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Mn Retailers IMPACT Endorses 2018 House Candidates
Today Mn Retailers IMPACT announced the endorsement of these 12 candidates running for the State House of Representatives:
Tony Albright (55B)
Sarah Anderson (44A)
Drew Christensen (56A)
Kurt Daudt (31A)
Greg Davids (28B)
Pat Garofalo (58B)
Jon Koznick (58A)
Paul Marquart (4B)
Jim Nash (47A)
Marion O'Neill (29B)
Roz Peterson (56B)
Chris Swedzinski (16A)
Nick Zerwas (30A)
"Each endorsed candidate is a champion for Minnesota consumers, retailers, and our communities. They understand what the retail industry offers Minnesota's economy and appreciate the 788,000 jobs that retailers support across the State," said Mn Retailers IMPACT treasurer Bruce Nustad.
Tony Albright
district 55B
district 44A
Drew Christensen
Kurt Daudt
Greg Davids
Pat Garofalo
Jon Koznick
Paul Marquart
district 4B
Jim Nash
Marion O'Neill
Roz Peterson
Chris Swedzinski
Nick Zerwas
Written by Bruce Nustad on Sunday, 21 October 2018. Posted in Policy & Politics
Big News! U.S. Supreme Court Issues Sales Tax Fairness Decision Retailers Have Been Waiting For
retailers welcome opportunity to compete on level sales tax playing field
In big news out of Washington, D.C. this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a level sales tax playing field in South Dakota v. Wayfair. The case centered on a loophole in the law that allowed retailers without a physical presence in the state to avoid collecting and remitting state sales tax.
The Minnesota Retailers Association (MnRA) has long held the position that retail sales should be treated the same--whether in-store or online and regardless of the location of the retailer.
"It appears fairness is on a path to prevailing. Today's decision is a big moment for Minnesota retailers that have argued for sales tax fairness for years and years," said MnRA President Bruce Nustad in reaction to the news. "This is a great step in leveling the playing field and ensuring an online sale has the same tax treatment as an in-store sale."
"This issue has plagued retailers in towns across Minnesota as well across the country for years. Retailers welcome the opportunity to compete for customers on service, convenience and price, without a competitor having an unfair tax advantage," added Nustad.
In 2013 MnRA worked with the Minnesota Legislature and Governor to ensure retailers with a physical presence in Minnesota were collecting sales tax on their online sales, and in anticipation of today's decision the Association last year worked on remote-seller language to cover third-party marketplace transactions beginning July 1, 2019 or when a favorable decision was delivered (as it was today) by the U.S. Supreme Court.
With today's ruling, MnRA will take the next steps of analyzing the decision and continuing to work with our elected officials as well as the Minnesota Department of Revenue.
MnRA thanks the countless number of retailers that have worked on this issue over the years, as well as our legislative partners at the state and federal level.
Read the full decision here.
Written by Bruce Nustad on Thursday, 21 June 2018. Posted in Trends, Retail Operations, Policy & Politics
State Needs To Strike A Balance Between Improving Overall Business Environment And Offering Incentives
The Minnesota Retailers Association (MnRA) thanks economic development officials and Governor Mark Dayton for taking a measured and thoughtful approach when responding to Amazon's second headquarters request for proposal.
"Today's economic development environment is certainly competitive, and it is tempting to focus solely on attracting new jobs," said Minnesota Retailers Association President Bruce Nustad. "For our state, there is a need for balance between improving the overall environment for existing businesses that invest in our communities and offering incentives to attract new businesses."
As an organization representing a diverse retail industry, MnRA sees every day how important retailers and the jobs they provide are to each community around the State. Minnesota's retail community includes over 50,000 retailers impacting more than 788,000 jobs.
Written by Bruce Nustad on Tuesday, 14 November 2017. Posted in Policy & Politics


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Barceloneta ist eine der 78 Gemeinden von Puerto Rico. Sie liegt an der Nordküste von Puerto Rico. Sie hatte 2019 eine Einwohnerzahl von 23.727 Personen.

Geschichte
Barceloneta wurde am 1. Juli 1881 von Don Bonocio Llenza Feliú, einem Einwanderer aus Barcelona gegründet. Der Name Barceloneta ("Klein Barcelona") ist von der spanischen Stadt abgeleitet. Barceloneta war eine der letzten Gemeinden, die von der spanischen Regierung in Puerto Rico gegründet wurden.

Etwa ein Jahrzehnt nach der Gründung erlebte die Stadt eine bedeutende wirtschaftliche Entwicklung, die von der Landwirtschaft und der Industrie angeführt wurde. Bis 1894 gab es drei Zuckerrohrplantagen und Produktion von Früchten.

Im Jahr 1899 beantragte Barceloneta die Eingemeindung in die Stadt Manatí. Eine Wahl wurde für den 14. August 1899 angesetzt, um die Angelegenheit zu entscheiden. Am 8. August wurde die Insel jedoch vom Hurrikan San Ciriaco heimgesucht, wodurch die Wahlen nicht abgehalten werden konnten. Im folgenden Jahr ordnete Gouverneur George Whitefield Davis die Eingemeindung von Barceloneta in Manatí an. Die Annexion war nur von kurzer Dauer. Elf Jahre später setzte die Regierung Barceloneta wieder als Gemeinde ein.

Nachdem Central Plazuela, eine große Zuckerrohrmühle, 1963 geschlossen wurde, begann Barceloneta, seine landwirtschaftliche Wirtschaft mit dem Anbau von Ananas und anderen kleineren Früchten zu verstärken. Die Bemühungen, die Wirtschaft wiederzubeleben, waren nicht allzu erfolgreich, bis sich in den 1970er Jahren pharmazeutische Produktionsstätten in der Stadt ansiedelten.

Gliederung

Die Gemeinde ist in 4 Barrios aufgeteilt:

 Barceloneta barrio-pueblo
 Florida Afuera
 Garrochales
 Palmas Altas

Persönlichkeiten

 Sixto Escobar (1913–1979), Boxer
 Mickey Coll (* 1972), Basketballspieler

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Ort in Puerto Rico
Gegründet 1881

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Diane Isaacs
Co-Founder & Creative Director, The Miracle Project
Diane Isaacs applies her award-winning producing experience to create programs and content for The Miracle Project, a transformational theater arts program for children with autism, which was featured in the two-time Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary AUTISM: The Musical. With Elaine Hall, her Miracle Project partner, Isaacs co-wrote Seven Keys to Unlock Autism (Wiley, Nov 2011), which offers educators, parents, and other caregivers actionable techniques to teach children of all abilities—including "seemingly unreachable" children on the autism spectrum. A conference presenter and motivational speaker, Isaacs facilitates workshops for The Miracle Project and the Seven Keys both nationally and internationally, including in India and Africa. As a mother of son with special needs, she uses creative storytelling to motivate and inform audiences to see how autism is "awesomism," and she uniquely integrates her diverse life experiences as an All-American world-class triathlete, entertainment executive, and nutritional/yoga/meditation expert into her inspirational presentations. Read More >
As part of The Miracle Project's multi-platform good and services, she produces its edu-tainment initatives, including the CD FLY, with celebrity artists performing duets with children with autism; the Autism is Awesomism live concert with superstar Jack Black and legend Stephen Stills; music videos with The Miracle Project's FLY Singers, including the YouTube hit "Sensitive" and the grand prize winner for Stand Up 2 Cancer for Dave Stewart; the seven-part DVD series Unlocking the World of Autism for the medical community, and the newly released Seven Keys to Unlock Autism book and DVD. She is an advocate for the arts and its ability to tap into human potential.
Following her BFA in film and BA in English at New York University, she worked as a producer on the television series Miami Vice. After serving as President of The Don Johnson Company at Universal and Paramount, she founded Green Moon Productions with Zorro star Antonio Banderas and his wife, Working Girl's Melanie Griffith. She traveled the world producing many films, including HBO's Emmy-nominated And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, and has worked with Patrick Swayze, Mischa Barton, Rod Steiger, and Academy Award winners Emma Thompson and Helen Hunt, to name a few.
Diane Isaacs is an All-American world-class Ironman athlete, who has achieved as high as 4th place at the World Championships in Kona. Featured in Sports Illustrated and Muscle & Fitness Hers, she is an advocate of balancing cardio, strength, and flexibility. She is committed to a practice of daily yoga, meditation, and green nutrition. She is a mother of two amazing sons, Jackson and Wyatt. Wyatt is one of the stars of AUTISM: The Musical. Isaacs, along with Wyatt, has traveled the world as an autism advocate, and has addressed 440 global ambassadors at the United Nations, conferences in India, and audiences at venues including Angel Stadium, The Rose Bowl, and Carnegie Hall. Read Less ^
7 Keys to Unlocking Autism
Finding the Miracle Project
Art and Autism
Parenting a Child with Special Needs: Denial to Acceptance
Autism to Awesomism
Self-Care for the Selfless Caregiver
The Un-Finish Line: Measures of Success in Family & Business
Mindfulness to Matterlessness
Seven Keys to Unlock Autism: Making Miracles in the Classroom
Elaine Hall
"Coach E," International Keynote Speaker & Founder/Executive Artistic Director of The Miracle Project
World-Famous Animal Scientist & Autism Self-Advocate
Holly Robinson Peete

