNTEERISM, MOBILITY, PATRIOTISM, PROGRESS, AMERICAN DREAM.

Read More 3 Comments

Mon

08

Apr

2013

Monetary

Currency Converter

 

Federal Income Tax Estimator

 

Future value Calculator  FV = PV*[(((1+i)^n)-1)/i]

    Need to supply the amount added yearly

 

Future Value of a Lump Sum Calculator

 

Inflation Calculator

 

Money Factor Calculator (Money Factor) * 2,400 = xx.xx%

 

0 Comments

Mon

08

Apr

2013

Loans

Amortization Table

 

Auto Lease Payment Calculator

 

Credit Card Pay-off Calculator

 

Loan Payment Calculator

 

Loan Payment Calculator 2:  (With Balloon Payment)

 

Loan Payment Calculator 3 borrow money (compounded)

 

Stafford Loan ($50 minimum payment) (Both Subsidized and Unsubsidized [Compounded] ) (Subsidized = without the interest)

 

 


1 Comments

Mon

08

Apr

2013

Mortgage Calculator

Simple Mortgage Calculator

 

Mortgage Calculator (Includes inputs for annual insurance and taxes)

1 Comments

Mon

08

Apr

2013

Compound Interest

So, the balance after 6 years is approximately $1,938.84.


Read More 1 Comments

Sat

06

Apr

2013

Air Pollution Linked to 1.2 Million Premature Deaths in China

The New York TImes

Shanghai in January. Researchers said the toll from China’s pollution meant the loss of 25 million healthy years in 2010.

 

BEIJING — Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total, according to a new summary of data from a scientific study on leading causes of death worldwide.

 

Figured another way, the researchers said, China’s toll from pollution was the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population.

 

For more on this story

1 Comments

Fri

05

Apr

2013

Dancers

0 Comments

Sun

29

Apr

2012

White Killer Whale: Scientists Prepare To Find 'Iceberg,' Thought To Be Albino Orca (VIDEO)

A team of scientists from Russia is preparing for an expedition to track down a rare all-white killer whale that hasn't been seen since it was spotted 18 months ago.

Read More 1 Comments

Sun

29

Apr

2012

Global malaria elimination is at a crucial juncture

From UN WIRE

Some 3.3 billion people are at risk of contracting malaria, a preventable disease that killed 655,000 and afflicted 216 million in 2010, primarily in the developing world. On World Malaria Day, the world is at a critical juncture in its massive effort to halt and reverse malaria in what former British Prime Minister Tony Blair calls the "most achievable" of the Millennium Development Goals.

For more see Voice of America (4/24), The Huffington Post (4/24)

 

2 Comments

Sun

29

Apr

2012

In Maryland, a rare reversal of suspensions for two lacrosse players

Kim Hairston/BALTIMORE SUN -  Easton High School lacrosse players Casey Edsall, left, and Graham Dennis in May, after their suspensions. Last week, the Maryland State Board of Education expunged their disciplinary records.
Kim Hairston/BALTIMORE SUN - Easton High School lacrosse players Casey Edsall, left, and Graham Dennis in May, after their suspensions. Last week, the Maryland State Board of Education expunged their disciplinary records.

 

From the Washington Post By Donna St. GeorgePublished: April 28


The search was a surprise. The high school lacrosse team in Easton, Md., had boarded its bus when the principal and other administrators arrived, announcing that gear bags would be checked. A tip had come in about athletes carrying alcohol.

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Sun

29

Apr

2012

May Day

Noam Chomsky has been awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. (photo: Ben Rusk/flickr)
Noam Chomsky has been awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. (photo: Ben Rusk/flickr)

From Readers Supported News


May Day

Noam Chomsky, Reader Supported News   29 April 12 

 

eople seem to know about May Day everywhere except where it began, here in the United States of America. That's because those in power have done everything they can to erase its real meaning. For example, Ronald Reagan designated what he called "Law Day" -- a day of jingoist fanaticism, like an extra twist of the knife in the labor movement. Today, there is a renewed awareness, energized by the Occupy movement's organizing, around May Day, and its relevance for reform and perhaps eventual revolution.

 

 

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Sun

29

Apr

2012

With Bo Xilai’s ouster, China’s premier pushes more reform

Pontus Lundahl/AFP/Getty Images -  China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao – in his final months in office – is pushing for new reforms, including calling for a breakup China’s powerful state banking monopoly and giving foreign companies more access to governme
Pontus Lundahl/AFP/Getty Images - China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao – in his final months in office – is pushing for new reforms, including calling for a breakup China’s powerful state banking monopoly and giving foreign companies more access to governme

From The Washington Post By Published: April 26


BEIJING — Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has seized upon the ouster of his Communist Party rival Bo Xilai to reinvigorate what had until recently seemed a lonely campaign for Western-style economic liberalization and a battle against corruption.

 

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Fri

27

Apr

2012

Fighting Senate gridlock through self-restraint

Washington Post Opinions

by Carl Levin and Lamar Alexander

 

Carl Levin, a Democrat, represents Michigan in the Senate. Lamar Alexander, a Republican, represents Tennessee in the Senate.


The U.S. Senate — one-half of one branch of our government and an institution crucial to resolving serious issues before our country — is routinely described as dysfunctional, gridlocked and broken. We feel obligated to do something about it.

