Marshall Dry Ridge Toyota is only 25 minutes south of Cincinnati, Oh! CARFAX One-Owner. Clean CARFAX. Certified. non smoker, local trade, MUST FINANCE WITH DEALER APPROVED FINANCING TO QUALIFY FOR SPECIAL PRICE, 3rd row seats: split-bench, 6 Speakers, ABS brakes, Alloy wheels, AM/FM radio: SiriusXM, Auto-dimming Rear-View mirror, Automatic temperature control, Blind Spot Sensor, Bumpers: body-color, CD player, Compass, Delay-off headlights, Electronic Stability Control, Exterior Parking Camera Rear, Front dual zone A/C, Front fog lights, Fully automatic headlights, Heated door mirrors, Heated Front Bucket Seats, Heated front seats, Illuminated entry, Leather Seat Material, Low tire pressure warning, MP3 decoder, Navigation System, Power door mirrors, Power driver seat, Power Liftgate, Power moonroof, Power passenger seat, Radio data system, Radio: AM/FM/CD Audio w/Navigation System, Radio: AM/FM/HD/CD w/6 Speakers, Rear Corner/Back Clearance & Back Sonar, Remote keyless entry, Roof rack: rails only, Security system, Speed control, Spoiler, Steering wheel mounted audio controls, Telescoping steering wheel, Tilt steering wheel, Traction control, XLE Mobility Navigation Package.


Home Runs for Heroes scored big this season with $78,000 in donations to charities that help veterans and local service men and women. Home Runs for Heroes is our partnership with the Lakewood BlueClaws, a minor league team of the Philadelphia Phillies, and Townsquare Media. Over ten seasons, $338,000 in grants have been awarded.
Home Runs for Heroes provides financial support to nonprofit organizations that meet the emergency and basic needs of veterans and local service men and women – active and retired – and their families during difficult times. The program ties each charity partner to an inning and every home run hit by the BlueClaws at First Energy Park during the charity's designated inning earns them a $1,000 donation. They also get awesome exposure on Townsquare Media stations.
This year's grantees include: American National Red Cross – $2,000; Army Emergency Relief- $6,000; Cape May County – Coast Guard Community Foundation – $5,000; Catholic Charities Diocese of Trenton – $4,000; Citizens Veterans Advisory Committee Inc. – $8,000; Chariot Riders Inc. – $6,000; GI Go Fund – $4,000; Jewish Family and Children Service of Southern NJ – $10,000; National Guard State Family Readiness Council – $6,000; Lt Dennis W Zilinski II Memorial Fund – $10,000; Navy- Marine Corps Relief Society – $2,000; Operation First Response, Inc. – $1,000; Vetgroup Inc. – $6,000; and Veterans of Foreign Wars – $8,000.


Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot receives the endorsement of several unions at a news conference held at City Hall in Chicago on Monday, March 18, 2019.
Preckwinkle denied having anything to do with the flyers.
It was unclear how many flyers were distributed.
Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, an openly LGBTQ mayor, released a statement condemning the flyers.
This isn't the first controversy over Lightfoot's sexuality during the campaign. At a debate with Preckwinkle earlier this month, Preckwinkle said she admires Lightfoot's openness about her sexual orientation.
Preckwinkle also dismissed any concerns about the latest flurry of union support for Lightfoot, when asked if organized labor was breaking away from her campaign.
Chicago Tribune reporter Juan Perez Jr. contributed.


