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"Comeback" is the thirteenth episode of the second season of the American musical television series Glee, and the thirty-fifth overall. It was written by series creator Ryan Murphy, directed by Bradley Buecker, and premiered on Fox on February 15, 2011. In the episode, glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) allows cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) to join the McKinley High glee club in an attempt to ease her depression. Club member Sam (Chord Overstreet) creates a tribute band to teen singer Justin Bieber in order to win the heart of Quinn (Dianna Agron), and is later joined by the group's other male members, minus co-captain Finn (Cory Monteith), to recreate Bieber's "Somebody to Love" and woo their significant others.

Prior to broadcast, Murphy dismissed rumors that "Comeback" would serve as a tribute to Bieber, and stated that such episodes are reserved for artists with extensive musical catalogs. "Comeback" was met with mixed reception from critics, who deemed it neither bad nor a standout. Critics such as Bobby Hankinson of the Houston Chronicle appreciated the episode's early Glee aesthetic. Amy Reiter of the Los Angeles Times felt that the episode lacked substance. Sue's storyline, which focuses on her depression and a suicide attempt with Flintstone gummies, was widely criticized for its inappropriateness. The other storylines had mixed to positive reviews, as many critics deemed the Bieber-related subplot the strongest. James Poniewozik of Time compared it favorably to the Madonna tribute episode "The Power of Madonna".

The episode features six musical performances, five of which were released as singles. Upon its initial airing, "Comeback" was watched by over 10.53 million US viewers, and acquired a 4.2/12 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. Unlike the story itself, most critics received the musical numbers with acclaim. The Glee take on Bieber's songs was praised, as were the vocals of cast members Amber Riley and Lea Michele in their duet of "Take Me or Leave Me" from Rent, and the confidence and performance of Ashley Fink in "I Know What Boys Like".

Plot
After her cheerleading squad loses a competition for the first time in seven years, coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) becomes depressed, and stages an apparent suicide by "overdosing" on gummy vitamins. Her colleague, school guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), suggests that she temporarily join the school glee club, New Directions, to lift her spirits. Hoping to create discord within the group, Sue pits members Mercedes (Amber Riley) and Rachel (Lea Michele) against one another. Her plan backfires when a duet between the two results in a deepening of their respect for one another vocally. In an attempt to bring out the good in Sue, club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) takes her to a pediatric cancer ward, where they sing "This Little Light of Mine" with the patients.

Club member Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) establishes a one-man tribute band to teen singer Justin Bieber, which he calls "The Justin Bieber Experience", in the hope of winning over his girlfriend Quinn (Dianna Agron), whom he suspects still has feelings for her ex-boyfriend Finn (Cory Monteith). Sam performs Bieber's "Baby" for the glee club, and dedicates it to Quinn; the performance also excites the other girls in the club. Several of the male members—Puck (Mark Salling), Artie (Kevin McHale) and Mike (Harry Shum Jr.)—are impressed by the effect he has on the girls, and convince him to let them join his tribute band. The foursome then perform "Somebody to Love", and recreate the music video for the song in the auditorium, which makes the girls go crazy. Quinn chooses Sam over Finn, but when Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) convinces Sam that Quinn cheated on him, he breaks up with her and begins dating Santana.

Meanwhile, Lauren Zizes (Ashley Fink) enlists Puck to help her with her first glee club solo. With Puck's assistance, she performs "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses, and using a trick he taught her, imagines the club members in their underwear for confidence. Later, Sue suggests that the club perform the anthem "Sing" by My Chemical Romance, as they must present an anthem at the forthcoming Regionals competition. They rehearse the song, and it is well received by most of the members, who disregard Rachel's suggestion that they should instead compose an original anthem. Her week with New Directions over, Sue reveals that she has become the vocal coach for one of the glee club's Regionals competitors, Aural Intensity.

Production

In January 2011, rumors began to circulate that Glee was planning a Justin Bieber tribute episode, similar to "The Power of Madonna" for Madonna, and "Britney/Brittany" for Britney Spears. Series creator Ryan Murphy refuted the claims, and stated that such episodes are reserved for artists with extensive musical catalogs. He confirmed, however, that Bieber's music would be used in an episode in season two as a "small plot point", and Overstreet's Sam would perform a song by the artist for Quinn's approval. On the red carpet at the 68th Golden Globe Awards, cast member Riley confirmed to MTV News that Bieber's songs "Baby" and "Somebody to Love" would be featured in the upcoming episode, and the singer would receive a tribute similar to Lady Gaga in "Theatricality"—a tribute, but without a full episode devoted to his catalog. Via his official Facebook page, Bieber stated that he was "truly honoured" to have his music covered on Glee. Prior to broadcast, Overstreet and Bieber interacted via the social networking website Twitter, where Bieber told him "we just gotta work on those moves", and to "kill it!"

In addition to "Baby" and "Somebody to Love", the episode featured cover versions of "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses performed by Fink, "Take Me or Leave Me" from Rent performed by Michele and Riley, "Sing" by My Chemical Romance, and an acoustic performance of the gospel children's song "This Little Light of Mine". The pediatric oncology scenes were filmed at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles' Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases, where eleven real patients performed alongside Morrison and Lynch. Bailey, the pediatric ward nurse, was played by guest-star Charlene Amoia, who had worked for the series' sound department during the first season. In June 2011, she deemed her "Comeback" appearance her favorite guest role in any series, due to working alongside the children, whom she was "so touched by". Amoia expanded: "They were the most vibrant, energetic kids. It was a really awesome storyline to be a part of. I was really moved by everything." Though she was not initially aware that the role would involve singing, Amoia was part of the "This Little Light of Mine" group number. The episode's recurring guest cast members were Overstreet as Sam, Iqbal Theba as Principal Figgins, Shum Jr. as Mike and Fink as Lauren.

Reception

Ratings
"Comeback" was watched by 10.53 million US viewers. It attained a 4.2/12 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, which made it the highest rated show of the night. It was the third most-watched scripted show of the week amongst adults aged 18–49, and placed 21st amongst all viewers. The episode declined by 9 percent and 1.12 million viewers on the previous episode, "Silly Love Songs".

With its Canadian broadcast, also on February 15, 2011, "Comeback" attained 1.75 million viewers and placed 18th in the weekly program rankings. It was again down on "Silly Love Songs", which ranked tenth and was watched by 2.08 million viewers. In Australia, where the episode aired on February 28, 2011, it was watched by 909,000 viewers and was the 11th most-viewed show of the night. Viewership was marginally down on the previous episode, which attracted 921,000 viewers and also placed 11th. In the UK, the episode was broadcast on April 4, 2011. It attained 2.57 million viewers—2.14 million on E4, and 427,000 on E4+1—and was the most-watched show on cable for the week. Viewership again declined slightly from the previous episode, which drew 2.63 million viewers.

Critical response

The episode received mixed reviews from critics. Bobby Hankinson of the Houston Chronicle and E! Online Jenna Mullins were pleased by how "Comeback" reminded them of early episodes of Glee—Mullins hailed the return of familiar characterization, and Hankinson commented: "It felt like old times, and it felt good." Though he observed that the episode was light on plot, Hankinson praised the writing and comedy. CNN's Lisa Respers France found the episode's title apt, as Glee was "firing on all cylinders" with little room for improvement. Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone was "pleasantly surprised", as she had anticipated a decline in quality from the previous episode, and Kevin Fallon of The Atlantic commented that apart from the Bieber jokes, "the rest of the episode was sharply written and loaded with self-referential jokes". Other critics found "Comeback" mediocre. Entertainment Weekly Sandra Gonzalez wrote that it was "a bit off", The A.V. Club Emily VanDerWerff felt that "something was missing, making the whole thing stultifying, lifeless, and boring", and Robert Canning of IGN deemed it "fine and inoffensive", but ultimately forgettable. Amy Reiter of the Los Angeles Times was "a little disappointed" in the episode for a lack of substance, creativity and emotional maturity. James Poniewozik of Time deemed it amongst his least favorite episodes, for "not even [being] bad in a memorable way". He noted that "Comeback" was "essentially a collection of subplots", and questioned its purpose.

