It’s the very first thing I wrote down in my notebook. Act as if.
How exactly was I supposed to do that? Surely the trainer was going to reveal the secret during our first day of leadership training. Instead she took us on a year-long journey that started with THINK AS IF …led to ACT AS IF…and ultimately became the way things are. (or in progress of becoming.)
What is leading? It’s knowing when to talk and when to listen. It’s knowing when to lead and when to follow. It’s motivating people to do good work. It’s about having outstanding interpersonal skills. And staying focused on business outcomes. Always.
It’s all of that and so much more.
As I wrote down “Act as if” in my notebook I realized that some of the simplest lessons would be the hardest to apply.
How to say yes
“No!” It’s the hallmark of my 3 year olds vocabulary. It’s easy to say. It’s definitive. It leaves no room for speculation.
Sometimes it’s necessary to say no at work. But falling into the trap of only 2 answers — “yes” or “no” – is very limiting. There are so many possibilities between yes and no. Learning to say “yes” (even with caveats and boundaries) opens up a dialogue that leads to creative solutions.
Today I say YES more often.
How to make a better first impression
My dad taught me early on that a firm handshake and eye contact are the ways to make a good first impression. I mastered those when I was 10.
Standing in front of 30 women, I learned to take it up a notch. To convey warmth instead of perkiness. To control the inflection of my voice. To stand tall despite being 5’2” (and a half!).
Today I make a better first impression. Though I am still working on “Good morning” (inside joke for BL18!)
Ask…for what I want
This is so.unbelievably.difficult. Asking for what I want means (a) knowing exactly what it is I actually want (b) articulating what I want in a way my audience (manager, co-workers, team) will hear *and* act on (c) demonstrating the benefits of my request.
One of my mentors explained “showing your value doesn’t mean talking the most. Or the loudest. (I am fairly certain she would cringe at some of the meetings I attend). She told me to ask more questions. Offer less answers. And BE QUIET.
Ask…how I can help
Give me a problem. I want to solve it. NOW. One of my mentors politely asked me, “does your team ask you to solve their problems?”
“Is your team capable of solving problems?”
“Start by asking how you can help. It’s more effective than solving every problem”. Huh. I discovered this applies to my kids too.
Today — every day — I ask. I ask questions. I ask for what I want. What my team wants. I simply put out my questions, pause, and wait for the answer.
The power of the pause
I admit the first time I heard about the “power of the pause” I broke out into Vanilla Ice lyrics…stop. collaborate and listen… But really? Sometimes silence is exactly what’s needed to get unstuck.
My normal pace is to respond (react?) immediately to everything. Pausing gives me the luxury of saying the right thing at the right time (I cannot claim to always get this right). Sometimes in that pause I even manage to think up some good questions.
Today I take a deep breath and pause.
Have I mentioned that I think every problem is mine to solve? A big-huge-slap-in-the-face lesson I learned is that sometimes a battle is not worth fighting. I have to strategically choose when to collaborate, when to compromise, and when to avoid.
Today I make better choices that lead to better outcomes.
What got you here won’t get you there
All those things that led to my current success? They aren’t the things that will necessarily lead to my next success. And that brings us right back to…
Act as if
In a year I made things possible that I couldn’t imagine when I started this journey. I put life-changing tools in my toolbox and learned how — and when — to use them. I stopped acting and started being the person I set out to be one year ago.
Today I lead.
And people follow!
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Brad Kempster, Claudia Gonzalez; Left hemisphere advantage in the visual processing of graspable objects. Journal of Vision 2011;11(11):830. doi: 10.1167/11.11.830.
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n a series of grasping studies using visual illusions we showed that regardless of handedness, right hand but not left hand grip apertures are accurately scaled to the size of an object. Grip apertures in the left hand, reflected the perceived (illusory) and not the real size of the target (Gonzalez et al., 2006, 2008). We advanced the hypothesis that the left hemisphere is specialized for visually-guided grasping and that this specialization was independent of handedness. Grasping requires the integration of a visual and a motor component, however. Here we investigate if there are hemispheric asymmetries in encoding visual properties of objects that could later explain the left hemisphere/right hand advantages in visually-guided grasping. We presented pictures of graspable objects, defined as objects that could be picked up with one hand (e.g. coin, apple, etc) and non-graspable objects, defined as tangible objects that could not be picked up with one hand (i.e. car, piano, etc) selectively to the right (RVF) or left (LVF) visual fields. Graspable/non-graspable objects and RVF/LVF presentation were randomized over the trials. Right- and left-handed participants quickly pressed a button with the index finger if the object on the screen was of a graspable object and pressed a different button with the middle finger if it was of a non-graspable object. Responding fingers and starting hands were counterbalanced among participants. Overall, reaction times were shorter for graspable objects than for non-graspable objects. Furthermore, there was a RVF (left hemisphere) advantage (shorter reaction times) but only for graspable objects. No visual field difference was detected for non-graspable objects. These findings were the same for right and left-handers. The results strongly suggest that the processing of graspable objects regardless of handedness is more efficient in the left hemisphere and this might help explain asymmetries in visually-guided grasping.
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By Martin Wolf *
Another ideological god has failed. The assumptions that ruled policy and politics over three decades suddenly look as outdated as revolutionary socialism.
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'” Thus quipped Ronald Reagan, hero of US conservatism. The remark seems ancient history now that governments are pouring trillions of dollars, euros and pounds into financial systems.
“Governments bad; deregulated markets good”: how can this faith escape unscathed after Alan Greenspan, pupil of Ayn Rand and predominant central banker of the era, described himself, in congressional testimony last October, as being “in a state of shocked disbelief” over the failure of the “self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity”?
In the west, the pro-market ideology of the past three decades was a reaction to the perceived failure of the mixed-economy, Keynesian model of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The move to the market was associated with the election of Reagan as US president in 1980 and the ascent to the British prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher the year before. Little less important was the role of Paul Volcker, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, in crushing inflation.
Yet bigger events shaped this epoch: the shift of China from the plan to the market under Deng Xiaoping, the collapse of Soviet communism between 1989 and 1991 and the end of India’s inward-looking economic policies after 1991. The death of central planning, the end of the cold war and, above all, the entry of billions of new participants into the rapidly globalising world economy were the high points of this era.
Today, with a huge global financial crisis and a synchronised slump in economic activity, the world is changing again. The financial system is the brain of the market economy. If it needs so expensive a rescue, what is left of Reagan’s dismissal of governments? If the financial system has failed, what remains of confidence in markets?
It is impossible at such a turning point to know where we are going. In the chaotic 1970s, few guessed that the next epoch would see the taming of inflation, the unleashing of capitalism and the death of communism. What will happen now depends on choices unmade and shocks unknown. Yet the combination of a financial collapse with a huge recession, if not something worse, will surely change the world. The legitimacy of the market will weaken. The credibility of the US will be damaged. The authority of China will rise. Globalisation itself may founder. This is a time of upheaval.
How did the world arrive here? A big part of the answer is that the era of liberalisation contained seeds of its own downfall: this was also a period of massive growth in the scale and profitability of the financial sector, of frenetic financial innovation, of growing global macroeconomic imbalances, of huge household borrowing and of bubbles in asset prices.
In the US, core of the global market economy and centre of the current storm, the aggregate debt of the financial sector jumped from 22 per cent of gross domestic product in 1981 to 117 per cent by the third quarter of 2008. In the UK, with its heavy reliance on financial activity, gross debt of the financial sector reached almost 250 per cent of GDP (see charts).
Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard argue that the era of liberalisation was also a time of exceptionally frequent financial crises, surpassed, since 1900, only by the 1930s. It was also an era of massive asset price bubbles. By intervening to keep their exchange rates down and accumulating foreign currency reserves, governments of emerging economies generated huge current account surpluses, which they recycled, together with inflows of private capital, into official capital outflows: between the end of the 1990s and the peak in July 2008, their currency reserves alone rose by $5,300bn.
These huge flows of capital, on top of the traditional surpluses of a number of high-income countries and the burgeoning surpluses of oil exporters, largely ended up in a small number of high-income countries and particularly in the US. At the peak, America absorbed about 70 per cent of the rest of the world’s surplus savings.
Meanwhile, inside the US the ratio of household debt to GDP rose from 66 per cent in 1997 to 100 per cent a decade later. Even bigger jumps in household indebtedness occurred in the UK. These surges in household debt were supported, in turn, by highly elastic and innovative financial systems and, in the US, by government programmes.
Throughout, the financial sector innovated ceaselessly. Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, described derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction”. He was proved at least partly right. In the 2000s, the “shadow banking system” emerged and traditional banking was largely replaced by the originate-and-distribute model of securitisation via constructions such as collateralised debt obligations. This model blew up in 2007.
We are witnessing the deepest, broadest and most dangerous financial crisis since the 1930s. As Profs Reinhart and Rogoff argue in another paper, “banking crises are associated with profound declines in output and employment”. This is partly because of overstretched balance sheets: in the US, overall debt reached an all-time peak of just under 350 per cent of GDP – 85 per cent of it private. This was up from just over 160 per cent in 1980.
Among the possible outcomes of this shock are: massive and prolonged fiscal deficits in countries with large external deficits, as they try to sustain demand; a prolonged world recession; a brutal adjustment of the global balance of payments; a collapse of the dollar; soaring inflation; and a resort to protectionism. The transformation will surely go deepest in the financial sector itself. The proposition that sophisticated modern finance was able to transfer risk to those best able to manage it has failed. The paradigm is, instead, that risk has been transferred to those least able to understand it. As Mr Volcker remarked during a speech last April: “Simply stated, the bright new financial system – for all its talented participants, for all its rich rewards – has failed the test of the marketplace.”
In a recent paper Andrew Haldane, the Bank of England’s executive director for financial stability, shows how little banks understood of the risks they were supposed to manage. He ascribes these failures to “disaster myopia” (the tendency to underestimate risks), a lack of awareness of “network externalities” (spillovers from one institution to the others) and “misaligned incentives” (the upside to employees and the downside to shareholders and taxpayers).
. . .
After the crisis, we will surely “see finance less proud”, as Winston Churchill desired back in 1925. Markets will impose a brutal, if temporary, discipline. Regulation will also tighten.
Less clear is whether policymakers will contemplate structural remedies: a separation of utility commercial banking from investment banking; or the forced reduction in the size and complexity of institutions deemed too big or interconnected to fail. One could also imagine a return of much banking activity to the home market, as governments increasingly call the tune. If so, this would be “de-globalisation”.
Churchill called also for industry to be “more content”. In the short run, however, the collapse of the financial system is achieving the opposite: a worldwide industrial slump. It is also spreading to every significant sector of the real economy, much of which is clamouring for assistance.
Yet if the financial system has proved dysfunctional, how far can we rely on the maximisation of shareholder value as the way to guide business? The bulk of shareholdings is, after all, controlled by financial institutions. Events of the past 18 months must confirm the folly of this idea. It is better, many will conclude, to let managers determine the direction of their companies than let financial players or markets override them.
A likely result will be an increased willingness by governments to protect companies from active shareholders – hedge funds, private equity and other investors. As a defective financial sector loses its credibility, the legitimacy of the market process itself is damaged. This is particularly true of the free-wheeling “Anglo-Saxon” approach.
No less likely are big changes in monetary policy. The macroeconomic consensus had been in favour of a separation of responsibility for monetary and fiscal policy, the placing of fiscal policy on autopilot, independence of central banks and the orientation of monetary decisions towards targeting inflation. But with interest rates close to zero, the distinction between monetary and fiscal policy vanishes. More fundamental is the challenge to the decision to ignore asset prices in the setting of monetary policy.
Many argue that Mr Greenspan, who succeeded Mr Volcker, created the conditions for both bubbles and subsequent collapse. He used to argue that it would be easier to clean up after the bursting of a bubble than identify such a bubble in real time and then prick it. In a reassessment of the doctrine last November, Donald Kohn, Fed vice-chairman, restated the orthodox position, but with a degree of discomfort.
Mr Kohn now states that “in light of the demonstrated importance to the real economy of speculative booms and busts (which can take years to play out), central banks probably should always try to look out over a long horizon when evaluating the economic outlook and deliberating about the appropriate accompanying path of the policy rate”. Central banks will have to go further, via either monetary policy or regulatory instruments.
. . .
Yet a huge financial crisis, together with a deep global recession, if not something far worse, is going to have much wider effects than just these.
Remember what happened in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment rose to one-quarter of the labour force in important countries, including the US. This transformed capitalism and the role of government for half a century, even in the liberal democracies. It led to the collapse of liberal trade, fortified the credibility of socialism and communism and shifted many policymakers towards import substitution as a development strategy.
The Depression led also to xenophobia and authoritarianism. Frightened people become tribal: dividing lines open within and between societies. In 1930, the Nazis won 18 per cent of the German vote; in 1932, at the height of the Depression, their share had risen to 37 per cent.
One transformation that can already be seen is in attitudes to pay. Even the US and UK are exerting direct control over pay levels and structures in assisted institutions. From the inconceivable to the habitual has taken a year. Equally obvious is a wider shift in attitudes towards inequality: vast rewards were acceptable in return for exceptional competence; as compensation for costly incompetence, they are intolerable. Marginal tax rates on the wealthier are on the way back up.
Yet another impact will be on the sense of insecurity. The credibility of moving pension savings from government-run pay-as-you-go systems to market-based systems will be far smaller than before, even though, ironically, the opportunity for profitable long-term investment has risen. Politics, like markets, overshoot.
The search for security will strengthen political control over markets. A shift towards politics entails a shift towards the national, away from the global. This is already evident in finance. It is shown too in the determination to rescue national producers. But protectionist intervention is likely to extend well beyond the cases seen so far: these are still early days.
The impact of the crisis will be particularly hard on emerging countries: the number of people in extreme poverty will rise, the size of the new middle class will fall and governments of some indebted emerging countries will surely default. Confidence in local and global elites, in the market and even in the possibility of material progress will weaken, with potentially devastating social and political consequences. Helping emerging economies through a crisis for which most have no responsibility whatsoever is a necessity.
The ability of the west in general and the US in particular to influence the course of events will also be damaged. The collapse of the western financial system, while China’s flourishes, marks a humiliating end to the “uni-polar moment”. As western policymakers struggle, their credibility lies broken. Who still trusts the teachers?
These changes will endanger the ability of the world not just to manage the global economy but also to cope with strategic challenges: fragile states, terrorism, climate change and the rise of new great powers. At the extreme, the integration of the global economy on which almost everybody now depends might be reversed. Globalisation is a choice. The integrated economy of the decades before the first world war collapsed. It could do so again.
On June 19 2007, I concluded an article on the “new capitalism” with the observation that it remained “untested”. The test has come: it failed. The era of financial liberalisation has ended. Yet, unlike in the 1930s, no credible alternative to the market economy exists and the habits of international co-operation are deep.
“I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more,” said Dorothy after a tornado dropped her, her house and dog in the land of Oz. The world of the past three decades has gone. Where we end up, after this financial tornado, is for us to seek to determine.
This is the first part of an FT series entitled the Future of Capitalism
* Martin Wolf is associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London.
Source: Financial Times, FT.com, Published: March 8 2009