text:
Dubbed the "king of cashmere" by The New Yorker, Brunello Cucinelli is the founder of the eponymously named fashion house that is well-known for making luxury cashmere sweaters (and more than $450 million a year in revenues). He started his company in 1978, and, now 61, he lives in Solemeo, Italy, with his wife and two children.
In all candidness, I shouldn't have been in Solomeo. I don't write for a big fashion magazine. I have no credibility in Brunello Cucinelli's world. But after a friend heard me wax eloquent about well-made cashmere sweaters for nearly an hour, he suggested that I should perhaps meet this guy in Italy. An email introduction led to an open invitation to come visit his hamlet whenever I was in Italy. Last April, I found myself in Perugia for the Journalism Festival and chanced on a visit. Brunello's response? Come right over.
The self-made billionaire greeted me at the door as if I was his long-lost friend. I felt as if I had known him all of my life, just hadn't met him. I had bought two of his sweaters almost seven years ago, when I had lost a lot of weight (which I have since regained), but his clothes aren't really part of my wardrobe. And yet I have admired them, as well as his stores and his ethics.
For example, he gives 20 percent of his company's profits to his charitable foundation in the name of "human dignity" and pays his workers wages that are 20 percent higher than the industry standard, mostly because it allows his company to encourage and continue the Italian craftsman traditions. Cucinelli also pays for an artisan's school in Solemeo: Young people are free to work either at his company or for another Italian company. The on-campus cafe is way more beautiful than Google Cafe or Facebook's facilities. And the pasta is really heavenly.
The company, which trades on the Milan Stock Exchange, is doing well: about 356 million euros in revenues in 2014. Brunello is part businessman, part philosopher and part monk. He is not Jeff Bezos or Larry Page. He certainly isn't chief executive of an oil company. He is the anti-LVMH, and that is what makes him interesting.
We were supposed to meet for 30 minutes but ended up spending a few hours talking about everything from Marcus Aurelius to Barack Obama to Steve Jobs to his father, a farmer. Here is a snapshot of our rambling two-hour conversation, facilitated by an Italian translator. There are so many lessons here for founders, especially the importance of giving back.
Om Malik: I've been reading about you, and I have been fascinated by your progress and more importantly how you have conducted your business. Where did you find the inspiration to follow this path?
Brunello Cucinelli: From the teary eyes of my father. When we were living in the countryside, the atmosphere, the ambiance — life was good. We were just farmers, nothing special. Then he went to work in a factory. He was being humiliated and offended, and he was doing a hard job. He would not complain about the hardship or the tiny wages he received, but what he did say was, "What have I done evil to God to be subject to such humiliation?"
Basically, what is human dignity made of? If we work together, say, and, even with one look, I make you understand that you are worth nothing and I look down on you, I have killed you. But if I give you regards and respect — out of esteem, responsibility is spawned. Then out of responsibility comes creativity, because every human being has an amount of genius in them. Man needs dignity even more than he needs bread.
[In the past, people] didn't know anything about their employer. My father or my brother didn't know if their employer had a villa on the sea. Whereas with Google Maps, I can see where your house is. That's where the world is becoming new. Mankind is becoming more ethical, but it is not happening because man has decided to become better than he was 100 years ago. It's because we know we live in a glass house where everybody can see.
In order to be credible, you must be authentic and true. Twenty years ago, something might be written about you in a newspaper. Then this newspaper would be scrapped, and that would be it. But now your statement stays [online] for the next 20 to 50 years — who knows how long for. To be credible, you must be consistent in the way you behave. Someone can say to you, "Listen, two years ago, you said something different." In a split second, they know. That's where lies that wonderful future for mankind.
Om: So you are in favor of radical transparency?
Brunello: Yes, I am in favor of that, because that's the way to become authentic and credible.
Om: Authentic and credible and open are wonderful ideas, but I wonder how you feel it all fits into today's reality. Now every person edits the story they tell about themselves, carefully ensuring what the world looks at — whether it's over Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
Brunello: I'd like to focus on the positive. The positive side is that you must be credible. Because everybody knows the problem that I'm concerned about, the dangerous is what you've just said, Facebook and all that.
Like [Greek philosopher] Heraclitus used to say, Polemos is the father and master of mankind. Without Polemos, there is no discussion, right? It's difficult to have a discussion, because nowadays human beings walk with a bowed head, looking down [at their phones]. Yesterday morning, a girl bumped her head in my face because she was not looking up.
I want to take a step backward. Who remembers the last email they sent yesterday? No one. Or the last text message. Emperor Hadrian used to say, "The daily business, the daily life, the daily chores, kills the human being." I'm not interested in daily chores. We have now swapped information for knowledge, which is not the same thing. I do not want to know. I'm not online. I don't even have a computer.
I am a great supporter of memory. If I remember things, I do not need to go back and check and revise. In this company, you cannot send emails after 5:30 PM, when the company closes for the evening. The day after, when you turn up for work, what are you like? You are a still person. You are better.
I do not want to be liable for intruding into your private life. Saint Benedict said, "You should look after your mind to study every day, then your soul through praise," which is basically speaking to yourself, praying. "Then work, through work." But the abbot is the one who basically assigns all the work; he is responsible for you even after your death. I do not want to assign work to you where I feel responsible for ruining or altering your private life.
Taming Technology
Om: How do you reconcile that with a world that is moving constantly and quickly, 24/7?
Brunello: Well, for example, we call our New York office and no one says, "Hi, how are you? How's your day?" No one. If everything is so short and to the point, how much time is then left for your mind? [It should be the case that] if we need three hours to go deep into things, then we do it.
Om: So you run a business that is across the universe, across the planet, different time zones, different people. Isn't that more of a 24/7 endeavor?
Brunello: No, it's not 24/7, because here in the company, you start at 8 AM, and at 5:30 PM you are forbidden to work any further. No emails can be sent to more than two addressees, just one or two. No group mailing. Why must a single email be read by 10 different people, unless it's the 10 people who are interested in that specific issue? In order to disperse responsibility?
The first time I was in New York, we had a tiny office, and they were emailing across it. I said, "No way. Just get up and go to your neighbor and ask them one thing, in one split second, in person." First of all, you look me in the eye. You smell me, my presence. Maybe I take the opportunity to ask you about your family. Don't you feel better than if you get an email? Maybe I smile and you feel even better.
The other day, I was writing some things that were important to me, and a message arrived. Who is able not to check the message? No one. Everybody is tempted. You go there for 30 seconds, then your mind is there, even though you were focused on what you were doing previously.
Here, no meetings with mobile phones. No one is allowed to bring them into the meeting room. You must look me in the eye. You must know things by heart. You must know all of your business with a 1 to 2 percent error rate. It is also training for your mind. It is also a question of respect, because I have never called someone on a Saturday or a Sunday. No one is allowed to do so. We must discover this, because if individuals rest properly, then it is better.
Do you know the word otium in Latin, meaning, "doing nothing"? The Roman people were all laid back. In all the pictures, they were all laying around. They were doing nothing, just staring. In the winter on a Sunday afternoon, I can spend six hours in front of the fireplace, just looking at the flames and thinking. In the evening, I'm drunk with beautiful thoughts. My wife says to me, "What are you looking at?" I say, "The fire." We have to take a step backward.
Many years ago, I witnessed something in America. I was there for Thanksgiving. When it was time for lunch, my friend would get a dish and bring it to the children, who were placed in front of the television. They were absorbed by the television. I said to my wife, it's something I can't cope with. I've always said we must be on the cutting edge with technology. But your life shouldn't change as a consequence.
Slaves to technology?
Om: Is it fair to say that you believe in technology as a tool and not in us becoming slaves to it?
Brunello: Yes. I have a phone. I think I receive 10 calls a day, because they know that I only want to receive the important ones. In Hong Kong, I walked out of the subway and someone was saying on the loud speaker, "Be careful, there's a wall." It's basically what happened to the lady yesterday morning. We must really manage this kind of reality. We must rule it somehow.
Om: What's the correlation? All these people you are quoting are very interesting, but why mention them? Also how are they correlated to all these people whose photos you have on the wall here?
Brunello: Those are the ancient thinkers, philosophers: Socrates, Confucius, Constantine, Palladio. These people are the contemporary figures that left me with a different view on the world. Dostoyevsky, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Kafka, Kennedy and the Pope. At the end of the day, all these great people, what do they focus on? Human dignity. They all talk about being custodians in the world. Hadrian, the emperor said, "I feel responsible for the beauty in the world."
Can I ask you, how old are you? I am 60 myself.
Om: 48.
Brunello: You are not far away from my mindset.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a great enlightened man, but he was the first of the Romantic movement, too. I think that in the last 30 years, we have tried to govern mankind through enlightenment, through the use of reason, our mind. This is no good.
This century is where enlightenment and romanticism must blend. A great idea that is born out of the mind and then goes through the soul — there is no doubt that the outcome is marvelous. If this idea is true, fair, beautiful, there's no doubt that it is also a good idea. I think this applies to everything.
Om: Agreed.
Brunello: I spend a lot of time in the Italian café, and when we are in the café, what is that? That's the Polemos I was telling you about. Discussions over time, debate about theology, economics, economy, religion. If we said, "When was Kant born? 1750?" and your mind was working in the meantime. Now, split second, Google it, and you know. There it is.
The mind no longer searches for things. For example, in what years was Marcus Aurelius emperor? When was that battle that we always talk about? What was there in that precise moment? What was going on?
In the past, say we were going to to meet up. I had seen you once before — your face, your body. But I didn't know what it would be like to meet again. Whereas now I've seen you and you're wearing your bikini. I've seen you everywhere. I do not want to deprive you of the surprise of the magic. Because then when you finally show up, you feel the smell of the burnt wood and everything else.
The other night at my place, there were 19 friends who have known one another since birth. We went through childhood, youth, everything together. The other night we were having this beautiful discussion about death. One of them got his phone out and said, "Look at this video." It was one of those videos about jokes and stuff: funny, of course. Of course, the discussion was interrupted. I said, "Are we crazy? No, there's no way." In the end, we never resumed the talk about death.
Then you ask yourself, "How can I govern this? How can I manage it?" No one can actually be so strong that you are thinking, then a bleep comes and you're not tempted to take a look. I don't know anybody who can resist that temptation.
Cashmere Chronicles
Om: Can we talk a little bit about you and your career as a businessman?
Brunello: Yes, with pleasure.
Om: You dropped out of engineering school to design cashmere sweaters. What was the attraction to cashmere?
Brunello: I had read Theodore Levitt, the American, who used to say that developed countries were supposed to manufacture special handcrafted goods, because one day, new people would arrive who would make the same things but at a better price. The idea of doing luxury, "made in Italy" has always been with me.
Why cashmere? Because I was using something that theoretically never goes to waste. You never throw away a cashmere pullover. The idea of manufacturing something that you never scrap, you never throw away — I liked it very much. Mind you, I had no money in my pocket at that time. Absolutely nothing.
I had this idea of building a company with one or two people and giving dignity to work.
Om: Now we have a world that is changing. The idea of "brand" is kind of amorphous, and you don't really know who stands behind that brand. I wonder if you have any thoughts about it.
Brunello: I wanted the brand to have my face. I wanted the product to convey the culture, life, lifestyle, dignity of work. We are a listed company, and I wanted to manufacture a product with dignity. I wanted a profit with dignity. Because the press all talk about the moral ethics of profit. Why can't we have a dignified profit then?
Would you buy something from someone if you knew that the person, by making this product, has harmed or damaged mankind? No, you would not buy it. You wouldn't even buy it if you knew that the company had staggering profits. Our cashmere blazer costs $3,000 retail, but the profit must be dignified. It needs to respect the raw material producer, then the artisans, then those working for the company. The consumer also needs to be respected. Everything must be balanced.
We need a new form of capitalism, a contemporary form of capitalism. I would like to add "humanistic" to that equation.
Don't you feel that over the last two or three years? Don't you smell it? There is an awareness raising, a civil, ethical point of view. The idea of community, dignity. Yes, it's a strong sensation.
Om: I refuse to buy anything made in China, unless I know who makes it, and also I don't buy anything which comes from fashion conglomerates. I like to pay for quality. The only challenge I feel is that for our approach to work, there has to be a certain amount of money, a certain amount of comfort in life. Without it, some people still have to work with the industrial society we are now in.
Brunello: My daughter refused to buy a pair of trousers for €19. Beautiful trousers. I said, "Why didn't you buy them?" She said, "How much money do they think the worker actually made or was paid for that?" I think that if you make a product, you have to sell in that specific market. In India, it has a price; in America, it has another price. I'm fine with that.
There are some companies that give a lot of their money to charity. I'm not interested in that. Because first of all I want to see how they make their profit in the process. It is meaningless that they make a huge profit and then do charity.
Rise of the Internet Brands
Om: There is a big boom in internet-based fashion brands. Do you think that trend has the ability to influence the world of fashion and clothing?
Brunello: Yes, absolutely.
There's luxury, absolute luxury, aspirational luxury and accessible luxury. Luxury is a handcrafted good or a place that is beautiful, well-made, exclusive. It must be exclusive; otherwise it's not luxury. It's nearly always something beautiful, well-made, true, and also useful and fair.
