text:
Peter Hitchens: Why I stand up for Russia
How odd that scorn for Russia, and fear of that country, have become fashionable in Western countries even – sometimes especially – among conservative-minded and Christian men and women. This view is so common that people automatically assume that I share it in conversations and correspondence.
When I object, they are often puzzled, or immediately assume that I am in the pay of the Kremlin. In fact, I now refuse to appear on the Kremlin news channel RT because anyone who sees me there will assume that I am being rewarded with enormous wads of roubles, and perhaps a dacha in the birchwoods outside Moscow.
Even more weirdly, the only people who don't share this modish Russophobia tend to be unreconstructed left-wingers and trade union hardliners, who, like their conservative equivalents, simply have not grasped that today's Russia is more or less the opposite of the old USSR, whose collapse I watched in Moscow almost exactly 25 years ago.
How I wish I could take such people on guided tours of the Soviet past. Then they might at last understand the difference. I would like them to come with me, preferably by train across the murderous borders and blasted, oppressed, polluted brown-and-grey wastelands of the Warsaw Pact to the Belorussia Station in Moscow. And then I would lead them on from there to the little park where – until August 1991 – there stood one of the most disturbing, and in my view diabolical, sculptures in the world. It was of a young boy – but he was no Peter Pan.
Pavlik Morozov was an object of veneration to generations of Soviet Children. He was a communist saint and martyr, compulsorily revered because he had betrayed his own father to the secret police, and then been rather understandably killed by his grandfather.
We now know that the legend was almost wholly made up. But that does not matter. The old USSR was not just some neutral place from which Christianity had been swept by force. It was the active heart of a system of thought which was more or less the opposite of Christianity, founded on power rather than love, and violently hostile to lifelong marriage and the private fortress of the family.
Then I would have taken them to the KGB museum, in a cavernous brown marble building behind Lubyanka Square, and shown them their prize exhibit, the funeral wreath of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police. The wreath is made of bayonets. Images of this handsome monster were still on sale in Moscow department stores until 1991. But, like the Morozov idol, they have now vanished.
On the same tour I might have shown them the churches and cathedrals of the Russian capital, its skyline before 1917 a bell-haunted riot of religious architecture, but under communism the surviving churches were mostly locked, dilapidated, their bells smashed and melted, actively desecrated by aggressively secular use (one monastery was turned into a home for delinquent boys who were not discouraged from vandalising it).
I would invite them to watch the twisting bitter sneers on the face of the educated Soviet middle class whenever religion was mentioned. I would take them into my home, in an elite Communist Party Central Committee block, past the memorial plaque to Yuri Andropov, unlovely head of the KGB.
And then I would lead them to St Basil's Cathedral on Red Square on the eve of Easter 1992, to watch the ecstatic liturgy of the Orthodox Church, performed there for the first time in decades, and I could show them the Moscow of today, dozens of once-insulted churches now repainted, regilded, restored to life. How much hope, do you think, of a comparable restoration in our own greed-infested capital, where Wren's Christian London is now besieged and dwarfed by monstrosities of money-worship?
In between I might offer them the glimpses I saw, of thousands of Communist Party cards smouldering in litter bins, of the Soviet navy sunk and scuttled in the lovely creeks and inlets around the "August City", Sevastopol, one of the loveliest harbours in the world and now once again a classical expression of Christian Russia.
Oh, yes, there are bad things. Russia is not free and its hard history of incessant invasions by hungry neighbours means it probably never will be. Vladimir Putin is a sinister tyrant, very dangerous to challengers. But, unlike his Soviet forerunners, he has no interest in invading the minds of men or in making windows into their souls.
The last time I was in Moscow, I suddenly stopped dead in the street, flummoxed by the realisation that in some ways speech and thought are now more free there (where what is annoyingly known as "political correctness" does not flourish) than they are here.
If those left-wingers and trade unionists could actually see the country they still rather bizarrely admire, they'd hate it. And maybe some of its current mistaken enemies would see why I'm willing to put in a good word for it and for its increasingly Christian and endlessly long-suffering people.
Peter Hitchens is a columnist for The Mail on Sunday
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Germany's discontents
Diary: by Peter Hitchens
The riot that never ended
Peter Hitchens: What's happened to Philip Pullman?
Peter Hitchens: Britain before the revolution


