The following is a summary of my story based on my book Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain: A Nine-Step Recovery Plan.
It all began with a simple case of back pain. Over time, due to improper diagnoses and inappropriate treatments, I developed pain in my neck, knees, elbows, and one shoulder, as well as pain and numbness in my legs, arms, and hands. I suffered gastritis due to my use of prescription and over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications. I was constantly in pain and became severely disabled. At one point the pain was so severe that I was not able to stand or sit for more than fifteen minutes at a time, climb three steps, walk farther than one hundred yards, carry more than four pounds, lift a half-gallon milk container, or even write two lines.
My life became limited in ways that I had never imagined. I could not visit anyone and was reluctant to allow visitors. I had to stay away from work and was faced with serious questions about my career, my future, and my life, especially as a husband and father. All this—and I was only thirty years old.
I was seen by general practitioners as well as back specialists and even a nationally known orthopedic surgeon. Each one had his own diagnosis. I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the spine, degenerated discs, sprained back muscles, pinched nerve, herniated discs, leaky discs, and piriformis syndrome as possible causes for my back and leg pain. I was given a wide variety of different medications and treatments, some of which caused more pain and disability and made my condition worse.
· Why, unlike a broken bone, does back pain not heal, instead often lasting for years?
· If weak muscles are the cause, how strong do back muscles have to be for one to recover? Do we all need to become bodybuilders to be free of pain?
· If improper sitting and bending can damage the back, why aren't gymnasts and other athletes who put tremendous pressure on their spines all suffering from debilitating back pain?
In the face of the medical community's apparent ineptitude in treating back pain—and the fact that some of the treatments prescribed for me actually made my condition worse—I realized that I could no longer afford to be a passive patient.
I began to take an active role in my diagnosis and treatment and tried to become an informed consumer, searching the available literature for a cure to my disabling condition—a condition so prevalent that it has become a national health problem. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of treatments for back, neck, and hand pain is quite disappointing.
· "Surgery has been found to be helpful in only 1 in 100 cases of patients with low back pain. In some people, surgery can even cause more problems." So concluded the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after conducting a comprehensive study of more than 10,000 cases of back pain.
· "Injecting methylyprednisolone acetate [cortisone] into the facet joints is of little value in the treatment of patients with chronic low back pain." This was the conclusion of a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
· "Treatments [for whiplash-associated disorders] evaluated in a rigorous manner show little or no evidence of efficacy." This finding was the result of an exhaustive study conducted at McGill University. Researchers found treatments ranging from a neck collar to traction to be of little or no value.
. "Correcting carpal tunnel syndrome is one of the most common operations performed today. The only problem is, it often doesn't work," concluded researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Even though these facts have appeared in some of the most authoritative and prestigious medical journals, you will not learn this crucial information from most specialists, inside or outside the medical profession. Indeed, these treatments are used so widely that you may be shocked to learn that they don't work in the majority of cases!
The more I studied the medical journals and scientific literature, the more I came across such studies and the more I realized that what we really need is an accurate diagnosis. Lack of a correct diagnosis is the number-one reason why this condition has become a major health problem. As mentioned earlier, as many as 85% of patients with low back pain never receive a definitive diagnosis. Without a definitive diagnosis, a cure cannot be expected. Once we have the correct diagnosis, the solution can be quite simple!
After months of searching and reading, I learned about the work of John Sarno, M.D., a professor of rehabilitative medicine at New York University, who was also trying to determine the correct diagnosis. He too was disappointed with the failure of common treatments and realized the need for a new understanding.
As he looked deeper into the medical histories of his patients, Dr. Sarno discovered something that is often neglected by medical professionals. He noticed that 88 percent of his patients had histories of disorders such as migraine headaches, colitis, stomach ulcers, hay fever, asthma, eczema, and high blood pressure. These disorders were strongly suspected of being caused by chronic repressed anger, anxiety, worries, frustrations, stress, and tension. Dr. Sarno wondered whether, in the same way, that chronic anger, anxiety, worries, and frustrations can cause physiological changes leading to these illnesses, back pain could also be a physical manifestation of negative emotions.
So he put this new diagnosis to work and began treating his patients accordingly. At first, the majority of his patients felt there was not enough stress and tension in their lives to cause their pain. Many of them believed that they were handling their teenage children, problems at work, and marital problems effectively. They didn't realize that these difficult situations were creating a great deal of anger and rage, internally causing pain in various parts of their bodies.
Once Dr. Sarno treated back patients for this new diagnosis and not for some structural abnormality, his patients began to recover. In fact, 98 percent of his patients with confirmed cases of herniated discs recovered without surgery—certainly a much better result than the 1 percent success rate experienced with surgery.
I know what most of you are thinking: "Not me!" That was exactly my response to the notion that tension and stress were causing my pain. Being a calm, positive person who rarely gets angry or tense, I was quite skeptical about whether Dr. Sarno's findings applied to me. It is well known that stress and tension can aggravate back pain and many other disorders. However, could repressed anger, anxiety, worries, and frustrations be the actual cause of so much pain and disability? I figured I had nothing to lose by keeping an open mind and learning more. At the very least, maybe what I learned could help someone else.
As I learned more about Dr. Sarno's explanation of the pattern of pain and why the pain moves around and becomes chronic, I found convincing answers to all my questions and more. I began to see why so many people under the age of fifty facing career and family responsibilities suffer from chronic pain; why, unlike a broken bone that heals, back pain becomes chronic and can last for years; why we do not see an epidemic of disabling back and leg pain among Olympic and professional athletes who put tremendous pressure on their spines; and why, because the mind/body connection is so often neglected, the causes of as much as 85% of back pain are not clear. Dr. Sarno's explanation, of course, makes it clear why surgery and most treatments directed at correcting "spinal abnormalities" fail to help most people.
With this new understanding, I combined his treatment program with my knowledge of psychology and many years of personal experience with the workings of the mind to design an effective nine-step rapid recovery plan. This plan enabled me to begin my journey toward a pain-free and able life immediately. Employing techniques used by Olympic athletes and high achievers, such as visualization and goal setting, I began to create positive emotions and reverse the physiological changes that caused the chronic pain.
My improvements could be seen daily and astonished those who knew how disabled I had been. Within the first four days of my recovery, I was able to stand, bend, sit, and sleep comfortably. I was also able to walk without a limp, climb stairs, wear a tie, exercise on a cross-country ski machine, and swim. The climax of my recovery was when, less than two weeks later, I was able to carry both of my children, each weighing over forty pounds. This I had not been able to do for over two years due to pain in my back, legs, knees, and arms. It felt wonderful. And one month later I began taking karate lessons.
But there was more. I had suffered from hay fever for seventeen years and had taken antihistamines to control my sneezing and itchy, watery eyes. However, with my new understanding that hay fever is one of the many disorders caused by tension, by using the strategies in my nine-step recovery plan I was able to eliminate it quickly.
Then, during a routine eye exam, the ophthalmologist told me that my eyes were fine and I no longer needed the reading glasses I had been wearing for the past fourteen years! I was so surprised that I sought a second opinion. The second ophthalmologist confirmed the diagnosis. I discovered that tension played a key role here too. In fact, decades ago, noted ophthalmologist Dr. William Bates recognized the relationship between tension and nearsightedness and other changes in the eye refraction. He designed a program for reversing the effects of tension on the eyes and eliminating the need for glasses.
Needless to say, at times I was amazed and overwhelmed by these improvements in my health in such a short time. I was also so excited about my discovery that I began sharing it with everyone I knew—and they began to get well! In order to reach more people, I taught seminars and workshops and explained my system in my book, Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain: A Nine-Step Recovery Plan. By the grace of God, I have received e-mails from readers from around the world who have recovered rapidly by reading my story and applying my rapid recovery plan. To read their stories, please visit http://www.fredamir.com (rapidrecovery).
So what were the causes of anger and tension in my life, which were the real causes of my pain? They had to do with my marriage and my parents. They were nothing out of the ordinary. We all experience problems and tensions in our relationships with our parents, spouses, children, friends, and co-workers; what is important is to realize the limitations in our capacity to please others and to cope with chronic stress.
It is vital to understand that, as calm and in control, as we might appear on a conscious level, there is a part of us all deep within, on the subconscious level, that may resent certain aspects of a relationship or a situation, be it at home or at work. Unless those troubling issues are resolved through mutual respect and good communication, or through positive changes in our circumstances, it is quite natural to expect physical manifestations of the repressed anger, anxiety, and tension in the form of bodily aches and pains.
I have to admit I was quite surprised at how easily I could resolve the issues that were the sources of my chronic anger and anxiety. I have dedicated Chapter Seven of my book, titled "The Road to Wellness," to discussing empowering concepts and strategies that have helped me stay pain-free and healthy. You will find nine steps for establishing good communication and resolving conflicts with your loved ones and others, eleven strategies for coping with stress and tension, four steps for immediately improving a marriage, and a three-step plan for raising well-disciplined, goal-oriented children with high self-esteem.
These techniques have resolved the issues that were chronic sources of anger, anxiety, frustration, and tension in my life and have made me much happier and healthier.
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My name is Fred Amir. I am the creator of the Nine-Step Rapid Recovery Plan, author of Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain: A Nine-Step Recovery Plan, and the Rapid Recovery Coach.
Herniated disc, degeneration discs, leaky discs, piriforms syndrome, osteoarthritis, Pinched nerve, annular defect, sprained back muscles, gastritis, tendonitis, and more.


text:
Henry Austin (17th century) was an English poet postulated  by Alexander Balloch Grosart as author of The Scourge of Venus, or the Wanton Lady. With the Rare Birth of Adonis. The Second Impression, corrected and enlarged, by H. A. (1614). Grosart's identification in the Dictionary of National Biography depended on a remark about "Austin" by Thomas Heywood. The modern Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes that this identification rested on a confusion of works by Ovid (The Scourge of Venus is taken from Metamorphoses, not the Ars amatoria and the Remedia amoris which Heywood meant). It also states that later editors did not accept Grosart's view of the identity of "H. A.".

