Youth Day + Father's Day = Stressed out!
Youth day and Father's day came and went without a moment to actually breathe in and take in the moments.
Our youth day was filled with my oldest having a gymnastics competition. I spent the hours leading up to it, making her a leotard. (I can hear you saying, "you're nuts!" – so did a lot of other mommies) I'm the type of person that when there's money to be saved – I'm going to save it! I've spent the last few months trying to master the art of making leotards for my girls. The reason being, that when bought off the rack, those puppies are EXPENSIVE!!! It's like buying a nike shoe for a 6 year old – who is more than likely going to blow through the thing in like 2 months…… this is my exact sentiment towards leotards.So, off to youtube I went and found a way to create a pattern and work with the material that I could find. I remember my first buy was an absolute bargain. I found this material shop that lets you purchase according the weight of material you're buying and not the meters. I think I spent like R30 for my girls to have two leotards each and some workout shorts. (I've still got material left over from that stash) Yes, they weren't perfect, but my girls absolutely love them.
So, I learned from that little experience and decided to create more for them so that they could have a leotard wardrobe.
So, back to this weekend. I made my oldest her leotard and didn't even have a moment to actually think about our country celebrating Youth day. So to those around South Africa that did, what do you do? I feel that my kids are still a little young to actually "grasp" the concept of what youth day has done for them. I think in about 2 years time I'll be able to really do some meaty projects with them surrounding the topic.
So, she competed and I must admit that I went through a rollercoaster of emotions.
So many different scenarios happened.
My husband was caught between a rock and hard place with his work and coming to watch our daughter compete.
Ok, with all of this running around in my mind – I had to try and hold myself together. It's amazing how each one of the scenarios calls for so many different approaches and each one needs a certain response as well.
Having my parents along is helpful especially with the smaller ones and wanting to focus – but when the 3 year old doesn't want to listen and only I can sort him out…… it's not easy to stay calm and still try to focus on the actual event. I was so torn and regretted bringing my son along – then the whole mommy guilt stands in the alley way of my mind shaking her head saying, "you shouldn't be regretting bringing your son along, he might start to feel left out" Silly Mommy guilt! I wish I could just smack her sometimes!
In the middle of trying to watch Aislyn compete and sort my son out – my husband phones me in his most gentle voice, explaining that he's running horribly late due to technical problems at the gig he was at. In the conversation I'm not wanting to react badly because he doesn't deserve that and yet I'm trying to pin my 3 year old down in the process – so needless to say, he got the raw end of me in my response. I must admit that I was disappointed, but this is the life we've chosen and I definitely know he wouldn't do this kind of thing on purpose because he loves his kids. So I just had to breathe it out and try to not let it get to me……. This is when my daughter falls off the beam and is losing her balance – the scene was nuts!
So after sorting my poor little boy out – it's not his fault that he can't keep quiet in a confined space. I should have just let him stay at home for his own sanity (and mine). Aislyn has done her practice round on the beam and fallen off 3 times. My nerves were in my throat – I say this because I know that she doesn't like to get things wrong, especially when she's practiced her heart out. So we hold our breath when she does her actual round in front of the judges and she falls again. Immediately I know that she's not going to get a place medal this time around. In my head I'm trying to decide whether 4th place is to be celebrated or to be given a high 5 and move on. It was such an interesting one, because I think that maturity is important and life lessons are best learned in the most gentle scenario instead of in the big bad world where it can break you. So I'd rather have my kids learn things in small doses first so that by the time the actual big thing hits – it doesn't smack them for 6. They'll have the tools to be able to handle it in whatever way they can. It was in this moment that I also realized that not all lessons can be taught in small doses, sometimes you just have to let them fall and get hurt and be there for when they need to get back up again. THIS! THIS my friends, is what I think is one of the harder parts of parenting. The deciding when to teach them, how to teach them or just let the chips fall where they may.
Anyway, That was my Saturday and the repercussions flowed thereafter. My son has had to stay indoors for the last few days (like a criminal under house arrest) with more snot and fevers – poor guy. Aislyn then proceeded to beat herself up a little about the mistakes she made.
And I had to get over the guilt and just be ok with the fact that it was not the kind of Saturday or weekend that I planned to have.
In a nutshell, this all led into Father's Day with us extremely tired and trying to hold our eyelids open and love on the Dad's in our lives….. hard one I tell you. I have learned a lot from this past weekend.
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What's in a seed? Endosperm. Embryo. Cotyledon. Radicle. Etcetera… The mysterious potential for new life. As our seed collection season slows in Santa Fe, I ponder our intimate connection to the vital rhythms of the natural world. Of course we are all intimately connected to the natural world in one way or another, but handling so many seeds has uniquely intensified my connection to the natural world. My appreciation for and understanding of seeds has grown tremendously. Beyond this appreciation and understanding, I have been forced to question our role in relation to the potential life embedded in the small seeds we handle each day.
Upon explaining the work and vision of Seeds of Success and related plant conservation strategies to a local ecologist, I was inundated with thought provoking questions. What does "local" mean and how does our potential misunderstanding of "local" impact the notion of local adaptation? Can we deny the relativity and subjectivity of this notion? What chance is there that "weed seeds" will get into desired seed? What is a "weed" in our changing world? Are there potential hazards that we may be introducing in our attempts to conserve or restore the environment? Are we a help or a hinderance in our conservation attempts? On a more spiritual level, what are the implications of removing native seeds from their natural habitats? Does the notion of belonging transcend ecology? Where does our instinct to interfere come from? How do we approach environmental conservation properly; is there a proper way to conserve? How can we make informed, adaptive conservation decisions when each ecosystem we are approaching is wholly unique; how can we come to conclusions when truly understanding a place takes decades of deep ecological integration.
These questions have been running through my mind, like a cascading waterfall that I am perpetually coming up against. I am working for what I believe in, while constantly questioning the roots of these beliefs. Through careful attention and criticism even my most deep-rooted beliefs become dynamic and take on an aura of complexity. I encourage all of us to engage in conversations around these issues to understand our perspectives related to the work we do, and the potential implications of those perspectives.
This past week I led three outdoor education classes of children age 5-12 at Fort Ord National Monument. It was my first time directly interacting with children that age in what feels like years, and it was a really heartwarming experience. The young children were really unfiltered and enthusiastic, and it was really enjoyable and comedic at times to spend time with them. I led them on nature hikes pointing out any interesting animals, plants or fungi that I saw, and showed them BLM's domestic California legless lizards and gopher snake, two reptiles found on Fort Ord.
Before those nature classes, I was helping a group of CSUMB capstone students do transects of old restoration sites in order to monitor their vegetation coverage. While in the field, we stumbled upon a very large orb-weaver spider in one of the plant basins.
As I read the farewell posts of other CLM interns across the country, it's hitting me that as far as botany goes, it's basically the end of the field season. The sagebrush seeds are ready for collection, the wildflowers that had me constantly geeking out all spring and summer are fast becoming unrecognizable in their senescent states, and the steady sunshine and 90 degree heat I'd grown used to have been replaced with a perpetual dampness. Now, instead of slathering on sunscreen and making sure I have 3 liters of water every time I go out in the field, I'm bundling up and checking to make sure I remembered my raincoat and some extra pairs of socks.
Despite the way everything seems to be wrapping up, I'm glad to say that my time here in Wenatchee, and in the field, is far from over. My current internship won't be finished until December 16th, and there's already been talk of fence mapping and pygmy rabbit surveying in snowshoes! At this point, I'm up for anything–I've done so many things this summer that I previously thought I was incapable of, so why not experience four seasons of fieldwork? Even better, I've been rehired by my field office to repeat this internship next year, so after a short hiatus in Wisconsin for the holidays, I'll be back to work starting in late January or early February so we can get in some early season sage grouse work! Though my heart belongs to botany, I'm thrilled that I'll have the chance to gain some wildlife experience. My time in Wenatchee has already been the biggest adventure of my life, and I'm so glad I don't have to say goodbye just yet.
The three months since I last blogged have flown by, in part because I've been traveling nearly every week! Starting in September, we got into a pretty steady rhythm of camping out one or two nights each week for work, and that, combined with weekend camping trips and the vacation home I took in early October, has put my life into a seemingly constant state of packing and unpacking. I love it this way, though! There is so much to see and do in Washington.
We went to take post-fire monitoring points at the Range 12 fire, so naturally these ash mustaches happened.
Lakes next to a BLM parcel in northern WA, in the "lime belt" area. The alkaline water gives them that tropical color!
One of our cozy work campsites!
We went up to Little Chopaka Mountain to do LPI and bunchgrass monitoring. We were only a mile away from Canada!
To be honest I have never been good at writing blogs, but over this internship I have expanded my use of social media, if barely. The first part of my internship was an excitement of racing across the desert trying to collect plants before the July heat roasted what forbs had sprouted in the lower elevations of the desert. Soon the volcanic rock had cooked everything in the lower elevations, so thus began the explorations of the mountains that separated these little linear valleys. As the July heat wave rolled over the top of the desert, we were spared of any major fires. Instead, dust storms plagued the valleys as alkali dust got picked up in the afternoon winds and antelope raced across the dry basins. We went out pika searching and began doing water quality surveys along the perennial streams in the area. Sage grouse and their young would wander across roads or around old watering holes in their attempt to find springs and horse trough tanks.
The first cool evenings announced that August had arrived. I spent my first week of August spending my evenings and nights capturing bats and doing bat surveys. We collected 15 different species of bats and captured several hundred individuals. I learned how to ID and handle bats, and enjoyed spending my evenings watching the sun change the colors of the desert around me. On the drives back from our capture sites we would see anywhere from 200-400 jack rabbits and cottontails along 30 miles of gravel roads. Many people with me could not believe that there were that many jack rabbits in one area. In August I began my Water Rights project by finding all of the locations for each right and creating a software program that would allow us to collect data in the field. Then began the map making and learning how to use the big plotter that sat within my office. The rest of August was spent collecting seeds and working with range projects.
September came and went extremely quickly. We had our first field test with the program, which worked, and I finished figuring out what all we needed to record to update our data bases. Then we began working in the field, first in the north and slowly spreading out from there. September was also the time where many of our seasonal technicians left for school and the office slowly became more quiet. There were only around 19 of us to begin with, and I worked in two states and 5 counties, my field station being in charge of 2 million acres. I spent the weekends of my summer fishing, hiking, re-walling a chicken house, dry walling a chicken house, cutting and splitting 7 cord of firewood, raising a garden, re-flooring the upstairs, and painting my grandmother's 100 year old house.
And then it was October. Storms began coming in and the days were steadily getting shorter. Having been used to driving over very rough rock filled roads all summer, the rain was a welcome site in keeping the dust down. Hunters would visit with me when they came across me working on many of my projects, and I got to learn more about the area that I was working in. I finally decided to use up my comp time and went to Yellowstone National Park and Montana for a little over a week of hiking, exploring, museum visiting, picture taking, and helping my friend prepare for the hunting season. I got back last week, and prepared for the ending of my internship. I will be staying on with the field office that I am currently working in until the dead of winter hits and am hopefully coming back on as a technician next summer.
Now as November is here, I have two months left with my field station. November is also the start of the waterfowl and upland game hunting season, which will now fill my weekends, as my fixing-my-grandmothers-property projects have been completed. I wish the best of luck to all of my fellow interns and wish them happy holidays.
Right now, the preserve is filled with birds migrating from the north. Since last month's post, we filled approximately a dozen more ponds with water and that's not including the rice and safflower fields. Here at the preserve, we also utilize agriculture fields as wetlands. Some ponds are utilized by birds more than others, only the birds really know why. Currently, there are several thousand sandhill cranes on the preserve, most of which prefer the safflower fields that are now flooded. The survey conducted by volunteers last week estimate the population to be 3,160. This species is arguably the most popular bird species on the preserve.
Another bird species drawing a lot of attention is the greater-white fronted geese. Sometimes when I peek up at the sky, I estimated there to be at least 3,000 birds. And that's just the ones that I see, we expect their numbers to be in hundreds of thousands. Regardless of the abundance of birds, we didn't see a large number of species diversity during last week's waterfowl survey. We saw mostly Canada geese, greater-white fronted geese sandhill cranes, northern pintails, and American coots.
I've been spending a lot of time on the backhoe performing road maintenance. The rain is abundant around this time of the year in northern California, which is an issue for us. It's great since we're in a drought, the bad thing is that it's preventing us from driving on the roads. Besides the rain, our resident beavers are also weakening our levees that we drive our rigs on. So, I've spent a lot of time patching up potholes, widening the levees, and repairing other forms of erosion around our water valves. It has been really good experience utilizing this heavy equipment.
In addition to road maintenance, I've been tasked with maintaining our current office as well. We pulled weeds, sprayed weeds, filled in ground squirrel holes with concrete, rebuild the retaining wall, and trimmed trees. I've done some saw work recently too. A portion of our trail had been blocked by a fallen Arroyo willow tree. Another volunteer and I cut down what was over hanging and bucked up the remaining limbs. I love saw work, reminds me of the fire season with the BLM fire crew.
Water primrose and hyacinth is on a rampage. We must have partaken in a least half a dozen spray sessions to remove them. These herbicide applications are only a form of control, the battle is never ending. Some of the spray sessions were at a restoration site owned by The Nature Conservancy called Bjelland, the others were on public waterways. Spraying pesticides is probably the easiest thing to do, but also the most difficult in my opinion. Squeezing the trigger and watching out for back spray is easy, but transporting two full 15 gallon tanks with a large car battery on a canoe down 200 meters to the boat launch is a little more challenging. What's worse is that you're now sitting in a cramped canoe after you manage to push over 250 pounds of herbicide into the slough and now you're stuck in the water surrounding by primrose and hyacinth. Every paddle stroke you make gets you only an inch forward. Regardless, the job was done and it was definitely one of the hardest things I've done on this job. What I wouldn't give for another set of hands on deck.
This job has given me an enormous amount of skills that I wouldn't have imagined ever attaining. I now know how to operate almost all of the equipment at our facility and it's given me a lot of confidence. What I hope to happen during the rest of my internship is to become more well rounded as an individual. I can handle much of the physical aspect of the job, what I hope to gather is more knowledge. Knowledge about the grant proposal process, environmental policies, what it takes to manage a restoration project, and ways to better manage the land.
Well, I'm back in New York after 5 incredible, enlightening, challenging months in Vernal, UT. I definitely feel as though I learned a lot about plants of the intermountain west and about the Bureau of Land Management and how it is run. Never in my life have I seen this much open space. And while it was vast and majestic and beautiful it was also deeply saddening. Nearly every inch of the land in the Vernal Field Office was blanketed in cheat grass and tumble mustard. The riverbeds were crowded with tamarisk and Russian olive trees. Million year old biotic crust was scraped away in favor of flat dusty drill pads as far as the eye could see.
At the same time, I was in some ways pleasantly surprised. The desert that I thought would be a barren, sandy landscape was dappled with tiny gems. Place out of reach of drills, trucks and bull dozers, held incredible diversity. Even places within reach of such disturbance were managing to hold on to some incredible plant species. I saw beauty such as I'd never seen on the east coast.
I think mixed-use management of land is extremely difficult to accomplish. This land is public, but what does that really mean. You can't do whatever you want on that land. Who matters more, the people who see and use the land everyday? The whole population of the United States? Or maybe the following generations who will be left with this land after we're all gone. As of right now, it almost seems to me like no one is happy with the use of this land. Grazers want lower fees and more freedom, oil companies want less bureaucracy, environmentalists want both those groups to do their work responsibly or get lost. Obviously, that is a very over-simplified version of the situation, but that's the gist. And there are far more players than those 3 groups.
I learned a lot during this internship and I'm glad I did it. I feel now that I know more about my planet and my country and my government than I did 5 months ago. There are a lot of good, smart, hard working people that I've met in our government and in this internship program and I hope that in the future I continue to work alongside them towards the goal of a healthy, vibrant, just planet.
Many happenings have taken place since my last blog post! I turned 25 years old, I biked across the Idaho Panhandle, plus had a few other grand adventures, I attended The Wildlife Society Annual Conference, and I've had to say goodbye to two interns here at the field office.
For my birthday at the end of September I decided to take myself on a bicycling trip across the Idaho Panhandle on one of the most beautiful rail trails in the Pacific Northwest! I cycled the farthest I ever have: 150 miles. I broke it up into 3 days. This adventure was one of the highlights of my life! I saw a male, female and baby moose, I received countless saddle sores from all of the biking, and saw panoramic views like any I've ever seen. And the best part is that it was during autumn so the leaves were as pretty as they could be!
"Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go." This is the rail trail in the Idaho Panhandle that I biked.
After completing 150 miles across the Idaho Panhandle!
An intern and I went on an adventure through the Idaho Sawtooth mountains to Alpine and Sawtooth Lakes. What a view!
Just a few days ago I got home after spending 7 days in Raleigh, North Carolina for The Wildlife Society Annual Conference! I cannot thank this internship enough for allowing me to attend this conference! I networked extensively, received great feedback on my resume, attended a forestry workshop where I got hands-on training that I hope to apply to my job one day, tested my wildlife knowledge at the annual quiz-bowl, and attended 3 field trips to surrounding areas in North Carolina! I took in the Hemlock Bluffs and the beautiful long-leaf pine forest as I rode by horse-drawn wagon through the trees with bagpipes playing in the background (yes, there was an Irish man playing the bagpipes for us, it completed my day), but my absolute favorite field trip was to the Duke Lemur Center where I learned about their conservation efforts to preserve these beautiful creatures and got up close to the Coquerel's Sifaka lemur! If you are interested in finding a wonderful organization to donate to, SAVA Conservation is the place!
Coquerel's Sifaka lemur! So cute!
Here at the field office we've been getting a lot of rain so it's been preventing us from getting out into the field as often as we would like. We've been catching up on a lot of data entry, though, and having a lot of laughs with our co-workers. We recently lost an intern because she received a "big-girl" job. We were all sad to see her go, but happy at the same time because she was so happy. We lost our only male, too, because he finished his internship. It is just myself and two others now! We are slowly dwindling (sad face)!
It's that time in the season where things are winding down and we are doing a bunch of different projects. It is raining a lot lately. Last night there was a massive storm that came through and dumped a lot of rain and hail. That means we can't go out in the field as much. The roads are often not navigable when it has rained, last week we went out two days after the rain and we were mudding. So right after the rain means we are rolling the dice about getting stuck. Dealing with data and files can be frustrating, but data management can be weirdly rewarding. I like finishing the project all the way, not just stopping at the field work.
RIPS- A lot of what we have been doing lately involves Range Improvement Projects. These are things like reservoirs, troughs, and pipelines. We are finding them and assessing them sometimes adding them to the GIS database. It's a lot of driving and looking for things that haven't been monitored in a long time. It's been a lot of both field work and office work. In the office we are pulling files trying to figure out exactly what we are looking for. We are also looking at maps in the project book and on Google Earth to try and figure out where projects are. Often times the GPS point or map point is wrong and by cross referencing various sources it prevents us from just wandering around until we find something. We have found some interesting things out on the range. We found a desk chair that had been buried in the center of a reservoir and a bath tub that had been cemented into a rock formation.
Sagebrush Monitoring- We have also spent a good amount of time looking at potential sites for Sagebrush monitoring. Some of the sites had to be adjusted because the species were mixed or because they were difficult to access. We have been checking these sites for a few weeks so we can collect sagebrush from them. There are a couple of sites that we won't be able to collect from this year because the flowers were pretty eaten up by bugs. But we still have plenty of sagebrush to collect from.
Willow Cuttings- Today we spent time cutting willows for a willow planting day with a a group of 7th and 8th graders. We cut willow branches to plant in a restoration area along a stream bed. This is an awesome yearly project that allows them to connect with the public lands, which is super important.
Agriculture Resources Service Laboratory- We got the opportunity to visit the ARS laboratory in Logan, Utah. This was a really awesome experience. They gave us a tour of the whole compound and explained the process of developing plant materials. It was a great overview of how cultivars come about and how native plant and native plant seeds go into that process. We got to talk about careers and the backgrounds of people working for ARS. It was a great day. They gave us some papers and they are putting on a Native Plant Summit in Boise this year. We are going the first couple of days in November and are really excited about it!
TREND Data- I have spent the last couple of weeks gathering the TREND data and putting it into a database. TREND data is collected about every 10 years, the data goes back to 1950s and there is an Access database that collects it all and runs the analysis. It was fun and a little frustrating to mess around with the database. It was satisfying to complete the project fully.
As my time in Pinedale continues to decrease, I can't help but to look back at the past five months in amazement…in awe of all the inspirational people I have met and all the things I have learned. I came to Pinedale timid and nervous….uncertain about what to expect. Before this internship, the Bureau of Land Management was just some branch of the government that deals with the feral horses.
But now, through the completion of this CLM internship, I know that it is so, so much more. It is the caretaker of the public lands, and I am honored to have been a part of its role. Throughout my time in Pinedale, I have surveyed for amphibians, lynx, and pygmy rabbits. I have enjoyed learning about the different habitat requirements and surveying techniques. I have also been introduced to GIS software, something that will undoubtedly be very important in my future career. There were some days when I went out into the field with various people, including range specialists, and learned analyze the land for over-grazing (utilization). Helping with AIM introduced me to just a small amount of the plants native to the west. Trapping grouse allowed me to gain a more thorough understanding of the importance of radio telemetry. And of course, the internship wouldn't have been complete without many backcountry adventures with my fellow interns…driving on two-tracks, especially in the mud, can be a challenge!
That leads me to one final point. My two fellow interns, Val and Lara. I am so, so, SO extremely grateful that I had these two along for the ride. Meeting them and working with them made daily work so much more adventurous. They have both inspired me in multiple ways, and I am certain that they will be successful wherever they end up!
I would highly recommend this internship to absolutely anybody. It was an eye-opening experience and led me to develop many resume-building skills. I will certainly miss the Pinedale BLM, but I know it has prepared me for whatever comes next.
The past few weeks here in Carlsbad have been ultra busy getting in as many collections as we can! After getting a late start on collections with the late rainy season here, we ended up doing 46 collections this season! We were especially lucky to get permission to collect at Guadalupe Mountain National Park in collaboration with the National Park Service.
This month, I also got to participate in Wildlife Water inspections with a couple of my coworkers. This involved cleaning out the waters, inspecting and repairing any broken fences, and sometimes repairing water tanks! We did six sites in a day, finding lots of interesting wildlife along the way.
A juvenile black widow spider-may had built webs in the corners of the Wildlife Waters.
We found a huge field of milkweed at the first site! Brooke and I are going back to the site to do a collection this week.
Only two weeks are left for me and Brooke here in Carlsbad, with only two more collections remaining this week! We'll be doing a lot of office work after that, mounting vouchers and wrapping up paper work here at the field office. I will definitely miss this wonderful place and the people I've met here!


