I haven't even looked at my photos yet.
A couple of weeks ago we piled the kids, a twelve-pack of Diet Coke and a bag of snacks into the car, then drove west to pursue the American Dream of visiting the Grand Canyon. En route, we stopped by the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, less known but still awesome national treasures I'm pleased our government is smart enough to own and preserve.
That day, overlooking her first vista of the Painted Desert--purple to pink pyramids stacked by time--my daughter drew a breath and wondered if the Canyon could possibly compare to this. "It's breathtaking," I swear my ten-year-old said, breathing deeply. (She's working on irony.) "Wait," I said, both a tease and a promise.
Turns out the canyon was visited by the Spanish explorers way back in the 1500s, guys whose names you once heard in Western Civ and maybe forgot once exams were over. Mistrusted by the local Indians (duh), they were led on long and nearly fruitless journeys to finally see the canyon depths--and quickly realizing the difficulty descension would require, and the likely lack of gold within (and how would you ever get it out?), they discarded one of the Seven Wonders of the World as more or less useless land, and never bothered to return.
We felt differently. Did it possibly compare? You bet it did. And when she first approached the canyon's edge and peered down into its mile depth, my little girl's breath really was taken away and it was long seconds before I heard her wondering exhale.
And that's one way to keep things going in books, too. Take your reader someplace new, and dazzle them. Then take it to the next level, to something so big it can't even be comprehended. And then drop the unexpected on them.
I don't recommend having your house broken into, not at all, but life sometimes provides a great example to keeping your story fresh. I heard something just like this at the first conference I ever attended. I can't say I thought about that as I rushed to check what the intruders had taken (thankfully, very little; cops speculated they got spooked and cut it short), I did later. Raise the stakes, keep things surprising, fresh, fresh, fresh.
Finding Grandpa Hamming's name on the wall at Ellis Island.
When the time came to decide on a baby name--actually three times for us--my husband and I put a lot of time and thought into the task at hand. Our firstborn was named Jacob after my great-grandfather, who was from Holland (although we stuck with the hard J pronunciation and not the Y plus the throaty ACH-sound the Dutch use for A). When his brother came along, a little more discussion ensued. I wanted to name him Wilson for my mother's family, but we weren't sure how he would like it, so my husband proposed Benjamin instead. "It's a good golfing name ... Ben Hogan ... Ben Crenshaw," he argued. (Plus Tim Allen's show was popular then, and it was hard not to think about neighbor Wilson with his creepy over-the-fence voyeurism.) And so, second son was christened Benjamin Wilson.
Naming the children took a lot of thought. Would Mia be too cutesy as an adult? Yes, I thought, and therefore insisted the name on her birth certificate be Amelia, so she had options later. Could I have named either of my sons Carl or Don or Mark? Not after a former boyfriend! And there are other names I have very strong emotions tied to, people I've known who have forever flavored the way a name tastes on my tongue.
Naming a character in a book should be a simple process, right? Hardly! Your characters will live on forever in your mind and hopefully forever on the pages of your book, so their names have to fit them to a T. It would be nice if you could give them names that almost become branded (think Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Skeeter in The Help); names that will conjure up images whenever anyone says them aloud.
But you also have to think about how a name is pronounced. Julie ran into this recently with a character she had named in her story. After handing out some drafts to first readers, she realized her main character's name was being pronounced three different ways. Not a problem, maybe, since it's a book, but what happens when she's at an event and mentions the name aloud--the way she meant for it to sound--and someone in the crowd realizes she's been hearing it differently in her mind. Or when the audio book is recorded and the name sounds different than a reader might have originally thought it did.
I told Julie about the time I picked up Lisey's Story, by Stephen King, and had it in my mind I was going to read about Lisey (Lye-see). Then on page one, King tells me her name rhymes with Cee-Cee. No, it doesn't, I thought. From then on, as I read the book, it tripped me up. I caught myself hearing "Lye-see" and then mentally correcting myself that it was really "Lee-Cee" and I ended up setting the book aside. Weird? Maybe, but for me it annoyed me too much.
Which might be good reason for me to not read fantasy. Authors make up names like Oorfene and Meriadoc Brandybuck and either don't care if we know how they're pronounced or assume we can hear them read as they do.
But a character's name is important and you, the author, get both the privilege of naming rights and the responsibility of making his or her name suit the character. I can't imagine Scout having been a Lacey or Skeeter having been a Wilma. Not that there's anything wrong with either--they just wouldn't have suited their characters' personalities.
If you want an American name that's suited to the era in which you are writing, a great source is the Social Security Administration's website. Type in the year the character might have been born, and then choose how many you want to see. If you want a common name, pick from the top ten. Looking for something a little more obscure, yet timely? Then you can set your search to include the top 1000 and choose a name from the bottom of the list.
Make sure you give some thought to your characters' names and avoid choosing something too similar to someone you know. We all base characters on people who have crossed our paths, but it's best to leave them wondering than for someone to find his or her name (or a slight variation of) repeated in your novel.
Beginning a novel is like falling in love. There is music on the breeze, sleeplessness when you should rest, heart palpitations when sitting perfectly still. It is The Fog--a definite and solid yet shimmering love cloud that permeates your world and your brain and your pen. You write fast. You are filled with amazement at the possibilities contained within one blank and black notebook. You write your name on the first page--your full name, in neat script--and you date it. Then, although slightly embarrassed but without shame, you write: THE NOVEL. Twenty thousand words later, it is all garbage and you know it. Your black notebook is now full of smudged pencil markings you call 'words' and doodles and family trees and city maps you created from the air. It was brilliant once. You were as well. Yet now, at the twenty thousand word mark, it is trash and you are ashamed that you started this odyssey by calling it THE NOVEL. And so you push it into a drawer, or under your bed, or you hide it from yourself in the old and musty travel trunk with fabric lining that was your grandfather's. Hemingway had a trunk like this. Yet you are no Hemingway.
Some time later--but not much--a character from that piece of refuse knocks on your subconscious. Maybe she appears in a dream, wanting to know the rest of her own story. Maybe you are sitting on a plane and the man next to you is mysteriously familiar, and you think, "Ah, yes. That is the face of my hero that I drew in words in that old black notebook." You go looking for it. When you can't find it, you make notes on beverage napkins in restaurants to remind yourself of the next thing that happens in your story. You stuff the pieces of paper in your Bible, or in your purse, or in your wallet. When you find the notes again, you see it as a sign and begin looking in earnest for the tattered and weary notebook that you discarded in haste.
You find it. It is not crap, as you had convinced yourself before. Yet it isn't brilliant either. It could be. You begin writing again, and this time, you type it. It seems more real this way, how you can measure the weight of it in word count and page numbers and margin distances. You password protect the file, because you can. Because someone might read it. Yet you continue on, pounding out words in the middle of the night. You drink coffee, and sometimes Chardonnay. And you type.
At some point, maybe at 50,000 words, you take a vacation by yourself to write. A young waiter in an ocean-side cafe asks you what you do and what brings you here because he says that to everyone and you simply tell him you are a writer. Yet you do not feel like one, really. Maybe saying it will make it true. You churn out more words and then you wake up one morning and realize that you know how the story will end. You feel as if maybe you are a real writer after all because you have written 90,000 words and they all make sense and come together like the continents would if you removed the oceans. It is all there. Right in front of you.
Does this make you a writer, the years and failures and revisions and hopefulness? Or were you a writer all along, chipping away at the granite to reveal a work of art that you didn't know was there? Were you a writer when you started your journey? Or did it happen when you hit the 20,000 word wall? Maybe it happened when you told the waiter in Key West that it was true. Or maybe now, now that it is complete, you are real.
An agent doesn't make you a writer. Neither does a publishing house, or your mother's approval, or the fact that you have a trunk like Hemingway. If you write, you are a writer. Talking about it doesn't make it so.
So you want to be a writer? Write. Take the doubt and fear and brilliance and turn it into something that no one can craft but you.
Last week I had the unexpected pleasure of reading Julie's manuscript (title in flux!). She asked me to read it straight through, to skip the line edit and focus on inconsistencies, on story and logic issues. As someone who is heavy-handed with the track changes feature, I worried that I'd be unable to ignore the small stuff. I printed it out, single space no less, to keep myself from marking it up too much. But as I read, I hardly had time to think about small stuff (there wasn't any, by the way), because the story flowed so well, the characters spoke so clearly.
She said it was her first draft, but surely she was exaggerating. When I read the last lines, I cried. Not only at the beautiful ending, at the unpredictable and touching tale, but at the absolute certainty that this was the book that would get her an agent and a publishing deal.
I was so excited when I finished, I texted her right away to tell her. "OMG!! I just finished and BURST into tears! You've done it!" (Apparently I write a lot of !! when I'm excited).
Rather than curl up in a jealous ball as I expected I'd do (after all, I'm human, and a yet-to-be published writer), reading Julie's manuscript-soon-to-be-book motivated me. I am dangerously close to finishing my WIP. Kim is encouraging me by keeping up with her critique as fast as I can send her pages, despite her own story aching to get out and two young children demanding her time. Sure I hope this manuscript will be "the one" for me. Even if it's not, I have the support of a unique group of women who cheer one another on, even when others may struggle.
I am thrilled that I get to share Julie's excitement, to be on hand for the queries, the requests, the agonizing decision to choose an agent from the many clamoring to represent her, the joy at hearing her manuscript sell at auction.
Perhaps I'm being over-dramatic, but I'm not the only one who felt this way. Three of us read her book within the last week and we all agreed. This is the one, the one that proves her dream, our dreams, are not unreachable.
You ever have one of those days? Of course you have. We all have. And I had one today.
Oh, it's not so bad, really, as bad stuff goes. Just a pile of things adding up to a big bad case of the bummers. Times like this, it's good to recall how much better off I really am than so many others, which is why it's heartening to read the previous post and embrace gratitude.
So take another read of Pamela's post, and follow her advice. I'll be picking up my pen myself and jotting down some thanks. Because even when things aren't pinky-perfect, they are still pretty good, and so far they've always gotten better again, and it's days like today that help us savor the days that aren't.
This morning my alarm goes off, and my first thought is--wow, it's pretty dark. (Spring forward, I urge my brain.) My second thought is--I'm kinda hungry. As I lie here, in the quiet comfort of my bed, my mind wanders to the people in Japan who are without food to eat or clean water to drink and quickly, thoughts of what I might have for breakfast morph into an overwhelming sense of gratitude that my kitchen is just a short walk away. That I've recently been to the grocery and have a few options for breakfast. That my entire family is safe and accounted for. I close my eyes and say a quick prayer of thanks along with a request to keep those across the globe safe as they pick through the remnants of their lives.
As I turn my head, I see a stack of papers on the antique sewing machine cabinet beside my bed--the manuscript I read just before falling asleep. Again, I think of how grateful I am to have friends who write amazing stories that they trust me to read and respect my opinions. I remember then about my turn to post on this blog today and that I often take for granted what a privilege it is to be able to write about whatever I feel without worrying that I might be jailed for my opinions.
Just this week I read about Tal al-Mallouhi, a young Syrian woman--a blogger, poet and student, who was charged with disclosing secret information to a foreign country in her blog entries and, according to her Facebook page, was arrested in December of 2009 by the officials of the Syrian dictatorial regime and nobody knows her whereabouts. It is believed that Tal was killed after very long hours of torture and interrogation. Thoughts of her ultimate sacrifice to tell others what she felt was so important make me realize how much I take for granted and how precious and finite our time on earth really is.
And so, today, I challenge you to a writing assignment. I'd like for you to join me in thanking someone who has furthered your writing journey. Possibly she is a teacher who put an extra star on a short story along with a 'well done' comment that made your heart soar. Maybe he is a friend who tells you often and always how wonderful your writings are. Or perhaps your mom is your biggest cheerleader--the one who always knew you'd grow up to be a success.
No emails allowed. Pull out a pen and paper and take the time to show your gratitude to someone who cares about you. Give them the gift of a note they can read and reread as many times as they'd like. Give back a little to someone who encouraged you a lot.
I first met Pamela Hammonds, Elizabeth Lynd and Joan Mora (three of the fabulous writers here on What Women Write) at the DFW Writer's Conference in February, 2009. Here is an archived post from that first weekend with my impression of my new friends and my terror at entering the world of "real writers." I've come a long way, and still have a long way to go. Just goes to show how important--and long lasting--a community of writers can be. Enjoy!
I had the opportunity to attend my first writer's conference this weekend. Saturday night, after a full day of pitch practice, seminars, and trying-not-to-look-like-the-new-girl, I was in a near panic about my upcoming 10-minute session on Sunday morning with an agent to discuss my novel-in-progress.
Practicing your pitch feels like the sales training I endure in my real life: What is your elevator pitch? How can you summarize your product (book) in 25 words or less? Can you do it in 250 words? Can you sell it to an agent?
I decided, after writing it--tearing it up, writing, scribbling it out--that I WAS NOT READY. So I decided to forego my agent pitch. I decided to opt out.
And then, Sunday morning, I met Pamela. She writes for a living. She was pitching her completed novel, and it's her second novel. She pitched it to the agent, and he asked for the first two chapters. First steps toward success!
Now I must digress, because I have never met a full blown Pamela, just Pams. Secondly, my childhood imaginary friend was named Pamela: Pamela Allen, to be exact. Pamela Allen cleaned my room, minded my mother, washed behind my ears, and was the author of my short stories, many done in crayon. Pamela Allen was the perfect me, while I was the normal me. Not perfect.
The real Pamela I met Sunday introduced me to her friends, calmed my nerves, and gave me pointers on my pitch. I decided to talk to the agent after all. Pamela, much like my old childhood imaginary friend, gave me comfort.
My children do not have imaginary friends. My oldest daughter Parker is too literal for such nonsense, and always has been. Instead of an imaginary friend for comfort, she has her favorite pair of toe-socks, which she named her "woobeesah." I asked Pey, my little one, if, by chance, she had an imaginary friend. She looked puzzled. "No, Mommy, but I do have Lion!" Lion, a gift from my father to her three years ago, goes everywhere with Pey, including her sleepover Saturday night with our best friends across the street. A sleepover, I must add, that Pey was not so sure about. What if she missed her Mommy? What if it stormed? Could she come home, she asked, if she had a bad dream in the middle of the night?
No, I had answered her. But she could come home before they went to sleep if she thought it was a better idea.
So, of course, at 10:40 p.m., my husband and I heard a soft tap on the front door. Standing there, in a yellow nightie with Lion under one arm and her suitcase under the other, was Pey. My neighbor Kimberly stood at the end of the drive, smiling and waving to me in the dark. My little Pey, my tough, independent Pey. She looked up at me with her big green eyes. "Well, I missed you, Mommy," she said matter-of-factly, and then climbed into our bed and promptly fell asleep, Lion in the crook of her arm, her hand tucked sweetly into mine. Comfort.
Sometimes, when we are not ready, it's good to find the comfort of the familiar.
And it all made me think about comfort, and how much we crave and need it--especially when life is uncertain or we are out of our element. Parker has socks. Pey has Lion. I had Pamela Allen. And Sunday, I had the comfortable support from a new network of writers. I did meet with the agent, and I stumbled through a rambling description of my work in progress. I did make new friends. I did learn about where I need to go with my novel (the agent wants to see it, by the way). And in the end, it was all quite comfortable.
Whether it's socks, an imaginary friend, a Lion, or a real friend, comfort is one thing I suppose we never get too old for. And I, for one, am thankful for it.
Recently, I was asked if our group would be interested in attending the screening of the new Focus Features Jane Eyre film. Without exception, we jumped on it! I mentioned that we probably had blog friends who might be interested, too, so was excited to find several extra passes in the package.
We are excited to be able to give away several free passes to a screening of the movie in Dallas, compliments of Focus Features.
We'll send out at least five passes for two to the screening, to be selected at random from the qualifying entries after 5 p.m. Central Standard Time, Wednesday, March 9.
The screening will be Thursday, March 17, at the Studio Movie Grill Dallas (Royal @ 75, 11170 N. Central Expwy).
To what Bronte or Austen character can you most relate?
I'm a fan of both Emily and Charlotte (haven't read Anne, but I need to remedy that) and Jane. Really depends on my mood. Brontés for melodrama and heartache and Jane Austen for a little bit of everything: humor, family drama, manners, issues of circumstance, and lots of love—unrequited, forbidden, feigned, mistaken, and of course, true. I'd have to choose Elizabeth Bennet, because I'm a bit too candid sometimes. I only wish I had her quick wit. Looking forward to our big night at the movies!
I'm an Austen fan, definitely. Not only is she my favorite writer, I don't really love Bronte at all. As for character—maybe Anne Elliott? Certainly she pulls at my heartstrings, but she also met someone and lost him, and then years later, found him again. We won't be the subject of an enduring love story, but my husband and I did something similar (although his being poor had nothing to do with us not connecting the first go-round).
I did my master's thesis on Jane Eyre as allegory, arguing that one of Charlotte Bronte's favorite books was Pilgrim's Progress and that Jane Eyre follows the same format. The whole St. John part of the novel always bugged me, but it makes perfect sense if it is Jane's Slough of Despond. I love both Bronte and Austen, but I'm more drawn to the raw passion of the Bronte characters, perhaps because I was introduced to them first. I don't know that I actually identify with either Jane or Cathy, though I confess my first love was Mr. Rochester, whom I met at the ripe old age of twelve. I'm still smitten, and have seen every film version ever made, always hoping to see the man I imagined in that role. The worst, in my humble opinion, was William Hurt (a blond American!) in 1996. The best was Toby Stephens, though I'm sure many purists hated the 2006 Masterpiece Theatre version for the highly sensual farewell scene. For me, that scene was right up there with Colin Firth (as Mr. Darcy) diving into the pond at Pemberley.
We'll have to see if Focus Features' Mr. Rochester lives up to Kim's ideal!
So. What about you? Bronte or Austen fan? And which character do you relate to the most?
Winners will be announced here on the blog after 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 9.
Congrats to Pam and Anonymous. Due to low response, we have extras! If you're in the DFW area and would like to go, please email me at julie(at sign)juliekibler.com by Friday and I'll get them in the mail, first come, first served while they last.
For many years I was an unrepentant "pantser" writer. I never did a character sketch or outline unless it was a class requirement. I began composing each of my previous three novels when I heard a voice I couldn't ignore and let that character's story unfold organically. I hoped I had a coherent story in the end. If not, I revised. A lot. I fear that if I unearthed any of those manuscripts now I'd find them to be little more than beautifully phrased meanderings.
When I started writing Knight of the Brush (The Oak Lovers in its nonfiction incarnation) I was forced to take a different approach. Chapter summaries are an essential component of any nonfiction book proposal, and I couldn't write a four hundred page biography without a detailed timeline of main events of the protagonist's life set in the larger context of history.
My old habits proved hard to break, however, mainly because my great-grandfather, Carl Ahrens, proved himself as stubborn in literature as he was in life. He had to have the last say, and I eventually switched the book to fiction to let him. The old chapter summaries have been a waste of hard drive space ever since, though I've consulted the timeline occasionally.
About a year ago a critique partner mentioned she worried my book may becoming rather long for a first novel and asked what my word count was. I had been too busy following my muse to check before, of course, and was horrified to discover I was on track to write a 600 page epic. Click here if you're curious about how I clawed my way out of Word Count Hell the first time.
You might think that exercise would prove a valuable lesson to me, and that I'd impose a little direction from that point on. Sadly, I did not.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, when I discovered The Oak Lovers was over 87,000 words long and I had at least 20,000 left to write.
I took a deep breath and renounced my "pantser" ways.
Why, oh why, had I not done so before? Mapping out the completed part of the book, complete with word counts per scene, instantly revealed a few unsightly bulges. Once I liposuctioned the fat away, I was left with a slimmer, more energetic novel. There's snappy dialogue, conflict galore and (wait for it) a PLOT.
Can you do it in 100,000 words? Close enough.
When will it be done? I hope to type 'The End' in 2011. I'm a compulsive editor so the rough draft is actually draft # 503.
How about you? Are you a 'pantser' or a 'plotter' and how does it work for you?
These were a few lines near the end of last night's episode of Parenthood, one of my current TV favorites. Single mom Sarah Braverman (played by Lauren Graham) has devoted most of her adult life to cleaning up after her now ex-husband and making sure her kids are adjusted and happy in spite of the mess. She chokes up and tears glisten in her eyes as Mark Cyr (played dashingly by John Ritter's son, Jason), her respected friend – and her daughter's English teacher – praises her first attempt at story writing. Genuine, from-the-heart praise. Sarah is finally doing something for herself, and it's working.
We spend a great deal of time talking about the value of critique here at What Women Write, about how much better it makes us as writers even when it hurts. Today, I want to talk about the other kind, because I believe it's valuable, too. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here. I believe at times, it may be more valuable.
The other kind I'm talking about, obviously, is praise.
To be sure, critique that draws our attention to the things we could do better, or to the things at which we fail, is useful and necessary.
Sarah expected that kind of critique from Mark. She went so far as to spout off about how she knew what he was going to say, giving her own modified definition of what we call the sandwich critique – two or three positive things followed by the things that need work followed by a final positive note. Then she proceeded to do what we're always warned not to when facing critique – she couldn't help interrupting when he tried to tell her his thoughts, already prepared with the excuses she thought would explain the shortcomings she assumed he'd list.
When Mark finally got a word in edgewise, Sarah was stunned. I don't know about you, if you saw this episode, but me? I choked up right along with her. Tears threatened my eyes, too.
Because I remember those moments in time. I remember how – as Sarah felt validated by Mark's praise – I felt validated by those who praised my writing early on.
I mentioned in my interview with Barbara O'Neal that the words she gave me during an online class are some of the ones that have kept me going even when I felt like giving up.
At one of my first writers' conferences, the La Jolla Writers Conference, I read some of my early manuscript materials during a group read-and-critique session with Linda Lael Miller, one of the most prolific romance writers around. And one of the most generous. Later, during a quiet moment at the book signing event, she wrote inside the cover of her novel and handed it back to me. She looked me in the eye and said, "And I don't say that to just anybody." She'd written, "Julie, you are very talented." I floated on that for several days.
Right now, I'm waiting on feedback from a few first readers about my recently finished manuscript. A week or two ago, my heart beat a little faster when I opened a text message from one of them – something to this effect (because the message was deleted … sigh): "I think you have really got something this time." And several more sentences where she gave me specific reasons why she was immersed in my story and characters.
When I sit in our infamous retreat sessions with my dear What Women Write friends and hear my voice shake a little while I read, knowing my fellow writers will be tough on me, I also become emotional and "filled up" again when they praise me.
It gave me immense pleasure last week, after reading the first half of Susan's manuscript in a record four hours because I literally couldn't put it down, to send her a short email describing how in awe I was of her novel so far and begging her to finish it soon so I can hear the rest of the story. Sure, there were nitpicky things I could have commented on, but the heart of the story is fabulous. Susan knows I'm not an easy critic, and I meant every word I said.
Of course there are times when praise really is just an empty compliment – someone just trying to be nice. After a few years of riding this pony, I think most of us can tell the difference. And sometimes, that difference is what gives us the fuel to keep on riding this road to publication.
Be wise with your criticism. Be generous with your praise. Be true with both.
These may be the words that give your friend, your daughter, your critique partner, or even a complete stranger a reason to carry on.
Do you have a story you'd like to share about the other kind of critique? We'd love to hear it. Leave it in a comment or write a post and direct us to it in the comment section!