But what is this thing, "accessible luxury"? The two words don't go together. Absolute luxury must be exclusive too. Everything must be balanced. You made it. The raw material supplier, did they earn the fair amount? Good. Do the people who work for the company earn fair wages? Yes. Has the company made a fair profit or an excessive profit?
I think this jumper is three or four years old. Ten years old. Five years old. Three years. Even if you stop wearing it 10 years later, it should still be there. At the end of the day, most of all, there is quality, a high degree of workmanship.
We went public, and we have more than 50 percent American investors as shareholders. Before going public, I said to them, "Are you looking for a company that grows very fast, that makes profits that are too high, in our view, quick profits? Do not invest in our company. Do you want a company that grows in a gracious way? That allows suppliers to grow alongside it, so that your artisans can grow as well as the company's staff?"
You buy this product and you feel better, you feel at peace, because you bought a product that, although very expensive, there is work and respect for the work that goes into the product. I do not buy a specific product if I know you have made preposterous amounts of profit out of it. That's exactly where, in my view, the new capitalism lies.
The world has changed dramatically over the last 15 years. Man must adjust, must be contemporary. Capitalism and capitalistic people must be contemporary.
Om: What do you mean by "the world has changed"?
Brunello: It's open. We were saying before that I can use Google Maps to locate your home. I can see which car you drive, what swimming pool you have. I think that the world is completely different as a consequence. It is new. In a split second, you can have 2,000 people convening or rallying to a square.
Om: Let me give you a little counterargument. My theory is that we live in a world that moves much, much faster than ever before. In the Industrial Revolution, we moved at a certain speed and compressed time and spaces. The internet makes everything even faster, mobile. From my pocket to Italy to America to India is essentially microseconds.
The world is much faster, and there is a big change as a result. Whether it is fashion or cultural movements or political movements, we forget about what's happening so fast. We had Putin move into Crimea, and it's old news and nobody talks about it in the American media already. We are talking about something else now. The world is very different like that. That's a big challenge we face as a human race.
Speed Kills?
Brunello: In 1220, Genghis Khan was boasting that in two days, he could do what the Roman army would do in 10 days. He was boasting about his speed. Man's feeling has not changed, but the pace has changed.
Om: From a business perspective, has this connected planet helped you grow your business and open new markets quickly? Or not really?
Brunello: No. As far as business is concerned, I do not like things to go too quickly. I like to be swift as a person, but I don't like things to be rushed lightheartedly.
What I have tried to do is manage the American market as if it were a domestic market together with Europe. I speak to the Dallas store as if it were the Venice store. Someone from San Francisco basically listens to the same music as someone from Milan. They wear roughly the same clothes. They have their iPad, their iPhone. Just think of how mankind has become more homogeneous.But true luxury lies in the fact that you are not too widely known.
I am fascinated by the time that we are living in, because enlightenment and romanticism are blending. We are rediscovering human dignity, plus the dignity of the territory, the community.
Om: You once said that running a company is simple. I wanted to know more about that. I want to learn the business principles that other people, other entrepreneurs, can learn from you.
Brunello: You must believe in the human being, because the creativity of a company — Let's say you have a company with 1,000 people. Maybe we were told that there are only two or three genius people in the 1,000. But I think that if you have 1,000 people, you have 1,000 geniuses. They're just different kinds of genius and a different degree of intensity.
We hold a meeting here with all the staff every two months. Everybody takes part in it. Even the person with the humblest tasks knows exactly what was the latest shop we opened. Everything is based on esteem, and esteem then generates creativity.
Everything is visible, when things go well and also when they go less well. When we are sad, when we are worried, when we are happy: If you show all these different moods, then you are credible. That's why I say this is simple.
Om: Right now you're a publicly traded company, but you yourself have a more a philosophical bent. How do you reconcile the need of the stock market with your outlook on the world?
Brunello: Finance is now going back to working along with industry while respecting each's mutual role. In the last 20 years, finance dealt too much with industry, and industry dealt too much with finance. Whereas I myself, I'm an industrialist. I don't know anything about finance. If you invest in me, you invest in an industry. I like it even better if you call it an artisanal industry.
As for my business plans, I have three-year business plans and 30-year business plans but also three-centuries business plans. I think that this is another good breakthrough in the world.
I haven't come across one single investor who asked me to target a higher growth. Generally speaking, we pay our suppliers and staff 20 percent more than the average on the market. No investor ever asked, "Why don't you reduce their wages? They're too high." I'm confident, because finance will become contemporary and modern too.
State of Modern Fashion
Om: I want your comments on the modern fashion industry. As an industry insider, how do you see all this internet-driven hype?
Brunello: I think that there are some finance people, the French ones, that are great at finance and have bought companies. This is one way. Then there's a second way, the Italian way, where there are some industrialists with many enterprises.
They have a never-ending kind of outlook about their companies. Armani is just a witness to that. Basically, it testifies to this. They follow their own path, their own route. They can both be appreciated, but they're two different routes. Then, of course, some of these companies might sell to the other side, maybe because the owners are old. Some of them go public. Some of them have private equity funds.
When you sell a company, you tend to say that everything is going downhill. Whereas I like to quote Heraclitus on this: While things rest, the world regenerates. Something is born, grows, dies, rests, regenerates and regenerates again. That's why I'm not at all worried. These are just different routes.
Om: There's a lot of talk of manufacturing revival in the United States. Do you think it is feasible? If it is, what are the lessons from Italy that the U.S. can take?
Brunello: I think that there is a trend toward going back to manufacturing there. People want to buy a "made in the U.S." thing. You want to buy a French champagne, but you also want to buy something from your own country.
We have to rebuild the basis of all the skills. For example, the schools for arts and crafts. We have to start rebuilding. In order to do that, we need to give moral and economic dignity back to this kind of craft. Say you are a tailor. If you earn $1,200 a month, you are sort of ashamed to say that that's your trade, because that's the culture. We have to do the opposite. It should be that if someone sees you are a tailor, they say, "Oh, you are plying a very great trade, the tailor." That's the moral dignity I'm talking about.
Om: We have a lot of good shoe brands: Alden, Allen Edmonds, and a bunch of others like Codie. They have done well in the U.S. One of the reasons you can have so many arts and crafts and artisanal stuff being made in Italy is that you have the whole ecosystem.
Brunello: Each of us specializes in something. Italy has strong industries. It's ranked second only after Germany in Europe. There's furniture, food and apparel. [The United States] will go down in history because of technology. Germany, cars. The French have champagne. Every country has its own identity.
Say I work for Apple. Maybe I have the humblest kind of job, but I'm not ashamed that I work for Apple. Because it is still Apple. Whereas here in Italy, you say, "I'm a tailor" or "I'm a waiter" and you still get that kind of respect.
That's the nobility that we have to rediscover. That goes hand in hand with a comeback to the community, to the territory. In Italy, this is strong. The 35-year-olds, 40-year-olds, with their children, they're starting to take a look at the community. They want to go back to living in the countryside. They want to buy good food, good fruit. There is something in the air.
Om: I'm fascinated that you have such deep passion for philosophy. I wonder how it has helped you as a businessperson.
Brunello: In everything, really. For example, take Marcus Aurelius, the emperor. In any possible mood that you might be in, you read a sentence by him and you feel better. Any philosopher helps you to raise your head and the world will look better. Respect the human being, and that will be better. Hadrian the emperor said, "I never met anyone who after being paid a compliment did not feel better."
The true way to nurture your soul is philosophy. The true malaise of the human being — no matter whether Italian, American, Chinese — is the malaise of your soul, the uneasiness of your soul. This is stronger now than when my father was young or my grandfather.
I would like to try to somehow cure this malaise of the soul, even with the young people working for my company, because at the end of the day, you can be wealthy and still feel the same way. I know many people who own a fortune. The other day, a very loaded person said to me, "I'd love to be more serene." This is true for rich people, poor people.
There are three things you cannot buy. Fitness: You have to keep fit, whether you're rich or not. Diet: You cannot pay someone to be on a diet for you. I think that diet is the biggest sacrifice in my life. Then, looking after your soul. No one can possibly treat your soul but you yourself. This is something you can do through culture and philosophy.
Marcus Aurelius says, "You should go with the flow of mankind, you should live as if it was the last day of your life, plan as if you were to live forever," and then he also adds, "You should be at rest, at peace, you should give yourself some peace." Saint Benedict adds, "The sun should never set on our rage. Let's go to sleep at peace with mankind."
Let's try looking after our soul while working. Do you know that we work 11 percent of our life? We can't have everything revolve around work. Unfortunately, now in Italy, it is hip and chic to say, "I am so tired and exhausted by work." My father was tired because he was farming the land. He would say, "I need some sleep, I need some rest," but he did not have this kind of feeling.
This is the great kind of treatment that we have to follow on a daily basis. Philosophy prescribed this treatment to me. I don't know if you know Boethius, who lived in 520 AD. He was King Theodoric's right-hand man. Theodoric condemned Boethius to death. He resorts to philosophy for help. Philosophy turns up as a woman, not very young, but with alert eyes. She says to Boethius, "What are you complaining about in your life? You have had this, this, this and that." This is part of man.
Alexander the Great conquered a country. The tyrant cut the noses off the people there. It's just the way it is. It's part of life. I do not feel anxiety. What am I supposed to say here? You see, I think that philosophy really is part of human life.
Meetings & Mail
Om: One of the challenges that I have as somebody who works in the world of technology — and a lot of us in technology, like founders and engineers, have — is that we tend to work hard all the time. That is just a human state. How does one get away from constantly working? What is your advice?
Brunello: Sometimes our meetings are done standing, without coffee, no buffet, everything quick. This does not mean that everything is treated quickly. If the meeting takes three days, then three days are devoted to it.
How can you work 12 hours a day? Where is your mind? Where does it end up if you work 12 hours a day? Maybe your mind only develops in a specific sector. Maybe if you focus on that, you lose out on family, you lose out on spirituality with yourself, time with yourself.
For example, the other day I was in Milan, and I met with two 55-year-old managers who work as investors. One said to me, "I work from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM." Sitting there, in front of a screen, I wouldn't entrust anything of mine to him for 12 hours. Then, if you live in the city, you go back home, it takes one hour to commute. What about the morning after?
That's where we have to find a different kind of balance. You think that you have worked one hour less, but the morning after, your rate of creativity is sky-high.
What is Success
Om: This is a challenge in modern society. We measure success in terms of, "We've worked 12 hours." The entire society is rooted around the idea of more, and longer has become the measure of success. How does a young founder or a young startup measure what you're suggesting?
Brunello: So, I am 60. I have decided to work seven hours instead of eight, because I'm starting to be old. I have not reduced the rapidity, not by one split second. Since I am older, though, I get tired and I need rest.
We went public, then all the banks came here, all the people, and we were working until midnight the first days. There was one hour with just a sandwich, one hour coffee, one hour discussion. I said, "From tomorrow, everything changes." So everybody turns up at 8 AM, and at 5:30 PM everybody leaves. That's the only time we have available. I do not want to see any time wasted. I do not want during the day to see funny emails or joke emails. So we were able to go public without being overwhelmed.
During the road show, the banks said to me, "You are supposed to meet eight to nine people in one-to-one meetings a day." I said, "You must be crazy!" Am I supposed to meet someone for 45 minutes, and then another 45 minutes with someone else, then at 2 PM, I don't know what I said or didn't say? I said, "No, that's not my way. I'm meeting five, tops, very focused, that's it."
We have to rediscover the quality of work. If during the day, someone texts, "Why don't we go for a pizza on a Sunday?" I don't receive it until after 6 PM.
Om: I guess you're not on Twitter. [Silence.]
Brunello: No, I understand. You see, we can make things concise, and we have time for our family. When I say family, I mean your time, your private time. So tonight, at half-past five, that's it, I'm finished. I go for a jog, I have a booklet that I carry with me, and when I come across a good idea, I jot it down.
Om: This is fantastic. I have so many more questions.
Brunello: I think we will have the chance, because you are a very interesting person to me, too. I will come and see you when I am in San Francisco. You have a view and outlook that is extremely modern. You are fascinated, nevertheless, fascinated by philosophy. I am fascinated by philosophy and by the world. I have always kept technology at a distance. I was always scared of being dragged away. So I try to be a bit obnoxious because I am scared of it.
Om: I want fewer interruptions in my day. I have eliminated a lot of things from my life. I'm on a declining scale of wanting things. Fewer and fewer things. I think that is one of the reasons I find your approach to life, a more philosophical approach to business, fascinating.
Brunello: A 58-year-old man committed suicide, a great Italian manager, I think last year, or a couple of years ago. He wrote, "I spent a whole life running, chasing work, without realizing, at all, of the great ideals, of great values of life."
This is a question of balance. Those who come to me and say, "You know, I work 15 hours a day," I say, "I am not interested." I am interested in the quality of working hours, not the quantity. The brain of the human being. Do you think that during the first five hours of the day you are the same as you are in the last five hours? No way. You're tired, and if you're tired, you stop listening, and the decisions you make are risky.
Julie Zerbo
Abe Burmeister
In Memoriam, Riccardo Bestetti
Venice under the fog
Previous Previous post: A Cloudy Weekend
Next Next post: Uber, the Rashomon