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Rescued migrants face Christmas at sea after Italy closes ports
This area of the Mediterranean has been the most deadly for migrants attempting the crossing to Europe
Updated 11:53 PM, December 22, 2018
COLD. Rescued migrants suffer from the cold temperature. Screenshot from Proactiva Open Arms Twitter
ROME, Italy – Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Saturday, December 22, Italian ports were closed to hundreds of migrants rescued off Libya after a mother and newborn baby were evacuated to Malta.
The anti-immigration minister said that the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms had asked to allow the men, women, children and babies rescued on Friday, December 21, to disembark in Italy after Malta turned them away.
"My answer is clear: Italian ports are closed!" Salvini tweeted. "For the traffickers of human beings and for those who help them, the fun is over."
The NGO said a Maltese coastguard helicopter had taken a woman and her baby born on a Libyan beach three days ago who were among those rescued at sea.
"We continue with 311 people on board, without port and in need of supplies," the NGO tweeted.
Proactiva Open Arms said on Friday that it had rescued more than 300 migrants from three vessels in difficulty, including men, women – some of them pregnant – children and babies.
The NGO posted a video of some of those rescued "from a certain death at sea. If you could feel the cold in the images, it would be easier to understand the emergency. No port to disembark and Malta's refusal to give us food. This isn't Christmas."
The vessel started patrolling the Mediterranean with two other boats run by migrant aid groups off the Libyan coast in late November.
This area of the Mediterranean has been the most deadly for migrants attempting the crossing to Europe.
More than 1,300 migrants have perished trying to reach Italy or Malta since the beginning of the year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Aid groups have been sending rescue vessels into these waters despite vocal opposition from Salvini.
Accusing the groups of acting as a "taxi service" for migrants, he has denied them access to Italy's ports. Malta too has been increasingly unwilling to host rescue vessels.
Another aid group meanwhile, Sea-Eye from Germany, announced Friday that one of its vessels was setting off from the southern Spanish port of Algeciras.
The 18-strong crew includes former volunteers who were on board the Aquarius, a rescue boat run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Mediterranee.
The two groups said they had to halt activities earlier this month because of obstruction by some European countries. – Rappler.com
Filed under:Italy•migrant crisis•Europe