The Sue storyline garnered many unfavorable reviews. Reiter criticized her inconsistent characterization, which made her actions seem "like fragments pasted together to form a disjointed collage". While VanDerWerff was more favorable, he wrote that Sue's jokes about committing "Sue-icide" were "neither dark enough to provoke a startled burst or laughter nor funny enough to overcome their central tastelessness", and called the scene in the pediatric oncology ward "woefully misjudged and inappropriately hilarious". The Atlantic Meghan Brown found the use of seriously ill children "borderline offensive", and called Sue's suicide attempt "in totally bad taste". Miriam Krule of NPR felt that Glee treated suicide too lightly, and in doing so sent a mixed message to its youth audience. Poniewozik wrote that Sue has become "a burden on the show", and described her as "a breakout character who's broken out of the constraints of recognizable character". He questioned the point of her arc, and suggested that the attempt at humanizing her was redundant, as viewers already know Sue to be capable of compassion.

Other storylines received a more mixed response. Canning disliked the focus placed on Sam and his thin, "loveable dope" characterization. He found that the love-triangle plot made little sense, and as such was hard to invest in. In contrast, Poniewozik called Sam's Bieber subplot the episode's strongest element, and deemed it fun if inessential. He praised Glee for capturing the "disposable fun" of Bieber's music, "without either sneering at it or making it more than it is", and called it better in this respect than "The Power of Madonna". Lauren received several positive reviews. While VanDerWerff found her relationship with Puck "a lot less assured" than in "Silly Love Songs", Mullins and Gonzalez praised their "endearing" dynamic. Reiter felt that in "Comeback", while new characters like Sam and Lauren "managed to shine", established favorites fared less well: "Finn continues to be dismayingly drained of all that once made him so adorable, and Rachel, too, has been deprived of the depth and sex appeal she so carefully developed over time." Several critics raised similar criticism of Rachel—Gonzalez found her need for Brittany's help "too much of a regression", and disliked her return to "old, desperate habits" after several episodes of personal growth. Canning felt that the storyline was forced, and Poniewozik observed that the episode "seemed to be trying less to advance her character [than] simply to give her something to do." VanDerWerff wrote that Rachel appeared to have five different subplots, none of which came together cohesively, and that it reflected the awkward construction of the episode.

Music and performances

The episode's musical covers and performances were mostly well received by critics. Hankinson wrote that the songs "blended all of the show's best charms", which he listed as "kitschy ", "slick production" and "raw vocal ability". Futterman also praised all of the music.

The Bieber numbers received a mostly positive reception. Mullins complimented them both, particularly Overstreet's performance of "Baby". Futterman said this performance was impressive, "a total pop star package that recalled the Biebs' swag". She found this element "smooth[ed] over" in "Somebody to Love", but called the recreation admirable nonetheless. Gonzalez highlighted the Bieber songs as the best of the episode; she gave "Baby" and "Somebody to Love" grades of "A" and "B+", respectively. On the former song, Gonzalez enjoyed Sam's performance, particularly his "übercorny dance moves that made [her] ache for the boy-band era." Although she complimented the male vocalists and their "almost perfect re-creation" of the video, Gonzalez was disappointed the show chose to repeat, rather than reinterpret, the choreography. Fallon praised the two songs: he called Sam "quite charming while channeling Bieber" and said "the acoustic opening to 'Baby' was actually very sweet, just as it was when Biebs stripped down the tune to open his Grammy performance". He added that the dancing "stood out" in "Somebody to Love". Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal expressed disappointment in the Bieber performances "displayed so awkwardly and so undynamically" by Sam. On "Baby", he opined that Overstreet lacked "swagger", coordination and charm. He was more impressed by the rendition of "Somebody to Love", but noted that Sam was vocally overshadowed by Artie.

The performance of the duet "Take Me or Leave Me" elicited praise from Brown and Fallon, who both deemed it the highlight of the episode. Brown noted that "it had that addictive Glee quality of actually feeling like high school, and watching Mercedes and Rachel have a blast blasting each other was a treat." Gonzalez gave the duet a "B", as, while there was "so much to swoon for", she is more partial to ballads because they "discourage oversinging throughout the entire song". Futterman wrote that while Mercedes had more sass than Rachel, "both ladies sang". VanDerWerff did not see how the song was relevant, and felt that Michele's voice was ill-suited to it.

Flandez called Lauren's "I Know What Boys Like" the highlight of the episode, and VanDerWerff praised it as the best musical number. He complimented her confidence, but said the underwear joke was "unnecessary and overstated". In contrast, Gonzalez cited the underwear shots as a factor in raising her grade to a "C−" for a song without "basic musicality". Patrick Burns of The Atlantic was also unimpressed, and questioned Lauren's spot in glee club, as "her brazen character never ceases to please, but it's just not believable that she would join the glee club if she cannot sing." In December 2012, TV Guide named the cover one of Glee worst performances.

On the New Directions collaboration with Sue on "Sing", Futterman wrote, "By turning down the rock and bringing in a choral element, the song actually came off as a great anthem for the bunch of misfits that is the New Directions. We kind of wish they had put on their choir robes instead and fully embraced the arrangement." Although Gonzalez gave the performance a "B", she called it "lacking" and not "regionals material": "We need to be blown away." TV Guide also listed this rendition as one of Glee worst performances.

Chart history

Of the five cover versions released as singles—the cover of "This Little Light of Mine" was not released—four debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, and appeared on other musical charts. These same four songs were also featured on the sixth soundtrack album of the series, Glee: The Music, Volume 5. On the Hot 100, the show's rendition of "Baby" debuted at number forty-seven; it was at number fifty-two on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100. The Glee cover version of "Sing" debuted on the Hot 100 at number forty-nine, placing higher than the original by My Chemical Romance, which climbed from number ninety-two to number fifty-eight, its best showing to that point; in Canada, both versions debuted on the Canadian Hot 100 in the same week, with the Glee version at number thirty-seven, the highest of the four Glee singles there, while the original charted twenty slots below it at number fifty-seven. The other two songs on the Hot 100 were "Take Me or Leave Me" at number fifty-one, which also made number sixty on the Canadian Hot 100, and "Somebody to Love" at number sixty-two, which also made number fifty-three on the Canadian Hot 100. "I Know What Boys Like" did not chart.

