text:
Category Archives: Best Movies Never Made
Best Movies Never Made
Best Movies Never Made — "Giraffes on Horseback Salads"
September 18, 2014 basilmarinerchase	3 Comments
by Gabe Valdez
The Marx Brothers. Salvador Dali.
Roll the idea around in your head for a moment. The Brothers who lived on precision in their wordsmanship and comedic timing, written and directed by the man whose entire art movement was based on erasing the connective tissue that linked moments and plots together.
BACKGROUND – THE MARX BROTHERS
It would have been a conjunction of worldwide talents like none other. The Marx Brothers were the pre-eminent comedians of their time. Brothers in real life, and veteran vaudeville performers, between 1929 and 1949 they made 13 full-length comedies together. Five of those films are on the AFI's Top 100 Comedies list. Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera are both in the top 12.
They involved a unique blend of high wit, social satire, and base slapstick. Groucho was the wit, always ready with a plot and a one liner, Chico the con man, and Harpo the silent clown. Zeppo sometimes played the romantic lead, but left in 1933 to start a wildly successful talent agency.
Across their films, high society characters would be confounded and frustrated by their irreverence while the poor and needy would welcome the brothers with open arms, helping hands, and often celebrate in music. Imagine for a second the profound effect that message had on audiences during the worst depths of the Great Depression.
BACKGROUND – SALVADOR DALI
Salvador Dali was a Spanish painter who showed an uncanny mastery of a variety of forms but became a champion of the Surrealist movement. Surrealism has changed over the years and become understood as a manner of presenting a skewed reality, but this is perhaps more closely associated with the avant-garde.
What Surrealism means, or more closely meant at the time, was a meeting of two distant realities, often of dream and real life. The biggest difference between Surrealism today and when it began is that Surrealism now is dominated by symbolism. We've embraced the concept that everything presented surrealistically must have a reference point, an anchor in the real to which we can trace it back. We're very Freudian that way.
This runs counter to the Surrealism movement's intent – the whole point was to pursue the relief of reference points, to achieve and represent a "psychic automatism," as Andre Breton put it in his first Surrealist Manifesto. Surrealist art was made without "aesthetic or moral concern."
Art was not to be framed using the artist's intentions, but rather presented as an irrational moment pulled from the subconscious, to which audiences could apply their own intentions as they saw fit. Dali's most famous contribution to film would be a short written for Luis Bunuel, Un Chien Andalou.
Dali became the most commercially accepted painter of the movement, perhaps because his images felt so expertly drawn from so many other schools of painting and thus best evoked the feeling of mish-mashed realities. Due to the Spanish Civil War that lasted from 1936-1939, Dali spent much of the late 30s in the United States and Britain, often taking what were effectively painting retreats with wealthy patrons.
On paper, the match makes some sense. The Marx Brothers' comedy is regularly absurdist, treating metaphors and colloquialisms as serious matters to be discussed free of their meanings, and taking the dead serious and treating it as nonsense.
Dali was friends with Harpo Marx, and the two together invented a completely bonkers script. The climax itself would have involved clearing four acres of desert, around which would be lit a towering wall of fire. The Marx Brothers would compete in this arena to see who could ride a bicycle the slowest with a rock balanced on his head. Their audience would be giraffes. Wearing gasmasks. Sitting on bleachers blinded to the contest because of the towering flames. Because surrealism.
Other scenes, according to a surviving copy of the script later described by Harper's Magazine, involved a dinner party at which Groucho harassed dwarves holding candelabras. The dinner would be interrupted by a great flood that carried with it whining babies, dead oxen, and panicked sheep.
Dali imagined that the great composer of musicals Cole Porter would score the film. "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "I've Got You Under My Skin" were his most widely known hits, though Porter would most famously score Kiss Me, Kate in 1947.
To understand this, you have to understand the effect Irving Thalberg had on studio filmmaking. The brothers had left the studio that took them from Broadway to film, Paramount, in 1933. When the Marx Brothers joined MGM, they did so at the persuasion of young phenom Irving Thalberg, who had been made part-owner of the studio and, effectively, vice president in charge of production at the age of 24.
Thalberg codified a great many things – story conferences between cast and crew, live script reads in front of audiences to tighten timing and cut flat jokes, screenings before test audiences to gauge reaction to a film, and reshoots that sometimes changed a film into something entirely new. Earlier, at Universal, he had practically recrafted the studio's venerable horror franchises and invented the event movie.
Thalberg didn't demand perfection so much as he demanded improvement, and he often valued the priorities and tolerance of the audience over the vision and intent of the director. This isn't to say he was divisive; he was almost universally liked. Though he died in 1936 at the age of 37, Thalberg arguably had a more profound effect on how studio movies are made than any other producer before or since.
So when Dali and Harpo came at a post-Thalberg MGM with a nutty script that would've cost a fortune, a few things were already afoot.
Firstly, Thalberg's codes survive until today. Aside from better pre- and post-production processes, Thalberg had also codified certain ways of storytelling. He insisted that films have a low point at which the heroes believe everything to be lost. He championed stories having certain beats that played to the audience. Even had Thalberg survived, it's difficult to imagine him greenlighting Giraffes on Horseback Salads without severe changes that would've made the famously unpredictable Dali walk.
Secondly, the brothers all needed to agree on a film in order to make it. Groucho exerted a great deal of creative control and was the lead voice in dealing with studios and producers. You had to sell your idea to Groucho before you could sell it to the studio. It's widely rumored that Groucho simply didn't think Giraffes was funny enough.
Thirdly, Thalberg was the main reason the Marx Brothers had been retained by MGM. Other producers lacked the interest in their comedy. Thalberg's death was sudden and – despite two very successful films together in A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races – MGM would sever the Marx Brothers' contract in 1937. This had nothing to do with Giraffes on Horseback Salads.
Matthew Gale, who curated for the Tate Modern, has suggested that perhaps Dali never intended for the script to become a film, but rather the writing of it and – perhaps the rejection of it – was Dali's ultimate goal for the project.
Remember earlier, when I said the Marx Brothers were a unique blend of wit, satire, and slapstick? You can see their influence across film comedy. Their wit is echoed in the films of Woody Allen and even in the quickfire banter of recent TV shows like The West Wing and Gilmore Girls. Their satire influenced the wide aim of Mel Brooks' best work. Their influential slapstick can be seen from The Three Stooges to The Beverly Hillbillies to the Farrelly Brothers. The stagey sight gags they popularized live on in everything from The Muppets to The Simpsons. The Marx Brothers didn't invent these things, but they did show the film world how to use them in the era of the talking motion picture.
Their next film after leaving MGM would be Room Service with the fabled RKO Studios, who never met a film they couldn't make lose money. The brothers would rejoin MGM and pump out four more films before the United States joined World War 2, at which point the team effectively disbanded. They only rejoined for 1946's A Night in Casablanca, released by United Artists, because eldest brother Chico was so in debt, though they'd appear together in cameos for TV shows and Groucho enjoyed a second career in so-so films and as a television host on You Bet Your Life.
Nearly all of Thalberg's production innovations survive to this day. For better and for worse, film is made the way it is today because of his vision for MGM.
The surrealist movement increasingly rejected Dali. While many surrealists were leftist or communist, they became frustrated that their most popular member remained apolitical and believed art should be wholly separated from politics. (Not to put too fine a point on it, but this most closely harbors to creating art without "moral concern.")
Dali would subsequently be rejected by many surrealist circles for his apolitical stance during a time of politically- and ethnically-driven war. Unlike other artists, he would be allowed to return to – and even championed in – his native Spain. Difficulties with his wife, Gala, later prompted him to buy her a castle where she could reside and he could only visit with written permission. Because surrealism.
Let's go back to Room Service for a moment. It was a commercial flop and a critical failure, perhaps the Marx Brothers' worst film. It is notable, however, for featuring a young Lucille Ball. I'd happily make the argument that she's the only comedian who's had more influence on screen comedy than the Marx Brothers, effectively inventing the sitcom and modern television production practices.
In I Love Lucy, she would repeatedly pay tribute to the Marx Brothers, embodying in turn each of their mannerisms, style of physical comedy, and at various points dressing up as each of them.
Giraffes on Horseback Salads never really had a chance of being made. It survives only as an academic what-if. But few films, made or unmade, carry quite the potential to merge the visions of such singular and precise, yet completely irreverent and absurdist talents.
Best Movies Never Made is sort of a Throwback Thursday, except for the Thursdays that never happened. It will appear every other week, alternating with Vanessa Tottle's Silent All These Years. Our previous installment was a rundown on Gladiator 2.
comedy productionGiraffes on Horseback SaladsI Love LucyIrving ThalbergLucille BallMarx BrosMarx BrothersMGMRKOSalvador DaliSpanish Civil WarsurrealismsurrealistUn Chien Andalou
Best Movies Never Made — "Gladiator 2"
August 7, 2014 basilmarinerchase	3 Comments
Everyone writes Throwback Thursdays, and there are some great ones out there. They're all kind of exclusive, though. They only review films that actually exist. What about all those Thursdays that never happened?
From Alfred Hitchcock's nudie flick Kaleidoscope to David Fincher's Rendezvous with Rama, we'll cover everything from the biggest movies never made (Steven Soderbergh's Cleopatra, anyone?) to long-forgotten treasures (Clair Noto's sci-fi masterpiece The Tourist). The stories behind them are as interesting as the films themselves. Some were killed for their budgets, some for their politics. Many sank when their auteurs foundered, others were sabotaged by affairs, and still more fell victim to studios unwilling to take risks.
We'll start with one of the biggest sequels never made: Gladiator 2.
The release of Gladiator on May 5, 2000 was considered risky. Back then, the summer movie season didn't start until June, when schools let out (now it starts in March). The story of Roman general Maximus – who is enslaved as a gladiator and challenges a corrupt emperor – harkened back to sword-and-sandal classics like Spartacus.
The $103 million Ridley Scott film, aside from giving us the confusing gift of Joaquin Phoenix, made $457 million worldwide. Before the advent of streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu, it also did terrific business on DVD.
It also won Best Picture, rare for a film released so early in the year, especially in such a contentious field: its competition included Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Steven Soderbergh twin threat of Traffic and Erin Brockovich. Though many felt Wonder Boys or Almost Famous (really, people?) deserved its spot, count me as one of the lonely voices that favored Lasse Hallstrom's dark horse Chocolat over the whole bunch.
Gladiator nabbed Russell Crowe an Oscar in the second year of three straight he was nominated, upsetting early favorite Tom Hanks (Cast Away). The film also picked up Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound.
Gladiator was in the unique position of being both a Best Picture winner and a financially successful summer action movie. It's not as if you could make American Beauty 2 (although it was discussed) or An Even More Beautiful Mind. There was only one problem, and this is where the spoilers start: Crowe's heroic General Maximus dies in the end.
A prequel was the most obvious way to bring back Crowe and Maximus. His history of Roman conquests could provide the action while building his loving family (which the audience knew was doomed) could provide the poignancy. It didn't stick, though – all these things had been established in the first movie. So far, it sounded like a direct-to-DVD affair.
Original writer John Logan shifted gears to a sequel that could take place years later and feature the nephew of corrupt Emperor Commodus – the innocent young Lucius, who becomes emperor at the end of the first film.
One version got rid of Crowe entirely, while another crammed together both the past and future – half prequel covering Maximus' rise through the ranks, half sequel regarding Lucius' own fight against corrupt politicians. (The approach has been compared to that of The Godfather Part II.) Both versions revealed that Lucius was the secret lovechild of Maximus and Connie Nielsen's Lucilla, a needless contrivance that could have seriously undermined too many emotional beats in the first Gladiator.
These approaches all sound pretty ho-hum, don't they? They're all too safe. Since when did Russell Crowe, in the middle of Oscar nominations and his Fightin' Around the World tour, do safe? So Crowe asked a mate of his, Australian goth rocker Nick Cave, to take a stab at Gladiator 2. Between leading bands The Birthday Party, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and Grinderman, Cave is arguably goth music's single most influential artist. Crowe asked Cave to research the Roman afterlife and look into ways Maximus could be brought back to life via the gods. What did Cave do?
He went certifiably batshit.
If you can imagine What Dreams May Come smashed together with The Crow and an ultraviolent Forrest Gump, you might begin to grasp at what Cave delivered. In his version, Maximus is offered a deal by the dying Roman gods to hunt down the traitor Hephaestus. Maximus, of course, finds him – Hephaestus is on his last legs, and resurrects Maximus to serve penance as an immortal who walks the earth.
The bulk of the story follows Maximus defending early Christians and his resurrected son Marius from the bloodthirsty Romans under the command of a Lucius so malevolent, they could have stuck Phoenix back in the role and no one would've blinked. He's aided by his occasional spirit guide Mordecai.
Maximus survives to see Christianity take hold, later fighting in the Crusades, leading a tank charge in World War 2, and unleashing a flamethrower on the Vietcong. Wait, what? Yes, Maximus essentially turns into Highlander for the Tea Party. In the end, we see Maximus in the Pentagon. Mordecai's last words – depending on your interpretation – imply that either the world is about to end, or that Maximus is doomed to continue fighting into eternity.
And the whole movie is spliced together with footage of a dying deer and visions of Maximus' wife, doomed to Purgatory.
The studio balked. There was no way they'd spend $150 million to make an esoteric art film that would've risked the loyalty of the fans. Gladiator possessed no supernatural or divine elements, and to make a sequel based solely around these additions felt too mad.
The strange thing is, according to all accounts, the screenplay was a work of genius. Crowe stood by it tooth-and-nail, and it was eventually the ONLY sequel to Gladiator that Scott might have returned to direct (although this may have been Scott's polite way of saying he wouldn't return for a sequel.)
Cave's script was leaked years ago – reviews were unanimously favorable. You might find that hard to believe, but try watching the next film Cave scripted, The Proposition, and then tell me the man can't write.
Russell Crowe continued delivering Oscar-worthy performances, but in this humble critic's opinion, his best performance stands as his most overlooked – he wasn't nominated for his role as Captain Aubrey in Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. Despite widespread reports that he'd fought with Scott incessantly during the making of Gladiator, the two reunited for four more films (A Good Year, American Gangster, Body of Lies, and Robin Hood).
Ridley Scott himself enjoyed a sort of golden era. He pumped out eight major films in the next eight years, and the production company he'd started with his brother, director Tony Scott (since deceased), took off. In its 20 years of existence before Gladiator, it had produced 10 films. In the 14 years since Gladiator, it's produced more than 40.
Scott himself returned to the sword-and-sandals genre in 2005's Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, and the upcoming Exodus: Gods and Kings. On a critical note, the theatrical release of Kingdom of Heaven was a mess; the director's cut is Scott's best film. Combined with Blade Runner, Scott now boasts the two films most heavily screwed over in the history of Fox Studios.
And Nick Cave? In a broad sense, facets of Cave's screenplay were adapted – or at least echoed – in The Proposition. The 2005 Australian period piece is both brutally nasty and philosophically haunting. Its monologues stay with me even all these years later. Guy Pearce and Emily Watson delivered two of the best performances of their careers, and it helped introduce director John Hillcoat (who later directed The Road and Cave-scripted Lawless).
As a musician, Cave's made some of the best albums of recent years – Push the Sky Away was one of my top 5 albums of 2013, and you can't go wrong with Grinderman 2.
Gladiator 2 will never be realized. It remains a film that I'd very much like to have seen not just for its novelty, but for how bravely it might've turned the original film's formula on its head.
ADDED BONUS
An Historian Goes to the Movies recently wrote two articles regarding the historical accuracy of Gladiator. You might be surprised how well many of its details hold up:
Gladiator: Why Did Commodus Become Emperor?
Gladiator: Just How Bad an Emperor was Commodus?
canceled filmsConnie NielsenGladiatorGladiator 2GrindermanJoaquin PhoenixJohn LoganKingdom of HeavenNick CaveRidley ScottRussell CroweThe Bad SeedsThe Proposition