This is for the rest of us. The rest of us who survived.
As a parent, it devastates me to think what terror-stricken families are going through tonight. I worry about how they will ever be whole and healed again. The passing away of any family member is hard, but passing away because of an act of violence is hard to justify as the divine plan.
I wonder and shudder at the generations to come and how I think that they will be an innocence-less generation. All the technological and medical breakthroughs will help them excel faster and quicker, without the slow streaming Internet and the 100rs-a-minute international calls. However will more information lead to better decisions? And what about innocence? Without innocence how will this generation be silly enough to dream dreams that most people call foolish? Can greatness prevail without this innocence?
My son is a year old and fortunately he doesn’t comprehend what is happening all around the World. The grief, the trauma and the pain, all because some frustrated men need an excuse to kill? The new generation is being born into a world of unnatural motivations and greed. It worries me to think that since the day they were conceived, terror looms in backdrop. We may sanitize the world for them, but they sense and will soon know that behind our version there lies the World as it is, terrorized.
Will this mean that this generation will have high tolerance to terror? Will acts of terror not move them the way that they move us now? Will they not shudder because they are more used to it? I may take heart in the fact, just for a moment that what makes us human –our humanity – will echo throughout the generations to come, no matter what their exposure has been. But today, I am of the opinion that the meaning of humanity is subjective.
It is true that man is his own worst enemy, even before he becomes the enemy of who-he-is-not. Being human may be overestimated is what I feel today. There is no pride or nobility in being human. There is more sacredness in being an animal today. We need to think about how our generation will be defined in history – will we just be the mere survivors of violence? It is a sad day and a day to think about how violence pervades our family, whether we are directly affected by it or not.


This was a sidebar for the unpublished piece I wrote on childbirth.
There’s no shortage of parenting books and resources available for parents, but here are some of our favourites.
Baby Love is the Australian bible of parenting books. Written by former child health nurse Robin Barker, it’s a practical guide to the first twelve months of your child’s life and covers everything from feeding, sleeping and, yes, even pooping.
If you find yourself fixated on everything that might go wrong during your pregnancy, pick up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff. This book provides answers to almost every question youll have about your pregnancy in a balanced and reassuring way.
For a more humorous take on pregnancy and motherhood, try Up The Duff—Aussie slang for pregnant—by cartoonist Kaz Cooke. This book takes a look at what you might experience week by week during pregnancy, as well as coping with a newborn baby, in a way that’s sure to make you laugh.
Theres also a huge number of free online resources for pregnant women and parents:
- BabyCenter at www.babycenter.com.au can send you weekly newsletters with relevant information about your baby’s development
- Essential Baby at www.essentialbaby.com.au provides a forum for mums to ask questions and share their parenting experiences
- Raising Children Network at www.raisingchildren.net.au is packed with articles and expert advice on caring for children up to school age
- If you’re expecting twins or multiples, contact the Australian Multiple Births Association at www.amba.org.au (membership incurs a fee)
Finally, if youre about to become a Lola (grandmother), many hospitals now offer grandparenting classes, which might be particularly useful if youd like to know more about current childbirth and parenting practices in Australia.