See also
Apocryphal biographies in the Dictionary of National Biography

References

Attribution

17th-century English writers
17th-century English male writers
English male poets

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Therapy dogs newest ISR wingmen
Lily, an English labrador retriever, is the morale dog for the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va. Therapy dogs are being used by an increasing number of Air Force ISR Agency units to help their troops cope with the rigors of military life. (U.S. Air Force photo by TSgt. Robert Williams)
NEWS | April 16, 2014
By Wayne Amann Air Force ISR Agency Public Affairs
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO - LACKLAND, Texas – They effectively bring cold noses, furry coats and friendly dispositions to the fight - albeit indirectly.
They're called therapy dogs, the newest group of wingmen in the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency war fighting arsenal. The canines provide stress relief to agency Airmen by simply being themselves. It's a natural talent the enterprise plans on using more of to help its troops deal with the rigors of military life.
"We assessed our sites to determine what we could use to take care of our patient population in the ISR Agency, including anything to help human performance, resiliency, coping, behavioral modification, de-stressing and de-compressing," said Col. Paul Young, Air Force ISR Agency surgeon general. "We saw the hospitals, like Brooke Army Medical Center [San Antonio] and Wright State [Dayton, Ohio] were using therapy dogs. We asked their owners and people at the hospitals if we could transfer some of the programs to the ISR world."
That question led to the March 25 visit by three of the patriotic pups from the Miami Valley Pet Therapy Association to the agency's National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where they participated in NASIC's Beat Stress Seminar presented by the Wright-Pat Medical Center Outreach Program.
Then during the inaugural Agency Field Day and Family Picnic April 5 here, Jake, a seven-year-old golden retriever, made an appearance to help celebrate the agency family, and honor its deployed Airmen.
All the four-legged visitors to the agency do so courtesy of Therapy Dogs Inc., a national organization based in Cheyenne, Wyo. Incorporated in 1990, they have more than 12,000 handler/dog teams in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Territories.
Their goal is to provide registration, support, and insurance for its members who volunteer at animal assisted activities. Their objective is to form a network of caring individuals willing to share their special animals in bringing happiness and cheer to people, young and old alike.
Jake's owner, Diane White, the spouse of a retired Air Force member who now works at the 543rd ISR Group here, is one of those caring people who understands the importance of the relationship with 'man's best friend.'
"My son-in-law is a physical therapist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii," she said. "He was the reason I got involved with therapy dogs. When he was deployed, his happiest times were around forward operating bases that had dogs. It's where my heart is."
Besides good intentions like White's, an annual certification process is needed to qualify as a Therapy Dog Team.
Each owner must do obedience training with their dog on their own. Once the animal is two years old, the owner meets a certifier who interviews both owner and dog to see if the duo would be good for the program. After follow-up visits with the certifier the owner and dog take a test. Upon passing the test, paperwork is submitted to insuring the pair through Therapy Dogs Inc. The dog and its handler are covered as long as they are where people want them to be.
Young sees the Therapy Dog appearances benefitting the agency on two levels.
"Volunteers visit our sites when we invite them, which is an inexpensive way of helping our troop with budget issues going on," the doctor said. "It also spreads beyond taking care of our warriors. It spreads to the Fisher House taking care of our patient population."
Jake and White have been fixtures at the Joint Base San Antonio - Fort Sam Houston Fisher House for nearly four years. The pair's success led to others considering the program.
The idea of a morale dog for the 480th ISR Wing, at JBLE - Langley-Eustis, Va., surfaced in November, 2012. In February 2013, Lily, the wing's English Labrador retriever morale dog, was born.
"She started coming to work at two months old and was an instant hit," said Maj. Shauna Sperry, Director, Wing Operational Psychology for the 480th in an email. "We recently sent out a survey asking for feedback on the Operational Psychology Team and its impact at the Langley Distributed Ground Station-1 building. The survey included Lily so I'm anxious to read the comments."
"The first time we saw the Therapy Dog program was at the 480th," Young said. "We decided to initiate our program throughout the enterprise based on the use of their dog. She was the ground breaker for the agency."
The Therapy Dog Program is one piece of the agency's larger Combating Stress and Improving Coping & Resiliency Program. Medical teamed with the chaplain and safety to apply numerous resources, programs and processes to enhance ISR human performance.
"We've established the use of dogs at several ISR tenant units as a means of de-stressing, to mitigate concerns of suicide ideation, as an ice-breaker/approach tool for our mental health providers and as a non-partial friend to our silent warriors," Young said. "We look forward to branching out to places like Beale [Air Force Base, Calif.], Ft. Meade, [Md.] and Patrick [AFB, Fla.] in the near future. We've had great reviews so far."
White can attest to the positive vibes Therapy Dogs create.
"When you walk up to a military member who's struggling to walk on his new leg or one in a wheelchair who's down because he had a rough day, when they see Jake they light up," White said. "One soldier, who was burned over most of his body said, 'When I pet Jake, I feel no pain.' For me, that says it all."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Recession in 2023? Automation Is Coming Regardless
Nala Robotics Teams Up With Hatco Corp. to Develop New Pizza System Designed for Commercial Markets
Robotics 24/7 Topics Drones Drones
Gulf Testing Solutions Enterprise Joins Microdrones Global Distribution Network
GTS will offer Microdrones lidar sensors, drones, and software for extracting useful survey data to customers in Oman.
GTS staffers, from left to right: Uma Sankar, senior survey engineer; Suresh Muthu Kumar, manager of business development; Sameer Hasan, business development executive, and Shiv Singh, survey technician.
As drones become more rugged and sophisticated for a variety of commercial applications, technology providers are partnering to enter new markets. Microdrones this week announced that Gulf Testing Solutions Enterprise LLC is the latest addition to its global distribution network. The companies will offer equipment and services in the sultanate of Oman.
"Our customers need high-end aerial surveying solutions," says Suresh Muthu Kumar, manager of business development at Gulf Testing Solutions (GTS). "We have a number of mining, roads, asphalt, and infrastructure projects that will greatly benefit from the addition of the Microdrones lidar and photogrammetric technology."
Established in 2018, Gulf Testing Solutions is a certified testing, inspection, quality control, and surveying services provider in Muscat, Oman. The company provides a range of specialized engineering services in materials testing, materials technology, quality control of projects, chemical and microbiology testing, and surveying.
Microdroes provides drones, data transformation
Microdrones said it grew out of the collaboration between the German inventor of the world's first commercial quadcopter and a determined surveying payload and software developer in North America. Microdrones, which has offices in Siegen, Germany, and Rome, N.Y., said it delivers mapping systems specifically developed for the surveying, mining, construction, oil and gas, and precision agriculture industries.
The company said its integrated systems address complex mapping challenges. They rely on a fully integrated geospatial workflow that enables the company's software to transform raw data collected by its equipment in the field into high-quality, survey-grade data. Microdrones claimed that it is widely recognized for its lidar technology leadership.
Microdrones has engineering centers and manufacturing facilities in Germany, Canada, France, China, and the U.S. It said its sales, support, and distribution network spans six continents.
Gulf Testing Solutions offers drone services now
Gulf Testing Solutions said it has three core business verticals to meet a range of client needs. They include multi-disciplinary laboratory services; surveying services; and survey equipment, rental, and calibration services.
The company said its technical staff and equipment reflect its commitment to quality, cost-effectiveness, and safety compliance. GTS added that its team is dedicated to solving the most difficult engineering challenges for public and private companies, construction contractors, and property developers.
GTS said Microdrones Integrated Systems are available now, and they include everything a commercial user would need to get started with drones for surveying and mapping. This includes the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the sensors, the software, and the hardware.
Autonomy Drones Components Sensors Lidar Software Data Management News Press Release Manufacturing Mining Agriculture Construction Energy & Power Data Management Drones Inspection Mapping Materials Microdrones RaaS Surveying Test
Related Drones News
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Walmart Begins Offering Drone Deliveries for Select Customers in Arizona, Florida, and Texas
Walmart will also offer the service in Arkansas, Utah, and Virginia.
Hidden Level Airspace Monitoring Service to Track Drone Compliance With New FAA Rules
The Syracuse startup designed its drone defense system to detect all unmanned aircraft, regardless of whether they follow remote identification...
Near Earth Autonomy Named Innovator of the Year by Pittsburgh Technology Council
Near Earth recognized as AI/ML/Robotics category winner in the PTC's Tech 50 for 2022.
U.S. Army Chooses Cleo Robotics To Develop Tactical Drone
Cleo Robotics is a resident of MassRobotics, a non-profit organization that offers office space to robotic startups.
More Drones
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Edinburgh Travel Kit
Useful Information to Help You Start Your Trip to Edinburgh
Our Edinburgh Travel Kit lays out the essential information you need to help planning your trip to one of the most popular destinations in the UK. No matter how frequently you travel, some questions will always need answers: What's the weather like? How can I get from the airport to my hotel? What currency and type of plug do I need? We have all these answers plus other basic info about the best time to go, getting there, getting around, and a few useful travel tips.
It's all compiled in this Edinburgh Travel Kit. After reading this short and easy-to-read guide, you will be a little more prepared to start your trip in Edinburgh.
Best time to travel to Edinburgh (weather-wise)
Edinburgh has a temperate climate, with cold winters and moderately warm summers.
The average temperatures range from 1°C in winter to 20°C in summer.
Most rainfall occurs in January and October, yet downpours can happen anytime, even during summer. Strong wind often blows in the city.
The sunniest and warmest time of the year is from May to September.
Summer, in July and August, is the peak tourist season. Hotel and flight prices rise accordingly. August is nevertheless a good time to visit the city as many cool festivals are held during this month.
June and September offer good alternative times to go to Edinburgh. The weather is still good and hotel and flight prices are more affordable than during summer.
Edinburgh basics
Primary language: English
Plug Type: G
Electricity: 220-240 V
Currency: Pound sterling (£)
International Dialling code: +44 131
Emergency telephone number: 999
Getting into the city
Edinburgh Airport is 10 km west of the city centre. It has 1 terminal and is among the busiest airports in the UK. There are several transfer options to get you to central Edinburgh:
A taxi to the city centre takes around 20 minutes and costs roughly £20. Taxi ranks can be found on the ground floor of the multi-storey car park facing the terminal.
The Airlink bus takes around 30 minutes and costs £4.50. The bus stop is right in front of the terminal's main entrance.
The tram takes around 30 minutes and costs £6. The tram station sits 200 metres from the terminal.
Car rental agencies including Avis, Budget and Hertz can be found in the arrival hall of the terminal.
Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station
Waverley Railway Station is located right in the heart of Edinburgh. It links Edinburgh to the main towns in Scotland, and to major destinations in England, including London, Sheffield and Birmingham, just to name a few. From here, you can get to your hotel by bus, taxi or tram. The closest tram stop is St. Andrew Square, 250 metres north of Waverley.
Getting around Edinburgh
The most pleasant way to explore Edinburgh city centre - the Old Town - is on foot. You'll find many landmarks within a 1-km circle around Waverley Railway Station, such as Edinburgh Castle, the National Museum of Scotland and Calton Hill. For longer journeys, the city's transport services are as efficient as they are affordable. Bus and tram networks help you to go anywhere in Edinburgh.
Lothian and First Edinburgh are the 2 main bus companies in the capital city of Scotland. The price of a single ticket is £1.70, while a 1-day ticket costs £4.
Prices are the same on the tram: £1.70 for a single ride and £4 for a 1-day ticket.
Bus and tram prices are higher at night. Expect to pay around £3 for a single ride.
Bus tickets are purchased directly on the bus.
Tram tickets can be purchased at the vending machines available at each tram stop.
Hop on, hop off buses can also be found on Waverley Bridge, right next to the railway station. City sightseeing tour prices start from £15.
Taking a taxi
Many taxi and black cab companies operate in Edinburgh. The most popular are City Cabs, Capital Cars, Central Taxis and ComCab.
Over 80 taxi ranks can be found throughout the city.
Taxis can be hailed on the street unless a taxi rank is available nearby.
The initial rates range between £2.60 and £4.60 depending on the day and time of the ride.
Most cabs in Edinburgh accept the payment by credit card.
Uber, Hailo and MyTaxi are a few of the apps that you can use to hail a cab in Edinburgh.
Annual events in Edinburgh
What: A lively street festival, involving singing, dancing and drinking. While there are small parties around the city, you usually need a ticket for the main celebration.
When: December 31st
Where: Edinburgh Old Town
What: A full month of cultural festivities, including the famous Fringe Festival as well as smaller music and book festivals.
When: the whole month August
Where: Central Edinburgh
7 Things to Do in Edinburgh in Winter
8 Things to Do in Edinburgh in Summer
10 Mistakes People Make When Visiting Edinburgh
Ben Reeves, 21 Oct, 2019
5 Scottish Foods to Sample in Edinburgh
5 Things to Do For New Year's Eve in Edinburgh
6 Creepy Stories from Edinburgh to Freak You Out
6 Incredible Facts About Scotland
Glasgow Travel Kit