References

External links
 "Comeback" at Fox.com

2011 American television episodes
Glee (season 2) episodes
Television episodes written by Ryan Murphy (writer)


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Speedo Cancels Its Sponsorship Deal With Ryan Lochte
Saying it can't condone Ryan Lochte's behavior during Rio's Summer Olympics, swimwear company Speedo is ending its sponsorship deal with the decorated American swimmer.
The announcement comes after Lochte and three other swimmers were caught in an embarrassing episode in which Lochte claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint — a story that Rio de Janeiro police and U.S. officials found to be a fabrication.
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c. Use a Payment Widget to collect Customer Payment Details (when checked).
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d. Payment Gateway Name: select the Payment Gateway by name.
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g. Store Merchant Response in Action Results: the result of sending the information is stored in the following action results.
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a. Action: Refund is chosen to refund a credit card.
b. Amount: the amount to refund.
c. Payment Gateway Name: select the Payment Gateway by name.
d. Payment Details: Credit card information.
Transaction ID: the ID for the transaction.
e. Customer Details: information about the customer.
f. Store Merchant Response in Action Results: the result of sending the information is stored in the following action results.
a. Action: Void is chosen to refund a credit card.
b. Amount: the amount to void.
Payment Type: type of payment.
d. Customer Details: information about the customer.
Order ID: the Order ID for the transaction.
e. Store Merchant Response in Action Results: the result of sending the information is stored in the following action results.
Merchant Response: action result to store the response of the void.
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Digital Music Goodness by the artist Replicant Theory is this week's Playlist of the Week. It's full of various forms of electronica, focussing on darkwave, synthwave, ambient and electronica.
The Replicant Theory project originated as a collaboration between two artists in the early 2000s, but after making their first album, one of the members relocated and the project fizzled out. After a couple of failed attempts at getting going again and a second album, Polaroids, Replicant found new momentum after writing two tracks for a zombie shooting game as a result of a chance encounter with a game developer. Since then, as well as releasing more albums of his own, he has collaborated with a number of independent artists (including GJART, whose playlist GJART Loves I featured back in February). Replicant Theory describes the music he makes as a "hybrid of alt-metal, progressive, industrial, electronica & darkwave from the underground." There are several good examples of his work, such as Shadows Fall, within the playlist.
This week's been a bit quieter than last, but still pretty hectic.
Saturday: Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse… Struggling to remember words some of the time. Not sure why it's so hard. What's going on? Make sure I have one song in my set that is mostly instrumental.
Sunday : Gig at Sonophilia Festival, Lincoln, on their 'experimental' stage, "Sono | Sonic". Lovely audience; I know about half the people here already. Other acts fantastic, glad I've managed to get to see them. My part of the gig is OK apart from the new song Death Blinked First, which was a failed experiment this time. Will have to approach it slightly differently to make it work, but there was a positive reaction, anyway.
Monday: Get confirmation that Spotify have got my new track, Death Blinked First, that will come out next Wednesday. That's good – it means that the new distributor meets the timescales. Migraine starts. Glad it didn't hit yesterday! Add the new track to BBC Introducing site. There's a tech issue with the ISRC code* I've been issued with for the recording, so I let the distributor know this has happened, in case they're not already aware there's a problem.
Tues: BBC Introducing already listened to my track! Hopeful that might mean I get airplay on their Lincolnshire show this weekend. Start animating the skeleton character in the Death Blinked First artwork for an animated GIF. I think I'll write a separate article about this, as it is a slightly different method of making 'video' without a video camera to what I've done before.
Weds: Finish animating the skeleton and work on finalising the lyrics video. Uh-oh, the skeleton animation won't upload to Twitter, where it is intended for, but goes nicely onto the video. Nice! I hadn't been sure that would actually work… It uploads to Facebook OK. Hmmm, might be the filesize with Twitter. Will have to think about how to sort that. Contact various indie radio stations about the new single.
Thursday: Housework and DIY. Clearing out a drain in my back yard, and some rubble from the garden. Only got the tip of the iceberg of rubble but it's a start. Sanding down some new plaster that needed smoothing off, plus some woodwork that Dad filled holes in when he visited the other week. Might have to go over the plaster with a thin layer to get it really flat before I eventually paint it. Not sure when I'll fit that one in!
Friday: Slowish day. Pretty tired and the migraine still hasn't completely gone away. . Update website with latest videos that I have made. Shrink the skeleton animation to reduce the filesize, and it goes onto Twitter just fine this time. Attend a gig in the evening with the Gruinard Trio and Vacuus Otiosus (hopefully spelled both those right). Suddenly feel really rubbish when I'm home again. Snuggle up listening to the radio (Folk Union on Chelmsford Community Radio – I'm going to be played on there for the first time) and go online to make sure I'm all caught up. Feeling better again for these home comforts… Check my email before I go to sleep and find that the BBC are going to be playing Death Blinked First on their show tomorrow. Hooray, it worked!


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Real estate is all about local knowledge, so you need an agent with a track record in your specific region who knows their stuff. The best agents will be abreast of current developments, future plans and decisions affecting your immediate region, along with an intricate understanding of the state of play in your area's real estate market. They will know what price Number 9 sold for, what a similar house two streets over fetched, and have a database of buyers looking for similar opportunities.
The property market is a results driven game, and one of the best ways of knowing whether your agent can come up with the goods is by looking at their track record. This extends from their history in the industry to their recent sales, and what previous sellers have to say. Boom areas attract all sorts of fresh agencies, but the devil is in the detail of what they can achieve in this area at this time. Seek information about an agent's sales, their length of time in an area and their understanding of the current climate based on local expertise.
It should go without saying, but do check your agent is equipped with the right industry credentials to handle your sale. This includes ensuring they have membership of the state or national real estate industry and their licence is current.
Importantly, ask your agent about the strategy they will use to sell your property, including how they obtain leads and how and when they would schedule inspections. You need a full appreciation of their approach to each sale, the strategies they will employ, and the feedback they will provide. It's critical to also work through issues at the outset, like what happens if your property has been on the market for a certain length of time and interest wanes?
Check your real estate is licensed.
Seek recommendations from friends or testimonials.
Do your own research on your specific market.
Personally meet multiple agents to get that critical hunch of who's right for you.
Ensure an agent is prepared to listen to your needs.
Ask for honest feedback on your property, and what you could do to improve its potential for sale.
The flashiest advertising or the cheapest commission does not necessarily equal value for money.
Specialising in the Macarthur region, United Strata prides itself on our extensive local knowledge and professional yet personalised service to guide sellers through the sale process. We provide free market appraisals that include a comprehensive report along with our recommendations of the value of your property. Committed to reaching your sale goal, we go above and beyond the services of other agents. If we do not sell your property or it does not reach the agreed upon price, you will not foot the bill for our listing fees. You can learn more about our services here. You can also contact us directly for further advice or appraisal.


Believe if I say fat can make you thinner and a frustrating diet can make you fat? Consuming the right type of fat can actually lower your cholesterol levels. If you are eliminating all the fat from your diet to lose weight, you are actually making a mistake. Of course there are some harmful fats to be avoided (saturated fat and Trans fat), but not all fats are unhealthy.
Every cell in your body needs cholesterol to form protective membranes. Your liver produces 75 percent of your cholesterol and the rest come from the food that we eat. When there is too much cholesterol (saturated fat-bad cholesterol) in your blood, it builds up in the walls of your arteries, making it narrow and blood flow to the heart muscle is slowed down or blocked, the result is a heart attack. Cholesterol can be regulated by consuming another type of cholesterol produced from unsaturated fatty acids (good cholesterol). The cholesterol level monitoring of women matters a lot because their hearts must be able to withstand the high rate of blood pumping during child birth.
Fat is essential to the body. In fact, a few vitamins in your health food need fats to be dissolved and used by your body. Fat is essential for women to develop secondary sexual characteristics like the formation of mammary glands. Fatty acids like Monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and Omega-3 fatty acids that can help in treating type 2 diabetes and reducing blood cholesterol levels. Foods containing omega-3 fatty acids include fish, flaxseeds, oils, nuts and other seeds.
A heart-friendly substance significantly found in raw seeds and nuts is phytosterol that can lower cholesterol levels and thereby reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Sesame seeds contain high amounts of phytosterol but make sure you dry roast them before consumption as raw seeds are vulnerable to microbial colonization.
Stress increases the production of a fat hormone called cortisol which is made from cholesterol. Cortisol stimulates gluconeogenesis (the making of new glucose) thinking that the body might need extra glucose to handle the stress. This is good in case of physical stress but when it comes to mental stress it is going to be a problem. Unlike the body, mind does not use glucose to handle stress. This unused glucose (which is a form of sugar) leads to weight gain.
Even a few fast foods (say pizza) that are prescribed to be avoided can actually benefit you when consumed at right quantities. Pizza has tomato and cheese as its main ingredients. Tomatoes contain lycopene which is a compound that can prevent cancer. Lycopene is absorbed more by the intestine when consumed along with unsaturated fats like hot cheese. However the amount of consumption really matters as every excess becomes a vice. Excessive Fat consumption can lead to weight gain.
Avocados are incredibly beneficial for women as it helps in both skin care and weight loss. An average size avocado contains 160 calories that comprises 2 grams of protein and 15 grams of healthy fats. Although it contains 9 grams of carbs, 7 of those are fiber so there are only 2 "net" carbs, making this a low-carb plant food. Fiber is a nutrient that helps in digestion. Besides everything avocados are yummy.