ATLANTA — Just one point separates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in two states that are critical to both candidates’ chances of becoming president, according to new CNN/ORC polls in Pennsylvania and Colorado.
In Colorado, likely voters break 42 percent for Trump, 41 percent for Clinton, 13 percent for Libertarian Gary Johnson and 3 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Pennsylvania’s likely voters split 45 percent for Clinton, 44 percent for Trump, 6 percent for Johnson and 3 percent for Stein. Those divides are well within each poll’s 3.5-point margin of sampling error.
The new results in two battleground states underscore the closeness of the race and come as the candidates prepare to square off Monday night in their high-stakes first debate at Long Island’s Hofstra University.
In both states, sharp divisions among whites by education are evident, with white college graduates choosing Clinton over Trump by 11 points in Pennsylvania and 16 points in Colorado, while whites who do not hold four-year degrees break in Trump’s favor by 19 points in Pennsylvania and 22 points in Colorado.
RELATED: Full Colorado polling results
In Colorado, that education gap is a bigger divide than gender or age, and is even larger than the racial gap in the state. Pennsylvania’s likely voters are more divided than Colorado’s along gender and racial lines.
Johnson’s appeal among younger voters appears to be working to Clinton’s detriment in both states. While Trump’s numbers are significantly lower among voters under 45 than among older voters, Clinton’s are roughly the same across age groups, while Johnson’s support multiplies among younger voters.
Clinton fares better in two-way matchups in both states, topping Trump 50 percent to 47 percent among likely voters in Pennsylvania and 49 percent to 47 percent in Colorado.
Though both results are within the polls’ margin of sampling error, the finding suggests she could fare better in each state if third party candidate support dipped.
The two polls come alongside tight national polls and neck-and-neck poll results in several other key battleground states including Ohio, Florida, Nevada and North Carolina.
In Colorado and Pennsylvania, the economy stands out as far and away the top voter concern. About half of registered voters in each state, and a similar share of likely voters, call the economy most important out of a list also including terrorism, illegal immigration and foreign policy.
And when asked which candidate would better handle the economy, Trump comes out on top in both states, though within each poll’s margin of error.
Clinton holds broad advantages for handling foreign policy in both states, and she tops Trump by eight points on handling immigration in Colorado, a state where a Pew Research Center analysis recently estimated that about a quarter of the state’s sizable Latino population is foreign born.
In Pennsylvania, the two candidates run about even on that issue. And in the wake of terror attacks in New York and New Jersey, voters in both states are about evenly split on who would better handle terrorism.
The poll suggests Clinton has made an effective case that Trump does not have the temperament to be president — she is viewed as better suited for the presidency by a nearly two-to-one margin in each state on that score — and she holds smaller advantages as the better candidate to be commander-in-chief.
But Clinton continues to lag behind Trump when voters are asked which of the two is more honest and trustworthy.
Trump’s contention that Clinton lacks the stamina for the job splits voters in Colorado, 48 percent see him as having the better stamina, 45 percent choose Clinton. In Pennsylvania, Trump holds a larger advantage on that, 50 percent to 45 percent.
Democrats have a narrow edge in the race for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, with Katie McGinty topping incumbent Pat Toomey 49 percent to 46 percent among likely voters, just inside the poll’s margin of error, and a broad lead in Colorado’s Senate contest, with incumbent Michael Bennet up 53 percent to 43 percent over Republican challenger Darryl Glenn.
The CNN/ORC Polls in Colorado and Pennsylvania were conducted by telephone Sept. 20-25. The Colorado poll included interviews with 1,010 adult residents of the state, including 784 who are likely to vote in November.
In Pennsylvania, interviews were conducted with 1,032 adult residents of the state, including 771 likely voters. Results for likely voters have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points in each state.AlertMe


Tom Ricks has won the Pulitzer prize twice, written five best-selling books on the military and foreign policy, and is a Senior Advisor at the New America Foundation. The American Society of Magazine Editors named Ricks’ ForeignPolicy.com blog, “Best Defense” the best blog on the internet in 2010.
This week Tom Ricks’ blog covered cyber warfare, Cuba, Iraq, torture and … CrossFit?
It’s not that much of a leap. Few would dispute that physical fitness is an essential component of military preparation. Yet the American military does not meet basic standards of health, let alone fitness:
“Only 35.7 percent of active duty personnel are classified as being a healthy weight. 51.2 percent of uniformed personnel are overweight; 12.4 percent are obese.”
Back to the CrossFit article on Ricks’ blog this week. Guest author Jim Gourley examined the military’s response to this problem in, “The relationship between the U.S. military and the CrossFit program.” Gourley reviewed some of the same figures and events that we’ve covered on this blog, including Dr. Katie Heinrich’s upcoming CrossFit study and General Abrams’ multi-million dollar commitment to CrossFit L1 seminars.
Gourley got those parts right, but two lines stand out as blatant misrepresentations of the truth:
The Army has perhaps given high intensity workouts the coolest reception, calling them “extreme conditioning programs” (ECPs) in a 2011 paper written in conjunction with the American College of Sports Medicine …
CrossFit’s headquarters published its own response to the Army’s claims.
The 2011 article that introduced the “extreme conditioning program” phrase could only be the “Consortium for Health and Military Performance and American College of Sports Medicine Consensus Paper on Extreme Conditioning Programs in Military Personnel.”
But the “Army” did not write that article. As its title states, the article was a joint effort between the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). ACSM is an aspiring civilian competitor to CrossFit and CHAMP is a small division of the Uniformed Services University.
Neither represents the Army. In fact, the CHAMP study itself states,
The opinions and assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S., Marines, U.S. Coast Guard, or the Department of Defense.
This could not be clearer. There is no reasonable rebuttal to this point. The Army did not write the CHAMP article on extreme conditioning programs, and it does not represent Army or DOD policy in any way.
So getting this corrected should be simple, right? Email Ricks and Gourley, let them know the error and the evidence, and they’ll issue a correction.
I emailed this error first to Gourley, then Ricks and two Foreign Policy editors. I explained why the CHAMP article doesn’t represent the Army. Again, there is no reasonable argument on this point – the article clearly states that it contains private opinions and not those of the US Army or DOD.
We’ve found an inverse relationship between journalistic prestige and accuracy. The better known the source, the less willing it is to correct its errors. Local outlets often issue corrections within 24 hours. National publications and award-winning journalists sometimes don’t attempt to correct errors.
Gourley defended his error, stating,
Thanks for the info. While I did see that other army leaders are extremely pro-CrossFit, I got the sense that they’re individuals acting within a larger institution that’s skeptical of the program and risk-averse to the injury hype. Based on the research and interviews I conducted, I got the impression that the Marines were out looking for a program that would substantially improve fitness, while the army sought one that would not lead to injuries.
Gourley’s “sense” may reflect his personal experience, but it is irrelevant. No matter how he feels about the Army’s stance towards CrossFit, the Army did not write the CHAMP article in conjunction with the ACSM.
Ricks responded quickly to my concerns, at first. Then he stated that he was “still trying to understand why this is noteworthy.”
I wrote back,
The current FP article states that the Army took an official stance against CrossFit. This would certainly be noteworthy, if true.
But that’s not true, and it actually is contradicted by its own source.
Next Ricks asked me if I would approve one line correcting the error. I sent him an accurate sentence he could use.
The following day, Ricks still hadn’t corrected his blog. I asked him if he had an idea when the error would be corrected. Ricks simply responded, “No.” So I gave him one more day before I would publicly correct his blog’s error. That time is up.
The details of this case are complex, but the underlying principle is simple. If the military’s relationship with CrossFit is worth covering, it is worth covering accurately.
It’s too bad that Tom Ricks doesn’t care enough to report the truth.


"Don't Tell Anyone" (2016)
Angy Rivera arrives with her mother in the United States, fleeing violence, poverty and civil war in their native Colombia. For twenty years they battle a complex and inequitable immigration system until Angy, facing an uncertain future, joins the youth-led New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC) and becomes an activist for undocumented youth.
The film will be introduced by Introduced by Ricardo Ramirez, Dept. of Political Science. Free, but ticketed event. For tickets, visit performingarts.nd.edu or call 574-631-2800.
The "Campaign Concerns" 2016 election film series is co-sponsored by CCHR, the Debartolo Performing Arts Center, and the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy.


Check out these Latino celebrities who contribute to worthwhile causes, and not just their own fame or well-being. BRAVO TO THEM!
Juanes has always been active in philanthropic causes in his birthplace of Colombia. Juanes is especially passionate about helping victims of land mines, which resulted during Colombia’s civil war. He also founded the Mi Sangre Foundation, an organization to help needy Colombian children through the Education For Peace Program.
Rosario Dawson is co-founder of Voto Latino, an organization that seeks to empower Latino youth to achieve a positive change through the vote. It is a non-partisan organization with big civic engagement campaigns dedicated to bringing new voices into the political process.Shakira is an internationally recognized celebrity who has room in her heart for her boyfriend, her baby and her philanthropic efforts to help children in need in her native Colombia. She was honored in 2011 as Person of the Year by the Latin Recording Academy for her career accomplishments as well as her leadership of the Pies Descalzos Foundation, a non-profit helping children in need in Colombia. She also founded its sister foundation, the Barefoot Foundation, is a U.S. non-profit devoted to bringing quality education to children in need. Recently, Shakira proposed a solution to bring quality education to every child in the U.S. through philanthrocapitalism — described as the practice in where you apply business methods to philanthropy and call upon the private sector to pick up where government leaves off.
Marc Anthony co-founded The Maestro Cares Foundation to support organizations in Latin America that work with disadvantaged children.
Eva Longoria spends much of her free time in philanthropic work to make a difference in the Latino community. She is engaged with many organizations and projects like: PADRES Contra El Cancer (Parents Against Cancer), a nonprofit organization that tries to improve the lives of Latino kids who are sick with cancer. She founded Eva’s Heroes, a charity focused on helping developmentally disabled children. In 2011, Longoria co-produced “The Harvest,” a documentary which shows the dire conditions of working migrant children. She also got the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts’ Horizon Award, awarded to those who advance the presence of Latinos in TV or films, and the 2006 NHLI Mujer/Chair Award, for her significant contributions to the empowerment of the Hispanic community, along with some other awards thanking her for her commitment to the betterment of the Hispanic community.
There are, other Hispanic celebrities contributing to worthwhile causes, which we will cover in another post.