text:
Sunshine Silver Lining
Join Us On Patreon!
Study Hall with Sunny
hey there, welcome.
@SunshineSilverLining
Sunshine Silver Lining is a National remote vision consultancy with a mission focusing on supporting organizations and creatives that in turn dedicate their work to the social and emotional health of youth, families and communities.
We offer Connection & Collaboration for: Executive Management & Communications, Facilitation & Events along with Education & Advocacy.
Sunshine Silver Lining has a bright vision of supporting members of all communities through empathy and understanding in both their personal and professional lives.
or…Contact Us!
Sunny Noelle Naughton, Founder and CEO
Sunny Noelle Naughton is a nationally recognized entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in creative engagement, youth and family programming and connecting the dots. Sunny comes from a background in human services, journalism and the entertainment business. Sunny holds a self-designed Media and Journalism Degree from Eugene Lang at The New School with a Masters Degree in Leadership from Southern New Hampshire University. In the last decade, Sunny returned to her hometown in New England and began a journey of social and emotional though leadership. This journey has culminated in Sunshine Silver Lining.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
#FridayReads On Buzz After the Moon and My Life After McNair
Posted on July 29, 2016 by John
I have nearly completed a memoir of sorts by the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, written in conjunction with Ken Abraham, called Magnificent Desolation: Long Journey Home From The Moon. The title is a bit misleading, as it implies some not-known-about extra drama in the astronaut's return, when really it refers to the many downs he experienced once his feet were firmly planted on Earth again.
The tale does begin with a brief look at Buzz's and Neil Armstrong's touchdown on the lunar surface, assuming I think that the reader is pretty familiar with their near loss of fuel in the lander, and of course that Neil was the first to exit and take "a small step" onto another world. Do not make the mistake of categorizing Buzz as the "second man" though, as he generally eschews this status, probably due to cultural baggage attached to such an assignation. After all, we Americans don't like to lose!
One finds that the crux of the story deals with behaviors on which many may frown, and particularly alcoholism and two failed marriages. These stemmed from a deep depression that, Buzz speculates, may have been brought about by the actual trip somehow.
Whatever its origin, when an episode (he called it the "blue funk"would hit, he was rendered nearly unable to function.
This part of Buzz's story effected me very deeply, especially as he struggled to define his life and significance after such a harrowing achievement. Most of us will never walk on the moon, but we can probably identify with the idea of reaching some peak in life and feeling that there's no way we can best it. He kept trying though, eventually generating interesting ideas about Space travel that he worked into a Science Fiction ("I prefer to call it techno thriller" whatever that means) novel, and doggedly attempting to sell his ideas to the U.S. Congress. Not much of this was taken up, sadly, but he does start to emerge from his downers on the shoulders of a strong woman.
There is even an unexpected climax of sorts in this version of his post-lunar life. A fair warning, don't talk to him about the possibility that no humans have actually landed on the moon, because he doesn't want to hear it!
As I read this book, I reflected on another astronaut whose life tangentially influenced mine: that of Ronald Erwin McNair. Born in 1950, Mr. McNair received a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT and became only the second Black astronaut to travel to space. I am a bit surprised not to know the first, but should rectify that after posting. Anyway, McNair was on his second mission aboard Challenger, not the first as I had always thought, when it exploded on January 28, 1986. Everyone knows about that, primarily because of the school teacher who had also gone up. Buzz points out that after that accident, NASA was hesitant about allowing any civilians to get a seat, a point that continued to irk him for the rest of the shuttle's "life".
Back to the McNair story though, a program called the Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate was created in his honor with the aim of helping underrepresented groups achieve success on the graduate level. I was fortunate to be awarded a spot in this program 15 years ago, and as I've probably said before it is that which convinced me to give grad school a second shot.
I remember the nerves of presenting at my first academic conference, and feeling I hardly knew what I was talking about. I had completed a 25 page paper on "Invisibility" among African American males, working under a great mentor. I also remember the fun travel to Georgia, (visiting three Atlanta-area universities) and Knoxville to attend a different conference at the University of Tennessee.
And, after that program, how the grad school offers rolled in. Prestigious institutions such as Duke, Brown, Stanford and UCLA wanted a piece of me, but I wouldn't bite. It's not hard to see how I felt that was MY peak. But I now see it as a valuable experience that shaped the backbone in me to let my "nerd" out and be proud of it. Thinking of that and reading Buzz's story is helping me to finally snap out of my own "blue funk" that still lingered after my recent internship attempt. I've got the wheels turning, and think that more excitement is coming soon.
Up And Down: On My Trip to Asheville Part 2
Quiet music tinkles on a grand piano as we step inside the restaurant. The squeak of the door, ornate, hanging chandeliers, and double-sided fireplace convey a sense of coziness and old-fashioned slowdown.
We approach the counter, (wait? No sit-down service? what's this!) stand in line and order "a sausage egg and cheese biscuit, two cups of oatmeal, a medium orange and coffee, please." We could just as easily have been purchasing one of those iconic sandwiches that essentially ushered in the fast-food era. That's right, welcome to one of the most unusual McDonald's in the US. Fancy, but yeah the food is still the same.
The acoustics are such though that we easily converse while injecting initial fuel, and deciding that seconds might not be a bad idea considering all of the walking we will be doing later. Satiated, we exit and traverse the few blocks between this location and the vastly fancier Biltmore Estate, a huge property owned at first by the Vanderbilt family on which George, a sibling living in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, constructed a castle that rivals those in Europe.
A pic of me and my beautiful girlfriend standing in front of Biltmore House
Arriving at the ticket pickup desk at 12:30, we first encounter what threatens to be a big snafu.
"Your tickets have actually been purchased for the 17th," the rep tells us. "Will you be here tomorrow?"
Oh good grief, I think to myself, could I have made a mistake of that magnitude with so much money on the line? The strange thing is the audio device I have reserved is indeed set to be had on Saturday the 16th. They do work us in anyway at 1:30, and when I check my email in the car I verify that the mistake was not mine! Thank goodness.
Even when we get out of the car at a space, we still have to walk about 8 minutes much of it uphill to reach the actual house. It is hot, quiet, and smells like it probably did in those early days.
Audio devices acquired, which were like telephones that you hold to your ear, we enter the spacious residence. Each exhibit has a number, and if one wishes to hear the descriptions and background information about said you just enter the number into the keypad. I had only purchased one, but am happy they have also gone ahead and given her one as well. I can't speak what they're saying quickly enough!
And as I discover in the Billiards room, the acoustics are such that one must be careful how they speak. "I THINK I HAVE PUT IN THE WRONG NUMBER!" I say when they start talking about an Italian-themed room instead. (Well I hope I'm not speaking that loudly, but it at least sounds so, prompting her to let me know this and causing me to feel a bit silly and not speak for the next three exhibits. The thing is, I feel as if the room is empty when in actuality it is full. So I can claim environmental unawareness while also accepting that I don't exactly differentiate between "Indoor" and "Outdoor" voice as well as I should. But, I do manage to recover a bit.
This initial room is impressive, as well as the library (10,000 of Vanderbilt's books still exist,) a sitting room where people wait for dinner, another where dinner is actually consumed, and I think a different entertainment hall. Yes, they had too much money. Finally, on the first floor we exit to the loggia, ah c'mon the back porch! It is a nice area, with I assume fairly nice views as well.
Then inside and up the "Grand Staircase." I think the second floor contain the Vanderbilts' rooms, and yes they had separate ones due to the idea that he shouldn't see her being dressed by servants. They would often meet in yet another sitting room between the two. On the third floor, the guest level, there was ALSO a sitting room where they could gather to chat, because how much else was there to do in those days? A shortcut allows for quick access to the library, so that guests could find a title of their liking to take to bed and read.
Of course pretty much nothing can be touched, due to its fragile nature. Yet as a blind person, I still feel I got a lot out of it because of the in-depth descriptions given by curators and others affiliated with the estate in some way. I wonder if other museums have audio tours in this way. And, I can still feel the immensity of the space as well.
Even with the giant fans circulating air and many windows open, (until the rains came) the place is sweltering! This and the uneven surfaces cause us to need a quick break, during which we collapse into chairs in the hall. Nearly in unison, we say "oh, my back!"
The only other thing of interest is the basement. Here, we enter the bowling alley, probably one of the first of its kind in a private residence; the pool room, where that pool was fed with water from a mountain reservoir and had to be drained after use because of course this was prior to chlorination; and the innovative laundry room, wherein clothes could be dried by placing them onto racks and sliding them into a cabinet where electric coils raised the temperatures. The Vanderbilts had much of the latest technology, including Edison lightbulbs and a more efficient kitchen for the servants to use. They note that one could learn more about the servant's life there by getting a behind-the-scenes tour, but I would also recommend the book I am now about to finish called Maid to Match, by Deeanne Gist. As mentioned in a previous entry, much of it takes place at Biltmore, and it is a really intriguing story about a young woman who falls in love with the "useful man," thus putting her chance of being Mrs. (Edith) Vanderbilt's Lady's Maid in jeopardy. It really helped me to understand a lot about how things were when I went in there, too.
Finally, we get stuck out front for a good while as those rains continue to pound. Luckily, they have sheltered benches where she meets and converses with a dogowner who has a stroller for her pets, and who has also a crown from winning some kind of Ms. East Texas. Another individual recognizes us from the trolley tour.
We make a perfunctory visit to some of the shops they have outside, including a chocolate place where I contemplate getting something but am not sure if I would like it. The café is also full, so we make our way through the last drops toward the shuttle to head back over to the parking lot.
And that about covers the interesting part of our little vacation into the hills and Asheville. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to whatever else life has in store, as well as to new and unexpected memories.