 

That’s why we went to the Senate floor last week to encourage our colleagues to embrace a classic virtue: self-restraint.

 


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Fri

27

Apr

2012

Chinese - English Names


FOOD; LAUGHS; MONEY
Read More 0 Comments

Fri

27

Apr

2012

Borders

A very instructive series of examples of various borders:

 http://www.quackit.com/html/codes/html_borders.cfm

0 Comments

Thu

26

Apr

2012

BP Blamed for Ongoing Health Problems

Truthout Saturday, 21 April 2012 11:49 By Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera English

 

Gulf Coast residents and clean up workers have found chemicals present in BP's oil in their own bloodstreams.  For the full story press here


1 Comments

Thu

26

Apr

2012

Bo Xilai scandal: China president 'was wire-tapped'

From BBC News

Bo Xilai ran a wire-tapping system that extended as far as China's president, the New York Times has reported.


Read More 0 Comments

Thu

26

Apr

2012

A princeling's fall in China

Chinese politician Bo Xilai is shown during a 2007 press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty Images / April 25, 2012)
Chinese politician Bo Xilai is shown during a 2007 press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty Images / April 25, 2012)
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Thu

26

Apr

2012

Chinese Language: Money

0 Comments

Tue

24

Apr

2012

How Can I Avoid Being Infected with Badware?

From Stop Bad Ware

 

Badware takes advantage of technical vulnerabilities and human behavior to find its way onto personal computers. While nothing can guarantee absolute security, the following steps can reduce your computer’s exposure to badware. At the bottom of this page, you will see links to websites with additional information.

Read More 0 Comments

Tue

24

Apr

2012

UN to investigate plight of US Native Americans for first time

Many US Native Americans live in federally recognised tribal areas plagued with poverty, alcoholism other social problems. Photograph: Jennifer Brown/Corbis
Many US Native Americans live in federally recognised tribal areas plagued with poverty, alcoholism other social problems. Photograph: Jennifer Brown/Corbis

From The Guardian

Ewen MacAskill in Washington 
Sunday 22 April 2012 12.20 EDT

 

The UN is to conduct an investigation into the plight of US Native Americans, the first such mission in its history.

 

The human rights inquiry led by James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples, is scheduled to begin on Monday.

 

 

 

Read More 1 Comments

Mon

23

Apr

2012

American Nuns Reject Vatican's Orders

Last week, the order came down from the Vatican. American nuns will have none of it. (photo: Addicting Info)
Last week, the order came down from the Vatican. American nuns will have none of it. (photo: Addicting Info)

From Reader Supported News 

By Wendy Gittleson, Addicting Info

23 April 12

 

Last week, the order came down from the Vatican. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an organization that represents 80% of the nuns in the US, was chastised for "focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping ‘silent' on abortion and same-sex marriage."

Read More 1 Comments

Mon

23

Apr

2012

The Unlearned Lessons of the BP Gulf Disaster

Fire boats battle a fire at the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon April 21, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. (photo: US Coast Guard via Getty Images)
Fire boats battle a fire at the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon April 21, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. (photo: US Coast Guard via Getty Images)

From Reader Supported News

By Robert Weissman, Common Dreams

21 April 12

 

The BP disaster reminded the American people about some essential truths relating to corporate behavior, the need for regulatory controls over corporations, the need for effective sanctions.

Read More 0 Comments

Sun

22

Apr

2012

Gulf Aquatic Wildlife Deformities Alarm Scientists

Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common, with BP oil pollution believed to be the likely cause.


By Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera English |

New Orleans, Louisiana - "The fishermen have never seen anything like this," Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. "And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I've never seen anything like this either."

 

 

Read More 1 Comments

Sun

22

Apr

2012

Culture of India by Rajs (QQ: Learning Paradise)

Rajs introduced Learning Paradise to the country of India by quoting the following:

From HubPages.com By JYOTI KOTHARI

India is a big country with diverse topography and climate that allows variety of wild life to grow. Indian province Rajasthan has multi-variety wild life because of its typical geographical conditions. There is Thar desert in Rajasthan at one side and Vindhyan track at another. Aravali, the oldest mountains in the world passes through Rajasthan. There are many sanctuaries, bird sanctuaries and National parks in Rajasthan including Ghana, Ranathambore, Sariska etc.

Read More 0 Comments

Sat

21

Apr

2012

How Malawi Fed Its Own People

The New York Times

By JEFFREY D. SACHS

Published: April 19, 2012

 

President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi died on April 5 of a heart attack at the age of 78. His countrymen, suffering a massive economic and political crisis, seem to have declared good riddance. Some of his rogue allies apparently tried to hold on to power after his death, but democracy prevailed with the installation of the vice president, Joyce Banda, to the presidency. President Banda inherits an acute crisis much of which was Mutharika’s making.

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Sat

21

Apr

2012

A letter from my Senator: Carl Levin

Levin, McCain: GAO report shows China is failing to crack down on bogus electronic parts Monday,

 

March 26, 2012

WASHINGTON – A government investigative report released today provides further evidence that China is failing to crack down on the flood of bogus electronic parts making their way into U.S. military systems and endangering the safety of U.S. troops and U.S. national security.

Read More 0 Comments

Fri

20

Apr

2012

'Huge' water resource exists under Africa

 

 

 

From BBC NEWS


By Matt McGrath 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a


vast reservoir of groundwater.