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
14U/16U: Staying in Shape & Dealing with Loss in Isolation
04/06/2020, 12:45pm MDT
By Michael Rand
If the lives of youth hockey players and parents used to be all about "go, go, go" and figuring out how to pump the brakes from time to time, the current situation is the complete opposite.
With the majority of states issuing stay-at-home directives in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of families suddenly have a lot more time – but also a lot more challenges when it comes to helping kids burn off energy and stay active while options seem limited.
So this month, I surveyed several USA Hockey stakeholders for recommendations on everything from stay-at-home activities to dealing with the mental and emotional challenges of suddenly being temporarily without hockey or any other organized sports.
If you're the parent of a 14U or 16U player, here are some specific things to consider and try:
Trying to Stay in Shape
For players in this age group, staying sharp and building on an existing skill base is both challenging and important during this time.
Brian Galivan, director of sport science for USA Hockey's National Team Development Program, works with the best of the best in this age group and has some recommendations.
For workouts, he suggests multi-directional lunges, body weight squat variations, planks, overhead situps, crunches, plyometrics, speed ladder work and cone drills, among other things.
For those with the space, time and resources, online training programs could be beneficial. Galivan's company, GVN Performance, is doing live workouts on Instagram every weekday at 1 p.m. ET.
"It is a full workout," Galivan said, noting that each one lasts between 45 minutes and 1 hour. "We use no equipment since we know not everyone has access to it."
Follow GVN Performance on Instagram to access live workouts at home. The workouts stay on GVN's Instagram stories for 24 hours and can be accessed for that time period even if you can't do it while it's live.
Click here for a short example.
Dealing with Loss
Like so many hockey players across the country, the NTDP had its season cut short because of the virus outbreak. The team, comprised of 15-17-year-olds, plays in the United States Hockey League and was 25-21-2 when play was halted on March 12.
That sort of sudden loss is difficult physically – but perhaps it is more challenging from a mental and emotional standpoint.
"Emotionally this has been extremely challenging time not just because of losing hockey but losing our social lives and daily routines," Galivan said. "Playing hockey is definitively a lifestyle and I think most kids that play travel have lost their social lives, which tend to revolve around the game. This includes parents."
So how do you navigate that? Make sure kids know that it's okay to miss their teammates and to mourn the loss of the season, says American Development Model regional manager Bob Mancini.
What can players do to stay connected to teammates and their sport?
"Create a group chat with your teammates and friends," Mancini said. "Challenge each other to do fun stickhandling stuff. Make and share hockey videos."
Galivan echoes those thoughts, noting that players should try to stay connected to teammates and friends through apps like FaceTime and Zoom while also continuing to "treat your day like you are training for next season."
GVN Performance has a plan for players to get 5,000 shots and 10,000 puck touches while they are off the ice because of the virus outbreak. You can chart your progress and have it posted on social media.
Download and print these PDFs to participate.
Also, those aforementioned Instagram videos are great resources for all ages to stay active.
Remember that everyone will deal with this challenging time differently, and that there's not one correct way to do it. Stay connected with your teammates, give yourself space and do the best you can.
W/ everything that's going on, we wanted give back to the community by providing a free resources 4 kids to stay active!
Follow us on Insta @ 1pm est for P.E. w/ GVN! we'll also provide a more in depth explanation of certain exercises on IGTV #gvnperformance #helpingothers pic.twitter.com/dtIJm4rRVx
— GVNPerformance (@GVNPerformance) March 18, 2020
Player Development News
12U: Five Traits Coaches Love
14U/16U: Treating the Puck Like Gold
12/16/2021, 4:15pm MST , By Michael Caples
10U: Playing Time, Pressure & Development
6U/8U: Player Positions and Learning the Game
Trying every position leads to becoming a better hockey player
14U/16U: Creating a Culture of Accountability
Accountability can be fostered over the course of time
12U: Developing Gritty Players
11/03/2021, 11:15am MDT , By Michael Caples
What it takes – and what it shouldn't – to be a gritty hockey player
Tag(s): ADM Features