When Mary Ryan was called into the Tipperary Senior Camogie panel for the first time in 2005 and made her debut in the National League, she was joining the All-Ireland champions and dreaming of many glory days at Croke Park.
Instead, the rookie was an unused sub as the Premier lost their crown to Cork in the All-Ireland Final that debut season and came off the bench the following year when the Rebels repeated the misery.
Ryan played in the Semi-Final in 2008, never thinking it would be 10 years before Tipperary would make it back to the penultimate round.
Now that they are, against a Cork side that will include Aoife Murray and Gemma O'Connor as survivors from 2005, the gifted Moneygall half-back explains that the prospect of winning games such as the Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Senior Championship Quarter-Final against Waterford was why she had persevered into a 14th season, even if initially, she had envisaged accumulating All-Irelands.
"Every sport, even the teams that are doing well, you have your ups and downs and there's going to be down days" says Ryan.
"At the end (of the Quarter-Final), everyone is with their families and friends and that's what it's about. You're delighted to get the win, delighted to be looking forward to the next day. There is a good buzz now and I know it has been a while but we need to embrace it."
"There were the glory years as it's always called and when you hear that, we want our glory days and hopefully it's heading back that way for Tipp."
Ryan was magnificent in helping repel Waterford and saw the positives in another display of grit that has already been in evidence when snatching an injury-time win against Offaly in the group stages, and salvaging a draw against Dublin that ensured they avoided Galway in the Quarter-Finals.
"A lot of the games have been close calls. But we've been able to pull through. There were times when we would have fallen away from those games, went ahead and let teams come back into it. We have that bit more fight in us, we've confidence not to drop the heads. Some of the games we're after pulling through in the last few minutes but a win is a win."
Being back at Semple Stadium, on home turf on Saturday is a huge motivation after failing to turn up against Galway at the Thurles venue in last year's Quarter-Final.
"We didn't feel like we performed against Galway. I know they were a stronger team but we were disappointed with our performance. The year before, we lost out narrowly to Wexford. So we're delighted to be going a step further. It's all progress, it's all positive."
"We'll enjoy being there but we want to knuckle down and put in a good performance. We were in The Stadium last year and we didn't perform. It's back in The Stadium this year and we want to get the performance."


Heading west from Lismore, cross over the Wilson River and turn right at the first roundabout onto Bridge Street and then left into Terania Street. Take the first turn right after the railway bridge into Tweed Street and continue along Dunoon Road. Dunoon is a 20minute drive from Lismore and known as the Macadamia Capital of Australia.
As you approach Dunoon, lookout for and visit the processing plant of Macadamias International Australia. Although factory tours are not available to the general public, there are a wide variety of macadamia products available for sale in the reception area of the factory. Macadamias can also be purchased at the Dunoon General Store and from roadside stalls. Mayfield's Restaurant located in the Sport & Recreation Club is perfect for lunch or dinner and the Dunoon Emporium on James Street has a unique range of locally handcrafted arts, crafts and food products.
Travel through Dunoon Village and take the left Rocky Creek Dam turnoff. Rocky Creek Dam is a favourite picnic spot, has spectacular views and three walking tracks to explore the lush environment. There are barbecue facilities, a children's playground and you may even be lucky to view a platypus from the elevated boardwalk.
Retrace your steps along Rocky Creek Dam Road and turn left into Dorroughby-Repentance Creek Road. Continue through Dorroughby and turn left into Nightcap Ranges Road until you arrive at Nightcap National Park, one of the lushest and best-preserved expanses of subtropical rainforests in NSW. There are 5000 hectares and are World Heritage listed. The sheer cliffs, lush green gullies and spectacular waterfalls are relics of the area's volcanic past and well worth exploring.
Rummery Park is an idyllic spot for camping or a picnic and the regrowth forest around the Park is home to a colony of Koalas. You can take a short walk up Boggy Creek, to Minyon Falls which plunge 100 metres into the deep palm shaded gorge below. On clear days there are views to the ocean from the waterfall's edge. The viewing platform is wheelchair accessible. The Minyon Loop Walk will take you through changing vegetation to the base of the falls past a large Brushbox stand and along the escarpment edge. But just remember this walk has a steep climb out.
Return to Lismore via Rosebank, which is dotted with macadamia and coffee plantations and home to Rosebank Gold, the very first coffee plantation in the region.