Read More 1 Comments

Fri

20

Apr

2012

After Bo's fall, Chongqing victims seek justice

Feng Li/Getty Images -  More than 4,000 people were jailed during an aggressive anti-crime campaign that Bo Xilai launched in late 2007.
Feng Li/Getty Images - More than 4,000 people were jailed during an aggressive anti-crime campaign that Bo Xilai launched in late 2007.
Read More 1 Comments

Wed

18

Apr

2012

Quotes Ra to Rz

 

Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady, USA

October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962


An astute politician, dedicated feminist,

and champion of the rights of minorities


Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual,you have an obligation to be one.


Franklin D. Roosevelt 

 January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945

 

President of the USA 1933-1945 


 We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we now know that it is bad economics

-  -  -  -

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the
abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

-  -  -  -

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

-  -  -  -

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

-  -  -  -

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation.

-  -  -  -

It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.  But above all, try something.

-  -  -  -

When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.

-  -  -  -

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.


Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie

June 19, 1947 - 

 

British Indian novelist and essayist


   The real adventure in 'Moby Dick' is the one that happens inside Captain Ahab. The rest is a fishing tripBertrand Russell


Bertrand Russell

18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970


 British philosopher, logician,

mathematician, historian, and social critic

 and Nobel Laureate

 

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

-  -  -  -

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.


1 Comments

Wed

18

Apr

2012

Quotes Ha to Hz

Nathaniel Hawthorne 

July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864

American Novelist and Short Story Writer


Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.



 

 Evelyn Hines

Middle School Teacher 

 


Often, when reading assigned text, students ask me what they should be "looking for. 

 

My reply is always the same:

If you already know what you're looking for, then that is all you will find.


Hippocrates

460-377 BCE

Father of Medicine

 

Walking is man's best medicine.



  Eric Hoffer
July 25, 1902-May 21, 1983 

 American writer on social issues


The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of        unhappiness.


 

Billie Holiday

   1915-1959

 American Jazz singer and Songwriter


You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.


0 Comments

Wed

18

Apr

2012

Quotes Ma to Mz

Henry Maudsley
1835-1918


American Psychiatrist,

Philosopher and Entrepreneur


The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.


 

H.L. Mencken

 1880-1956


 American Journalist, Essayist,

Magazine editor, Satirist,

Critic of American Life and Culture,

And A Scholar Of American English


Known as the Sage of Baltimore

 


Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."


 

Michel de Montaigne

1533-1592

 
French Essayist

Was one of the most influential

Writers of the French Resistance

No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.


John Muir

John Muir

1838-1914


 Scottish-born

American Naturalist and Explorer, Author,

and Early Advocate of

Preservation of Wilderness

in the United States

The world, we are told, was made especially for man -- a presumption not supported by all the facts... Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?


0 Comments

Wed

18

Apr

2012

Quotes Na to Nz

   

 Ogden Nash

1902-1971

 American poet well known for his light verse


 I dreamt that my hair was kempt. Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.


 

Reinhold Niebuhr

 1892-1971
American theologian

and commentator on public affairs


Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.


1 Comments

Wed

18

Apr

2012

Quotes Ka to Kz


John F. Kennedy

 1917–1963

 35th President of the

 United States (1961–1963)  

 

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.




Soren Kierkegaard

1813-1855

Danish Philosopher, Theologian and Religious Author 

 

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves. 


 

Martin Luther King, Jr. 

January 15, 1929 - April 04, 1968

American Civil Rights Activist, Minister

 


Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' 

Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' 

Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?'

 But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?'

 

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

-  -  -  -

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

-  -  -  -

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring. 


 

0 Comments

Wed

18

Apr

2012

Famed TV producer Dick Clark dies at 82

From          The Washington Press News Alert


Famed TV producer Dick Clark dies at 82


Dick Clark, the television host and entrepreneur who sold rock-and-roll to Middle America on the dance show "American Bandstand" and counted down the new year with millions of TV viewers as emcee of an annual celebration in New York's Times Square, has died after a heart attack. He was 82.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/dick-clark-host-of-american-bandstand-dies-at-82/2012/04/18/gIQAvJIKRT_story.html

 

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Wed

18

Apr

2012

Quotes Ta to Tz

Anatole Francois Thibault
Wrote (AKA) as Anatole France
Born in ParisApril 16, 1844

 

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.
- - - -

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.


Henry David Thoreau

on the Mexican War

 

If a thousand [people] were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood.


  Calvin Trillin
Writer
b. 1935

 

As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.


Barbara W. Tuchman
BD: 1-30-1912 

 

 Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.


Mark Twain
author and humorist
1835-1910

 

I believe I have no prejudices whatsoever. All I need to know is that a man is a member of the human race. That's bad enough for me.


Chuang Tzu

 

Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.


Lao-tzu

    

Failure is the foundation of success . . .

Success is the lurking place of failure.

 

Every human being's essential nature is perfect and faultless, but after years of immersion in the world we easily forget our roots and take on a counterfeit nature.


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Wed

18

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2012

Quotes Wa to Wz



 

Edith Wharton 


If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.

 


 

 

 

 

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Wed

18

Apr

2012

Chinese Foods

"The Chinese eat everything with four legs, except tables, and everything that flies - except airplanes".

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Wed

18

Apr

2012

Chinese: Laughs (English-Chinese)

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Tue

17

Apr

2012

Quotes Va to Vz

   

 Kurt Vonnegut

Nov. 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007

 

USA Novelist


Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.