text:
The scientific spur of Pringles
June 2, 2008 Marc Abrahams
The sad yet, in its own commemorative way, triumphant news of the death of Frederick J. Bauer, the man who designed the packaging for Pringles potato chips (and whose ashes were buried in just such a Pringles can?the man ultimately consumed, in his own design) brings to mind two of the great scientific endeavors that involved Pringles potato chips. The chips are famous for being identically shaped ? if you have mapped one Pringles chip, you have mapped them all.
Not long ago, Charles Spence of Oxford University and colleague Massimiliano Zampini ?investigated whether the perception of the crispness and staleness of potato chips can be affected by modifying the sounds produced during the biting action." For details, see our May 23, 2006 Guardian column, and for further details consult the special Fish & Chips issue of the Annals of Improbable Research (or just glance to your right here, to see Dr. Zampini?biting a Pringle?on the magazine cover).
Professor Spence will be appearing at the Cheltenham Science Festival this Wednesday night, June 4, discussing martinis. A gracious man, he will undoubtedly be amenable to discussing Pringles should you ask him. (The Ig Nobel Cabaret happens three nights later, on Saturday, June 7, also at the Cheltenham Science Festival. We do not know whether Professor Spence or his famous single Pringle will be present that evening.)
The other Pringles-related research recalled to mind if the study " The Aerodynamics of Potato Chips" by Scott Sandford et al., published long ago in the very first issue of the Annals of Improbable Research, and reprinted in the book Best of Annals of Improbable Research. Dr. Sandford's team did investigate the aerodynamic properties of Pringles, as well as of other chip types.
(Thanks to investigators Sally Shelton and Mary Kroner for bringing Mr. Baur's historic passing to our attention.)
Improbable Investigators, Research News
Solution to Last Issue?s Puzzler
Taste of cyanide