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It may seem like a bit of a stretch to use a section of the law that orders the FCC to remove barriers to network infrastructure investment to impose restrictions on network operator business practices, but stranger things have happened, and there is a nexus between network regulation and enabling innovation in the app space. Werbach's paper points out that the Internet doesn't precisely fit into the regulatory framework of the Communications Act in any case.
The Act was written in an era in which networks were simpler and more self-contained than they are today. The telephone network was wholly contained within telco-owned facilities that ended at the network termination box outside the house and is wholly managed by the telco itself. Other than putting a massive voltage spike on the telco's wire, there's nothing the PSTN user can do that will affect others on the network. So telco-era regulations drew a sharp line between the network and the information services that ran across the network, putting the network under Title II of the Act and the services under Title I. This nice, neat system worked reasonably well for 70 years.
Now along comes the Internet and the bright line isn't so bright any more. The Internet is an end-to-end system in which a vital function – congestion control – runs on the user's system instead of being contained within the network itself. The Internet wasn't designed to work this way: In the beginning, it was supposed to manage its own congestion state, but that part of the system was flawed, so a fellow named Van Jacobson devised a three line code modification for TCP to correct it. Without Jacobson's patch, people who accessed the Internet from a campus Ethernet caused their access routers and large parts of the network to lock up simply by transferring files during network prime time.
So post-Jacobson, the Internet became a system that spanned both sides of the Title I/Title II divide, and in fact couldn't function properly unless it did. And it wasn't just congestion management that caused the Internet to spill over the regulatory boundary: By the time it became a public network, the Internet included functions like the Domain Name System (DNS,) the directory service that converts names like "itif.org" into IP addresses, which are part application and part infrastructure as well. In fact, many of the Internet's basic network functions are implemented through the Internet itself, such as routing.
Computer scientists call this property of a system "recursion," and it was an unexpected feature of computer networks. In the early days of network engineering, network architects believed they could extend the telephone network's notion of functional separation into the new world, but that notion didn't fully pan out. In the 1970s, they invented layered models of network architecture that didn't correctly predict how features and functions would be deployed in fully-developed networks.
The Internet is built on a platform of one basic function, the transfer of data in small units called packets which have embedded addresses, but it uses that basic function to provide more advanced functions such as routing, name lookup, and congestion control, which the user sees as inherent in the network. So what's basic and what's added on depends on where you sit in the network. The Internet uses some of its parts to produce other parts, and these other parts make user applications possible; it's a network of networks not just in the sense of "networks connected to networks," but also in sense of "networks within networks." In many ways, the Internet isn't really a network in the tradition sense, it's a collection of communication platforms that enable other communication platforms to be built for various specialized purposes.
Therefore, the Internet doesn't fit under Title I and it doesn't fit under Title II – in order to function, it has to straddle the boundary. If you're a user, this is a great thing. You're able to share a network with others that allows you to freely use all the network facilities that nobody else is using, which enables you do download files extremely fast during most times of the day, and while it slows down during the busy hour, it doesn't lock up as it used to do. The advent of broadband Internet edge networks created demand for fatter pipes and more speed, which required more or less continual investment by network operators. This was an economic challenge.
Operators met the economic challenge by bundling additional services into their broadband networks such as telephony by cable operators and TV by telcos, blurring yet another regulatory boundary. As over-the-top service providers such as Skype, Netflix, and the iTunes store came along, so did the perception that network operators, who now relied on application-level services to finance their networks, had a conflict of interest between their own services and those from third parties. And that perceived conflict gave rise to the net neutrality controversy, which reached a fever pitch in 2006 and hasn't been resolved to anyone's satisfaction anywhere in the world, despite the dearth of concrete offenses.
Cable television companies that sell Internet connectivity are considering whether to limit their Internet users to downloading only the company's mix of entertainment.
There are some cable and phone companies out there that want to decide which apps you should get on your phone, which Internet sites you should look at, and what online videos you can download.
Once again, the claim is made without evidence. We can only conclude that the lack of uncorrected problems of this sort since net neutrality became a cause has forced its supporters to turn away from the search for actual evidence to the realm of the imaginary; we're now dealing with thought crimes.
There certainly have been some recent issues regarding the inability of users to access desired video: Because of a dispute over retransmission fees, Cablevision customers weren't able to see the typically hapless San Francisco Giants break their lifetime World Series curse, and in an unrelated matter, people with Google TV boxes can't access Hulu. In these cases, it's not the network operators restricting access to content, it's the content owners and licensees themselves, however, so they don't support Berners-Lee's and the FCC's speculative exercises. Perhaps we'll need to consult a psychic Tarot card reader to get to the bottom of what the cable and telco leaders are thinking; even the TSA's body scanners can't read minds.
How do the network providers defend themselves against these witch trial notions that they harbor evil intentions? If they deny the desire to shoot themselves in the foot by blocking user access to content and services, their accusers will simply claim "if you're not planning to do these things, what's the harm in our imposing a regulation forbidding you from doing them just to be safe?" Aside from the "guilty unless proven innocent" angle of this approach, there's actually plenty wrong with enacting regulations without any evidence: They're inevitably going to be too broad, and will therefore prevent useful new services from reaching the market, not to mention spurring endless rounds of complaint, investigation, and litigation. The alternative is to stand pat until there's actual, objective, measurable evidence of harm that we can all see without consulting a psychic friend. If the cable and telephone companies did have such evil intentions, it shouldn't be hard to see them play out in the real world. Once a line is crossed, it will be relatively easy to correct it.
If we assume that the FCC is following Berners-Lee's lead, a not-unreasonable guess at this point (ask me again if there's a net neutrality order on Wednesday,) we should look into the nature of Sir Tim's complaint. His essay criticizes a number of trends taking place on the Internet today, not just speculations about the phone and cable companies; he's upset about Google, the iTunes store, Facebook, and the rise of app stores for handheld devices. All in all, the essay is downright grumpy about the new ways of using the Internet that have arisen in the past couple of years; it reads like an old man haranguing the neighborhood children to get off his lawn along with their new toys.
Berners-Lee senses that things are happening on the Internet which undermine the primacy of the Web, and this perception is fundamentally correct. It's been made by others recently in a series of "Death of the Web" articles in Wired magazine and elsewhere. The web isn't just a networking platform, it's a user interface that doesn't function properly without a full-sized display and a mouse, so it's inevitable that it would be replaced, or at least heavily supplemented, by a user interface that's better geared to tablets like the iPad and hand-held devices. That's largely what handheld apps are about.
TCP/IP comes from a world of a few, fixed PCs used by lots of users processing a relatively small quantity of data. As such, TCP/IP connects one endpoint to another using a stable, known IP address.
This is a "conversational" model borrowed from the phone system, where the endpoints are trusted and known. According to Jacobson, the problem is that people on the net aren't having "conversations" — despite what the Web 2.0 crowd say. Ninety-nine per cent of traffic is for named chunks of data — or content. People are downloading web pages or emails.
TCP/IP was not built to know what content people want, just to set up the conversation between the endpoints and to secure those connections. That's a problem because people can — and do — flock to the same servers to watch exactly the same video or get the same piece of information, and proceed to overload sections of the network and take sites down.
Jacobson proposes a new platform for content, to be built on top of TCP/IP, but in a way that's very different from the Web's conversational model. It's worth noting that Bob Kahn, the Internet's principal project manager in the very early days, has been working toward a similar end for some years now. Jacobson and Kahn want to change the way we identify and locate information. They observe that the Web lacks a true Universal Resource Identifier (URI) that would enable a user to say: "get me a copy of the Game 3 of the 2010 World Series from any convenient location." Instead, it has a Universal Resource Locator (URL) that requires you to tell the web where the content you want can be found. This is why search and content stores are so big: they enable users to deal with content by name rather than by address.
Berners-Lee doesn't appear to get this; his Sci-Am essay asserts that the Web URL is really a URI. This may seem like an inside baseball discussion among computer scientists, but it has major implications for the information dissemination function Jacobson and Kahn have in mind. We won't get beyond the locator to the identifier until we at least acknowledge that the Web lacks an actual content identifier. An identifier is something like a social security account number, while a locator is more like a street address. They're similar at a superficial level, but significantly different in effect.
The best way to understand Berners-Lee's Sci Am essay is to see it as a defensive response to the work of Jacobson, Kahn, and the others who seek to improve the Web; the FCC has apparently mistaken it as justification for an ongoing tussle with network operators and the incoming Republican majority in the House. There's a serious misunderstanding afoot here, clearly. Computer scientists are arguing with each other, as they are wont to do, and regulators (the UK's network regulator appears to be modifying his views on net neutrality in response to Berners-Lee's concerns as well) are taking sides. Suffice it to say, a regulatory incursion into a computer science dispute isn't going to end well.
This would be a good time to disengage, take a deep breath, and spend the Thanksgiving holidays doing anything but trying to figure out new justifications for regulating a system that appears to be developing just the way that it should. Can we all resolve to do that and see how the Internet looks a week from now? This is not the time to be solidifying regulations with the aim of preventing change in the way the Internet is used and operated. Technologies that succeed in the long run are those that are open to improvement, and there's too much fear of improvement in the current movement to lock the Internet into legacy status as a unchangeable system. Let's at least identify a concrete problem that the regulators need to solve.
Edited Nov. 25 for clarity.
Is Net Neutrality Back on the Table?