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Coronavirus Propels Interest In Raising Backyard Chickens For Eggs
chicken feed chickens Raising Chickens
The coronavirus pandemic is heightening interest in raising young chickens for a reliable supply of eggs, with hatcheries saying they're seeing a flood of new customers.
"We are swamped with orders," says Nancy Smith, owner of the Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, Mo. "We can't answer all the phone calls, and we are booked out several weeks on most breeds."
For families adapting to disruptions brought on by COVID-19, raising hens is seen as an answer to vexing questions about the availability of staple items at grocery stores. Starting a backyard flock could also be a rewarding project for Americans who now face the prospect of spending weeks or months at home, with schools closed and workers laid off, furloughed, or working remotely.
Folks who are feeling cooped up, in other words, may want to start a coop of their own.
"People are at home so they're looking for something for their families to do while they're home," says Kendall Fox of the Freedom Ranger Hatchery in Lancaster County, Pa. "The other reason is the security of having food in their backyard."
Fox says he has seen "a pretty large increase" in people wanting to raise their own chickens. The new customers are all over the U.S., he says, adding that the small orders are bringing a much-needed boost at a time when many large orders are being canceled by farmers who supply restaurants and processed food plants.
"A lot of the stores and processing plants in New York City have closed as well," Fox says, "and a lot of our birds end up there."
The idea of raising chickens of one's own might conjure an image of pastoral bliss, of a simpler life that clucks along outdoors. But throngs of people are now rushing to acquire that lifestyle.
"We've never seen anything like this and I've been here since 1964," Smith says, describing the spike in her business.
Suggesting that some customers might be affected by the stress millions of people are now feeling, she adds, "Everyone is very anxious, and in some cases very impatient."
While most newbie farmers are turning to chickens for eggs, some also plan to raise birds for their meat.
"Our most popular breed is the Freedom Ranger, a slower growing colored broiler (meat bird)," Fox says.
To learn more about what people should consider when starting their own flock of chickens, I spoke to John Monaco, president of the American Poultry Association. The group — Monaco says it's the oldest livestock organization in North America — maintains lists of standard breeds and also sanctions poultry shows.
The new public interest in raising chickens is part of a broader pattern, Monaco says.
"Backyard poultry has been on the upswing all over, especially in the rural areas, for the last five or 10 years," Monaco says. "Raising your own chickens and even your own broilers — it's become a lot more fashionable to do it."
He adds, "In our area in Southern California, there's thousands of people that have just small backyard flocks, that raise their own eggs."
As for what breeds people might look for, Monaco says, "It depends on what you want. There's egg layers, that are strictly for egg-laying. There's dual-purpose, which are egg layers but they're also meat birds."
"For egg layers, you have Leghorns and for dual-purpose birds, you have Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks," he says, adding that the birds are what many of us might have seen on visits to farms, or our grandparents' houses.
"Those are the type of breeds that most people want," Monaco says. "Some of these breeds have been in our standards since 1874."
He then laid out some of the differences between them:
"Leghorns are good egg-layers. They're a medium-sized Mediterranean breed, been around for years, there's different varieties, all different colors. They're a medium-sized bird, but they lay a big egg.
"You get into the Rhode Island Reds and the Plymouth Rocks, they're American breeds, they lay a decent-sized egg, but they're a bigger bird. They're also a meat bird."
The number of eggs a hen can lay each week usually depends on the sun, Monaco says.
"It all goes by the amount of light during the day — the more light there is during the day, the more that they lay," he says. "So during the summer months they lay more, and you can get one egg a day out of some of them. The older birds lay less, of course.
"But there've been chickens that have laid over 300 eggs in a year," he says.
For the average citizen farmer who might keep half a dozen chickens during the summer, Monaco says, "you would get plenty of eggs for the family."
Starting a flock doesn't have to be expensive, Monaco says, adding that people can get started by buying some chicks from a feed store.
"For the people that are just looking for a few birds for their backyard, it's just a fun hobby," he says. "They're fun to watch."
source credit: https://n.pr/2LPFX5G


When Andy and Elizabeth buy a farm in Vermont, they can't imagine the trouble that awaits them. Andy has quit his job as a sports journalist and is planning to use the peace and quiet of the country to write the Great American Novel. From the moment the movers' truck gets lost with their furniture, though, there's little peace and less quiet. From a manical mailman to a dead body buried in the garden, Andy is distracted by the town and its wacky inhabitants. His effort at a novel is mediocre, at best, and he's threatened by Elizabeth's foray into writing when she attempts a children's book. Can the Farmers survive the townsfolk and each other?