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Calling a method on Session Bean from POJO? Given only the fully qualified class name/interface name of the Session Bean, is it possible to instantiate call a method on it from a POJO?
If yes, how?
Thanks,
TheLameProgrammer

A: Since EJB3.0 a session bean is a POJO as well, so you could instatiate it as any other class by
MyEJB ejb = new MyEJB();
But as Peter Lawrey pointed out correctly, this should be done by an application server.
In order to answer your question, you should provide more details, what you plan to do and what you have come up with so far.
PS: And allthough you name yourself lame, you should work on your accept rate...

A: see Accessing Enterprise Beans

Accessing Local Enterprise Beans Using the No-Interface View
  Client access to an enterprise bean that exposes a local, no-interface view is accomplished through either dependency injection
  or JNDI lookup.
To obtain a reference to the no-interface view of an enterprise bean through dependency injection, use the javax.ejb.EJB annotation
  and specify the enterprise bean's implementation class:

@EJB
ExampleBean exampleBean;

To obtain a reference to the no-interface view of an enterprise bean through JNDI lookup, use the javax.naming.InitialContext interface's lookup method:

ExampleBean exampleBean = (ExampleBean)
InitialContext.lookup("java:module/ExampleBean");
exampleBean.yourMethod();

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Singing for me is worshiping and meditating," says Esha Gaur
Hailing from the musical city of Varanasi which also happens to be the oldest city, singer Esha Gaur insists that her foray into the world of music was not a flash-in-pan decision, she says it that it's her love and passion for music which is the prime factor that attracts her to be a part of the prestigious Indian Music Fraternity.
Esha's first rendezvous with singing was as a toddler. She was around four years old when her mother discovered her knack for singing and found her a guru Dr. Parmananad Yadav who brushed up her gifted talent of raags. She was barely five years old when she gave her first performance for Shri Kumar Gandharv who was not only impressed with her singing but also asked her to pursue singing as a career.
She carved her name on the trophy of the very prestigious competition titled "Sangam Kala Group" on both District and National level in Filmi and Non Filmi chapter in 1994. Esha certainly left an impression on Kalyan Ji Anand ji that they invited her to Mumbai to learn singing from them. It was while training in Mumbai, she met superstar Govinda's mother Smt.Nirmala Devi who blessed her and asked her parents to take her back to Varanasi so that she could focus on her music and academic career.
In Varanasi, Esha met Ustaad Ahmad Hussain and Ustaad Mohammad Hussain who took little Esha under their wings and gave her multiple platforms to showcase her talent. In 12th standard Esha took music as a subject and topped by scoring full marks in practicals which is a record till date and topped at District level from Sunbeam Varanasi and did Visharad from Banaras Hindu University.
After school she did her graduation and post graduation in music from SNDT University Churchgate and performed and won lots of awards.
By 2017, Esha has already established herself as a singer. She became the first choice of many music composers, singers and musicians. In 2017 she started her professional career with Ek Astha Aisi Bhi as a background scoring composer with her partner Puneet Dixit who was already working in films and television.
Apart from that she marked her brilliance in multiple projects like- Guddan Tumse Na Ho Payaga ( Zee TV), Namah( Star Plus), Main Bhi Ardhangini ( &TV) , Vidya (Colors), Ram Pyare Sirf Humare ( Zee TV), Amma K Babu Ki Baby ( Star Bharat ), Apna Time Bhi Aayega ( Zee tv ), Excuse Me Madam ( Star Bharat ) , Belan Wali Bahu , Nath, (Dangal ) , Tera Mera Sath Rahe ( Star Bharat ), Aapki Nazron Ne Samjha( Star Plus ) and still counting. Together they created many original songs for TV for the first time in Television industry. They delivered some super hit tracks like Lakeerain and Ishq Nahi Aasan.
They have done a duet with Sonu Nigam which crossed million views and still getting the appreciation for the same from public. They created 8 original songs for a project for the first time in the history of TV and each song got millions of views "We try to do something different from others in every project.
As singer I have sung many songs for TV title tracks and theme songs too, right now we are coming up with some old thumri with new fusion style in a album songs recreated by Puneet and I have sung the tracks and acted too. We shot a song in Jaipur which will soon be ready to release. Right now we are working on 3 TV projects- Aapki Nazron Ne Samjha, Apna Time Bhi Aayaga & Nath"


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Five arrested after Vanderhoof standoff
At 3:30 a.m. on June 19, Vanderhoof's RCMP responded to a weapons complaint on Church Avenue near Victoria Street.
Jun. 20, 2016 5:00 p.m.
Five people were arrested after an overnight standoff this weekend.
At 3:30 a.m. on June 19, Vanderhoof's RCMP responded to a weapons complaint on Church Avenue near Victoria Street, blocking off the residential block in an effort to ensure public safety, Cpl. Wade Harvey said.
The situation was eventually resolved peacefully, as the police remained on the perimeter for five hours. A search warrant was later executed on the property, where evidence was gathered to further the criminal case. Investigation continues.
Woman dead from Cluculz Lake fatal collision
Council: new speed limit in place, pending youth centre closure


Sustainable, warm, super soft and hand made with lots of love. These beanies are hand crafted by skilled workers in Colorado using hand knitting machines from the 1950's.
I bought this for beanie for my five year old daughter who loves beanies. She wears it whenever it is slightly chilly and has said it is great because it doesn't itch!
My wife has washed it several times and it has kept the shape and softness!