Native American Natural Resources Law 518-1I
October 30, 2015
Text: Royster, Blumm & Kronk, Native American Natural Resources Law (3d ed. 2015)
This course examines the unique body of law governing “Indian country,” those geographic areas recognized by the federal government as homelands of sovereign American Indian tribes. Topics include the history of federal-tribal relations, tribal property rights, and the balance of governmental power between tribes, states and the federal government. Particular attention will be devoted to understanding the legal framework that supports the tribes’ role as proprietors and regulators of natural resources, including powers derived from the tribes’ inherent sovereign authority and rights stemming from treaties and federal statutes. The course will include close examinations of tribal water rights, fishing and hunting rights, and federal environmental statutes that accord tribes a significant regulatory role in the implementation of federal environmental programs like the Clean Air and Water Acts. Evaluation is based on class participation and a take-home examination.
The American Bar Association accreditation standards require students to regularly attend the courses in which they are registered. Lewis & Clark expects students to attend classes regularly and to prepare for classes conscientiously. Specific attendance requirements may vary from course to course. Any attendance guidelines for a given class must be provided to students in a syllabus or other written document at the start of the semester. Sanctions (e.g., required withdrawal from the course, grade adjustment, and/or a failing grade) will be imposed for poor attendance.


Sunshine Law, Florida’s immensely broad public records law, will soon be celebrated once more. Annually, from March 13 to 19, communities from all over the state take initiatives to spread awareness of the right to information with Sunshine Week.
Lee County is no exception. This year, the Lee County Clerk of Court, Linda Doggett, is reminding residents of their rights. At 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30, she will be offering a free, public seminar on the law entitled “The Value of Searching Public Records and Online Services.” The seminar will be held at the North Fort Myers Library: 2001 N. Tamiami Trail, North Fort Myers.
Sunshine law, chapter 119 of the Florida Statues, began in 1909. It allows any person in Florida to access public records from public agencies unless the records are exempt by the Florida legislature. The Government side of the law, chapter 286, was enacted in 1967, granting the right to basic access to most state and local government meetings.
These records have been revised over the years to include written material, papers, books, videos, maps, audio recordings and more. This law also includes emails. For example, Florida Gulf Coast University is a public state institution. A great majority of its records, that are not protected by FERPA or other laws, are considered public and include correspondence by email from faculty and staff.
Each year, in efforts to help spread awareness and comprehension of the law, the Attorney General’s Office issues a new guide to Sunshine Law. The Government-in-the-Sunshine manual is published by the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee; more information on this publication and more can be found on their website.
© 2016 Lee Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Suffering from Memory Problems?
Do you or your loved one struggle with memory problems? Whether memory loss is an indicator of early stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease or is Brain Fog caused by other means, it can wreak havoc on your life. At Leigh Brain & Spine the doctors use cutting-edge neuroscience and technology to serve people with the following challenges:
As we age our brains are slowing down, indicated by the dark blue in the brain map of memory loss to the right. If our brains begin to slow down too early, or slow down too much too fast, it can lead to big problems with our memory, thinking, and ability to process information. If you suffer from forgetfulness, can’t remember appointments, make scheduling mistakes, or have more distinct signs of early memory loss or dementia, your brain is slowing down.
Neurofeedback training has been proven by science to not only improve processing speed of the brain but to heal the brain cells themselves, making them work better and improving thinking and memory.
Americans are living longer than ever in this day and age. The average life span is calculated to be 78.74 years. Scientists have proven that cognitive decline shows up in healthy, educated adults beginning at 60 years of age. What is most interesting is that studies are now beginning to show that even though the effects of cognitive decline begin to manifest at age 60, aging in related decline actually begins in a person’s earlier years, their 20’s and 30’s. The study shows that healthy, educated adults’ mental sharpness is greatest between the ages of 22 and 27 years. The next group, which demonstrated a significant decline in thinking skills was between 27 – 42 years.
How Does Cognitive Decline Affect Adults?
Cognition is another word for thinking. It refers to a person’s ability to use the essential mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension and putting that knowledge to use. These processes include thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem-solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception, and planning. Without cognition we lose the ability to create, perform, interact, and live with the fullest quality of life. Cognitive decline can make it so that we are no longer able to work, travel, participate in groups and hobbies, and socialize to the level that we used to.
Solutions in the Brain for Cognitive Decline – Neurological Regulation
Most people are not aware that state-of-the-art technology is available to preserve cognitive skills and prevent them from declining. Living to 78 is great if you still have the mental capacity to enjoy your life. As the brain ages it becomes weaker in some or many areas. The weaker each area becomes and the poorer communication between areas happens the greater the cognitive decline a person will experience. When the brain areas are regulated and strengthened and communication tuned up, the brain is free to work better so you feel and perform better, longer.
Dr. Trish Leigh at Leigh Brain & Spine is trained to use brain assessments to determine if your brain might be suffering from the beginning or even the progression of cognitive decline. After a specialized and comprehensive assessment, the doctors are able to recommend treatment to preserve your cognition and quality of life. Schedule your brain assessment today to find out how your brain is performing and if there is room for improvement.
- Forgetfulness can be a normal part of aging, but there are basic steps you can take to elevate and slow down the process.
- As you age you may notice that it takes longer to learn new things.
- Some older adults also find that they don’t do as well as younger people on complex memory or learning tests.
Leigh Brain and Spine is proud to have earned the distinction as a Certified Brain Health Coach Center and is a proud member of the Amen Clinics referral network.


Journal or Book Title
The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics
In second language teaching and learning, computer technology extends the types of interactive activities that learners can work on in and outside of the classroom, and therefore it has affected the way that many teachers teach and learners learn. Teachers might, for example, ask students to seek specific information on the Internet in preparation for an information gap activity in class; teachers might indicate awkward expressions in a student's essay and show the student how to find examples of target language collocations in a corpus; and teachers might organize a virtual collaboration between their students and proficient speakers of the target language in another country. These activities and many more add significantly to the repertoire of activities that learners can engage in because of three affordances offered by technology: human-computer interaction, distance written and oral communication, and access to a community with data and creative opportunities on the Internet.
Chapelle, Carol, "Instructional Computer-Assisted Language Learning" (2013). English Publications. 208.


Help your kids make a doll's bed fit for a queen -- all you'll need is a shoe box and some paint!
What You'll Need:
- Shoe box with lid
- Scissors or craft knife
- Poster paints
- Craft glue
How to Make a Shoe Box Doll Bed:
Step 1: Make the base of the bed from the shoe box lid. Turn it upside down, and help kids cut out a section of each side. The corners become the legs of the bed.
Step 2: The bottom piece of the shoe box holds the doll. Help kids cut down the sides to 1 inch.
Step 3: Use the cut-out ends of the box to make the bed's headboard and footboard. Cut them into a fancy design.
Step 4: Cover your work surface with newspaper. Paint each piece with poster paints. Let the paint dry.
Step 5: Glue the bed to the legs. Glue the headboard and footboard to the bed.
Furnish your doll's bed with a pillow, mattress, and bedspread!


Perhaps the science will advance so that telomere reconstitution is a practical reality, that the DNA epigenetic changes can be reversed, that senescent cells can be eradicated, that the free radical damage to mitochondria can be dismantled, that the microbiome can be altered back to a youthful status. Perhaps metformin, rapamycin or resveratrol will have a significant impact. Perhaps.
But for now, it might be a more fruitful and meaningful personal use of time and endeavor to consider what the normal aging process means, not only physically and mentally but also spiritually and consider adjustments to lifestyles, behaviors and thought processes that will help usher in a productive and meaningful and hopefully healthy later years.
I see ignore and deny every day. Male 35 5.6 220, elevated liver enzymes, elevated BP, and tobacco use within the past year.
Every now and then I see an embrace. But this is rare.
My plan is to embrace and to live forever or die trying.


III–V semiconductor nanocrystal formation in silicon nanowires via liquid-phase epitaxy
- 299 Downloads
Direct integration of high-mobility III–V compound semiconductors with existing Si-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) processing platforms presents the main challenge to increasing the CMOS performance and the scaling trend. Silicon hetero-nanowires with integrated III–V segments are one of the most promising candidates for advanced nano-optoelectronics, as first demonstrated using molecular beam epitaxy techniques. Here we demonstrate a novel route for InAs/Si hybrid nanowire fabrication via millisecond range liquid-phase epitaxy regrowth using sequential ion beam implantation and flash-lamp annealing. We show that such highly mismatched systems can be monolithically integrated within a single nanowire. Optical and microstructural investigations confirm the high quality hetero-nanowire fabrication coupled with the formation of atomically sharp interfaces between Si and InAs segments. Such hybrid systems open new routes for future high-speed and multifunctional nanoelectronic devices on a single chip.
Keywordsliquid phase epitaxy InAs hetero-nanowires silicon ion implantation
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014


About this book
Before streets were brightly illuminated at night, astronomy was accessible to everyone and was a matter of great importance: for divination; for setting appropriate dates for planting, harvest, and festivals; for regulating lives. Phenomena in the heavens are still of great importance to many, and much of the lore of astronomy and astrology dates back to the earliest days of civilization. The astronomy of the ancients is thus of interest not only as history but also as the basis for much of what is known or believed about the heavens today. Because phenomena in the heavens are less familiar today than in earlier eras, this book begins with a brief description of what one can see in the sky on dark nights with the naked eye. It then turns to the astronomy of the Babylonians, who named many of our constellations, who are responsible for many of the fundamental insights of early astronomy, and who married mathematics to astronomy to make it an exact science. A chapter on Greek astronomy discusses various models of planetary motion, showing that the cycles and epicycles used by the Greeks have their modern counterparts in the computations used to compute the ephemeredes listed in the Nautical Almanac. The book then turns to a detailed discussion of Ptolemy's cosmology, the first to include quantitative models in an integral way. Though the Ptolemaic system is now often dismissed as unsound and inefficient, it is in fact a logically pleasing structure which, for more than a millennium, provided a framework for educated people throughout the Christian and Moslem worlds to think about the universe.
astronomy cosmology history of astronomy planet universe