[…quoting my post in part…] PMR: This is very important and I shall draw heavily on this and add my interpretation. Simply put, the whole idea of "putting data in repositories" is misguided. It is not addressing the needs of the scientific community (and I'm not going to expand ideas here because they are only half formed).
Cameron – I'd be grateful for any more thoughts on this issue – public or private. They will be attributed, of course. Your ideas will probably form the "front end" for the work that the Soton group has been doing so attribution will be important there.
Very happy to offer thoughts in public (given I didn't respond to your original request :) I think the current conversation on my blog will continue to run for a while yet. But it is very much thoughts which are still forming and which I will try to capture as they come out. At the core of this I think is the issue of matching the processes by which we capture the 'experiment' to the scientist's practice. Data in repositories is important; metadata is important; and I am convinced (and will argue where I can and where people will listen) that putting extra effort into recording metadata will make our life easier as experimentalists in the future. But it is only half the story.
I think there is a critical difference between capturing what happens in a lab and reporting the information that arises from an experiment. I suspect part of this comes from my perspective as a chemist/protein engineer as opposed to a biologist or foo-infomatician. Jean-Claude has reflected in the past about how we may be generating more useful data for the sociologists of science trying to understand how scientific disciplines differ in how they work than for ourselves.
Making stuff is a messy business. This is part of what drives my advocacy of our 'one item – one post' system. Objects and samples need a URI. It can be very difficult to describe what an object is. It could be a tube of liquid, a crystalline solid, a technological artifact, a piece of paper, the state of a building/organism/culture. What is important is not that we know what something is (because in molecular biology at least we almost never know precisely what our samples contain) but that we can point at it. This fits badly into any repository system with any (useful) semantic framework. But we can talk about its properties, or where it came from, or where it is going to without any idea of what it is. Indeed once we know what it is (to some, hopefully well defined, precision) we can then fit it into a nice pre-existing semantic framework, or if necessary build one to fit.
I think I am heading towards the notion that we capture as much detail as we possibly can, in as flexible a format as possible. This is the idea of the 'blogging lab', which includes the 'blogging experimenter'. The lab notebook system (or its equivalent, whatever it looks like) is the first step in structuring the raw morass which we generate. As we move forward to intepretation we start to structure more, to actually add meaning to what we have generated. The final stage is to sculpt this into a statement, or a finding, and then to formally publish that result (in whatever form is appropriate).
The last stage involves a repository that we already have, if in a slighlty imperfect form, the peer reviewed literature. The stage before that is where deposition into formal repositories is appropriate. Hopefully in the stage before that (the lab notebook) we have generated and collated our metadata in a useful form that makes this deposition easy, and ideally automatic.
We've been talking recently about lifestreaming , , , ,  as well as doing it. I haven't heard anyone complaining about the lack of semantic mark up people have been putting up on Friend Feed :) This is like the 'LabStream', just raw data. Meaning requires processing. And processing involves markup.
Enough stream of consciousness writing; time to go to bed. Hope this is useful. Just to finish a note on attribution. If my ideas are the 'front end' to the work of others (mainly Jeremy Frey's group at Southampton) then the tools they have developed and the discussions we have had are definitely more than just the 'back end' to my ideas. In fact, I've taken to acknowledging the 'Open Science Collective' (yes, that's all of you) in talks. I've lost track of where many of the ideas originally came from and how they developed; how much of these concepts are actually mine, and how many came from others. The process of developing them has been community driven. The data is all in these blogs somewhere. Someone want to come up with a data model and mark them all up to trace the passage and development of the ideas? After all, we're doing science here aren't we?


The Health Ministry on Monday reminded women that it is important for them to go for regular health checks from the start of pregnancy until their children are two years old to prevent problems related to nutrition deficiency.
Tung Rathavy, director of the Ministry's National Maternal and Child Health Centre, said children who do not get enough nutrition during the first 1,000-days of their lives are prone to becoming sick frequently and suffer from malnutrition, which could lead to death.
Speaking during an event to mark the 8th National Day on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health under the theme 'The importance of nutrition during the first 1,000 days of life', Ms Rathavy said that the two-year period is crucial for the survival of babies.
"We chose this year's theme in accordance with government policies which focus on healthcare for women, mothers and newborns with the goal of helping all women to receive equal and quality care and treatment services," Ms Rathavy said.
Cambodian Red Cross President Bun Rany said in a statement recently that the 8th National Day on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health will fall on Thursday and she urged all pregnant women to take care of their health for the well-being of their babies.
"I want to call on the leader, government officials, health officials and service providers to join together and support the implementation of social protection policies of the Cambodian government to reduce maternal and infancy mortality rates," she said.