One could think that the luxury sector, essentially timeless, and the digital industry, disruptive by nature, would be worlds apart. And yet these two ecosystems, embodying very different temporalities, are capable of interacting and creating exciting new trends. Valtech has been accompanying leading luxury brands for over 20 years. As a privileged witness of the digital revolution and an actor in these transformations, we take a look at this improbable encounter between the luxury and digital worlds.
This is the first major point to be addressed. Indeed, in recent years we have seen the emergence of new brands using the codes of the luxury sector in an endeavour to be assimilated. While they cannot boast either the prestigious history or the clientele of the major designers in the industry, they do adopt both their terminology and their images, as well as their attention to packaging, etc. It is these various codes and standards that are responsible for their success today, establishing their clients as a happy or privileged few even though they number in their millions.
In a way, what we are witnessing is a theatrical performance, a staging of these brand names which have integrated digital technologies in an extremely intelligent way, capitalizing on their extraordinary power to reach the general public, to disseminate a skilfully crafted brand image, and thus to capture new markets. And, as always, it is the user journey that is at the heart of this reflection. These multifaceted brands are sufficiently flexible to know exactly how to position themselves at the intersections of influence, using what is beneficial for their image branding without abandoning the mainstream, which represents the foundation of their turnover.
It is obviously the question of balance that is at stake when two such very different worlds as the luxury and digital sectors collide. While to an extent they are diametrically opposed, this opposition is not systematic. Rather, their interaction raises real issues for those luxury brands that wish to evolve with their times. To what degree can a traditional brand afford to be seen to be adopting digital technologies? What share should the latter have in the brand's image and practices? The best hybridization success stories are undoubtedly those of certain top names in the French haute couture industry.
While remaining true to their vision and philosophy, these brands have nevertheless understood how to implement powerful levers of the digital industry to give them a real competitive edge. They have played on the disruptive – sometimes insolent – nature of digital resources to attract new consumers, portraying a new and more modern image. For them, digital technologies are an indicator of trends, but they choose to implement only some of them in order not to lose their original identity. And it is obviously this intelligent and conservative approach that we find interesting, being as it is a real evolution effected at the deepest level, and one that is therefore lasting.
Finally, we can also cite some examples of "de-digitalization". This has notably been the case with certain brands which adopted an all-out digital transformation – no doubt a little too virulent – only to later realize this solution was not for them. Or that it was, in any case, too much. While some brands conspicuously remained in their corner ignoring all of the opportunities offered by the digital world, others made the opposite move... before backtracking once again because they felt their initial choices were bad, and that they had more or less lost their souls along the way.
Here at Valtech, while we are champions of digitalization, we also feel very strongly that this digital transformation should never be a distortion of a brand's vision and philosophy. It is the authenticity of a brand that its clients love – and while the latter are willing to concede some changes to their own benefit, they do not want to see the intrinsic nature or behaviour of their favourite brand change. Another point – and no doubt the most important one – is that digital practices are but modus operandi, new levers to achieve new results. They should not be seen as a revolution, cutting off heads or reinventing the wheel! Where there is transformation, it must be to the client's benefit, facilitating the fluidity of their purchasing process, increasing the ease with which they access the products they need, offering greater customization, etc. Outside this scope, no revolutionary digitalization is possible!