A Color Constancy Algorithm for the Robust Description of Images Collected from a Mobile Robot
In mobile robotics, it is necessary to have a robust and efficient way of describing the visual stream provided by a vision system to be used afterwards in tasks such as object recognition. Color histograms are a useful tool to capture and represent color properties of sets of images taken from a certain position. Since those images were obtained at different time and light conditions, their appearance have greatly changed, reducing the performance of the color descriptor. In this work, we develop a color constancy algorithm that copes with the color variation among sets of images taken from nearly the same place. We show that the performance of the color histogram descriptor rises after color constancy, becoming a more robust and useful color descriptor. In the results section, we support that claim with several sets of images of scenes belonging to different positions.
Keywordscolor histograms color constancy mobile robots
- 3.Swain, M., Ballard, D.: Indexing via color histograms. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Computer Vision, pp. 390–393 (1990)Google Scholar


A MARRIAGE GONE SOUR?
Priyan Rajapaksa draws parallels between Brexit and marital unions
It’s fashionable at the moment for every man and his dog to provide an opinion on Brexit… so here’s is my ‘bark’ from New Zealand (wearing my Sri Lankan cap). Britain being part of the European Union (EU) was merely a marriage and not a very happy union. So isn’t it better to have an amicable parting than continue to live under one roof, throwing pots, pans and the occasional brick at each other?
I lived in the UK for a few years in the late 1980s and travelled as often as I could to continental Europe. It struck me even then that this was an ill-suited union. Ironically, I was going through a separation at that time. It was the benefit of a quick and amicable divorce that inspired me to humanise Brexit.
Although Christian Europeans worship the same God from two opposing sides of the altar as Catholics and Protestants, the commonality ends there. The languages, work ethic and attitudes to life are quite different. Southern Europeans are similar to Sri Lankans and enjoy their siesta, while the northerners work themselves to hell and live on Prozac.
Sri Lankans are well aware of the difficulties of welding together our ethnic groups and religions into one manageable unit on a small island, balancing the conflicting (self) interests of petty-minded political and religious leaders.
To those who have taken the Eurail and coach tours through the many countries of Europe, creating a single unit from 10 culturally disparate countries may appear a pipe dream. Increasing the number to 21 transforms the dream into the nightmare it has become.
To put it in a South Asian context, the concept of the EU is as ludicrous as all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries having one government. Established in 1985, we can cooperate, play games and provide officials the opportunity to meet, but we have yet to progress to visa-free travel within SAARC. At least the EU achieved that.
In Sri Lanka, people marry for three reasons – viz. arranged unions, for love or shotgun weddings. Arranged marriages are between couples of similar social standing, wealth and often of the same caste. In Western society, commoners marry for romantic love while most blue bloods (who know better) tie the knot to keep their blood blue and ensure their wealth is not distributed among the hoi polloi.
It has been said that ‘when poverty comes in through the door, love flies out of the window.’
The UK-EU union was an arranged marriage, if ever there was one, between two consenting adults of comparable wealth. In 1973, then-PM Edward Heath achieved with a pen what the Pope, Napoleon and Hitler could not achieve by the sword – the surrender of British independence.
Since 1066 and the Battle of Hastings, the English fought to keep the Europeans out of their land. Suddenly with the stroke of a pen, the garlic-eating barbarians were at the gates of London. It has never been a comfortable cohabitation, with Britain seen to be pumping in funds to keep some Europeans who lost their colonies and source of wealth in a lifestyle way beyond their means.
“Much of our high standard of living has been a result of our ability to take what we wanted from the rest of the world – and the loss of that ability would mean that our lives would become significantly less comfortable and luxurious,” says Lynn Harry Nelson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History of the University of Kansas.
At the end of World War II, Hitler’s Europe was divided between the American and British spheres in Western Europe, and a Russian sphere in the East. The EU grew out of the western sphere. Its founders tried to achieve by documents what others had attempted by war – i.e. a united Europe.
The economic aim of a common market went along well as long as it was confined to those countries with a similar standard of living. They could all sit for dinner at one table and make good conversation albeit through translators.
Relations have never been easy. In 1960, French president Charles de Gaulle – seeing British membership as a Trojan Horse for US interests – vetoed its membership.
The British thumbed their noses at the EU until 1973. In turn, Britain being a net contributor to the EU, resented paying subsidies.
Following 1981, its proverbial mother-in-law Brussels brought lesser than equals into this family of equals. As with any extended family meeting, the divisions surfaced. The rich are seldom comfortable sitting with their poor relatives. Maybe it’s a sense of guilt of their wealth or a fear that they’ll be tapped for a loan.
There will be costs and benefits, both incalculable, depending on one’s stay or go point of view. In the words of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, “it is not an amicable divorce; but it was also not an intimate love affair.”
Well there are no children from the so-called marriage. So like two mature adults, spare us the gossip, pack your bags and leave as soon as you can.


Day: Mondays and Wednesdays
Times (Pacific Time):
7:00am - 7:50am - Karen Mondoy
In Spanish 3, further develop students' mastery of vocabulary, oral communication skills, and grammatical structure with a special focus on verb forms. The text features true stories and letters from missionaries in Spanish-speaking countries, teaching the language as well as the culture.
Credits: 1 (Language or Elective)
Successful completion of Spanish II; minimum age of 15
Required Materials: BJU Spanish 3


Too much activity in certain areas of the brain is bad for memory and attention
Neurons in the brain interact by sending each other chemical messages, so-called neurotransmitters. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter, which is important to restrain neural activity, preventing neurons from getting too trigger-happy and from firing too much or responding to irrelevant stimuli.
Researchers have found that faulty inhibitory neurotransmission and abnormally increased activity in the hippocampus impairs our memory and attention.
Their latest research has implications for understanding cognitive deficits in a variety of brain disorders, including schizophrenia, age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s, and for the treatment of cognitive deficits.
The hippocampus — a part of the brain that sits within our temporal lobes — plays a major role in our everyday memory of events and of where and when they happen — for example remembering where we parked our car before going shopping.
This research has shown that a lack of restraint in the neural firing within the hippocampus disrupts hippocampus-dependent memory; in addition, such aberrant neuron firing within the hippocampus also disrupted attention — a cognitive function that does not normally require the hippocampus.
“Our research carried out in rats highlights the importance of GABAergic inhibition within the hippocampus for memory performance and for attention,” Dr Tobias Bast said.
“The finding that faulty inhibition disrupts memory suggests that memory depends on well-balanced neural activity within the hippocampus, with both too much and too little causing impairments.”
“This is an important finding because traditionally, memory impairments have mainly been associated with reduced activity or lesions of the hippocampus.”
“Our second important finding is that faulty inhibition leading to increased neural activity within the hippocampus disrupts attention, a cognitive function that does not normally require the hippocampus, but depends on the prefrontal cortex. This probably reflects that there are very strong neuronal connections between hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.”
“Our finding suggests that aberrant hippocampal activity has a knock-on effect on the prefrontal cortex, thereby disrupting attention.”
The research is motivated by recent clinical findings that patients in early stages of schizophrenia, age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s show faulty inhibition and increased activity within the hippocampus. The new study, where inhibition in the hippocampus of rats was disrupted before the animals took part in tests of attention and memory, revealed that such faulty inhibition and aberrant activity within the hippocampus causes the type of memory and attentional impairments seen in patients.
This research adds to the team’s recent findings, where they found that attention was disrupted by faulty inhibition and increased activity within the prefrontal cortex, a brain region important for attention.
“Overall, these findings highlight that higher brain functions, such as attention and memory, depend on well-balanced neural activity within the underlying brain regions,” Dr Bast said.
The findings show that simply ‘boosting’ the activity of the key memory and attention centres in the brain (the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex), which has been a long-standing strategy for cognitive enhancement, will not necessarily improve memory and attention, but can actually impair these functions. What’s important is to re-balance activity within these regions.
“One emerging idea is that early stages of cognitive disorders, such as schizophrenia and age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s, are characterised by faulty inhibition and too much activity; this excess neural activity leads then to neuronal damage and the reduced brain activity characterizing later stages of these disorders,”said Dr Bast.
“So, rebalancing aberrant activity early on may not only restore attention and memory, but also prevent further decline.
“We have new studies on the way where we aim to identify medicines that might be able to re-balance neural activity within hippocampus and prefrontal cortex and to restore memory and attention.”
McGarrity, S., Mason, R., Fone, K., Pezze, M., & Bast, T. (2016). Hippocampal Neural Disinhibition Causes Attentional and Memory Deficits Cerebral Cortex DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw247


I have recently asked a colleague to share one of her publications with me. I did not hear from her, but after a week or so, while cleaning my @SaneLater box, I discovered an email sent by her from an unfamiliar address and in another language containing a link to the paper. The story was that the file she wanted to send was too large for her regular email provider. So she used one of the many services which allow to upload a file to a server and then email a link to this file to your contact for download. I myself used one of such services (YouSendIt) once upon a time. All in all, the procedure was pretty clumsy: you needed to set up an account with such services (sometimes even pay for it) and the emails they generated could come from strange addresses (thus ending up in @SaneLater or even in Spam) and sometimes contain ads.
All you have to do is to make sure the file (or even folder) that you want to share is in your Dropbox (I keep all my mission-critical files in the Dropbox anyway), right-click on it (or use the Dropbox icon in your Finder’s toolbar) and select Share Dropbox Link. The link to the file or folder will be copied to your clipboard and can be emailed (or Skyped, SMSed, etc.). There is no need to upload anything, not even to open a Web browser. The persons you’re sharing with do not need to have a Dropbox account: they will be able to access and download the files directly through their web browser! And if they do have a Dropbox account they will have an option to simply add the shared folder to their own Dropbox and thus have it all on their local drive without the bother of download.