Much has been written of late on the Review of Fundamental Science report recently released publicly. The Naylor Report as it has become known, has put forward a list of recommendations to update Canada's approach to fundamental science, or basic research in OECD terms.
OCAD U provided input to the Panel with a vision for fundamental science that encourages multidisciplinary research teams that include design researchers as the country prepares to address grand challenges.
Ensure Highly Qualified and Skilled Personnel (HQ&SP) in small institutions are not disadvantaged.
Design research in Canada currently falls between the cracks in Canada's fundamental research funding ecosystem. As a result, Canada is not supporting these important areas of research, nor are we gaining the benefits that design disciplines add to fundamental science. This impairs our ability to participate in area of research importance internationally, and prevents us from fully establishing interdisciplinary research that can effectively tackle grand challenges.
Other countries offer models to consider as the federal government examines the country's approach to fundamental science. Design research has an important role in fundamental science and knowledge creation. It comprises a set of disciplines that have inherent value as distinct areas of inquiry (research and knowledge creation), as well as being important inputs to downstream innovation capacity. Design disciplines are key areas of research activity internationally.
Around the world, design-centred research has been seen as critical to future innovation and growth. The Australian Research Council has long instituted the 1203 Field of Research code to enable design organizations to apply for its Discovery and Linkage grants [See note below]. The United States' National Endowment for the Arts explicitly supports design research as an area for funding. The European Commission's Action Plan for Design-Driven Innovation (2013) calls for "research in which designers and design methods play a central role" and the recognition that, "co-design and other design methods can help to reinforce partnerships between multidisciplinary research teams and assist us in understanding the crosscutting issues and architecture of complex problems." The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has reiterated design as a strategic priority area in its 2013-2018 AHRC Strategy. Canada is more than ten years behind the funding of design research by Asian governments, such as South Korea, which funded the Korean Design Research Institute at Seoul National University from 2002-2012, and Hong Kong, which funded the DesignSmart Initiative to support design research as one of its initiatives from 2004 until 2011.
The good news is that the Panel Report has acknowledged the importance of design disciplines: the panel "notes that certain areas of research (e.g., health law, medical anthropology, design) are distinct disciplines that have not found consistent support from any of the granting councils" (p123). They call on the granting councils to provide "a welcoming home for these orphan disciplines, and to ensure that appropriate peer review mechanisms are structured for them." This also includes the need to expand the capacity of the granting councils to engage multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary researchers in enabling this transformation.
These are among many recommendations that will certainly take time to sort out and sift through. But the Panel has done a great service to Canada's research community by putting forward important issues of research productivity, funding normalized to GDP (where we are lagging internationally), and the relationship of science to international competitiveness and national innovation and productivity.
Note: Sub-codes in the 1203 Design category include 120301 Design History and Theory, 120302 Design Innovation, 120303 Design Management and Studio and Professional Practice, 120304 Digital and Interaction Design, 120305 Industrial Design, 120306 Textile and Fashion Design, 120307 Visual Communication Design (incl. Graphic Design), and 120399 Design Practice and Management not elsewhere classified.


text:
Director: Janusz Kamiński
Actors: Agnieszka Grochowska, Dmitriy Karpov, Ed Metzger, Elya Baskin, Kathleen Gati, Kelly Mantle, Luke Bracey, Mark Kubr, Michiel Huisman, Nick Stahl, Samantha Ressler
Keywords:American Dream
Sequel to "Three Steps Above Heaven". The sexy Gin (Clara Lago) is the new love of Hache (Mario Casas), but this can not forget his former girlfriend (Maria Valverde), so…
Abrir puertas y ventanas
Marina, Sofia and Violeta deal differently with the death of their grandmother.
Diaz – Don't Clean Up This Blood
A reenactment of the final days of the 2001 G8 Summit.
The Portrait of a Lady
Ms. Isabel Archer isn't afraid to challenge societal norms. Impressed by her free spirit, her kindhearted cousin writes her into his fatally ill father's will. Suddenly rich and independent, Isabelle…
Peter and Margaret Eastwood believe they've purchased their dream home to start their lives together but this house seems to be hiding something dark and terrifying in every corner.
The story of the encounter between a boy and a girl. He confesses that he fell in love with her at first sight, but she does not believe him. However,…
A Girl Like Grace
Raised by a single mother, a bullied 17 year-old girl seeks guidance from her best friend and the girl's older sister.
Paranoia sets in as the Black Death strikes European villagers in the 14th century.
Two former backup soul singers, Louis and Floyd, have not spoken to each other in 20 years, and reluctantly agree to travel across the country together to a reunion concert…
Brain on Fire
Susannah Cahalan, an up-and-coming journalist at the New York Post becomes plagued by voices in her head and seizures, causing a rapid descent into insanity.
Genre: Biography, Drama
How We Got Away with It
A young man and his friends react to a sudden, unexpected tragedy during their annual all-weekend summer party.
How to Dance in Ohio
In Columbus, Ohio, a group of autistic teenagers and young adults role-play this transition by going through the deceptively complex social interactions of preparing for a spring formal. Focusing on…
Genre: Documentary, Drama


Located 120 miles offshore Guyana, the 6.6 million-acre Stabroek Block holds exciting exploration and development potential. With commercial production expected to begin in 2020, the block will help supply the world's growing energy needs. To grasp the scale of this discovery, we've run the numbers to show all the things that the more than 4 billion barrels of oil that the block is estimated to hold could power.