I stated on my Facebook page that the most recent trip to the mountains was my first in 25 years. Upon reflection, perhaps this is a bit inaccurate as I'd gone to Denver in 2008. It is easy to forget the altitude of that city, because I had flown in. Also, Denver is definitely more level than Asheville, so I guess that would be another reason not to count it.
Well to generate a more correct statement, this was my first time riding into the mountains since October of 1991. On that trip, I had gone into the Smokies where North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee converge. I believe I even stood in all three states simultaneously. I walked a fun Braille Trail, which my orientation and Mobility teacher claims to have happened upon by accident but am not sure about that. I also stayed in a log cabin, ate at a fascinating country restaurant where a horse hit me in the head with its teeth as we cavorted around the barn area while awaiting our meals, and was entertained by an auction. SOLD!
One thing I had forgotten was how that drive uphill feels. As we speed away from my apartment, I key up the GPS app to monitor elevation. Durham is at approximately 500 feet above sea level. We take I-85 till it merges with 40; which, after splitting off toward Charlotte in Greensboro, pretty much carries us all the way to Asheville. Around Catawba, we are about 1200 feet above sea level. Our next major ascent occurs as we approach the edge of McDowell County, from approximately 1500 feet till about 2200 in three minutes or so. Whew! I feel this in my stomach and, more importantly, in my ears. I don't know if the issue is permanent, but this seems to have caused my right-side hearing aid to fade out periodically until I lodge it back into my ear canal. It continues to do this throughout our stay, but (I think) is slowly returning to normal now that I am back down low. Needless to say, I dread this as a possible disaster that can ruin my weekend with her. Because it was on the right though, it was more endurable than it would have been on the left.
We level off a bit, as nothing is really level up there, in Black Mountain, and roll on into Asheville. As we arrive at our hotel, Baymont Inn and Suites, the sun is tentatively out with temperatures about 12 degrees below what they had been at our outset. She hops out to see if we can check in at the early hour of 1 PM, and is given a room. On further inspection, she discovers that this room is located near the laundry, with the sound of banging washers, dryers, and ice machines to accompany us to sleep. She rejects this location before even entering, and we are re-assigned to a better spot right near the elevator on the second floor.
After a brief respite, we decide to attempt to catch the Asheville Trolley Tour, which I discover can be done by trekking to the Asheville Visitor Center. We make the second-to-last departure, at 3 PM, and sit on slightly uncomfortable seats in a fairly open bus to take in the sights.
Don't fear my starter," the driver says as he hops aboard and shuts the door. I do not understand what he means until he keys the ignition and we hear what sounds like an engine that isn't going to turn over. "It always does that trust me" he says as the vehicle finally roars to life.
It is an interesting tour, much of which I of course cannot now recall. We do pass the swanky Grove Park Inn and Spa, and I joke that I'll check us into that one instead. We learn a lot about Thomas Wolfe, especially that he had initially been rejected by the town due to his dark portrayal of Asheville in Look Homeward Angel, a book I am slowly making my way through now. Funny though how becoming a bestselling author will change perceptions,. Now he has a plaza named after him, and tours of his residence are also available. He died of tuberculosis at a relatively young age, sadly.
The driver is humerous, and very willing to take questions. He also notes a restaurant, Little Pigs, a local BBQ joint where we opt to eat. People do indeed "hop on hop off" as you are able to do. We do not do this because the last tour has already passed, but if you can get on earlier I would highly recommend walking around downtown. They get a look at the Biltmore, but are not allowed onto the property. Finally, we roll through the campus of UNC Asheville, during which he asks us about our feelings regarding the UNC Duke rivalry. When I note that I am a Tar Heels fan and she a Blue Devil supporter, the driver says "And you're sitting next to her?" I know, still working on correcting that minor error.
Toward the end, we discover that we could have boarded near the Doubletree Inn within walking distance of our hotel. They do note on the site though that it is best to start at the Visitor Center anyway, so I suppose all is well.
Back at the original location and having mostly missed a downpour as we schlepped along, we make the spot decision to head to Little Pigs, where we both get fried chicken legs and thighs, hushpuppies, slaw, and I think another vegetable I can't recall. The chicken and Southern sweet tea hit the spot! I learned later through the reviews on Google Maps that they have Key Lime pie as well, and am disappointed I didn't get a piece of that.
To wrap up the evening, we make a quick trek downtown to the music festivel that takes place every Friday at 5. The streets in that immediate area are blocked off, and the crowds large. There are a few food vendors, the the emphasis is on alcohol consumption as one can buy arm bands for $2 that allow for as much as one can handle. It does not take long for her to determine that this is not a good atmosphere for us, so we make our way back to the parking deck to head over to the hotel. This is pretty much the end of Friday. I will post about Saturday's estate tour later.
A Redirection
So, the word came today regarding my attempt at an NPR Internship. At the moment, it's a no. But I'm ok with that! I knew this was going to be a building up, a taking of steps.
Speaking of, I tried to find the cover letter I'd written for this position and am a bit dismayed that I hadn't saved it! In it, I noted that this would be, to paraphrase Neil Armstrong, "a small step in my preparation, but a giant leap toward my dream." My dream was then, is still, and has been for fifteen years to work in some capacity for this network. I acknowledge of course that maybe life has something I don't yet know in store for me, and so am open to that possibility as well. It's as a quote I saw yesterday says so well: "A no isn't a rejection, but a redirection".
So my task now is to sit down with myself and decide on my next steps. I think first though that I can allow myself to feel what I'm feeling, at least for a night, which is a bit of sadness tempered with pleasure that I finally dared to dip my toe into the waters surrounding my ultimate destination. I think my most important "next steps" are to work on reshaping my resume and just trying to determine exactly what it is I wish to get out of a position, as well as what I can bring to it. Then I do need to acquire some kind of field experience (i.e. internship) so that when I complete my current Master's I'll be able to put it to use. I do understand that all of this will take time though, and appreciate your support and joining me as I think everything out.
This message came on the heels of a quiet, somewhat gloomy Monday anyway, the first back at work in nearly a month. To cheer myself up, and yes in addition to the reading I'm doing for class, I'm also reading three (3!) pleasure books. Two of them, Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe, and Maid to Match by DeeAnne Gist, take place in Asheville, the spot I will be heading to for vacation this Friday! I will probably do that sort of reading before visiting most places now, because it's so easy to type in keywords and find a book on a place, and reading said books enhances my travel experience. I think these especially will, as I'm learning about the Biltmore Estate, a giant house that we will be visiting. But I'll tell you that whole story after I've walked those grounds. At the moment, I'm so happy to have that to look forward to. Have you managed to go anywhere yet this summer? What did you do? More soon.
On Sharing
Posted on July 3, 2016 by John
So, we reach the unofficial halfway point of the Summer: July 4th or US Independence Day. And, I want to write something this week but am again juiced after wrapping up class 3 of this graduate program (94 on final project, yay! So, I'll just write a bit about what was a relatively nice weekend with friends and my girlfriend.
So, we left on Thursday to a small North Carolina town called Lumberton, where food is the thing. Our primary reason for going there was to celebrate a friend's birthday and special occasion, and we did it up in style. I met a couple of people I hadn't before, as well as getting to chat briefly with my cousin for only the second time this year. That is a big change to which I continue to adjust, just the fact that we're starting to drift into our own circles. I know of course that this is to be expected as our lives begin to coalesce more and more around those of our partners.
Anyway, all of this chatting with folks familiar and not was great, offering support to my long-time friend was even better, but the real fun was in the eating! We went to, and took over, a Lumberton establishment called Candy Sue's. This place has relocated 3 times, from a small former gas station to a warehouse a block long. I am told that they may have slightly overdone it spacewise, hoping initially that downtown Lumberton would develop around them. This hasn't really happened, probably for the same reasons it hasn't in many towns; promised money is just drying up.
Even so, these folks do have some good food! They shut us in a private banquet room, meaning that the only noise was generated by our party of 14 or so. And eventually that noise did become voluminous.
So too were the portions. We were paired off, and each two individuals got two main items and four sides in what were called "Bottomless Bowls," which could be refilled upon request. I had meatloaf, mac and cheese, and green beans. My partner ate their barbecue specialty with dumplings and another vegetable I can't now remember. I could have eaten some of hers, but was so stuffed after two plates of my own that I needed nothing else. I topped that off with some lemonade that was, ok, probably could have been better though. They also had real southern tea, which is to say sugar with a little tea in it, but I had already had some less sweet tea before arriving.
After consumption, we piled back into the fifteen-passenger van in which we had come, and kept it rocking while going back to my friend's home, where we partied a bit longer and bounced around to my cousin's iPod playlist. We also consumed delicious cupcakes, and I know it was delicious because it took me three napkins to get all of the vanilla frosting off of my lips. Ha, ha. Finally, we headed back to the new SpringHill Suites Lumberton to grab a few seconds of shut-eye before heading home the next day.
Much of the rest of the weekend was just relaxing with my girlfriend, and realizing the unexpected joy of having someone share in something I love. It's silly I know, but I was touched by the act of her joining me in my routine of listening to NPR broadcasts at night. I often snatch a few seconds of listening while she is otherwise occupied, and then turn it off once she returns. But this time she asked me not to, and we laughed, and jokingly groaned, over some of the academically dense books they reviewed. It just showed me, as I already know, that I have to continue getting used to opening all of myself, even those things that I think maybe others won't necessarily like, to someone who is getting close to me. I've just so rarely experienced it, as I'm only now in my longest relationship of a year and three months, but I'm cherishing every moment.
And excitedly, it looks like we will take a different sort of vacation rather than going to the beach, which will doubtlessly be done many more times. In a couple of weeks, we plan to head into the Blue Ridge Mountains and Asheville North Carolina. I am looking forward to it, and will probably capture my experience in some way. Till then, have a happy and safe 4th and a great Summer.