Once a rising star in the NFL receiving ranks, he is now on his 3rd NFL team in as many years.
Star WR Stevie Johnson has reportedly signed with the San Diego Chargers for a three-year deal that will team him up with the likes of TE Antonio Gates, WR Keenan Allen and QB Philip Rivers.
Former 49ers and Bills WR Stevie Johnson is signing with the Chargers, as @NBCdianna reported. It is a 3-year deal. SD adds a WR.
According to Dianna Marie Russini of NBC, Johnson chose to sign with the Chargers instead of the New England Patriots.
One of the fastest receivers in the NFL, Johnson is coming off a down year with the San Francisco 49ers in his only year with the team. The 49ers decided to cut Johnson to save themselves about $6 million in cap space.
The 49ers traded a 2015 4th-round draft pick to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for Johnson on Day 2 of the 2014 NFL draft, hoping that Johnson would return to his 1,000+ yard receiving form that he had maintained from 2010 to 2012 before being injured for four games in 2013.
But the trade for Johnson barely paid off as the wideout would go on to start just one game of his 13 played in San Francisco, and recorded just one game with over 100 receiving yards. Johnson's 35 catches for 435 receiving yards were both his lowest marks since 2009 – when he caught only two passes in five games played.
From 2010 to 2013, Johnson was a rising star for the Buffalo Bills, recording 289 catches for 3,720 receiving yards and 26 TDs. But his decline in 2013 made him expendable to Buffalo, who had given him a large contract extension but had a hard time building their offense around him under former head coach Doug Marrone.


text:
John Harmen "Jack" Marburger III (February 8, 1941 – July 28, 2011) was an American physicist who directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the administration of President George W. Bush, serving as the Science Advisor to the President. His tenure was marred by controversy regarding his defense of the administration against allegations from over two dozen Nobel Laureates, amongst others, that scientific evidence was being suppressed or ignored in policy decisions, including those relating to stem cell research and global warming. However, he has also been credited with keeping the political effects of the September 11 attacks from harming science research—by ensuring that tighter visa controls did not hinder the movement of those engaged in scientific research—and with increasing awareness of the relationship between science and government. He also served as the President of Stony Brook University from 1980 until 1994, and director of Brookhaven National Laboratory from 1998 until 2001.

Early life
Marburger was born on Staten Island, New York, to Virginia Smith and John H. Marburger Jr., and grew up in Severna Park, Maryland. He attended Princeton University, graduating in 1962 with a B.A. in physics, followed by a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University in 1967.

After completing his education, he served as a professor of physics and electrical engineering at the University of Southern California beginning in 1966, specializing in the theoretical physics of nonlinear optics and quantum optics, and co-founded the Center for Laser Studies at that institution. He rose to become chairman of the physics department in 1972, and then dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in 1976. He was engaged as a public speaker on science, including hosting a series of educational television programs on CBS. He was also outspoken on campus issues, and was designated the university's spokesperson during a scandal over preferential treatment of athletes.

Stony Brook University

In 1980, Marburger left USC to become the third president of Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York. At the time, state budget cuts were afflicting the university, and he returned it to growth with increases in the university's science research funding from the federal government.

From 1988 to 1994, Marburger chaired Universities Research Association, the organization that operated Fermilab and oversaw construction of the ill-fated Superconducting Super Collider, an experience that is credited with convincing him of the influence government had in how science is carried out. During this time he also served as a trustee of Princeton University. He stepped down as President of Stony Brook University in 1994, and began doing research again as a member of the faculty.

Chair of Shoreham commission

In 1983, he was picked by New York Governor Mario Cuomo to chair a scientific fact-finding commission on the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, a job that required him to find common ground between the many viewpoints represented on the commission. The commission eventually recommended the closure of the plant, a course he personally disagreed with. Cuomo had formed the commission in mid-May 1983 to provide him with recommendations regarding the plant's safety, the adequacy of emergency plans, and the economics of operating the plant. The commission's consensus recommendations included unanimous findings that no emergency evacuation of the plant could be conducted without the cooperation of Suffolk County, which was refusing to approve an evacuation plan; that the construction of the plant would have been prevented if it had been started after new Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations were put into effect after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979; and that operating the plant would not reduce utility costs. Marburger himself at the time emphasized that the governor had not been seeking a consensus but rather encouraged multiple viewpoints to be reflected, and characterized the consensus conclusions as not the only important section of the report.

Marburger characterized his participation as a learning experience, and the experience was credited with profoundly changing his view on the relationship between the scientific community and the public. He had never been to a public hearing prior to his participation in the Shoreham commission, and he said that he had initially expected that the issues could be resolved by examining scientific data and establishing failure probabilities. However, he quickly became aware of the importance of the public participation process itself, stating that it was "one of the rare opportunities for the public to feel they were being heard and taken seriously." Marburger's conduct on the committee was praised by activists on both sides of the debate, with his focus on listening to all viewpoints and his ability to not take disagreements personally being especially noted.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

In January 1998, Marburger became president of Brookhaven Science Associates, which subsequently won a bid to operate Brookhaven National Laboratory for the federal government, and he became the director of the lab. He took office after a highly publicized scandal in which tritium leaked from the lab's High Flux Beam Reactor, leading to calls by activists to shut down the lab. Rather than directly oppose the activists, Marburger created policies that improved the environmental management of the lab as well as community involvement and transparency. Marburger also presided over the commissioning of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, expanded the lab's program in medical imaging and neuroscience, and placed more emphasis on its technology transfer program.

The tritium leak, combined with other disclosures about improper handling and disposal of hazardous waste, had caused Secretary of Energy Federico Peña to fire the lab's previous manager, Associated Universities, Inc. Upon starting as the laboratory's director, Marburger noted the increased importance of health and environmental concerns since the beginning of the Cold War, stating that "getting the people at Brookhaven to understand that won't be simple, and there may be some disagreement on how we should do it, but that's my job." Marburger set up a permanent community advisory council and met with local environmental groups to increase communication between them and the laboratory's management. By 2001, when Marburger left to join the Bush administration, local environmental groups credited him with having largely dissipated the distrust that had existed between the groups when he started.

In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for "his contributions to laser physics and for his scientific leadership as Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory".

Bush administration

In September 2001, Marburger became Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy under George W. Bush. Marburger was a noted Democrat, a fact that Nature magazine stated was relevant to the decision by the administration to take the unusual step of withholding from Marburger the title of Assistant to the President that previous science advisors had been granted.

His tenure was marked by controversy as he defended the Bush administration from accusations that political influence on science was distorting scientific research in federal agencies and that scientific evidence was being suppressed or ignored in policy decisions, especially on the topics of abstinence-only birth control education, climate change policy, and stem cell research. Marburger defended the Bush Administration from these accusations, saying they were inaccurate or motivated by partisanship, especially on the issue of science funding levels. Marburger continued to be personally respected by many of his academic colleagues.

Marburger's tenure as Director was the longest in the history of that post. After the September 11 attacks, he helped to establish the DHS Directorate for Science and Technology within the new Department of Homeland Security. He has been called a central player opposing new restrictions of international scientific exchanges of people and ideas after the attacks. He later was responsible for reorienting the nation's space policy after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and played an important part in the nation's re-entry into the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor program. Marburger was also known for his support of the emerging field of science of science policy, which seeks to analyze how science policy decisions affects a nation's ability to produce and benefit from innovation.

In February 2004, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a report accusing the Bush administration of manipulating science for political purposes, listing more than 20 alleged incidents of censoring scientific results or applying a litmus test in the appointment of supposedly scientific advisory panel members. In April 2004, Marburger published a statement rebutting the report and exposing errors and incomplete explanations in it, and stating that "even when the science is clear—and often it is not—it is but one input into the policy process," but "in this Administration, science strongly informs policy." The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a revised version of their report after Marburger's statement was published. Marburger also called the report's conclusions illusory and the result of focusing on unrelated incidents within a vast government apparatus, and attributed the controversy as being related to the upcoming elections. It was noted that Marburger enjoyed close personal relationships with President Bush, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten, attesting to his active involvement within the administration.

Marburger responded to criticism of his support for Bush administration policies in 2004, stating "No one will know my personal positions on issues as long as I am in this job. I am here to make sure that the science input to policy making is sound and that the executive branch functions properly with respect to its science and technology missions." On the topic of stem cell research, he in 2004 said that stem cells "offer great promise for addressing incurable diseases and afflictions. But I can't tell you when a fertilized egg becomes sacred. That's not my job. That's not a science issue. And so whatever I think about reproductive technology or choice, or whatever, is irrelevant to my job as a science adviser." However, in February 2005, in a speech at the annual conference of the National Association of Science Writers, he stated, "Intelligent design is not a scientific theory.... I don't regard intelligent design as a scientific topic". Also In 2005, he told The New York Times that "global warming exists, and we have to do something about it."

Sherwood Boehlert, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Science during most of Marburger's tenure, said that "the challenge he faced was serving a president who didn't really want much scientific advice, and who let politics dictate the direction of his science policy... and he was in the unenviable position of being someone who had earned the respect of his scientific colleagues while having to be identified with policies that were not science-based." On the other hand, Robert P. Crease, a colleague of Marburger at Stony Brook University, characterized him as someone who "[went] to the White House as a scientist, not an advocate. He refused to weigh in on high-profile, politically controversial issues, but instead set about fixing broken connections in the unwieldy machinery by which the government approves and funds scientific projects.... Some bitterly criticized him for collaborating with the Bush administration. But he left the office running better than when he entered."