Hi everyone!! Today is currently wet and cold and on that note I decided to do a post on my outfits from this Summer many of which were thrifted over the last few months too. Earlier this morning I rearranged my Autumn clothes and put some summer tops away, put hats and seasonal scarves to hand so I now feel confident that the forthcoming season's clothes and accessories are all readily available and raring to go.
I am linking this post to the lovely Patti at NotDeadYetStyle for Visible Monday and also the wonderful Claire Justine for her Creative Monday blog hop.
Wishing you all a really lovely week ahead and I hope the weather isn't too miserable where you are!!
what a lovely post! the weather is grey and cold here, too, have to do a similar one! love all your dresses!
What a lovely summer round-up! I love the black and white print trousers, and of course the ice cream cone : > thanks for sharing with VisibleMonday.
You definitely had some winning looks. Love that you are not afraid of wearing different patterns.
What a lovely retrospective on your summer. Kind of nice to have a record, doesn't it. I think I missed seeing the very bold navy print with the pleated neckline ... beautiful on you. Your very understated style is just the smartest, tastiest approach. You are just cool.
I'd love some of your cooler weather. Not too miserable today, I hope one of the first transition days that take us into fall.
Sharon, so many lovely outfits!
By the way, I also like the blogs' new look.


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Also known as Angel Meadow, the Angel & Greyhound Meadow is a flood-meadow adjoining the River Cherwell just north of Magdalen Bridge, Oxford, England and opposite Magdalen College. It derives its name from the old Angel and Greyhound coaching inns in the High Street, for which it served as a horse-pasture. There is now a pub named the Angel & Greyhound in St Clement's, an interesting example of an inn named after a meadow named after two inns.

The park is very low-lying, and often partially or completely flooded during February and March.