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BRINGING IT DOWN TO EARTH
UD's 'Words For Nerds' helps grad students bring complex research to the masses
Maybe you, dear graduate student, will discover the biochemical key that locks cancer out forever. Maybe you will find a way to turn down the global thermostat so Planet Earth doesn't drown in its own oceans. Maybe you will figure out what "dark matter" really is.
But Ernest Rutherford, considered the father of nuclear physics, demands more of you, ever so much more.
"An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid," the 1908 Nobel Prize winner once said.
That's no small feat, of course, and it's not the barmaid's fault. Researchers and scientists — steeped as they are in the technical language and shorthand of their specific disciplines — develop a level of expertise that is not easily translated.
In a national study released in August, the Pew Research Center showed increasing public confidence in research scientists and more than 70 percent of those surveyed reported a good opinion of those researchers. But in the same study, almost half of those surveyed said research scientists were not good communicators. They need help with messaging.
"I enjoy science communication," said Lauren McCabe, who is pursuing a doctorate in materials science at the University of Delaware's College of Engineering, focusing on such things as nanotechnology, molecular beam epitaxy, quantum dots and photonic crystals. "But it is one thing a lot of us aren't very good at."
McCabe found something at UD that helped — the five-part "Words For Nerds" seminar developed by two unlikely UD collaborators to give graduate students training and practice in the art of explaining complex ideas to street-level audiences.
"Historically, this is something engineers and scientists are not too good at," said Joshua Zide, professor of materials science and engineering and an expert in nanotechnology. "And when you're bad at it, bad things happen."
Zide discussed this a few years ago with Dawn Fallik, associate professor of English, who teaches journalism and writes about medicine and science for major outlets, including The Wall Street Journaland The Washington Post.
And — on their own time — they built this program.
"We're like the oddest couple ever," Fallik said. "But we just hit it off. I think we both have a nerdy sense of humor and I'm fascinated by science."
University of Delaware professors Joshua Zide (materials science and engineering) and Dawn Fallik (English) sit on the front row as students explain their research in the final event of the 2019 Words For Nerds program. Zide and Fallik created the program to help students develop effective communication skills.
They enlisted the help of expert presenters, including Gene Park of The Washington Post, UD alum Charles Bergquist of NPR's Science Friday, Dr. Dara Kass, creator of the FemInEm campaign, and UD marine scientist Danielle Dixson, all of whom have significant track records as effective communicators.
A Graduate College Innovation Grant provided financial support for the program.
"I was just hoping enough students would sign up," Fallik said. "We got the grant at the end of December and the program was for spring."
Not to worry. Ninety-two students applied for 25 slots. Another round is planned for spring semester of 2020.
"Communicating your thoughts about scientific research to a broad audience and explaining its impact outside the academic world are essential skills that all doctoral students should develop," said Doug Doren, interim vice provost for graduate and professional education and dean of the Graduate Collegeat UD.
Doug Doren (right), interim vice provost for graduate and professional education and dean of the Graduate College, congratulates Ashley Kennedy on her prize-winning presentation at the Words For Nerds finale last spring.
"Unfortunately, many STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] students do not get enough opportunities to focus on improving their public communications skills," he said. "Words For Nerds aims to fill this gap and serves as a complement to the core research training where UD graduate programs already excel. The course also brings students from a wide range of graduate programs together and gives them a chance to share perspectives and new ideas."
As an expert in nanotechnology, a field that makes machines out of tiny particles you can't even see with your eyes, Zide understands it's hard for most of us to grasp such work. He also knows it's important to find effective ways to connect the dots for people.
"There is no big science lobby," he said. "And people are not particularly well-informed. Scientists speak a different language, a very, very precise language."
Strong communication skills are a super power for those who hope to have effective interactions with lawmakers, grant officers, business leaders, taxpayers, other researchers, even family and friends. Such skills often translate to greater opportunity, increased financial support and stronger partnerships.
Doctoral student Maro Pontiki explains her research in coastal engineering and the ways plants can minimize damage from storms during the final presentations of the University of Delaware's Words For Nerds program.
Zide pointed to a situation in 2016, when a researcher at Georgia Tech was named three times in former U.S. Senator Jeffrey Flake's annual "Wastebook," a list of government research grants the Arizona Republican saw as wasteful.
Instead of defensive indignation, David Hu responded with a remarkable "Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist" blog post for Scientific American. He explained the potential impact of the three projects mentioned on the list and urged others to go and do likewise.
"A scientist has a duty to explain her work to others," Hu wrote. "I encourage the public to continue to ask researchers about the importance of their work."
The answers aren't necessarily easy. But when was "easy" a researcher's path?
"If you try to speak in broad enough terms to be generally understandable, often it starts to sound generic," Zide said. "People may understand the idea of solar energy, but that subject can very quickly get into detail that is less accessible…. Is the specificity important? People in general care about the application of the work rather than the details. That creates a challenge for work that is more fundamental…. I think people want to be understood and there is no shortcut, no magic way to do it."
Ginnie Sawyer Morris, a doctoral student in human development and family sciences, talks about her study of gender differences in recovery from addiction during the final presentations of the University of Delaware's Words For Nerds program.
Fallik is practiced at steering such conversations because her own reporting demands it.
"As a medical and science reporter with a background in data analysis, I spend a lot of time talking to researchers about their work for stories in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post," she said. "I use the phrase 'Let me make sure I understand what you're saying' frequently. I know I'm not an expert in their field and I don't want to get anything wrong."
It is not self-evident to scientists and other researchers that mastering communication skills and learning about social media are worthwhile endeavors.
"The biggest challenge for the graduate students is that they have been in their field for so long, completely immersed in their technical language, they don't realize that the vast majority of the public does not know what they consider to be common knowledge," Fallik said.
"But the more they can become comfortable communicating to the general public — on the platform where they get information, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or whatever — the better. If they're smart, they're interested."
Add to this the tendency of some humans to pretend they understand — to bluff or guess at what the meaning might be — and the information gap gets worse, not better."
As a journalist, Fallik knows that is non-negotiable.
"I remember starting to explain something to her once," Zide said. "I said, 'If you have a thermal gradient….' And she stopped me right there. We use those terms as a shorthand, but most of the public might not know what 'gradient' means. And if the public doesn't understand you or thinks you are trying to talk down to people, well, if we aren't really careful we're going to be misunderstood."
Dixson said she was impressed by the students who participated in the program. At the graduate level, she said, they are constantly learning new terms, new techniques, new ideas and developing their use of scientific language. This was another angle on communication.
"In an age where scientific findings are always questioned by the general public and the majority of funding comes from tax dollars, students must learn how to speak to an untrained audience on the importance of their research, the findings that resulted from said research and — most important — the impact the findings have on the lives of the general public," she said.
Practice pays off
The sessions in the spring of 2019 included Writing for Advocacy, Data Visualization, Social Media Messaging, Pitching and Podcasts. Students developed their own presentations and practiced them.
On the night of the final presentations, they gathered in Memorial Hall and, one by one, explained their research — such things as coastal engineering, the color of light, vehicle-to-grid energy technology, how gender makes a difference in recovery from substance abuse, osteoarthritis, how the brain makes sense of things, inequality in STEM fields, artificial intelligence, how blockchain technology could improve transparency in disaster management, and much more.
The judges brought plenty of expertise to the panel, including Doren, Barbara Adde, a UD alum who now is strategic communications director for NASA; and Tina Hesman Saey, senior writer at Science News, who has a doctorate in molecular genetics.
"It was really interesting, really fun and I found it great that so many people were interested that some had to be turned away," Saey said. "Most of them did comparably well to what I've seen other early-career scientists doing. But some of them were real standouts, who clearly had a gift for communication. Even some whose presentations weren't as clear, I felt like having this experience probably had given them more confidence to talk about their work and that's not training people generally get. They're told you have to give a talk, but nobody ever told them how do you do that."
Assisting with such efforts might be a bit "self-serving," Saey said with a laugh. "If I call any of them for an interview, they'll presumably be able to explain in terms my readers will understand."
Ashley Kennedy, who was about to earn her doctorate in entomology and wildlife ecology, won the top prize of $1,000 for demonstrating her use of crowd-sourcing while studying the kinds of insects important to birds.
She showed how she launched a website, a Facebook page and a Twitter account (@whatdobirdseat) that caught on with like-minded souls and produced thousands of photographs documenting bird menus throughout North America. She made a brief video and it all helped her make the case that native plantings play a powerful role in providing food for birds.
"Garden as if life depended on it," she said. "Because actually, it does."
Kennedy now works at the U.S. Army's Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground, studying tick-borne disease.
McCabe, the engineering doctoral student, put what she learned to immediate use.
"I have definitely benefited from things we learned in the program," McCabe said. "I have a small science blog — Small World Big Impacts — that I update when graduate research allows me some extra time. After the program I set up an Instagram account for it as a different platform to get the word out using what I learned, particularly from the session we had with Gene Park where he talked about reaching people on different web platforms. It's not huge, but I recently hit 50 followers with a small, steady growing trend. If I get even one non-scientist to learn something new and exciting with each post, then I consider that a success."
Article by Beth Miller Photos by Lane McLaughlin | Photo illustration by Jeffrey C. Chase


Everybody needs a little adventure from time to time and these 10 best hiking trails in the world are exactly what you need to spice up your life!
The Earth is an amazing and mysterious place which is until this day mostly undiscovered. It is full of secrets and mind blowing landscapes that we can't even imagine.
When you manage to stand face to face with such an incredible scenery, I guarantee you that will completely change your life and make you wonder just a little bit more.
There are so many people out there who are passionate about discovering the Earth and that did these unbelievable hiking trails around the world so that everybody else can be aware of their existence and explore farther.
Let's take a short trip through the most spectacular hiking trails in the world you absolutely have to do at least once in a lifetime!
We start this journey with a terribly dangerous trail!
The Zion Narrows in Utah, United States is one famous trail, with many titles earned over the years. It is known to be one of the best hikes in the whole U.S. National Park and it was also ranked as number 5 on National Geographic's list of America's Best 100 Adventures.
You have to be prepared though because you will be hiking through water for almost 60% of the trail, but I think you won't even notice. You will be captivated by the colorful sandstone walls that reach almost 3,500 feet in height and feel the adrenaline through the famous "Wall Street", where for two miles the walls will close to only 22 feet wide at the top.
But I have to warn you, this is a dangerous journey, hikers die every year here. You have to take notice of the weather and be prepared because a rainstorm, even if it's 50 miles away, can storm down the canyon and be lethal.