Originally published: New York: Interscience Publishers, Inc., 1957.
Aimed at advanced undergraduate students of mathematics, this concise text covers the basics of algebraic geometry. Topics include affine spaces, projective spaces, rational curves, algebraic sets with group structure, more. 1963 edition.
An introduction to algebraic geometry and a bridge between its analytical-topological and algebraical aspects, this text for advanced undergraduate students is particularly relevant to those more familiar with analysis than algebra. 1953 edition.
The author of this text seeks to remedy a common failing in teaching algebra: the neglect of related instruction in geometry. Focusing on inner product spaces, orthogonal similarity, and elements of geometry, this volume is illustrated with an abundance of examples, exercises, and proofs and is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses. 1974 edition.
Designed to make learning introductory algebraic geometry as easy as possible, this text is intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students who have taken a one-year course in algebra and are familiar with complex analysis. This newly updated second edition enhances the original treatment's extensive use of concrete examples and exercises with numerous figures that have been specially redrawn in Adobe Illustrator. An introductory chapter that focuses on examples of curves is followed by a more rigorous and careful look at plane curves. Subsequent chapters explore commutative ring theory and algebraic geometry as well as varieties of arbitrary dimension and some elementary mathematics on curves. Upon finishing the text, students will have a foundation for advancing in several different directions, including toward a further study of complex algebraic or analytic varieties or to the scheme-theoretic treatments of algebraic geometry. 2015 edition.
Geared toward upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, this text establishes that projective geometry and linear algebra are essentially identical. The supporting evidence consists of theorems offering an algebraic demonstration of certain geometric concepts. 1952 edition.
Prominent Russian mathematician's concise, well-written exposition considers n-dimensional spaces, linear and bilinear forms, linear transformations, canonical form of an arbitrary linear transformation, and an introduction to tensors. While not designed as an introductory text, the book's well-chosen topics, brevity of presentation, and the author's reputation will recommend it to all students, teachers, and mathematicians working in this sector.
Rapid, concise, self-contained introduction assumes only familiarity with elementary algebra. Subjects include algebraic varieties; products, projections, and correspondences; normal varieties; differential forms; theory of simple points; algebraic groups; more. 1958 edition.
Collection of nearly 200 unusual problems dealing with congruence and parallelism, the Pythagorean theorem, circles, area relationships, Ptolemy and the cyclic quadrilateral, collinearity and concurrency and more. Arranged in order of difficulty. Detailed solutions.
Based on lectures to advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate students, this is a thorough, sophisticated, and modern treatment of elementary algebraic topology, essentially from a homotopy theoretic viewpoint. Author C.R.F. Maunder provides examples and exercises; and notes and references at the end of each chapter trace the historical development of the subject.
This concise, self-contained textbook gives an in-depth look at problem-solving from a mathematician's point-of-view. Each chapter builds off the previous one, while introducing a variety of methods that could be used when approaching any given problem. Creative thinking is the key to solving mathematical problems, and this book outlines the tools necessary to improve the reader's technique. The text is divided into twelve chapters, each providing corresponding hints, explanations, and finalization of solutions for the problems in the given chapter. For the reader's convenience, each exercise is marked with the required background level. This book implements a variety of strategies that can be used to solve mathematical problems in fields such as analysis, calculus, linear and multilinear algebra and combinatorics. It includes applications to mathematical physics, geometry, and other branches of mathematics. Also provided within the text are real-life problems in engineering and technology. Thinking in Problems is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the classroom or as a self-study guide. Prerequisites include linear algebra and analysis.
"Of high merit"—Scientific American This stimulating approach to several branches of modern mathematics is geared to those with no background beyond elementary algebra and geometry. Its nine essays by leading mathematicians—including Oswald Veblen, Gilbert Ames Bliss, L. E. Dickson, and David Eugene Smith—cover the foundations of geometry, modern pure geometry and non-Euclidean geometry, fundamental propositions of algebra, algebraic equations, functions, fundamentals of calculus, and number theory. Each essay provides wide coverage, with proofs of important results and descriptions of leading methods. 1911 ed.
A fascinating exploration of the correlation between geometry and linear algebra, this text also offers elementary explanations of the role of geometry in other branches of math and science. 1965 edition.
Richly detailed survey of the evolution of geometrical ideas and development of concepts of modern geometry: projective, Euclidean, and non-Euclidean geometry; role of geometry in Newtonian physics, calculus, relativity. Over 100 exercises with answers. 1966 edition.
Within this two-volume edition, Professor Smith covers the entire history of mathematics in the Near and Far East and the West, from primitive number concepts to the calculus. His account is distinguished by impeccable scholarship combined with unusual clarity and readability. Footnotes add many technical points outside the book's actual line of development and direct the reader to disputed matters and source readings. Hundreds of illustrations from Egyptian papyri, Hindu, Chinese, and Japanese manuscripts, Greek and Roman texts, Medieval treatises, maps, portraits, etc. are used along with modern graphs and diagrams. Every major figure from Euclid to Descartes, Gauss, and Riemann and hundreds of lesser-known figures — Theon of Smyrna, Rabbi ben Ezra, Radulph of Laon, Mersenns, Benedetti, and more — are considered both with respect to specific problems and with an awareness of their overall influence on mathematics. Volume II: Special Topics, considering mathematics in terms of arithmetic geometry, algebra, trig, calculus, calculating machines, and other specific fields and problems. 192 Topics for Discussion. 195 illustrations. Index.
Third edition of popular undergraduate-level text offers historic overview, readable treatment of mathematics before Euclid, Euclid's Elements, non-Euclidean geometry, algebraic structure, formal axiomatics, sets, more. Problems, some with solutions. Bibliography.
Straightforward explanation of abstract principles common to science and math, including Euclid's algorithm; congruences; polynomials; complex numbers and algebraic fields; algebraic integers, ideals, and p-adic numbers; groups; Galois theory; algebraic geometry; more.
Excellent text covers vector fields, plane homology and the Jordan Curve Theorem, surfaces, homology of complexes, more. Problems and exercises. Some knowledge of differential equations and multivariate calculus required.Bibliography. 1979 edition.


Pensacola is an old city and most of our neighborhoods were developed long before there were any rules or facilities to control stormwater runoff.
Stormwater is rainwater that does not seep into the ground after a rainfall. It drains off your property, picking up fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, oil, pet waste, and many other contaminants, and carrying them into our storm drains. Most of our storm drains empty into Bayou Texar, Bayou Chico, Pensacola Bay, or Escambia Bay.
Over the years, contaminated stormwater has contributed to a steady deterioration of Bayou Texar and Bayou Chico and threatens the quality of the other bodies of water. Stormwater contamination deposits toxic materials in Bayou Texar, increases turbidity and reduces oxygen, which, on occasions, results in fish deaths during the heat of summer.
These conditions reduce the recreational accessibility of the bayou as well as reducing the quality of water and aquatic life.
For all problems or repairs call 311 - Online Citizen Support, Email Public Works, or fax 850-595-1012.


text:
New law turbo-charges electric vehicle sales in Colorado, including Ford lineup
Ford Fusion Energi.
America as a whole may still be embroiled in an ongoing love affair with the automobile dating back to at least the 1960s, but Colorado is increasingly becoming enamored with the "EV," or electric vehicle, and a big reason is the recent tax-credit bill passed by the Colorado Legislature.
"Sales of electrified vehicles have grown 6 percent in Colorado for the first quarter of 2016, compared to the car market declining 14 percent," said Mike Grammes, sales ops manager for Ford Motor Company's Denver region.
"To capitalize on the growth, we've launched no-interest financing for 60 months plus $4,000 cash back on both C-Max and Fusion Energi, and lease payments under $250 a month with no down payment."
Earlier this month, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed HB1332 (pdf), sponsored by House Majority Leader Crisanta Duran, which creates a streamlined $5,000 tax credit for buying an electric vehicle.
The law, which saw only one dissenting vote in both the House and the Senate, also creates a streamlined $7,000 credit for light-duty trucks, $10,000 credit for medium-duty trucks and $20,000 credit for heavy-duty trucks.
Electric vehicle buyers in the past had to wait until tax day in April to reap state tax-credit benefits, but they can now get the incentives on the day they drive their new EV off the lot.
"We passed this bill to make Colorado one of the best places to buy alternative-fuel vehicles," said Duran, a Denver Democrat. "By incentivizing energy efficient vehicles, we are investing in renewable energy and protecting the clean air and natural resources that make Colorado such a beautiful place to live."
An article last month in the Washington Post named Colorado the best place in the country to buy an electric car, citing the new state tax credits that — combined with existing federal credits — can provide up to $12,500 in EV incentives for Colorado residents.
Ford's electric vehicle push
Ford is investing $4.5 billion in EV technology, adding 13 new electrified vehicles to its portfolio by 2020, with more than 40 percent of its models being electrified by the end of the decade.
The company expects to see EV sales continue to grow in Colorado because of the new state law providing credits at the time of purchase.
"We appreciate the efforts that they're making," said Cynthia Williams, Ford's associate director for Vehicle, Environmental and Regulatory Strategy. "They're promoting plug-ins through the streamlined tax-credit program, and through their program consumers actually get the tax credit at the point of sale.
"That's crucial, because the more you can reduce the price at the point of purchase for the consumer, that helps them make that decision faster with regard to moving into these vehicles."
Williams adds Colorado also has one of the lowest annual registration fees in the nation for a plug-in electric vehicle at $50, part of an overall regulatory strategy of incentives that the company prefers to the approach of California's ZEV (zero-emissions vehicle) Mandate, which has been adopted by several other states and requires manufacturers to meet EV quotas.
"That's pretty much what we like to do through incentives … get consumers into the products to let them know they are just normal," Williams added.
"They operate no differently than a gasoline vehicle; it just has a different power train. The more we can get consumers into the vehicles and get them looking at the vehicles, the more we'll see an uptick in the EV market in the future."
Nationally, Ford has seen record sales of Fusion Energi in the United States this year, with 5,535 sold so far in 2016 compared to 3,563 during the same period last year.
The company thinks Fusion Energi sales are surging because it can go farther than any other plug-in hybrid on the market – up to 610 miles.
The largest state and federal tax credits are for a 100-percent electric vehicle ($5,000 state and $7,500 federal), whereas a plug-in with both a gas and electric motor receives credits of about $4,000 from the feds and $2,000 from the state.
Federal tax credits still must be realized at the time of filing in April.
For more information on an electric vehicle, go the company website.
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CapsuleTIME
In 1961, Hooker completed her doctoral studies at the University of Rochester, where she was the only woman and only African-American in her class. She became a psychology professor at Fordham University in 1963, and stayed for 22 years. Celia Fisher, PhD, who directs Fordham's Center for Ethics, remembers Hooker initiating and leading a mentoring program for ethnic-minority students.
"She became not only a model, but a
very good friend and lifelong mentor for
many students and faculty," says Fisher.
One of those students, Scyatta
Wallace, PhD, is now an associate
professor of psychology at St. John's
University. Wallace adopted Hooker as
an "informal mentor" when she was
a doctoral candidate and Hooker was
professor emerita. Hooker encouraged
her to give a voice to African-
To learn more about the Tulsa Race Riot, watch an excerpt from the
PBS documentary "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" at www.pbs.org/
wnet/jimcrow/media_players/ v_tulsariot_hi.html.
American psychologists. "She was very big on making sure I understood the importance of giving back to the community," says Wallace, who was often invited to Hooker's house to share a meal and talk about life and current events.
"To me, she's an inspiration as a human being, not [only] as a psychologist." Hooker continued her work as a psychologist at the Fred Keller School in Yonkers until 2002.
'I'm still working on it'
These days when Hooker wakes up in her
home in White Plains, N. Y., she might
read the paper or skim a magazine. If she
comes across a story that reminds her of
a former student, she clips it and puts it
of African American Life and History
meeting she attended in September. "It's
not an exciting life, but it's a satisfactory
life," she says.
Sometimes, Hooker contemplates
the things she wishes she had done, such
as learn to ride a bike, play a stringed
instrument or ride a horse. She didn't
conduct much research because she
preferred to spend her time mentoring
students. When working as an associate
administrator at the Kennedy Child Study
Center, she didn't negotiate for higher
pay or interview for other jobs because
she loved the one she had. She was never
married but she did fall in love. (The man
works on what's still to be done. There
are still reparations to be won for the riot
survivors and American history books to
be rewritten. There's still a lot to figure
out too, such as why — as they did in
Tulsa 91 years ago — people still shoot
guns into crowds. "I keep harping on
that: Let's see what are the stresses and
strains on that person's life that make
them behave the way they're behaving,"
she says, "I haven't figured it out, but I'm
still working on it." n
Katharine Milar, PhD, of Earlham College,
is the historical editor of "Time Capsule."
in the mail. Often, these students drop
by for a chat or to take her to the grocery
store or bank. She works on her balance
so that she can travel to conferences,
such as the Association for the Study
she might have married died of a heart
attack.) She never had children, but her
godchildren, pupils and Girl Scout troop
kept her from feeling childless.
Most of the time, however, Hooker
To watch Dr. Hooker's
interview on CUNY TV
as an "African American
Legend," go to www.
youtube.com/watch?v=GqIwcuMeJtQ