text:
First Solar lays off 2,000
Apr 17, 2012 at 9:00 AM Apr 17, 2012 at 10:01 AM
First Solar Inc. is laying off 2,000 workers and closing its plant in Frankfurt, Germany, in response to waning demand for solar panels and increased competition from China.
America's largest maker of solar panels said the layoffs amount to 30 percent of its global workforce. Some cuts come from shutting down the Frankfurt (Oder) plant, where it doubled the number of employees to more than 1,200 just last year. The Tempe, Ariz.-based company will also shutter some production in Malaysia. Additional jobs will be cut in both Europe and the U.S.
Solar manufacturers have been hurt by the global recession, an influx of Chinese panels and declining subsidy programs in Europe. Germany, the world's largest market for solar power, announced in February that it would cut solar subsidies by 30 percent.
"It is clear the European market has deteriorated to the extent that our operations there are no longer economically sustainable, and maintaining those operations is not in the best long-term interest of our stakeholders," said First Solar Chairman and CEO Mike Ahearn in a statement.
First Solar, which specializes in "thin film" solar modules that are both cheaper and less efficient than those made by competitors, lost $39.5 million in 2011. Its shares have dropped nearly 85 percent in the past 12 months. The rose about 5 percent in premarket trading.
First Solar must adapt to a solar market that has "fundamentally changed," Ahearn said.
"It is essential that we reduce production and decrease expenses," the CEO said. "These actions will enable us to focus our resources on developing the markets where we expect to generate significant growth in coming years."
After making the cuts, First Solar said it expects manufacturing costs to drop by $30-$60 million this year and another $100-$120 million a year afterward. It will book a restructuring charge of $245 to $370 million, mostly in its first-quarter results.
— ASSOCIATED PRESS