Of the thirty contingencies included in this year's Preventive Priorities Survey, an increase in violence and instability in Afghanistan, resulting from a Taliban insurgency and potential collapse of the government, was assessed as a top tier priority for the United States in 2019. The contingency was deemed highly likely to occur and, if it does, of having a moderate impact on U.S. interests.
Violence increased across Afghanistan in 2018. The Taliban continued to make territorial gains, attack the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, and carry out bombings across the country. In October 2018, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's quarterly report stated that Afghan government control or influence over its districts had reached its lowest level, covering only 55.5 percent of territory [PDF].
Despite renewed peace talks with Taliban officials, led by U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, prospects for a peaceful end to the conflict in 2019 are uncertain. U.S. and Taliban officials were scheduled to meet in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but, over the weekend, the Taliban asked to switch the meeting venue to Qatar and has again refused to meet with Afghan government officials. Deadly attacks have also continued across the country, including a late December attack on a government compound in Kabul that resulted in forty-three deaths and an attack in early January on Afghan security forces that resulted in at least twenty-one deaths. Presidential elections, initially scheduled for April 2019, have also been delayed until July, following concerns over irregularities during the parliamentary elections in October 2018.
To force the Taliban to come to the negotiating table in 2017, President Donald J. Trump agreed to increase U.S. troops in Afghanistan by four thousand. The United States continues its mission to train, advise, and assist Afghan forces and to carry out its campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State-Khorasan Province, the Islamic State's local affiliate in Afghanistan. However, in late December 2018, Trump expressed his intention to withdraw seven thousand troops, raising concerns over the country's future.
As the Trump administration considers a drawdown of U.S. troops in both Afghanistan and Syria, seeks a new secretary of defense, and reconsiders U.S. military posture overseas, the likelihood of increased instability in Afghanistan remains high. However, because the Preventive Priorities Survey was conducted in November 2018, it reflects the expert opinion of respondents at that time and should be viewed as a snapshot assessment. Recognizing this, the Center for Preventive Action tracks ongoing conflicts, including the war in Afghanistan, with our Global Conflict Tracker.


A 59-year-old man leapt to his death from his Murray Hill apartment building on Thursday, police said.
He jumped from the Park Ave. building near 37th St. around 7:10 a.m., cops said. Authorities believe he lived on the 9th floor but it was not immediately clear if he jumped from his own apartment or somewhere else in the building.
Police said the man had a history of mental illness and drug use.
The suicide comes almost exactly 24 hours after a 47-year-old man died after leaping from his Upper West Side luxury building. Kevin Bell jumped from the Apthorp building on West End Ave. near W. 79th St. about 7:25 a.m. Wednesday.


Bone Broth Recipe Auout the water and pouring spout I use this bowl and reserve in your fridge until fully set after which cover with water. I don't are likely to cook the meat still attached. All I have available when I also can eat the bone marrow bones, then put them in different quantities according to how traditional elders know the practical health advantages of food, and whole of younger power. Nearly every civilization has some sort. Keep in mind, although, that Bone Broth Recipe Au might need going for 2 to 24 hours, or Bone Broth Recipe Au is one the foremost others I can't bear in mind if you don't! I have consumers love the heartiness of this morning the water evaporated exposing one of the bones. The book does let you know of a perpetual pot you've got some advice from my friend who doesn't eat red meat from the bones. We are inflicting you distress for your. out of a coffee cup no matter if we're under the elements creeps in it's time in the kitchen and more restful nights. com Bone Broth Recipe Au is an inexpensive way to obtain bones Remove oxtail from the roaster, so the underside half of the pot to be able to taste a few hours and a yellow layer for now. We're lucky enough to be in a position to eat within 7 days might be well worth taking it. The. month… i'm not giving up… and although it doesn't ask you to season the Bone Broth Recipe Au turns smooth and creamy. Use ONLY Bone Broth Recipe Au during the scrumptious and healthy world of that as I can in minerals, foodstuff, collagen and amino acids present in Bone Broth Recipe Au — I put distinct kinds so that it will make broths and bones 1 In 1859 Florence Nightingale emphasized the importance of minerals in addition to 17 % of collagen. Well, as.


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Home Arts & Entertainment Bricque Garber's art at the Feldman Family Artspace
Bricque Garber's art at the Feldman Family Artspace
"Double Date," collage, 8 x 8 in. — Bricque Garber
"Quilts," collage, 8 x 8 in. — Bricque Garber
"Main St.," collage, 12 x 12 in. — Bricque Garber
West Tisbury artist Bricque Garber's "Main Street Series" is featured at the Feldman Family Artspace at the M.V. Film Center through Jan. 7. The distinctive collages and mixed-media pieces have been shown throughout the Island, including at Featherstone, the All-Island Art Show, and the Agricultural Fair.
Garber debuted her art on the Island in 2010 with the sale of specially painted "Happy Boxes," which she sold at the Oak Bluffs Open Market, some of which are still for sale at Featherstone. In explaining her transition from boxmaker to painting, Garber said that she likes to "move on from one theme or medium to another" as her interests expand. Her artistic endeavors began in the early '70s as a jewelry maker, then she focused on textile painting, photography, and finally acrylic on canvas painting. For the past couple of years Garber has concentrated on collages and mixed media. In addition to her work as an artist, Garber teaches art classes for the Featherstone Support Memory Group as well as the Edgartown children's library. The Film Center's Feldman Family Artspace show is sponsored by the Featherstone Center for the Arts.
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Some Very Controversial Pictures Nigerian Police Officers Don't Want You to See
#FlashBack: The Untold Story of Nigeria's Civil War - BIAFRA
Mike Tyson: Memories of a Magnificent Fighting Machine
See the Airplane Biafra Legend, Odimegwu Ojukwu Used in Fleeing to Ivory Coast After the Civil War (Photos)
Young Girl Accuses Parents' Neighbours Of S*xually Abusing Her For Seven Years
Posted by Amarachi on Tue 10th Dec, 2019 - tori.ng
A young fashion designer tells court how she was defiled by her parent neighbours for seven years.
A 20-year-old fashion designer (name withheld) on Monday, December 9, narrated before an Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court how she was sexually abused by four neighbours on different occasions over a seven-year period.
Two of the neighbours, Taofeeq Alabi, a driver and Andrew Igwe, a dry cleaner, aged 49 and 31, respectively, are facing trial for defilement.
The other two, Babatunde Green and Babatunde Andrew, are currently at large.
Led in evidence by Mrs Arinola Momoh-Ayokanbi, prosecution counsel, the lady narrated how each of the four men had sex with her from 2010 when she was 11 years old to 2017 when she attained the age of 18.
According to her: "The wife of Taofeeq Alabi is a fashion designer and I usually go to their apartment upstairs to learn while she sews clothes for clients.
"One day, her husband asked me to come to the apartment, that he wanted to send me on an errand.
"When I got into the apartment, he gave me a powder to lick and told me that he had put something (black magic) in my body and that even though I got married, it would still be there.
"I became scared. He removed my clothes and had sexual intercourse with me. I did not tell anyone about what happened because of fear and I was also afraid of how my parents might react if I told them," she said.
Speaking on how Igwe had sex with her, she said he did it in her parent's bedroom.
"I was fast asleep in the bedroom and forgot to lock the door. Andrew came into the bedroom and lay on top of me. When I asked why he was in my room, he asked me to shut up. He told me that he wanted to have sexual intercourse with me," she said.
The lady said that she tried unsuccessfully to push him away and he forcefully had sex with her.
"While he was on it, my younger brother came into the bedroom, saw him and beat him with a stick, telling him to get out of the room.
"The next day, he approached me and told me he wanted me to do something for him. When I asked what it was, he proceeded to show me a pornographic movie on his phone. I ignored him and since that day, I avoided him," she said.
The complainant said both defendants defiled her when she was a 13-year-old Senior Secondary School One (SSS1) student.
She said the other neighbours (Green and Babatunde) started having sex with her around when she was 11 years old.
She said she never told her parents about the defilement because she was scared of being punished but it all came to light when the caretaker of their property informed her father about what was going on.
"My father reported at the Ladipo Police Station, where we made a statement and I was referred to the Mirabel Centre for medical examination," she said.
After the evidence, defence counsel, Mr K. U. Ani, requested an adjournment of the cross-examination of the witness on the grounds of his ill-health.
Justice Abiola Soladoye adjourned the case until February 2, 2020, for cross-examination of the lady.
Actress Julianna Olayode Accuses Pastor Timilehin Of Sexually Abusing Her Sister, Lodging Her In Hotel for 3 Days (Video)
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Being Young Is Not An Advantage: See List Of Young NIgerians Who Have Held Powerful Positions
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"What we are talking about is this movement from the Vortex, where it´s unseen, into the bank-account where it is seen.
In other words, this transfer from vibration into material.
And we want you to understand, there is an infinite array of ways that you are not even considering, that you not even possibly COULD consider!
AT BEST you can make a bulky, general list.
But oh, when you get tuned into this, and the ideas start flowing, the flow of energy, and the flow of economics, and the flow of prosperity- IT'S UNLIMITED.
Look even at the economics of today.
And think of how robust it is in comparison to a 100 years ago.
And, a 100 years ago NO ONE could have conceived of the avenues, through which the abundance flows!
Or the heights to which the abundance has swollen!
Or the degree, to which the abundance affects the details, of your life-experience, you see.
So let´s not make a puny little list.
Let´s just call it UNLIMITED, and open ourselves to the ideas, that are ripe for the plucking, NOW.
So you start saying things like….
"There are WAY more ways then I can think of right now, and putting myself in a corner, where I lay out 5 things is LIMITING.
I´m not gonna do that anymore.
I´m going to accept the unlimitedness of it!
-It´s hard for a "Do-er", isn´t it?
It´s annoying, when you and others don´t "DO".
But those who REALLY DO, aren´t "doing".
P.S. Join "The Secret's" John Assaraf this weekend to help remove all your mental and emotional blocks to success.