(2) "Duty of maintenance" means the duty to provide for the needs of a spouse or former spouse or domestic partner or former domestic partner imposed under chapter 26.09 RCW.
(3) "Duty of support" means the duty to provide for the needs of a dependent child, which may include necessary food, clothing, shelter, education, and health care. The duty includes any obligation to make monetary payments, to pay expenses, including maintenance in cases in which there is a dependent child, or to reimburse another person or an agency for the cost of necessary support furnished a dependent child. The duty may be imposed by court order, by operation of law, or otherwise.
(4) "Obligee" means the custodian of a dependent child, the spouse or former spouse or domestic partner or former domestic partner, or person or agency, to whom a duty of support or duty of maintenance is owed, or the person or agency to whom the right to receive or collect support or maintenance has been assigned.
(5) "Obligor" means the person owing a duty of support or duty of maintenance.
(6) "Support or maintenance order" means any judgment, decree, or order of support or maintenance issued by the superior court or authorized agency of the state of Washington; or a judgment, decree, or other order of support or maintenance issued by a court or agency of competent jurisdiction in another state or country, which has been registered or otherwise made enforceable in this state.
(7) "Employer" includes the United States government, a state or local unit of government, and any person or entity who pays or owes earnings or remuneration for employment to the obligor.
(8) "Earnings" means compensation paid or payable for personal services or remuneration for employment, whether denominated as wages, salary, commission, bonus, or otherwise, and, notwithstanding any other provision of law making the payments exempt from garnishment, attachment, or other process to satisfy support or maintenance obligations, specifically includes periodic payments pursuant to pension or retirement programs, or insurance policies of any type, but does not include payments made under Title 50 RCW, except as provided in RCW 50.40.020 and 50.40.050, or Title 74 RCW.
(9) "Disposable earnings" means that part of the earnings of an individual remaining after the deduction from those earnings of any amount required by law to be withheld.
(11) "Health insurance coverage" is another term for, and included in the definition of, "health care coverage." Health insurance coverage includes any coverage under which medical services are provided by an employer or a union whether that coverage is provided through a self-insurance program, under the employee retirement income security act of 1974, a commercial insurer pursuant to chapters 48.20 and 48.21 RCW, a health care service contractor pursuant to chapter 48.44 RCW, or a health maintenance organization pursuant to chapter 48.46 RCW, and the state through chapter 41.05 RCW.
(12) "Insurer" means a commercial insurance company providing disability insurance under chapter 48.20 or 48.21 RCW, a health care service contractor providing health care coverage under chapter 48.44 RCW, a health maintenance organization providing comprehensive health care services under chapter 48.46 RCW, and shall also include any employer or union which is providing health insurance coverage on a self-insured basis.
(13) "Remuneration for employment" means moneys due from or payable by the United States to an individual within the scope of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 659 and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 662(f).
(14) "Health care coverage" means fee for service, health maintenance organization, preferred provider organization, and other types of private health insurance and public health care coverage under which medical services could be provided to a dependent child or children. The term "health care coverage" includes, but is not limited to, health insurance coverage.
(15) "Public health care coverage," sometimes called "state purchased health care," means state-financed or federally financed medical coverage, whether or not there is an assignment of rights. For children residing in Washington state, this includes coverage through the department of social and health services or the health care authority, except for coverage under chapter 41.05 RCW; for children residing outside of Washington, this includes coverage through another state's agencies that administer state purchased health care programs.


February 19, 2019 Jeremy Nair.
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We still all remember 1995. The meanies support act kicking off each night, the burley hands of security guards, and the 3 hour shows we never wanted to end. Finally we were able to experience the sounds of Seattle with you. 1995,1998,2003,2006,2009,2014.
We have not forgotten this but have you forgotten us? Many of us have left our islands and travelled each and every corner of the world to share that moment with you once more. For many of us your music gave a generation of messed up kids in Australia and New Zealand something to hold on.
We know as artists you don't owe us anything. We know this is your art, and we are so lucky you have chosen the last 27 years to share this with us.
On behalf of all all the Australia and New Zealand pearl jam family who have signed this petition, we would like to invite you to share your music with us and tour in 2020.
Mel O'Mara needs your help with "Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam to Tour Australia & New Zealand 2020". Join Mel and 216 supporters today.


text:
Home / Magazine / Featured articles / René van Peer
René van Peer
Tin Hat. The Rain Is a Handsome Animal. The Rain Is a Handsome Animal is the first Tin Hat album to feature founding member and violinist Carla Kihlstedt as a singer. The seventeen tracks on this CD are settings of poems by E. E. Cummings. Although all four members have contributed compositions to this collection, the music carries[...] Read more
Recordings René van Peer Issue 114
Pauline Oliveros' Eightieth Birthday Releases Pauline Oliveros. Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961–1970. Important Records IMPREC352. Pauline Oliveros. Primordial / Lift.Taiga Records 22. Deep Listening Band. Octagonal Polyphony. Important Records IMPREC358. Deep Listening Band. Great Howl at Town[...] Read more
Linda Jansma and Carsten Seiffarth, eds. Gordon Monahan: Seeing Sound: Sound Art, Performance and Music, 1978–2011. If there is one life-changing moment in the career of the Canadian composer, performer, and sound artist Gordon Monahan, it may well have been his encounter—and eventual partnership—with Laura Kikauka. Leafing through the monograph Seeing Sound, which spans over thirty years of[...] Read more
Books René van Peer Issue 113
Francisco López. Untitled #275. Composer and sound recordist Francisco López operates in an area where music and sound merge. On earlier albums he processed recordings from nature and buildings to arrive at this curious intermediate zone. Although the sources of the sounds are readily recognizable, the overall[...] Read more
Eleanor Hovda. The Eleanor Hovda Collection. The music of Eleanor Hovda, (1940–2009), reflected her various concerns and interests in dance and movement and, by extension, space and breath. This is evidenced in The Eleanor Hovda Collection, with most of the recorded music stemming from the final twenty years of her career. Her[...] Read more
Chris Watson and Marcus Davidson. Cross-Pollination. Of all earthly creatures, insects come the closest to resembling aliens: exoskeletons, multifaceted eyes, barbed legs, and an impenetrable collectiveness. Their sonic world is highlighted on Cross-Pollination. Central to the two tracks on this CD are recordings of insects by Chris Watson,[...] Read more
Chris Watson. El tren fantasma. Sound recordist Chris Watson's latest CD is a homage to the sounds of trains, sounds that until ten years ago travelled the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Mexico. The ten pieces on El tren fantasma abound with the screeching and the rhythms of steel wheels rolling over the tracks,[...] Read more
Les Rhinocéros. Les Rhinocéros. The eponymous debut album of the young trio Les Rhinocéros from Washington D.C. is a crazy, playful musical collage. On one track, birds sing, an elderly singer croaks a folk ditty, loops pulsate, a guitar's spiky notes seem bent on puncturing a waterbed, a drumkit rolls and[...] Read more
Cyrill Schläpfer. Die Waldstätte. Steam-powered engines appeal to the imagination. As an energy source steam is definitely a thing of the past, and compared to sources developed after it, it is inefficient, noisy, and smelly. Maybe that is exactly what the appeal is based on. That, and the design of the engines themselves[...] Read more
Gen Ken Montgomery. Drilling Holes in The Wall. Gen Ken Montgomery. Balls (3" CD-R) Drilling Holes in the Wall and Balls are the first releases of sound artist Ken Montgomery's work since Pondfloorsample. The sounds on Drilling derive mostly from modified toy synthesizers, hooked to a variety of electronic devices such as a film projector or a lamination machine. With[...] Read more


For the 390,276 people the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates who are still under ripped sheets of plastic or tarp, it's too soon to celebrate.
Many believe this relocation of camps on highly-visible areas is akin to sweeping the garbage off the floor only to have it out of sight and out of mind, in someone else's backyard. Where are people going?
For its part, the IOM is keeping track of people they have relocated in the 16/6 program. But the 16/6 camps only account for 5 percent of the total camp population.
And for the others? "Nou pa konnen." We don't know.


Happy Centennial to the National Parks Service!
Hip hip hooray because it's the National Parks Service BIRTHDAY! Whether you realize it or not, national parks come in all shapes and sizes and today is the day that this grand organization turns a whooping 100 years old. Growing up I was fortunate enough to spend time in the great outdoors from Mammoth Lakes to Yosemite and even Crystal Cove in Laguna Beach, all of which I greatly miss while living back east.
I'd love to plan a road trip (some day) around the states and stop through Yellowstone, the Badlands, the Grand Tetons, Acadia (Maine), etc…yeah pretty much all of the ones that everyone wants to visit. I have to give my family credit because we have traveled to so many already! ~ Zion, the Grand Canyon, Denali, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Hawaii, and more.
Since it doesn't look like I'll be making many west coast trips in the near future, let alone road trips, my focus is set to this lovely east coast of mine. Did you know that New York even has a hefty list of its own? I would highly recommend jumping on the "explore-the-outdoors" bandwagon because in celebration, the National Park Service is granting FREE ADMISSION!! From the 25th to the 28th, free admission to over 400 national parks. Get out and explore – it's good for the body and soul. Trust me on this. You won't regret it.
This entry was posted in California, Healthy Me, New York, Quick Trips, Summertime and tagged california, explore, great outdoors, national park service, national parks, New York, travel by Kaitlin. Bookmark the permalink.