There are many commercial options available in the market today for teeth whitening. Strips and trays to specialized toothpastes, gums and mouthwashes, many companies have tried to grab a piece of the whitening craze. However, the most effective treatment is still office whitening by your dentist.
The effectiveness of tooth whitening by a dentist it is in the tools they use. The first is the hydrogen peroxide gel industrial strength (15 to 35 percent). The dentist will also use a shield to protect the gums from harmful effects of the same gel. The last important tool teeth whitening is laser light, which helps to increase the bleaching effect of the peroxide gel.
The teeth whitening process begins with protective gel or mouth parts. These are carefully placed on any area of the gums that may be exposed to the high concentration of hydrogen peroxide. The dentist may also use special clamps to keep the mouth open better access to their teeth and gums. Once gums have been protected, the dentist will apply the gel completely hydrogen peroxide through the surface of the teeth. The gel is allowed to sit on your teeth for a prescribed amount of time (depending on how the teeth are stained), usually under a special light that helps increase the ability of bleaching gel. After the gel has had time to sit down, the dentist then rinse the patient's mouth until you have removed all the gel. The process can be repeated several times, depending on how severe and deep the stains.
Because the dentist whitening protects gums, it can be much safer than any of the commercial products in the market. However, due to the high percentage of hydrogen peroxide in the solution gel, deciduous tooth sensitivity may be a common side effect of whitening office visits.
Certain types of crowns or fillings that becomes more noticeable after tooth whitening. This is especially true of crowns or fillings that were installed before the end of the nineties. This is because the fillings available at that time were not as white as the teeth can now become after a typical bleaching session. However, these crowns and filling may be replaced by whiter most new implants if it bothers the color difference.


text:
Cattle rancher: California storms have helped with drought
Tips for staying warm on a budget
Despite record cocaine seizures, drug cartels roil Europe
International Headlines
RAF CASERT, Associated Press
Posted: Jan 10, 2023 / 11:47 AM CST | Updated: Jan 10, 2023 / 11:47 AM CST
Chief police inspector of the Brussels Morolles neighbourhood, Kris Verborgh shows a package of crack cocaine in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. The white plastic-wrapped kernel found on a small-time dealer recently was barely the size of a fingernail and weighed all of 0.2 grams. The "flash" that crack provides though is increasingly felt through the Brussels Marolles neighborhood and any place in Europe where the surge in cocaine supply is hitting hard. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — Each tiny plastic package was barely the size of a fingernail and weighed all of 0.2 grams. Still, the bags of white powder police seized in a Brussels cellar were yet another indication that a surge in cocaine and crack supply is hitting Europe hard.
And, with it, comes unprecedented drug violence in Belgium and the Netherlands, whose ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam have proven the main gateway for Latin American cocaine cartels into the continent.
In Belgium, the justice minister is forced to live in a safehouse, out of reach of drug gangs. In the Netherlands, killings hit ever more prominent people and there are suspicions that the reason the heir to the Dutch throne had to quit her student life and return home was also linked to threats from drug lords.
"We almost have to see it as a war," said Aukje de Vries, the Dutch State Secretary for customs.
Officials in Belgium's northern port of Antwerp on Tuesday announced yet another annual record in cocaine seizures last year: 110 tons, 23% up compared to 2021 and more than twice the amount confiscated five years ago.
"It astounded us," said Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem. "It also means the drugs that are entering Europe (undetected) through our ports are also rising. And that, of course, has a huge impact," he told The Associated Press.
Because with cocaine comes not only addiction, decay and death, but also violence and gang warfare.
In the past three years Antwerp has suffered dozens of grenade attacks, fires and small bombs often linked to gangs trying to carve up the thriving cocaine trade.
On Monday evening, the city better known for painter Peter-Paul Rubens and a famed fashion school saw the fatal shooting of a child, likely an unwitting victim of the drug war.
"A girl of barely 11 that obviously has nothing to do with crime gangs is now the victim of narco terror that is turning ever more ruthless," said Antwerp Prosecutor Franky De Keyzer.
The situation in Belgium has become so bad that even Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, is living in hiding after evidence emerged drugs gangs might be seeking to kidnap him, or worse.
In the Netherlands too, home to the global port of Rotterdam, murder and intimidation have become increasingly common as drug lords go to extreme lengths to protect their cut of the multibillion euro (dollar) market. And 50 tons of cocaine were seized there last year which, combined with Antwerp, made for another record year.
Among high-profile murder victims in the Netherlands in recent years were a lawyer representing a witness in a drug gangsters' trial and crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, who was a confidant to the same witness.
Unspecified threats to the heir to the Dutch throne, Princess Amalia, forced her last year to abandon student life in Amsterdam and return home. Security reportedly also has been beefed up around Prime Minister Mark Rutte. In both cases, it's suspected that drugs-related crime is a factor.
And in places like Brussels, where the violence might be less spectacular, cocaine and crack are starting to have a chilling effect in areas like the Marolles, a neighborhood so folksy quaint it figured in Tintin's cartoon adventures.
The chief police inspector for the neighborhood, Kris Verborgh, said South American cocaine "seems to be — or seems to have become — the new normal."
Verborgh says the cost of the base product in Colombia amounts to some 500 euros ($536) a kilogram. A kilogram of the finished product can turn into some 70,000 euros on Belgium's streets.
"It is a massive amount of money that you can earn relatively easily," he said.
Because of that, seizures in the dozens of tons in Antwerp and Rotterdam may still constitute a losing battle in a multibillion global trade from the Latin American nations of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to the major cities of Europe.
Brussels' Marolles is hardly ground zero of that trade and many of the 11,000 people living in its warren of narrow streets are among the poorest in the city of 1.2 million.
Yet, over the past months they have been sought out for cocaine and crack sales. Verborgh said each tiny dose of 0.2 gram sells for 20 euros, within reach of even a beggar seeking instant gratification for whom a traditional 0.8 gram dose costing 50 euros is too expensive.
"They're really targeting homeless people," said Verborgh. In a cocaine seller's world, it makes economic sense.
Fixers sometimes sell crack ready-made to be smoked on the curbside of once tranquil streets, even in a subway station with families walking by. Gangs start intimidating locals not to squeal, hurl rocks at passing police vans and try to turn streets into no-go zones for police — who Verborgh stresses, are not giving in.
Since mid-October, there have been 115 arrests in the neighborhood. The power of the gangs is such however, that within half an hour a new seller may be on the same corner.
And increasingly, the young are drawn in to the expanding trade. "Several years ago, we never saw somebody who was 12 or 14 years. Now we see them being more or less part of the gangs," doing things like stakeouts, Verborgh said.
Just last week, police in the Marolles stumbled upon a cache in a seemingly deserted cellar where they found cocaine and other drugs, precision scales, a drone, pepper spray and two swords. One of the two teenagers arrested there was 14.
"Well, it's a problem because normally a youngster of 12 or 14 years old should be at school," Verborgh said.
Mike Corder contributed from The Hague.
Mid-South 56 mins ago
Adams: NYC's 'right-to-shelter' doesn't apply to migrants
"This is a crisis that must be addressed based on what was created on this national platform," NYC Mayor Eric Adams said.
Restaurants have begun 2023 with a recurring problem left over from previous years: labor shortages.
New US race, ethnicity standards proposed; first since '97
Southwest Airlines faces earnings loss, investigation


We evaluate and rate the usability of software and information systems in procurement or tendering. We participate in the specification of usability criteria in competitive bidding. After offers have been made, we evaluate the candidates against the specified usability criteria. The usability evaluation method is suitable for both competitive bidding for public procurement and purchase of information systems for businesses. Respectively, accessibility can be also evaluated in procurement.


[eng] 1 (National). De facto national language. 4,900,000 in Sierra Leone, all users. L1 users: 500,000 in Sierra Leone (Crystal 2003a). L2 users: 4,400,000 (Crystal 2003a).
[lia] 2 (Provincial). Statutory provincial working language in Northern province (2004, Local Government Act, Article 16(1)), may be used in local council deliberations. 442,000 (2016).
[men] 2 (Provincial). Statutory provincial working language in Eastern and Northern provinces; also in Southern province interior (2004, Local Government Act, Article 16(1)). 1,940,000 in Sierra Leone (2016). Total users in all countries: 1,976,000.
[tem] 2 (Provincial). Statutory provincial working language in Northern province (3 districts), Southern province and Western Area (1 district each) (2004, Local Government Act, Article 16(1)). 1,870,000, all users. L1 users: 1,630,000 (2016). L2 users: 240,000 (1981 D. Cranmer).
[kri] 3 (Wider communication). 5,732,000 in Sierra Leone, all users. L1 users: 692,000 in Sierra Leone (2016). L2 users: 5,040,000 (2016). Total users in all countries: 5,758,640 (as L1: 718,640; as L2: 5,040,000).
[emk] 3 (Wider communication). 138,000 in Sierra Leone (2016).
[bsq] 5* (Developing). 5,730 in Sierra Leone (2006 J. Leclerc).
[gol] 5* (Developing). 8,000 in Sierra Leone (1989 The Institute for Sierra Leonean Languages).
[kss] 5* (Developing). 112,000 in Sierra Leone (2016).
[klu] 5* (Developing). 9,620 in Sierra Leone (2006 J. Leclerc).
[kno] 5* (Developing). 295,000, all users. L1 users: 270,000 (2016). L2 users: 25,000 (1981 D. Cranmer).
[knk] 5* (Developing). 356,000 in Sierra Leone (2016). Total users in all countries: 461,000.
[lok] 5* (Developing). 178,000 (2016).
[vai] 5* (Developing). 19,800 in Sierra Leone (2016).
[yal] 5* (Developing). 39,600 in Sierra Leone (2016).
[kqs] 5* (Dispersed). 52,700 in Sierra Leone (2016).
[fuf] 5* (Dispersed). 237,000 in Sierra Leone (2016).
[sus] 5* (Dispersed). 158,000 in Sierra Leone (2016).
[bun] 6a* (Vigorous). 178,000 (2016).
[sgx] 6a* (Vigorous). 200 (2008 WFD). Reportedly 200 deaf signers out of 3,000–5,000 total deaf (2008 WFD).
[buy] 6b (Threatened). 6,100 in Sierra Leone (2013 J. Leclerc).
[lma] 6b (Threatened). 600 in Sierra Leone (2013 J. Leclerc).
[bmf] 8b (Nearly extinct). Bom: a few hundred speakers; Kim: less than 15 speakers (2014 T. Childs).
[nqo] 9 (Second language only). No known L1 speakers in Sierra Leone. Ethnic population: No ethnic community.