Later life

Marburger returned to Stony Brook University as a faculty member in 2009, and co-edited the book The Science of Science Policy: A Handbook, which was published in 2011. He also served as Vice President for Research but stepped down on July 1, 2011. Marburger died Thursday, July 28, 2011, at his home in Port Jefferson, New York, after four years of treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was survived by his wife, two sons, and a grandson. His final publication, a book on quantum physics for laypeople called Constructing Reality: Quantum Theory and Particle Physics, was published shortly after his death.

References

External links

|-

1941 births
2011 deaths
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American nuclear physicists
American science writers
Biotechnology law
Brookhaven National Laboratory staff
California Democrats
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Deaths from non-Hodgkin lymphoma
Energy policy of the United States
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Fermilab
George W. Bush administration personnel
NASA oversight
New York (state) Democrats
Nonlinear optics
Nuclear energy in the United States
People from Severna Park, Maryland
People from Los Angeles
People from Port Jefferson, New York
People from Staten Island
Princeton University alumni
Quantum optics
Quantum physicists
Space policy
Stanford University alumni
Stem cell research
Presidents of Stony Brook University
Theoretical physicists
United States Department of Homeland Security officials
University of Southern California faculty
Scientists from New York (state)
Directors of the Office of Science and Technology Policy


I just took a quick weekend driving trip with my Aeronaut and I faced a problem that always plagues me - packing sneakers. I like to wear shoes when I travel and pack sneakers because I jog for exercise and will often travel to places where I run a race.
But now that I'm trying to pack lighter it's driving me crazy how much room those sneakers take up!!! I keep trying to cut back on other things to make the sneakers fit but I feel like I'm packing light already (for me at least). I usually wrap the sneakers in a plastic bag (because they are dirty) and then put them in a bag but I found even with my small size 10s that they didn't fit so well in the side of the Aeronaut and had to be in the main compartment. So instead of one big cube and two half cubes I end up with one big and one half and the sneakers.
Anyway, it frustrated me and I wanted to check in with others who travel light to see what they pack for footwear and if I'm missing out on something. Even if you don't jog or exercise it seems like everyone needs to pack another pair of shoes so it can't be uncommon.
My size 12 New Balance running shoes fit in one of the side pockets of my Aeronaut. I don't remember doing anything special to get them to fit.
1) I put the shoes in the end compartment without the slash pocket, because they fill the compartment so fully that it's harder to get anything in or out of the slash pocket if the shoes are underneath. I pack toiletries and other small items in the end compartment with the slash pocket.
2) It's easier to zip the compartment closed if you put the shoes in heels first. I also found that packing the shoes with the soles facing in (toward the main compartment) saves my back when I'm carrying the Aeronaut backpack-style, which I often do to/from public transportation and in the airport.
I'll have to take your advice and see what I can do for this next trip. I ended up putting the shoes in the main compartment because it felt too constricted in the side ones. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that with bulky shoes or a toiletry kit (which I also struggled with) in the side compartment that you end up pushing into the main compartment and taking away space. It seems somehow "wrong" to me to push against the main compartment or at least backwards.
I put my running shoes (size 12) in a fabric/fabric end-pocket packing cube, sole to the outside. In the same packing cube I usually put a pair of slippers. It's not easy to close the packing cube, but after it's easy to put it in one end-pocket. Like gmich I chose the end compartment without the slash pocket.


text:
Delightful art with an edge
James Polisky exhibit at The Dark World Gallery
Doreen Manning
Alert! This is a test of the emergency gallery network … We admit, the newest show at the Dark World Gallery on Grafton Street may not be a call of distress, but James Polisky's Mayday Mayday Mayday is a vital exhibit that lovers of the low brow, gritty and dark graphic arts won't want to miss.
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday is a show based on the international radio distress call of Mayday, with what Polisky claims is a character driven collection of views regarding the sometimes slowly sinking pace of modern society, and the call out for a hopeful tomorrow.
At 44, this Connecticut artist has been "drawing forever" and admits to being "obsessed with graphics and graphic design, anything with an image, type, colors that somehow work — worn out stuff, anything with print on it – basically everything visual," says Polisky.
Currently working within the graphic arts industry color separating and designing for the wall covering and gift wrap industry, Polisky's day job has given this artist an insight into color that shows through his striking silkscreen work, a medium that gives the dark humor of his work a gorgeous visual edge.
"I took a course in silkscreen print making and sort of ran with it," Polisky explains of his preference for the silkscreen medium. "I love all the aspects of it. Drawing, mixing ink colors and hopefully achieving colors that work with each other (lots of test swatches), trying to register each multi colored image, and printing each and every color by hand," says Polisky.
Polisky's work rides the line between graphic novel, cartoon and comic, with a squeegee of social commentary in the mix. "The ideas are based on every day stuff going on in the world somehow," says Polisky. "I read or hear a story, see something interesting, beautiful or absurd, and I just start sketching stuff. It might be actual people, or a dead bird in the street, or a potato chip that looks a little like Abe Lincoln. I think the world is full of an endless supply of entertainment."
Visually Polisky's low brow art combines one cup 'o cute with a tablespoon of morose, and what that recipe yields are sharp and intelligent images that often catch you off guard.
"I think I use animals in my work because they seem more innocent somehow, yet for example, when you put a bomb in a bunny's hand, it makes them kind of human, like they are crossing over to the evil side of life," explains Polisky. "But it is a nice creative challenge for me to come up with something visual that achieves what I am trying to say. So my goals are basically, 'Does this piece say to me what I wanted it to say? Does it work, is it balanced, both from a subject matter, graphic design and a color balance point of view? And if so, does anyone get it, or at least get something from it?'"
Trust me, you'll get it when you stop by the Dark World Gallery on May 1 for the artist opening reception from 7-10pm, 179 Grafton St. Worcester. The show runs through June 2. Learn more about the space at darkworldgallery.com. Learn more about James Polisky at jamespolisky.com.


Synthesis of a directionally-conductive polyaniline hydrogel composite by vapor deposition.
Electroactive polymers (EAPs), including conducting polymers (CPs) such as polyaniline (PAn), and hydrogels are exciting areas of research in disciplines such as biomedical engineering, with the goal of creating low-cost, lightweight, non-toxic artificial muscles with characteristics similar to natural muscle. Such a material could be used to create more natural prosthetic limbs or artificial heart muscle, which could be implanted in the left ventricle to assist patients with congestive heart failure. Currently, however, electroactive polymers are not a viable replacement for natural muscles for a variety of reasons, including insufficient applied force and lack of robustness . Hydrogels suffer from many of the same limitations . Electroactive polymers include conducting polymers (CPs) such as polyaniline (PAn), which has the general structure [(-B-NH-B-NH)y(-B-N=Q=N)1-y]x, where B is a C6H4 ring in the benzene-like arrangement and Q is the same ring in the quinone-like arrangement. The 50% oxidized form, which is the most conductive, is termed emeraldine (y=0.5). Polyaniline is currently used in anti-corrosive coating and static-dissipating compounds, and has been proposed for use in electrochromic windows, flexible circuit boards, and conductive fabrics. Many research groups have developed methods for creating novel polyaniline structures and composites. However, the processibility of polyaniline is currently poor, and further work needs to be done before polyaniline or its composites can be considered viable artificial muscles . This thesis describes a novel and exciting method for the creation of a patterned polyaniline-hydrogel composite which shows directional conductivity, a material which has not been reported in the literature as far as we are aware. This material could provide the foundation for a micro- or nano-patterned composite which would further the goals of developing a viable artificial muscle with a directed pattern of contraction.
Reed, Eric W. 1987-, "Synthesis of a directionally-conductive polyaniline hydrogel composite by vapor deposition." (2010). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1193.


