text:
More well-deserved recognition for Baker
Outstanding Contribution to Racing Award recipient Murray Baker
Murray Baker has now been recognised with two of the highest honours in New Zealand racing, but he's not about to rest on his laurels.
Last year Baker was inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame and on Sunday evening he picked up the Outstanding Contribution to Racing Award at the New Zealand Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Awards, held in Auckland.
"It rates right up there with the Hall of Fame (induction)," Baker said. "I was quite surprised to get it, but I knew something was up when I found out my family were all going to be there for the night.
"It's an honour to get the award and it was special to have my daughter, Reidun, and her husband, Dan, come up from Martinborough, and Bjorn and his wife, Andrea, fly over from Sydney. It was great to have my old Aussie mate Brian Nutt there, too.
"It really seems like a distant memory when they start reeling off some of the big winners I've had."
Baker flew in from Melbourne on Sunday after watching his promising three-year-old Long Jack win a maiden 1400m at Ballarat last Friday and stablemate The Chosen One finish a game fifth in the Gr.2 Feehan Stakes (1600m) at Moonee Valley on Saturday, while son Bjorn made a fleeting trip fresh from a double at Randwick, including a runaway win in the Gr.2 Chelmsford Stakes (1600m) by last-start Group One winner Samadoubt.
Adding to the memorable evening for Baker, he and his training partner, Andrew Forsman, were the recipients of the New Zealand Trainer of the Year Award for the third successive year and fourth time in five years, while the stable's dual Group One star Madison County was a dominant winner of the Champion Three-Year-Old Award.
Baker and Forsman have completed seven seasons in partnership and the stable has grown from strength-to-strength, achieving a record-breaking 143 wins two seasons ago. This past season the partners wound up as leading trainers with 112 wins, 25 black-type winners and more than $3.8 million in prizemoney on the local scene.
Baker was quick to pay tribute to Forsman's input for another wonderful season.
"The part he plays in the operation is huge," Baker said. "I couldn't wish for anyone better. He's got an exceptional talent and understands the game. He's great with the staff and patient with the horses."
Baker and Forsman have prepared 693 New Zealand winners together and 105 Group or Listed winners on the local front, plus an Australasian total of 32 wins at Group One level. Before taking Forsman on as training partner Baker trained successfully for three seasons with his son, Bjorn.
"I'm proud of them both," Baker said. "Bjorn is absolutely flying in Sydney. He's done it on his own and he's built up a great team."
However, on Sunday night the spotlight was well and truly on Baker and deservedly so. With the support of his wife, Marianne, he has gone from a fledgling trainer in Woodville in the 1980s to climb to the top of the ladder as a New Zealand trainer.
Baker attributes his shift north to Cambridge in 2000 as a turning point in his training career.
"It's known New Zealand breeds a world-class product and being up here in the Waikato close to the main studs has given me a chance to get a better class of horse. It's all a numbers game and being hands-on has helped."
Baker has also earned the utmost respect in Australia, having continuously made successful raids on feature events.
He has won 21 Group One races in Australia, more than any other New Zealand trainer, and has enjoyed Group One success in four Australian states. And it is that pursuit of major Australian prizes that keeps Baker going.
Bruno Cannatelli
"I'm addicted to Australian racing," he said. "I love the thrill of taking a horse over there and winning one of their big races. I get withdrawal symptoms when I can't find one to take over.
"One thing I realised early on was to take on the Aussies you really need a staying horse. Otherwise you've got to have an exceptionally good sprinter-miler, like Turn Me Loose.
"If you've got a staying horse with a bit of class and a good temperament you're in with a show."
Baker has proved that theory time and time again with the likes of Eagle Eye, Prized Gem, The Phantom, Lion Tamer, Nom Du Jeu, Bonneval, Dowry, Harris Tweed, Jon Snow, Mongolian Khan and one of his personal favourites, Dundeel.
Baker is at a stage in his life when most people his age would be sitting back and relaxing, but he has no thought of doing that.
"I've been training for over 40 years now and I'm still enjoying it," he said. "It's my way of life and I couldn't see myself doing anything else.
"I love the banter when going down to the Cambridge track in the mornings. We've got a terrific young lot of trainers at Cambridge and some good old mates, too.
"I'm always looking for that new horse who comes up to be a good one. It's hard to say no to a good horse."
Baker and Forsman have purposely taken a quieter approach to the start of the new season in New Zealand, preferring to leave the horses out spelling a bit longer.
"We've got a lot of unraced three-year-olds just waiting to start off," he said. "And there's the likes of Holy Mongolemperor, who ran a second at Hastings. I think he's a very good horse."
While slow on the local front, Baker and Forsman have already made their mark in Australia with Long Jack's Melbourne victory being preceded by Quick Thinker winning the Gr.3 Ming Dynasty Stakes (1400m) fresh-up at Rosehill, while stablemate Rhaegar finished fourth, four and a half lengths behind his stablemate.
"Quick Thinker and Rhaegar will both aim for the Spring Champion Stakes (Gr.1, 2000m). Rhaegar just needs a good track," Baker said.
"Long Jack won well and I think he could be a good horse. He's on a path to the Victoria Derby (Gr.1, 2500m) and I was happy with The Chosen One's run. He was three-wide and had to do a lot at the Valley. He's only a four-year-old and was racing against older horses and lacks a bit of ringcraft.
"He'll go for the Underwood Stakes (Gr.1, 1800m). I've got a bit of a soft spot for the race as I've won it four times."
Madison County is also in Australia and will start fresh-up in the Gr.1 Rupert Clarke Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield on September 21.
"It'll be a bit short for him, but then he'll get up to a mile," Baker said. "He's nominated for the Cox Plate (Gr.1, 2040m), but we'll just see how he comes up.
"As long as I can find horses like them to take over to Aussie I'm happy." - NZ Racing Desk


This year's Morgan challenge is sending Mr. Morgan to Army Basic Training…starting with shaving his head, push up and sit up challenges, rations for lunch, and learning to march before culminating in the National Guard challenge. He may have survived last year's frigid waters in the Morgan Plunge, but can he face Fort Morgan's regimen? The only way to find out is to reach the school goal of 2,500 points by the end of the first quarter. So far, Mr. Morgan should be safe to relax on his workout schedule.
Here are our current points: 205.6 as a school.
Many times classes may set their own goal so here are individual class points so far. Disclaimer: Remember, different classes have different numbers of students and point values change based on size and reading levels so class point expectations may change (especially at the beginning of the year as reading strategy is focus).
I'll be looking up some Army marching cadences just in case we need them.


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Home»Dance»Journey of an Odissi Dancer: Part 2
Journey of an Odissi Dancer: Part 2
By Vrinda Chadha January 3, 2021
vrinda chadda
Learning and unlearning at each step is an important process for an Odissi dancer, taught my guru. Amid covid 19, joining hands with Teach for India, I started designing online art-based academic curriculums and teaching underprivileged children.
Soon, with my guru Ranjana Gauhar-ji's blessings, I was performing Odissi and touring independently in solos as well as in collaborative works. It was a matter of immense pride and joy knowing the role an artist played while representing their form at the national level and even the country, internationally.
However, it also made me value the lesser-known local spaces which were reachable to more practitioners and viewers. Continuing to perform at such offbeat venues enabled a sense of being rooted. A reminder that it is the art that's above all else.
I'd curated and conceptualized a thematic solo Odissi recital showcasing my guru's choreographies. Titled 'Rasa Manthan', it was about the churning of the artist and the audience in an ocean of emotions and bliss, of bhāva and rasa simultaneously.
The show was graced by senior dancer Sonal Mansingh, MP, who especially congratulated my parents for facilitating the rigorous and dedicated period of dance training under my guru. Euphoric moments followed as I were to dance to live music by a team led by my guru on the manjira. She sat right by my side, while I danced on the stage. Overwhelmed, I was in tears at the end of the performance. I touched my guru's feet. This was a moment of utter gratefulness and surrender towards a person who had made me come a far way through all the ups and downs.
Guru's interventions
My guru often broke my barriers of complacency by challenging m to portray lead characters in her dance-drama productions like Rabindranath Tagore's Chitrangada, Nal-Damayanti and Jhansi Ki Rani, to name a few. Her background in theatre was a gift to her disciples as it gave us a chance to learn from her the art of immersing and losing the self to become one with the character being portrayed.
While working on a production named Kabir, I also got a chance to assist my guru in the research, recording, choreographic and scriptwriting process. Yet another insightful experience that developed a fresh aspect of my dance education under her.
I was fortunate to post-graduate in philosophy from Delhi University. My MA at Lady Shri Ram College for Women broadened my thought process with writings from thinkers on ethics and art aesthetics. They empowered me by helping me realize the power of change through art and thus pushing to ask questions about the true purpose of it and my role as an artist in the larger social context. This led me to work as a dance associate and consultant with an NGO named Nayi Udaan and conduct numerous workshops/lecture demonstrations for children from low-income families.
Pandemic-time mission
This year, amid Covid-19, I began a fellowship with another NGO called Teach for India. That was to design and use online art-based academic curriculums for teaching, using dance-music as an enabler for children to express themselves and become emotionally literate. The accessibility of classical arts has often been restricted to the privileged.
Initiatives like these helped me reach out to an audience that perhaps needed art in their life the most. I also worked on creative video pieces using easy-to-comprehend abhinaya in order to express over poetry based on languages other than Sanskrit so as to reach wider audiences. I also worked to spread social messages through classical arts amid the challenging times of the pandemic.
Keeping in tune with the digital medium , I was a part of numerous online festivals and video project collaborations for social causes and fundraisers. I researched, wrote and curated a photo series in collaboration with art photographers on social media titled 'Sandhya — Sundown at Puri', recreating and rethinking the dancing sculptures of Odissa temples in today's context. Also, 'The Becoming' — a photographic series of backstage reflections and what goes into the making of a performance. As part of the teaching faculty, I continue taking classes at Utsav — my guruji's Odissi Dance Academy.
As classical dancers, our aim is to take our guru's work and lineage forward with utmost sincerity and by really making it our own. Additionally, I also hope to be a socially-aware artist with a strong voice and contribute by applying all that is taught to me—both creatively and thoughtfully. All this, to be a drop of continuity and growth in the endless ocean of Odissi.
Read Part 1 here
Chitrangada Covid 19 featured jhansi ki rani Nal Damayanti Odissi odissi dance Rabindranath Tagore Ranjana Gauhar Sonal Mansingh teach for india teaching dance
Previous ArticleA Journey of an Odissi Dancer: Part 1
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Vrinda Chadha
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Malini Rajurkar: A Hindustani Vocalist's Unparalleled Journey
Kalamandalam Kavitha Krishnakumar: Dancer & Dedicated Teacher