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Tue

17

Apr

2012

Neurology and Rational Choices

delanceyplace header

In today's excerpt - each decision we make, however rational we believe it to be, is an emotional, neurochemical tug-of-war inside our brain:

"Consider this clever experiment designed by Brian Knutson and George Loewenstein. The scientists wanted to investigate what happens inside the brain when a person makes typical consumer choices, such as buying an item in a retail store or choosing a cereal. A few dozen lucky undergraduates were recruited as experimental subjects and given a generous amount of spending money. Each subject was then offered the chance to buy dozens of different objects, from a digital voice recorder to gourmet chocolates to the latest Harry Potter book. After the student stared at each object for a few seconds, he was shown the price tag. If he chose to buy the item, its cost was deducted from the original pile of cash. The experiment was designed to realistically simulate the experience of a shopper.

 

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Tue

17

Apr

2012

Model 1 for 1 Quote

HTML for BIOGRAPHY


<!--           start    --> 

 

<p style="background-color: #ffa3a3; font-size: 18px; text-align: center;"> <strong>&nbsp;

 

<span style="font-size: 18px;">NAME <br />Did what <br />Born when</span></strong> </p>


<p>&nbsp;</p>


<p style="background-color: #ffa3a3; font-size: 18px; text-align: left;">


<span style="color: #000000;">NOTES</span></p>
<hr />

<!--          end   -->

 

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Tue

17

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2012

Quotes Ya to Yz

  

 Lin Yutang

1895-1976


 Chinese Writer, Translator, and Inventor

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.


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Tue

17

Apr

2012

Quotes Za to Zz

 

Howard Zinn

August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010


Historian , Academic, Author,

Playwright, and Social Activist


What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but 'who is sitting in' - and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.


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Tue

17

Apr

2012

Quotes Sa to Sz

  William Saroyan

 

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.


  John Ralston Saul
Writer
b. 1947

 

Dictionary: Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order.


  Albert Schweitzer
Philosopher, Physician, Musician, Nobel Laureate
1875-1965

 

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit


  John R. Searle
Philosophy Professor
b. 1932

 

Because we don't understand the brain very well, we're constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it.

 

In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. (What else could it be?)

 

And I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system.

 

Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electromagnetic systems.

 

Leibniz compared it to a mill,

 

and now, obviously,the metaphor is the digital computer.


  George Bernard Shaw
Writer, Nobel Laureate
1856-1950

 

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature.


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Tue

17

Apr

2012

Quotes Ga to Gz

  John Kenneth Galbraith

Economist

October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006

 

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.


  Galileo Galilei

Physicist and Astronomer

February 15, 1564 - January 08,1642

 

Civilization is the encouragement of differences.

 


 William Henry Gates III 

Entrepreneur - Built Microsoft

October 28, 1955

 

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.


 

Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi 

October 2, 1869 - January 30, 1948

‘Father of the Nation'

was one of the charismatic Indian leaders

who fought for the freedom of India

 

 

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

-   -   -   -   -          

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

-   -   -   -   -

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony

 

  Sir Edward Gibbon

1737-1794
Author: 

The Rise And Fall Of The Roman Empire


"In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all -- security, comfort, and freedom. When ... the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."

 


 

  Barry Goldwater

Businessman and

Five-term United States Sentator 

from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and

Republican Party's nominee for President

 in the 1964 election. 

January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998





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Tue

17

Apr

2012

Quotes Fa to Fz

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Mon

16

Apr

2012

Quotes Ea to Ez

 

Thomas Edison

1847-1931

Inventor


We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy -- sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.

        


Albert Einstein

1879 - 1955 


  Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,and I'm not sure about the former.

-   -   -   -   -          

   I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

-   -   -   -   -          

   Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

-   -   -   -   -          

 I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own a God, in short, who is but a reflection. of human frailty.

-   -   -   -   -          

Albert Einstein urged militant pacifism and the creation of an international war resistance fund.


Einstein stated in New York that if two percent of those called for military service were to refuse to fight, and were to urge peaceful means of settling international conflicts, then governments would become powerless since they could not imprison that many people.


 He struggled against compulsory military service and urged international protection of conscientious objectors. He concluded that peace, freedom for individuals, and security for societies depended on disarmament; otherwise, "slavery of the individual and the annihilation of civilization threaten us."

 

He concluded that peace, freedom for individuals, and security for societies depended on disarmament; otherwise, "slavery of the individual and the annihilation of civilization threaten us."

 

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.


-   -   -   -   -         

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

 


Desiderius Erasmus 

1466-1536 

 

If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen.

 

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Mon

16

Apr

2012

Quotes Da to Dz

 

Dalai Lama (Brief History and Quotations)


 Leonardo da Vinci

April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519

Scientist, Mathematician, Engineer, Inventor, Anatomist, Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Botanist, Musician and Writer.


 Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.


 

Eugene V. Debs

1855-1926

 Socialist, pacifist, and labor leader

He was imprisoned for opposing U.S. entry intohe World War I.  While in prison,he received nearly one million votes for President in the 1920 election (as he had in 1912). 

 

 I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it then vote for something I don't want and get it

 




 

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Mon

16

Apr

2012

Quotes Ca to Cz

 

Charlie Chaplin

1889-1977

Actor, Director, Composer

 

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

 

 

John Ciardi  

1916–1986

Poet

 

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. 