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Oscar 2012: New Host is Seth MacFarlane
October 4, 2012 by EmanuelLevy
Seth MacFarlane is the new host of the Oscar kudocst.
MacFarlane, set to host the 85th Academy Awards on Februray 24 at the Dolby Theater, is a Hollywood success story but one who has operated largely behind the camera.
His profile, however, has been considerably boosted this past year by hosting duties on "Saturday Night Live," an Emmy appearance last week, a debut album and singing gigs. And this summer's "Ted" has cemented his status as a bigscreen player.
"This has been a whirlwind, and it's all been fairly recent, but it's the greatest call that I could have gotten as far as this business is concerned," MacFarlane told Variety. "I was thrilled to take it on — and very oddly comfortable with the whole thing. I think it's going to be a blast."
While some may see the choice of MacFarlane as a revived effort to attract a younger demographic to the Oscar broadcast on ABC (coincidentally, MacFarlane's animated comedies for Fox air against the Academy Awards on Sunday night), Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron told Variety that MacFarlane offers the potential to win over all camps with a mix of irreverence and respect for Hollywood history.
"One of the great things about Seth is he has one foot steeped in the tradition of what's come before," Meron said, "with an eye (toward) what's currently in the consciousness now. That's the balance that we look for."
MacFarlane said he wasn't aware when he hosted the "SNL" season premiere on Sept. 15 that he was under consideration for the Oscar slot, though Meron and Zadan said they already had their eyes on him.
"We were discussing Seth before 'SNL,'?" Meron said. "He was fantastic on 'SNL.' … It was kind of the perfect storm of everything we were thinking about."
Not since John Huston co-hosted the Academy Awards in 1974 with Burt Reynolds, David Niven and Diana Ross has there been an Oscar host whose primary role in the industry wasn't onscreen. Other hosts, such as David Letterman, have had limited profiles internationally but were plenty recognizable to U.S. viewers.
MacFarlane will venture where even the most seasoned on-camera performers have struggled, seeking to win over both the Academy crowd inside the Dolby Theater and the domestic and international TV audiences.
"When the Academy hired us to produce the show," Zadan said, "we knew that we wanted to set out and do something very fresh, and we wanted to find a host that would be able to (work with) the concept we had for the show.
"Seth (offers) the diversity of talent that we really had hoped for. He does comedy, he's a great writer, he sings and dances — he does everything really well, which enables us to put on a show that has a rousing entertainment value."
That diversity expands the possibilities for how the Academy Awards will open — whether with standup, music, animation or a hybrid of the three.
"Nothing has really been decided yet," MacFarlane said. "I think the challenge is just going to be what instantly sets the tone and lets the audience know that we're going to be riding a Goldilocks zone between relevant, contemporary comedy that will hopefully, genuinely get laughs and at the same time making sure there's a backbone of old-fashioned showmanship that treats the Oscars with reverence."
Before this year, MacFarlane was best known for creating, exec producing and providing voices for Fox animated hit "Family Guy" and spinoffs "American Dad" and "The Cleveland Show." As far as hosting events, before the recent season premiere of "Saturday Night Live" his biggest impact had been on Comedy Central's celebrity roasts.
MacFarlane has become a bigscreen sensation in 2012 with "Ted," which he directed and co-wrote while also playing the title character — though again in a voiceover role. "Ted" has grossed more than $420 million worldwide.
MacFarlane has performed musically to sold-out audiences at London's Royal Albert Hall and New York's Carnegie Hall, and his 2011 debut album, "Music Is Better Than Words," earned two Grammy nominations that nicely complement his 13 Emmy noms (including two wins) for "Family Guy."
His well-received opening "SNL" monologue Sept. 15 was capped by a musical number that showed off his singing chops — but also significantly played off his array of "Family Guy" voices. MacFarlane realizes he can't rely on TV material — however well recognized in pop culture — that will be foreign to many in the Academy.
"It's one of many reasons to avoid too much material that references what it is that I do for Fox or for the movies," MacFarlane said. "But I'm not incredibly worried about that. It's more about getting out there and letting the audience know as soon into the show as you can that you're having a great time and (they) should have a great time.
"Taking command of the stage … ideally, that'll be the antidote."
MacFarlane succeeds the man best known for taking command of the Oscar stage in recent times: Billy Crystal, who saddled up late in the game last awards season after Eddie Murphy withdrew following Brett Ratner's resignation from producer duties. The Oscars haven't had the same host in back-to-back years since Crystal in 1997 and 1998.
Since that time, Oscar hosts have included Crystal (three more times, giving him nine overall), Steve Martin (twice, plus once sharing with Alec Baldwin), Whoopi Goldberg (twice), Jon Stewart (twice), Ellen DeGeneres, Hugh Jackman, Chris Rock and, in 2011, the combination of Anne Hathaway and James Franco.
Jackman became the subject of much Oscar host speculation once Zadan and Meron were selected in August to produce this year's kudocast. Jackman, who previously hosted the Oscars in 2009 to largely positive notices, won the 2004 Tony for lead actor in a musical and also emceed the Tony Awards three consecutive years from 2003-05, would also have meshed with the musical-infused sensibilities of Zadan and Meron, whose exec producer credits include 2002 Oscar-winning best picture "Chicago."
But it will be MacFarlane that fills this Oscar bill.
"Seth is unbelievably talented," said Academy prexy Hawk Koch. "We couldn't be happier with the creative team we've assembled. With Craig, Neil, and now Seth, we're off to a great start."
Filed Under: NEWS, OSCAR


What Is a Halfway House?
Correctional officers guard prisons, but their career also demands much more. They investigate prison crimes, transport inmates, provide informal counseling, write reports, oversee correctional programming, supervise working inmates and serve as liaisons with the public. Without correctional officers, the criminal justice system would not fulfill its missions to keep communities safe and reduce recidivism. People want to become corrections officers for both idealistic and practical reasons.
Many future correctional officers want to help people. They believe they can provide discipline and stability to people whose lives have neither. To them, a correctional officer career means more than punishing people. It means serving as a role model and educator. They believe in rehabilitation and hope to transform criminals into law-abiding citizens.
Many people who pursue careers as correctional officers feel a strong desire to clean up crime-ridden streets and make communities safer for everyone. While correctional officers cannot arrest dangerous criminals, they play a role in keeping them off the streets and reforming them so they no longer pose a threat. Correctional officers help reduce recidivism by matching offenders with programs that can address their needs and minimize their risk of re-offending.
Many people pursue a career as a correctional officer because it provides stable employment. After all, society always needs prisons. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects steady growth through 2018 for correctional careers, due in part to the popularity of mandatory minimum sentences, which tend to fill and overcrowd prisons. Although states in budget crisis may lower or strip mandatory minimum sentence guidelines, prisons will still need to replace correctional officers who retire or leave the profession.
Young people with minimal education or people switching careers find correctional officer careers appealing because entry-level positions do not require an extensive education. In many states, correctional officers can start the job with an Associate's degree, according to the Everest College website. Once on the job, officers can pursue a Bachelor's degree or professional development. Correctional officers can also rise in rank to earn more income.
Correctional officers face challenges every day, whether from disruptive prisoners or gang violence inside the prison walls. In one sense, correctional officers have to act like police for the prison, gathering intelligence and investigating crimes. Some future correctional officers find those challenges exciting. They want a career that never gets boring and pushes them every day. The stress and dangers of correctional work requires officers to be well rounded so that they can be prepared for anything.
Karen Murdock holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. She has taught college composition since 2005 and written for a variety of publications since 1996.
What Are the Different Types of Correctional Institutions?
Murdock, Karen. "What Are the Reasons People Want to Become Correctional Officers?" Synonym, https://classroom.synonym.com/what-are-the-reasons-people-want-to-become-correctional-officers-13583717.html. 25 June 2018.