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The holiday period is an extremely difficult time for the best of us, people who aren't utilizing drugs or alcohol. Who aren't using and abusing. Because it's a period of high expectation and high anxiety, and that can be a very dangeroud combination. We go into the holidays with the expectation that everybody's going to get along, that it's going to be merry and bright, that it's going to be the Chanukkah you didn't have as a child, so we all go in with a great deal of expectation. Unfortunately, rarely if ever are those expectations met cause they're fantasy. They're build up, a conglamoration of wishes and dreams that won't be fulfilled. So we're leading into let down. If someone has used drugs or alcohol and they're going into that situation, they're vulnerable to develop a relapse. They're vulnerable to head to a relapse. There are things that they can do in order to help themselves through he holdays, and those are, they want to look at what their expectations are, and what their families' expectations for them are. And then set up parameters and talk through situations before you hit them. So, if you're going to a family party and there's going to be drinking present, you want to talk that through with the host. If that's your parents, or that's your spouse coming into that situation, you talk through what can happen and what the options are if you're going and you can talk it through before it happens.


text:
Q: First row from a CSV file is a list of one string while the remaining rows are list of elements in Python I am a newbie and trying to perform some calculations and analyse some data from a huge number of CSV files using Python 3. Each CSV file has data stored in about 30000 rows seperated by a semicolon. As these are system generated files, the first row has the names of Parameters in a different order for each file. So I want to extract these Parameter names, compare them and find out the positions of required parameter values for every file.
But before I even do that, when I read the first row of the CSV file, the list has a single string seperated by the ';' while the rest of the lines are properly extracted. I have tried splitting the text and other means but none of them have any effect on the output. Can someone kindly help solve this issue.
This is the piece of code I have written:
import os
import sys
import csv
import math
# Open a file
full_path = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\\CSV files"
dirs = os.listdir( full_path )
filename = list()

"""This will find the file in the directory and print the first row of the
CSV file - the names of the parameters."""
for file in dirs:
    path = full_path+'\\'+file
    with open(path, 'rt') as csvfile:
        #For printing the location name
        Turbine_name = (os.path.splitext(file)[0])
        #Reading the files into an object
        csvreader = csv.reader(csvfile, delimiter=';')
        #Obtaining the first line of the CSV file - the names of the parameters
        Parameters = next(csvreader)
        print (Parameters)
        #From this line, the values of different Parameters are extracted
        for row in csvreader:
            Parameters = next(csvreader)
            print (Parameters)
            #To eliminate rows with insufficient data
            if len(Parameters)>11:
                Created_time = Parameters[0]
                Grid_frequency = float(Parameters[3])
                Grid_KW = float(Parameters[4])
                Rotor_RPM = float(Parameters[10])

The positions of the parameters are taken for example here as I am yet to write the code for comparing strings. A sample of the input file looks like this:
createTime;"Grid CosPhi";"Grid Current";"Grid Frequency";"Grid kW";"Grid   VAr";"Grid Voltage";"Pitch angle 1";"Pitch angle 2";"Pitch angle 3";"Rotor RPM";"Temp.  5    214";"Temp.  6    217";"Temp.  9    227";"Winddirection";"Windspeed"
9/21/14 11:30:01 PM;N/A;N/A;49.963;211688.734;N/A;N/A;-1.06;-1.039;-1.119;19.379;47.167;36;64;N/A;6.319
9/21/14 11:40:01 PM;N/A;N/A;50.002;170096.297;N/A;N/A;-1.003;-0.96;-1.058;19.446;47.182;36.084;63.772;N/A;5.628
9/21/14 11:50:01 PM;N/A;N/A;50.021;175038.734;N/A;N/A;-0.976;-0.961;-1.082;18.805;47;36.223;63.153;N/A;5.577
9/22/14 12:00:01 AM;N/A;N/A;49.964;229942.016;N/A;N/A;-1.047;-1.018;-1.066;18.957;47.125;36.293;63.766;N/A;6.431
9/22/14 12:10:01 AM;N/A;N/A;49.908;200873.844;N/A;N/A;-0.997;-0.985;-1.06;19.229;47.028;36.334;63.962;N/A;6.076
9/22/14 12:20:01 AM;N/A;N/A;49.934;234467.609;N/A;N/A;-1.028;-0.986;-1.001;18.995;47.056;36.401;63.732;N/A;6.067
9/22/14 12:30:01 AM;N/A;N/A;49.96;270969.25;N/A;N/A;-1.138;-1.103;-1.122;18.983;47.274;36.499;64.014;N/A;6.487
9/23/14 12:30:01 PM;N/A;N/A;50.073;54458.719;N/A;N/A;-0.492;-0.52;-0.472;13;42.02;33.624;46.426;N/A;3.757

And when I get the output it looks like this:
>>>['createTime;"Grid CosPhi";"Grid Current";"Grid Frequency";"Grid kW";"Grid VAr";"Grid Voltage";"Pitch angle 1";"Pitch angle 2";"Pitch angle 3";"Rotor RPM";"Temp.  5    214";"Temp.  6    217";"Temp.  9    227";"Winddirection";"Windspeed"']
   ['9/21/14 11:40:01 PM', 'N/A', 'N/A', '50.002', '170096.297', 'N/A', 'N/A', '-1.003', '-0.96', '-1.058', '19.446', '47.182', '36.084', '63.772', 'N/A', '5.628']
   ['9/22/14 12:00:01 AM', 'N/A', 'N/A', '49.964', '229942.016', 'N/A', 'N/A', '-1.047', '-1.018', '-1.066', '18.957', '47.125', '36.293', '63.766', 'N/A', '6.431']
   ['9/22/14 12:20:01 AM', 'N/A', 'N/A', '49.934', '234467.609', 'N/A', 'N/A', '-1.028', '-0.986', '-1.001', '18.995', '47.056', '36.401', '63.732', 'N/A', '6.067']

As observed in some of the files, some of the Parameters are completely missing. This is why I need to find out positions of individual parameters in each CSV file. Any ideas how it can be done best are also appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Edit: Unfortunately I cannot use Pandas as it has to be seperately installed in Python34 and my office system (Windows XP, P4) does not support it. I want to do this with CSV module if possible.

A: I would suggest that you use pandas instead of csv as it is more capable of reading and creating spreadsheets. The first line of each file is usually used to name the columns. As each column has an unique name you do not need to know the position, since in pandas columns can be accessed by name.
import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_csv(yourFilePath, sep = ';', index_col = 0, parse_dates = True)

That would create a spreadsheet similar to MS Excel. The first column 'createTime' will be the index of your spreadsheet and pandas will try to parse the strings in this column to date/time information.
If you like to do some math now, you can do it column by column as pandas is able to interprete that correctly. For selection rows you can use selection by labels:
import pandas as pd
data1 = pd.read_csv(yourFilePath1, sep = ';', index_col = 0, parse_dates = True)
data2 = pd.read_csv(yourFilePath2, sep = ';', index_col = 0, parse_dates = True)
#select a specific time range only, e.g 22th Sept. 2014
range_of_interest = data.loc['20140922']
#select time range >= Sept. 22th, 2014
range_of_interest = data.loc['20140922':]

You can also align your dataframes according to the index. Here is a similar example
aligned_data = data1.join(data2, how = 'outer', rsuffic = '_2')

There are also multiple functions that allow you to calculate descriptions of the columns like mean value, standard deviation, etc. For example, the stastical values for the column 'Grid kW':
data['Grid kW'].describe()

Finally, you can do math with complete dataframes. pandas will automatically use the correct columns. If a speficic column is missing in one of the dataframes, the results of the calculation will be 'nan'. Same is valid for missing values. So the result of the calculation between the dataframes will always result in a dataframe with valid data only.
data1.loc['20140922'] + data2.loc['20140922']

That should cover your intentions.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Until version 4.8 the content of the mail was hard coded.The only way to alter the mails was to hook into wp_mail() or even phpmailer.
The filters fire after the user has been added to the database.
$wp_new_user_notification_email_admin: Associative array with the keys to, subject, message, headers.
$user: A WP_User object of the registered user.
$blogname: A string containing the name of the blog the user registered to.
Subject: [myBlog] New user new_user registered.
new_user (new_user@user.com) has registerd to your blog myBlog.
sprintf( "%s has registerd to your blog %s.", $user->user_login, $blogname) .
In this example the From information of the mail is changed and the user admin2@myblog is added as an additional recipient. As you can see, multiple headers entries are separated by "\n\r" (return and linefeed).
As said before this all could already be done by using wp_mail() and phpmailer but the new filters are way more convenient.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could download the previous versions and get your blog back on track again? Well... you can!
Next week I will be at WordCamp San Francisco and a week later at the WooConf! Maybe one or antoher of our loyal readers will also be there. It would be great to meet you in person!
Frank and I had such a blast at WordCamp Europe in Sofia last month. It was great to meet many of our old WordPress buddies and get to know even more WodPress freaks there.
We also had the chance to show many people the newest version of our Multlingual WordPress plugin MultlingualPress. Everybody was very excited about it. Because it is a clean solution without any performance issues. It is very userfriendly, build on existing core functionality, no compromises in SEO, etc. ... see all features here.
Many people we talked to, had the problem, that they are tight to their current multilanguage solution. If they deactivate their plugin, the content is gone. Big issue if you want to move to a better performing solution. Very soon, it won't be anymore, espacially with your help testing it. We are currently building a WPML importer to easily switch to MultlingualPress. 🙂 Other importer will follow soon too.
We are looking for some engaging tester for our new WPML importer. If you participate, you can get our pro version for free. If you are interested please contact Frank directly at frank@bueltge.de, for more information read our post on Google+. We really appreciate your support!
Of course there is also a free version available, so try it out. Here you can see the differences between the pro and free version. Not to forget, with the pro version you get an excellent support!
I'm really looking forward to meet you in San Francisco! Let me in our comments know if you will be there! Can't wait!