 

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Statesman, Orator, Writer

106-43 BCE  

 

Extreme justice is extreme injustice. 

 

Confucius 

551 BC - 479 BC

Politician, Teacher,

Editor, and Social Philosopher


If language be not in accordance with the truth of     things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.

 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.



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16

Apr

2012

Quotes Ba to Bz

bacon-francis

Francis Bacon

Essayist, Philosopher, Statesman

1561-1626

 

The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.



Cesare Beccaria
1738—1794
Italian Jurist, Philosopher and Politician

best known for his treatise

On Crimes and Punishments (1764)


It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

 

Daniel J. Boorstin

Historian, Professor, Attorney, and Writer

1914-2004

 

The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.



Kenneth E. Boulding
 Kenneth Ewart Boulding

Economist

1910-1993

 

Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it.We learn only from failure.

 

 

 

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Mon

16

Apr

2012

Quotes Aa to Az

Douglas Adams

Writer and Dramatist

1952-2001


Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.


 


Fred Allen

(Born:   John Florence Sullivan)

May 31, 1894 – March 17, 1956

American comedian

(radio show: 1932–1949)

 

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

California is a fine place to live--if you happen to be an orange.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -                                                                          

To a newspaperman, a human being is an item with the skin wrapped         around it.                                                                                             

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -                                                                          
An associate producer is the only guy in Hollywood who will associate with a producer.                                                                                             

 - - - - - - - - - - - - -                                                                           

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known       then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.                                  

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -                                                                          
Committee--A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.                                                  

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -                                                                         
Television is called a new medium, and I have discovered why they call it a Medium--because it is neither Rare nor Well Done.                                  

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly, and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's         heart.


 

 Isaac Asimov

Scientist and Writer

1920-1992


Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.



 Marcus Aurelius

Philosopher and Writer

121-180

 

If there are gods and they are just, 

they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.  

 

If there are gods, but unjust,

then you should not want to worship them.


If there are no gods,

 then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0 Comments

Mon

16

Apr

2012

New Arab order: In Morocco, uproar over marriage law tests Islamist government

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Sun

15

Apr

2012

Barry Goldwater

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Thu

12

Apr

2012

Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women

he BBC has been told by doctors that Uzbekistan is running a secret programme to sterilise women - and has talked to women sterilised without their knowledge or consent.
he BBC has been told by doctors that Uzbekistan is running a secret programme to sterilise women - and has talked to women sterilised without their knowledge or consent.

From BBC United Kingdom 

Adolat has striking looks, a quiet voice and a secret that she finds deeply shameful. She knows what happened is not her fault, but she cannot help feeling guilty about it. Adolat comes from Uzbekistan, where life centres around children and a big family is the definition of personal success. Adolat thinks of herself as a failure.

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Thu

12

Apr

2012

Brazil stresses need for world consensus at Rio+20 meet

Quoted from Hosted News 

By Yana Marull (AFP) 

BRASILIA, Brazil —

 

The upcoming Rio conference on sustainable development must yield a commitment to manage the world economy in a way that respects the environment and fights poverty, a Brazilian official says.

 

"I believe that Rio+20 will deliver the instruments to make sustainable development a paradigm for the economy, not just for the environment," Andre Correa do Lago, the host country's pointman for the June 20-22 summit, said in an interview with AFP.

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Wed

11

Apr

2012

To Seriously Improve Global Health, Reinvent the Toilet

This article is quoted from Bloomberg.


The toilet is a magnificent thing. Invented at the turn of the 19th century, the flush version has vastly improved human life. The toilet has been credited with adding a decade to our longevity. The sanitation system to which it is attached was voted the greatest medical advance in 150 years by readers of the British Medical Journal.

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Tue

10

Apr

2012

Pope Benedict reaffirms ban on women priests, assails Austrian “call to disobedience”

(Pope Benedict XVI looks on as he leads the Chrismal mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican April 5, 2012. REUTERS/Max Rossi )
(Pope Benedict XVI looks on as he leads the Chrismal mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican April 5, 2012. REUTERS/Max Rossi )

From Reuters Faithworld

Pope Benedict has restated the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women priests and warned that he would not tolerate disobedience by clerics on fundamental teachings. Benedict, who for decades before his 2005 election was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer, delivered an unusually direct denunciation of disobedient priests in a sermon at a morning Mass on Holy Thursday, when the Church commemorates the day Christ instituted the priesthood.

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Mon

09

Apr

2012

Basic Language Structures

What follows is quoted from a discussion of basic language structure.    

A second way of classifying languages is based on the word order they use:


SOV (subject-object-verb) is preferred by the greatest number of languages.  Included are the Indoeuropean languages of India, such as Hindi and Bengali, the Dravidian languages of southern India, Armenian, Hungarian, Turkish and its relatives, Korean, Japanese, Burmese, Basque, and most Australian aboriginal languages.  

Almost all SOV languages use postpositions ("therein lies a tale"), with a notable exception in Farsi (Persian).  Most have the adjective preceding the noun.  Exceptions include Burmese, Basque and the Australian aboriginal languages, which have the adjective follow the noun.SVO (subject-verb-object) is the second largest group, but has the largest number of speakers.  They are split between languages that use prepositions ("I go to school") and ones that use postpositions ("therein lies a tale").