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Job Advice From Al Sharpton
In the many concepts that Spike TV is trying to introduce, in order to shore up their audience, Gothamist would definitely take a cotton to the proposed reality show hosted by Al Sharpton, "I Hate My Job." While the actual details of the show are okay ("eight men — including a pre-school teacher, a manure shoveler for a compost company, a lawyer and a handyman — will get a helping hand from Sharpton and the chance to become a club promoter, male model, comedian and a hockey coach, respectively"), the prospect of Al Sharpton browbeating you into trying your best and succeeding is pretty intoxicating to us. Imagine it: Meetings in the Harlem beauty parlor as Al gets his hair set, or one of your tasks is driving Al to the scene of some urban, most likely racial, controversy. Calling himself the working man's Donald Trump, Sharpton says, "Most people end up going through life doing things [for a living] that they really don't want to do. Ultimately, people ought to try to pursue who they want to be rather than just be whatever will pay the bills, and that's the theme of the show." Sigh, Gothamist knew there was a reason you seemed the smartest Democratic candidate in all the debates.
The Daily News makes the keenly observed point that Reverend Al's last real job was as a roadie for James Brown.
Reverend Al
spike tv
MORE arts-entertainment
Hear the New York Philharmonic play gorgeous Chinese music and more things to do in NYC this week
It's impossible to keep up with everything happening in New York City arts and culture, but here are some recommendations for events you shouldn't miss during the week ahead.
Iconic artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres makes some noise in a posthumous exhibit
See two never-before-realized pieces by the pioneering conceptual artist in a new show at David Zwirner Gallery through the end of February.
Ben Yakas
Anticipating Lunar New Year, NYC hot pot fans share a warm obsession
Olivia Ebertz
Bid farewell to a trio of beloved birds and more things to do in NYC this week
Saxophonist David Murray returns to the New York jazz scene in a new role
Piotr Orlov


I don't normally use Drush on Windows, but tried it and noticed that it appends drush as a kind of root directory for any action, thus breaking said action.
The correct path is Path/To/Composer/vendor/drush/drush.
When running drush en mymodule, the debug information contains the following.
drupal/site/root/sites I think makes more sense.
The error is Command pm:enable was not found.
Maybe this is a coincidence and the two are unrelated, but how does one configure Drush directories?
The Drush version is 9.5.2.
I haven't used Drush under Windows, but something tells me that the problem could be solved by by editing the path to the Drush executable, perhaps in a Windows environment variable.
We can't help you anymore without knowing how you installed Drupal and Drush. The recommended approach to install Drupal is using https://github.com/drupal-composer/drupal-project (which includes a site-local Drush).
PS! vendor/drush/drush/drush exists, but it is a script for Linux.


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Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love
Reviewed by Ian Casselberry on August 6, 2019 August 5, 2019
The documentary on Leonard Cohen's muse starts off promisingly but turns increasingly conventional.
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Director: Nick Broomfield
Starring: Leonard Cohen, Marianne Ihlen, Judy Collins
Those looking for a dedicated Leonard Cohen documentary might initially be frustrated by Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love.
Director Nick Broomfield (Kurt & Courtney; Biggie and Tupac) appears to make his intentions clear in the film's title. The best documentaries and biopics often focus on one aspect of a subject's story rather than misguidedly attempt to cover an entire career or life in two hours.
Cohen's story cannot be told without acknowledging the significant role that Marianne Ihlen played in that narrative. Perhaps the most romantic notion of art is the idea of the muse, the person who inspired the artist to create his or her great work.
Ihlen undoubtedly buoyed Cohen's career, to which he pays tribute in the song "So Long, Marianne." But the support was literal, in addition to creative. Cohen embodied the "struggling artist" while living on the Greek island of Hydra, where his romance with Ihlen began. (At the very least, a compelling tourist video for Hydra could be cut from Broomfield's footage.)
Cohen was a successful poet then, but his novels were poorly received. He subsequently turned his creative energy toward writing songs. Judy Collins was among those who benefited from Cohen's songwriting, and she convinced him to give performing a try. His career was never the same, nor was the life he had with Ihlen. The deterioration of their relationship was the greatest casualty of Cohen's success and it's depicted in dispiriting detail. As Ihlen's friend and one-time lover, Broomfield was witness to much of the downfall. Without the footage he shot then, this film wouldn't have been possible.
Unfortunately, Broomfield falls into familiar biopic territory to tell the rest of Cohen's story. The folk singer became a late-'60s superstar. Neither his success nor the free love era could match the idyllic life he once shared with Ihlen and her son on Hydra. Broomfield tries not to follow a cliché, forget-where-you-came-from path, and Cohen didn't forget that he owed his fame to Ihlen. But as she becomes less prominent in his life, the film understandably becomes more about Cohen and turns into the conventional documentary that Broomfield presumably wanted to avoid.
As a result, the woman presented as the main character of the story is nearly reduced to an afterthought. Maybe Broomfield made this film to prevent that from happening, yet it feels as if he used his friend as entry to the story he preferred to tell.
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About Ian Casselberry
Ian is a writer, editor, and podcaster. You can find his work at Awful Announcing and Mountain Xpress, and hear him on WISE Sports Radio. He's written for Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation.
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text:
Aurora egy város az USA-ban, Illinois államban.

Népesség
A település népességének változása:

A város szülöttei

 Phillip E. Johnson (* 1940), amerikai jogászprofesszor
 Paul Scheuring (* 1968), amerikai forgatókönyvíró, filmrendező

Források

További információk

Illinois települései


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Clean around the crankshaft flange at the front and rear. Remove any thread sealant residue from the screw holes.
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text:
Reverend Thomas Thorn
StygianFloridian@aol.com
WHY I HATE JANUARY - Part 2: Flowers
Shane's parents knew we were not just bandmates, we were best friends...and they entrusted me with a number of important responsibilities and decisions regarding the funeral procedures. They admittedly knew next to nothing about who his friends were or who should be notified about his death.
They asked me if I would take charge of this, and I did. I spent the better part of a day on the phone, calling people we knew who might not have heard through the grapevine. Social media did not yet exist and the band did not even have an email address (remember this was 1996). So I made phone calls.
I called Peter Steele from Type O Negative early on, and he was devastated. He offered to fly out. "Anything you need. Just tell me." I told him - as I would tell everyone else in distant places - that flying in for the funeral was unnecessary. Just send flowers. I wanted his parents, and perhaps the local residents of our homebase Kenosha, Wisconsin - to understand how many lives he had touched. How much he was appreciated, respected, and even adored by people well beyond the boundaries of a town that had - for the most part - bullied and belittled him his whole life.
Peter would later dedicate Type O Negative's groundbreaking sonic opus "October Rust" to Shane. I can't imagine a greater honor or more fitting tribute.
Just send flowers. The day of the viewing at the funeral home, flowers poured in from around the country. The place had two chapels for those rare occasions when two wakes were held simultaneously. They had to open the second chapel to accommodate all the flowers.
I was asked to choose music to be played during the visitation. Easy right? Not so much. Blasting the keyboard solo from "Black Bus" sounds cool in theory...but despite it being a manifestation of what he did and who he was, EHC's music didn't seem appropriate for this sad and solemn occasion. Classical? Ambient Electronic? No. These weren't him. Then I remembered: every time we went to a biker bar called Sarah's, Shane put a dollar in the jukebox and played "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (the original). Clocking in at just over 17 minutes, it gave you the most bang for your buck - monopolizing the jukebox for the bulk of the time we would spend sampling Sarah's superlative selection of imported top-shelf tequilas (a decade before hipsters became agave snobs and Mezcal connoisseurs) - and epitomized the doomy dark side of flower power that so inspired us. Iron Butterfly it would be.
The visitation or wake or viewing or whatever it's technically called was nothing less than surreal. The building was overflowing with spectacular flower arrangements while psychedelic rock songs about the Garden of Eden seeped from overhead speakers. Band members wore stage clothes. This was, in effect, our last show together. I wore lace-up leather pants with a black turtleneck and a black Baphomet medallion. I had been growing my hair out, but decided to shave my head for this occasion.
Shane's parents had suggested we meet an hour before the doors opened to the public to both pay our respects privately and decide as a group whether or not the casket would be open or closed. I had already voted closed prior to seeing Shane embalmed. I never liked the idea that your last impression of someone's face be as a corpse.
We each went up to say goodbye individually ...and when I saw him, all I could see was the trauma of the accident. His jawline was wrong. Despite valiant attempts by a skilled mortician to reconstruct his facial features, it looked awful to a guy who saw him every day. But I was probably looking for that. My first real job (at 16) was as a handyman at a funeral home and I knew details not everyone knows. I could see where his eyelids and lips were pulled together - whether by stitches or pins or hooks (I've had people in the trade argue that "it's not done that way anymore" but I could see it) - and it cast a macabre pall over what was supposed to be a peaceful expression of repose. I voted no again but was outvoted and conceded rather than argue.
Shane's parents quietly asked me to remove my Baphomet medallion - if I didn't mind - and I tucked it in out of respect. It was, to me, a rather bizarre request as on one side of the casket was a traditional wreath of flowers on a tripod from the family while on the opposite side of the dais stood another wreath of equal size, but in the shape of a pentagram, comprised entirely of multi-colored daisies, from the band. His other family.
Maybe, without the Goat of Mendes emblazoned across the inverted star, it was easier to dismiss it as a symbol the band just happened to use. Whatever the case, there was no mistaking the fact that the late Rev. Dr. Luv was sharing the stage in death - just as he did in life - with the Sign of Satan.
I stood in the entrance hall greeting people while the family stood near the casket in the chapel, shaking hands with and hugging those who offered their condolences.
It was a strange mixture of people at the funeral home that night: a liberal sprinkling goths and rivetheads from Chicago, friends and fans from surrounding states, bartenders, bar owners, bar patrons, former employers, co-workers from the Liz Claiborne outlet store where Shane had worked for years, childhood and family friends...the attire ranging from studded jackets & Mohawks to business suits.
Kurt, a biker who ran a local sound company we'd used leaned in close and told me "don't worry brother, I tucked a few joints in with him for the ride". Keno-core icon Beautiful Burt cried...which made me cry. I stepped into the vacant, flower-filled second chapel to pull myself together. The woman who worked at Walmart and had lived upstairs from me and Shane with her husband before we moved into the Hellfire House followed me in to tell me how sorry she was and what a great guy he'd been. It was astounding how many people he'd touched.
At the end, after everyone else had left, I walked his parents around the building and explained who each gift of flowers was from - where they lived, how we'd met them...maybe a funny anecdote if one came to mind.
I don't remember how long the wake lasted...but I know I was completely drained by the end. The funeral would be the next day and I had a eulogy to deliver at a Catholic Church (more on that later). I desperately needed to rest, but knowing sleep would never come unassisted...I drank instead.
WHY I HATE JANUARY - Part 3: Catholic Funeral
WHY I HATE JANUARY - Part 4: Glitter on the Coffin
WHY I HATE JANUARY - Part 1: The Accident
©2019 by Thomas Thorn. Proudly created with Wix.com