This is the final composition.I think thats all.I hope you liked.
What a picyures Sky look like a real paint. A Michelangelo paint for example.
Yeah,thanks for all the comments!My inspiration is the classical paintings.A good color is improving the composition.Atmosphere is something that I tried to make.
Looking good, well done !!!
Beautiful lighting, it makes me feel like I walked into the art museum and am looking at the old European master paintings with the magical lighting.
Thanks Ivy00! Like I said my inspiration is the classical one.Great challenge,I liked here, on CG I learn alot of things from other artists.I am glead that my works are apreciated and I whan to share some of my artistic experience to everyone who is like us.
Thanks again to all and I wish you good luck in the challenge!
You have a different approach of the subject, but I found it interesting.
Nice image, colours are great. You have finished and i have only just got started …i am still reading the book LOL.
Very nice image! First caliber and professional one, like your others works.
Great final image Adib. Awesome mood, perspective and atmosphere all around. Your skyline looks godly man.
That is absolurtely stunning. what a drop dead gorgeous skyscape, you should be pleased with this effort… great work!
Thanks to all! and good luck to everyone!
Close to the end guys,good luck to all in this challenge,VERY NICE CHALLENGE!And I hope to have more of those.
beautiful work!! stunning!! i love the strong contrast!!


text:
package org.opencb.cellbase.app.transform.variation;

import com.google.common.base.Stopwatch;
import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
import org.opencb.commons.utils.FileUtils;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * Created by parce on 08/12/15.
 */
public abstract class AbstractVariationFile {

    protected Logger logger;

    protected Path variationDirectory;

    protected String unprocessedFileName;
    protected String preprocessedFileName;

    protected BufferedReader fileReader;

    protected int variationIdColumnIndex;
    private boolean endOfFile;
    private String[] lastReadLine;
    private int lastReadVariationId;

    public AbstractVariationFile(Path variationDirectory, String unprocessedFileName, String preprocessedFileName) {
        this.variationDirectory = variationDirectory;
        this.unprocessedFileName = unprocessedFileName;
        this.preprocessedFileName = preprocessedFileName;
        endOfFile = false;
        logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(this.getClass());
    }

    public AbstractVariationFile(Path variationDirectory, String unprocessedFileName, String preprocessedFileName,
                                 int variationIdColumnIndexInFile)  {
        this(variationDirectory, unprocessedFileName, preprocessedFileName);
        this.variationIdColumnIndex = variationIdColumnIndexInFile;
    }

    public void createBufferedReader() throws IOException {
        this.fileReader = getBufferedReader(preprocessedFileName);
    }

    protected BufferedReader getBufferedReader(String fileName) throws IOException {
        Path inputFile;
        if (Files.exists(variationDirectory.resolve(fileName))) {
            inputFile = variationDirectory.resolve(fileName);
        } else {
            inputFile = variationDirectory.resolve(fileName + ".gz");
        }
        return FileUtils.newBufferedReader(inputFile);
    }

    protected BufferedReader getUnprocessedFileBufferedReader() throws IOException {
        return getBufferedReader(unprocessedFileName);
    }

    public List<String[]> getVariationRelatedLines(int variationId) throws IOException {
        List<String[]> variationRelatedLines;

        readFileLinesUntilReachVariation(variationId);
        if (endOfFile || variationIdExceededInFile(variationId)) {
            variationRelatedLines = Collections.EMPTY_LIST;
        } else {
            variationRelatedLines = new ArrayList<>();
            while (!endOfFile && !variationIdExceededInFile(variationId)) {
                variationRelatedLines.add(lastReadLine);
                readLineInVariationRelatedFile();
            }
        }
        return variationRelatedLines;
    }

    private void readFileLinesUntilReachVariation(int variationId) throws IOException {
        while (!endOfFile && !variationReachedInFile(variationId)) {
            readLineInVariationRelatedFile();
        }
    }

    private void readLineInVariationRelatedFile() throws IOException {
        String line = fileReader.readLine();
        if (line == null) {
            endOfFile = true;
        } else {
            lastReadLine = line.split("\t", -1);
            lastReadVariationId = getVariationIdFromLastLineInVariationRelatedFile();
        }
    }

    private int getVariationIdFromLastLineInVariationRelatedFile() {
        return Integer.parseInt(lastReadLine[variationIdColumnIndex]);
    }

    private boolean variationReachedInFile(int variationId) {
        return lastReadVariationId != -1 && lastReadVariationId >= variationId;
    }

    private boolean variationIdExceededInFile(int variationId) {
        return lastReadVariationId > variationId;
    }

    public void gunzip() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
        if (!existsZippedOrUnzippedFile(preprocessedFileName)) {
            // unzip variation file name for preprocess it later
            gunzipFileIfNeeded(variationDirectory, unprocessedFileName);
        }
    }

    protected boolean existsZippedOrUnzippedFile(String baseFilename) {
        return Files.exists(variationDirectory.resolve(baseFilename))
                || Files.exists(variationDirectory.resolve(baseFilename + ".gz"));
    }

    private void gunzipFileIfNeeded(Path directory, String fileName) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
        Path zippedFile = directory.resolve(fileName + ".gz");
        if (Files.exists(zippedFile)) {
            logger.info("Unzipping {} ...", zippedFile);
            Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("gunzip " + zippedFile.toAbsolutePath());
            process.waitFor();
        } else {
            Path unzippedFile = directory.resolve(fileName);
            if (Files.exists(unzippedFile)) {
                logger.info("File {} was previously unzipped: skipping 'gunzip' for this file ...", unzippedFile);
            } else {
                throw new FileNotFoundException("File " + zippedFile + " doesn't exist");
            }
        }
    }

    public void sort() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
        if (!existsZippedOrUnzippedFile(preprocessedFileName)) {
            Path sortedFile = variationDirectory.resolve(preprocessedFileName);
            Path unsortedFile = variationDirectory.resolve(unprocessedFileName);
            sortFileByNumericColumn(unsortedFile, sortedFile, variationIdColumnIndex);
        }
    }

    protected void sortFileByNumericColumn(Path inputFile, Path outputFile, int columnIndex) throws InterruptedException, IOException {
        logger.info("Sorting file {} into {} ...", inputFile, outputFile);

        // increment column index by 1, beacause Java indexes are 0-based and 'sort' command uses 1-based indexes
        columnIndex++;
        ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("sort", "-t", "\t", "-k", Integer.toString(columnIndex),
                "-n", "--stable", inputFile.toAbsolutePath().toString(), "-T", variationDirectory.toString(),
                "-o", outputFile.toAbsolutePath().toString());
        logger.debug("Executing '{}' ...", StringUtils.join(pb.command(), " "));
        Stopwatch stopwatch = Stopwatch.createStarted();
        Process process = pb.start();
        process.waitFor();

        int returnedValue = process.exitValue();
        if (returnedValue != 0) {
            String errorMessage = IOUtils.toString(process.getErrorStream());
            logger.error("Error sorting {}", inputFile);
            logger.error(errorMessage);
            throw new RuntimeException("Error sorting " + inputFile);
        }
        logger.info("Sorted");
        logger.debug("Elapsed time sorting file: {}", stopwatch);
    }

    public void gzip() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
        gzipFile(unprocessedFileName);
        gzipFile(preprocessedFileName);
    }

    private void gzipFile(String fileName) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
        Path unzippedFile = variationDirectory.resolve(fileName);
        if (Files.exists(unzippedFile)) {
            logger.info("Compressing {}", unzippedFile.toAbsolutePath());
            Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("gzip " + unzippedFile.toAbsolutePath());
            process.waitFor();
        }
    }

    public boolean existsZippedOrUnzippedFile() {
        return Files.exists(variationDirectory.resolve(unprocessedFileName))
                || Files.exists(variationDirectory.resolve(unprocessedFileName + ".gz"));
    }

    public boolean isEmpty() throws IOException {
        if (Files.exists(variationDirectory.resolve(unprocessedFileName))) {
            return Files.size(variationDirectory.resolve(unprocessedFileName)) == 0;
        } else {
            return Files.size(variationDirectory.resolve(unprocessedFileName + ".gz")) == 0;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Home News INKing How To Take Control Of Your Mental Health.
How To Take Control Of Your Mental Health.
A new survey of more than 10 000 Australian women shows that 40% have been professionally diagnosed with depression or anxiety. This proves once again judt how profound of a problem it is.
Anyone who's experienced depression knows just how much time this illness consumes. And it's ok. When depression is at its worst, your only job is to survive.
But when it starts lifting a little, it's easy to get stuck in inertia — a place where you fail to take risks because sub-consciously you're afraid to fall down the rabbit hole again. If you find yourself in this situation, here are a few things you can do when you feel taken over by your illness.
Accept that the only one who can change your circumstances is you. The universe is not going to help you out here, no matter how much you believe it will. The only way to get what you want is to reach out and take it, even if you have to reach out a million times.
Don't judge/be too hard on yourself. So what if you've had to push back your plans for a while? It doesn't mean you won't get there eventually.
Try not to compare yourself to others because they are unlikely to be in the same situation as you. Comparison and jealousy will only make you feel worse about yourself and be a hindrance to your recovery.
Start making a list of what you need to do to get where you want to be. Make sure these things are doable to ensure you're not faced with grave disappointment. Laying out your small victories in front of you will promote a sense of pride and achievement that will motivate you to keep going.
Remember that your depression doesn't define you. It might seem as if it's taking over your life right now, but eventually it won't.
Previous articleAnyone Can Renovate, But Not Everyone Can Renovate For Profit!