Among the prepositional languages are the Romance languages, Albanian, Greek, the Bantu languages, languages of southeast Asia, including Khmer, Vietnamese, Thai, and Malay, and the Germanic languages.  Most of these have the adjective following the noun ("un enfant terrible)", except for the Germanic languages, which put the adjective before the noun ("ein schreckliches Kind").

The second group use postpositions.  These include Chinese, Finnish and Estonian, many non-Bantu languages of Africa such as Mandingo, and the South American indian language, Guarani.  The first three have adjectives before the noun, the others have adjectives after the noun.  Some linguists believe that Chinese is moving towards becoming an SOV language.
Next, we have the VSO (verb-subject-object) languages.  In Irish, they say Cheannaich mi blobhsa -- “Bought I blouse” -- for I bought a blouse.  

These always use prepositions.  Although a relatively small group, it does include most Semitic languages, including Arabic and Hebrew, Celtic languages such as Gaelic and Welsh, the Polynesian languages, and a  number of American indian languages such as Kwakiutl (British Columbia) and Nahuatl (Aztec).  Most have the adjective after the noun.  Kwakiutl and Nahuatl have the adjective before the noun.

Only a handful of languages put the subject after the object.  Several northwest US and Canadian indian languages use VOS, including Coeur d’Alene, Siuslaw, and Coos.  But the first uses prepositions and adjectives after noun, while the other two use postpositions and adjective before the noun!

There are also languages that use more than one of the standard systems.  Notable of these is Tagalog and English.  Strongly inflexional languages, such as Russian and Latin, often permit varied word order as well.

0 Comments

Mon

09

Apr

2012

Background Papers - Linen

0 Comments

Mon

09

Apr

2012

China’s Reforestation Programs: Big Success or Just an Illusion?

ENVIRONMENT 360

China has undertaken ambitious reforestation initiatives that have increased its forest cover dramatically in the last decade. But scientists are now raising questions about just how effective these grand projects will turn out to be.

by JON R. LUOMA

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Sun

08

Apr

2012

Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Read More 1 Comments

Sun

08

Apr

2012

Steve Martin in delanceyplace

From: delanceyplace <daily@delanceyplace.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 3:35 AM


In today's encore excerpt - in the late 1970s, comedian Steve Martin, who had labored for years in obscurity, reached a level of success with his stand-up act that was unprecedented in comedy. But he was unprepared for the crush of this success, and left stand-up at the peak of his popularity:

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Sun

08

Apr

2012

Using Community Gardens to Grow Low-Income Communities Out of Food Deserts

Truthout

Saturday, 07 April 2012 13:03

By Emily AppleNew Deal 2.0 

 

March 20th marked the third anniversary of the planting of the White House vegetable garden, the first functioning garden since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden. The garden is an essential part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative that aims to help raise a generation of healthy, active kids. But while it provides an excellent jumping off point for discussing the importance of nutrition, it does not get to the root cause of the lack of nutrition across the country. Not everyone can have an organic garden in his backyard or, on an even more basic level, a supermarket that sells quality fruits and vegetables. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 23 million Americans live in “food deserts”: areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, particularly ones composed of predominantly lower income neighborhoods and communities. Before we begin to talk about the problem of nutrition in our country, we must first improve access to food for millions of Americans. And Michelle Obama is on the right path — community gardens can be a powerful tool for improving access to produce for people across the country.

3 Comments

Sun

08

Apr

2012

CBS newsman Mike Wallace dead at 93

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

 

CBS newsman Mike Wallace, famed for his tough interviews on "60 Minutes," has died, a spokesman says. 


Spokesman Kevin Tedesco said Wallace, 93, died Saturday night.

Wallace was on the staff of “60 Minutes” when it began in 1968, and was one of its mainstays from then on. Though he retired as a regular correspondent in 2006, he continued to contribute occasional reports.

 

To read more

 

0 Comments

Sun

08

Apr

2012

Ten Documentaries on Champions of Social Justice

Saturday, 07 April 2012 10:35

 By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. 

 

Social activism has always been a popular subject for documentarians because it presents stories of both cause and characters. The 10 powerful films below are not a complete list of films about social activists, but certainly proof enough that social change is possible, even under the most challenging conditions. Feel free to suggest your own films in the comments below.

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Sun

08

Apr

2012

From O.J. to Trayvon


From O.J. to Trayvon
Published: April 6, 2012
The case of the shooting death of a black teenager in Florida is producing another O.J. Simpson moment for America.

For full The New York Times story

0 Comments

Sat

07

Apr

2012

Bingu wa Mutharika dies at 78 - from Washington Post

AMOS GUMULIRA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES -  Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika waves to supporters of his party in 2009 in Lilongwe during an electoral campaign. Mutharika died early on April 6 hours after the 78-year-old suffered a heart attack
AMOS GUMULIRA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES - Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika waves to supporters of his party in 2009 in Lilongwe during an electoral campaign. Mutharika died early on April 6 hours after the 78-year-old suffered a heart attack

Bingu wa Mutharika, an obscure economic minister who became the president of Malawi in 2004 and later brought his country to the brink of failure, died April 5. He was 78.  For More Information

0 Comments

Sat

07

Apr

2012

Avalanche buries 130 Pakistani soldiers

From THE WASHINGTON POST


  Avalanche Buries 130 Pakistani Soldiers On Himalayan glacier Near India

 

ISLAMABAD — An avalanche has buried 130 Pakistani soldiers in a Himalayan region close to India, a Pakistani security official said, the Associated Press reports. The incident happened early Saturday on the Siachen Glacier, where thousands of Pakistani and Indian troops are based.