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Work stress 'damages health as much as secondhand smoke exposure'
Written by Honor Whiteman on September 7, 2015
Most workers will experience job stress at some point in their lives. But what effect does it have on our health? According to new research, work stress damages our health just as much as exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke.
Workers with high job demands are 50% more likely to be diagnosed with a medical condition, according to the findings of the study.
Researchers from Harvard Business School in Boston, MA, and Stanford University, CA, publish their findings in the journal Behavioral Science & Policy Association.
Earlier this year, a Spotlight from Medical News Today revealed some of the surprising implications stress can have for health, including increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this year's "Stress in America" survey from the American Psychological Association (APA) found that money is the primary cause of stress in the US. A close second, however, is work, with 60% of Americans reporting this as a main cause of stress.
According to the authors of this latest study - including Joel Goh of Harvard Business School - there has been extensive research into the causes of workplace-induced stress.
"However, policy efforts to tackle the ever-increasing health costs and poor health outcomes in the United States have largely ignored the health effects of psychosocial workplace stressors such as high job demands, economic insecurity, and long work hours," they add.
Policymakers need to address workplace practices that trigger stress
For their study, the team conducted a meta-analysis of 228 studies that looked at the effects of numerous work stressors - such as job insecurity, family-work conflict, high job demands and long work hours - on four health outcomes: the presence of a diagnosed medical condition, self-reported poor physical health, self-reported poor mental health and mortality.
The results of the analysis revealed that workers with high job demands are 50% more likely to be diagnosed with a medical condition than those without this stressor. Job insecurity was linked to a 50% greater risk of poor physical and mental health, while long work hours were associated with a 20% greater mortality risk.
The team also compared the health effects of work stressors with those of secondhand smoke exposure, finding that the health outcomes of each factor were similar. They write:
"The health effects of secondhand smoke exposure are widely viewed as sufficiently large to warrant regulatory intervention. For example, secondhand smoke is recognized as a carcinogen, and smoking in enclosed public places, including workspaces, is banned in many states in the United States and in many other countries.
The results of our meta-analysis show that workplace stressors generally increased the odds of poor health outcomes to approximately the same extent as exposure to secondhand smoke."
As such, Goh and colleagues say that as well as focusing on improving health behaviors - such as increasing exercise and reducing smoke exposure - in the workplace, policymakers should address workplace practices that contribute to job-induced stress.
"For example," they add, "possible job redesigns could involve limiting working hours, reducing shift work and unpredictable working hours, and encouraging flexible work arrangements that help employees to achieve a better balance between their work life and their family life."
"Unless and until companies and governments more rigorously measure and intervene to reduce harmful workplace stressors," they continue, "efforts to improve people's health - and their lives - and reduce health care costs will be limited in their effectiveness."
In 2012, MNT reported on a study published in The Lancet that linked work stress to a 23% increased risk of heart attack.
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HomeClose-up What are the differences between fossil fuels and renewable energies?Renewable Energies
Feature Report: What are the differences between fossil fuels and renewable energies?
2 items of content in this feature report
Close-up Fossil Fuels
Close-up Renewable Energies
PreviousItem 2/2
Creation date 30 Aug. 2016
Renewable energies (hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power, as well as biomass) are undergoing intense development throughout the world, with advances driven by the need to fight climate change and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Renewable energies are undergoing intense development worldwide, but still represent just a small minority of the energy mix. © THINKSTOCK
What is renewable energy?
Hydropower from large-scale dams is currently the No. 1 source of renewable energy
Energy is considered renewable when it is produced from a source that is constantly replenished by nature, as opposed to a finite resource. Although highly diverse, renewable energies all come from two main natural sources:
The Sun, which emits rays of light that can be transformed into electricity or heat, causes the high and low temperatures and pressure areas that create wind, drives the water cycle and enables plant growth and biomass formation.
The Earth, whose internal heat can be recovered at the surface.
Among the benefits of these energy sources are the fact that they are renewable and emit only small quantities of waste, pollutants and greenhouse gases. On the downside, they are relatively diffuse, meaning they have a much lower power density than their highly concentrated non-renewable counterparts. They can be "intermittent" – as is the case for solar and wind power – and difficult to store because they are instantly transformed into electricity, requiring occasional back-up from other energies. And they require substantial capital outlays, even if they are closing the competitiveness gap with fossil fuels over time.
What are the different types of renewable energies?
The largest wind turbines stand some 170 meters tall
Hydropower from large-scale dams is currently the No. 1 source of renewable energy. Leading the industry are China, Brazil, Canada, the United States and, perhaps in the near future, Africa.
Solar energy can be produced in two ways. Photovoltaic solar technology converts sunlight into electricity using panels made of semiconductor cells, whereas solar thermal technology captures the sun's heat and uses it directly or converts it into mechanical energy and, in turn, electricity.
Wind power has made progress both offshore and onshore thanks to regular improvements to the technology.
The various forms of ocean energy used today are generated by the force of waves, currents and tides, temperature differentials in the ocean and certain interactions between seawater and freshwater (osmotic energy). Ocean energy is still in the early stages of development.
Biomass is made up of all matter derived from living organisms, be they plants (including microalgae), animals, bacteria or fungi (mushrooms). For centuries, wood was burned as the main source of energy, before being overtaken by coal, then oil and natural gas. But there are other ways to use biomass. Methanation produces biogas from municipal or agricultural waste, while plant-derived biomass can be refined to produce biofuels.
Geothermal energy captures the heat of subsea aquifers, or even hot dry rocks, at varying depths and uses it to supply heating to urban districts, buildings and factories, or to produce electricity in power plants. Countries in favorable environments, such as the volcanically active islands of Iceland and the Philippines, harness the power of geothermal energy on a mass scale. Heat from other sources can also be captured and used in district heating networks and industrial processes.
Nuclear energy is not considered renewable because its feedstock, uranium, is only available in finite quantities – at least at economically viable costs. Nuclear fusion, however, could provide an inexhaustible source of energy if it were ever achieved on an industrial scale.
The largest wind turbines stand some 170 meters tall, with rotor diameters exceeding 150 meters.
How widespread are renewable energies?
Renewable energies across the board are currently being improved, but not all have reached the same level of maturity.
One of the most spectacular developments in the last decade has been the rapid increase in photovoltaic solar capacity worldwide, a trend made possible by the steep fall in production costs per kilowatt-hour. While Germany was the longtime leader in this area, China and the United States now boast the largest installed capacities.
Wind power also has a certain future ahead of it despite stubbornly high power generation costs, especially for offshore installations. New geothermal technologies have also emerged.
Other renewables are still at the experimental or research stages, such as third‑generation biofuels made from microalgae and applications that use hydrogen as an energy carrier. The possibility of a "hydrogen revolution" has become the subject of recent debate, but this will only take place if scientists can find a way to produce large quantities of the resource without using fossil fuels.
At a symbolic level, the Solar Impulse 2 solar-powered plane continues to defy expectations year after year.
What is the place of renewables energies in the global energy mix?
With the exception of hydropower, which has a very long history and produces significant amounts of electricity, renewable energies currently represent only a very small portion of the world electricity mix, at less than 5%. Hydropower adds more than 16%, but over two-thirds of the total mix is still made up of fossil fuels.
While renewables are making fast progress, it will nevertheless be some time before they can compete in quantity with traditional energy sources, and fossil fuels in particular (see the infographic on changes to the energy mix over time).
What is the impact of renewables on society?
When combined with advances in digital technology, renewable energies have the potential to gradually usher in far-reaching changes to society as they enable more decentralized power production at every level, from regions to individual households. Energy is now an ever‑present feature of daily life, and a few simple habits can go a long way in reducing consumption.
Considerable challenges still must be overcome in the transition to cleaner mobility, both in terms of hybrid and electric vehicles (including hydrogen-based solutions) and new vehicle usage behaviors.
Lastly, the rapid spread of digital home automation and power grid technology opens the door to more effective decentralized production and distribution of electricity that is better tailored to consumers' needs.
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Q: How do I remove alpha from legend in geom_boxplot (ggplot2)? I would like to remove the alpha legend in  my final boxplot. My dataframe refers to linear measurements, I need to explore the distributions of these measurements by sex and age class.
 I would also like to have the final legend colors actually matching the alpha ;)! What do you think is the best way to do that?
Many thanks in advance!