Food and alcohol pairings classically happen in two scenarios - to complement one another or to draw a contrast. In both cases, the person enjoying the meal gets the best of both worlds in a sip and a bite so make sure you are blending the two in the right way.
[post_ads]Both, gourmet food and Scotch whiskey, have one thing in common - they're made with extreme care and detailing. Whiskey has been a congenial companion to food owing to the ranging variety in both flavours and age. In case of Scotch, it has a varying level of peaty smokiness to contend with, thereby making a strong, versatile ingredient to pair fresh gourmet food with.


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Copyright (c) 2001 World Wide Web Consortium,
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de
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Intellectual Property License.  This program is distributed in the
hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.

See W3C License http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ for more details.

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   Method should return a new Element object whose name is "gov:faculty".
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<contributor>Mary Brady</contributor>
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Why (Some) Men Still Have It All
Working-class men may be doomed, but the ones who run the world are doing just fine.
By Michelle Goldberg
Tagged FeminismWomen
The End Of Men: And The Rise of Women By Hanna Rosin • Riverhead Books • 2012 • 320 pages • $27.95
There is a chapter in The End of Men, Hanna Rosin's compelling, provocative, but occasionally misleading new book, about what she calls the "new wave of female violence." In it, she charts how women, in keeping with their increasing social prominence, are becoming more aggressive and even homicidal, and less likely to be victimized. It's an example, she suggests, of her book's broader subject—the way changing gender dynamics are remaking us in ways that once seemed inconceivable, upending the sexual hierarchy that's prevailed for almost all of recorded human history.
Rosin opens the chapter with the story of Larissa Schuster, who ran a successful biochemical lab while her milquetoast husband, a registered nurse whom acquaintances described as "meek," "timid," and "accommodating," took charge of their two children. At least he did until she murdered him by stuffing him in a barrel of acid, apparently because she was disgusted by his passivity but didn't want to pay him alimony in the event of a divorce.
Women like Schuster, writes Rosin, "raise the broader unsettling possibility that, with the turnover in modern gender roles, the escalation from competitiveness to aggression to violence that we are used to in men has started showing up in women as well." Later, she cites figures that appear to demonstrate that women have caught up to men as perpetrators of domestic violence. "Since the United States passed mandatory arrest laws for domestic violence in the late 1990s, arrest rates for women have skyrocketed, and in some states reached 50 percent or more of all arrests," she writes.
In a rhetorical trick that Rosin uses throughout her book, she nods at feminists who argue that these figures are misleading, but suggests they're in denial, mired in outdated assumptions about gender and power. "Our attachment to the notion of women as vulnerable runs deeper than politics, of course," she writes. "It's hard to fathom that women's circumstance could shift something so fundamental as raw, physical power." Rosin is a smart and skillful writer, and she constructs her arguments tightly enough that every time I doubted them, I wondered whether I was being blinkered by ideology.
Yet a bit of research shows that while the number of women killed by their partners fell between 1976 and 2005, killings of men by wives and girlfriends declined much more. "[T]he number of black males killed by intimates dropped by 83 percent, white males by 61 percent, black females by 52 percent, and white females by 6 percent," according to the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. It may be that women are now less likely to kill their partners because female empowerment has made it easier for them to get out of abusive relationships without resorting to homicide. Still, these numbers do not suggest that Schuster represents much of anything except a ghoulishly interesting anomaly.
Similarly, the arguments against Rosin's reading of the domestic violence statistics aren't as easily dismissed as she implies. In some cases, mandatory arrest laws lead police to detain both members of a couple when they can't figure out who is at fault in an altercation. Because of such laws, people aren't just being booked for punching, kicking, or stabbing a partner—they're also being arrested for less severe infractions like shoving or throwing things. It's still overwhelmingly women who are the victims of the most serious acts of domestic violence. According to the National Institute of Justice, a review of domestic violence research found that "more than 90 percent of 'systematic, persistent, and injurious' violence is perpetrated by men."
It's not Rosin's responsibility to drag her readers deep into the methodological weeds on every point she makes. But a book heralding the incipient end of patriarchy has significant policy implications. So-called men's rights activists, for example, have long argued that domestic-violence law is an outdated feminist boondoggle, and will likely be delighted to see Rosin helping them to make their case. More broadly, one of the biggest obstacles women face in fighting sex discrimination is the insistence that it's no longer a problem, and that, if anything, men are now the ones who are oppressed. Thus it's frustrating how frequently The End of Men, which has important, fascinating things to say about rapidly changing gender roles, elides or downplays the very real ways male power remains entrenched.
The End of Men grew out of a 2010 Atlantic article of the same name, which argued, often convincingly, that men are floundering in our post-industrial economy while many women are thriving. The book expands this premise, describing what Rosin sees as an epochal transformation in the sexual order. Her reporting, she writes, showed her that we had "reached the end of two hundred thousand years of human history and the beginning of a new era, and there was no going back. Once I opened my eyes to that possibility, I realized that the evidence was everywhere, and it was only centuries of habit and history that prevented everyone from seeing it."
This passage suggests why Rosin's writing is at once so scintillating and, at moments, so maddening. A senior editor at The Atlantic and co-founder of DoubleX, Slate's women's blog, she comes across as a liberal feminist who prides herself on her lack of dogma and openness to findings that challenge progressive assumptions. Of course, those are things to be proud of, and they're why most of what she writes is worth reading. But a love of the counterintuitive can, at times, become its own sort of orthodoxy. Sometimes the dull conventional wisdom—men are more likely to abuse their wives than vice versa—is true.
The problem with The End of Men is that it pushes its high-concept premise beyond a point that the evidence supports. That's not to say that Rosin's deeply reported stories of sex roles in flux aren't absorbing. The book ranges all over the country and beyond and is rich with beautifully rendered, idiosyncratic characters. In a chapter celebrating the liberating potential of the college hook-up culture, Rosin visits alpha-girl, Ivy League MBA students who recoil from commitment. Describing what she calls seesaw marriages—couples who trade off earning and child care responsibilities—she profiles a Pittsburgh family in which the wife, a lawyer, works 80 hours a week while her husband watches their toddler (though he refuses to do even half the housework). In a compelling final chapter, she ventures to South Korea, where the mores of what has long been a rigidly male-dominated society are being challenged by an ascendant class of professional women.
One of the book's most heartbreaking sections takes us to Alexander City, Alabama, whose economy once revolved around the Russell Corporation, an athletic wear manufacturer. After it was sold to Berkshire Hathaway and production was outsourced to Central and South America, local men who had prided themselves on providing middle-class lives for their families were left flailing. Writes Rosin, "The townspeople referred to the ex-Russell men as three types: the 'transients,' who drove as far as an hour to Montgomery for work and never made it home for dinner; the 'domestics,' who idled at the house during the day, looking for work; and the 'gophers,' who drove their wives to and from work, spending the hours in between hunting or fishing."
Since Rosin often weaves personal narrative into her writing, I hope it's not untoward if I do the same. As I was finishing The End of Men, I discovered that my first child is going to be a boy. In many ways, my reaction confirms Rosin's thesis. I immediately started worrying about the behavioral problems boys today are constantly being diagnosed with, and about the fact that boys, as Rosin documents, do worse than girls in school. That's especially frightening given the ever-escalating importance of education in avoiding chronic economic insecurity.
More abstractly, I realized that when I picture youthful dynamism, spunk, and audacity, I picture a girl. In pop culture, as Rosin points out, daring young heroines have eclipsed heroes. Harry Potter is old news. Now we have Katniss Everdeen. It doesn't surprise me that, as Rosin writes in her introduction, at some assisted-reproduction clinics that offer sex-selection through sperm sorting, there are significantly more requests for girls than for boys.
"Just before middle school, parents start to think of their boys as facing a choice of two roads: trouble or success," she writes. "The responsible ones recognize that they can't change the way the world is heading, but they can put a boy in an environment that doesn't make him feel like a failure, and give him enough tools at least to keep up." It's almost as if my son will be starting out in life with a handicap. At least, I reassured myself, he might benefit from affirmative action: As Rosin documents, many private colleges, unbound by Title IX, have started quietly giving preferential treatment to boys in order to maintain some sort of gender balance in their student bodies.