Custom 3D Sculpted Car Top Signs - Dino Rentos Studios, INC.
Mobile Advertisement. Drive Up Sales.
3D Car Top Sign, a DR Prop Studios Property, specializes in custom foam 3D Car Top Signs. Clients contact us to produce their logo, character, or sign into a 3-Dimensional Sculpted Foam Car Topper.
Each unit is created completely in-house by our team of designers and artists. The 3D Car Top Signs are carved in EPS Foam and sprayed in a durable Polyurea Plastic Coat. The units are embedded with a steel structure and bolt points. We paint each unit to specs and cover in a UV or Automotive Gloss.
Contact our Sales Team for your custom quote today.


text:
OCTOBER/SEPTEMBER 2015
OCT. 29, 2015 STEGOSKELETUS
The doctors in my neighborhood have passed their dinosaur through some sort of mysterious X-ray device, thereby rendering him even scarier to any passing Halloween trick-or-treaters. Boo!
OCT. 27, 2015 EIGHTY-SIX YEARS AGO TODAY
This is the 36th anniversary of the 50th anniversary of a nonprofit landmark in Washington, PA. I was present for the 50-year celebration in 1979, and I recall televising the ceremony. More importantly, I bring you up to date on the plans for the building in a new article, YWCA Becomes TRIPIL.
OCT. 23, 2015 FIELD OF MEMORIES
Memorial Field behind my old high school in Richwood, Ohio, has been empty for decades, following the construction of a new football stadium near the new school building. Now a similar fate has befallen another small town.
Back in 1940, five miles up the river from where I live today, Freeport High School began playing football behind the school building on a gridiron squeezed onto a baseball outfield. (Richwood lost to Big Walnut 30-6 on a similar layout in Sunbury, Ohio, in 1962. Our visitors' bench was on the edge of the dirt infield.)
In 1980, I first televised a game from Freeport with our crew from TV-3. We parked behind the school and carried our single camera up to the white-roofed pressbox. I stayed in the truck with the recorders and graphics generator.
Like the fans, we had a slightly obstructed view. The center-field light standard is in front of the stands. This tower was usually occupied, halfway up, by a man on a platform filming the game for the coaches. His silhouette floated in front of the action on our TV screen.
The photo above was taken by Jason Bridge for Trib Total Media last Friday night, as James Swartz Memorial Stadium hosted its final regular-season home game. The school has buildt a new modern campus three miles outside town, and that's where the Freeport Yellowjackets will play next year. Time marches on.
OCT. 22, 2015 NICE GUYS FINISH FIFTH
When I was growing up (before 1969), baseball's American League and National League each consisted of only eight teams.
In each league, the team with the best record claimed the "pennant" and proceeded directly to the World Series. The top four finishers were said to be in the "First Division" and shared in the Series gate receipts.
The other four teams, fifth through eighth, were in the "Second Division" and got nothing. The perpetually woeful Chicago Cubs were a Second Division team for each of the first 20 years of my life.
Times have changed. Now the word "Division" has a different meaning and we have several rounds of post-season playoffs.
This year, the New York Mets won the NL East but were only fifth in the overall league standings. In my day, fifth place was a failure, a spot in the also-ran Second Division. But in the 2015 World Series, guess who will represent the National League?
OCT. 20, 2015 WHAT IS A FAIR?
The season for county fairs is drawing to a close.
But in my hometown, the big event isn't the Union County Fair down in Marysville. It's the Richwood Independent Fair, right there in Richwood.
When I was growing up, my father's dealership displayed cars near the grandstand in one of the biggest tents on the grounds. (I've colorized a photo I took of that tent in 1956.) From there, in 1963 he sponsored a live radio broadcast that featured readings from a local poet and a song from one of my high school classmates.
My transcript of that quarter-hour variety show is this month's 100 Moons article.
OCT. 17, 2015 HIGHWAY DESIGN QUESTION
Big trucks have a low ratio of power to weight, so they tend to slow down when they have to climb a long hill. Highway engineers often add an extra lane on the right for slower traffic.
The heaviest trucks turn on their flashers. By the time they near the end of their arduous climb, they've slowed below 40 mph. Then their special lane goes away!
Typically that extra lane extends only from A to B on this diagram. That's all that is necessary, right? The uphill part of the road?
But at B, the trucks are moving almost at their slowest. That's the worst possible place to force them to pull out in front of the high-speed regular traffic.
Wouldn't it be safer to extend their lane well past the top of the hill, to C, to give the truckers a chance to get back up to speed before they have to merge?
OCT. 11, 2015 CAUGHT IN THE ACT
According to the date on the pictures, two years ago this month Google's "Street View" camera vehicle made a pass down Amazon Alley, which runs beside my apartment.
Earlier that same October I had taken delivery on a shiny new car. However, not until this year did I discover these images of it. You can't recognize me, but there I am, oblivious to the cameras, unloading the trunk.
I'm on Google Earth!
You'll notice that my parking space is simply a graveled rectangle in the corner of the lawn, which otherwise consists of a 60' by 60' square of grass. Several rabbits graze here and on the neighbors' lawns. We don't consider them pests because we don't have gardens, and they're welcome to nibble our clover.
Sometimes they hide under the branches of the forty-foot pine trees that separate the lawn from the alley.
But sometimes I find them much closer — underneath the shelter of my car.
As a general rule, whenever I leave any parking space I let out the brake gradually, because there have been times I've discovered I was in Drive when I thought I was in Reverse or vice versa. I'm especially slow about pulling out of this particular space. I want to give any lurking animal friend a chance to hop away from those tires when they start to roll.
When I reach the street I often look back and see a rabbit next to my parking space, watching me depart. He may be almost tame, but for some reason he never waves goodbye.
OCT. 6, 2015 ALWAYS MATCHING OUR WINS
On the Fourth of July, the St. Louis Cardinals led the National League Central Division by 6 games over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Chicago Cubs were in third place, 8½ games out. There was a lot of baseball yet to be played, but if the season happened to end that way, the Cardinals would claim the division title and the Pirates and Cubs would claim the two wild cards.
Guess what? All three teams did hold those positions the rest of the way! The playoff spots were filled as long predicted. The race did tighten towards the end, as the Cardinals finished with 100 wins, the Pirates with 98, and the Cubs with 97. These were the best teams in all of Major League Baseball. No other club won more than 95.
This graph shows by how many games the Pirates trailed the Cardinals during those final three months — never more than 7 games, never less than 2½ until the final day.
To Pirates fans, it seemed like every time their team won and could have gained ground, their hopes were dashed when the Cardinals won too.
One example: although the Pirates went 19-9 in August, they actually lost 1½ games in the standings. On those 19 winning days the Cardinals went 13-6 (.684).
Another example: the Pirates were 5 games back in mid-September but reeled off eight straight wins. Did they catch the Cardinals? Of course not. On six of those dates, St. Louis also won, maintaining a 3-game lead.
Checking the standings each day was like déjà vu all over again.
OCT. 3, 2015 COLLEGE EDUCATION: A GOOD DEAL?
The federal government has introduced a website called College Scorecard that allows families to compare universities on several different metrics. One of them is how much money a graduate can expect to make.
At one end of the scale, alumni of North Dakota's Sitting Bull College earn an average annual salary of only $11,600. At the other end, SUNY Downstate Medical Center graduates are paid nearly 11 times as much. In between are institutions you've actually heard of: MIT $91,600, Harvard $87,200, Penn State $47,500. My alma mater, Oberlin College, barely beat the national average at $38,400. In fact, 48% of Oberlin graduates earn less than people with only a high school diploma!
But that's okay. I'm not surprised that Oberlinians are paid less than SUNY doctors, or MIT engineers, or Harvard lawyers, or Penn State executives. We tend to heed less lucrative callings. We may become educators or social workers or classical musicians or organic farmers or pastors or poets or performers. Our treasures are not necessarily in our bank accounts.
UPDATE, NOVEMBER 2015: Class co-agent Chip Hauss '69 (left) made a recent visit to Oberlin. "He saw three young women studying in the science center at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. After he got over his delight to find students studying so early and his frustration at their not knowing where he could get some caffeine, he stayed and talked.
"Ellie, Grace, and Tricia represent what is best about Oberlin. All are athletes and top students. All see Oberlin preparing them for careers in social change. Tricia is a neuroscience major who will become a nurse practitioner and a lawyer who can work for social justice. Ellie wants to work in disaster relief in war-torn parts of the world. Grace, alas, hasn't sent me her resume yet."
UPDATE, FEBRUARY 2016: Dr. Loretta Jackson-Hayes, an associate professor of chemistry in Memphis, promotes a liberal education for scientists. She writes in part, "Our culture has drawn an artificial line between art and science, one that did not exist for innovators like Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs. Leonardo's curiosity and passion for painting, writing, engineering and biology helped him triumph in both art and science. Jobs declared: 'It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.'
"A scientist trained in the liberal arts has another huge advantage: writing ability. The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's Gail Morris told Newsweek, 'We need whole people.'
"Many in government and business publicly question the value of such an education. Yet employers in every sector continue to scoop up my students because of their ability to apply cross-disciplinary thinking to an incredibly complex world."
If you ask whether college is worth it, don't just compare how much you'll make to how much it'll cost. Consider more than return versus investment. A college is not merely a trade school to prepare you for a specific career. A college — particularly a liberal arts college like Oberlin — is a place where young performers and politicians, poets and physicists, talk to each other. It prepares you for life.
SEPT. 27, 2015 CADOGAN DISCOVERY
Fifty years ago I wrote a nonsense genealogy. In a way, it anticipated George Foreman and his five sons all named George. And his grill, I suppose.
My story ended with a $1.47 bill for food and drinks at Tim & Clyde's place. Prices were cheaper then. But whatever happened to Tim & Clyde's?
A couple of weeks ago I happened to be driving through a tiny town along the Allegheny River, and I found it! Or what it has become, anyway.
The place is on Prospect Avenue in Cadogan, Pennsylvania. I've appended a photo to the original tale and made it this month's 100 Moons article, because why not?
SEPT. 24, 2015 THE TROUBLES YOU'RE REAPING
The Beatles released their "White Album" when I was a college senior, and we featured it prominently on our campus radio station WOBC. One of the great songs on the first of its four sides was George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." I didn't discover until recently that George didn't play the solo; the gentle weeping was provided by uncredited guest star Eric Clapton, who also joined in this performance.
Half a century later, what is it that we should be bewailing? Pope Francis and I would say it's the slow death of our planet.
The Associated Press reported last week that according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the month of August "smashed global records for heat." So did the entire summer. "That's the fifth straight record hot season in a row and the fourth consecutive record hot month. Meteorologists say 2015 is a near certainty to eclipse 2014 as the hottest year on record."
Many of us don't want to hear it, but scientists have been trying for years to alert us to global warming. As more and more people burn more and more oil and gas and coal, the atmosphere is being polluted by greenhouse gases. In the coming years, low-lying lands will be flooded by rising seas, temperate farmlands will be transformed into dusty deserts, species will go extinct, and billions will starve.
But we can't do a thing about it!
Why not? Because we don't want to.
The rich and powerful can buy and sell us, but they won't restrain the use of fossil fuels because that would reduce their profits. None of us want to sacrifice. We might have to make drastic changes to our lifestyles. Will we not be able to drive our cars as much? Will coal miners have to find other jobs? No, we don't want to do anything about global warming. And commentators divert us with excuses to avoid doing anything.
Sean Hannity: "I don't believe climate change is real. I think this is global warming hysteria and alarmism." Tucker Carlson: "You can't tell me that global warming is destroying the earth." Rush Limbaugh: "It's already a hoax, it's already been established: There is no man-made global warming."
The worst catastrophe, if it comes, is still decades away. I won't be alive to see it. Younger folks figure they'll be able to find a way to cope. Besides, it won't happen at all because Rush says it's a hoax.
I regret to inform you that Rush is the one who's lying. He and the other perverted deniers are full of hot air. They've inverted the facts. The real hoax is their insistence that we can carry on as usual.
Portrait by Wu Wei
George Harrison is gone now, but he sees the world here that's sleeping.
"I look at you all.
I look at the trouble
and see that it's raging."
I've taken the liberty of rearranging his lyrics slightly. The words in green are alternate versions from Harrison's earlier demos of this song. The words in blue are alternate versions from me.
I look from the wings at the play you are staging
While my guitar gently weeps,
As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but ageing,
While my guitar gently weeps.
I look at the floor, and I see it needs sweeping.
Still my guitar gently weeps.
The problems you sow are the troubles you're reaping,
I don't know why nobody told you.
They all bankrolled the lie.
I don't know how someone controlled you;
They bought and sold you.
I look at the world, and I notice it's burning,
With every mistake, we must surely be learning.
I don't know how you were diverted.
You were perverted, too.
I don't know how you were inverted.
No one alerted you.
I look at you all, see the coming disaster,
I look at you all . . .
SEPT. 21, 2015 INSIGNIFICANT STAT
Starling Marte of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who usually hits left-handed pitchers well, has been slumping since July. An article in yesterday's paper gave the numbers and ended with the factoid that his walk rate against lefties (3.4 per cent) is only half what it was in 2014.
That sounds like a drastic falloff. It isn't. It's a drop from 6.3% to 3.4%. Had it been a drop from 63% to 34% it would have meant something, but Marte's bases on balls have always been infrequent. In 2014 he walked six times against lefthanders. So far this season, only four times. That's a whopping difference of one walk every three months.
SEPT. 16, 2015 GOD HATES, AND OTHER OPINIONS
This weekend I ran across a picture of demonstrators asking why God destroyed Sodom. These hate-full homophobes think they have the answer, but apparently they don't read their Bibles carefully.
Contrary to what we've been led to believe, God doesn't always know everything. In this case, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had been accused of unspecified wickedness, and God wondered how bad the situation could be (Genesis 18:20-21). He decided to send angels to investigate. If they couldn't find ten good people (18:32), they would destroy the "cities of the plain" (19:13).
When the angels arrived in Sodom, Lot hospitably invited the strangers to stay with him. However, Lot's neighbors had resented him ever since he had immigrated to their town (19:9). Surrounding his house, they demanded that he hand over the undocumented aliens. The mob wanted to rape the angels (19:5). Lot came out and offered his daughters instead, because it's more virtuous to give up some of your own property than to allow your guests to be treated unkindly (19:8). But the angels yanked Lot back into the house and warned him to get his family out of town before the rain of fire began.
Aside from the mob's threat, there's no indication here that homosexual activity was more common in Sodom than anywhere else. So why did God destroy the city? What was its sin? Hostility to outsiders? "Sodomy"? Something more? The Bible gives us the answer. It's in Ezekiel 16:49.
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom:
She and her daughters were arrogant,
overfed, and unconcerned.
They did not help the poor and needy.
To me, the Sodomites sound like present-day Republicans who don't think taxes on the wealthy ought to be used to assist the less fortunate.
Ezekiel 16:50: "They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them, as you have seen."
2017 UPDATE: Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg agrees. Republicans are Sodomites.
"'Why should we suffer wayfarers, who come to us only to deplete our wealth? Come, let us abolish the practice of traveling in our land.' ...Sodom wasn't saved. There weren't enough righteous people to carry the city through. What about here?"
This summer on the Internet, I've found much other material that interests me. In many cases, the topics are politics and religion, which we really aren't supposed to discuss in polite company. Nevertheless, I wanted to pass along some of what I've found. I've added a new article to this website: a collection of what I'm calling Retweets. Take a look.
SEPT. 13, 2015 LOOK BOTH WAYS
Where children walk to and from school, ideally there should be a friendly policeman to help them get across the street safely.
The little village where I grew up had only three traffic lights and no multi-lane highways, so traffic wasn't that heavy. We didn't have many law enforcement officials either. But if we couldn't station an actual cop near a crossing to scare any speeders into slowing down, perhaps we could deploy a metal decoy.
Also, we could deputize older kids to watch out for the younger kids. Members of the student "safety patrol" wore diagonal white belts and badges, their symbols of authority.
The AAA provided red and white flags on long wooden poles which were held horizontally to block either vehicular or pedestrian traffic, as required. The belts supported the free end of the poles.
I always thought this arrangement was the norm. But last month I read that the financially troubled Penn Hills school district has been paying crossing guards. They've been paying 71 adults a total of $600,000 a year! Now they plan to save hundreds of thousands of dollars by cutting the force to only 25 guards. Some Penn Hills students do have to cross heavily-used roads, but state law doesn't mandate any crossing guards at all.
In nearby McKeesport, a 15-year-old student was struck and killed by a school bus ten days ago at the same spot where a 14-year-old was killed by a dump truck a year and a half before. The busy intersection is fully equipped with traffic signals, painted crosswalks, and lighted "walk/don't walk" signs. Were these kids carefully obeying the rules, or were they carefreely jaydarting? I suspect the latter. Now the authorities will install barrier railings, lengthen the "walk" intervals, and stagger the bus departures. They'll find the money somewhere to hire a crossing guard temporarily. "It could be a week, five weeks or a year." Will that be enough?
Up in Augusta, Maine, last summer, school officials eliminated all of that district's paid guards. Board of Education chairwoman Susan Campbell said many children cross the street anyway, even when school is not in session. "Do you think those kids don't cross the road all summer long to get to the playground? I think kids are crossing all the time." And Superintendent James Anastasio noted, "Very, very, very few communities have crossing guards anymore, and those who do, cross with volunteers. Most people are reacting to what they remember, walking to school as children. But very few children walk to school now. Many more parents drive their children to school than in the past."
(These old photos are not from my school.)
Penn Hills had to take out a $12 million loan to balance its budget. If money is that tight, maybe they should consider once again employing old-school methods: metal cops and adolescent escorts, no salary required.
SEPT. 10, 2015 CAN HE LAST 'TIL THE WORLD SERIES?
Baseball's best pitchers — especially those who are relatively inexperienced or recovering from surgery — are burning themselves out during the long regular season, then having to sit out the more important stretch drives in September and playoffs in October.
In 2012, the Nationals shut down Stephen Strasburg on September 9 after 159.1 innings. This year, Matt Harvey's agent Scott Boras warned last week that the Mets will put his client in "peril" if they use him for more than 180 innings; the latest guess is that Harvey will make only one more regular-season start. And Pirates pitcher Gerrit Cole already has thrown 180.2 innings, many more than his previous career high; because the Bucs would like to keep Cole fresh for the postseason, he's skipping his regular start tonight.
How can we avoid these situations? Let me make two off-the-wall suggestions.
• Replace the customary five-man pitching rotations with six-man rotations. Granted, a manager will still try to find a way to get his ace onto the mound every five days, thus using him up before the postseason. To minimize this, add a rule that anyone who pitches five innings or more on a given day is ineligible to pitch again until six days later. If a game is a blowout, the manager might replace the pitcher after 4.2 innings so he could make another start in a few days. No problem; that would tend to save his arm, while giving a long reliever a chance at a win.
Or . . .
• Shorten the season from 162 games to about 142, provided that you can somehow convince the owners to give up the revenue. Forget the first half of April, when weather in the North can be challenging. Start the season on April 15 as it did in 1947 and call it Jackie Robinson Opening Day to honor Robinson's debut with the Dodgers on that date, meanwhile ending the silly custom of making every player wear #42. Then finish the season early enough to allow the wild-card teams to play five-game series (not one-game playoffs) during the last week of September.
SEPT. 7, 2015 WHAT'S THE SCORE?
It was a recent Sunday. I tuned the TV to an afternoon baseball game and curled up on the couch, my back to the screen and my face buried in a pillow and my eyes closed, listening to the commentators.
Since the beginning of televised sport, radio announcers have been enlisted to supply the TV sound track.
I've read about Red Barber calling a Reds-Dodgers doubleheader on a pioneering 1939 NBC telecast. The technology was primitive; the New York Times reported, "At times it was possible to catch a fleeting glimpse of the ball as it sped from the pitcher's hand toward home plate." Viewers might not have been able to comprehend what they were seeing had it not been for Red's play-by-play description.
It wasn't until late in the 1980 football season that NBC and Don Ohlmeyer were confident enough in their pictures to broadcast an announcerless game. I remember watching that one-time-only experimental telecast, Jets versus Dolphins. We viewers heard only what we could have heard in the stadium: cheering, PA announcements, and the sounds of players hitting each other. I rather enjoyed the realism.
On this recent Sunday, I wasn't paying nearly as much attention. Within a few minutes, I had slipped into an afternoon nap.
When I woke up a couple of hours later, the baseball game was still on. I wondered, "What's the score?" I could have bestirred myself to roll over and peer at the corner of the screen, where the score bug is always visible. But I was too lazy. I lay there and waited for the announcers to tell me.
For a long time, they didn't.
Much play-by-play commentary is superfluous. We can see "There's a ground ball to shortstop," so we don't really need to be told. Therefore, TV narration has gradually become less comprehensive. Sometimes if the guys are telling a story, they may not feel the need to interrupt themselves to say "Ball two outside, and the count is now 2 and 1."
This attitude has now extended to the score. I've heard of radio announcers using an egg timer to remind themselves to give the score every three minutes. TV announcers don't worry about that. An attentive viewer can be expected to know what's happened in the game so far, and if he forgets, the score bug can remind him.
As an inattentive "viewer," I had to listen for clues. If a certain batter had "grounded out in the fourth inning," that implied we were now in about the sixth inning. If the announcers started worrying about the Pirates bullpen, the Pirates were probably protecting a small lead. Eventually, about the eighth inning, when a walk was described as bringing the potential tying run to the plate, the mystery had been resolved. I could remain in my comfortable semi-napping position.
SEPT. 2, 2015 CORRECTING A MISCONCEPTION
Those who worship the Bible as an inerrant guide to all aspects of life often claim that their sacred book forbids abortion.
It doesn't. There's even a chapter prescribing how to perform one.
As Brother Billy's guests pointed out in my earlier article — and this minister agrees — the Bible does not define life as beginning at conception. A developing fetus is not yet considered a person. Life doesn't begin until the newborn emerges and begins to breathe the "breath of life."
And as "cervantes" posted on the Internet, August 28, 2015: "If human life begins at conception and the gamete is a person, then the greatest public health catastrophe and most urgent medical crisis confronting us is the more than 50% of unborn babies that die naturally. God is the most prolific abortionist of all time. 100% of NIH funding should be diverted immediately to saving those millions of innocent lives that God is murdering every year in this country alone."
Sometimes people want to play God by deliberately ending a pregnancy that's resulted from an illicit or adulterous relationship. Believe it or not, for those situations the Bible gives a detailed recipe for concocting an abortifacient from holy water, as well as detailed instructions for using it to eliminate the misconceived fetus.
I explain in my article Biblical Lie Detector.
BACK TO TOP OF OCTOBER/SEPTEMBER 2015