References

Parks and open spaces in Oxford
Water-meadows
Grasslands of the United Kingdom

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Tribal Elders Contemplate Melting Arctic Sea Ice
In the last 50 years, sea-ice cover in the Bering Strait has decreased dramatically. Now indigenous tribes from the area are facing the repercussions of a ravenous fishing industry and a rapidly changing climate.
By Nancy Lord
| October 2012
In "Arctic Voices" (Seven Stories Press, 2012), Subhankar Banerjee brings together first-person narratives from more than thirty prominent activists, writers and researchers who address issues of climate change, resource war and human rights within and around Arctic Alaska.
Cover Courtesy Seven Stories Press
Arctic Alaska has quickly become the most contested land in recent U.S. history. It's home to vast natural resources and a precariously balanced—and highly threatened—ecosystem. In this excerpt from the collection Arctic Voices (Seven Stories Press, 2012), writer Nancy Lord gives an account of a gathering of Yup'ik Elders facing the troubles of thinning ice in the Bering Sea.
In a conference room in Bethel, Alaska, twenty-some Yup'ik Elders from surrounding Bering Sea villages bent their heads over three tables spread with maps. The maps were the result of earlier interviews with these Elders and many others, about their subsistence uses and the habitats important to the fish and animals—walrus, seals, ducks, and beluga whales—on which their families and cultures relied. The Elders, members of the Bering Sea Elders Advisory Group, were checking the maps to see if they agreed with the lines that were drawn, and they were marking more detailed information about the times animals were in particular places, the conditions in which they hunted in different places, and the numbers of animals they had seen in different years.
The Elders were from small-dot places like Kwigillingok, Quinhagak, Mekoryuk, Toksook Bay, and Kipnuk, and they talked together about changes they had seen. Most had long histories of hunting and fishing in the Bering Sea, going back to the time of kayaks and harpoons and knowing how to navigate by reading the ocean currents. They had been told how things were by their own Elders.
At the table with the seal map, the men talked about ice thickness and the danger of hunting on ice that's too thin. In an area they marked for a lot of bearded seals, they noted that, in their experience over many years, the ice is usually thick enough by the end of November. "We stay home when it's not safe," a white-haired man said. Someone else said, "We used to tell the weather by the ice. Now we can't."
The table's scribe asked, "How do you tell the weather now?"
"TV," someone said, and they all laughed.
At another table, David Bill, chairman of the group, tapped his finger on a portion of the fish map. The Elders there were talking about their subsistence catches of salmon and whitefish—anadromous species that live in the Bering Sea and travel up the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers. A couple of important lines were drawn on all the maps. One cutting through the Bering Sea was the International Date Line, dividing US waters from those of Russia. The other, extending from the south end of Kuskokwim Bay in jagged steps around Nunivak Island and then west around St. Matthew Island before straightening north to intercept the date line, the Elders referred to as "the northern boundary." Above the line, put into effect in 2007 as a precautionary interim measure, bottom trawlers shall not go. Even as the Bering Sea warms and fish and ice coverage both move northward, the trawlers—those boats that drag big nets weighted with chains and tires across the ocean floor—may not, for now, follow them.
The line up to which trawling was allowed was already as close as fourteen miles to some of the communities from which the men and women in the room had come, and places they'd marked for their fishing and hunting were in some of those same waters.
The ice is different now, the men with the walrus map were saying. Sometimes the winds blow it farther south, but then it goes out faster in the spring. It's thinner. The ice edge—that's where everything feeds, where they hunt—is different; it's hard to know where it will be and how it will move. They have to travel farther to get to the walrus. That takes more fuel, and they don't know the area as well. It's more dangerous.
In 2011, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, responsible for most fisheries in Alaska's federal waters, was to reconsider the northern boundary, and bottom trawlers might be allowed to follow the fish northward, into waters they haven't previously fished. Those same waters are home to ice-dependent sea mammals like walrus and seals, crabs, threatened species like the spectacled eider, and the Yup'ik, Iñupiaq, and Siberian Yup'ik people who depend in profound ways upon the health and bounty of the northern Bering Sea.
First, though, a large area above the line—called the Northern Bering Sea Research Area—is supposed to have a "research plan." The plan is primarily meant for research into the potential impacts of trawling on bottom habitat, but it is also meant to provide some protection for vulnerable species along with the subsistence needs of the people.
Over at the first table, the woman acting as a facilitator rolled up the maps the group was finished with and laid out another one. "This is a science map," Dorothy Childers explained, making clear the difference between the maps generated from local and traditional knowledge and this new one, which had come from scientific data. "The science maps show where the animals are when you're not hunting them." The particular map was of Alaska's four species of eiders, sea ducks that nest on land but winter at sea. The men studied the map with interest, locating uninhabited St. Matthew Island far to the northwest and placing their hands on the circular shape marking the winter habitat of spectacled eiders. That part of the ocean was far from anywhere they knew and in winter well beyond the travels of any Native people.
Who would have thought that frozen place would also be home to such life? It wasn't until 1995 that researchers tracked a transmitter implanted in a spectacled eider to discover the wintering ground of that species. A flyover and subsequent research confirmed that the entire world's population—some 360,000 spectacled eiders—winter in open-water leads in the otherwise frozen Bering Sea, and in those leads dive to the bottom to feed on clams. Childers set a photo of one of these polynya (Russian for "little field") areas beside the map; the thousands of birds squeezed into it looked like grains of brown sand filling a crack in an otherwise vast expanse of white.
"This needs to be protected," the Elders told Childers. "Let the fish and the rest grow out there."
Childers wrote that down.
"We rely on the sea for subsistence," someone said. "All the sea. We need to take care of it."
It is true that the Bering Sea, that semi-enclosed part of the Pacific Ocean that extends from Alaska to Russia and the Aleutian Islands to the strait also named for explorer Vitus Bering, can be a ferocious place in winter, when the crab fisheries take place, and that boats go down and men die on a regular basis there. It is also true that the Bering Sea, because of physical properties including its broad continental shelf and general shallowness, the movements of currents and ice, and upwellings, is a prodigiously rich biological basin, one of the most productive environments in the world. Its biodiversity is profound: more than 450 species of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks; 50 species of birds including 20 million individual seabirds; and 25 species of marine mammals including the world's rarest whale, the North Pacific right whale.
The Bering Sea's great bounty has supported people who've lived on and around it for a very long time—"from time immemorial," as the Natives say. On the American side lie sixty-five communities, home to 27,500 people. Although this human population is small, the villages that line the coast—on the Russian side as well as the American—today remain intricately connected to all aspects of Bering Sea weather, seasons, and nourishment in all its forms. This part of Alaska was late to be influenced by the trappers, traders, and outside interests of all kinds, and it maintains more cultural intactness—including language and traditional foods—than much of the rest of Alaska, where cultural change came earlier and hard.
For those in the Bethel conference room, the Bering Sea is home, the center of their universe, their gardens and breadbaskets, the place of their ancestors, back to the beginning. One Elder said to me, "It's not the Bering Sea. That's the name from a newcomer. It's Imarpik." Imarpik translates literally to "big container," identifying the sea as a big bowl, full of resources. Less literally it refers to the one ocean that means everything. The Elders spoke of their own Elders, and what they had instructed. "My grandmother told me, 'you will protect the Bering Sea.' When you talk about the Bering Sea, you're talking about me."
Today, though, the Bering Sea also feeds the world. The fish and shellfish catches on its American side make up almost half (by weight) of all fisheries production in US waters. Dutch Harbor on its southern edge has ranked number one among US fishing ports nearly every year since 1981. In the beginning, king crab was king. Now the largest catches belong to the trawl fleets. The midwater trawl fleet fishes over deep water to catch enormous schools of pollock, and the separate bottom trawl fleet sweeps up groundfish on the continental shelf. In both cases huge cone-shaped nets sweep up everything in their paths, and in both cases there are environmental consequences. The midwater trawls catch tons of "nontarget" species, including salmon intended for subsistence and commercial fisheries elsewhere. The bottom trawls tear up the sea bottom—toppling corals, overturning rocks, busting apart crabs, scraping up the sediments that are home to the clams and worms that other creatures eat.
In the regional center of Bethel, forty miles up the Kuskokwim River from the Bering Sea, the Elders who gathered to document their resource use knew about trawling, and they didn't like it. Many had been involved in efforts to "cap" the pollock fleet's bycatch—to make them stop fishing when they've caught too many salmon. They don't want the bottom trawlers to go any farther north; in fact, they would like to see them confined to a smaller area than they already fish. They want them to leave the bottom of the Bering Sea alone, in the wholeness that provides the habitat and food for so much else.
These men might have lived subsistence lives, more familiar with hunting gear and judging ice and weather than with the teachings of Western education, but they were no slouches when it came to organizing and participating in modern governance systems. They knew the laws that affect how they live, and they knew the strength they bring, through tribal rights and their own citizenship, to influencing regulations and the decisions of government agencies. In addition to chairing the advisory group, David Bill, who lives in the village of Toksook Bay, served on a subsistence halibut board created by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the board of the nonprofit Bering Sea Fishermen's Association, and his local school board. Interpreter Fred Phillip was a leader in his own right; the natural resources director for the Native village of Kwigillingok, he has also served on many organizational boards and traveled dozens of times to Washington, DC to represent the interests of his people before Congress.
Outside, the temperature was at zero, and the November sun skidded low across a pale blue sky. Snow machines zipped along the frozen Kuskokwim River, and taxis (five dollars to anywhere in town) plied the icy roads. A thin snow cover was just enough to brighten the landscape: no trees but the wooden buildings squatting on pilings. Smoke drifted sideways from a few stovepipes, evidence of shifts away from expensive heating oil to the burning of wood pallets and cardboard. There was talk of importing firewood from the forests of southeast Alaska.
The Elders understood why they had come to Bethel, and each of the three days they were seated at the tables, ready to work, well in advance of starting times. They stayed in those seats for hours, more attentive than any meetinggoers I've seen in my life. Now and then a cell phone rang and one reached into a pocket to hold a brief and muffled conversation.
The participants knew that they had until 2011 to influence where the bottom trawlers go and to make their case for protecting the subsistence use that lies at the heart of their lives and culture. They knew that they couldn't just say, "We want to protect as much as possible of the sea that provides for us" and expect the rightness of that principle to prevail over the tremendous economic value of all those fish that might be caught if bottom trawling was allowed to follow the climate shift north. They would need to identify, in a way that resource managers and policy makers could understand and quantify, exactly what areas they and the animals depended upon for their lives. They would have to present a concrete proposal—data—that said, this is the value here and here and here, and this is the reason this area—this exact piece of Imarpik—should be protected. What was once a wholeness already had lines drawn across it; they had to participate in the system that would further divide up the big container. The scientists knew science, but only they—the Elders—held the wealth of generational knowledge about the animals and what they ate, the seasonal cycles, the way water and ice moved, and how things changed over time, all those interwoven aspects scientists called an ecosystem. And only they were looking out for the needs of their people and the future generations.
For years they'd been speaking out about the changes they've seen in and around the Bering Sea. They'd watched Arctic sea ice form later and retreat earlier and faster. They'd witnessed surprising storm patterns, different movements of fish and marine mammals, new species showing up, sudden die-offs of seabirds, unusual plankton blooms, and other environmental oddities beyond their usual experience or what they had learned from their parents and grandparents to expect as "normal." They're well aware that, as rich as the Bering Sea is, its productivity is less than it used to be. They've seen steep declines in species of marine mammals, birds, and fish. They've caught smaller salmon and mammals with thinner fat layers.
In my own travels through the Bering Sea, in the four years I worked on adventure cruise ships and stopped in villages all the way to Russia, I heard repeated concerns about the difficulty in predicting weather or anticipating storms, about decreasing numbers of fur seals at the Pribilof Islands and evidence that the young animals were starving on the rookeries, about kittiwakes failing to lay eggs, and watched thousands of walrus hauled out on a single rocky beach. I also heard about the hunting party—with children—that drowned when their boat overturned in a storm. Scientists now were documenting the same changes local people had been reporting for years. They spoke of ecosystem stress and nutritional stress, of "regime change." They studied ice and the relationship of ice to productivity. Regular surveys had shown that forty-five fish species had shifted their ranges northward. Research into predator species like seals, whales, and some species of seabirds showed they were altering their diets and sometimes traveling greater distances to find food. "Grabs" of the sea floor from research vessels were finding fewer clams and other benthic species.
Due to its remoteness, size, and often fierce weather, it has always been a challenge to conduct scientific research in the Bering Sea. If the science had lagged what local people observed, mounting data supported the need for a new approach to fisheries management. The old method had centered on single species; survey the "biomass" (how much of the species was out there) and then allow for a percentage take each year, based on what was guessed to be a "maximum sustainable yield." In other words, fish those commercial species as hard as possible without depleting them. Conservation organizations had begun hammering on the need to consider the entire ecosystem and be precautionary. They argued that fishery managers should look beyond the population numbers of commercial species and calculations of sustainable catches. In this new world, managers need to be able to predict population trends in a rapidly changing environment and factor in a new degree of environmental variability. In light of so much uncertainty, they need to manage conservatively, to carefully track trends, and to identify and protect ecologically important areas under stress from climate change. They need to do all this against the pressure of a high-stakes fishing industry that wants to catch as much "product" as can be justified.
And thus it was that tribes from the Bering Sea region, with a number of conservation organizations, in 2007 won that rare victory at the industry dominated North Pacific Fisheries Management Council. The Council unanimously agreed that as-yet-unexploited portions of the northern Bering Sea should be at least temporarily protected from an expansion of industrial fishing. The managers noted specifically that rising temperatures could result in a redistribution of fishery resources into and within northern waters and that they bore a responsibility for making sure that, before fisheries were allowed to expand, adequate protections would be in place for marine mammals, crabs, animals listed under the Endangered Species Act, and subsistence resources depended upon by local people.
In the Bering Sea, it's all about the ice. That puts it too simply, of course, but Native people and scientists know that ice plays an essential role in the life of the Bering Sea, just as it does in the Arctic Ocean. Sea ice is, of course, the habitat of species like seals and walrus. Algae grow upon it, in turn feeding species that live under the ice and at the ice edge. The formation, movement, and melting of ice affect not just the sea's biological productivity but ocean currents and the exchange of heat between ocean and atmosphere, in an enormously complex system.
From temperature-related research, we now know this: since 1950, the ice cover in the Bering Sea has decreased. We also know that, since 1980, water temperatures in the Bering Sea have increased by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. A poster I studied in the basement of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Kodiak showed the relationship between ice cover and the catch of opilio (Chionoecetes opilio) crab; the more ice, the more crab. It also showed the southern Bering Sea "cold pool"—an area of cold bottom water on the continental shelf, formed under ice—contracting and moving northward by 143 miles since 1982. The text read, "As cold bottom water moves north, Arctic species (like opilio crab) are lost from the southern Bering Sea."
The evidence—experiential and scientific—of a rich Bering Sea becoming less rich is backed by some decades-long data. One study of chum salmon weights since the 1960s showed a steady decline in size, indicating they were getting less to eat. In 2000 an analysis of carbon isotopes in historic samples of whale baleen suggested a 30–40 percent decline in average seasonal primary production since 1970. "Primary production" is, essentially, phytoplankton (those microscopic, free-floating, photosynthesizing organisms at the base of the food chain), which feed everything above it.
This is what we know about phytoplankton production: It is generally controlled by sunlight and available nutrients, but in the Bering Sea it has also depended on seasonal sea ice. When the ice melts in spring, the influx of water with lower salinity encourages a "bloom" of phytoplankton. And, the ice itself supports the bloom with the sea algae that grow on it. Change the ice coverage and the timing of the melt and you change the size, timing, and the species makeup of the phytoplankton bloom.
The Bering Sea has changed, in my lifetime, from a primarily cold Arctic ecosystem dominated by sea ice to sub-Arctic conditions. There are winners and losers as the result of this change. When there was more sea ice and it melted in the spring, the resulting bloom occurred before there were many zooplankton (mostly microscopic animals) to feed on it, and it tended to fall to the sea bottom and feed species that live there. The lack of Arctic sea ice results in a later (and smaller) bloom, which gets eaten by the zooplankton and other species in the higher parts of the water column before it can fall to the bottom. Thus, to mention just two commercial fish species, the biomass of pollock has in recent years increased dramatically (despite heavy fishing) and the flatfish known as Greenland turbot, which lives close to the bottom and likes cold water, has declined in equally dramatic measure. The very rich benthic (bottom dwelling) communities of worms, clams, and crustaceans—upon which gray whales, walrus, diving birds, and other bottom feeders depend—are less rich than they so recently were.
Scientists also worry about the mismatch of prey availability and predator needs. A later phytoplankton bloom prolongs the winter hunger period of fish and shellfish; many won't survive their juvenile stages. Meanwhile, warmer ocean temperatures may cause some species to reproduce earlier, before foods they need are available. Studies of phenology (the interactions between the yearly life cycle of a species and the yearly climate cycle) have shown that most species, around the globe, are advancing their breeding, hatching, budding, and migrating times. In a California study the common murre (a diving bird that eats mostly small fish and zooplankton) was found to be breeding a remarkable two months earlier in 2000 than in 1975.
The loss of ice in the Bering Sea is likely to have additional effects. More open water in winter may add to the severity of rough seas and increase the mortality of birds at sea. Warmer water requires cold-blooded fish to increase their metabolism, which requires more food; this is a particular problem for young fish, which rely on fat reserves to get through their first winter.
Bearing Sea Ecosystem Vital to the World
On the first day at the Bering Sea Elders' gathering, the group listened (via its translator) to a presentation by Tom Van Pelt, the program manager for the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB), about the science that organization funds. One of the NPRB's primary programs is specific to the Bering Sea— an integrated ecosystem research program to look at, among other things, changing ice and currents, food availability, and how those changes cascade through the whole system. The idea, Van Pelt said, is for the one hundred scientists working on specific projects to think beyond their particular projects and disciplines and try to gain a larger understanding of how all things relate and interact. After three years of field seasons, two years (2011–12) would be given to synthesizing the results.
I thought I detected in the room a certain amount of puzzlement: Were the scientists only coming to realize, at this late date, that all things were connected?
There were questions following the science presentation, and they were all about the effects of bottom trawling on the ocean floor and the bycatch caught in trawlers' nets. These were not parts of the NPRB's program, and Van Pelt could only say that he wasn't the right person to ask about those specifics. The science currently being conducted is more basic to the workings of the Bering Sea, though I knew the scientists would agree that maximum sharing of information—science, traditional knowledge, the effects of fishing and other activities—would be a good thing, something to work toward for the holistic understanding they sought.
The Elders' immediate concern about trawling was whether areas for bottom trawling would be expanded in the Bering Sea, but they also expressed alarm about the amount of pollock fishing taking place in deeper waters—and the bycatch from that fishery.
The most valuable fish (considering volume) in Alaska and the world's most abundant food fish is one that most Americans wouldn't recognize and may never have even heard of. Alaska pollock or walleye pollock (Theragrachalcogramma), a North Pacific member of the cod family, is a modest-looking, one- or two-pound, speckled fish with a lot of fin area, top and bottom. Landings of pollock from the Bering Sea are the largest of any single fish species in the United States, some 2.5 billion pounds a year, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. On an individual basis, pollock is a low-value fish; with its white flesh and mild taste, it ends up not in fish markets or fancy restaurants but made into fish sticks, fast-food fish fillets, and artificial crabmeat. Since the late 1970s, as a result of changes in the Bering Sea, pollock have done very well; only recently have their numbers begun to drop and catches been reduced.
What both fishermen and scientists have found is that pollock are indeed moving northward. Generally, pollock spawn each winter in the southern Bering Sea, near the Aleutian Islands, then follow their food (plankton and small fish) north as waters warm in the spring. The bulk of them, following the outer contour of the continental shelf, now migrate to and beyond the international border with Russia. In effect, Alaska's pollock are becoming Russian pollock.
Andrew Rosenberg, a former deputy director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in 2008: "It [the northward pollock movement] will be a food security issue and has an enormous potential for political upheaval." He expected that pollock would be a test case in a growing pattern of fish driven by climate change across jurisdictional borders.
Once in Russian waters, the pollock are caught by Russian fishermen in a poorly managed, probably overexploited fishery that's known to be plagued by lax enforcement and poaching. Catches there have been increasing as the Alaskan catches have been throttled back to stay at sustainable levels.
Pollock is just one of the species moving north in the Bering Sea, but because of its enormous economic value, it has gotten serious attention. Twenty-five years of scientific surveys have shown that dozens of other fish species are also shifting to the north. The range shift—thirty miles for pollock, thirty-four for halibut, fifty-five for opilio crab—is occurring two or three times faster than that of terrestrial species. According to the scientists, these species appear to be shifting in response to the extent of seasonal ice, itself moving northward and correlated to climate change.
As vital as the Bering Sea is for the men and women meeting in Bethel, the climate-change-induced threats we see there extend far beyond Alaska's shores. It's not just the Bering Sea's rich ecosystem that's at stake; it's the life support systems that the Bering Sea influences and the entire world needs.
Warming Circulation and Ocean Climate Change
If we know little about the effects of global warming on the Bering Sea, we know barely more about those effects on any of the oceans—which cover three-quarters of our earth and house 90 percent of the planet's biomass. Compared to land, oceans have been inadequately studied; everywhere, ocean research is difficult, resource-intensive, and expensive. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, gave little attention to the marine system.
Consider: ocean temperatures may be a better indicator of global warming than air temperatures, because the ocean stores more heat (90 percent of the heat in the earth's climate system) and responds more slowly to change. Recent studies suggest the ocean is warming 50 percent faster than the IPCC reported in 2007 (and that thermal expansion rates and sea level rise were thus also underestimated by a similar amount). The next IPCC report is expected to give greater attention to ocean science, including the uncertainties in understanding and modeling climate change because of deficiencies in the knowledge base.
What we do know at this point is "big picture"—global warming affects ocean temperatures, the supply of nutrients that enter the ocean from the land, ocean chemistry, marine food webs, wind systems, ocean currents, the volume of ocean water, and extreme events such as hurricanes. The ecological responses to these are already playing out in processes ranging from primary production (where all the eating begins) to biogeography (where organisms live) to evolution.
Considerable attention has been given to the effect of warming on thermohaline (thermo as in temperature and haline as in salt content) circulation (also known as the ocean conveyor belt), which is what moves both energy and material around the world and thus has a huge influence on climate. Most of that attention has gone to the possibility of the slowing, or even shutdown, of the North Atlantic "conveyor." In the North Atlantic, pools of cold, dense water sink, pulling warm surface waters north from the tropics. With warming and the addition of freshwater from the melt of glaciers and the Greenland ice cap, the sinking of cold water has lessened in recent years. A map of the path of the thermohaline circulation looks somewhat like a picture of the human body's blood circulation; blue lines mark the deepwater currents, red the surface currents, and they all tie in and keep moving. The oldest waters, with a transit time of some sixteen hundred years, end up in the North Pacific, finally in the Bering Sea. Clearly, if that first deepwater formation in the North Atlantic quits on us, the entire ocean circulation will be altered—kind of like your heart stopping.
There are many other implications of climate change for our oceans, poorly understood at present. A warmer ocean will hold less oxygen, for one thing. A warmer ocean will increase stratification, potentially locking nutrients away from those who need them. A warmer ocean with less ice appears to be freeing up mercury and other pollutants, raising contaminant levels throughout the food web and accumulating at the top, in marine mammals and those who eat them. A warmer ocean already appears, in the Arctic, to be releasing methane clathrate (hydrate) compounds—large frozen methane deposits that lie mostly under sediments on the ocean floor, though some also underlie permafrost on land. Methane is roughly twenty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The carbon in these frozen deposits is thought to exceed that in all other fossil fuels on earth combined. There is strong evidence that runaway methane clathrate release may have caused major alterations of the ocean environment and earth's atmosphere on a number of occasions in the past, most notably in connection with the Permian-Triassic extinction event (the Great Dying) 251 million years ago. At that time 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species went extinct.
In June 2011 the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council asked that the research plan being developed for the northern Bering Sea be expanded to include additional information about the ecosystem and effects of trawling, to identify species and habitats that might be of interest to the commercial fishing industry, and to give additional consideration to input from the affected coastal communities. The Bering Sea Elders Advisory Group continues its participation in the process.
This excerpt has been reprinted with permission from Arctic Voices, edited by Subhankar Banerjee, published by Seven Stories Press, 2012.