text:
Језичка породица је група језика који потичу од заједничког претка званог прајезик те језичке породице. Већина светских језика се уврштава у језичке породице. Они који не припадају ниједној породици (или они чија сродност није поуздано утврђена) називају се изоловани језици. Концепт језичких породица се заснива на претпоставци да се језици током времена деле на дијалекте, од којих настају нови језици. За разлику од биолошких врста, код језика се често догађа мешање несродних језика чији говорници долазе у контакт. У случају креолских језика, и других мешаних језика, језик наслеђује особине из више језика. Неки језици глувих и слепих су се развили изоловано и немају рођаке. Ипак, овакви случајеви су изузеци.

Према референтној публикацији -{Ethnologue}- постоји 7.111 говорних људских језика који су распоређени у 141 језичку породицу. "Живући језици" су једноставно они који се користе као примарна форма комуникације међу људима. Исто тако постоји мноштво мртвих и изумрлих језика, као и они који још увек нису довољно изучени да бу се могли класификовати, или који су непознати изван њихове респективне говорне заједнице.

Структура

Потподела
Језичке породице се деле у мање језичко-рођачке гране. Језичке породице се често представљају графички у облику стабла и грана, па отуда потиче овај назив. Могуће је гране посматрати и као нове језичке породице. Рецимо, група словенских језика може да се посматра као посебна језичка породица, или као грана индо-европских језика.

Прајезици

Заједнички предак језичке породице је ретко унапред познат због кратке историје писмености. Многе карактеристике прајезика је могуће реконструисати коришћењем компаративне методе. Њу је у 19. веку предложио лингвист Аугуст Шлајхер. Овом методом је могуће демонстрирати сродност језика припадника неке језичке породице. Најпознатији пример прајезика је праиндоевропски језик, који је предак језика којима се данас служи већина човечанства.

Некада се прајезик може утврдити директно. На пример, дијалекти старог нордијског језика су прајезик данашњег норвешког, шведског, данског, фарског и исландског језика.

Индоевропски језици
(449)

Албански
(4), Албанија,: гегијски, тоскијски, арберешки, арванитика

Јерменски
(1), Јерменија: јерменски

Балтички
(3), Лeтонија, Естонија, Литванија, Пољска: латвијски, литвански, пруски (†).

Келтски
(7), Велика Британија, Ирска, Француска.
а. бритонски (3) бретонски, корнволски или корнијски, велшки,
б. гоиделички (4): ирски или гаеилге, мански (Гаелг, Гаилцк), гаоидхеалг (средњоирски), гаидхлиг (шкотски гелски),

Германски
(53):

Источни
(1): готски (†).

северни
(7; пре 11, неки су изгубили статус):
дански, феројски, исландски, јутски, норн (†; острва Шетланд и Оркни), норвешки бокмал, норвешки нyнорск, шведски.
Макројезици: норвешки;
Изгубили статус: Далска или Далмаал, јамтска или јамска, сконски,

западни
(41):
енглески, фризијски (западни и северни), нисконемачки језици (15 језика. Доњофраначки језици: африкаанс, фламански, источни фризијски, холандски, зеландски или зиувс и 10 доњосаксонских језика: ачтерхоекс, дрентс, гронингс, доњосаксонски, плаутдиетсч, салландс, стелингверфс, твентс, велувс, вестфалски), сатерландски (сатерфризијски), шкотски, високонемачки (18 немачких језика и 2 јеврејска источни и западни јидиш. Немачки су: алеман цолонеиро, алемански или швајцарски немачки, баварски, цимбријски, доњошлески, франачки (†), Мајнскофраначки, горњосаксонски, хутеритски, луксембуршки, мочено, немачки стандардни, пенсилванијски, фалачки језик или пфалзисче, лимбуршки, келнски или рипуаријски франачки, швапски, валсерски).
Изгубили статус: јинглиш (америдиш);
новопризнати језици: виламовски, хунсрик