#boxplot with age classes as groups
box1 <- ggplot(tibfib, aes(x = Age.class, y = T1))

#adding sex as group
box2 <- box1 + geom_boxplot(aes(fill = Sex, alpha = 0.6), position = position_dodge(0.9)) + scale_fill_manual(values = c("#999999", "#E69F00"))

#for labels
sex_names <- c(
  `1` = "Females",
  `2` = "Males")

#final box
box.T1<- box2 + facet_wrap(~Sex, labeller = as_labeller(sex_names))+ theme_bw() + labs(x = "Age classes", y = "Tibial length (mm)")+  labs(fill = "Sex") + scale_fill_manual(values=c("#999999", "#E69F00"), name="Sex", breaks=c("1", "2"),labels=c("Females", "Males"))

grouped boxplot.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


When you want to escape the hustle bustle of the day to day life of Bangkok there is no place better then a Day Trip to Mahachai. Situated approximately forty-five kilometers south-west of Bangkok, the town has a soothing effect on you.
Mahachai is so not the town for you if you want to go fishing or gambling. It is where you go to do nothing and for no specific time period.
You visit Mahachai when you just want to enjoy the cool and refreshing ocean breeze. That is exactly what I did, a Day Trip to Mahachai. And it was marvelous! Taking a ferry across the river I looked at the beautiful floats and all that the town had to offer.
The market itself is very astounding. Sporting a wide variety of crabs, fish, and other wriggling species out of the sea the market is one of a kind. The air is thick with a strong smell of fish and the sounds of vendors calling people to their stands.
It seems that the railway and the market grew around each other. Merchants have to move their merchandise off the train tracks as the train approaches the station. You are bound to get lost in the hustle bustle of this market.
This market is a fish lover's dream come true. The assortment of fish on sale over here is mind-blowing. Squids are particularly celebrated in the market. Every fish stall sports different types of squid, neatly displayed according to sizes and grade. A stall was selling dried squid. Packed in a bag you could enjoy it while roaming around the market.
When every making a day trip to Mahachai, you may also see a faction of monks, clad in their most excellent orange ritual robes, stepping on the ferry to take them to the opposite side of the waterway. We passed by both the Thai and Chinese sanctuaries, and witnessed the various collections from the ocean in enormous quantities.
After strolling through the market we all felt hungry and so after looking for a restaurant we all agreed to dine in at Ran Ahan Pi, an ancient restaurant, famous mainly for its delectable seafood.
When making a Day Trip to Mahachai, make sure to stop here.
Entire varieties of Thai seafood, as well as a number of exceptional house-made fortes, were displayed on the restaurant's menu.
The eatery proprietor is recognized to possess quite a personality, and according to the story we were told by the locals, when anyone ordered rice with omelets, he would become really angry and would tell the consumer to leave his restaurant. The lesson of the story being that when you go to a seafood restaurant, you order only seafood. No chicken and definitely no eggs.
We finally decided to order the shrimp covered in chili powder, lime juice and fish paste, squid which was stir fried in the company of salted egg yolks, in addition to a crunchy deep-fried bass dished up with acerbic green mango pulp as the side. The whole lot of food we ordered was fresh and tasty.
After an awesome Day Trip to Mahachai Fish Market and an appetizing dinner we finally decided to go back to our hotel room to fall into a deep slumber.