text:
50 Words People Pronounce Differently Across America
These words have completely different pronunciations depending on where you go.
By Morgan Greenwald December 27, 2019
By Morgan Greenwald
The next time you talk to someone from the other side of the country, take note of the way they say words like "bagel" and "mayonnaise." Maybe you didn't notice it before, but your cross-country comrades likely have vastly differing ways of pronouncing these everyday terms. And it's not just those words, either: How you pronounce words like "tour," "almond," and "envelope" also largely depends on where in the U.S. you were raised. Read on to learn more about some of the words that are pronounced differently across the country.
This delicious morning staple often covered in cream cheese has several ways of being pronounced, as it turns out. Most people—including New Yorkers, who are arguably the most knowledgeable on the matter—pronounce the word as bay-gull, but many Midwesterners botch the word to sound like bah-gull.
This sweet treat's pronunciation is rather controversial. The Harvard Dialect Survey, a linguistics survey conducted in the early aughts by a team led by Bert Vaux, shows that while the West Coast and Midwest pronounce the word "caramel" with two syllables like car-ml, the majority of the East Coast sees the word as three syllables, pronouncing it car-a-mel.
Could you pass the seer-up? No, but I can pass the sirr-up. Yes, the syrup vs. syrup debate is a sticky one, but both pronunciations are considered acceptable.
What divides the country when it comes to "pajamas" is the word's second syllable. Head to America's Western and Midwestern states and you'll find that the "a" in pajamas is pronounced like "jam," but spend time in any Southern or Eastern state and you'll hear an "a" as in "father."
Be careful how you pronounce the name of this state in front of a native Nevadan. Though inhabitants of the East Coast refer to the home of the Las Vegas Strip as Nev-AH-da (with an "a" like "odd"), the correct pronunciation—according to the state's residents—is actually Nev-AD-a (with an "a" like "add").
Oregon is yet another state name that people outside of the West Coast don't know how to pronounce. Contrary to popular belief, it's not pronounced Or-a-gone, but Or-a-gun.
Even locals can't agree on how to pronounce the name of this city. Some people say New Oar-lins, others say New Or-leans, and a small subset even add an extra syllable to make it New Or-lee-uhns.
As the region is named after the Caribs (pronounced kar-ib), the technically accurate pronunciation of the word "Caribbean" is kar-i-bee-in. However, many people (some Caribbean natives included) prefer the pronunciation ka-RIB-ee-in, and so both dictions are relatively commonplace.
Most Americans—Floridians included—pronounce the first syllable in Florida to rhyme with "sore." However, there are three other ways to pronounce this word: Flow-ri-da, Flah-ri-da, and Flaw-ri-da. For the most part, these alternate pronunciations can be heard in Southern and Northeastern states.
Though the overwhelming majority of people pronounce Texas with an [s] sound, not everyone does. According to the Harvard Dialect Survey, just over 5 percent of respondents—primarily people in Northern and Midwestern states—say the state's name with a [z] sound.
Depending on who you ask, you could either embark on a "tore" of a city, or you could embark on a "toor" of a city. Both Merriam-Webster and the Macmillan Dictionary advise you to pronounce it as "toor," but that isn't to say that "tore" is wrong—it really just depends on what you were taught.
The researchers behind the Harvard Dialect Survey also discovered that while most Americans pronounce the word "lawyer" in such a way that the first syllable rhymes with "boy," Southerners emphasize the "law" in lawyer so the first syllable makes a "saw" sound.
Marry/Merry/Mary
If you were to say the sentence "I feel merry about marrying Mary," would your pronunciations of "marry," "merry," and "Mary" sound any different? Most Americans will find that these words come out to sound exactly the same—but if you're from a big city in the Northeast, then it's probable that the way you sound out each word differs, with "marry" taking on the same vowel as "cat," "merry" taking on the same vowel as "pet," and "Mary" taking on the same vowel as "fair."
Caught/Cot
Do you hear a difference in pronunciation between the words "cot" and "caught"? If so, you probably didn't grow up on the West Coast or in the Midwest. In the Harvard Dialect Survey, researchers found that the majority of people from these regions pronounced these words in the same way. People on the East Coast and in the South, meanwhile, tend to pronounce them distinctly differently.
Most people pronounce the first syllable in the word "envelope" like "pen"—but if you ask around enough, you will find that some people pronounce the first syllable like "dawn." That's because the English word originates from the French word for envelope, which favors the latter pronunciation.
Some people, especially Southerners, see the word "aunt" and pronounce it no differently than the word's homonym, "ant." But others—particularly those in the Boston area—pronounce the word so that it rhymes with "daunt," paying homage to the colonies' former motherland.
The various pronunciations of the word "almond" originate back to when many people were emigrating from Europe to the United States, bringing with them their native languages and thusly their own versions of various words. So, call it an al-mond, an am-end, or an ahl-mend; regardless of pronunciation, you're still referring to the same thing.
Given how many Americans are not native English speakers, it's no surprise that so many are saying the word "salmon" with a distinguishable /l/ sound. In languages like Spanish and Italian, the /l/ in salmon is very much heard, and that often carries over into pronunciations for people who are learning English as a second language. In the case of this fish, though, there is only one right pronunciation, and it involves no /l/ sound whatsoever.
Whether you pronounce the word "pecan" as pee-can or puh-kahn is more complicated than you think. When the National Pecan Shellers Association polled Americans about how they pronounced the name of the nut, they found that there were divides not just among regions, but within them as well. Per a write-up by The Washington Post, the survey concluded that there was no single pronunciation of the word designated for each area, with 45 percent of Southerners and 70 percent of Northeasterners favoring "pee-can."
As if the debate on what to call a giant sandwich wasn't enough (is it a sub, a hero, or a hoagie?), Americans find it necessary to argue over the correct pronunciation of the sandwich's condiments, too. Though there are some slight variations within regions, the general consensus is that in the West and Midwest, you'll put may-uh-naze on your sandwich, and in the North and South, you'll use man-aze.
Is that vegetable you eat caul-ee-flower or caul-ih-flower? In the Northeast, you're most likely to hear that second syllable pronounced like "see." In the rest of the country, however, that "i" takes on the same sound that it does in "sit."
Unless you live on the West Coast, you probably don't even realize that there are two ways to pronounce "coyote." "Ki-ote is a Colorado-Wyoming kind of pronunciation," Andrew Cowell, director of linguistics at CU Bolder, told 9 News. "If you come from the East, you're much more likely to say ki-o-tee."
Somehow, even three-letter words with one syllable have managed to take on several pronunciations. While the hefty majority of Americans pronounce the word "bit" like "sit," there are some people (particularly in parts of Colorado) who say it like "bet." (And since "bit" sounds like "bet," "bet" then sounds like "bat." It's all very confusing.)
What do you call the food items that you purchase at the market? Gro-sir-ees, of course! But not so fast: If you're from the Midwest, you might replace the "sir" sound with an "sh," calling your shopping haul grosh-rees instead.
Some people pronounce it cray-awn, rhyming with "dawn," and others pronounce it cray-ahn, rhyming with "man." According to Crayola, arguably the top crayon experts, the correct way to say it is cray-awn, but even they admit that there are too many regional differences to try and implement a single pronunciation.
When saying the words "mirror" and "mere" out loud, do you hear a significant difference? Folks from the East Coast might be surprised to learn that the answer to this question for some people is no, as their pronunciation of the word "mirror" makes it just one syllable, disregarding the "-or" altogether.
Nobody is denying that the word "museum" begins with a "mew" sound. They might, however, disagree over how the word continues to be sounded out, with some people favoring the pronunciation mew-zee-um and others opting for the pronunciation mew-zam.
Mischievous
The word "mischievous" is spelled so that it should be pronounced like mis-che-vous, but somehow the Harvard Dialect Survey found that over 26 percent of Americans pronounce the word with four syllables. Why? According to Merriam-Webster, a variant spelling of the word with an -ious ending existed as far back as the 16th century, though today both this spelling and pronunciation are considered "nonstandard."
You don't pronounce the word "cool" with a /q/ sound, so you wouldn't think to pronounce the word "coupon" with a /q/ sound either, right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Though the word's accepted pronunciation is the simple koo-pon, many an educated individual pronounce the first syllable of the word like "kyoo," as if they're sounding out the letter q.
Wherever you travel to in the United States, you'll find people who pronounce the word "poem" as both pome (rhyming with "home") and po-emme. The pronunciation of this word is not limited to regions, but simply to personal preference.
Undoubtedly, Beyoncé is flourishing. But is she flore-ishing, fluh-rishing, or flurr-ishing? It really all depends on whom you ask. The Harvard Dialect Survey found that while flurr-ish is the preferred pronunciation, there are many Midwesterners and Northerners who say flore-ish and some folks living in the Northeast who say fluh-rish.
Is it a Bow-ie knife, or is it a Boo-wie knife? That depends on who you're talking to. In the Harvard Dialect Survey, researchers found that approximately 19 percent of respondents—most of whom lived in the Northeast region—pronounced it the second way.
The majority of Americans can agree on the fact that the "ee" in "creek" is pronounced like "seek." However, in the Harvard Dialect Survey, approximately 4 percent of people noted that they pronounced the "ee" in creek so that it sounded like "sit." Most of these people were from Midwestern states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
Does the last syllable in "handkerchief" have the same sound as "seek" or "sit"? Per the Harvard Dialect Survey, most people in the Northeast would say "seek," while the rest of the country would go with "sit."
"Adult" is considered to be a "toilet paper roll" word. That is to say, whether you choose to pronounce it like add-ult or uh-dult, you are correct—just as you'd be correct in placing your toilet paper roll either under or over.
"Asterisk" might not come up often in conversation, but when it does, it's pronounced differently depending on the region. In parts of the Northeast, it's pronounced asteri[ks]; up and down the Northern coast, it's pronounced asteri[k]; and in the rest of the country, it's simply asteri[sk].
How many syllables are there in "realtor"? Ask someone from the Northeast and they'll probably tell you that there are only two. Ask someone from the Midwest or the South, however, and they're more likely to use three syllables, pronouncing it either reel-uh-ter or ree-l-ter.
Most people will say the days of the week—Monday, Tuesday, etc.—and pronounce the second syllable so that it rhymes with "say." A small portion of the population, however, primarily in the South and Midwest, will say this syllable so that it rhymes with "see."
Do you pronounce the letter "h" in words like "huge"? If so, you're among the majority of Americans. In the Harvard Dialect Survey, though, approximately 3 percent of respondents—mostly people in the Northeast—noted that they don't pronounce the "h" sound when saying words like "huge," "humor," "humongous," and "human."
Most Americans pronounce the word "quarter" so that it has a [kw] sound at the beginning. However, some people in the Northeast and Midwestern regions pronounce this word so that the first syllable is more of a [k] sound.
If you've stayed in one place for your entire life, then you might not even know that there's more than one way to pronounce the word "roof." But surprisingly, there are actually two common ways to pronounce this four-letter word. While people born and raised in the West tend to pronounce the word as if it rhymes with "hoof," those from the East see it as rhyming with "poof."
Most Americans pronounce the first vowel in "miracle" so that it sounds like "knit." However, the Harvard Dialect Survey discovered that in the Northeast region, people tend to pronounce this vowel so that it sounds more like "near." There is even a small group of people in the Northeast who pronounce this sound to rhyme with "net"!
Though the word "really" is pronounced differently across the country, it doesn't appear to be due to regional differences. In the Harvard Dialect Survey, researchers found that people from coast to coast pronounced the word reely, rilly, and ree-l-y.
Most Americans pronounce the word "insurance" with an emphasis on the second syllable. But in some parts of the country—mostly in the Northeast and Midwest regions—people will emphasize the first syllable instead, calling it INsurance.
The pronunciation of the word "route" is a little bit complicated. Though Northeasterners tend to pronounce it so it rhymes with "hoot" and Midwesterners tend to pronounce it so it rhymes with "out," just over 30 percent of respondents in the Harvard Dialect survey noted that they can (and do) pronounce it both ways.
There is not one, not two, not three, but four different ways to pronounce "et cetera." Though the most popular way to say it is e[ts]etera, people also say e[ts]etra, eksetera, and eksetra.
Dialect differences have divided Americans into two categories: those who say ga-rah-ge, and those who say ga-redge. But hey, however you pronounce it, at least you're not calling it a car park!
"The word get does not rhyme with yet here in the South," writes Sarah Johnson, a South Carolina native and Southern accent specialist. "We say it like 'git.' There is a common rhyme teachers use at school when students complain about not getting their first choice. In the North, you might say: 'You get what you get, so don't be upset.' But that does not rhyme for us. We say, 'You git what you git, so don't throw a fit.'"
"Get" isn't the only word that Southerners pronounce differently. According to Johnson, "the word can't in many small towns [in the South] actually rhymes with paint."
In some parts of the south, the word "pen" often rhymes with "pin." According to a dialect project from the 1990s conducted at North Carolina State University, this pattern can also be seen in words like "tin" and "ten," "windy" and "Wendy," and "sinned" and "send."
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Plus, learn how to properly pronounce them.