Хеленски (грчки)
(6): кападоцијски грчки, грчки, јудеогрчки, тсаконски, старогрчки (†), понтски

Индоирански
(308):

Индоаријски
(219):
а. централна група: домаки,
б централна зона (76), Индија, Пакистан:
б1. Билски (19) Индија: барели (3 језика: паури, ратви, палyа), бауриа, билали, били, чодри, додиа, дубли, дунгра бил, гамит, гарасиа (2 језика: адиваси, рајпут), мавчи, нахали, ноири, пардхи, ратави, вагди.
б2. Дом (1) Иран: домари.
б3. Гуџарати (9) Пакистан, Индија: аер, гуџарати, јандавра, коли (3 језика: качи, паркари, вадиyара), саураштра, вагхри, васави.
б4. Кхандеси (3) Индија: ахирани, данки, кандеси.
б5. Панџаби (1): источни панџапски.
б6. Раџастани (18): багри, датки, дундари, гоариа, годвари, гујари, гургула, хараути, ламбади, лоарки, гаде лохар, малви, марвари (2 језика, Индија и Пакистан), мервари, мевари, нимади, шекавати.
б7. Ромски (7): (7 ромских језика: балкански, балтички, финтика рома, карпатски, синте или синти, велшки, влашки).
б8. Западни хинди (12) Индија, Пакистан: баyа, брај баша, бундели, чамари, гера, говли, харyанви, хинди, кабутра, канауји, санси, урду.
б9. Повари (Индија: повари.
б10. некласифицирани (5): мевати, парyа, сонха, тхару (два језика: дангаура катхориyа)
ц. источна-централна зона(5): авади, багхели, чхаттисгархи, данвар, фиџијски хиндустани.
д. источна зона (45):
д1. Бенгали-Ассамски (19): асамски, бенгалски, бишнуприyа, чакма, читтагониан, хајонг, халби, кајорт, карија тар, курмукар, мал пахарија, мирган, нахари, рајбанши, сyлхети, тангчангyа.
д2. бихарски (12): ангика, бојпури, карипски хиндустани, кудмали, магахи, мајтили, мајхи, мусаса, панчпарганиа, садри (2 језика, садри и ораон), сурајпури.
д3. орија (8): батри, буњија, бодо парја, купиа, орија (3 језика: десија, адиваси, орија), рели.
д4. Некласификовани (6) Непал, Индија: боте-мајхи, букса, дегару, тару (3 језика: читванија, кочила, рана).
е. Северна зона (22) Индија, Непал, Пакистан:
е1. Централни Пахари (1) Индија: кумауни.
е2. Источни Пахари (2) Непал: непалски, палпа
е3. Гархвали (1), Индија: гарвали.
е4. Западни пахари (17): бадравахи, батијали, биласпури, чамбеали, чурахи, догри, гади, хиндури, јаунсари, кангри, харијан боли (харијан кинаури), мандеали, пахарски (3 језика: махасу, кулу, пахари-потвари), пангвали, сирмаури.
ф. Северозападна зона (38):
ф1. Дардски (27) Пакистан, Авганистан: Читрал (2) ковар, калаша; Кашмири (1): кашмирски; Кохистани (9): батери, чилисо, говро, калами, калкоти, кохистани, тирахи, торвали, вотапури-катаркалај; Кунар (8): дамели, гавар-бати, грангали, пашаји (4 језика: североисточни, северозападни, југоисточни, југозападни), шумашти; Шина (7): брокскат, пхалура, сави, шина (2 језика кохистани, шина, ушојо.
ф2. Лахнда (7) Пакистан, Индија, Авганистан, Украјина: хиндко (северни и јужни), јакати, кетрани, пањаби (2 језика: мирпур и западни), сераики.
ф3. Синди (5) Пакистан, Индија: јадгали, качи, ласи, синди, синди бил.
г Нуристани (6) Авганистан: ашкун, камвири, кати, прасуни, трегами, вајгали.
х. Санскрит, Индија: санскрит
и. Синхалесе-Малдивски (3) Шри Ланка: малдивски, синхала, веддах.
ј. јужна зона (12) Индија: Конкани (7): каткари, конкани, гоански конкани, кукна, пхудаги, самведи, варли; маратхи; некласификовани: балаy, децан, говлан, вархади-нагпури.
к. некласификовани (12), Индија, Непал, Пакистан, Бангладеш: андх, чинали, дарај, данвар, гарас (лахул лохар), кањари, кумхали, мемони, мина, од, пали, усуи, вагри боли.