CASA RAMPA #Arquitecturademadera
Arquitectura Studio mk27
Fotografía ©Fernando Guerra
Desde HIC Arquitectura
“(…) An important collection of African art rests on the wooden sideboard in the living room of Ramp House, located in a quiet garden-neighbourhood in São Paulo. The owners intend to convert the place in a cultural foundation in the future (…)
The architecture of the Ramp House promotes a radical spatial continuity between the interior and exterior not only through large panes of sliding glass doors – that can be fully opened, connecting the living room with the garden – but also through the consistency in the use of the same materials both inside and outside. The wooden facade folds back towards the interior, becoming the roof liner that, in turn, folds again at the hall by the ramp to create an inner facade.
This three-dimensional surface building, a wooden ribbon, determines the structure and the actual volume of the house: a box – made of local Brazilian timber – projecting itself outward from the dense raw concrete sidewalls. Pillars rationally distributed over the internal space complete the structural system and contrib ute to enable the large spans of up to 9.70 meters. Setting up the ramp’s background – and of the whole living room – another concrete wall creates an austere, minimalist environment made with raw and natural materials. The timber on the roof lining also helps to complete the spatial feeling of cosiness in the room…”
Editores del post: Maderayconstruccion Si te gustó el post, estaría genial que lo compartas en tus redes sociales.


A complete full-color lithographed cadastral map of the town of Podgórze (Podgorza, Josefstadt, Podgorze), surveyed in 1847 and lithographed in 1849. Although dominated by its much larger neighbor city of Kraków across the Wisła River, at the time this map was made Podgórze was a separate town under Austrian rule. On this carefully-made map, parcels and houses are all clearly numbered, and many features shown are still visible today. The residential area centers near the river but also sprawls along a main road looping through town. Key features shown include the ancient Krakus Mound, the large Karl's Bridge, two churches and a Catholic cemetery; important Jewish sites would appear 30 years later. Images for this map were provided by the Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie.


Building any system that requires an operator who isn’t the system designer often involves creating a control panel to operate the patch or network in question. A control panel can also be useful for controlling various elements of a system that might otherwise be too complicated to manipulate directly.
In TouchDesigner one of the handy built in components that you might think about using is a button. Buttons have various states of operation that offer different types of control. Let’s star this process by looking at some actual buttons in TouchDesigner so we can see some how these work in practice.
Lets start by creating a new network, and deleting the template operators – if you’re new to touch you can draw a rectangular selection by clicking and dragging with the right mouse button. Select all off the operators and hit delete or backspace. You can also close your palette browser. You should now be left with an empty network.
To get started we’re going to double click the empty network or hit TAB on your keyboard. This brings up the Operator Dialog window. Make sure that you’re in the COMP (component) tab of the dialog window, and select a “Button” from the “Panels” column.
Place this button anywhere on your network. If we look at the parameters of this component we can start to get a sense of how it works, and how we can customize its operation for whatever you might be designing.
Looking at the parameter window we can see how this component is organized. This component has several tabs of parameters that all relate to different types of functions and methods for manipulating the button. Below is a quick summary what each tab deals with:
The Layout page gives us the ability to manipulate how the button is placed and represented on the control panel itself.
- The Panel page gives us some control over how the button behaves in the panel.
- The Button page allows for manipulating the kind of button operation methods.
- The Color page allows for some alteration in the color of the button.
- The Drag page controls the drag and drop behavior of the button.
- The Common page controls for some of the higher order mechanisms for this component – for now we don’t need to worry about this page.
To learn more about the Button COMP make sure that you look at Derivative’s documentation here.
Before we move on, let’s open up our control panel so we can see what our button looks like, and where it’s situated. In the upper left hand corner of your network there’s a small square shaped button. Mousing over this button will reveal the help text “open viewer.” Clicking on this button will bring up the panel viewer for the container that you’re working inside of.
Clicking on your open viewer button should mean that you see something like this:
At this point you should be able to click on your button in the viewer. To help us understand what’s happening with the button itself let’s attach a Null to the CHOP out from the container. In your network add a Null Chanel Operator (CHOP). Attach this to the CHOP out from the button (you can tell that it’s a Chanel Operator Out because of the color). With the null attached, now when we click on our button in the viewer we can see what kind of signal is being generated by this button component.
Before we take a closer look at button modes, let’s first see how we can position our button in the viewer. First select the button component to bring up the parameters window. Here on the Layout page we can see X and Y as variables that we can manipulate. These allow us to change the position of the button. The values for X and Y are in pixels. For now, I’m going to leave my button in the bottom left corner.
Next lets take a look at the Button page for this component. Two of the most commonly used states for buttons are Momentary and Toggle. Momentary transmits a signal as a pulse. Clicking the button sends an on, releasing the button sends an off. A toggle enables a button state to be activated or deactivated. In this case, clicking the button toggles it to the on position where it stays until you click the button again sending a signal of off. There are additional button types to choose from, but for now these two different types will help us enough to work through some basic ideas about how you might use and change a button. I’m going to leave my button set as a toggle down for now.
Now that we have a basic understanding of how this component works, lets start customizing it’s appearance. To do this we need to dive inside of our Button. We can do this by zooming in with the scroll wheel until we dive into the component, or we can select the button and hit the “i” key on your keyboard (i in this case is a shortcut for “in”).
Inside of our button we can see the Chanel operators, Texture Operator, and Data Operator that are driving this interface element. One of the most interesting elements to take a note of us the panel1 CHOP. Here you can see that TouchDesigner tracks several different kinds of interaction for our button. We can trigger actions based on the state of our button (is it on or off), the rollover position of our mouse (is the mouse hovering over the button), and if the button is being actively selected (the moment when the mouse button is being actively clicked).
Let’s start our customization of this button by first looking at the Text TOP (Texture Operator). If you click on the text TOP labeled “bg” we can see the parameters associated with this TOP. On the first page we see “Text.” I’m going to change the name of my button here to “Play.”
Next I want to adjust the color of this button. Before we do that, lets first draw our attention to the fact that our button changes it’s color depending on if we’re mousing over it, or have turned it on or off. A closer look at the Text TOP and the associated DAT and CHOP we can see that something very specific is happening. An expression CHOP is watching the button and reporting out the state of our button as a variable called “i” which is then being used by the DAT to dynamically change the color of our button. The table DAT defines what color values should be used for the button in the states: off, on, rollover, rollover on. If we want to keep the established convention of different colors for different states, we then need to edit the table DAT rather than the text TOP.
Let’s start by zooming into the table DAT. We can see here that we’re only using a single color value here for the dynamic content. This means that our options for changing the color of the button right now are only limited to gray scale. Bummer. Let’s make some changes to our table so we can have some color. To do this we’re first going to make our DAT active by clicking on the small + sign in the button right corner of this operator.
With this DAT in active mode we can now edit the table. Color values for our Text are generated off of three different numbers – values for red, green, and blue. We’re going to add two more columns and change the name of one column so we can use three different numbers to generate some different colors. With our DAT active, right click on the column labeled “background” and select add right. Repeat this step so that you have two empty columns to the right of the background column. Next let’s edit the text in the “background” cell, changing it to “bg_r.” In the columns next to this one add the names “bg_g” and “bg_b.” This is going to break our button for a moment, and that’s okay, don’t panic. You should now have a table that looks like this:
For now copy from bg_r to the other columns. Now your table should look like this:
Next lets fix our text TOP. Click on the Text TOP and then click on the Color page. On this page we can see that our values for the background color are all 0s and in red, telling us that something is broken. If we click on the text “Background Color” on this page we can see the expressions driving the dynamic changes for this TOP.
Next we’re going to edit the text in these expressions to account for our new columns in table DAT. We can see that there are three fields that correspond to our bg_r, bg_g, and bg_b with bgcolorr, bgcolorg, and bgcolorb. We’re going to change only the last reference in the expressions in these cells to represent the changes in our table. What we’re after here is to make sure that:
- bgcolorr is looking at the bg_r
- bgcolorg is looking at the bg_g
- bgcolorb is looking at the bg_b
We’ll do that by changing the term “background” in the expressions to match the columns that we’ve added.
Our edited expressions should look like the following (your button should be working again):
Now we need to change our table DAT in order to generate the colors that we want for our button. To help me determine the float values for the colors that I want, I’m going to add a constant TOP to the network momentarily. With my constant added to the network, I’m click on the white rectangle to bring up the color selector. This window will also give me the float values that I want to know so I can edit my table.
After a little bit of exploring I’ve found some colors that will work as a place to start. My resulting table DAT looks like this:
We now have a Button that we’ve given a unique name to, and made changes to a table DAT so that we can see a custom set of colors on our button that dynamically change as we operate our control panel. Now that we’ve made one, try making some buttons on your own.