Here is an elegant dog house with a passive solar design that stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It has a Brazilian teak roof that blocks the summer sun from reaching the front window. A removable perforated side panel is available to promote better ventilation.
This piece ships with a thick memory foam pillow, twin stainless steel pet bowl, and a personalized, raised-letter sign.


text:
The Standard of Healthcare in Developing Countries
Abigail Harrover Latest, Medicine and Health April 21, 2014
The Balance between HIV/AIDS Treatment and Intellectual Property Rights
Colleen Thurman Medicine and Health November 1, 2009
Nervous System Mysteries: The Social Stigma Surrounding Epilepsy
Paulomi Bhattacharya Latest, Medicine and Health January 28, 2011
Society's Perception: Is Intelligence All Genes?
Tiffany Nguyen Latest, Society February 23, 2014
Hidden Stress: Parental Burdens Caused by Autism
Austin Brown Latest, Medicine and Health July 30, 2011
Dental Therapists: A Step in the Right Direction or a Step Too Far?
Petar Georgiev Latest, Medicine and Health June 26, 2012
Triple Helix Online
Faculty Advisers
Blog Scents and Senses: The Phenomenon of Scent-Triggered Responses
Scents and Senses: The Phenomenon of Scent-Triggered Responses
The holiday season is around the corner, which means family, friends, gifts, and food…lots of food. Not only do our taste buds bask in the delights of the season, but our noses are also filled with the sumptuous smells of feasts. The delicious scents of spices, baked pies, turkey, and gingerbread not only thrill our olfactory senses, but also trigger memories of bygone days. Theory suggests that with these memories, scents can change our mood and influence our behavior. Many of us have experienced the homey, comfortable feeling that glides over as when we smell cookies baking, or the relaxing feeling when we detect lavender or chamomile in our bath wash. Scent marketers and aroma therapists love the stuff—they have us wrapped around our fingers with this olfactory phenomenon, and they know it. How exactly does this happen? How can we get a whiff of something and suddenly be transported back to another moment?
The key is the limbic system, of which the olfactory bulb is part, and which is aptly nicknamed the "emotional brain"1 or, more specifically, the "feeling and the reacting brain"5. It controls functions on the autonomic and endocrine levels, most especially in response to emotional triggers. Many areas, some of which are connected to the olfactory system, are also essential in memory formation5. Once olfactory receptors connected to the limbic system are activated, the information is sent to the cortex, where the scent is recognized. This means that the emotional responses triggered by scents occur before the scent is even recognized2.
The olfactory bulb is like a factory for taking in and processing odors, then packaging the information up into little molecules called neurotransmitters and sending them on their merry way—to other important brain centers like the amygdala and the hippocampus. The amygdala processes sensory information by giving the info emotional importance, and it's also the most crucial player in the fear conditioning and fear-memories4. Another brain center that receives this sensory information from odors is the hippocampus, which allows the brain to learn through association, forming connections between senses as experiences occur and are repeated. Through the pathways they travel down, odors can elicit responses to locations and events by stirring up memories that were formed long before, due to conditioned responses—the subconscious linking of a person or thing or experience to an odor or odors1.
The basis for these connections can be found evolutionarily and comparatively, as scent is a vital for survival amongst many species. For example, when rodents smell the urine of a carnivore, neural activity patterns show spikes in the areas of the brain pertaining to fear, like the amygdala. The scent also causes the rodents' pulses to speed up and their levels of stress hormones to raise quickly3. For these little guys, vision isn't always reliable in their hideouts (which are oftentimes dank and dark), so smell is the best way to go. But what about humans? In the hunting and gathering days, scent might have been used as a survival tactic, but how does it affect us in the modern day and age? Yes, odors can trigger memories, quite powerfully, in fact. But can our moods drastically change?
There are theories about the physiological mood shifts caused by odors. The difficult part of measuring how accurate this assertion is has to do with the difference between an actual neurophysiologic effect and the expected effect2. Say your ex-significant-other used to have a dog that was bathed far less than he should have been, and had that stench so particular to unwashed dog. Later down the road, you might encounter scruffy, smelly dog that reminds you of your ex's Labrador, and, by association, your ex. It isn't clear to scientists whether the connected neurons between your olfactory bulb (odors are received and processed), your amygdala (emotions are triggered), and your hippocampus (memories awaken) can actually summon feelings of sadness, or whether you simply think about the break-up and expect to feel sadness. That "calming" body wash, with the chamomile and the ylang-ylang and the lavender, might have a calming effect on you only because the bottle tells you so…but if that's true, then how to we command our bodies to relax?
Psychologists and neuroscientists have studied olfactory memory for some time, and have made headway in various aspects of the phenomenon, but questions remain. For now, it's comforting to know that hot apple pie can remind us of home and family, and mowed grass can bring back memories of sunny summer days.
Dowdey, Sarah, "How Smell Works" HowStuffWorks.Accessed November 17, 2012.
Fox, Kate. "The smell report." Social Issues Research Center. Retrieved June (2007).
Rosen, Meghan, "Scent Into Action." ScienceNews, October 20, 2012. Accessed November 16, 2012. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/345534/description/Scent_Into_Action.
Sah, P., E. S. L. Faber, M. Lopez De Armentia, and J. Power. "The amygdaloid complex: anatomy and physiology." Physiological reviews 83, no. 3 (2003): 803-834.
Swenson, R. S. "Review of clinical and functional neuroscience." Educational Review Manual in Neurology (2006).
Image credit (Creative Commons): Twistiti, LL. "Smelling a rose, feeling loved, feeling alive." Flickr. Taken June 12, 2008.
Tina Shah is a student at Cornell University. Follow The Triple Helix Online on Twitter and join us on Facebook.
Stranger in a Strange Land: A Scientific Review of the Creation Museum
Harnessing the Placebo? The Human Side of Medicine
2013 TTH Annual Conference, Part 2
Subconscious Racism and Healthcare: Understanding Our Implicit Bias


You can download the geometry of a duct riser as used in the CFD – computational fluid dynamics simulation tutorial on my youtube channel: CFD Tutorial video. This CFD tutorial demonstrates how to use the dense discrete phase model (DDPM) and the Eulerian multiphase model in order to simulate the motion and distribution of injected solid particles with different sizes into a vertical air duct. The particles are injected from the side of the duct close to the inlet.
Check my Youtube channel for more video tutorials.


That the business funds will be given to you before you complete learning your entrepreneurship skills?
Do you know that as Miss Wazobia Nigeria 2019 you will make International tours to campaign for sexual abuse of Teens?
Do you know you have a one year magazine contract deal where you can air your views monthly about Teenage sexual abuse?
Do you know that lots of brand endorsement deals await you as Miss Wazobia Nigeria 2019?
Do you know you have the opportunity to represent Nigeria in MISS TEENAGER INTERNATIONAL 2019?. So go register now before its too late.


text:
Home » R-P school district to install video cameras in school buses
R-P school district to install video cameras in school buses
Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/28/2018 - 9:30am
By :
At its June 18 meeting, the Rushford-Peterson School Board approved the purchase and installation of video cameras in district school buses for the upcoming year.
Bernard Bus Company will procure the cameras and have them installed and functioning in each bus this summer. The camera system costs around $10,000 but the district will only pay half, thanks to cost-sharing with Bernard Bus Company.
R-P Superintendent Chuck Ehler says the camera system gives them a unique opportunity to get a daily, first-hand look at what goes on in school buses. "We get to see what kinds of things our bus drivers have to deal with," Ehler said. "If a driver comes to us with a concern, it's much easier for us to pinpoint that via the cameras. The cameras will put some extra assurance in place for the drivers to say, 'here are the expectations we have of our bus riders.' When the bus riders don't fulfill those expectations and they act out, there's an accountability factor there. With proof that students weren't in compliance with expectations."
The district has contracted with the Telin Transportation Group, which will provide the cameras to Bernard Bus for installation.
Dave Mohr, Telin's School Bus Sales Manager for the Transportation Group said that, while there are laws dictating where cameras can't be installed in a school bus, school districts still have some flexibility regarding where they can put cameras. "If they're installed above the seats, for example, they have to be right above the seats, and they can only 18 to 24 inches above the window," Mohr said. "They can't go right down the middle of the aisle because students risk hitting their heads. They also can't be right over a seat back, either. A lot of it depends on the preference of each school system.
"The majority of school districts run a four-channel DVR, which is the part that records the video," Mohr added. "Some districts will put one camera in each bus, some do two cameras, and there are others that put up to four cameras in. There are some districts that will even go higher than four cameras in each bus."
Each camera is hard-wired to start up a minute after each bus driver starts their engine. The drivers don't actually manipulate the camera in any way. Mohr said the system will record for "X number of days," depending on how big the route is or how much storage there is in the DVR.
"It's not just for the safety of each bus driver, but it's also to help keep the students safe as well," Ehler said. "The administration won't have to rely on the students that so-and-so did or didn't do something.' We had a camera on one of the buses at the end of the last school year as an experiment. The camera can record data up to 30 days in length."
Everything that happens on the bus is recorded and stored. Mohr said there is an "incident button" inside each bus. If the driver pushes the incident button, it marks an event on the hard drive. That will make it easier for administration to figure out if something negative happened during a bus route.
"If there's a complaint after a route, they come back to the school and the supervisor or principal can pull the hard drive off the bus and put it in the docking station at the school. They pick the date and then click on the time frame the incident happened in, say between six and nine on the morning route. Lines will be on the video that were put there when the driver hit the incident button. If they click on the line, it zooms into the incident, which means people don't have to watch hours of video to get to the incident."
Driving a school bus can be challenging when students are involved. Ehler said the district wants to support their drivers in making sure the students meet our expectations for behavior on the buses.
"We already have cameras in just about every place we can put them in the school, [such as]outside of restrooms and locker rooms." Ehler said, "Cameras in the buses are just an extension of the system that's in place to make sure behavior meets up with expectations."


President Clinton's 1998 Executive Order 13101 directed the creation of a Biobased Products List (BPL) to stimulate the market for agricultural products by directing government purchasers to specify these products. RCA commented on the proposed guidelines to advocate for agricultural materials over their wood-based counterparts.
The Resource Conservation Alliance is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting natural forests and other ecologically important systems through market- and commodity-based conservation strategies. These strategies include reduced consumption and increased recycling, redesign and resource diversification. I am writing to provide comment on the August 13, 1999, Federal Register Notice—Procedures for Submission of Biobased Products for Listing by USDA.
While having the potential to greatly expand the markets for biobased products, the proposed procedures are troublesome in their continued promotion of "forestry materials." One of the primary goals of E.O. 13101 is to use government purchasing power to increase the market share of recoverable materials in an effort to conserve the environment. The inclusion of "forestry materials" in the biobased products list maintains the federal government's reliance on environmentally destructive industries, such as logging, which is dependent upon virgin resources.
As stated in the notice, "The Federal market place is already well aware of mature biobased products, such as ... dimensional lumber." While the proposed procedures claim that the "USDA has decided not to list commonly known mature products," the procedures contradict themselves by promoting "forestry materials." In the United States, forest-based products currently enjoy a tremendous share of the market compared to many alternative agriculture- based products. Their inclusion in this list is not only unnecessary, it is entirely detrimental to the development of the numerous agriculture-based products that deserve an expanded market share.
Perhaps more disconcerting, as it stands now, biobased products are so broadly defined that they can contain virgin, clearcut, non-renewable materials from ancient forests. This directly contradicts E.O. 13101's mandate "to increase and expand markets for recovered materials through greater Federal Government preference and demand for such products."
By including "forestry materials" in the biobased products list, the USDA will be creating an unreconcilable policy conflict. According to E.O. 13101, "It is the national policy to prefer pollution prevention, whenever feasible." Pollution prevention is defined as the implementation of "practices that reduce or eliminate the creation of pollutants through... protection of natural resources by conservation." Furthermore, guideline 4 of the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Guideline developed in adherence to E.O. 13101 mandates that federal agencies examine the magnitude of impact of their purchases with respect to "the reversibility and geographic scale of the environmental impacts."
The consumption of "forestry materials" contributes to the massive scale of environmental degradation caused by the timber trade. Only 12 percent of the world's original forests remain as relatively healthy, intact ecosystems. In the United States, outside of Alaska, only five percent of our original forests are still in their natural condition. Furthermore, as a developed nation, the United States consumes a disproportionately high number of the world's trees. Since the volume of wood that can be logged sustainably worldwide cannot even begin to meet our current demand for wood, reducing consumption becomes a prerequisite to the "protection of natural resources through conservation."
Therefore, the Resource Conservation Alliance strongly recommends that "forestry materials" be removed from the biobased products list in an effort to prioritize the market development of agricultural products. Agricultural residues are an excellent alternative to virgin wood fiber for many reasons. There are approximately 350 million tons of agricultural residues produced annually in North America. Aside from their abundance and renewability, using agricultural residues will benefit farmers, industry and human health and the environment. If the biobased products list were to prioritize agricultural products, it could help to ameliorate the well-known economic plight of America's family farmers. In order for the list to truly be a "successful implementation of E.O. 13101" with "significant outcomes for U.S. agriculture and the environment," as claimed in the notice, the biobased products list would first need to eliminate "forestry materials."
Please contact me with any questions or concerns you may have. Thank you for your consideration.