Ирански
(87):
а. Источни (13), Иран, Пакистан, Авганистан, Кина, Грузија, Таџикистан:
а1. североисточни (2): осетски, yагноби,
а2. југоисточни (11):
а. Памирски (7): муњи, санглечи-ишкашими, сариколи, шугхни, ваки, јазгулјам, јидгха.
б. Паштунски (4): пашто (3 језика, северни средишњи и јужни), ванеци.
б. Некласификовани (1) Афганстан: тангшеви.
в. Западни (72) Авганистан, Иран, Ирак, Пакистан, Турска, Израел:
ц1. северозападни (54): алвири-видари, аштиани, бајелани, балуџијски (јужни, западни и источни), башкардски (башкарди), дезфулски, димли, ештехардски (ештехарди), гази, гилаки, горњи тароми, гозаркхани, гурани, харзани, кабатеи, кајали, карингани, кхалај, кхоини, кхунсари, кирмањки, кореше ростам, корошки (короши), курдски (средишњи, северни и јужни), лаки, ласгерди, марагхеи, мазандерански, натанзи, најини, ормури, парачи, парси, парси-дари, разајерди, рудбари, сангисари, сарли, семнани, шабак, сиванди, северозападни фарс, сои, соркеи, шахмирзадски (шахмирзади), шахрудски (шахруди), такестански, талишки, вафски, зороастријски дари.
ц2. југозападни (18): ајмак, бактиари, бухарски, дарвази, дехвари, џиди, хазараги, јудеотатски, југозападни фарс, кумзари, лари, лури (северни и јужни), пахлавански, персијски (макројезик: западни и источни), таџички, татски (тат).
г. авеста (пазенд),

Некласификовани
2(2) Пакистан и Оман: бадеши, лувати.

Макројезици: курдски, персијски, зазаки,

Италички
(48):

Латинско-фалискички
(1): латински (†).

Романски језици
(47): арагонски, аромунски, астурски, далматски, емилијано-ромањоло, естремадурски, фала, француски, франкопровансалски, фурлански, галицијски, галурски, гаскоњски, истриотски, истрорумунски, јудеофранцуски, јудеошпански (ладино), јудеоталијански, кајунски, кампидански, каталонски, корзички, ладински, лангедошки, лугирски, лимузински, логудорски, ломбардски, лорето-уцаyали шпански, мегленски, мирандски, мозарапски наполитанско-калабријски, оверњански, пијемонтски, пикардијски, португалски, провансалски, романш, румунски, сасарски, шуадит (јудеопровансалски), сицилијански, шпански (кастиљски), италијански, валонски, венецијански.

Славенски
(19):
а. источни (4): белоруски, русински, руски, украјински.

б. западни (8): чешки, доњолужичкосрпски, јудеочешки (Кнанштина), кашупски, горњолужичкосрпски, полапски, пољски, словачки.

в. јужни (6): бугарски, хрватски, македонски, староцрквенославенски, српски и словенски.