text:
To answer your question Lil man... bullies are just cowards who are too weak to address the hurt,pain,&unhappiness in their own miserable lives so they take it out on great people like YOU!!! Just know that YOU ARE GREAT!!! Your differences make you the shit!!! Don't ever let anyone make you feel anything else. When it's all said & done... FU*K THEM!!!! You've got friends in US!!! Don't let their unhappiness get to you. Time has a way of showing bullies how shitty their lives really are. Just remember ALL THE THINGS THEY PICK ON YOU ABOUT MAKE YOU THE SHIT!!!! You're perfect just as you are. FU*K em!!!! Hit me if u need me Lil bro. #Salute
A post shared by TIP (@troubleman31) on Dec 10, 2017 at 11:27am PST
Say lil Man U gotta friend in me for life hit me on dm so we can chop it up love is the only way to beat hate 👊🏾☝🏾
A post shared by snoopdogg (@snoopdogg) on Dec 10, 2017 at 7:50am PST
"Just know that you are great!!! Your differences make you the s**t!!!," wrote Southern rap royalty T.I. to Keaton before the controversial revelations were made public. He was joined by the likes of Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, Cardi B, Funkmaster Flex, Trae Tha Truth and Chris Brown, who all offered kind words of encouragement for the boy.
And therein lies the sobering reality of it all: Even the hip-hop community is not immune to the lack of societal value placed on Black lives.
At the same time that some of rap's biggest names were quick to carry the baton for Keaton, who is among the 3.2 million young students bullied every year in the U.S. according to DoSomething.org, the story of 10-year-old Black girl Ashawnty Davis — a Colorado native who committed suicide after being bullied this past November — went virtually unnoticed by the usual suspects. There were no viral videos for the fifth-grader from Sunrise Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado. There were very few hip-hop shoutouts at the time of her death.
If you are Black and living in Donald Trump's America, the easiest thing to do is to rally against a polarizing, racist, sexist figure whose very presence demeans the office on any given day. Indeed, the aforementioned Snoop and T.I., along with such hip-hop standouts as Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, YG and Nipsey Hustle and Rapsody have all passionately come out against 45 via various outlets. But because stories like Ashawnty's' rarely hit the mainstream, the celebrity world, of which the rap contingent is a part of, often times remains silent.
But the irony of hip-hop artists pandering to white interests goes beyond the Keaton tale. Rappers like Travis Scott and Rich Homie Quan have frequently given their white fans a pass to say the N-word while listening to their music. Hip-hop looks to the white-dominated Grammy Awards for approval (which, for the first time in its six-decade history, has allowed its prestigious Album of the Year category to feature nearly all black nominees) and lashes out at voters when they are not included. Some rappers have proclaimed "All Lives Matter" (A$AP Rocky, Ab-Soul and Fetty Wap) and then there are the superstar lyricists who routinely skip over Black media outlets, often times granting exclusive sit-downs to white publications and sites.
Which is why it's an eye-rolling exercise when the "woke" brigade publicly pushes for, say, the "basic" queen of pop ubiquity Taylor Swift or the latest culture vulture rap hero Post Malone to take up the cause of Black kids like Ashawnty, when some in the hip-hop community are too busy writing puzzlingly disparaging lyrics about civil rights icons. This is a world in which the innocence of deceased young black children like 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed by a police officer on November 22, 2014 when he was playing with his toy gun in the park, is all but dismissed. And yet hip-hop, which in the past has been a powerful platform for social commentary, can still make its voice heard.
The Ashawntys of the world deserve as much. Actually, they deserve better. Hip-hop, are you listening?
Written by Keith Murphy
(Photos from left: Kimberly Jones via Facebook, Fox 31/kdvr.com)
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at 10:37 am	and is filed under Linux, Open Audio, Server, Subjects, SUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thanks for putting this together. SLES rules!
There has been such a dry spell with Novell Open Audio, I thought Novell had killed this project. Please keep it going and let's hear more.


mol. Ryoichi Kurokawa. Image: Marcos Morilla.
Beyond the Exhibition is a broad-ranging project with a mandate to explore new formats of artistic adjuncts. It has been co-produced by LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain; Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Tourcoing, France; and CAC – Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Taken together, it addresses the new cultural habits brought into play by the digital revolution and how they are modifying access to artworks. At LABoral, it embraces an exhibition, a residency, two cycles of screenings and a seminar.
–How to facilitate for artists, public and society as a whole, whatever their provenance, age and competence, the appropriation of digital languages, access to digital applications and contents?
–How to better assist European artists in elaborating innovative artistic forms where new digital technologies come into play both in production as well as in the consideration of the conditions of reception of the work by the public.
–How to rethink the exhibition beyond the installation, if not as a progression, a route with an authentic mise en scène for each work, in order to incite a personal reaction from the visitor, to allow him/her to explore, to establish a beneficial contact and to share this experience as closely as possible to the artistic intention expressed by each one of the participants in the exhibition?
–What type of interfaces to create in the heart of the exhibition space and, even further, to make the works and their technological dimension visible and understandable in the context of a change in cultural practices and the languages and media used by artists both to a public conversant with new technologies as well as a non-informed audience?
The seminar will reflect on prototypes and interfaces developed by art centres and museums in their relationship with the public.
Theoretical sessions, consisting of a paper accompanied by a dialogue between the speakers and a debate with the audience, will be combined with a programme of practical sessions on the relationship of museum institutions and the exhibition with their users and visitors.
LABoral is a multidisciplinary institution which produces, disseminates and fosters access to new forms of culture rooted in the creative use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Its transversal, integrated programming is targeted at a wide public base with the ultimate goal of generating and sharing knowledge.


Not all the pages are translated so you may see some french posts if your browser allows french (recommanded). A google translate bar is available.
Discover RPhoto is a lightweight free software aiming at the easy handling of digital camera's photos while keeping a constant ratio. Available on Windows & Linux.
Escape with my travel photos available in the gallery.
Discover xmlTreeNav, your free software to easily diff and view XML files and its library libxmldiff.
Power up your Dokuwiki with the plugins button and xlst, and GIMP with the plugins fourier and YUV.


text:
Vince D'Amato
Vince is the award*-winning international director of the 3 neo-giallo films Reversed, Glass, and Valley of the Rats, which make up a loose giallo "trilogy" of sex, violence, and surrealism; produced in the UK, Italy, and Canada, through 2011-2017.
After co-founding the independent genre film production company Creepy Six Films in Vancouver, Canada, in 2001, Vince D'Amato wrote, produced, and directed four feature films, three short films, and two internet TV series for the Canadian company. In 2004 and 2005 their first two features became international cult hits, being widely distributed in Italy, Spain, Japan, Germany, Russia, UK, Canada, and America. In 2011, Vince moved from Canada and launched Brivido Giallo, an international production company based in Italy (with his production partner Mickey E.Vil in Brescia) – where he completed his fifth feature, the mind-twisting thriller titled Reversed (2013). Returning to Vancouver, he executive-produced the short film Dirty Bill of Health for a new Canadian filmmaker through Creepy Six Films, and then produced and directed his sixth feature film, the multi award-winning Glass (2015). Recently, Vince co-founded the Cinemafantastique international genre film festival and has just completed his new feature film, Odissea Della Morte, which won the #13 spot on Film Bizarro's "Top 30 of 2017" list. He is currently a co-founding partner in the new international film sales company Darkside Releasing, and spends his time between Vancouver, Canada and Milano, Italy; and is focused on producing striking, artistic genre films for exhibition.
You can get in touch with Vince through the CONTACT PAGE; and for the world sales of Brivido Giallo and Creepy Six Films directly.
Carmilla (Vampires vs. Zombies)
The Hard Cut / Catholic Cheerleaders for Satan
Valley of the Rats
*Winner, Best Feature for "GLASS", the Anti-Hero Genre Film Festival in 2016; and critic's "Top 15 of 2016" list.


text:
Q: Passing Data Between Fragments from a BaseAdapter override class Ik im probably not going about this the best way , but I have no idea how to go about this the right way given my current setup . Pretty much I have a fragment tabhost that has just about all my content including a newsfeed, from the newsfeed users can click another users picture to open their profile. Up until now I was taking the easy way out and just using a intent which opened a whole new instance of the tabhost and all the fragments, i sent the  profile id over via a intent extra and my problem was solved, but ive since learned this isnt a great solution . So ive been trying to fix up my app by taking the advice on this thread:
Communication between Fragments
my problem is bc my onClick listeners for the profile images is in my LazyAdapter class which extends BaseAdapter, whats the best way to switch out the fragments and pass over the proper profile id  to the new fragment given my situation?
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.BaseAdapter;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class LazyAdapter extends BaseAdapter {

    private Activity activity;
    private ArrayList<HashMap<String, String>> data;
    private static LayoutInflater inflater=null;
    public ImageLoader imageLoader;

    public LazyAdapter(Activity a, ArrayList<HashMap<String, String>> d) {
        activity = a;
        data=d;
        inflater = (LayoutInflater)activity.getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
        imageLoader=new ImageLoader(activity.getApplicationContext());
    }

    public int getCount() {
        return data.size();
    }

    public Object getItem(int position) {
        return position;
    }

    public long getItemId(int position) {
        return position;
    }

    public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
        View vi=convertView;
        if(convertView==null)
            vi = inflater.inflate(R.layout.list_row, null);

        TextView name = (TextView)vi.findViewById(R.id.name); // title
        TextView message = (TextView)vi.findViewById(R.id.message); // artist name
        TextView created = (TextView)vi.findViewById(R.id.created); // duration
        SmartImageView thumb_image = (SmartImageView) vi.findViewById(R.id.list_image);

        HashMap<String, String> update = new HashMap<String, String>();
        update = data.get(position);

        // Setting all values in listview
        name.setText(update.get("name"));
        message.setText(update.get("message"));
        created.setText(update.get("created"));
        thumb_image.setImageUrl(update.get("thumb_img"));
        name.setOnClickListener(new myOnClickListener(position));
        thumb_image.setOnClickListener(new myOnClickListener(position));
        return vi;
    }

    public class myOnClickListener implements OnClickListener{
        private int position;
        private String clicked_uid;
        public myOnClickListener(int position){
            this.position=position;
        }
        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub

            HashMap<String, String> update = new HashMap<String, String>();
            update = data.get(position);
            Log.i("Update Position:", update.toString());
            clicked_uid=update.get("uid");
            Log.d("Clicked UID:", clicked_uid+"");
            Intent i = new Intent(activity.getApplicationContext() , TabHostFragmentActivity.class);
            i.putExtra("profile_uid", clicked_uid);
            activity.startActivity(i);
            activity.finish();