text:
Posted on November 11, 2017 January 2, 2020 by Edison Smith Editor-in-Chief
Blood on the Dance Floor: Saturday Night Fever's Brazen Splendour
It's bloodied bell bottoms and broken dreams in John Badham's startling portrayal of New York City life
If the civil rights movement peaked during the 1960s, then the following decade provided the fallout. By the time the Vietnam War came to an end in 1975, the counterculture movement had all but dissolved, but sections of American society had changed irrevocably, giving birth to a generation with different beliefs and aspirations. For perhaps the first time in America's history, citizens were unwilling to advocate war based on patriotism alone, and for many, Catholic traditions had become an outmoded burden, youngsters no longer satisfied with making ends meet and marrying their neighbour. With the growth of popular culture, there was a brave new world out there just waiting to be explored, and kids couldn't turn on a television or radio without hearing about it.
For a young Italian-American living with his Catholic parents in Brooklyn, New York, the repercussions of those changing times are hard to bear. Tony Monera (John Travolta) is a typical working class kid stuck in a dead-end job, more concerned with fixing his hair and chasing tail than learning responsibility. Instead of crucifixes, pictures of celebrities adorn his walls, Jesus Christ replaced by superstars such as Bruce Lee, Al Pacino, and, most notably, Rocky Balboa — figures of inspiration who prove much more tangible. Despite his brash demeanour and tough guy pretensions, at 19 Tony is little more than an impressionable kid, a fact that reduces his dreams and desires to hopeless and misguided fantasies.
Like John G. Avildsen's Oscar-winning Rocky, this is an underdog story about a young man who is made for better things, and the use of Balboa's image serves to punctuate this. It also gives Saturday Night Fever an added layer of authenticity, making a gritty affair like Rocky seem almost fantastical by comparison. Unlike Balboa, Monera is not on the road to fame and fortune. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place, torn between the burden of his parents' low expectations and the will to make his own decisions in life. At one point, Tony gives a detailed description of a Brooklyn bridge to the girl whose affection will ultimately liberate him. On the surface it seems like a young kid's attempts at flirtation, a ruse to convince the girl that he is worthy of her affections, but his almost futile attention to detail tells us that he has stared at this bridge many times over, that he has imagined what life is like on the other side.
Tony Monera [to his father] – You know how many times someone told me I was good in my life? Two. Twice. Two fucking times. This raise today, and dancing. Dancing at the disco. You sure as fuck never did!
Such desires are alien to Tony's god-fearing parents, but the boy has found his own religion, and his church is the dance floor. He may be a bum in the eyes of his out-of-work father, but on the Brooklyn club scene the kid is already a star. His friends are little more than drunken hoodlums questing for kicks and pussy, the kind who only serve to prove their elders' conservatism right, but there is more to our protagonist than others give him credit for. He may be vain and brash and borderline disrespectful, but it is all a part of his physical performance. When he struts along the high-street carrying cans of paint, people see a go-nowhere punk with the wrong priorities, but when he steps onto the dance floor the ladies part like the red sea, and the harsh realities of inner city life fade under the glow of the disco lights. Monera has found something that he believes in, and which in turn threatens to leave him believing in himself.
Of course, reality is a much different prospect. The glitz and glam may hold up for a few hours but beneath the gloss of chemical highs New York is an unforgiving place for the young and directionless — particularly for a working class kid whose family lives under a cloud of moral shame. For Tony's parents, image is everything too, but while their son finds his identity wearing bell bottom trousers and platform shoes, they daub themselves in the cloth of Catholicism, investing all of their pride in Tony's older brother Frank Jr. (Martin Shakar), a person who has spent his entire life lurching in the shadow of expectation just to allow them some kind of worth in a repressed community that is married to the church.
Director John Badham does a remarkable job of highlighting the highs and lows of city life, capturing the feel-good factor of the disco community but also the estrangement of a generation caught in the confusion of changing values as oppressive traditions loom large. Saturday Night Fever may be dressed in disco balls, but away from the dance floor it is a production of astounding authenticity that thrills and devastates in equal measures. The movie is perhaps most famous for its iconic soundtrack, but its Bee Gees led disco revolution proves more than just a commercial embellishment, acting as a platform for the period's dance hall culture, but also conveying the togetherness and desperation as youth's lust for intimacy makes its fragile rounds.
Saturday Night Fever was a phenomenon at a time when disco fever was sweeping the nation. When the film debuted, Paramount arranged for an old-fashioned Hollywood premier at Mann's Chinese theatre, and fans took to the streets in their screaming droves. It was the biggest, most spectacular opening in years, but of all the celebrities looking to hog the limelight, it was the film's streetwise protagonist who the people came to see. Everybody wanted to dress like John Travolta after Saturday Night Fever. Men wanted to be him and women longed to share his spotlight. This was no phoney pretending how to dance. You marvel at every inch of rebellious flamboyance. This kid is the real deal.
Tony Manero: You know, Connie, if you're as good in bed as you are on the dance floor, I'll bet you're one lousy fuck.
Connie: Then how come they always send me flowers the next morning?
Tony Manero: 'Cause most guys don't know a lousy fuck when they've had one. Or I dunno. Maybe they thought you was dead.
Travolta delivers a star-making turn as Monera, earning himself an Academy Award nomination for best actor, but this is the kind of once in a lifetime performance that transcends any award. The strut, the attitude, the gaudy clothes and aggressive showboating, they transformed him into an emblem for late 20th century culture, and Badham sets out to immortalise him from the offset, creating a character who would become woven into the very fabric of our culture. Backed by one of the biggest-selling soundtracks in movie history, one packed with enough hits and genuine emotion to leave you dizzy with delight, Tony is rebellious and hubristic, defiant in the face of a sprawling metropolis that threatens to swallow him at every turn.
Shot against the grainy backdrop of the Big Apple's rotten core, Badham's Brooklyn is home to some tragic and highly relatable figures, a cast of relative unknowns who leave their proverbial blood on the dance floor. Annette (Donna Pescow) is infatuated with Tony and everything his weekend persona represents, and she mirrors his passion as a way to get close to him. When that doesn't work, she offers to 'make it' with him, in spite of her Catholic origins and unwillingness to sleep around. When Tony eventually sees through her act and grows tired of her, she risks pregnancy and renouncement by allowing herself to be used by his friends. In a world of changing moralities, she is mired in indecision.
Another of the community's repressed figures comes in the form of Tony's friend, Bobby (Barry Miller). Bobby has already got his girlfriend pregnant, and afraid of the prospect of fatherhood he has nobody to turn to. Drowning in the demands of his family and the church, he toils with his frustrations inwardly, a peripheral figure among a group of self-serving friends who have yet to come up against any real consequence. Even Tony's brother, Frank Jr., fails to heed his call while struggling with his own decision to abandon the priesthood, and by the time the world acknowledges Bobby's problems, salvation has already passed him by.
Tony Monera – There are ways of killing yourself without killing yourself.
Tony and eventual squeeze Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) are both victims of those changing times too, but in an environment of insecurity and isolation they are lucky enough to have found each other. Travolta is a revelation as the cocksure, yet deeply conflicted kid with the drive to improve himself, and though flash among his many superficial admirers, in Stephanie he finds someone who not only understands his passion but shares it, their intimate rehearsals in a dingy, rented studio bathed in the dreamy filter of perfect harmony.
Asides from those moments, their relationship is a largely dysfunctional one, but the two have much more in common than the older Stephanie is willing to accept. Stephanie has long since fled the nest and boasts of her Manhattan lifestyle, desperate to cast off the kind of thick Brooklyn accent that paints an altogether different picture. She drinks tea because it is more refined. She talks of the big city and the flash crowds she runs with, mocking Tony for his uncouth persona, but when she tells him he is no one going nowhere she seems to be talking to herself. Stephanie has been where Tony is and never wants to go back there. In some ways he is a reminder of what she struggled to leave behind, but in the end there is more of the boy in her then anyone in her new life, and it is Tony's unabashed honesty that allows her to recall her true self and finally feel appreciated for who she is.
This is raw, uncompromising filmmaking that never allows itself to become sympathetic, but whenever I think of Saturday Night Fever, I mostly think of the music and the dancing and the iconic performance of a dazzling John Travolta. I remember Tony strutting along to Stayin' Alive as his time to shine flickers on the Brooklyn horizon, and the way in which he commands the dance floor in the face of a society that has condemned him to obscurity almost as a birthright. Most of all, I remember those moments of fleeting bliss that he shares with the one person in his life who truly understands him, and that human capacity to shed life's despair for what is truly important.
This entry was posted in:Drama, VHS Gold
Tagged with:1977, 70s, retro, Saturday Night Fever, VHS Gold
Written by Edison Smith Editor-in-Chief
Science Fiction Writer, Horror Enthusiast, Scourge of Plutocracy, Creator of vhsrevival.com
Previous PostA Nightmare on Elm Street – NES
Next PostRetro Gaming Archives – Fall 1987


text:
Q: How to extract the 'd' attribute programmatically from several svgs in a directory? I have hundreds of svgs in a directory. I would like to query the directory and extract the 'd' attribute of each svg.
All the svgs look like the one below:
<svg width="32" height="32" viewBox="0 0 32 32" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M16 32C7.163 32 0 24.837 0 16S7.163 0 16 0s16 7.163 16 16-7.163 16-16 16zm-.065-28C9.342 4.001 4 9.347 4 15.94c.001 6.592 5.347 11.936 11.94 11.935 6.592-.002 11.936-5.347 11.935-11.94A11.937 11.937 0 0015.935 4zm-4.847 5.23a.123.123"/></svg>

I appreciate the help.
I would love to make this solution on javascript but any other option would work too. Python, bash, etc.