0 Comments

Fri

06

Apr

2012

Czech Society, Culture, Manners and Other Behaviors

Excerpt from Kwintessential (at this URL)

Society Culture Family Customs and much more.

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Fri

06

Apr

2012

Czechoslovakia

From Spartacus - schoolnet

 

Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 from territory that had previously been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As well as the seven million Czechs, two million Slovaks, 700,000 Hungarians and 450,000 Ruthenians there were three and a half million German speaking people living in Czechoslovakia.

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Fri

13

Nov

2015

Are Languages Products of their Environment?


shutterstock_222422665_151112


DISCOVER MAGAZINE published this very interesting article: 


  Languages Are Products of Their Environments


The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different environments.

2 Comments

Tue

03

Jun

2014

The Case for Reparations

 

The Case for Reparations

 

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

 

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

May 21, 2014

 


Chapters

  1. I. “So That’s Just One Of My Losses”
  2. II.  “A Difference of Kind, Not Degree”
  3. III. “We Inherit Our Ample Patrimony”
  4. IV. “The Ills That Slavery Frees Us From”
  5. V. The Quiet Plunder
  6. VI. Making The Second Ghetto
  7. VII. “A Lot Of People Fell By The Way”
  8. VIII. “Negro Poverty is not White Poverty”
  9. IX. Toward A New Country
  10. X. “There Will Be No ‘Reparations’ From Germany”
0 Comments

Mon

02

Jun

2014

A Look At 19th Century Children In The USA

PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day.

 

As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values.

The New York Times

Sunday Review

By JON GRINSPAN MAY 31, 2014

 

A late 19th century family taking a stroll down a set of railroad tracks
A late 19th century family taking a stroll down a set of railroad tracks

American children of the 19th century had a reputation. Returning British visitors reported on American kids who showed no respect, who swore and fought, who appeared — at age 10 — “calling for liquor at the bar, or puffing a cigar in the streets,” as one wrote. There were really no children in 19th-century America, travelers often claimed, only “small stuck-up caricatures of men and women.”

 

This was not a “carefree” nation, too rough-hewed to teach proper manners; adults deliberately chose to express new values by raising “go-ahead” boys and girls. The result mixed democracy and mob rule, assertiveness and cruelty, sudden freedom and strict boundaries. Visitors noted how American fathers would brag that their disobedient children were actually “young republicans,” liberated from old hierarchies. Children were still expected to be deferential to elders, but many were trained to embody their nation’s revolutionary virtues. “The theory of the equality” was present at the ballot box, according to one sympathetic Englishman, but “rampant in the nursery.”

 

Boys, in particular, spent their childhoods in a rowdy outdoor subculture. After age 5 or so they needed little attention from their mothers, but were not big enough to help their fathers work. So until age 10 or 12 they spent much of their time playing or fighting.

 

The writer William Dean Howells recalled his ordinary, violent Ohio childhood, immersed in his loose gang of pals, rarely catching a “glimpse of life much higher than the middle of a man.” Howells’s peers were “always stoning something,” whether friends, rivals or stray dogs. They left a trail of maimed animals behind them, often hurt in sloppy attempts to domesticate wild pets.

 

And though we envision innocents playing with a hoop and a stick, many preferred “mumbletypeg” — a game where two players competed to see who could throw a knife closer to his own foot. Stabbing yourself meant a win by default.

 

Left to their own devices, boys learned an assertive style that shaped their futures. The story of every 19th-century empire builder — Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt — seems to begin with a striving 10-year-old. “Boy culture” offered training for the challenges of American manhood and a reprieve before a life of labor.

 

But these unsupervised boys also formed gangs that harassed the mentally ill, the handicapped and racial and ethnic minorities. Boys played an outsize role in the anti-Irish pogroms in 1840s Philadelphia, the brutal New York City draft riots targeting African-Americans during the Civil War and attacks on Chinese laborers in Gilded Age California. These children did not invent the bigotry rampant in white America, but their unrestrained upbringing let them enact what their parents mostly muttered.

 

Their sisters followed a different path. Girls were usually assigned more of their mothers’ tasks. An 8-year-old girl would be expected to help with the wash or other physically demanding tasks, while her brother might simply be too small, too slow or too annoying to drive the plow with his father. But despite their drudgery, 19th-century American girls still found time for tree climbing, bonfire building and waterfall-jumping antics. There were few pretty pink princesses in 19th-century America: Girls were too rowdy and too republican for that.

 

So how did we get from “democratic sucklings” to helicopter parents? Though many point to a rise of parental worrying after the 1970s, this was an incremental change in a movement that began a hundred years earlier.

 

In the last quarter of the 19th century, middle-class parents launched a self-conscious project to protect children. Urban professionals began to focus on children’s vulnerabilities. Well-to-do worriers no longer needed to raise tough dairymaids or cunning newsboys; the changing economy demanded careful managers of businesses or households, and restrained company men, capable of navigating big institutions.

 

Demographics played a role as well: By 1900 American women had half as many children as they did in 1800, and those children were twice as likely to live through infancy as they were in 1850. Ironically, as their children faced fewer dangers, parents worried more about their protection.