Fulbright at IE Segovia Campus!
This past Tuesday, 28th of February, a team of two from the Fulbright Commission's Madrid office came to IE University's Segovia campus to present to bachelor degree students the option of completing their master studies at a top US institution with a full grant. This opportunity is only available to the most dedicated and academically strong candidates, but IE University graduates have the real possibility of competing for one of these awards.
Fulbright and IE have been collaborating for more than a decade in Spain, and every year IE receives 3 US Fulbright Scholars who come to IE for master-level studies. Additionally, IE is now also receiving 1 Teaching Assistant (TA) per year through Fulbright as well. Both organizations also collaborate through various other ways, including the Senior Specialist Program offered by Fulbright whereby top experts from the US come to IE to share their knowledge with students, staff and alumni.
To see the Fulbright Commission's posting on the recent event in Segovia, click here.
To see the Flickr photo stream from the recent event in Segovia, click here.
New Student Loan Option, Only for IE University Undergraduate Students: Banco Sabadell.


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Professor Tracy Taylor was one of the facilitators on the latest Olympic Solidarity ASMC in Lausanne where 13 aspiring Program Directors from around the world, from Azerbaijan to Mozambique, attended for a training course to provide the skills, knowledge and materials to conduct ASMC in their home countries.
© Copyright UTS - CRICOS Provider No: 00099F - 08 November 2018 03:33 PM. The page is authorised by Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Corporate Services).


text:
Q: Trouble with 'Tic Tac Toe' Classes I am relatively new to JS and have been working on a Tic Tac Toe game as an exercise. I think I am 90% of the way there, but I am having an annoying bug that comes up after the first play through (ie. when a new game is rendered). In this game, each square is given a class ('x' or 'o') when the corresponding player clicks on it. The game logic checks if that player has any of the game winning combinations, and if they do resets the game (removing the 'x' and 'o' tile classes). This seems to work, but upon subsequent clicking in the next round, some tiles are given BOTH 'x' and 'o' classes, which basically  breaks the game. For example, the game can be won with a line of 'x', 'x' and 'o'.
EDIT 1: Okay, so I think the problem is that newGame() is running twice. Still trying to figure out a solution.
I've been searching every for an answer to this, but to no avail! I've included my code below. Thanks!!