A: I'm posting the answer that I found in the dark corners of NPM ;-).
The following package does exactly what I needed, which was to extract the full string of the attribute 'd' in the svg path.
Here it is:
npm: extract-svg-path

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Sara Reeves, of Buchanan Dam and a Fort Croghan volunteer, explains how apples were peeled using an antique peeler. Settlers during the 1850s peeled apples for pies, jellies or vinegars.
Fredericksburg Middle School seventh grader Lauren Monaco learns how to wash clothes using an old wash board as part of Fort Martin Scott Days.
Jonathan and Josiah Hoskins, left, learn how to fire a canon from interpreter Mike Johnson, of Fredericksburg, at Fort Martin Scott on Friday.
Learning to use antique irons was Heidi Freels, of Keller. Fort Martin Scott Days, a living history event, allowed visitors to learn what life was like in the 1850s.


This entry was posted in Epistemology / Knowledge, History of Ideas, Philosophy, Reviews & Recommendations, Science, Written by Guests and tagged Antonio Demasio, Baruch Spinoza, Benedict de Spinoza, Cause and Effect, Charles M. Saunders, Crick and Watson, DNA, emotion, Emotions, Empiricism, Health Care, Healthcare, Materialism, Medical Diagnosis, Metaphysics, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, psychology, Science, Spinoza, Thinking. Bookmark the permalink.
← Happy Birthday, H.P. Grice!


This listing is for a sweet, Project X HZRDUS Yellow 75 6.0 stiff flex fairway shaft with a Ping G30 Adapter offering up to 2 of adjustability in your Ping G30, G400, or G driver head. Shaft is just about 42 3/16" and will play just about 43" inches with your Ping G30, G400, or G fairway head. The shaft is in pretty good shape with just normal bag wear in the form of nicks, scuffs, scrapes, and scratches. The grip is a new, black/white DTG TOur Velvet 360 style grip. Please feel free to ask any questions and thanks for looking.
The item "Project X HZRDUS Yellow 75 6.0 Stiff Flex Fairway Shaft Ping G30 Tip G G400" is in sale since Saturday, September 15, 2018. This item is in the category "Sporting Goods\Golf\Golf Club Components\Golf Club Shafts". The seller is "johnv928" and is located in Flagstaff, Arizona.


Take advantage of this high-end HDMI 960H Full D1 DVR Digital Video Recorder CCTV System. Live stream and Playback on real-time 30fps thanks to HDMI ports integration. Enjoy 30% resolution improvement than traditional CCTV DVR. Motion alert, USB, timer, network backup, PTZ connection, 2-way Audio. Next day delivery.
Take advantage of this high end HDMI 960H Full D1 DVR Digital Video Recorder CCTV System. Shop our Digital Video Recorders, discover the multiple advanced features designed to give you a sense of security. Live streaming, remote access, playback, backing up your data, motion detection or email notification all available with our high end collection.


text:
Daily Ratings & News for Stamps.com
Complete the form below to receive the latest headlines and analysts' recommendations for Stamps.com with our free daily email newsletter:
Analysts Anticipate Secoo Holding Ltd – (NASDAQ:SECO) to Post $0.19 Earnings Per Share
Zacks: Resideo Technologies Inc (NYSE:REZI) Given $27.33 Consensus Target Price by Brokerages
CommVault Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLT) Expected to Post Quarterly Sales of $170.30 Million
Intelligent Trading Foundation Trading Down 34.7% Over Last 7 Days (ITT)
MKS Instruments, Inc. (NASDAQ:MKSI) Expected to Announce Quarterly Sales of $487.37 Million
Delcath Systems (OTCMKTS:DCTH) Stock Price Down 11.3%
Stamps.com (STMP) Cut to Strong Sell at BidaskClub
Posted by Austin De'Marion on Apr 16th, 2019
Stamps.com (NASDAQ:STMP) was downgraded by research analysts at BidaskClub from a "sell" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a note issued to investors on Tuesday, BidAskClub reports.
STMP has been the topic of a number of other reports. Zacks Investment Research downgraded shares of Stamps.com from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 13th. ValuEngine upgraded shares of Stamps.com from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Monday, January 7th. Maxim Group upgraded shares of Stamps.com from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $98.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Roth Capital downgraded shares of Stamps.com from a "buy" rating to a "sell" rating and set a $78.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Friday, February 22nd. Finally, Craig Hallum reduced their price target on shares of Stamps.com from $265.00 to $125.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 22nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. The company presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $122.83.
Get Stamps.com alerts:
STMP opened at $76.60 on Tuesday. Stamps.com has a 1-year low of $76.19 and a 1-year high of $285.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 1.52 and a current ratio of 1.52. The company has a market capitalization of $1.39 billion, a PE ratio of 7.78, a P/E/G ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 0.38.
Stamps.com (NASDAQ:STMP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 21st. The software maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.90 by $0.83. Stamps.com had a net margin of 28.73% and a return on equity of 30.75%. The company had revenue of $170.23 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $159.99 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $4.68 EPS. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 28.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Stamps.com will post 3.95 earnings per share for the current year.
In related news, insider Amine Khechfe sold 1,200 shares of Stamps.com stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.15, for a total transaction of $222,180.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Mohan P. Ananda sold 1,000 shares of Stamps.com stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $93,320.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 13,400 shares of company stock worth $2,555,500. 6.17% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Stamps.com by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,728,469 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $390,979,000 after acquiring an additional 15,545 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc increased its stake in shares of Stamps.com by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc now owns 1,728,469 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $390,979,000 after acquiring an additional 15,545 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley increased its stake in shares of Stamps.com by 49.5% in the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 740,945 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $167,602,000 after acquiring an additional 245,300 shares in the last quarter. SQN Investors LP increased its stake in shares of Stamps.com by 91.9% in the 4th quarter. SQN Investors LP now owns 599,282 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $93,272,000 after acquiring an additional 287,070 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Stamps.com by 16.9% in the 4th quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC now owns 447,674 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $69,676,000 after acquiring an additional 64,596 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.48% of the company's stock.
Stamps.com Company Profile
Stamps.com Inc provides Internet-based mailing and shipping solutions in the United States and Europe. The company offers mailing and shipping solutions to mail and ship various mail pieces and packages through the United States Postal Service (USPS) under the Stamps.com and Endicia brands. Its solutions support various USPS mail classes, including First Class Mail, Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Media Mail, Parcel Select, and others.
Featured Story: Is the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) still relevant?
Receive News & Ratings for Stamps.com Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Stamps.com and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
8X8 (EGHT) Lifted to Strong-Buy at BidaskClub
BidaskClub Downgrades Acorda Therapeutics (ACOR) to Strong Sell
City of London Investment Trust plc to Issue Dividend of GBX 4.75
World Acceptance Corp. Expected to Announce Quarterly Sales of $131.71 Million
Analysts Expect The Coca-Cola Co Will Announce Earnings of $0.62 Per Share
Zacks: Brokerages Anticipate Domtar Corp Will Announce Quarterly Sales of $1.39 Billion
The ChampCoin Price Down 19.6% Over Last Week
Zacks Investment Research Upgrades Blackline to "Buy"


Sony just released the first part of their Super Bowl commercial for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. We get a peak at some new footage of Spider-Man, Electro, Green Golbin, and Rhino. The clip ends with a cliff hanger involving Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy. Tune into the big game on Sunday to catch the full one minute commercial. I'll have it for you here on Spider-Man News too!