 

Instead of seeing boys and girls as capable, clever, knockabout scamps, many reconceived children as vulnerable, weak and naïve. Reformers introduced child labor laws, divided kids by age in school and monitored their play. Jane Addams particularly worked to fit children into the new industrial order, condemning “this stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play.”

 

There was good reason to tame the boys and girls of the 19th century, if only for stray cats’ sake. But somewhere between Jane Addams and Nancy Grace, Americans lost track of their larger goal. Earlier parents raised their kids to express values their society trumpeted.

 

“Precocious” 19th-century troublemakers asserted their parents’ democratic beliefs and fit into an economy that had little use for 8-year-olds but idealized striving, self-made men. Reformers designed their Boy Scouts to meet the demands of the 20th century, teaching organization and rebalancing the relationship between play and work. Both movements agreed, in their didactic ways, that playtime shaped future citizens.

 

Does the overprotected child articulate values we are proud of in 2014? Nothing is easier than judging other peoples’ parenting, but there is a side of contemporary American culture — fearful, litigious, controlling — that we do not brag about but that we reveal in our child rearing, and that runs contrary to our self-image as an open, optimistic nation. Maybe this is why sheltering parents come in for so much easy criticism: A visit to the playground exposes traits we would rather not recognize.

 

There is, however, a saving grace that parents will notice this summer. Kids are harder to guide and shape, as William Dean Howells put it, “than grown people are apt to think.” It is as true today as it was two centuries ago: “Everywhere and always the world of boys is outside of the laws that govern grown-up communities.” Somehow, they’ll manage to go their own way.

 

________________________________

 

A National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society who is writing a book on the role of young people in 19th-century American democracy.

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Mon

21

Apr

2014

Investigating Family's Wealth, China's Leader Signals a Change

From The New York Times 

By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JAD MOUAWAD

APRIL 19, 2014

 

HONG KONG — His son landed contracts to sell equipment to state oil fields and thousands of filling stations across China. His son’s mother-in-law held stakes in pipelines and natural gas pumps from Sichuan Province in the west to the southern isle of Hainan. And his sister-in-law, working from one of Beijing’s most prestigious office buildings, invested in mines, property and energy projects.

 

In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures, the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Chinese Communist Party leader who served as China’s top security official and the de facto boss of its oil industry.





A visitor at the Zhou family's ancestral graves in Xiqliantou, eastern China.  Intrigue surrounds the family after a spate of arrests.  Sim Chi Yim for the New York Times
A visitor at the Zhou family's ancestral graves in Xiqliantou, eastern China. Intrigue surrounds the family after a spate of arrests. Sim Chi Yim for the New York Times

But President Xi Jinping has targeted Mr. Zhou in an extraordinary corruption inquiry, a first for a Chinese party leader of Mr. Zhou’s rank, and put his family’s extensive business interests in the cross hairs.

 

Even by the cutthroat standards of Chinese politics, it is a bold maneuver. The finances of the families of senior leaders are among the deepest and most politically delicate secrets in China. The party has for years followed a tacit rule that relatives of the elite could prosper from the country’s economic opening, which rewarded loyalty and helped avert rifts in the leadership.

Zhou Family Ties

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Fri

13

Nov

2015

Are Languages Products of their Environment?


shutterstock_222422665_151112


DISCOVER MAGAZINE published this very interesting article: 


  Languages Are Products of Their Environments


The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different environments.

2 Comments

Tue

03

Jun

2014

The Case for Reparations

 

The Case for Reparations

 

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

 

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

May 21, 2014

 


Chapters

  1. I. “So That’s Just One Of My Losses”
  2. II.  “A Difference of Kind, Not Degree”
  3. III. “We Inherit Our Ample Patrimony”
  4. IV. “The Ills That Slavery Frees Us From”
  5. V. The Quiet Plunder
  6. VI. Making The Second Ghetto
  7. VII. “A Lot Of People Fell By The Way”
  8. VIII. “Negro Poverty is not White Poverty”
  9. IX. Toward A New Country
  10. X. “There Will Be No ‘Reparations’ From Germany”
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Mon

02

Jun

2014

A Look At 19th Century Children In The USA

PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day.

 

As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values.

The New York Times

Sunday Review

By JON GRINSPAN MAY 31, 2014

 

A late 19th century family taking a stroll down a set of railroad tracks
A late 19th century family taking a stroll down a set of railroad tracks

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Mon

21

Apr

2014

Investigating Family's Wealth, China's Leader Signals a Change

From The New York Times 

By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JAD MOUAWAD

APRIL 19, 2014

 

HONG KONG — His son landed contracts to sell equipment to state oil fields and thousands of filling stations across China. His son’s mother-in-law held stakes in pipelines and natural gas pumps from Sichuan Province in the west to the southern isle of Hainan. And his sister-in-law, working from one of Beijing’s most prestigious office buildings, invested in mines, property and energy projects.

 

In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures, the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Chinese Communist Party leader who served as China’s top security official and the de facto boss of its oil industry.





A visitor at the Zhou family's ancestral graves in Xiqliantou, eastern China.  Intrigue surrounds the family after a spate of arrests.  Sim Chi Yim for the New York Times
A visitor at the Zhou family's ancestral graves in Xiqliantou, eastern China. Intrigue surrounds the family after a spate of arrests. Sim Chi Yim for the New York Times

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