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Being Polish: Myths and Reality Check
small, Being Polish: Myths and Reality Check, Market place under the Palace of Culture and Science, 1992, photo: Aleksander Jałosiński / Forum, warszawa_1992_fot_aleksander_jalosinski_forum.jpg
#lifestyle & opinion #culture
Wherever we are born and raised, our national identity begins to be shaped by the myths we are told in our very childhood. While deconstructing our own myths may be painful, I believe that discovering the mythology of others is fascinating. This is why I – born and raised in Poland – decided to share the story of my personal uncovering of a few truths about being Polish.
I was born in the 1980s, the decade of the fall of communism, but also the decade of martial law, of many strikes and of the long walk to freedom that I don't remember and which I studied at school and home. What I do, however, remember perfectly is Poland in the very early 1990s, a country that had been suffocating for years in the cage of a moribund communist regime, a country that was ready to welcome the outside world with open arms, but which had little to offer. I remember Polish people being unduly shy, Poland looking like a concrete-grey desert with everything temporary (soviet-style bazaars instead of shopping malls, buildings constructed in a few days from corrugated metal) and I remember the generalized post-revolution mess! Uncles who had used to lecture on quantum physics in university starting to sell butter or socks to earn their first real money, political and financial affairs being discussed every day, disorientation because of all the public services working on a totally new basis, the mafia becoming a factor in everyday life... madness, chaos! Even if there was a lot of energy and hope, nobody was satisfied with how the system worked back in 1990.
Różyckiego Bazaar, Warsaw, photo: Krzysztof Żuczkowski / Forum
After forty-four years of communism, where it was propaganda's exclusive prerogative to create a Polish (that is, a communist) mythology, suddenly the occupying power was gone and the country had to start once again from the very beginning. It became up to every single family to create their own sense of national pride. And that was not easy, believe me. Poland was in a miserable condition, so tales about its glorious past and bright future sounded as likely to me as One Thousand and One Nights.
Fortunately, kids do tend to believe what they are told, so I believed in many things my parents and grandparents told me about my country. As a result of their optimism and affection for our country, they created their own little propaganda, and having been an overly curious child, I entered early adulthood with very specific ideas about Polish history, the importance of Poland, the virtues of every Polish citizen, and so forth. Allow me to break those down for you.
1. Poland's martyrdom will save all oppressed nations
This is the foundation of it all, and it certainly spreads beyond my own family circle. The myth of Polish suffering dates back at least to the 17th century, to the times of the rapid shrinking of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in contrast to our neighbours rapidly growing in power and methodically cutting off slices of Poland, so that it disappeared completely in 1795 and was nonexistent as an independent state until 1918. Indeed, from late 17th century till the times when I was born, the history of Poland was a truly dreadful thing. Three partitions, mass exiles of the intelligentsia, numerous unsuccessful uprisings, occupiers' attempts to erase Polish culture and language, then the devastation of World War II which resulted in Poland being left on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain despite its military contribution to the Western powers' victory... These caused the death, torture and betrayal of millions.
Warsaw after World War II, photo: National Digital Archive / www.audiovis.nac.gov.pl
Thus, there isn't much to deconstruct when discussing the myth of Poland's suffering. This suffering is real, and it is our history. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that we take this suffering very far. For example, have a look at this little rhyme that children were mandatorily taught in the kindergarten I attended, and are taught to this day as far as I know:
Who are you? Little Pole
What's your emblem? Eagle White
Where do you live? Amongst my kind
In which country? The Polish land
What's this land? It's my homeland
How was it won? By blood and scar
Do you love it? With my heart and soul.
What do you trust in? Poland – my home.
What are you? Her grateful child.
What do you owe her? My whole life.
Once again, this is a rhyme for children aged 5 or 6, and by that age they are already being taught that Polish freedom was won by 'blood and scar' and that they owe their lives to their homeland if she so requests. I remember this line with 'blood and scar' constantly reoccurring throughout my childhood, and I used to prepare myself mentally for a heroic death in an epic battle for my homeland. A horrifying vision for somebody raised in a country with a calmer history.
Moreover, the mythology of suffering appears in several of the finest pieces of Polish literature, for example, most obviously in Adam Mickiewicz's richly symbolic drama Forefather's Eve / Dziady. It is a book about the Polish fight for freedom in the 1830s (especially the November Uprising) and about Poles who were exiled en masse to Siberia by the Tsarist Russian powers. In the part of the drama known as A Vision of Priest Piotr, its protagonist claims in one of his monologues that Poland is 'the Christ of Europe', by which he means that Poland's suffering is meant to redeem every other nations' faults, and will result in the liberation of all persecuted nations. This conviction is one of the foundations of the messianic doctrine – the idea that long-suffering Poland will one day return in ultimate glory (like Jesus resurrected from death), not only to its due position as an Eastern European superpower but to rescue all nations in need.
Refurbrishing of Adam Mickiewicz's monument in Warsaw (1978), photo: Jacek Barcz / FORUM
For those who need further convincing that Poland has a messianic complex, let us quote Mickiewicz verbatim:
And Poland said, 'Whosoever will come to me shall be free and equal for I am FREEDOM.' But the Kings, when they heard it, were frightened in their hearts, and they crucified the Polish nation and laid it in its grave, crying out "We have slain and buried Freedom." But they cried out foolishly ...
For the Polish Nation did not die. Its body lieth in the grave; but its spirit has descended into the abyss, that is, into the private lives of people who suffer slavery in their own country ... For on the Third Day, the Soul shall return to the Body; and the Nation shall arise and free all the peoples of Europe from Slavery.
The Polish messianic doctrine was always a theory from outer space for me. Even though it was discussed a lot in high school Polish literature lessons, I could never go down the path of its creators' thinking. Its defenders claim that it made entire generations passively accept their hardship in the hope that by suffering themselves they would somehow earn a better future for their descendants. Quite delusional, isn't it?
Dziady - Adam Mickiewicz
Incidentally – did you know that according to the results of a poll taken at the turn of the 20th century, 78% of Poles regarded their nation as the number one victim of fate and history?
2. Poland is the nation destined to defend Catholic Western Europe from the attacks of Mongols, Turks and Russians.
In Polish historiography, the phenomenon is usually described by the Latin name of Antemurale Christianitatis (Bulwark of Christianity). Believe it or not, but this myth has been present for ages, and it echoes in the identity of some Poles to date. In recent years, it has become 'we bring you democracy and human rights, and we are the easternmost border of Europe' (which may seem to be modelled after American Messianism, but is rooted in Solidarność's role in toppling the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe). This is a diluted, and possibly less harmful, version of the Antemurale Christianitatis, yet every version has the same historical roots. The latter can be broken down into three sources:
The 1683 Battle of Vienna
King Jan II Sobieski won a massive victory in the Battle of Vienna against a colossal Turkish invasion. Reportedly, the role of the Kingdom of Poland was decisive, as they breached the two-month long siege of Vienna and enabled the Holy Roman Empire to counter-attack and win the battle. It is often suggested by some historians that this victory was a turning point in the long-lasting war against the Ottoman Empire. In Polish historiography, it is known as Odsiecz Wiedeńska (Rescue of Vienna), which already suggests how the Poles assess their own contribution.
Tying in nicely with our above-mentioned argument, there is a touch of martyrdom added by the fact that hundred years later, descendants of The Holy Roman Empire partitioned Poland, along with Tsarist Russia. By now, the pattern should start to form before your eyes. Exactly like Christ, Poland-the-Saviour was crucified as its only reward. It may sound amusing on paper, but pray believe that this mentality still has a tangible influence on the speech and actions of several politicians and historians to this day.
1920-1921 – The Polish-Soviet War
Even though the war was partially ignited by Józef Piłsudski, the Polish Chief of State of the time, the counter-offensive of the Soviet powers was so powerful that it threatened the existence of Poland as an independent state (remember, independence had only just been regained in 1918 after 123 years of occupation!). It required a miraculous victory in the Battle of Warsaw of 1920 (henceforth referred to as the Miracle on the Vistula) to sign an armistice. It cannot be claimed that the war was unambiguously won, but it was nonetheless a turning point in the history of Eastern Europe. Popular British historian A. J. P Taylor wrote of it:
[the Polish–Soviet War] largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more. [...] Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution.
Polish outpost from August 1920 photo:. CC / Wikimedia
One again, Poland generously shed its blood to 'save' all of Europe from the brutal spread of communism. And once again, when we desperately needed help in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Western Europe turned its back on us, in obvious breach of the treaties of reciprocal cooperation that had been signed after WWI. Again, myths of martyrdom and Messianism were legitimized.
1981 - 1989 Solidarność
Lech Wałęsa, Polish workers' union activist and leader, as well as Poland's future first democratic President, during a speech to the strikers of the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk. August 31st, 1980
, photo: © Rue des Archives / AGIP / Forum
The heroic fight for freedom by the Polish democratic opposition is by far the most obvious proof for those convinced that Poland is the Messiah of nations. This is often seen as the ultimate confirmation that we are the chosen nation and that our mission is to guide others through hard times while spreading freedom and democracy all over the world. Thanks to Solidarność – the largest civil movement Europe has ever seen – Poland was the first to hold (partially) free elections and to get rid of communism and Russian interference in national affairs. The historical event known in European historiography as the Revolutions of 1989 or the Fall of Communism begins with the wave of strikes in Poland in 1988.
You may wonder why these myths are so deeply rooted in Catholic belief. During periods of foreign occupation, the Catholic Church has traditionally served as a bastion of Polish national identity and language. It used to organise clandestine schools, give shelter to political prisoners, and bravely oppose unjust regimes. As a result, affairs of Church and State in Poland have long overlapped.
3. Poland is a righteous land which wouldn't hurt a fly unless absolutely necessary.
The world's biggest monument of Jesus Christ the King (36m high), photo:. Bartlomiej Kudowicz / FORUM
This myth is probably the most harmful of all. We are taught history in a way that emphasises Poland's guiltless suffering and excludes everything else. It wasn't until I started to read foreign articles and books about Polish history that I realised that Poland and the Polish people also had shameful moments of disregarding ethnic minorities, attacking weaker countries, occupying their territories or trying to incorporate them into our own. When I unveiled the sad truth, I was incredulous – showing how successful the national propaganda had been on me.
However, it wasn't only school syllabuses that censored disgraceful behaviour. In my case, we never used to speak of these things at home. I can easily remember the fury of my relatives who lived through the thirties when the crimes committed by Polish citizens during World War II (mostly the Jedwabne Massacre) were brought up in early 2000. The debate in Poland was huge and engaged every major newspaper and magazine as well as all of the father figures. So far, despite the unambiguous results of the investigation of the Institute of National Remembrance, the public eye remains very much unanimous, as was easily perceivable in the controversy surrounding Władysław Pasikowski's film Aftermath / Pokłosie. Knowing the facts, it profoundly shocked me that speaking of Polish anti-Semitism, war crimes, or wartime looting still offends some people nowadays.
Pokłosie / Aftermath [gallery] display gallery as slider
Stanisław Musiał, a venerable pioneer of Catholic-Jewish dialogue and Polish-Jewish after-war reconciliation, and deputy editor-in-chief of Tygodnik Powszechny – the leading Catholic newspaper, put it as simply as that:
We have a mythology of ourselves as martyr nation. We are always good. The others are bad. With this national image, it was absolutely impossible that Polish people could do bad things to others.
If there is a silver lining to this, it would be that this martyr mythology is slowly dying out. The younger generation prefers to identify with our country's recent achievements and modern history, leaving times of constant suffering behind.
4. Poland is a sporting superpower
Didn't you know? Shame on you! Actually, we aren't. Yet – at least in the mind of Polish men – memories of glorious sporting successes are kept on a most sacred altar, and are frequently and abundantly discussed.
As I wrote before, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was still a child, I used to spend a lot of time with my loving grandparents. My grandfathers would tell me endless stories about Polish teams and sport stars winning almost effortlessly in every discipline. I truly loved to listen to those stories, but every time we watched sports on the telly, the overwhelming power of Polish sportsmanship didn't seem to live up to my and my grandfathers' expectations. Actually, despite some individual successes, the 1990s was a period during which we did atrociously at all major sporting disciplines. When, after another losing streak for our national football team, I would ask my grandfather what's going on, he would always reassure me that we'd soon be back on top in every discipline.
Kazimierz Deyna and Grzegorz Lato, 1974, Polish Football Team - World Cup Bronze Medallists
I've been waiting almost thirty years now and, even though it has improved a lot, Poland will probably never be the sports superpower of which my grandfathers (and millions of males in Poland) dream. In recent years, we have achieved occasional victories: the volleyball team are currently world champions, the handball team have had some unexpectedly fruitful years. Poles have even started to appear in elite luxury sports such as F1 Racing (Robert Kubica), and tennis (the Radwańskie sisters and Jerzy Janowicz). We had a few uncontested champions in less popular disciplines (Olympic multi-medallists Justyna Kowalczyk in cross country skiing, Adam Małysz in ski jumping as well as Kamil Stoch, and Robert Korzeniowski, four time gold medallist racewalker) but still our expectations are always higher than reality.
The most painful issue for Polish sports fan is the national football team. Football is the most celebrated national sport. Almost every boy wants to be a footballer, physical exercises in school mostly consist of playing football, sport media are focused on football etc. Meanwhile our national football team is outstandingly poor, even now when Robert Lewandowski's star is shining bright (and a few other players like Błaszczykowski, Piszczek and Krychowiak are doing exceptionally well). The scariest consequence of it is a constant reminiscing of 1974 (remember this date if you want to talk football in Poland) when somehow our team managed to rank third in the World Cup in West Germany. Even though I wasn't even born at the time, I know the whole game by heart. It is a sports legend that will live as long as we don't achieve any comparable successes in football, which could mean a long while.
*But wait… just before publishing this article we beat the German football team (reigning world champion), so maybe those times of football misery are coming to an end? Or did I just start believing prematurely once again?
Why Are Poland's Sport Feats Unknown Abroad? The Red and The White of the Matter
5. Poland plays a special role in the Catholic Church
Besides the idea of Poland as the Antemurale Christianitatis and the Christ of Nations, there exists a third related belief – this one concerning the position of the Polish Catholic Church. As a historical stronghold of independent thinking and the preservation of Polish culture, it used to be extremely strong, especially since John Paul II substantially contributed to getting rid of communism.
Jan Paweł II (Karol Wojtyła) in Poland, Żywiec, 1995, photo: Marek Lapis / Forum
In the early 1990s, when John Paul II was still healthy and very active, the Catholic Church's impact on everyday life was huge, especially on the lives of children like me – born in Catholic families. The omnipresent subject of the Polish Pope and Polish Catholicism led me to believe that Popes had always been Polish, and Poland was some sort of greater Vatican. And it went even further than this! My parents often took me to the mountains, inhabited by highlanders who are true zealots of Catholicism. One of their folklore mantra-myth is that Jesus Christ was born at the feet of a mountain in the Tatras. Having been told this at the age of 5, I had my doubts about Jesus' place of birth until I was able to read the bible on my own.
Then I grew up and developed a more critical sense of my own national identity. Even though I realised that myths are myths, rooted in history but exaggerated, unreal or even pathetic, on the other hand, I found out that there is something ultimately lovely in this 'burden of Polishness'. If we are able to keep a healthy and rational perspective while learning about our forefathers' suffering, then we can contribute a very mature outlook on the history of Europe and its present politics. Listening to our grandparents who survived the war and the most severe times of communism and post-war poverty makes us much more capable of appreciating what we have. Golda Meir (the fourth Prime Minister of Israel) said it best:
Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.
So this is my own description, including both my hopes and my criticism, of Polish identity in the 21st century. A blend of awareness of the past, remembering what was good and what was not, and a constant effort to build on that, to forgive rather than forget.
Author: Wojciech Oleksiak
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text:
Zygmuntowo es un pueblo de Polonia, en Mazovia.  Se encuentra en el distrito (Gmina) de Opinogóra Górna, perteneciente al condado (Powiat) de Ciechanów. Se encuentra aproximadamente a 2 km al oeste de Opinogóra Górna, 6 km al noreste de Ciechanów, y a 79 km  al norte de Varsovia.