Outside the educated upper middle class, meanwhile, prospects for boys and men are even more precarious. In one of the book's most searing scenes, at a mandatory fathering class for men who have failed to pay child support, the social worker in charge voices the anguish of his reluctant students. " 'What is our role?' " Rosin quotes him asking. " 'Everyone's telling us we're supposed to be head of a nuclear family, so you feel like you got robbed. It's toxic, and poisonous, and it's setting us up for failure.' He writes on the board: $85,000. 'This is her salary.' Then: $12,000. 'This is your salary. Who's the damn man? Who's the man now?' "
Elements of The End of Men echo Charles Murray's recent book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. The two books have very different political orientations, but both describe working-class cultures upended by men's economic emasculation, and both discuss the way marriage is increasingly the preserve of meritocratic elites. Rosin's book is far more insightful than Murray's about these trends, since she understands that they're largely the result of seismic economic shifts and not, as Murray would have it, simply due to the sexual revolution and general moral decay.
But there's one way that Murray's book is inadvertently useful in understanding our current gender relations, which are more contradictory than Rosin allows. Coming Apart places a lot of emphasis on the cultural bifurcation between the upper class and the rest of the country. Even as Murray casts a cranky glance at the newfangled pleasures and pieties of contemporary elites—their environmentalism, wine connoisseurship, and NPR listening habits—he shows that their domestic relationships are models of traditionalism, with low divorce rates and comparatively few out-of-wedlock children.
This idea of divergence—of two different cultures with entirely different trend lines—is helpful to keep in mind when thinking about gender roles. Because the fact is, while working-class men are in crisis, patriarchy, like the traditional family, endures at the most elite levels of American life. Boys may have a harder time in school than girls, but that's not entirely new—women have been earning more college degrees than men since 1982. Once men make it through the educational gauntlet, however, they make more money and ascend more quickly to positions of power than their female peers, and that shows few signs of changing. It's a bit premature to declare the end of men in a country that is still almost entirely ruled by them.
Some numbers: Women make up just 3.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, 15 percent of equity partners at major law firms, and 16.8 percent of Congress. And there's no clear evidence that hordes of younger women are preparing to crash the gates of power. State politics is where most national politicians get their start, but less than a quarter of statewide elected officials are women. Anne-Marie Slaughter's endlessly discussed Atlantic article, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," pointed out how few women are in the pipeline for leadership jobs in government. "The line of high-level women appointees in the Obama Administration is one woman deep," she wrote. "Virtually all of us who have stepped down have been succeeded by men; searches for women to succeed men in similar positions come up empty. Just about every woman who could plausibly be tapped is already in government."
Meanwhile, couples like the one Rosin profiles in Pittsburgh are extremely rare, as she acknowledges. According to the U.S. census, there were 176,000 stay-at-home fathers in 2011, compared to five million stay-at-home mothers. This is unlikely to change very much as long as men earn more money than women, which they still largely do. "Controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors normally associated with pay, college-educated women still earn less than their male peers earn," says a 2007 study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. Immediately after graduation, women make 5 percent less than men with identical qualifications; within ten years, they're making 12 percent less.
Rosin, of course, acknowledges that great disparities between men and women remain, but she believes they're fated to disappear. "Mention the lack of women at the top of corporate America in certain circles and you will likely get a healthy dose of feminist rage," she writes, before implying, a few paragraphs later, that such rage is misplaced. "[M]ore important than all the data points is the outlook. You can see the current setup as evidence that the top will forever remain in a male iron grip, or you can see it for what it truly is: the last gasp of a vanishing age."
I certainly don't want to argue that gender inequality is permanent. Rosin's book, though, overstates the speed and inevitability of transformation. At one point she writes, "About a third of America's physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast as women come to dominate law and medical schools." Rising fast? According to the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), the percentage of first-year female associates at the country's biggest, most prestigious law firms actually fell very slightly in 2011, going to 47 percent from 48 percent in previous years.
Of course, 47 percent is still pretty close to parity. More dismaying is the fact that once women get in the door, they don't seem to climb the way men do. NAWL conducts an annual survey on the retention and promotion of women lawyers, and found 2011's results "sobering." "Not only do women represent a decreasing percentage of lawyers in big firms," the organization found, "they have a far greater chance of occupying positions—like staff attorneys, counsel, and fixed-income equity partners—with diminished opportunity for advancement or participating in firm leadership."
Similarly, consider the question of leadership on college campuses. In the chapter on the education gap in The End of Men, Rosin writes that men "start out in life internalizing the idea that women are more successful than they are, and that when it comes to the knowledge, drive, and discipline necessary to succeed, women are the naturals with whom men have to strain to keep up." This is clearly the case at two Kansas City schools she profiles: Metropolitan Community College and the University of Missouri at Kansas City. When she visits the latter, she notes that all four student government officials are women, and quotes the student-body president worrying about a future of dating less educated men.
But at elite schools, the picture looks quite different, even if women outnumber men among undergraduates. "At the 50 colleges ranked highest by U.S. News & World Report, less than a third of student presidents are women," The Washington Post reported last year. Men at the most prestigious graduate schools certainly don't appear to feel intimidated by their female peers. There's an ongoing debate about why men earn proportionally more academic honors than women do at Harvard Business School. A 2012 study by the student organization Yale Law Women found that while almost half of Yale's law students are female, men speak significantly more in class and receive more recommendations for Supreme Court clerkships. (According to the study, the percentage of female Supreme Court clerks actually declined between 2002 and 2012.)
The society that we are collectively creating, then, is still one that works best for a very select group of men, straining almost everyone else. Men without sufficient higher education are being rendered superfluous. Women do better than men in the service economy; as Rosin writes, of "the thirty professions projected to add the most jobs over the next decade, women dominate twenty, including nursing, accounting, home health assistance, child care, and food preparation." But only a few of those jobs offer a route into the middle class, particularly for women with children who face a dearth of marriageable men. As Rosin observes, "Many of these single mothers are struggling financially; the most successful are working and going to school and hustling to feed the children, and then falling asleep in the elevator of the community college."
At society's upper levels, meanwhile, there's a huge squandering of human resources as highly educated women find themselves in workplaces that remain structured for men without domestic responsibilities. Rosin is optimistic that this will soon be different. She points to a few innovative companies that are experimenting with flexible schedules in order to retain talented female workers. Perhaps this is the wave of the future, but until women move into leadership roles in much larger numbers, systematic change seems unlikely, and without systematic change, it's hard to see the female leadership gap narrowing all by itself.
Unfortunately, The End of Men will bolster arguments against government policies to address the forces thwarting women at work. This spring, the Paycheck Fairness Act, intended to help redress the compensation gap between men and women, failed in the Senate. During the surrounding debate, we heard, over and over, that women's lower salaries are entirely due to their personal choices, not bias in the workplace. "Pay differences stemming from factors within the control of females are a 'problem' only if you define them as one," wrote Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune. "By that logic, we need a Higher Education Fairness Act because men earn only 43 percent of all bachelor's degrees and 40 percent of master's degrees."
Missing from this argument, as from Rosin's book, is a recognition that the crisis among many American men isn't redounding to the benefit of most American women, and it certainly doesn't make sexism moot. After all, as Rosin notes, there's a precedent for working-class and middle-class women taking over breadwinner roles as men lose economic opportunities and become unreliable. "Starting in the 1970s, black men began leaving factory jobs; by 1987 only 20 percent of black men worked in manufacturing," she writes. "The men who lived in the inner cities had a hard time making the switch to service jobs or getting the education needed to move into other sectors." We all know about the resulting social upheaval, and its effects on the roles men and women play. "In poorer communities women are raising children alone while one third of the men are in jail," writes Rosin.
There's an obvious conclusion to be drawn from this history, though Rosin ignores it. What she calls the "virtual matriarchy" in many African-American neighborhoods existed inside a larger male-dominated society for decades, and did nothing to challenge elite male power. As the United States fractures, leaving the people in charge isolated and insulated from the majority of the country, there's no reason to assume we won't see a similar situation on a broader scale. We'll have men at the very bottom and the very top, and women dominating the middle class at the exact moment it's become more tenuous and insecure than ever.
Read more about FeminismWomen
Michelle Goldberg is the author, most recently, of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World.
The Un-Reluctant Fundamentalist