text:
Perfidy and terror in the slaying of Soleimani
Climate paralysis and Morrison's fall
Impeached Trump is the symptom, not the cause
Human rights for the climate 'apocalypse'
"As the light dimmed, I was struck by a thrilling realisation: I could carry this miraculous event with me wherever I went."
Celeste Liddle
"Could we go just one day without having to deal with white ignorance?"
Cristy Clark
"Human rights are often legitimately criticised as elite liberal tools that work to uphold the status quo, but we need them right now more than ever."
"Going to seek medical help shouldn't compound marginalised people's trauma."
Justin Glyn
Trump had asked the Iraqis to mediate with the Iranians and Soleimani, one of Iran's most respected generals and emissaries, was there for the purpose. If this is true, and no-one from the US side has denied it, this was that most ancient of perfidies — a murder under a flag of parley.
Strategic blundering: Killing Soleimani
With the killing of Soleimani, the US has signalled a redrawing of accepted lines in international combat and diplomacy. Most significantly, the killing will be a lightning rod for attacks this decision was meant to prevent even as it assists Iranian policy in expelling any vestige of US influence in Iraq and the broader Middle East.
Tim Hutton
Here is why the Morrison government was so slow off the mark: to acknowledge the unprecedented nature of these fires is to concede that there is something happening to the climate. The only way to downplay the reality of climate change, was to downplay the severity of the fires themselves.
trending on eureka street
Katelyn Jones
Christmas in a time of fire
Allies keeping faith despite Medevac blow
In a turn of events predicted since he announced his candidacy for President, Donald Trump has been impeached. But this impeachment, and even Trump's removal from office, will do nothing to quell the reality that the world is actively electing aggressively oppressive candidates, not only despite their violence, but also because of it.
Tired and world weary, the British electorate went to the polls. Rarely in history can there have been such an assemblage of unelectable or disappointing types standing for office or trying to remain in it. It proved to be an ugly boredom, though it was uglier for some than others.
Outside, a Martian-red haze kisses the windows. An ode to the future perhaps. Most of the people present are already aware of the Medevac repeal decision. The room is heavy with silence, the mood is sombre, but far from resigned. We want change, and are willing to have a crack at demanding it.
Disability RC must reckon with education
Jane Britt
From the minute we enter the education system, we experience barriers. We are segregated when we arrive at primary school, placed in 'special' units or classes. Here our needs are subsumed into the collective needs of the group. From the outset our educational outcomes are at the whim of the people who are in the position of power.
2019 Christmas Raffle winners
The Society of Jesus in Victoria, Jesuit Communications Christmas Raffle 2019 Drawn on Thursday 5 December 2019 (Permit No 10590/19). Congratulations to the winners: 1st prize: L. Daphne, VIC; 2nd prize: A. Curran, Qld; 3rd prize: D. Sasse, Vic. All winners have been notified directly.
This year the contrast between the original story of Christmas and its Australian circumstances has cut even deeper. Bushfires have taken lives, destroyed properties and spread smoke and ash over cities. If the theme of the first Christmas was one of hope and joy, behind the bushfires this year lurks anxiety about the future of the world.
Movement for Church renewal keeps growing
John Warhurst
What's going on within the Catholic Church always matters more widely given its size and power. Lay participation in leadership, especially of women, is a major social issue. Observers of social trends should watch this space for its wider public policy implications.
Mike Bowden
This would not be accepted by the extremist Catholics who threw an Amazonian indigenous icon of a pregnant indigenous woman into the Tiber River. But the Pope is right to honour the prior religious practises of the Amazonians, just as the Bishop of Darwin supports a process that has seen the development of Altyerre-Catholicism.
Climate action requires unity not division
The Liberals and Nationals have to find a way forward that balances the interests of their supporters with serving the national good. Old arguments and ideological stands need to be re-examined. The PM needs to enable a real debate.
Toxic air, dwindling water supplies, extreme heat: it's bleak stuff. And yet, on Sunday, COP25 finished with very little progress. Our planet will warm to +3C or higher, unless we also do something about the vested interests that continue to profit from our demise. And they aren't going to give up their power (or profits) just because we ask nicely.
The power of gift-giving without the waste
As we pare back more and more, I have started to realise that there is a risk in taking things too far. The consumer orgy of the past may have been unsightly, but gift giving itself also serves a valuable social function, and we may be at risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Barry Gittins
Dance and music are as innate as breathing. Babies dance while in the womb, and the Yuletide can be prime time for 'playing music, singing and dancing [as a] healthy outlet for their emotions'. As William Stafford observed, kids dance 'before they learn there is anything that isn't music'.
โปรโมชั่น โบนัส 100 % กีฬา


text:
Sixth Grade Science resources
Introduction to earth science Topic
Introduction to earth science
Science, Grade 6
Provides a quick overview of the topic selected!
Practice and review the topic selected with illustrated flash cards!
Assess students' understanding of the topic selected!
Print illustrated worksheets!
Engage students with interactive games.
Study Guide Introduction to earth science Science, Grade 6
INTRODUCTION TO EARTH SCIENCE Geology: The Study of the Earth "Geology" is a general term used to refer to the study of the Earth. The field of Geology includes a number of specialized disciplines including: • Mineralogy - the study of minerals • Paleontology - the study of fossils • Petrology - the study of rocks • Geophysics - the study of the physics of the Earth and its atmosphere, which includes the last three listed here • Meteorology - the study of weather and weather prediction • Seismology - the study of earthquakes, and • Volcanology - the study of volcanoes, to name a few. The fields of astronomy and planetary sciences also use the knowledge and techniques of geology since geological concepts are used to understand the origins and nature of stars, planets, the solar system, and the universe. Many Related Areas of Study Geology is a very broad field of study. Each specialty complements the others. Each specialty, though, is so complex that it demands special focus by scientists. Consequently, mineralogists specialize in minerals, their forms, properties, formations, relationships, and uses. Seismologists specialize in the geophysics related to earthquakes, why they happen and when, how rock responds to earthquakes, and the damage they can create. Seismologists work closely with engineers to design buildings and structures that are less vulnerable to earthquake damage. Meteorologists focus their study on the weather and the various components that affect weather systems. These are but a few examples. When a reference is made to "Geology" or "Earth Sciences" (as it is sometimes called), it is important to understand how complex this group of sciences is. Lesson Checkpoint: Why are there so many Earth Science specialties in the field of Geology? © Copyright NewPath Learning. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for the purchaser to print copies for non-commercial educational purposes only. Visit us at www.NewPathLearning.com.
As scientific inquiry develops and becomes increasingly complex, geologists need to have a broad scientific background. Today geologists are benefitted by having training in biology, chemistry, physics, computer sciences, and other scientific fields. There is even now a highly specialized field called Geological Forensics in which geological information is gathered and interpreted to determine what factors influenced past geological events and how these events impacted people, their homes, and their businesses. For instance, a significant landslide in California late in 2007 destroyed a number of expensive homes built on a terraced hillside. Geological forensic scientists determined that the landslide was the result of leaking water and sewer pipes, which weakened the dirt supporting the homes and roads. Scientific Inquiry As in all other sciences, geologists follow the scientific method. Initial questions are asked and hypotheses are drawn. The hypotheses are tested in a manner that can be repeated by other scientists to verify and/or challenge the conclusions ultimately made. Eventually the information is compiled and studied, final conclusions are made, and the material is published. This gives the wider scientific community a chance to review the work, study the results, and even repeat the experiments to determine whether the initial conclusions are indeed valid and accurate. Lesson Checkpoint: Why Do Geologists Follow the Scientific Method? © Copyright NewPath Learning. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for the purchaser to print copies for non-commercial educational purposes only. Visit us at www.NewPathLearning.com.
A Dynamic and Growing Science Since the 1960's, the study of Earth Science has developed and advanced dramatically. The theory of plate tectonics in particular has revolutionized the understanding of many parts of the science of geology. The concept that pieces of the Earth's crust are moving relative to one another has provided explanations for the presence of deep sea mountains and trenches, earthquakes, volcanoes, continental mountains, and more. Earthquakes are explained by the motion of pieces of the crust against each other due to the pressures of the moving plates. The "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific Ocean basin is a collection of volcanoes and associated earthquakes caused by plate tectonics. Before the plate tectonic theory was developed, geologists believed that mountains formed as the molten Earth cooled. As it cooled, the crust buckled and folded. We now know that mountains like the Himalayas were formed by the forces of two continental plates colliding with each other. In addition, advancements in other sciences like biology, chemistry, and physics have led to advancements in paleontology and life science, geochemistry and the petroleum industry, and geophysics. Advancements in geophysics have helped engineers design buildings, roads, and other structures that are better able to withstand an earthquake. This saves buildings, resources, and, more importantly, lives. Geologists have even discovered that technologies developed for one science have important applications in Earth Science. For example, paleontologists are using CAT Scan machines, which are used to see inside humans, to see "inside" fossils. This has led to discoveries about the structures and function of fossilized remains that in turn help paleontologists understand ancient ecosystems. Lessons learned from ancient ecosystems can help us better understand modern ecosystems as well. The development of deep sea submersibles has allowed geologists to literally visit the deepest portions of the ocean floor which has increased our understanding of sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics. Lesson Checkpoint: What recently developed geological theory has changed how we understand earthquakes? © Copyright NewPath Learning. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for the purchaser to print copies for non-commercial educational purposes only. Visit us at www.NewPathLearning.com.
The Various Branches of Earth Science In the early years of Earth Science, geologists focused their studies exclusively on the Earth, in particular its rocks and minerals. Today, "geology" (which means "words about the Earth") is more commonly referred to as "Earth Science" because the field has grown to include the study of weather (meteorology) and the planets, stars and our universe as a whole (astronomy). Increased knowledge combined with rapidly improving computer capabilities has allowed not only travel to distant planets but also a more precise understanding of the atmosphere around our home planet. Meteorologists are able to analyze the many factors involved in creating weather and are quite capable of accurately predicting temperature, precipitation, wind speeds and directions, and other aspects of our daily weather. Since the 1970's, the United States and the former Soviet Union have sent space probes, telescopes, and a variety of machines to the planets, moons, and asteroids in our universe. Incredible images of forming galaxies, exploding stars, red dwarfs, and supernovae have expanded our knowledge of how our universe and the planet Earth formed. We have landed on Mars and sampled the rocks and minerals of the "Red Planet." We have collected pictures of the surface of Mars and its geological formations. We have even discovered evidence that suggests there was, and maybe still is, water on Mars. © Copyright NewPath Learning. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for the purchaser to print copies for non-commercial educational purposes only. Visit us at www.NewPathLearning.com.


Our Life Down Unda: december 2014 recap.
At about 4.5 months, Spencer started eating solids. Even though you can't tell in this photo, he actually took eating on like a champ! The kid loves food.
Kisses from my big boy in between 2 year old tantrums. It was like he knew exactly what I needed at that moment to get me through the day. Love this boy with all my heart!
Doing a little bit of Christmas shopping with mommy. He takes his job very seriously!
A hot December afternoon can only mean one thing... water play in the backyard.
Lachlan impatiently waiting for his turn at the Christmas gift exchange. Seems two year olds don't understanding taking turns when it comes to gifts... or anything for that matter, haha.
Toby and his own little Christmas tree.
He loves my "cooking" ;) Carrots, pumpkin, apple, pear and peaches so far.
Handmade Christmas cards for Lahclan's teachers... and Target gift cards (because we all know that is what they really want!
Watching his first ever kiddie movie. Frozen.
Spencer chowing down on a baby rusk and wearing 9 month size shorts!?!?
$2 popsicle mold + 1/3 water + 2/3 apple juice + freezer = perfect summer afternoon treat!
ps. looking soooo much like Max here!
Spencer's play date with Mason.
Baby food makin'. Feels like I was JUST doing this for Lachlan.
Passport time for the littlest de Baugy!
Making Mom's famous corn and green bean casserole for Christmas lunch.
Up next... our Fraser Island Adventure and an adventure it was!
spencer james // five months.