        }

    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Meena Devi is only 10 years old, but she's the head of her household. She cooks, cleans and takes care of her 11-year-old brother, Sunil, while a 14-year-old brother, Anil, works at a faraway brick kiln in a neighboring state. The three have been orphans since their mother died of starvation three years ago. They have an aunt in their village, but the most she's ever done is send over food to their mud hut.
In June, I wrote an article documenting this family's daily life in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar. E-mails started to pour in the next morning. One was from a record producer in Los Angeles. He grew up in modest circumstances, and told me that he saw himself in Meena. He offered to pay all three children's education and living expenses until they turned 18, an amount equal to $1,200 per year.
It was an opportunity of a lifetime. Why, then, did the children's relatives refuse to let them take it?
Unlike the other scruffy village children, Meena made an effort to stay presentable. She was soft-spoken and polite; she slicked down her bob with spit and kept her face clean. Perhaps this adult inclination was a natural extension of her adult responsibilities.
I'd been introduced to Meena by Mokhtarul Haque, an activist with India's Save the Childhood Movement, known by its Hindi abbreviation BBA. The BBA has rescued and rehabilitated trafficked children for over 25 years. Mr Haque had met with Meena's only surviving relative, her aunt Savitri Devi Manjhi, soon after Meena's mother died in 2009, and Mrs Manjhi had then urged Mr Haque to place the children in a government foster home. In June, following the record producer's proposal, Mr Haque offered the children spots in a BBA school.
The BBA built its own schools partly in response to the sorry state of government foster homes, where corporal punishment is routine and abuse is common. I've met many children who attempted to run away, preferring to take their chances on the street. But after initially accepting Mr Haque's offer, the Manjhis quickly changed their minds, insisting they were capable of looking after the children.
The Manjhis are the product of intergenerational poverty and caste-based marginalisation. Like their parents, they're poor, illiterate and seasonally employed. They don't think beyond their daily survival. They're also aware that no matter how bad life gets for them, public assistance is unlikely, and change is an impossible dream. They know they have no one to depend on but themselves and their younger kin. They may have empathy for their niece and nephews, but they can't afford to act on it.
In a society with few effective regulatory institutions, there's neither an incentive to take responsibility nor repercussions for not doing so. People don't do the right thing because it's easy not to, and there's no reward for doing it. Villagers are preoccupied with their own daily survival. And it's easier for bureaucrats to do nothing.
A lack of accountability not only kills motivation, it encourages outright malfeasance. In India's poorest districts, easily bribed police officers enable trafficking. India, according to Unicef, now has more child labourers under 14 than any other country.
What's most galling about this corrupt behaviour is the fact that the current government is making an unprecedented effort to confront poverty. In 2011, according to a World Bank report, India spent over 2 per cent of its gross domestic product on poverty alleviation. Over the past 11 years, India's government has sought to provide free midday school meals, a guarantee of 100 days of employment annually to the rural poor and free primary education. But endemic corruption, from the very top down to the ground level, prevents them from being implemented effectively. A lack of transparency and a leakage of subsidies to the nonpoor means that poverty isn't falling nearly as fast as it should be.
The free hot meal is the reason Meena goes to school. But her teachers routinely skip school, three days a week. When teachers don't come, the school stays shut, and there's no meal. A well-funded, well-intentioned program created to educate and feed poor children fails on both counts: Meena not only learns nothing, she also goes hungry.
But it's the Manjhis' choices that have had the greatest impact on Meena. And these, too, were influenced by government failings. The low-caste residents of Meena's village work the land of their upper-caste neighbours, who pay them in grain. To earn cash, entire families find supplemental work in one of the state's many brick kilns, but they don't earn enough to feed themselves adequately.
The government's Public Distribution System, which offers subsidised food and fuel, should cover them. But in 2011 less than 10 per cent of the grain intended for Bihar's poor actually reached them. The rest was sold on the black market, bought by wealthier people with fake food ration cards or, worst of all, sold at a markup to the very people meant to receive discounted grain.
Government inefficiency has left the Manjhis poor and hungry, so they have taken control of 14-year-old Anil's earnings. His salary of less than a $1 a day is paltry even by Indian standards. But for the Manjhis, it was still too much to risk losing. And so they refused to let Anil and his siblings leave for school. Unless their economic lot improves, the Manjhis will keep sending him to work at the brick kiln. Sunil will most likely soon join him.
A worse fate awaits Meena. Traffickers masquerading as eligible grooms routinely trick poor families into parting with their daughters, often before puberty. The families succumb because there's no demand for dowry or wedding expenses. New brides are whisked away and sold into bonded labor or to brothels, where they're raped into submission. They almost never return home.
There are thousands of Meenas in Bihar and millions of Meenas in India. Individuals, nonprofits and charities can't be expected to step in to save them all from tragedy.
India's deafening aspirations to 'global power' will never be realised if the potential of these millions of children continues to be squandered.
The government must move beyond merely developing ambitious policies - it must also ensure that these policies aren't corrupted. There must be stern reprisals for graft and dereliction of duty. And it must be worthwhile for poor people to do the right thing; they should be rewarded for good behaviour. Prosecution of child-labour traffickers and their henchmen must be accelerated. And India needs to overhaul its system of state-run foster homes so that children don't avoid them out of fear.
Only if real change occurs at the top will those at the bottom accept a stake in their community's future. As long as Mrs Manjhi is hungry, she'll do everything in her power to stay alive - including sending her younger relatives to work. But if she were to receive real support from the government, that wasn't funnelled away by corrupt middlemen, she would not need to send Anil to work, and she would be likely to resist the temptation to earn extra cash illegally, for fear of losing state benefits.
Meena and her brothers now have a firm offer to live at a good school. This should be their happy ending. But it isn't. If a child who has so many people fighting on her behalf can't be assured justice, the millions of other children with no such allies have little hope.


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#Vision 2020
| Updated: Wednesday, December 25, 2019, 11:38 [IST]
New Delhi, Dec 25: Popularly called the "Missile Man" of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam rose from humble beginnings and earned the reputation of being the "people's President" who endeared himself to all all sections, especially the young.
If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher, he had once said.
He gave some quotes which have always inspired everyone. Here are a few of them:
If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher.
You have to dream before your dreams can come true.
To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal.
Let me define a leader. He must have vision and passion and not be afraid of any problem. Instead, he should know how to defeat it. Most importantly, he must work with integrity.
Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.
You see, God helps only people who work hard. That principle is very clear.
My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.
Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.
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vision 2020 former president apj abdul kalam


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William Conolly
William Conolly (1662-1729)
William Conolly was born in Ballyshannon in Co Donegal in 1662. He has been described variously as the son of an innkeeper, a miller or a land manager. He was a Protestant himself but his background was Catholic on his mother side, the Coans, and most probably on his father's side. In 1717, when William Conolly was appointed as a Lord Justice, Sir John St Leger remarked snidely that 'many people here especially our quality and old gentry are much offended at Mr Conolly's being one of them; this gentleman was lately an attorney, his father keeping an ale house in the North of Ireland, this being 'too notorious to be stifled'.
The son of the innkeeper had the last laugh. By the time of Williams's death he was the most powerful politician and the wealthiest man in Ireland. The Latin inscription on his funerary monument in the church at Tea Lane, Celbridge gives a short synopsis of his political career. When translated it says that he was Commissioner of the Revenue in the reign of Queen Anne and George I, Privy councillor in the reign of George II, twice elected Speaker of the House of Commons in Ireland and ten times held the Office of Lord Justice of Ireland.
Alongside his political success he also amassed the largest personal fortune in Ireland, with an estimated 150,000 acres creating a rent roll of £17,000 annually. He was the single biggest purchaser of forfeited estates after the Williamite Wars, when James II was defeated. From 1703 onwards he concentrated on the northwest of Ireland for political reasons and the area around Dublin for personal and political prestige.
The Castletown estate of 1,890 acres was purchased in 1709 from Colonel Thomas Dongan for £15,000. In 1725 he added 439 acres at Killadoon and in 1728 he purchased Leixlip Manor, which included the town but not the castle. Conolly had established himself in Kildare. He began to entertain and conduct government business in the existing house at Castletown, described in the deed of purchase as 'a very good dwelling house, with gardens of pleasure, a good kitchen garden and good orchard, a fine wood and hopyard'.
His advantageous marriage in 1694 to Katherine Conyngham, daughter of Sir Albert Conyngham, was crucial to his success. She brought important connections, her sister was married to the Irish accountant general James Bonnell and her brother Henry Conyngham had excellent political connections including the banker William Cairns and rising political stars Alan and Thomas Broderick. She also brought £2,300 of a dowry, a direct manner, strong personality and valuable political skills. They were a powerful couple socially, politically, and financially.
Work commenced on Castletown House in 1722. It was an odd decision to build as the Conolly's were in their sixties at that point and had no children. But Castletown was not built to be a family home, its purpose was to entertain and impress. Castletown was more impressive than the vice regal residences at Dublin Castle or Chapelizod. The house was to be their legacy, a physical manifestation of their social, political and financial power.
In his will, written 12 days before his death in 1729, William Conolly made the decision to be buried in Celbridge. He didn't chose his hometown and political stronghold in Donegal. He didn't choose Dublin where he had a large residence on Capel Street and where his political career had thrived. He choose Celbridge, forever entwining the Conolly name and Castletown.
After his death on 30th October 1729 Katherine organised 'the finest funeral that has been seen in this kingdom in many years'. The reception room and staircase of the house in Capel Street were draped with black fabric. Sixty seven poor men dressed in black walked in front of the coffin, one for each year of his life. 700 mourners walked with the coffin from Capel Street to Arran Quay on foot, many then travelling to Celbridge. The funeral was larger and more elaborate than that of Archbishop King who died the same year. Katherine was determined that William Conolly would be respected in death.
William left money in his will for a chartered school for forty orphans or poor children and Katherine built it as requested. Today it is the Celbridge Manor hotel. In 1736 an elaborate heraldic funerary monument was completed in Tea Lane church with life size marble statues of Katherine and William. It was so large that the church had to be extended to accommodate it. In the 1740's Katherine completed the obelisk known as Conolly's folly and the building now known as the Wonderful barn. Castletown House, the funerary monument, the charter school, the folly and the barn are today physical reminders of William Conolly, the self-made man who built an enduring legacy, the Conolly's of Castletown.
Celine Hanratty
The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy: The Life of William Conolly, 1662-1729 by Patrick Walsh
Elite Women in Ascendancy Ireland, 1690-1745: Imitation and Innovation by Rachel Wilson
Grave Matters: Death and Dying in Dublin, 1500 to the Present, edited by Lisa Marie Griffith and Ciarán Wallace. It contains a chapter 'Politics, patriotism, and posterity: the funeral of William Conolly in 1729' by Patrick Walsh.