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Q: jquery datepicker onselect not working jquery function:
$(function() {
    $("#iDate").datepicker({
        dateFormat: 'dd MM yy',
        beforeShowDay: unavailable
    onSelect: function (dateText, inst) {
            $('#frmDate').submit();
        }

    });

});

html:
        <form id="frmDate" method="post" action="<?php echo $base_url;?>index.php">
<input id="iDate" name="iDate" class='input' type="text" />

it doesn't seem to be firing, don't understand why it is not working.
cheers.

A: You're missing a comma in your javascript:
$(function() {
    $("#iDate").datepicker({
        dateFormat: 'dd MM yy',
        beforeShowDay: unavailable,
        onSelect: function (dateText, inst) {
            $('#frmDate').submit();
        }
    });
});

A: Your jquery function is missing a comma
$(function() {
    $("#iDate").datepicker({
        dateFormat: 'dd MM yy',
        beforeShowDay: unavailable, <-- here :)
        onSelect: function (dateText, inst) {
            $('#frmDate').submit();
        }

    });

});

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Pandemic Economics
In Conversation ~ With Gary Crawford, Budget Chief
By Bret Snider
I recently interviewed Ward 20 Councillor Gary Crawford to get his insights on the economic effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on the City's finances.
Q: Gary, you have been the City of Toronto Budget Chair since 2014 – correct?
A: "Yes, Mayor Tory recommended me, and Council endorsed me in 2014. I am now in my 6th year as Budget Chair."
Q: Toronto is the sixth largest economy in Canada and is the fourth largest City in North America. How has the Covid-19 Pandemic effected our City's revenues?
A: "Our Municipal revenues have plummeted. We're losing approximately $65 Million per week due to loss of revenues ranging from low TTC ridership, Municipal Land Transfer Tax (MLTT) declines, Toronto Parking Authority (TPA) revenue declines, permit fee declines, etc.…
This all translates to an estimated $1.5Billion to $2.8 Billion annual deficit if the pandemic lasts anywhere from 9 to 12 months. Our costs have also increased due to the crisis, including purchases of Personal Protective Equipment, overtime for some staff and increased costs to provide social distancing at shelters throughout the city.
To be safe and limit risk, most employees are working from home or have been re-deployed. Minimal lay offs may be considered; however, we're making our best efforts to avoid that impact. The City is also implementing some cost-covering initiatives, yet they really won't begin to deal with the financial challenges we are currently facing.
The Toronto Transit Commission has played an essential role in moving over 300,000 people a day during the pandemic. They have reduced some routes but, most are being kept at regular service levels (80% of normal service) to help move essential and front-line workers while providing proper distancing on buses and subways. There has been an 86% decline in revenues adding to over $300M in revenue losses by September."
Q: Canadian cities, by statute, are not permitted to run deficits or carry debt. Is that correct?
A: "Yes, Toronto, like all municipalities, must balance their budgets yearly by virtue of Provincial legislation. We don't have the ability to raise debt to support operating expenses or to have a deficit, unlike the Provincial or Federal Governments.
The magnitude of the financial challenges facing the city of Toronto are such that we'll need financial support from both the Provincial and Federal governments. Both City Council and the Mayor have been working closely with both those governments to advocate financial support for all municipalities in the Province."
Q: Given that, are we looking at tax increases for the foreseeable future?
A: "We'll continue our commitment to keep taxes as low as possible. It's our hope that both the Provincial and Federal governments will provide financial support to municipalities, including to the City of Toronto."
Q: Aside from Provincial and Federal transfers, are you considering any other financial vehicles to address the shortfall and perhaps mitigate the possibility of deficits and debt in the future?
A: "This pandemic is unprecedented. The financial impacts that the city is facing are historic in size and complexity but I do have the confidence that we will overcome these challenges in time with the support of the other levels of government and the hard work of city staff to find ways to manage these financial challenges.
As a municipality we are limited in our ability to look at other financial vehicles other than raising property taxes to address our shortfall. Options like municipal bonds, a sales tax or even a lottery fall under the purview of the Provincial Government. Even though the City of Toronto has a budget larger than many Provinces we are governed by Provincial Legislation that limits our ability to raise revenues beyond property taxes and the Municipal Land Transfer Tax."
Q: Some people don't realize that party politics is not officially permitted at the municipal level but there exists a range of political views from left to right. Is that having an impact on decisions being made during this period of crisis?
A: "Council has been working cohesively to advocate for and support all Toronto residents while determining the best course of action to re-open our great City and stimulate the local economy as we embark on a path to full recovery."


Gone are the days of cord-cutting business management solutions. Today's hypercompetitive environment requires more, in fact, the 'best.' The new crop of Business Process Management (BPM) solutions has the potential of driving efficiency and innovation for the enterprises that want to disrupt without being disrupted.
A leading foodservice distributor in the United States was struggling to get on the wheel and lock steps with the new market dynamics. Their workflow systems were slow, cumbersome, and limited in terms of features, which hampered their ability to compete. Their integration solution has also gone obsolete which crippled agility.
Our client collaborated with Kellton Tech to transform their approach. We placed our bets on Software AG's Business Process Management (BPM) solution to help them reinvent their business models for unparalleled growth.


FREE Shuttle Service is offered from select parking lots in town from 9 AM-6 PM. Wagons will be available to transport from the parking lots at the airport to the show. .
Parking is FREE in our On-Site Lots, around town and at the Community Fair..
Coolers are discouraged as well as bringing in outside food and beverages. We have more than 10 Food and Beverage Vendors who offer a full assortment of foods and drinks. Many of the concessions are run by local non profits and your support is greatly appreciated.
Open field viewing area on a first come, first served basis.We advise to bring folding chairs or blankets to sit on. No bleachers or chairs are available in the General area.
Most of the event is under open sky so plan accordingly and bring plenty of sunscreen. Some food vendors and exhibits will have tents for shade.
Vendors inside the Wheels and Wings event do not accept credit cards.
Yes, you should be able to operate your devices.
Yes. We want you to capture your Wheels and Wings memories.
Where can I stay during the weekend?
Please visit our page to learn more.
Are there other attractions to see after the show or the next day?
Wheels and Wings is a one day event. Osceola and the surrounding area is rich in history, culture and natural areas to explore. After the show, Osceola Downtown will be hopping with Happy Hour promotions. We have great restaurants and outdoor patios to enjoy a little more Osceola. The Osceola Community Fair continues into Saturday evening with live music, carnival rides and fireworks.We have plenty of activities to fill out your weekend for the entire family. On Sunday,take a short trip to the new zip lines at Trollhaugen, paddle the river or take a self guided winery tour. .Please visit to learn more.


text:
Eunidia quadrialbosignata is a species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae. It was described by Stephan von Breuning in 1965. It is known from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

References

Eunidiini
Beetles described in 1965
Endemic fauna of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


A bill to require carbon monoxide detectors in certain federally assisted housing, and for other purposes.
S. 755 is a bill in the United States Congress.
Safe Housing for Families Act, S. 755, 116th Cong. (2019).
The overall text of the bill increases its chances of being enacted. Although this bill has a low chance of enactment, there is 1 provision within this bill that the provision-level textual analysis considers likely to be enacted. There are often multiple bills with the same legal provisions within them. The bill's primary sponsor is from the state/territory: CA. The bill's primary sponsor is a Democrat. The bill is assigned to the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee. The bill's primary subject is Housing and community development.