The DeCordova, TX area has had 0 reports of on-the-ground hail by trained spotters, and has been under severe weather warnings 12 times during the past 12 months. Doppler radar has detected hail at or near DeCordova, TX on 49 occasions, including 4 occasions during the past year.
3/9/2019 6:43 AM CST At 642 am cst, a severe thunderstorm was located near dinosaur valley state park, or 12 miles southwest of granbury, moving east at 60 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
6/24/2018 12:49 AM CDT At 1248 am cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located near glen rose, or 10 miles south of granbury, moving northeast at 15 mph. in addition, another severe storm continues in the northeastern portions of hood county approaching cresson (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
3/27/2018 10:29 PM CDT At 1028 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located over glen rose, or 13 miles south of granbury, moving northeast at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
7/9/2017 5:13 PM CDT At 512 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located near pecan plantation, moving east at 5 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, pecan plantation.
7/9/2017 5:03 PM CDT At 502 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located near pecan plantation moving east at 5 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
3/30/2016 5:03 PM CDT At 503 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located near dinosaur valley state park, or 8 miles south of granbury, moving east at 40 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees. this severe thunderstorm will be near, pecan plantation around 515 pm cdt. Cleburne state park around 525 pm cdt.
4/26/2015 10:42 PM CDT At 1041 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located near glen rose, or 18 miles south of granbury, moving southeast at 30 mph (trained weather spotters). Hazards include two inch hail and 60 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be injured. expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows and vehicles. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding and trees.
4/26/2015 9:28 PM CDT At 928 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located near cleburne state park, or 12 miles west of cleburne, moving east at 10 mph. this is a very dangerous storm (radar indicated). Hazards include baseball size hail and 70 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be severely injured. expect shattered windows, extensive damage to roofs, siding and vehicles. locations impacted include, pecan plantation, glen rose and cleburne state park. a tornado watch remains in effect until 1100 pm cdt for north central texas. 2. 75in.
4/26/2015 8:56 PM CDT At 855 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located near glen rose, or 10 miles south of granbury, moving northeast at 35 mph. this is a very dangerous storm (radar indicated). Hazards include softball size hail and 70 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be severely injured. Expect shattered windows, extensive damage to roofs, siding and vehicles.
4/26/2015 8:45 PM CDT At 844 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located over dinosaur valley state park, or 13 miles south of granbury, moving east at 40 mph. this is a very dangerous storm (radar indicated). Hazards include baseball size hail and 60 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be severely injured. expect shattered windows, extensive damage to roofs, siding and vehicles. locations impacted include, pecan plantation, glen rose and dinosaur valley state park. a tornado watch remains in effect until 1100 pm cdt for north central texas. 2. 75in.
4/26/2015 7:43 PM CDT The tornado warning for central hood, northwestern somervell and east central erath counties will expire at 745 pm cdt, the tornadic thunderstorm which prompted the warning has weakened. m therefore the warning will be allowed to expire. a tornado watch remains in effect until 1100 pm cdt for north central texas. remember, a severe thunderstorm warning still remains in effect for somervells county until 815 pm.
4/26/2015 7:29 PM CDT At 728 pm cdt, a confirmed tornado was located 10 miles northwest of dinosaur valley state park, or 13 miles southwest of granbury, moving northeast at 20 mph (weather spotters confirmed tornado). Hazards include damaging tornado and baseball size hail. Flying debris will be dangerous to those caught without shelter. mobile homes will be damaged or destroyed. damage to roofs, windows and vehicles will occur. tree damage is likely. locations impacted include, granbury, pecan plantation and tolar. Observed.
4/26/2015 7:08 PM CDT At 708 pm cdt, a confirmed tornado was located 10 miles east northeast of stephenville, moving north at 25 mph (weather spotters confirmed tornado). Hazards include damaging tornado and baseball size hail. Flying debris will be dangerous to those caught without shelter. mobile homes will be damaged or destroyed. damage to roofs, windows and vehicles will occur. tree damage is likely. this tornadic thunderstorm will remain over mainly rural areas of southern hood, somervell and east central erath counties, including the following locations, tolar. Observed.