text:
Can Neuroscience Change Our Minds? / Edition 1 available in Hardcover, NOOK Book
Can Neuroscience Change Our Minds? / Edition 1
by Hilary Rose, Steven RoseHilary Rose
Current price is , Original price is $67.5. You
$58.46 $67.50 Save 13% Current price is $58.46, Original price is $67.5. You Save 13%.
New Human Frontiers Series
Hilary Rose is Emerita Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bradford. Together with Steven Rose, she is author of "Genes, Cells and Brains" and "Alas, Poor Darwin".
Steven Rose is Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at The Open University. He was co-founder of the British Neuroscience Association, and has won numerous prestigious awards, including the Biochemical Society medal for communication in science and the British Neuroscience Association's lifetime award for "Outstanding contributions to neuroscience".
Chapter 1 The Rise and Rise of the Neurosciences
Chapter 2 The Neurosciences Go Mega
Chapter 3 Early Intervention: Making the Most of Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 4 Neuroscience Goes to School
"This book is a bold, forthright and courageous commentary on looming cultural trendsa true tour de force."
An important corrective to the rise of neuroscientific ideas, and to the neoliberal ideology that spawned them.
Counterfire


text:
Salinas Catholics celebrate Virgen of Guadalupe
David Rodriguez , Chelcey Adami | Salinas Californian
Folklorico dancers filled the room with bright dresses and joyful smiles, as Aztec dancers fascinated the crowd with an intense performance and dramatic feathered outfits Tuesday during the annual Virgen of Guadalupe veneration at St. Mary of the Nativity Catholic Church in East Salinas.
Children, parents and friends recorded performances that the two groups executed in front of hundreds of people. As it came to an end, applause erupted from every direction.
Free food was served for the people who attended the celebration, including tortas ahogadas, tamales and champurrado.
The Virgen of Guadalupe, or Lady of Guadalupe, has been celebrated by Catholics since the 16th century.
In 1531, just outside Mexico City, Our Lady of Guadalupe, or the Virgin Mary, is believed to have appeared to a Native American peasant named Juan Diego. She asked that a church be built on the site, according to legend. An original shrine was built near the hill of Tepevac in the 16th century.
The Virgin Mary is said to have left behind an image of herself imprinted on Juan Diego's cloak or tilma. More than 486 years later, the cloak shows no signs of decay and can be viewed at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
On Dec. 12, the festivities continue at Salinas Valley Catholic churches such as St. Mary's with mariachi and an all-night rosary in honor of the Virgen of Guadalupe.
For more photos of the event, go to www.thecalifornian.com.
USA Today contributed to this report.
David Rodriguez is a multimedia journalist for The Salinas Californian. Contact him at (831) 269-9363 or drodriguez@thecalifornian.com. Subscribe to support local journalism.


The Brother 4500D Sewing and Embroidery Machines dependability and discounted price are sure to fit your needs. Give the Brother 4500D Sewing and Embroidery Machine a try in our retail store. We offer a 30 day guarantee on a New Brother 4500D Sewing and Embroidery Machine and a hassle free shopping experience. Buy with confidence from us, we offer FREE lessons with each new machine purchase and FREE customer service support. Prepare to be spoiled with the Brother 4500D Sewing and Embroidery Machines rich built in designs, decorative stitches, dual USB ports, a custom stitch design tool, and automatic push button threading. The Brother 4500D Sewing and Embroidery Machine also has quilting capabilities and new features like the back to beginning key, pivoting function, Automatic Height Adjuster, and an extra large quilting extension table. The Brother 4500D Sewing and Embroidery Machine is designed, engineered, and developed by sewing fanatics, just like you.
Embroidery Size - 12" x 7"
LCD Touch Control Panel - Super large, color, high resolution 8.3"x3.1"
Maximum Embroidery Field - 12" x 7"


#INLAND WATERWAYS - The Lakelands & Inland Waterways Ireland Sailing Raid is a unique event combining sailing, adventure, exploration and racing in the setting of some of the most stunning countryside in Western Europe.
On 14-21 September a fleet of about 40 'open' boats – including the 5.5-metre Shannon One Design, the 4.5-metre Water Wags and various traditional styles and new builds all under 7.5 metres long – will sail 190km from Lough Erne in Northern Ireland, through the River Shannon and across the great lakes of Lough Ree and Lough Derg to Killaloe.
Although it will be a competitive race, there will be some time left to enjoy the scenery and the Irish hospitality of the three participating yacht clubs along the way. Some will come for the racing, some for the scenery, some for the spirit of comraderie – but everyone is sure to enjoy the craic.
To maintain the maritime nature of the event, the Lakelands & Inland Waterways Ireland Sailing Raid will be based as much as possible on the water.
Accommodation will be provided in motor cruisers for those who want it, while some will be able to camp near the river bank and others will make their own arrangements. Each stopover will therefore bring together participants in a 'floating village', with several receptions and festivities in the evenings.
The event is being organised in close collaboration with Waterways Ireland, with logistical support will be provided by the three main yacht clubs on the route: Lough Erne Yacht Club, Lough Ree Yacht Club and Lough Derg Yacht Club.
Members of the local clubs are being invited to take part at a preferential rate, while raid competitors from all over Europe will provide an international element to the event.
For more information and application details, visit the Sailing Raid website at www.sailing-raids.com.