Види још
 Угрожени језици
 Изумрли језици
 Списак језичких породица

Референце

Литература

 Boas, Franz. (1922). Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 2). Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Washington, D.C.: Government Print Office (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
 Boas, Franz. (1933). Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 3). Native American legal materials collection, title 1227. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin.
 Campbell, Lyle. . American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. .
 Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.). (1979). The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press.
 Goddard, Ives (Ed.). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. .
 Goddard, Ives. Native languages and language families of North America (rev. and enlarged ed. with additions and corrections). [Map]. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press (Smithsonian Institution). (Updated version of the map in Goddard 1996). .
 Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). . Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). . (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
 Greenberg, Joseph H. (1966). The Languages of Africa (2nd ed.). Bloomington: Indiana University.
 Harrison, K. David. (2007) When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. New York and London: Oxford University Press.
 Mithun, Marianne. . The languages of Native North America.  (hbk). .
 Ross, Malcolm. (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages ". In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples (PDF)
 Ruhlen, Merritt. (1987). A guide to the world's languages. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
 Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978–present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1–20). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1–3, 16, 18–20 not yet published).
 Voegelin, C. F. & Voegelin, F. M. (1977). Classification and index of the world's languages. New York: Elsevier.

Спољашње везе

 Етнолошки извештај о језицима
 Пројекат језичког стабла
 -{Linguistic maps (from Muturzikin)}-
 -{The Multitree Project}-
 -{Lenguas del mundo (World Languages)}-
 -{Comparative Swadesh list tables of various language families (from Wiktionary)}-
 -{Most similar languages}-