How good is your email marketing? You know that you have to build an email list, but if you struggle getting people to sign up, then your overall proposition might not be the problem. According to research by MarketingSherpa, 50 percent of companies report that their email lists have grown slowly over the past 12 months, with 7 percent saying that their lists have actually shrunk. What incentive do you give people to hand over their contact details?
If you answered none, then you can drastically enhance your newsletter sign-up rates with one easy tactic. It's fundamental human nature: people like free stuff. Give them a free report or an e-course when they sign up for your newsletter, and they'll feel an instant benefit from joining your community.
Of course, it has to be a quality incentive—not a one-page sales leaflet—or they'll be unsubscribing again faster than you can get their details into your database. But it doesn't have to be expensive to produce, either. Chances are you already have everything you need.
If your company hosts a blog, then you've already got a ton of written material. Save yourself lots of time and pull together your best content on a related theme to create a short, targeted report. Even if you don't have a blog, you've probably contributed articles to the local business press or run a survey at some point; you can also turn these into a report. Alternatively, use email auto-responders to set up a short e-course, which will email an installment to the new subscriber every day.
Look out for poor spelling and grammar. Add sub-headings to give readers pointers throughout the report. Reproduce any images clearly, and be sure to provide captions and copyright attribution. Then check everything again for consistency so that the overall document hangs together. Give it an attractive cover page, add page numbers, and you're done. If you're producing a course, make sure that each instalment signposts what the reader received yesterday and what they'll be getting tomorrow.
Your free report shouldn't focus on sales. It should give readers interesting insights or useful information, but that doesn't mean you can't include anything about your business. Use a page at the back to highlight your services and provide contact information. For auto-responder courses, add a short promotional section at the bottom of each email.
Save your new report as a .pdf file; most devices can read them, and people generally aren't concerned about downloading that file type. Then set up your email marketing software to either send out the document directly for new subscribers or to send them a link so that they can download it. You can also use your email tools to set up the auto-responders required for an e-course. Then market your new freebie on your website, on your newsletter sign-up page and to your social media connections, and watch for the subscriptions to come in.
Change your free report or course offering every so often to keep your email marketing incentives fresh and timely. And don't forget to monitor your sign-up campaign so that you can check if your new giveaway really makes a difference to subscriptions.


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The 'Thatcheron' years: How David Cameron has adopted an 'Iron fist'
Lady Thatcher with PM David Cameron at 10 Downing Street
It seems as if someone has hit the replay button in Britain. Strikes, austerity measures, tax increases for the underprivileged with a hint of the Falklands creeping back to the surface. No, it isn't the 1980s' with Thatcher holding the reins. It is 2012 and David Cameron is the driving force behind the wheel. The Liberal Democrats are skirting around the Tory's coalition government, anxious to keep a smidgen of power and a Royal has been sent to the Falklands in the uniform of a 'conqueror'.
With the highest rate of unemployment in 17 years, affecting a staggering 2.67 million people, and welfare being reduced to only those already in poverty; capitalism is at its most discriminatory, as the middle-classes are sectioned off with the rest of the population under the breadline. And though the working class may have changed in appearance, they still bear the sign of a disgruntled mob with the police being the government's own army of soldiers.
When Thatcher came to power in 1979, the economy was generally considered to be facing severe structural problems, paralleling current issues. Unemployment reached an unprecedented level of 3 million by 1984, a post war record, and the country faced a crippling recession. Thatcher was heavily influenced by the idea of Monetarism and free market economics, (partially inherited from the previous Labour government), the belief of controlling inflation by controlling the money supply. Reducing the government deficit became the principal factor in managing the supply of money.
Therefore, extreme deflationary policies were implemented. Firstly taxes were raised and government spending cut. Interest rates were also increased, as the government sought to reduce inflation. In the middle of 1980, the economy had been plunged into full scale recession, but the government still pursued its deflationary policies. During 1981, in a famous letter to the Times, 365 economists signed a letter calling on the government to alter its economic policy and put an end to the recession.
On the one hand, inflation was reduced, but arguably it could have been done with much less pain. In seeking to meet spurious money supply targets they caused an unprecedented level of unemployment. This unemployment caused not only personal loss but widespread social problems. The mass unemployment, associated with inner cities, was very closely responsible for the riots which sparked across Britain in 1981, comparable to the London riots seen last year.
Apart from the hideous fashion-sense from the 80s', it seems we have adopted far too many Conservative quirks from the Thatcher era. Fresh aggravation from the tiny South Atlantic islands suggests another colonial war brewing, in true sense of the British Empire. And a feeling of desperation to devolve connections with the European Union and deny proposals from the European community; only reiterates Britain's need to be 'Great' again. But clearly, now is not the time for stuffed shirts and pomp with the country facing a debilitating recession.
David Thatcheron, the man who rules with an 'Iron fist'
Are the Falklands really our priority right now? Sending envoys to the archipelago seems rather futile, with people camped out in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, desperate to get basic human rights. But in a sense, the Argentinean government may have hit the nail on its head stating that Britain was 'distracting' itself from the gravity of the economic situation.
With £1 million bonuses being given out left, right and centre to bailed out bank's chief executives such as the Royal Bank of Scotland and now Barclays Capital; I have to ask how it even came about that the Government are prioritising profits over their population? The Bank of England recently announced a further £50 billion is going to be injected into the economy, as part of their quantitative easing programme, without taking into consideration the long-term effects on retirees, who will be the victims of recession. This money isn't being injected into the welfare system, rather the bankers who are part and parcel of gambling the country's wealth away.
The policy of privatisation has been called "a crucial ingredient of Thatcherism". After the 1983 election, the sale of state utilities accelerated; more than £29 billion was raised from the sale of nationalised industries, and another £18 billion from the sale of council houses. Although Thatcher never put QE in place, she increased interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply and thereby lower inflation, introduced cash limits on public spending, and reduced expenditures on social services such as education and housing.
Thatcher's cuts in higher education spending resulted in her being the first Oxford-educated post-war Prime Minister not to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford, after a 738 to 319 vote of the governing assembly and a student petition. Her new centrally-funded City Technology Colleges did not enjoy much success, and the Funding Agency for Schools was set up to control expenditure by opening and closing schools. They now come in the form of 'Academies', in which schools are independent of local authority control, and part-funded by private business sponsors.
David Cameron, on the same spectrum, has been accused of bringing in 'privatisation by the back door' for many public services including the National Health Service as well as higher education.
An equally massive backlash has been seen under the Prime Minister's term in power. An unparalleled increase in tuition fees in 2010, initiated one of the largest student protests in Britain since the Labour government first proposed the Teaching and Higher Education Act in 1998. Students were seen to be holding banners that read Don't Put the Kettle On, Mr Cameron and I Can't Believe It's Not Thatcher.
So is Cameron repeating the same mistakes that Thatcher's government made? Undoubtedly. However, the Conservative coalition government have had an opportunity to look back in hindsight and learn that wearing a humanitarian mask may keep the public at bay.
Posted by suswatibasu on February 20, 2012 in Austerity Measures, Social Politics and tagged cuts, David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher, Suswati Basu, UK.
About suswatibasu
Suswati Basu is a writer, journalist, producer and feminist activist residing in London. She has written for the Guardian, Huffington Post and the F-Word blogs, and has worked for various media outlets such as the BBC, Channel 4 and for ITV News/ITN. She currently works as a senior intelligence expert.
View all posts by suswatibasu »
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Suswati Basu is a 25 year old writer, journalist and feminist activist residing in London. She has written for the Guardian, Huffington Post and the F-Word blogs, and has worked for various media outlets such as the BBC, Channel 4 and currently works for ITV News, but all views are her own. Winner of the Emma Humphries Memorial Prize in 2007, also shortlisted for the Guardian Mary Stott Prize in the same year, and more recently longlisted for the Guardian International Development Journalism Award. Has worked in China, India and the UK and currently writes on a freelance basis. All views are personal and not reflective of the employer.
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