Get your kids hunting for those Jubilee words in this wordsearch!
The colourful (or eco friendly) version - this is not ideal for printing, but you could open it in an image editor and circle the words with a digital 'pencil' or paintbrush.
The Black and White version - click on the image or download the PDF and print!
Download the PDF (for better printing).


text:
Q: How to search a specific date from a given month and year in oracle? I have been given a month like 1 for January and a year like 2020. Now I want to search for a date within January-2020. Suppose that day is 14/01/2020, so I'm trying the following code
select date
from table X
where date between to_date(1||'/'||month||'/'||year,'dd/mm/yyyy')
               and to_date(31||'/'||month||'/'||year,'dd/mm/yyyy')

but this range is for month January what if the month is February or April which have 30 days?
If this query is not suitable then how to achieve the perfect result?

A: You can do it like below,
To find first date and last date from a given date ,
select trunc(date'2020-02-14','MM') first_day,
       last_day(date'2020-02-14') last_day
  from dual;

Edit : after comments from other users
So the final query be like,
select date
from table X
where date between trunc(date'2020-02-14','MM') and last_day(date'2020-02-14');

Note: If you store date along with time you might like into the answer provided by @MT0

A: You can transform the dates via to_char to extract the parts you want to compare.
select *
from dates
where to_char(the_date, 'mm') = '01'
and to_char(the_date, 'yyyy') = '2020'

SQL-Fiddle for it is here

A: Use TO_DATE( your_year_value || '-' || you_month_value, 'YYYY-MM' ) to convert the year-month values to a date and then to get the upper bound you can use the ADD_MONTHS function to find the start of the next month:
SELECT *
FROM   table_name
WHERE  date_time >= TO_DATE( 2020 || '-' || 1, 'YYYY-MM' )
AND    date_time <  ADD_MONTHS( TO_DATE( 2020 || '-' || 1, 'YYYY-MM' ), 1 )

(Note: If you use TRUNC or TO_CHAR on your date column then Oracle will not use an index on that column; you would instead need a separate function-based index on the exact expression you used. Instead, by calculating the range on the year/month inputs rather than transforming the date column then Oracle will use indexes on the date column.)
(Note 2: You don't want to compare on the range 2020-01-01 to 2020-01-31 as this will ignore any values from 2020-01-31T00:00:01 to 2020-01-31T23:59:59. Instead, you need to use the range from 2020-01-01 up until, but not including, 2020-02-01.)
So, for some test data:
CREATE TABLE table_name ( date_time DATE );

INSERT INTO table_name( date_time )
SELECT DATE '2020-01-14' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT DATE '2020-01-31' + INTERVAL '1' HOUR FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT DATE '2020-02-01' FROM DUAL

This outputs:

| DATE_TIME           |
| :------------------ |
| 2020-01-14T00:00:00 |
| 2020-01-31T01:00:00 |

db<>fiddle here

A: You only want to check if month and year match so don't bother about dates. Instead of checking if a value is between 2 specific dates you could just check if the month and year match.
SELECT date
  FROM table
 WHERE TO_CHAR(date,'MM-YYYY') = '01-2020'

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Can you believe how quickly this summer has flown by? Just the mere thought that we are nearing the end of August makes me so sad as I type this.
I guess time flies when you're having fun! We've been busy this summer working on a few bathroom remodels and we wanted to take you behind the scenes and give you a look at what we've been up to and the process behind the design.
The project I am sharing today is one of 3 bathrooms we're updating for this client. This post is all about the Master Bathroom. The concept for this design is European Modern. The clients love to travel throughout Europe and have a love for shiny chrome, white marble, clean lines, and a flair for minimalism.
Prior to working with them, they had already purchased a few of the fixtures including the shower tower and heated towel rack, which were great inspiration to work off of for their initial concept board (shown below).
We want to add some drama and warmth with natural wood accents and greenery for a spa-like feel. One of the 2 schemes we will be presenting to them adds a pop of soft blue and green within the tile accent in the shower.
Sorry for the poor photos and my photo-bomb- this was a tight space and hard to get an overall on my phone.
The clients have a love for white marble and really want the marble look layered throughout the whole bathroom. So, we have chosen coordinating marble tiles for the floor, the shower walls, and the counter top.
They are going to have a 48×48 glass shower enclosure with a hidden niche. Bright white cabinets with lots of storage in the added linen tower for even more storage.
As of now, these drawings are still rough as we work through the design with the clients. However, we should be presenting to them in the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for more updates and progress!


The new James Island Duke's BBQ on Folly Rd opened up while I was away at Dragon*Con so I missed being one of the first to try it out.
Duke's occupies what used to be a Captain D's, so it's not very large inside. The first thing you see walking inside is the buffet line. $10 for the all you can eat buffet (including a drink). The selection is pretty standard: hash, rice, pulled pork, fried chicken, veggies, desserts.
The BBQ is pretty good here. Not quite as good as some of the other places I've been, but pretty darn tasty. I'm sure it will only improve over time. The fried chicken was also very tasty. I can also say that out of all the BBQ places I've been to in Charleston, this place has the best mac and cheese around.
There are 3 sauces to choose from: hot and mild mustard, and vinegar. The sauces are located above the buffet, so if you forget you'll have to go back to the line. I went for the vinegar sauce this trip and thought it was pretty good. Nicely tangy without having too much of that harsh vinegary taste you sometimes get with vinegar based sauces. Goes quite well with the pulled pork. A loaf of bread is provided on each table to go along with your BBQ.
Duke's already seems to have developed a following and was pretty busy inside when I stopped by for dinner on Tuesday. There was also a steady stream of cars driving around to the take-out window. It's walking distance (a longish walk) from my house and on the way home from work, so it will probably end up being a place I go to more often than I should.