text:
Behind Palm Drive Hospital's Closing: Wells Fargo Bank & the Shutdown Playbook
Decision to close made before single hearing; attorney for bond holders misleads public
Jonathan Greenberg	April 15, 2018
(This article first appeared at WaccoBB.net on May 21, 2014; it has been slightly updated to add additional documentation).
The decision last month by Palm Drive's Board of Directors to reject the doctor-led Foundation Plan that would have kept the hospital open was the moment of truth in the contentious struggle to retain a life-saving emergency room open in West Sonoma County.
Unfortunately for Palm Drive Hospital and for our community, truth was noticeably absent in the reasons given for rejecting the Foundation's lifeline proposal. Instead, we were provided with misleading legal advice from the district's $520 an hour bankruptcy attorney—(whose San Francisco law firm also represents, in other matters, Wells Fargo Bank). This advice, which can be seen in exclusive video footage here, appears to benefit Wells Fargo Bank, which is trustee for Palm Drive's $22.9 million bond portfolio, at the expense of the hospital's survival.
This advice, which led the board to incorrectly believe it had no choice but to reject the Foundation's plan, seems to have been part of a secret public relations playbook.
The top goals of this playbook were to "Position the hospital for a quick and easy closure," and to "Protect the parcel tax income as the hospital closes and reemerges in its new, sustainable form/model." These goals were apparently determined by Palm Drive's Board without a single public meeting, a potential violation of California's Brown Act, which says that such decisions need to be debated openly, with public input.
Palm Drive's Secret Shutdown Playbook
During my five week investigation into why our community's beloved, famously caring rural hospital closed (and what will be needed to resurrect it), I became aware of consistently focused message points in the statements made by the hospital's CEO and Board members, as well as in letters to local media, and a surprising editorial that appeared in the Sonoma West a few days after the hospital closed its emergency room for the first time more than 70 years.
In addition to being a professional investigative, financial and legal journalist, I am a messaging professional, having spent much of the last decade assisting public interest organizations with their messaging and strategies. So I have a keen awareness of professional messaging campaigns, and have been aware that the Palm Drive District Board and its spokespeople, were engaged in one. This Sonoma West editorial titled "Palm Drive Is Dead," repeated all the core message points of this campaign two days after the hospital closed, on May 1. These were, essentially:
Palm Drive Hospital is dead and there is nothing that anyone can do to resurrect it. This is the new normal. Accept it and go quietly into its dark night.
Our community is in mourning and anger is natural, but we should not criticize or second guess the CEO or Board, because they've done the best they can.
The hospital has fallen victim to a national, inevitable trend toward consolidation of emergency services into larger, more efficient, and more competitive mega-hospitals.
The Foundation plan to keep the hospital open "offers no hope or solid business planning," and is "full of denial…and tinged by current anger."
Our community needs to "reimagine" the facility as a "medical hub" that does not provide emergency room service
It would be "wrong and foolish" to repeal the Palm drive parcel tax that was voted on in 2004 to support an emergency room and acute care facility.
Last night, my hunch was confirmed, more demonstrably than I could ever have imagined, when I received this Communications Strategy for Palm Drive Hospital March 23 2014 " The document is dated March 23, 2014, more than a week before the first public meeting was held for the Palm Drive Health Care District's elected Board members to "consider" closing the hospital (the need for meaningful and transparent public hearings before elected officials make such community-critical decisions is the reason California's Brown Act was created. The approval of the plan before any public hearing was probably a violation of the Brown Act, and a likely reason that the cover of the plan is marked, "Privileged and Confidential/Prepared at Request of Counsel." It is signed by Palm Drive's CEO, Tom Harlan, and Marcus Young, representing Young & Company.
Suspiciously, Young & Company, has no website, no phone listing, no business license and the address provided in the signed agreement is a P.O. Box. Even more suspicious, Marcus Young is listed on this website as the number two man and Executive Vice President of a major San Francisco public relations firm called Gauger & Associates, which lists, among its clients, Wells Fargo Bank. Because Young signed through this independent, unknown corporate identity (with a box number as an address), he avoided a waiver requirement—and this need to disclose Gauger's representation of Wells Fargo to Palm Drive's Board or CEO.
According to the secret communication's plan for Palm Drive Hospital:
"The goals of the communications strategy will be to:
– Position the hospital for a quick and easy closure, including assisting with employee communications;
– Provide effective and proactive messaging regarding the closure, staffing
reductions, and lay the foundation for a bright future for Palm Drive;
– Protect the parcel tax income as the hospital closes and reemerges in its new, sustainable form/model"
The Plan to Kill Palm Drive Was Approved During Closed Meetings
One disturbing truth about this mysterious shutdown playbook is that it was created and agreed to by Palm Drive's CEO, and, presumably, its elected Board of Directors, before there had been a single pubic hearing about closing the hospital.
For the Palm Drive District Board, a municipal government agency, to meet in private and decide on closing a hospital, and the emergency room that the District was created to provide, without a single public meeting, seems to violate California's Brown Act. (The Brown Act says that decisions and deliberations made between more than two elected officials of a governing entity in California need to be made in public).
The first public meeting to announce the bankruptcy of Palm Drive Hospital and its imminent closure was on April 1. The public was given just 24 hours notice, yet more than 250 people crowded the first public meeting on this subject on April 1. Few, if any, of the emotional speakers present supported the closing.
Sebastopol's police and fire chief soon warned about fatal outcomes if the emergency room closed, and pleaded with Board members to find a way to keep it open. Palm Drive's doctors immediately began speaking with the Palm Drive Foundation about a plan to keep the hospital open.
A few months earlier, when the Hospital spent thousands of dollars a day to bring in Alvarez & Marshall, an international consulting firm, the highly paid consultants never interviewed the City's fire or police chiefs, nor did they speak to a single one of the dedicated, highly successful local doctors who managed health care at our renowned hospital. Instead, they looked at the numbers, their downward trends, and mounting payables, and decided that pulling out of a financial death spiral was impossible. They never considered requesting from the doctors, or the foundation, a different strategic model to save the hospital and keep the emergency room open.
Well before the plan to close was announced, Alvarez's analysts reported to the Palm Drive Board that failure was the only possible outcome. The Board's job, they were advised, was to hire a bankruptcy attorney, a communications specialist, and another expensive out of town financial advisor specializing in hospital shutdowns (Nobody will answer my question about who recommended these shutdown specialists).
And, as part of the playbook, the District Board and management would make sure that the parcel taxes that Wells Fargo Bank received for the bond holders were not threatened by bad publicity, a public repeal effort by taxpayers not wanting to pay for a closed hospital, or, it would seem—any plan that would keep Palm Drive Hospital open.
The Public Meeting Sideshow
The Palm Drive District Board's decision to close the hospital was made in secret weeks before the first public meeting. "The District Board had already decided what their votes would be before they had that public meeting," says John Dierke, a retired SFSU Professor and Dean, who attended three public meetings, and read the Foundation plan cover to cover. "Their review of the Foundation plan was one sided and biased. They were just entertaining the public."
When I spoke to Sebastopol's savvy Police Chief Jeff Weaver shortly before the hospital closing, he questioned why the public was not given more advance notice of the closing—and more time to respond to it. Indeed, state law stipulates that a hospital must give their community 90 days notice before shutting down its emergency room. But because of the purported suddenness with which the Board found itself destitute, they got special dispensation from the state to close in just 20 days.
How Protecting Wells Fargo's Bond Holders Became the Board's Top Priority
A more troubling problem with the secret communications plan to shutdown Palm Drive Hospital is its objective of "protecting the parcel tax as the hospital closes." This goal does not seem to serve the public interest the way keeping a life-saving emergency room open does. But it clearly serves the interest of Wells Fargo Bank, as trustee of $22.9 million in hospital bonds.
That's because protecting the parcel tax from voter recall eliminates the financial losses of operating a closed hospital (which the parcel tax was created to fund), while insuring that $3.7 million in annual parcel tax remains free to pay bondholders, fees to bond trustee Wells Fargo bank, and other creditors.
Young & Company's shutdown playbook becomes even more suspicious when placed in the context of the misleading legal advice that Palm Drive's bankruptcy attorney provided to the Board and CEO as a core rationale for rejecting the doctor-led Foundation plan to keep the emergency room open.
Dan Smith, the hard-edged, controversial philanthropist, businessman, and outspoken critic of Palm Drive Hospital's Board and management, has spent more nearly $2 million, and thousands of hours of volunteer time, to rescue the hospital from closing twice before. Smith has been a leader in the doctor-led Foundation plan to take over Palm Drive, and he has pledged $1.5 million to support it. Like the doctors I spoke to last month, Smith knew that re-opening a closed hospital would cost far more money than keeping it open, so he pleaded repeatedly with Palm Drive Board President Chris Dawson to allow the doctors group and foundation to take over the hospital operations. According to Smith, Dawson's reply was always the same: "He said, I can't do anything other than what my consultants tell me to do. I can't go against their judgment. They're the experts, and I've got to do that they tell me to do."
I recently was given this video of the April 23 public meeting at which Dawson led Palm Drive's District Board to publicly vote to close the hospital and reject the Foundation plan to keep it open. At the controversial meeting, which I attended, Palm Drive's bankruptcy attorney Michael Sweet publicly advised members of the Board that their "role as a fiduciary" was, to earmark the tax revenues and payables due to the Hospital in order to pay its creditors. At no time during the meeting, or in this video, did attorney Sweet inform the public that his law firm, San Francisco-based Fox Rothschild, also represented hospital bond trustee Wells Fargo Bank. And although he later claimed to this reporter that a conflict of interest waiver had been signed by the hospital, that waiver, Conflict consent May 6 2014 Michael Sweet, was in fact not signed until May 6–two weeks after Sweet made misleading legal comments to both the public, and the Palm Drive District Board.
Sweet advised against the risk of the Board accepting the doctor-led Foundation plan because it proposed that a portion of the parcel tax revenue not due as bond payments would be used for the hospital's building operations. And that a $1.2 million lump sum reimbursement payment due from Medi-Cal,due in a few months, would also be used to maintain the facility and support hospital operations like keeping the emergency room open. Attorney Sweet told the Board that this made the plan unviable. He said,
"Those funds just aren't available to startup this new process.What falls on the shoulders…of the board, is your role as a fiduciary, and the knowledge that right now that money is available is the concern that the money could end up being squandered or spent on something that the return isn't clear and could leave us in a very complicated situation down the road if money was available today to pay the creditors and fund the plan and exit the bankruptcy, and that money is spent in a way that the court might conclude was done imprudently… I think that the board puts itself at risk as a fiduciary for doing that; it could create complications for us in the bankruptcy case going forward."
The problem with Sweet's legal advice to the Board is that in a proceeding concerning a municipal entity like a district hospital, a bankruptcy court specifically has no power to "conclude," anything about how it spends its money performing its public function. In fact, Section 9 bankruptcy code, which Palm Drive's case is covered under, emphatically stipulates that the bankruptcy court has no power whatsoever to interfere with, or judge, how that municipality uses its funding provide its essential service to the public (nothing is more essential than life saving emergency room services). That's because Palm Drive's creditors, of which bond trustee Wells Fargo Bank is by far the largest, cannot interfere with a government entity's core function of providing services to the public.
According to the US Court's own website describing Section 9 bankruptcies like Palm Drive's, (read more on this here)
"Section 904 limits the power of the bankruptcy court to "interfere with – (1) any of the political or governmental powers of the debtor; (2) any of the property or revenues of the debtor; or (3) the debtor's use or enjoyment of any income-producing property" unless the debtor consents or the plan so provides. The provision makes it clear that the debtor's day-to-day activities are not subject to court approval."
So the court would have no position about "squandering" money to keep Palm Drive's emergency room open. Indeed, the very reason that Section 9 bankruptcy for government entities is different than Section 11 business bankruptcies is to make sure that the financing of government operations cannot be impacted by bankruptcy claims.
Dan Smith pulls no punches when describing attorney Sweet's intention. "He's lying and he knows he's lying. What he says is the opposite of what the law says. Who is driving this? I believe that Michael Sweet is working for Wells Fargo.
His game plan, to the Board, is this: Let's close the hospital, then preserve all of your cash so we can settle this bankruptcy proceeding quickly, and your bonds won't be threatened. The PR firm will make sure the public keeps paying their taxes. Then you'd be sitting pretty without that sinkhole of a hospital. You own the building free and clear, you can rent it out, and you've got $2 million of tax revenue coming in. You're in fat city."
The problem with this shutdown playbook, Smith observes, is that West County's $155 parcel tax was passed specifically to provide an emergency room and acute care facility, and the Palm Drive Hospital District was created for this clear purpose. "Sweet thinks we're just a bunch of hicks here in Sebastopol," Smith says. "That may be true—but we're a bunch of hicks that read the law."
Guess Which Mega-Bank Attorney Michael Sweet's Law Firm Represents?
Michael Sweet's misleading advice seemed to be part of a shutdown playbook that benefits Palm Drive bond trustee Wells Fargo, at the expense of a public desperate to keep its emergency room open. When I dug deeper into Michael Sweet's background, I learned that he works for a major San Francisco law firm called Fox Rothschild. A review of Fox Rothschild's website revealed that Wells Fargo Bank has been one of the firm's most important clients for expensive appellate cases.
I called Michael Sweet last week to interview him about this apparent conflict of interest. When he returned my call, I said, "Thank you for returning my call. This (Palm Drive's closing) is a big story here in Sebastopol. Sweet's reply was immediate. "It's only a big story to one person," Sweet replied. By this, he meant Dan Smith, leader of the effort to keep the hospital open.
Given the suffering and anxiety the closing of Palm drive's emergency room has been causing in West Sonoma County, Sweet's callous response surprised me. Then, I realized, it was keeping with the messaging of the shutdown playbook, that our community would accept the economic inevitability of this "new normal," of not having the emergency room that has saved hundreds of lives here in West County for more than 70 years.
When I asked about the conflict of interest for his firm, Fox Rothschild, to represent Palm Drive Hospital while its client list, on major other matters, included Palm Drive bond trustee Wells Fargo Bank, Sweet replied, "Waivers are in place. You've only gotten one side of the story."
Although Michael Sweet initially said he would speak more with me later, he declined my two attempts at follow up interviews, in which I had hoped to learn who signed these conflict of interest waivers (which law firms require new clients to sign when they represent parties with potential conflicts). Was it just CEO Tom Harlan, or did the Board sign them? And why did CEO Harlan, or the Board, or Sweet himself, not disclose the waivers at the public meeting in which Sweet gave his professional advice to the Board and public?
I emailed two Board members to ask whether they had signed, or were aware of this conflict of interest waiver. Nancy Dobbs replied, "I do not recall being informed about a Wells Fargo connection but then, we were all focused so intently on finding a solution rather than closure, that I may well not recall being so informed."
(A month after this article originally appeared, a public documents request Conflict consent May 6 2014 Michael Sweet, signed by Palm Drive Hospital CEO Tom Harlan–two weeks after the pivotal public meeting in which Sweet acted as an advisor to the Board an public).
How Palm Drive Stayed Open During its Last Bankruptcy
In assessing the question of whose interest was being served by Michael Sweet's pointed legal advice to the Palm Drive Board, I find it instructive to contrast Sweet's advice, and the planned shutdown playbook, with what happened the last time Palm Drive's finances forced it to declare bankruptcy, in 2007.
To that end, I spent an hour on a Saturday morning interviewing David Heaslett, the small town attorney who brought Palm Drive Hospital through its bankruptcy, and through a three year process, until 2010, when the hospital was able to pay its creditors 50¢ on the dollar, plus show a $2 million profit.
Michael Sweet and David Heaslett
Heaslett is an independent, small town attorney with extensive experience helping at least seven rural hospitals survive bankruptcy. In each case, he has helped them focus on keeping their emergency rooms open, and in most cases, he has succeeded. Heaslett explained what happened in 2007. "First thing I did was secure the bond trustees (at that time it was Bank of New York Mellon, not the current trustee, Wells Fargo), to make sure they would not foreclose. Then I worked on a plan."
The plan, by an attorney whose firm never represented the bondholders, incorporated all the hospital's receivables, and all the parcel tax revenue that was not required to pay bond holders to keep the hospital operating. "We found a way to use that money," Heaslett explained.
I asked Heaslett whether he needed to get the bankruptcy judge to allow this use of revenues for operations while the creditors went unpaid. "Chapter 9 bankruptcy code says that the judge cannot tell the district how to operate," Heaslett explained. "In all the cases that I have done, we have used some of the future revenue to operate the hospital. The hospital district board makes the decision what the hospital does with its revenue. "
I am left wondering what might have happened had the Palm Drive Board decided to use David Heaslett to work through their bankruptcy process, instead of a firm that also represented bond trustee Wells Fargo Bank?
What might have happened had the high priced out-of-town consultants hired by Palm Drive hospital not been hired to run their shutdown playbook in our community?
Might the Board have accepted the doctor-led Foundation plan and kept our top-ranked, beloved Palm Drive Hospital open?
A Teachable Moment
My friend Jim Wheaton, a Sebastopol parent and computer programmer who has sat on two local boards and chaired one, had this to say about one of the lessons behind the closing of Palm Drive Hospital.
"A non-profit board trying to make noble decisions needs to understand that if they hire people with vested financial interests in their decisions, they are not going to get good financial advice. They are gong to get advice that furthers the financial interest of those advisers, especially if you don't investigate their financial interests."
Communication-Strategy-for-Palm-Drive-Hospital
Corrected-Transcript-Palm-Drive-Board-Meeting-Michael-Sweet-comments-April-23-2014
Palm Drive's Lawyers Say That The Public Does Not Want to Re-Open the Emergency Room
Jonathan Greenberg	- Apr 15, 2018
Sonoma West's Relentless Vendetta to Stop Dan Smith from Re-Opening Palm Drive Hospital
Jonathan Greenberg
The founder and Editor of the Sonoma County Independent, Greenberg is an investigative financial journalist with 40 years of experience with national publications. Greenberg also serves as founder and Executive Director of Informing to Empower, the parent non-profit of both the Sonoma Independent and the Maui Independent. Greenberg has won awards from the Greater Bay Journalism Awards for the past four years on behalf of the Sonoma Independent, starting with his coverage of the closing of County library cutbacks, and then the struggle to reopen Palm Drive Hospital. Jonathan Greenberg recently wrote three of the most widely-read exposes about Trump's career ever published on the Washington Post. Jonathan was the notorious Forbes 400 reporter who taped two long Trump calls in 1984 in which he pretended to be the fictitious John Baron. His Post expose about this, with audio here, has been the subject of monologues on Colbert, the Daily Show and Seth Meyer's A Closer Look. Jonathan has appeared live on a dozen top news shows, including Chris Cuomo's CNN Good Day and most recently on CNN's prime time Upfront with Erin Burnett to expose Trump's latest lies. Jonathan was a Web 1.0 pioneer, founding Gist Communications in 1996, an Internet company that competed successfully with TV Guide Online. In 1997, Gist was one of just 14 websites in the world to be named a winner of the First Annual Webby Awards in San Francisco. Jonathan's professional career began as a fact checker at Forbes Magazine, where he advanced to the role of the lead reporter in creating the first Forbes 400 listing of wealthy Americans, as recounted in this recent article for Forbes' 100th anniversary issue and more extensively in this biography of Malcolm Forbes. Jonathan has been an investigative financial and political journalist for such national publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Forbes, Town & Country, Money, GQ, Manhattan,Inc., The New Republic, and Alternet. From 2011 through 2017, Jonathan was a blogger for the Huffington Post, where his narrative-transforming reporting and analysis about subjects like Bernie Sanders, Monsanto and Native Hawaiian water protectors achieved some of the widest readership of any HuffPost writer on these subjects. Jonathan's nearly 40 years of professional media and reporting experience has been enhanced by a Yale Law School Masters Degree fellowship program, from which he graduated with honors in First Amendment Law from internationally renowned attorney Floyd Abrams and then Yale University President Benno Schmidt. Jonathan is the author of the critically acclaimed biography Staking A Claim: Jake Simmons and the Making of an African-American Oil Dynasty, which a Washington Post Book World front page review called, "a rare biography that challenges the readers senses in the same the way science fiction does." In 1992, he edited Buying America Back: Economic Choices for the 1990′s, an anthology of 45 progressive solution-oriented essays called by Publisher's Weekly, "An immensely important resource for policymakers, community activists, and everyone concerned with building a more humane future."
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On Wednesday, September 7th, 2016, Apple announced the latest generation of iPhone, which they're calling the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Ironically, the rumors on the internet indicate that Apple will radically re-design the iPhone in 2017, for the tenth-anniversary of the iPhone's launch. However, the iPhone 7 is technically the 10th model of the iPhone, if you include the original. But technicalities aside, I'm actually quite excited by the iPhone 7.
This year, I've actually decided to upgrade to the larger model, the Plus. In fact, I actually decided I would go with the Plus model before the new phone was announced.
I got up super-early on September 9th, at 2 AM to pre-order my new iPhone. After (not so) patiently waiting for the pre-orders to open, I managed to secure a pre-order for the iPhone 7 Plus Jet Black in 128GB capacity. Unfortunately, the launch quantities were already sold out (in just a couple minutes), but my pre-order pages indicates it should ship by 9/23/16—one week after the initial launch. Considering that anybody who waited until later in the morning to order the same model are having to wait until mid- or late-November for theirs, I don't feel so bad about having to wait an extra week. As for Jenny's pre-order, we went with the regular iPhone 7 in matte black, 256GB (now she can put all her music on her phone, and replace her iPod Classic (if she wants to).
Better camera – This can't be understated, as the cameras on our phones have become so crucial to capturing moments in our lives. The better the camera, the more often we tend to use it.
Stereo speakers – Finally, Apple has included stereo sound in the iPhone. Granted, one of the speakers is placed where the earpiece is, and yet, early reviews indicate the sound is much better, and the speakerphone is much-improved. I look forward to watching videos on the iPhone 7, and taking advantage of the improved sound.
Home Button – Okay, actually, the lack of a home button is what's new. I'm sure it will take some adjustment, but I've never been really happy with the feel of the home button. Sometimes it feels way too stiff and clicky, while other times, I can barely tell I've pressed it. I'm looking forward to testing what Apple has done with this iteration.
Dual Cameras – This should actually be higher on the list, but since it's exclusive to the iPhone 7 Plus, I waited to add it. Still, this is going to be a huge addition, with the 2x optical zoom, and the upcoming depth of field effects that should allow for some interesting photos. I really look forward to testing and using this.
New color – My first iPhone was the 3Gs, way back when, which had the shiny black back. If nothing else, the Jet Black version this year provides a sense of nostalgia, if nothing else. Yes, it's more prone to scratching, but I'll put a case on it. Even though I won't be able to see the color (most of the time), it makes me feel better to know I have it.
Yes, there are things I haven't mentioned, like the lack of a traditional headphone jack, the slightly improved display, the faster processor and improved battery life. They certainly impact the desirability of the phone, but they're not things that make me want the new iPhone.
Sound quality – One thing I've read and heard over and over since Apple announced the Airpods is that they don't sound any better than the existing wired Apple Earpods. I happen to think the Earpods sound quite good, however, and if the Airpods are even close in sound quality to those, they'll be the best wireless earbuds I've heard. I've tested several, and while adequate, I wouldn't say any of them sound particularly good.
Price – Yes, I think $159 is a perfectly reasonable price for these things. I've tested Bluetooth earbuds that cost $25 (Anker sound buds) and $150 earbuds (Jaybird X2) and neither provides sound even close to the EarPods. If the Airpods match the sound quality of their wired counterparts, I'd consider them a bargain.
Comfort – I've always really like the fit and feel of the EarPods. While they can become slightly uncomfortable after extended periods, pretty much all in-ear headphones suffer the same problem. All of the different earbuds I've tried have been the same, with few exceptions. Again, if the Airpods can match their wired cousins, they should be great.
Ease of use – Bluetooth pairing has never been all that painful, but trying to use wireless headphones with more than one device has been. Apple puts their "it just works" methodology to good use here, allowing the Airpods to automatically switch between devices, whiteout having to re-pair them, or without having to even do much of anything at all. I am really looking forward to this feature, as I regularly need to use headphones with both my iPhone, and iPad. Being able to also use these with my iMac will be fantastic, too.
While there are definitely some drawbacks of the Airpods, namely the fact that you have to use Siri for everything, including changing the volume, I look forward to these devices. Being a first-generation product, it's entirely possible they won't live up to the hype, but they're a product I'm genuinely excited about.
I'm also trying to look beyond the changes Apple has made to the iPhone this go-around, and look toward the future. I'm not the only person that believes the changes they are making are actually to prepare people for the next iPhone, which will likely do away with the home 'button' entirely, and be too thin to support the 3.5mm headphone jack that they ditched this time around. Rumors point to an all-display front, with possible curved-edge screens on the 2017 iPhone. I'm not sure if I believe all of the rumors, but I'd be willing to believe some of them.
Now if Apple would just make an iPhone with wireless charging, I'd be completely happy.