Many critics of our healthcare system recommend buying healthcare like you’d buy a car. Now Walmart is hoping on board, too.
On October 6, 2014, Walmart announced a partnership with DirectHealth.com, launching a program they call ‘Healthcare Begins Here’ that hopes to educate customers on health insurance options. DirectHealth.com specializes in health insurance comparisons, offering access to more than 1,700 plans from 12 insurance carriers for people over the age of 65, and access to thousands of plans from over 300 carriers for those under age 65.
“Walmart has long been known for innovation in health and wellness, and we’ll never stop delivering new products and services to the 140 million people who visit our stores each week,” Labeed Diab, senior vice president and president of Health & Wellness at Walmart said in a press release. “For years, our customers have told us that there is too much complexity when it comes to understanding their health insurance options. ‘Healthcare Begins Here’ addresses that complexity by bringing clarity and increased choice to the insurance enrollment process through DirectHealth.com.”
Notably, this service will only benefit Walmart by bringing more bodies into their stores. For many years, Walmart has hosted insurance agents from individual companies in their stores, allowing customers to ask questions and enroll in specific plans. This takes that offering to the next level, according to the release.
‘Healthcare Begins Here’ will focus mostly on an over-65 audience. 2,700 Walmarts will now staff independent, licensed health insurance agents who will teach customers about different plans and assist them when they decide to enroll. The business of healthcare is booming, so of course Walmart wants in. Which makes us wonder: who’s next?
Jenni Whalen is the Executive Assistant of Editorial at Upworthy. She was previously MedTech Boston's Managing Editor and has an MS in Journalism from Boston University, as well as a BA in Psychology from Bucknell University. Whalen has written for Greatist, Boston magazine, AZ Central Healthy Living and the New England Journal of Medicine, among other places. She has also worked as a conference planner, ghost writer, researcher and content developer.
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When a vet tech asked Gillian Warmkessel if she would consider adopting a little special needs kitten who, along with his brother, had been abandoned by his mother in March 2012 outside a hardware store in Whitemarsh Island, Georgia, the animal lover and mother of two was definitely interested. “The vet tech explained that this tiny kitten was born with eyelid agenesis,” remembers Gillian, “which is more common in feral cats than other cat populations.”
Cats with eyelid agenesis, a congenital condition, are born without upper eyelids, and they usually require extra medical treatment, including surgery to cryogenically freeze the fur around their eyes to stop it from growing. “The eye meets the fur and skin without protection,” explains Gillian, “and the cornea is forever at risk due to blinking and fur irritation that can lead to ulcers.”
Gillian, who had both the time and money to care for a cat with eyelid agenesis, agreed to meet the little kitten, who was less than a week old at the time. “He got into the palm of my hand,” remembers Gillian. “It was love at first sight.”
Immediately, Gillian named the little kitten Perry Pepper, an homage to a black cat she’d seen online, and it wasn’t long before she received another call from her vet, asking if she’d like to adopt Perry’s brother.
Apparently, the family who agreed to adopt the newborn tuxedo kitten — who had a milder form of eyelid agenesis — thought he was a girl, and when they discovered his true gender, they no longer wanted him. “I got the second call,” remembers Gillian, “and jumped at the chance to bring this bonded pair of special needs brothers home together.”
To Gillian, it all felt as though it was meant to be: “The first set of kittens my husband and I rescued — right after college graduation — were also brothers,” says Gillian, and one of them was solid black while the other was a tuxedo cat. The pair, Goliath and Zeek, had recently passed away after living well into their teens, so Perry and his brother, whom the couple named Charlie Chips, seemed fated to be a part of Gillian’s family.
The Warmkessels had taken care of Goliath, who had to have one of his eyes removed to stop his cancer from metastasizing, so they had some experience with special needs cats. Still, they’d never had a pet with eyelid agenesis before, so they weren’t entirely sure what to expect. However, the kittens didn’t go to their home right away; instead, Perry and Charlie remained at the vet for several months until they were old enough to be tested for FIV, and Gillian and her family regularly visited the brothers during this time.
Thankfully, when they finally went to live with the Warmkessels, Gillian discovered that eyelid agenesis had no impact on their eyesight — “Both Perry and Charlie have no vision problems whatsoever,” says Gillian — but Perry, who has a more severe form of the condition, needs a bit of extra attention. Not longer after Gillian and her family adopted the brothers, both cats had cryosurgery to freeze the hair around their eyes — turning it white — and Perry needed multiple procedures, while Charlie needed just one.
While the cryosurgery was successful for both cats, Perry still needs some additional help to keep his eyes healthy. “Because Perry is missing his upper lid and cannot fully close his eyes or have the same eye protection as other cats, I must ensure his eyes stay clean,” explains Gillian. “I actually wipe his eyes daily, and many days I need to lubricate his eyes with ointment.”
However, Gillian, who says Perry is a mama’s boy, is more than happy to help the assist black cat who was abandoned by his biological mother as a newborn kitten. “Even though I’m the one who fusses with him the most,” says Gillian, “he also seems to show me the most affection.”
Indeed, Gillian has formed strong bonds with both of her special needs cats, but she admits she has a unique relationship with Perry. “We have six cats and two dogs and I love them all,” says Gillian, adding, “I hate to admit it, but Perry is my favorite.”
Perry is incredibly special, not just because he was born without his upper eyelids, but also because he is extremely talkative, he enjoys surveying his kingdom from the top of the fridge, he will dig at the blankets to get underneath the covers, and he loves special treats like aged Gruyere cheese.
Gillian and her husband agree that this handsome special needs cat and his brother are the most loving animals they’ve ever met, and they’re convinced it’s because Perry and Charlie are grateful to have a home after being abandoned when they were so young. “They love to cuddle and are as friendly as dogs to our guests,” says Gillian. “We believe that rescued animals know, and they never forget.”
While Perry and Charlie look a bit different from other cats, Gillian insists that what separates them from other felines is how exceptionally loving and sweet they are, traits that make these adorable brothers — and cats like them — uniquely wonderful pets. “All special cats are especially lovable,” says Gillian, and she thinks animals like Perry and Charlie have some very important lessons to share. “They give us much more than we give them,” says Gillian. “They have a lot to teach humans about accepting differences.”
Thankfully, Perry and Charlie have found the perfect home with the Warmkessels where not only are their differences accepted, they’re celebrated, and nearly six years after they were discovered outside a hardware store, they’re happier than ever. While Gillian adores both of her boys, she admits that she has a stronger bond with Perry, partly because he requires more attention than his brother. “I think because he needs me more than my other pets, I feel responsible for taking care of him,” says Gillian.
Fortunately, it’s not a responsibility Gillian minds shouldering, and she’s thankful she’s the person who got that call back in 2012, asking her to open her home to a tiny one-week-old kitten who had been abandoned by his biological mother. “He’s my special baby boy,” says Gillian. “I love him with all my heart.”
To learn more about this handsome cat, you can follow Perry on Instagram.


- COLOR SCHEMES
- SEE ALSO/CREDITS
- COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
got - A tool to make it easier to manage multiple code repositories using different VCSen
cd some/proj/in/a/vcs got add # answer prompts for various information # or run with '-D' to take all defaults # show managed repositories got list got ls # run a command in selected repositories got do --tag perl --command "ls t/" # show managed repositories sorted by path (default = sort by name) got ls -p # remove repo #1 from the list got remove 1 # remove repo named 'bar' from the list got remove bar # remove all repos tagged 'foo' without confirmation prompts got rm -f -t foo # remove repo #3 without confirmation prompts and be noisy about it got rm -f -v 3 # show status (up-to-date, dirty, etc.) for all repos got status # show status for repo #3 got st 3 # fetch upstream for all repositories got fetch # fetch upstream for repo #3 got fetch 3 # update all repos with configured remotes got update # update repo named 'bar' got up bar # Note: if a repo is in the list but doesn't have a local checkout, 'got # update' will create directories as needed and do the initial check out. # Run the 'git gc' command to garbage collect in git repos got gc # spawn a subshell with working directory set to 'path' of repo #1 got chdir 1 # spawn a subshell with working directory set to 'path' of repo foo got cd foo # or use 'tmux' subcommand to open a new tmux window instead got tmux 1 got tmux foo # N.b., 'tmux' will reuse an existing window if one is open # checkout a local working copy of a repo and add it to your list of repos. # will prompt for info on what to name repo, tags, etc. got clone <git/http/ssh url> # As above, but accept defaults for all options without prompting got clone -D <git/http/ssh url> # fork a github repo, add it to your list of repos, and check it out in # the current working directory got fork https://github.com/somebodies/repo_name # note: the default path to a repo added via 'fork' is a directory # named 'repo_name' in the current working directory # if you just want to fork without checking out a working copy: got fork --noclone https://github.com/somebodies/repo_name # finally, please note that you need a C<~/.github-identity> file set up # with your access token or your username and password in the following key-value # format: user username pass password # *OR* access_token token # note that if you specify both, the access_token value will be used # show version of got got version
got is a script to make it easier to manage all the version controlled repositories you have on all the computers you use. It can operate on all, some, or just one repo at a time, to both check the status of the repo (up to date, pending changes, dirty, etc.) and sync it with any upstream master.
got also supports forking a GitHub repo and adding it to the list of managed repositories.
In addition to the subcommand-specific options illustrated in the SYNOPSIS, all the subcommands accept the following options:
--verbose / -v
Be more verbose about what is happening behind the scenes
--quiet / -q
Be more quiet
--tags / -t
Select all repositories that have the given tag. May be given multiple times. Multiple args are (effectively) 'and'-ed together.
--skip-tags / -T
Skip all repositories that have the given tag. May be given multiple times. Multiple args are (effectively) 'or'-ed together. May be combined with -t to select all repos with the -t tag except for those with the -T tag.
--no-color / -C
Suppress colored output
--color-scheme / -c
Specify a color scheme. Defaults to 'dark'. People using light backgrounds may want to specify "-c light".
The name given to the option indicates a library to load. By default this library is assumed to be in the 'App::GitGot::Outputter::' namespace; the given scheme name will be appended to that namespace. You can load something from a different namespace by prefacing a '+'. (E.g., '-C +GitGot::pink' will attempt to load 'GitGot::pink'.)
If the requested module can't be loaded, the command will exit.
See COLOR SCHEMES for details on how to write your own custom color scheme.
repo name, repo number, range
Commands may be limited to a subset of repositories by giving a combination of additional arguments, consisting of either repository names, repository numbers (as reported by the '
list' subcommand), or number ranges (e.g.,
2-4will operate on repository numbers 2, 3, and 4).
Note that if you have a repository whose name is an integer number, bad things are going probably going to happen. Don't do that.
Color scheme libraries should extend
App::GitGot::Outputter and need to define four required attributes:
color_minor_change. Each attribute should be a read-only of type 'Str' with a default value that corresponds to a valid
Term::ANSIColor color string.
Seeing Ingy döt Net speak about AYCABTU at PPW2010 was a major factor in the development of this script -- earlier (unreleased) versions did not have any way to limit operations to a subset of managed repositories; they also didn't deal well managing output. After lifting his interface (virtually wholesale) I ended up with something that I thought was worth releasing.
drdrang prodded me about making the color configuration more friendly to those that weren't dark backrgound terminal people. The colors in
App::GitGot::Outputter::lightare based on a couple of patches that drdrang sent me.
- The Wire
Currently git is the only supported VCS.
- Yanick Champoux <email@example.com>
- Michael Greb <firstname.lastname@example.org>
- Chris Prather <email@example.com>
- Rolando Pereira
- Tina Müller <firstname.lastname@example.org>
- Karen Etheridge
- Lucy Wyman
John SJ Anderson <email@example.com>
This software is copyright (c) 2015 by John SJ Anderson.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.