Лингвистика

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
Alcohol consumption habits among U.S. Hispanics in 2017, by gender
Percentage of U.S. Hispanics that were alcohol consumers in 2017, by gender
by John Elflein, last edited Feb 18, 2019
This statistic shows the percentage of Hispanic adults in the U.S. who were current consumers of alcohol as of 2017, by gender. According to the data, 32 percent of males and 26 percent of females were light consumers of alcohol.
Light 32% 26% 29%
Moderate 19% 5% 12%
Heavy 4% 2% 3%
Binge 31% 15% 23%
Any consumption 66% 50% 58%
U.S. sedentary lifestyle among adults by ethnicity 2018
Rate of skin cancer cases in the U.S. in 2015, by ethnicity
Death rate by ethnic group and sex in the U.S. 2017
Adults with severe headache or migraine 2016, by ethnicity
Statistics on "Racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. "
Diseases and disabilities
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who had been diagnosed with selected medical conditions as of 2017, by ethnicityMedical conditions U.S. adults had been diagnosed with as of 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who were prone to select symptoms as of 2017, by ethnicityU.S. adults prone to certain symptoms 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who suffered at least sometimes from select health symptoms as of February 2017, by ethnicityCommon health symptoms found among U.S. adults as of 2017, by ethnicity
Frequency adults in the U.S. caught a cold within the last year as of 2017, by ethnicityFrequency U.S. adults caught colds within the last year 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. with severe headache or migraine in 1997 and 2016, by ethnicityAdults with severe headache or migraine 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of persons with current asthma in the United States from 2001 to 2017, by ethnicityPercentage of current asthma in the United States 2001-2017 by ethnicity
Prevalence of cardiovascular diseases among U.S. adults in 2013-2016, by ethnicity and genderPrevalence of cardiovascular disease in U.S. adults 2013-2016 ethnicity and gender
New cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 population in the U.S. in 2018, by ethnicityNew cases of tuberculosis in the U.S. 2018, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who had chronic kidney disease from 2001 to 2016, by ethnicityPrevalence of chronic kidney disease in the U.S. 2001-2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis in the U.S. in 2015-2016, by ethnicityIncidence of inflammatory bowel disease in the U.S. in 2015-2016, by ethnicity
Prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among children aged 3 to 17 years in the U.S. from 2014 to 2016, by ethnicityPrevalence of autism spectrum disorder in children U.S. 2014-2016, by ethnicity
Prevalence of children aged 3-17 that have ever been diagnosed with an intellectual disability from 2014 to 2016, by ethnicityPrevalence of children with an intellectual disability 2014-2016, by ethnicity
Prevalence of children aged 3-17 that have ever been diagnosed with a developmental disability from 2014 to 2016, by ethnicity*Prevalence of children with a developmental disability 2014-2016, by ethnicity
Incidence rate of cancer in the U.S. for the period 2011-2015, by ethnic group and gender (per 100,000 population)Cancer: incidence rate in the U.S. by ethnic group and gender 2011-2015
Incidence rates of skin cancer in the U.S. in 2015, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)Rate of skin cancer cases in the U.S. in 2015, by ethnicity
Incidence rate of prostate cancer in the U.S. from 2011 to 2015, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)Rate of prostate cancer among U.S. males 2011-2015, by ethnicity
Colorectal cancer incidence rates among U.S. residents from 2011 to 2015, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population) Incidence rates of colorectal cancer among U.S. residents 2011-2015, by ethnicity
Five-year relative cancer survival rates in the U.S. in periods between 1975 and 2014, by ethnic group Cancer: 5-year survival rates in the U.S. by ethnic group 1975-2014
Cancer death rates in the U.S. for the period 2012-2016, by ethnic group and gender (per 100,000 population)U.S. mortality rates from cancer by ethnic group and gender 2012-2016
Mortality rate of uterine cervix cancer among U.S. women from 2012 to 2016, by ethnicityMortality rate of uterine cervix cancer in the U.S. 2012-2016, by ethnicity
Distribution of AIDS diagnoses among males in the U.S. in 2017, by ethnicity*Distribution of AIDS diagnoses among males in the U.S. by ethnicity 2017
Distribution of AIDS diagnoses among females in the U.S. in 2017, by ethnicity*Distribution of AIDS diagnoses among females in the U.S. by ethnicity 2017
Rates of reported cases of gonorrhea in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity and gender (per 100,000 population)Rate of gonorrhea cases in the United States by ethnicity and gender 2017
Rates of reported cases of syphilis in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity and gender*Cases of syphilis in the United States by by ethnicity and gender 2017
Rates of reported cases of chlamydia in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity and genderChlamydia rates in the United States 2017 by ethnicity and gender
Prevalence of herpes simplex virus type 2 in the U.S. from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicityShare of U.S. Americans with herpes simplex virus type 2 U.S. 1999-2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of students who used condoms during the last sexual intercourse in 2017, by gender and ethnicity*U.S. high school students who used condoms by gender and ethnicity 2017
Percentage of sexually active high school students in the U.S. who did not use a contraceptive method at last sexual intercourse from 2013 to 2017, by ethnicity*U.S. high school students who didn't use contraception 2013-2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the United States with poor mental health as of 2017, by ethnicity*Percentage of adults with poor mental health in the U.S. by ethnicity 2017
Percentage of women in the U.S. who reported poor mental health status in the past month in 2015-2017, by ethnicity*U.S. females who reported their mental health was poor 2015-2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. with depression from 2013 to 2016, by ethnicityShare of adults with depression in the U.S. 2013-2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of persons with serious psychological distress in the past month in the U.S. in 2015-2016, by ethnicity*Persons with serious psychological distress in the U.S. by ethnicity 2015-2016
Percentage of adults in the U.S. by frequency of stress as of February 2017, by ethnicityFrequency that U.S. adults felt stressed as of 2017, by ethnicity