text:
Exposure to Air Pollution Could Increase Infertility, New Research Reveals. Isn't That How The Handmaid's Tale Started?
July 2, 2019 – 3:08 PM – 0 Comments
The Handmaid's Tale is a terrifying TV show and book. And it's even worse when it aligns with reality, which unfortunately happens every now and then. So excuse us if we skip this week's episode, because new research from an Ovarian Reserve and Exposure to Environmental Pollutants (ORExPo) study proves that female fertility is adversely affected by high levels of air pollution. Which is exactly what caused infertility in The Handmaid's Tale.
For the study, hormone measurements were taken from more than 1300 Italian women living in the Modena area between 2007 and 2017. They measured levels of anti-Müllerian hormone, or AMH, which is released by cells in the ovaries and gives an indication of a woman's ovarian reserve–the number of viable eggs the ovaries can produce. We already know and this study confirmed that this level differs between women and is affected by factors like age and smoking.
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The analysis was completed with environmental data and a "'geo-localisation" estimate based on each patient's residence. They assessed pollutant exposure by considering daily particulate matter (PM) and values of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a polluting gas that gets into the air from burning fuel.
In the end, researchers found that, independent of age, the higher the level of particulate matter and NO2, the lower the serum concentration of AMH. The lowest concentration of AMH–reflecting "severe ovarian reserve reduction"–was measured in subjects who were exposed to levels of PM10 particles (which measure 10 micrometers or less in diameter), PM2.5 particles (which measure 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter), and NO2 above 29.5, 22 and 26 mcg/m3. "Nevertheless, these were values well below the upper limits recommended by the EU and local authorities," professor Antonio La Marca, the lead researcher and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy, wrote in a press release. We can only assume this means that the safe limits set are above what could be safe when it comes to fertility.
Related: Tamron Hall Appears on PEOPLE Cover, Opening up About Her Fertility Journey
"Living in an area associated with high levels of air pollutants in our study increased the risk of severely reduced ovarian reserve by a factor of 2 or 3," professor La Marca wrote.
"Having a high AMH is in some way a reproductive advantage because women with a higher AMH are going to have a longer reproductive lifespan," he told The Guardian, adding it was also important for those undergoing IVF. "If you have a high AMH you will have a higher number of eggs after ovulatory stimulation which turn into a higher number of embryos."
While pollution has been linked to pregnancy problems in the past, the research hasn't always been this convincing. And the fact that it's a fear for anyone watching season three of The Handmaid's Tale (and keeping up with the news) makes it that much more daunting.
It was depicted in season one that inorganic farming and radioactivity were to blame for declining fertility. That's why Gilead only grows organic crops and forces women who are "unfit" for Gilead to clear out radioactive waste in "the colonies.
Margaret Atwood even addresses the historical connection between pregnancy and pollution in her original book, on which the Hulu show is based. "Stillbirths, miscarriages, and genetic deformities were widespread and on the increase, and this trend has been linked to the various nuclear-plant accidents, shutdowns and incidents of sabotage that characterized the [immediate pre-Gilead] period, as well as to leakages from chemical- and biological-warfare stockpiles and toxic-waste disposal sites, of which there were many thousands, both legal and illegal—in some instances these materials were simply dumped into the sewage system—and to the uncontrolled use of chemical insecticides, herbicides, and other sprays," she wrote.
We thought it was an interesting and slightly believable plotline in a sci-fi series at first, but it seems science is saying it's more than that.