- Montessori Education’s Eight Principles as Introduced by A.S. Lilard, PhD
- Fostering of Internal Motivation in The Early Childhood Student
- Breaking Bread to Bridge Cultures and Build Peace
Representatives from Michigan Montessori Society and a number of other concerned Montessorians have formed a coalition (Michigan Montessori Education Advocacy Network) that is working with the State of Michigan. Our goal is to facilitate modifications in Michigan’s QRIS rating process that will allow authentic Montessori schools to score at the highest levels in this 5 star system.Montessori Advocacy
The Michigan Montessori Society offers affiliation, membership, and educational services.
Join the Michigan Montessori Society Community.
The Michigan Montessori Society offers to its members and affiliate schools a number of services.
Leonor J Esnard, OP, PhD ADMTEI Director, Montessori Educator
Debra Gorman Cagle, MEd ADMTEI faculty, Montessori Teacher, Adjunct Professor at Siena Heights University
Date / Time:
Saturday, May 19, 2018 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM / Weber Retreat & Conference Center 1257 E. Siena Heights Drive in Adrian, Michigan


On the face of it, yesterdays decision by the Bank of England to keep base rates at 0.5% for the eighteenth month in a row, sounds like excellent news for consumers.
Those with mortgages can breathe a sigh of relief as their repayments will remain low for yet another month – though lenders are making large margins at the moment by not lowering their mortgage rates as much as they could.
Apparently there are 52% of us who are not so happy about interest rates being so low. A recent moneysupermarket.com poll found that just over half of respondents actually want the base rate to start rising as they want higher returns on their savings.
As usual, it appears that the problem is made worse by the Banks.
Whilst the base rate has remained at 0.5% for the last year and a half, the average interest rates across the leading easy access accounts has actually fallen over the last 18 months from 2.98 per cent to 2.72 per cent. A 0.26 percent decrease.
So not only are banks using the low base rates as an opportunity to increase margins from mortgages, they are also increasing their margins with savings accounts too!
No wonder savers are not too happy at the moment.


A scent that is calming, relaxing, and balancing, Lavender has been documented to improve concentration and mental acuity.
According to University of Miami, researches found that inhaling Lavender oil increased beta waves in the brain, suggesting heightened relaxation. It also reduced depression and improved cognitive performance (Diego MA, et al., 1998). A 2001 Osaka Kyoiku University study found that lavender reduced mental stress and increased alertness (Motomura, 2001).
Personally, this is in my First Aid kit and Travel kit. It is so highly versatile that one is amazed by its abundant benefits. Today, I continue to use it on skin acne, rash/itch by applying it directly onto my skin, and even mixing 1-2 drops into my facial moisturizer cream (I apply this mixture about once a week) as I mix Orange oil on another day 🙂
Recently, a friend suggested that Lavender oil be applied onto the scalp for hair loss, and guess what? I have been seeing baby hair growth ever since! I have also shared this with my friends, and they said that it works for them too! Some said Rosemary oil works better for them. I tried it but it just stings my scalp while my friends felt no similar sensation, only that they felt more alert and their partners thought they smelt like food. Sadly, with that much hair falling out everyday – I wonder if my baby hair can grow out fast enough to even cover the sporadic bald patches *sigh
Note: Many use a vegetable carrier oil before applying onto the scalp. I have tried applying it neat onto several spots on the head as well as mixing with Argan oil. As it is rather costly, it may be wise to mix it with a carrier oil 🙂
Some uses of Lavender oil:
Respiratory infections, high blood pressure, menstrual problems/PMS, skin conditions (e.g. skin repair, acne, scarring, stretch marks), burns, hair loss, insomnia, nervous tension)
More information on How to Use
And if you need one in your home kit, feel free to contact me


We look after a total of 134 boys and girls in
- two Crèche groups for children from 18 months up to three years,
- two Kindergarten groups for children from three to five years,
- three Preschool groups for children from five to six years.
Kindergarten and Preschool groups consist of 22 children, Crèche groups of 12 children. A teaching staff of three looks after each group during the core hours. One teacher is an English native speaker, one a German native speaker and the third one either of the two. With the help of the immersion method, the children are exposed to the two languages and grow up bilingually in a very natural way. Reliability and trust are key elements in our relationship with each child. Each child is part of a fixed (feste) group and has one main contact during the settling in period.
A special feature in our Kindergarten is our Preschool, which prepares the children in a play-oriented manner for school during a whole year, thus ensuring a smooth transition into the 1st year level in Primary.
Our concept highly values the individual child. We realise that each child learns at their own pace. Developmental feedback is shared with parents regarding their child’s progress, and by cooperating closely with the parents we can ensure that each child is supported in the right manner leading towards thenext developmental step.


City of Ferndale water and sewer customers recently received utility bills for the 2-month period from June 5th to August 4th. According to City staff, many were shocked by an unexpected increase in the invoice total.
City Communications Officer Riley Sweeney said phone and foot traffic to City Hall has been steady this week. The invoices were sent Friday, August 31st and there was an immediate uptick in calls from customers when City Hall opened Tuesday, after the 3-day weekend, he said.
The City’s response has been to send out workers to reread the meters and look for leaks at the addresses where complaints came from, Sweeney explained. The result of these investigations have provided no reason to believe there are any problems with meters or data collection procedures.
2 things changed this year that are likely reasons for the higher amounts. How charges are computed during summer months and an increase in the rate used to calculate sewer charges based on water use.
In past years, summer utility bills were computed not from actual water use but from an average use based on previous off-season billings. This was intended, according to City Council discussions, to offset the increased water use that was not likely to result in an increase in sewer use since lawn and garden watering puts the water into the ground and not into the sewer.
The Ferndale City Council approved using actual water usage billing instead of the off-season averaging as they struggled to find ways to pay for a planned wastewater plant upgrade and expansion.
In addition, by a vote of 4 to 3 during the June 6, 2017 City Council meeting, councilmembers approved increasing sewer usage rates by 3% per year over the next 3 years (an increase of 9.3% over 3 years) and increasing connection fees for new developments 25% per year over the next 3 years (an increase of 95% or nearly double over 3 years). Councilmembers Rebecca Xczar, Greg Hansen and Teresa Taylor were opposed to the mix of increases voted on. It was also at this time the summer “discount” was eliminated beginning this summer.
Utility charges are based on water usage for City of Ferndale utility customers. Included with water charges are sewer, storm drain and an included utility tax. Sewer charge is a result of multiplying water use by the current sewer rate. When water usage goes up, so does the sewer charge. Storm drain is a flat rate paid equally by all utility customers. There is also a 9% utility tax that is part of water, sewer and storm drain charges. So, again, as water usage goes up, so will the utility tax.
Sweeney said water usage this summer is very close to what was used last summer. He pointed out that when people think of summer water usage they consider the water used to irrigate their lawns and gardens. But, Sweeney explained, they are also likely to use more water as a result of things like taking more showers and doing more laundry as a result of increased outside activities.
“We ask anyone with a question or concern to please contact us so we can identify those situations where there is something we can address,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney said City Council will be looking at ways to revise the sewer rate structure over the upcoming months now that they have better information about costs associated with the wastewater plant upgrade and expansion. “Anyone with recommendations on how to best charge for water and sewer use are asked to pass along their recommendations to the City Councilmembers,” Sweeney said. Emails sent to firstname.lastname@example.org will be delivered to every councilmember’s email address.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, a couple spoke during the public comment period to let councilmembers know of their frustration and shock after receiving a $500 utility billing from the City. Lenard and Rosemary Webb said they relocated to Ferndale last fall to be closer to family and, being newly retired, they were on a fixed income. Leonard told the councilmembers and City staff, “If we had known how this was coming in, we might have located somewhere else.”