$(document).ready(function() {
 var xTurn = true;
 var xScore = 0;
 var oScore = 0;
 var count = 0;

 newGame();

 function newGame() {

  $("td").removeClass();
  $("td").empty();
  count = 0;
  xTurn = true;

  render();
  game();
 }

 function render() {
  $("#xScore").text("x Score: " + xScore);
  $("#oScore").text("o Score: " + oScore);
 }

 function game() {
  $("td").on("click", function () {
   var self = $(this);
   if (xTurn) {
    self.text("X");
    self.addClass("x");
   }
   else {
    $(this).text("O");
    self.addClass("o");
   }
   xTurn = !xTurn;
   $(this).off("click");
   count ++;
   scoreEval();
  });

  function scoreEval() {
   if  (
    $("#one").hasClass('x') && $("#two").hasClass('x') && $("#three").hasClass('x') ||
    $("#four").hasClass('x') && $("#five").hasClass('x') && $("#six").hasClass('x') ||
    $("#seven").hasClass('x') && $("#eight").hasClass('x') && $("#nine").hasClass('x') ||
    $("#one").hasClass('x') && $("#four").hasClass('x') && $("#seven").hasClass('x') ||
    $("#two").hasClass('x') && $("#five").hasClass('x') && $("#eight").hasClass('x') ||
    $("#three").hasClass('x') && $("#six").hasClass('x') && $("#nine").hasClass('x') ||
    $("#one").hasClass('x') && $("#five").hasClass('x') && $("#nine").hasClass('x') ||
    $("#three").hasClass('x') && $("#five").hasClass('x') && $("#seven").hasClass('x')
    ) {
     xScore ++;
     alert("Player X has won the game!");
     newGame();
   }
   else if (
    $("#one").hasClass('o') && $("#two").hasClass('o') && $("#three").hasClass('o') ||
    $("#four").hasClass('o') && $("#five").hasClass('o') && $("#six").hasClass('o') ||
    $("#seven").hasClass('o') && $("#eight").hasClass('o') && $("#nine").hasClass('o') ||
    $("#one").hasClass('o') && $("#four").hasClass('o') && $("#seven").hasClass('o') ||
    $("#two").hasClass('o') && $("#five").hasClass('o') && $("#eight").hasClass('o') ||
    $("#three").hasClass('o') && $("#six").hasClass('o') && $("#nine").hasClass('o') ||
    $("#one").hasClass('o') && $("#five").hasClass('o') && $("#nine").hasClass('o') ||
    $("#three").hasClass('o') && $("#five").hasClass('o') && $("#seven").hasClass('o')
    ) {
     oScore ++;
     alert("Player O has won the game!");
     newGame();
   }
   else if (count === 9) {
    alert("Draw!");
    newGame();
   }
  }
 }

});
table, td {
   border: 1px solid black;
   font-size: 50px;
   text-align: center;
}

td {
 height: 100px;
 width: 100px;
}

 <title>Tic Tac Toe</title>

 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css">

Score

A: You should check in onClick event if there is assigned X or O, before doing any action. I reproduced an error by clicking on box that already has X/O in it.


text:
Shoshanna Evers / Shoshanna Gabriel (April 1980 - September 11, 2021) is an American author of contemporary and erotic romance novels and novellas, and the editor and publisher of non-fiction books on writing and publishing. She is the co-founder of SelfPubBookCovers.com, the first website where authors could customize original pre-made book covers and instantly download them. Shoshanna Evers was also listed as one of the "Most Popular Authors in Erotica" on Amazon.com in 2013, and one of the "Most Popular Authors in Contemporary Romance," and "Most Popular Authors in Romance" on Amazon.com in 2014.

In March 2014, Evers became a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with her contribution of "The Man Who Holds the Whip" to the anthology MAKE ME: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire.

Biography & Career
Evers was first published in 2010 by Ellora's Cave Publishing. She currently writes for Simon & Schuster in addition to self-publishing. Before becoming a full-time author, Evers worked as a registered nurse under her married name.

Her work has been critically acclaimed with reviewers calling her the "Queen of the erotic novellas", who writes books that are "emotional and gripping".

Shoshanna Evers has written dozens of erotic romance stories including Overheated and Enslaved, Book One in the Enslaved Trilogy, both of which hit the Amazon Erotica Bestseller list.

The non-fiction anthology Shoshanna Evers edited and contributed to, How To Write Hot Sex: Tips from Multi-Published Erotic Romance Authors, became a #1 Authorship Bestseller, #1 Erotica Writing Reference Bestseller, #1 Romance Writing Bestseller, and a Writing Skills Bestseller. Her work has been featured in Best Bondage Erotica 2012 and Best Bondage Erotica 2013, the Penguin/Berkley Heat anthology Agony/Ecstasy, and numerous erotic BDSM novellas with Ellora's Cave Publishing including Chastity Belt and Punishing the Art Thief.

Her BDSM erotic romance series The Enslaved Trilogy released April 2013 from Simon & Schuster's Pocket Star imprint, and will be followed in November 2013 by The Pulse Trilogy, a dystopian post-apocalyptic erotic romance series. Shoshanna is a New York native who now lives with her husband, their son, and two dogs in Northern Idaho.

Bibliography

The Enslaved Trilogy (BDSM Billionaire Erotic Romance)
 ENSLAVED, Book One in The Enslaved Trilogy (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star) April 2013
 ENAMORED, Book Two in The Enslaved Trilogy (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star) May 2013
 ENRAPTURED, Book Three in The Enslaved Trilogy (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star) June 2013

The Pulse Trilogy (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Erotic Romance)
 THE PULSE, Book One in The Pulse Trilogy (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star) November 2013
 THE ESCAPE, Book Two in The Pulse Trilogy (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star) January 2014
 THE THRUST, Book Three in The Pulse Trilogy (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star) March 2014

Mainstream Contemporary Romance
 THE TYCOON'S CONVENIENT BRIDE…AND BABY (Entangled Publishing/Indulgence) (not yet released)

Anthologies
 MAKE ME: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire (The Man Who Holds the Whip) Skye Warren anthology, March 2014 (#16 New York Times ebook bestseller list March 23rd, 2014,  #48 USA Today Bestseller List March 9th, 2014)
 SMOKIN' HOT FIREMEN (Falling Ashes) Cleis Press anthology, July 2013
 BABY GOT BACK (Body Heat) Cleis Press anthology, August 2013
 THE BIG BOOK OF ORGASM (Forced Orgasms) Cleis Press anthology, September 2013
 CAN'T GET ENOUGH (Blake Eats Out) Cleis Press anthology, June 2014
 COWBOY HEAT (Drop Two Tears in a Bucket Cleis Press anthology, March 2014

2014
 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: An Erotic Re-Imagining,(Shoshanna Evers) February 2014

2013
 BEST BONDAGE EROTICA 2013 (Plastic Wrap) (Cleis Press, 2013)
 HOW WE DO IT (AND HOW YOU CAN TOO), edited by Shoshanna Evers (non-fiction, self-published, 2013) Top 25 on Amazon Business Writing Bestseller List, Kobo Publishing Bestseller.

2012
 SKIN DEEP, (Ellora's Cave Publishing, 2012) a print anthology containing Bedhead as well as novellas by Desiree Holt and Lynne Connolly.
 HELD CAPTIVE BY THE CAVEMEN (self-published, 2012)
 THE MAN WHO HOLDS THE WHIP (self-published, 2012)
 BEST BONDAGE EROTICA 2012 (Melting Ice) (Cleis Press, 2012)
 AGONY/ECSTASY (The Wooden Pony) (Penguin/Berkley Heat, 2012)
 FELT TIPS (Tape) a charity anthology edited and published by Tiffany Reisz, 2012
 Dominatrix Fantasy Trilogy Set: SPANKED, DENIED, and COLLARED (Paperback was Amazon Erotica Bestseller) (self-published, 2012)
 SPANKED, Dominatrix Fantasy Novella 1 (self-published, 2012)
 DENIED, Dominatrix Fantasy Novella 2 (self-published, 2012)
 COLLARED, Dominatrix Fantasy Novella 3 (self-published, 2012)

2011
 OVERHEATED (self-published, 2011) A short story, over 20K copies sold, Amazon Erotica Bestseller.
 HOW TO WRITE HOT SEX: Tips from Multi-Published Erotic Romance Authors, edited by Shoshanna Evers (non-fiction, self-published, 2011) #1 Bestseller on the Amazon Authorship, Erotic Writing, and Romance Writing bestseller lists. Kobo Publishing Bestseller
 SNOWED IN WITH THE TYCOON (self-published, 2011)
 BEDHEAD (Ellora's Cave Publishing, 2011)
 CHASTITY BELT (Ellora's Cave Publishing, 2011)
 HOLLYWOOD SPANK (Ellora's Cave Publishing, 2011)
 TASTE OF CANDY (The Wild Rose Press, 2011)
 BOUND TO BE NAUGHTY (Ellora's Cave Publishing, 2011) trade paperback anthology featuring Punishing the Art Thief, Chastity Belt, and Hollywood Spank.

2010
 PUNISHING THE ART THIEF (Ellora's Cave Publishing, 2010)
 GINGER SNAP (Ellora's Cave Publishing, 2010)

References

External links
 Official Website
 Goodreads
 Verified Twitter
 Facebook Author Page
 Simon & Schuster

1980 births
American erotica writers
Living people
BDSM writers


text:
McGaughey
Last name: McGaughey
Despite its similarity in sound to (Mc)Coffey or Coffee, the "roots" of this name are quite different, the (Mac)Caughey clan being from the Ulster region. The Gaelic spelling is MacEachaidy, "Eachaidh" being usually Anglicized to Aghy or Oghy, and as such it remains a rare Christian name in modern Ireland. The precise translation is uncertain, but it is probably "the son (Mac) of the youthful one", "Eachaidh" being equivalent to the lad, or boy, or similar. Various spelling forms exist, including: McGaughey, McGaughie, McGauhy, McGahey, McGahy, McGAffey, Megahey and Gaffey, and despite their varied spellings, all have the same source. It is said that as MacCahee, the clan was recorded in County Tyrone in 1685, however, in the modern forms early recordings include: John McGaihy (1719); Elizabeth McGahy (1711); Jane McGahey (1846); John Caghy (1791); Jennet McCaughey (1816); Lettitia McGaghey (1829); and Margaret McCaughey, of Aughnacloy, County Tyrone, on August 5th 1868. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Jas. M'Gachy, which was dated May 25th 1709, a christened witness at Carmoney, County Antrim, during the reign of Queen Anne of England, known as "The Last Stuart Monarch", 1702 - 1714. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.
Surname scroll for: McGaughey


Boil cauliflower on medium-high heat with chicken broth and water until very soft (about 10-15 minutes), stirring occasionally.
Drain cauliflower and return to pot. Mash well and stir in yogurt, cream cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and butter buds.