Learning Is Our Job… it's not just me (or us).
You can see my response to the original message above (with poor syntax– but is it grammatically incorrect?).
No, our careers are now tied to learning. And learning is not a solitary endeavor. We learn only in so far as we can seek, catalog, retrieve and share new facts, ideas and methods. That's where I see us PD/L&D/ID/ELP/SPOTDA* folks gaining in relevance. Most of us are at a loss on how to take that learning management, or Personal Knowledge Management (PKM, in the parlance of our day) from a chaotic hit-or-miss activity to a systematic practice. Nobody taught us how to learn in the digital age, but it is an – the – essential challenge of our careers.
← Setting the Course: Do we still need e-learning courses?


Your hearing is precious. Caring for it is important, even when young, so it doesn't catch up with you when you're older. Parents, grandparents, teachers… they all tell you to do this or do that and you may not want to listen, but with your hearing on the line, it is important you do. You might get older and wish you had.
But what can you do to prevent hearing loss in later years? There are several things, so let's look at them now.
Getting a good knock on the head when playing sports can affect your hearing, whether right away or later down the line. Tinnitus, or ringing in the years, can happen immediately and fade away. However, this doesn't mean damage wasn't done. You might think wearing a helmet makes you look silly but having to ask people what they said over and over again as you get older will make you look even sillier.
Ear protection is recommended in a variety of situations. Most gun ranges will require you to wear ear protection when using a firearm. Workers who operate heavy machinery should always use ear protection. When at home and using power tools, ear protection can help to minimize damage done to your hearing. You wouldn't think it, but even use of a lawn mower regularly can cause hearing loss.
This is the one that bears repeating. You probably have heard it dozens of times, or even hundreds if you don't want to listen, but loud music damages your hearing. If you like wearing headphones turned up loud when you are young you will probably have to wear a hearing aid turned up loud when you are older. Who wants that, right? Turn down the music and your ears will thank you.
There are many things you can do proactively to care for your hearing. While some hearing loss may not be avoidable, you can still protect your hearing when younger to minimize any damage. That doesn't mean you can't have fun but be smart about it. Wear a helmet, wear ear protection, and don't turn up the music too loud. If you think you may have already damaged your hearing, or you want to make sure you haven't, give Chears Audiology a call and we can arrange a hearing test. Plus, we can give you tips on how to further care for your hearing; keeping your conversations clear and music crisp for a long time.