Architect Rem Koolhaas, political theorist Luuk van Middelaar and De Balie's director Yoeri Albrecht will conduct a nonstop, 12-hour interview marathon with a list of exciting guests. Within a single night, over the course of 12 hours and armed with 100 questions, Koolhaas & van Middelaar will search for an answer to the complex question: What is Europe?
What is Europe? This question can be answered in countless variations on the theme. Rem Koolhaas, Luuk van Middelaar, and Yoeri Albrecht, will go in search of the answer within the brackets of 12 hours, hoping to find it in nonstop conversations with impressive guests from the worlds of art, philosophy and politics. What does Europe mean to them? Is there such a thing as European culture and identity to begin with, and if so, what should define it?
Rem Koolhaas is a globally acclaimed Dutch architect, known for his innovative and daring designs. He chairs the influential architectural bureau OMA in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong and Doha. Luuk van Middelaar is a political theorist, historian and the author of the awarded book A Passage to Europe. Yoeri Albrecht is director of De Balie, a well-known platform and center for contemporary art, politics, cinema and media.
Koolhaas previously held an interview marathon in 2006, at the established London Serpentine Gallery. Ten years on, Rem Koolhaas takes on the challenge once again.
Inne Olders (consultant, Belgium) , Ingo Niermann (author, Germany), Joeri Jansen (creative director, The Netherlands), Pieter Kool (designer, The Netherlands), Gerben Hellinga (actor and writer, The Netherlands), Kishore Mahbubani (professor, Singapore), Rudi Fuchs (art historian, The Netherlands), Ivana Abramovic (scientist), Wolfgang Tillmans (photographer, Germany), Flavia Kleiner (activist, Switzerland), Beatrix Ruf (curator, Germany), Engin Önder (journalist, Turkey), Tom Lanoye (author, Belgium), Vasyl Cherepanyn (director, Ukraine), Johan Simons (theatre director, The Netherlands), Abram de Swaan (professor, The Netherlands), Vincent Stuer (speechwriter and author, Belgium), Philipp Blom (historian, Germany), Phillip Blond (political thinker, UK), Luc Tuymans (painter, Belgium), Jan Raes (director, The Netherlands), Chantal Mouffe (political theorist, Belgium), Costas Lapavitsas (professor, Greece), Ann Demeester (museum director, Belgium), Larry Siedentop (political philosopher, UK), Stella Ghervas (author and historian, Switzerland), Niklas Maak (arts director and architecture theoretician), Astrid du Lau d'Allemans (psychoanalyst), Yevhen Levchenko (football-player, Ukraine), Diederick Koopal (director, the Netherlands), Bettine Vriesekoop (table tennis player and journalist, The Netherlands), Peter Ho (professor, The Netherlands, via Skype), Aslı Çiçek (architect, Turkey), Abdelkader Benali (author, Morocco), Duncan Stutterheim (entrepeneur, The Netherlands), Quirijn Bolle (entrepeneur, The Netherlands), Diederik Samsom (politican, The Netherlands), Heiko Goelzer (researcher, The Netherlands), Ryan Heath (correspondent, Australia), and Lukasz Kolinski (special advisor on energy union and climate issues, Poland).
This programme will be in English. Drinks and small snacks will be available at the bar, for the duration of the entire marathon.
The interview marathon is sold out. Good news for those who couldn't get hold of tickets: the entire marathon will be livestreamed online!
This programme has been made in association with the Stedelijk Museum.


Published: Oct. 26, 2016 at 02:39 p.m.
Updated: Oct. 26, 2016 at 06:00 p.m.
NFL.com analyst Lance Zierlein is constantly talking to NFL and college sources about players in the college game. In this space each week, Zierlein will share some of what NFL folks are discussing in their circles.
The skinny: Mahomes, a junior, has been one of the low-key favorites of more than a few evaluators who have studied him and most of those scouts are attracted to his arm talent and confidence. He leads the FBS in passing yards (3,313) by a wide margin, which isn't surprising given how much he's throwing the ball. I haven't seen enough tape to comment on the play-calling, but Texas Tech has lost three consecutive games and Mahomes has attempted 194 passes over that stretch, including 88 attempts last weekend against Oklahoma. He's thrown just 8 touchdowns in those 194 attempts, which is an unimpressive total and might lead scouts to question his efficiency as a passer inside the Red Raiders' offense.
Projecting quarterbacks from the "Air Raid" offense that Mahomes plays in has proven to be a difficult task over the last decade. Mahomes is an impressive talent with the attributes NFL scouts look for in a QB, but he still has to fight off the "system quarterback" label that has been attached to so many QBs that have come that type of offensive system.
The skinny: I'm one of those analysts who beat Robinson up a little bit in the privacy of my own film room because I want to see more growth and consistency from him as a pass protector. While Robinson, a junior, hasn't had an eye-popping season at left tackle, he's still the top player at his position in college football and his excellent performance last week against Garrett, one of college football's top players, only helps his cause. Robinson won't always be the cleanest from a technique standpoint when it comes to protecting the passer, but when teams turn on the Texas A&M game, he's going to earn praise for his work.
The skinny: Wormley, a senior, has the athleticism and explosiveness to become a consistently disruptive interior defender, and I understand what this scout is seeing. Wormley has the athletic ability to play an end spot in base packages or become a full-time three technique, but teams will be watching to see if he can match his athletic traits with a consistent pass rush before they determine where to slot him.


May | 2018 | In Point.
Here's the film director Stanley Nelson @stanleynelson1 made for Starbucks. I linked to his tweets talking about it yesterday.
Making notes on a new scene, I just mistyped that it was shot with 87 cameras rather than 7, and completely terrified myself.


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Gevork Kartashyan and Eliza Shubaralyan sentenced to Prison for Health Care Fraud – Comments by Ethics and Fraud Prevention Speaker Chuck Gallagher
The Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) – a division of the Justice Department is at it again. Their goal…to stop Medicare fraud…! And, it looks like they are being effective.
Gevork Kartashyan and Eliza Shubaralyan, the owners and operators of a Los Angeles-area durable medical equipment (DME) company were sentenced to prison in connection with an approximately $1 million power wheelchair fraud scheme. Each were sentenced to serve two years in prison and in addition, Kartashyan and Shubaralyan were ordered to serve three years of supervised release following their prison terms and to pay $400,000 in restitution, jointly and severally.
Kartashyan and Shubaralyan, who are married, were convicted at a July 2009 trial in federal court in Los Angeles. Kartashyan was found guilty of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and health care fraud, and Shubaralyan was found guilty of health care fraud. At trial, the evidence showed that Kartashyan and Shubaralyan, through their company CHH Medical Supply, billed Medicare $949,859 and were paid $597,750 as a result of the billing. According to evidence presented at trial, virtually all the billing was for medically unnecessary power wheelchairs and wheelchair accessories.
At trial, elderly Medicare beneficiaries testified about how they were recruited into the scheme. According to testimony, the beneficiaries were taken to Los Angeles-area medical clinics, where they turned over their Medicare numbers and other personal identifying information. Some beneficiaries testified that they were promised vitamins, diabetic shoes and other items that they never received, in return for providing their beneficiary numbers. According to evidence presented at trial, these clinics were in the business of generating fraudulent power wheelchair prescriptions that could be sold to DME company owners, who then billed Medicare for the wheelchairs. Many of the beneficiaries did not know they were getting a power wheelchair until it was delivered by CHH Medical Supply. All of the beneficiaries testified that they did not need or use the power wheelchairs.
Five physicians testified at trial that they never authorized or approved the power wheelchair prescriptions written under their names. Three of these physicians testified that they never worked at the clinics listed on the phony prescription pads.
According to testimony at trial, Kartashyan regularly purchased power wheelchair prescriptions. The evidence also showed that after the power wheelchairs were delivered, Kartashyan generated phony forms stating that the beneficiaries' homes were appropriate for the use of a power wheelchair, even though no home assessment was conducted.
Since their inception in March 2007, Strike Force operations in seven districts have obtained indictments of more than 500 individuals who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $1 billion. In addition, HHS's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the HHS-OIG, are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.
ENOUGH SAID…any comments?
HEAT'S website can be found here.
Leave a Comment »	| business ethics, Choices and Consequences, elder care, fraud, Health Care Fraud, prison, white collar crime	| Tagged: CHH Medical Supply, Chuck Gallagher, diabetic, DME, Eliza Shubaralyan, Fraud Prevention Speaker, Gevork Kartashyan, Health Care Fraud Prevention, HEAT, Justice Department, Medicare fraud, prison	| Permalink
Brooke Astor son convicted; case highlights elderly financial exploitation
At first glance it may be hard to imagine what lessons the case of late philanthropist Brooke Astor holds for everyday Americans. It's not as if many of us have a $200 million fortune stashed under our mattresses, at risk of being stolen.
Equally improbable is the other person at the center of the case: Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall (left), a former U.S. ambassador and Broadway producer, who was accused — and just days ago, convicted — of looting his late mother's fortune.
But if there was any doubt about the case's relevance, the Probate Lawyer Blog dispels it. Money quote:
[The Brooke Astor case] marks an important victory in the battle against elder abuse. The National Center on Elder Abuse reports that between one and five million elderly Americans have been the victim of financial exploitation each and every year. Exact figures are hard to track because so many instances of abuse go unreported.
That's why high profile cases like this one are important. People who prey on the elderly and seek what seems like an unguarded pot of gold need to understand that they can be punished. If Marshall had avoided jail time, then it wouldn't have sent a strong message to the other would-be abusers out there.
What can elder Americans do to protect themselves against financial exploitation?
Share your comments here.
Leave a Comment »	| elder care, white collar crime	| Tagged: anthony marshall, brooke astor	| Permalink
Kansas City Internal Medicine doctors turn away Medicare enrollees, sparking ethics debate
Here's a question for you: If you had a service to provide — and someone asked you to provide it for free, or at a radically reduced price — would you do it?
No, right?
Now try this on for size: If you were a doctor, and someone asked you to provide a service at a rate that didn't reimburse you for the total cost of care, would you do it?
In nearly every line of business, one maxim holds true: "If you can't pay, we don't play." So, why should doctors be viewed any different?
That's the question doctors at Kansas City Internal Medicine, the largest private group practice in Kansas City, Mo., have been asking. For now, most of these doctors, who count 65 percent of their 70,000 active patients age 65 or older, have decided to stop accepting walk-in Medicare enrollees.
Dr. David Wilt, an internist at the group, tells CNN: Medicare doesn't reimburse physicians enough to cover the cost of care. Matters will only get worse, he adds, if a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians takes place in 2010.
Should physicians be allowed to turn away patients because their funding source is being reduced? On the flip side, does the government have the right in a free-market economy to dictate payment terms to physicians for the performance of services?
1 Comment	| elder care, ethics, Health, Medicare fraud	| Tagged: Kansas City, Kansas City Internal Medicine, Medicare, Missouri	| Permalink
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Fredric "Rick" Dryer - Ponzi Scheme Fraudster Sentenced to 132 Years in Prison. Ethics and Fraud Prevention Expert Chuck Gallagher Comments