1. Will you please give me some tips for being content while living on a small budget? You are such a great example to me in this area, as I know you have 4 boys and a smaller food budget, etc.!
I think thinking of it as a game instead of a deprivation really helps me! I think back over some of the really hard times we had and what we ate, and it really puts things in perspective! Some of them, i am ashamed to admit we did them, but you do interesting things when hungry. I love to figure out how to make something that still tastes good, out of not much food. It gives you a good feeling inside!
2. What do you love about Montana? Dislike?
Pretty much everything about it…..it is one of the most beautiful places in the United States, I think! You are free to more be yourself as well here, people are not as into high fashion, fancy cars, but more down to earth. Cars can be covered in mud and no one thinks anything of it, except they must have a long driveway.
The only things i can think I dislike about MT is eastern MT. It is too windy, dusty and not very pretty over there!
Hard question!!! I love tea! I am not a coffee drinker, but just really, really love tea. I really like Chamomile tea (Is that dull?) and lemongrass Green tea.
4. How many births have you attended (as a doula)? Does your mom attend many births still? Do you see yourself ministering in that realm in the future — i.e. is it a passion you have and plan to pursue?
I think only about 25-30, but I have not counted recently. My mom does attend births still. I do not want to ever be a midwife, but I see myself as getting more involved in ministering to single moms, young moms, teaching or writing about post-partum care and teaching women how to care for themselves. I love helping women. It is an amazing privilege.
5. Tell me what you ate today (or the meals you prepared).
Oh dear, you would have to ask hard questions!!! The boys had oatmeal for breakfast and I had a taco for lunch, mostly inspired by your mexican food on your blog. I have been craving it ever since, and then for dinner, I was going to make broccoli soup, but we had mashed potatoes in the fridge, so I made potato soup out of them. My one son, just wanted plain mashed potatoes and since we did not eat all our leftovers on Sunday, we had leftover chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy too. It was light on vegetables though as it is near the end of the week for us and our vegetable supply starts to run low!
homeschooling4boyz · Book Reviews, Homeschooling and Recipes and the adventure of it all!


text:
Federal law does not supersede California law, DOT tells appeals court
March 21, 2014 May 23, 2022
Appearing before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Appeals Court in early March, the U.S. DOT testified that federal preemption does not prevent California's meal-and-rest regulations from applying to truck drivers.
"The California law is squarely within the states' traditional power to regulate the employment relationship and to protect worker health and safety. Moreover, it is a law of longstanding, general applicability and does not reflect any state effort to regulate motor carriers directly," DOT attorneys said.
DOT had asked to present oral arguments after the three-judge panel ordered the agency to submit friend-of-the-court briefs on the issue.
The appeal consolidated two separate cases against Penske Logistics and Vitran Express.
A U.S. district court had ruled the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act's preemption provision applied to the two trucking companies in regard to California's meal-and-break rules.
The 1994 FAA law stipulates state and local governments may not enact or enforce laws or provisions that have the force and effect of law concerning price, route or service of motor carriers transporting property.
California mandates a 30-minute meal break per each five-hour work period. Employers can be required to compensate workers with one hour of pay for each violation.
The appeals court testimony comes after an April 2012 ruling by the California Supreme Court that Brinker International and other California employers must provide workers with time off for meal breaks, although they don't have to make sure the employees aren't working.
"Brinker is very pleased with the California Supreme Court's ruling," said Roger Thomson, general counsel at Brinker, which oversees the Romano's Macaroni Grill and Chili's restaurant chains.
The California Trucking Association (CTA) said the San Francisco-based court's ruling means that, without relief from federal courts or the California Legislature, California truck drivers will have to take a 30-minute meal break within the first five hours without regard to traffic conditions or the availability of locations to legally pull off the road.
California laws require employers to provide hourly workers meal and rest break or give them extra pay. Workers rights groups, seeking to discourage employers from understaffing, had argued that companies must be required to make sure their employees take breaks.
The decision addressed several different rulings by lower California courts over how to interpret the state's meal-break law. In another case brought by truck drivers against a warehousing company, a Sacramento-based court had ruled that companies were required to make sure that workers were relieved of duty.
"For California's highly-skilled truck drivers, these rules create daily challenges from a highway safety standpoint," said Michael Shaw, CTA vice president of external affairs.
"Responsible trucking companies already know the value of ensuring drivers are properly rested and allowed time to eat."
Trucking companies already comply with strict federal laws that were recently amended to increase time to rest, said Shaw, referring to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) recent revision of the hours-of-service rule, now facing its own legal challenges.
"The California rules at issue in the Brinker case only make highway safety harder to achieve," he said.
Motor carriers petitioned the FMCSA in 2008 for a finding that the California meal-and rest-break law should be preempted, arguing that the state law was a regulation of commercial motor vehicle safety and imposed limitations on drivers' time that went beyond federal regulations, the government said.
FMCSA denied that petition, reasoning that the break law was just one part of California's employment regulations and applied to employers in a variety of other industries, said the briefs.
In January, FMCSA released findings from a real world, third party study providing further scientific evidence that the restart provision in the current hours-of-service rule for truck drivers is more effective at combating fatigue than the prior version.
The study was conducted by Washington State University Sleep and Performance Research Center and Philadelphia-based Pulsar Informatics, Inc
Scientists measured sleep, reaction time, sleepiness and driving performance in the study. They found that drivers who began their work week with just one nighttime period of rest, as compared to the two nights in the updated 34-hour restart break:
Exhibited more lapses of attention, especially at night;
Reported greater sleepiness, especially toward the end of their duty periods; and
Showed increased lane deviation in the morning, afternoon and at night.
"This new study confirms the science we used to make the hours-of-service rule more effective at preventing crashes that involve sleepy or drowsy truck drivers," said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro. "For the small percentage of truckers that average up to 70 hours of work a week, two nights of rest is better for their safety and the safety of everyone on the road."


text:
Posted inFact Check, Public Safety
Fact Check: Police Benefits and Recruitment
by Keegan Kyle April 11, 2011 March 15, 2022
Statement: "For instance, 840 police officers (about half of the sworn staff) left the San Diego Police Department when the city began changing benefits it relied upon to recruit and retain officers. More than 200 of them went to other agencies," wrote Jeff Jordon, vice president of the police officers union, in an editorial the Union-Tribune published March 20.
Determination: Mostly True
Analysis: Mayor Jerry Sanders, City Councilman Carl DeMaio and others are pushing a ballot measure to replace city pensions with a 401(k)-style plan for all new hires except police officers. Ending pensions for police officers, supporters argue, would weaken San Diego's ability to attract top talent at the risk of residents' safety.
Jordon supports the exception for police and cited the exodus of officers in recent years to back up supporters' recruitment concerns. While the numbers he mentioned in the editorial are accurate, according to personnel statistics from the Police Department, there are two important nuances to keep in mind here.
First, the more than 800 that left the department did so over the course of several years since 2005, when the city started requiring police officers to pay more for their pensions. Jordon said half the police force left, but the officers didn't all leave at the same time. At the peak of the exodus, 264 officers, or just over one-tenth of the police force, left in 2009. Many retired that year to avoid a significant cut to their retirement benefits.
Second, while police and Sanders called retaining officers a crisis just a few years ago, it's not a problem for the department today. Other law enforcement agencies had become attractive to San Diego police officers as the city cut back on benefits following its fiscal crisis earlier in the decade. But as the economy soured, governments across the state had less money from tax revenues to hire police officers. The recession spurred budget problems similar to San Diego's and the prospect of leaving for a better policing job declined. Here's how Police Chief Bill Lansdowne described the situation last year:
Nobody's hiring. There's nowhere to go. Where we were getting small numbers of 50 to 60 officers applying, we're getting several hundred officers apply every time. There's no limit to the number of officers I could hire if I had the money to be able to do that.
What's happening today is a stark contrast to the period Jordon highlighted, when dozens of veteran officers were leaving San Diego each year for other law enforcement agencies. After downsizing the police force last year, the city has stopped hiring new officers to replace those who left. To help the city save money, at the end of March, the department had 149 fewer officers than it's budgeted.
The graphic to the right illustrates how the exodus of police officers peaked and then slowed in recent years. While at least 200 officers have left SDPD for other policing jobs since the city started changing benefits, fewer than 20 officers have made the same move in the last couple of years.
Although police officers have been exempted from the proposed ballot measure, Sanders and DeMaio aren't opposed to moving them toward a 401(k)-style plan in the future. DeMaio initially proposed replacing all pensions with 401(k)-style plans. The mayor recently said on KUSI that his opinion would depend on what other police agencies do.
"If we're the only pension system in the state of California that has a 401(k) for police, we'll never be able to hire or attract another police officer to the city," Sanders said. "If the rest of the state goes to a 401(k), that's a completely different issue then, and that's something that we would fix at that point."
Since Jordon's numbers accurately reflect the Police Department's statistics and there are a few important nuances to consider about the context of his argument, the statement fits our definition for Mostly True.
If you disagree with our determination or analysis, please express your thoughts in the comments section of this blog post. Explain your reasoning.
What claim should we Fact Check next? Please contact Keegan Kyle directly at keegan.kyle@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5668 and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/keegankyle.
Tagged: 401(k), Bill Lansdowne, California, Carl Demaio, Fact Check: Mostly True, Jeff Jordon, Jerry Sanders, Labor, Law Enforcement, Police, police benefits, Police Officer, police recruiting, Public Safety, San Diego, San Diego Police, San Diego Police Department, Sdpd, sdpoa


The LIU Libraries donated more than 8,000 books to Better World Books in the past year?
Books are a valuable resource that many in the developing world do not have access to. This is our way of giving back.