Entre 1975 y 1998 perteneció al voivodato de Ciechanów.

Referencias

Localidades del distrito de Ciechanów


Welcome back football fans. With a week where four teams are on Bye's and another London game, we have a smaller 10-game slate once again. We went over our top picks for cash games in the Cash Game Article so now let's take a look at some of the top stacking options for GPP formats.
When breaking down games with Vegas Total(50+) and a thin spread(3.5 or less) with quarterbacks who are projected to throw the ball a ton, there was only one name that popped up this week on the Player Lab. James wrote him up in his Cash Game Article this week and not only does he possess a high floor but he also provides us with a ton of upside for GPP formats as well. A common topic with Luck since his return from injury is the lack of arm strength which resulted in a low 6.3 yards per attempt but I am not concerned at all. Not only does he lead the league with a whopping 311 passing attempts he also sits second to Patrick Mahomes in touchdown passes with 20. The Colts currently have the fifth-highest implied points(26.8) on the main slate and of those five teams this game is the only one with a spread of 3.5 or less so we can most definitely expect and other 40+ attempts. Even with Marlon Mack going off last week in a runaway against the Bills, Luck still managed to throw four touchdowns and is averaging 29.7 DraftKings/27.2 FanDuel points per game over his last four.
Making this stack even more enticing this week is that T.Y. Hilton should be even closer to 100% health in week 8. He returned to action last week after missing two weeks and while he only managed 25 yards, he caught all four of his targets and also scored two touchdowns. He has 100+ yard receiving upside and is my top player to stack with Luck in week 8. It also makes sense to get Eric Ebron in your Colts stacks as he is tied for second in the entire league in receiving touchdowns with 6 and is sixth among tight ends with 357 receiving yards. The other thing that stands out for Ebron is the number of endzone targets he gets as he is right at the top of the league with 11, scoring five of his six touchdowns with those targets.
If you are looking to game stack this week, this is the game to target in my opinion for a couple reasons starting with the fact is has the second-highest Vegas Total of the week. Then it comes down to the matchup as the Bengals rank 29th in yards per game allowed through the air(300.7) and the Bucs rank dead last in that stat(327.5). Looking at the fantasy numbers, the Bengals ranks 28th against quarterbacks, 23rd against wideouts, and 30th against tight ends while the Bucs rank dead last against quarterbacks, wideouts, and tight ends. Both offensives are also very reliant on the pass for their yards and touchdowns as you can see in the Player Lab breakdown above and it checks out as both rank in the bottom five in the league in rushing averaging under 90 rushing yards per game.
Of the quarterbacks, I prefer Winston who is coming off two huge weeks where he has attempted 93 passes and while he has completed just 67% of those, he has tallied a whopping 760 yards through the air and also added 84 yards on the ground and an additional touchdown. The Bucs are the underdogs in this matchup so I fully expect another 40-50 pass attempts which give Winston huge upside once again. I will be pairing him with Mike Evans for the most part as he leads the team with 9.2 targets per game and has been productive with them with a career-high 73% catch rate and sits Top 10 in the league with 591 receiving yards. DeSean Jackson is also in play with his home run ability and his up and down nature should also leave him a bit lower owned than Evans as well.
On the Bengals side of the ball, I will be pairing Dalton almost equally with his top two wideouts as John Ross has been ruled out and Tyler Eifert is out for the season. Both have double-digit target and 100+ yard upside this week. If picking just one, Green is easily my top choice as the target share has swung back big-time in his favor as over the last three weeks he has out-targeted Boyd 36-20 and has tallied 100+ yards in two of his last three games. With no Eifert or Kroft at tight end, I will also look to C.J. Uzomah as a punt option. Finally, when game stacking either side don't forget to run those stacks back with a player from the other team. For example in my Winston/Evans stacks, I will throw in Green or Boyd on the other side in hopes of a very high scoring shootout.


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Togetherness, Ep. 1.01, "Family Day": The couch is all set up!
Whitney McIntosh
Togetherness, Season 1, Episode 1: "Family Day"
Written by Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass, and Steve Zissis
Directed by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass
Airs Sundays at 9:30pm (ET) on HBO
If Togetherness was only about Amanda Peet's Tina being dishonest with herself about how her behavior around men and friends affects the rest of her life, it could be a great show. Peet is performing far out of her normal lane with this zany, insecure women who either cannot or refuses to acknowledge social cues from men she dates. Long the straight woman in her television and film roles (except for Bent- RIP Bent!), Peet is impossible to look away from here, constantly the most entertaining yet cringe-worthy of the four main characters introduced in the pilot. Her misguided attempts to force a relationship out of what is so obviously a brief hookup with a perfectly cast Ken Marino is only the tip of the iceberg for Tina, as she sets all her hopes on one guy only to see them dashed when he "breaks up with her" via text message. Even though this is the first time the audience sees Tina react this way to the end of a possible relationship, the way Michelle responds to her sister's manic outburst makes it clear that this is far from the first instance of Michelle and Brett dealing with Tina's overblown behavior. Despite her antics throughout the episode, she is the only person who identifies the best way to improve her life, that what she needs is a change of scenery in order to make herself feel better and look toward the future. Her decision to stay in California rather than return to Houston may be a sudden and borderline random choice, but the identification of a support system she can count on is accurate and as made apparent in this episode, she could certainly do worse for herself.
If Togetherness was only about Michelle Lynskey and Mark Duplass' married Michelle and Brett working through their issues in the bedroom while also serving as the most stable people out of all of their directionless friends, it could be a great show. Their storyline in "Family Day" centers entirely around the fact that they are no longer having sex, which is a potentially rote and predictable plot. If fumbled at all, it would be no better than a mediocre Everybody Loves Raymond episode. But the mix of honesty and embarrassment in their conversations is real in a way that marriages are usually not portrayed in half hour comedies, in that they don't always know why they are or are not making certain decisions. Michelle is confident enough in her marriage that she has no problem admitting to Brett that she doesn't actually know why they've stopped making love, but gets embarrassed just trying to explain to Tina the ways in which she was masturbating when he walks in the room. They love each other deeply, which is established so naturally in the pilot it almost seems like a non-story, and yet they still spend more time relishing the joy that is taking their son in the ocean for the first time or supporting their flailing friends than they do explicitly working on their marriage. Normal spouses with issues don't just drop everything around them to immediately focus on each other, so it makes sense that that wouldn't happen here.
If Togetherness was only about Steve Zissis' out of work and broke actor Alex moving in with his married friends to reassess his life and choices, it could be a great show. The sad sight of Alex eating mini-donuts in a driver's seat to make himself feel better is something many viewers can relate to and gives the audience an immediate sense of the lack of confidence and motivation he has at this point in his life and career. As he so clearly lays out, he is a middle-aged man with little to no acting prospects and even less hair. Yet he is not beaten down by life and the reality of Hollywood so completely that he can't see the merits of sleeping on Brett and Michelle's couch instead of making a rash decision and leaving town. He is sad, but not depressed. A sad sack at times, but not pathetic. His selfless, yet crazed, move to be Tina's saving grace as she humiliates herself in a public forum is the only time all episode something that could be categorized as "an event" actually happens and it sets the tone just right for the direction both Alex and Tina are heading. Does the world of half-hour comedies (or television in general, for that matter) need another white, male, out of work actor storyline? Probably not. Based on the brief glimpse the pilot gives of his current state of mind though, there are interesting things to be done in his third of the show as it moves forward. Alex is the least fully realized and most traditional of all the characters, which means he has the most room to be tweaked as the season progresses.
If Togetherness focused on any of these people and their problems, it would probably be a really good show. But it doesn't, it is about all of them as their self-doubt, uncertainty about life, and at times complete lack of common sense intersect. "Family Day" creates a version of life in California that is just close enough to the painfully realistic side of fiction that Togetherness doesn't seem like another aspirational Hollywood story, even if it does have some of the hallmarks of industry comedies. This is to say, here the Duplass brothers find a way to translate their emotionally realistic work to television, taking a familiar but not identical approach to their films and making Togetherness an intriguing and positive start to HBO's comedy slate in the new year.
Tags:Amanda Peet, Family Day, Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass, Melanie Lynskey, pilot, Steve Zissis, Togetherness