Distribution of U.S. suicide cases with previously known mental health conditions as of 2015, by ethnicityMental health status of U.S. suicide cases in 2015, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. population without health care visits in the past 12 months in 2000 and 2016, by ethnicityU.S. population without health care visits 2000-2016, by ethnicity
Number of times adults in the U.S. went to the doctor for acute treatments in the past year as of 2017, by ethnicityFrequency of visits to the doctors for acute treatment U.S. adults 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. adults with outpatient hospital treatments within the preceding 5 years as of 2017, by ethnicityAdults with outpatient hospital treatments in preceding 5 years 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of men in the U.S. who reported having no personal doctor or health care provider in 2015-2017, by ethnicityU.S. males who reported having no personal doctor 2015-2017 by ethnicity
Percentage of persons with a dental visit in the past year in the U.S. in 1997 and 2016, by ethnicityPersons with a dental visit in the past year 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage and rate of children without health insurance in the U.S. in 2017, by ethnicityUninsured U.S. children percentage and rate by ethnicity 2017
Number of non-elderly people without health insurance in the U.S. in 2017 by ethnicity (in millions)Uninsured non-elderly people in the U.S. by ethnicity 2017
Percentage of U.S. adults that had ever received treatment for a mental health condition as of 2018, by ethnicityAdults that have been treated for mental health in the U.S. as of 2018, by ethnicity
Death rate in the United States in 2017, by ethnic group and sex (per 100,000 of population)Death rate by ethnic group and sex in the U.S. 2017
Asthma death rate among U.S. residents from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity (per one million population)U.S. asthma death rate from 1999-2016, by ethnicity
HIV death rate in the U.S. in 2016, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)Death rate from HIV in the U.S. in 2016, by ethnicity
Rate of hepatitis C-related deaths in the U.S. in 2016, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)Rate of hepatitis C-related deaths in the U.S. in 2016, by ethnicity
Male deaths by firearm-related injuries per 100,000 resident population in the U.S. from 1970 to 2016, by ethnicity*Male deaths by firearm-related injuries 1970-2016, by ethnicity
Rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2016, by drug type and ethnicity (per 100,000 population)U.S. drug overdose death rate in 2016, by drug type and ethnicity
Heroin overdose death rate in the U.S. in 2016 and 2017, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)Death rate from heroin overdose U.S. 2016 and 2017, by ethnicity
U.S. death rate from prescription opioid overdose in 2015 and 2016, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)Death rate due to prescription opioid overdose U.S. 2015-2016, by ethnicity
Current, binge, and heavy alcohol use in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity*Alcohol use among U.S. persons aged 12 or older by ethnicity 2017
Prevalence of smoking among U.S. adults as of 2018, by ethnicity*U.S. smoking prevalence among adults by ethnicity 2018
Prevalence of physical inactivity among adults in the U.S. as of 2018, by ethnicity*U.S. sedentary lifestyle among adults by ethnicity 2018
Average body mass index (BMI) of U.S. men aged 20 years and over from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicityAverage adult male BMI in the U.S. from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity
Average body mass index (BMI) of U.S. women aged 20 years and over from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicityAverage adult female BMI in the U.S. from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. high school students who were overweight in 2016-2017, by gender and ethnicity*Overweight high school students in the U.S. in 2016-2017, by gender and ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. high school students who were obese in 2016-2017, by gender and ethnicityObese high school students in the U.S. in 2016-2017, by gender and ethnicity
Smoking habits among U.S. Hispanics in 2017, by origin and gender
U.S. Hispanic youth who were overweight or obese from 2015 to 2016, by gender
U.S. Hispanic adults who were overweight or obese from 2015 to 2016, by gender
Adults worldwide who did not visit a doctor last year as of 2017, by smoking status
Percentage of total deaths worldwide from alcohol in 2016, by disease
Alcohol consumption death rate worldwide in 2010 and 2016, by cause
Distribution of alcohol-attributable deaths worldwide in 2016, by cause
Share of all deaths worldwide due to alcohol consumption 2010 and 2016, by cause
Distribution of alcohol-attributable deaths globally in 2016, by cause and gender
U.S. adult tobacco product use in 2017, by psychological distress
Number of alcohol-attributable deaths worldwide in 2016, by cause and gender
Number of alcohol consumption-based deaths worldwide in 2010 and 2016, by cause
U.S. women that reported having counseling for health behaviors from 2004-2017
U.S. adult tobacco product use in 2017, by region
U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan number of alcoholic drinks consumed as of 2018
Prevalence of alcohol use disorders worldwide in 2016, by country income group
Number of alcohol-attributable deaths worldwide in 2016, by cause
U.S. women that reported having counseling for health behaviors in 2017, by ethnicity
U.S. adult tobacco product use in 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of total deaths worldwide from alcohol in 2016, by disease and gender
Rural and urban health in the U.S.
Obesity and Overweight
Drug use in the U.S.
Liver Cirrhosis Mortality in the United States: National, State, and Regional Trends, 2000...
State of health in Ireland
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who had been diagnosed with selected medical conditions as of 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who were prone to select symptoms as of 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who suffered at least sometimes from select health symptoms as of February 2017, by ethnicity
Frequency adults in the U.S. caught a cold within the last year as of 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. with severe headache or migraine in 1997 and 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of persons with current asthma in the United States from 2001 to 2017, by ethnicity
Prevalence of cardiovascular diseases among U.S. adults in 2013-2016, by ethnicity and gender
New cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 population in the U.S. in 2018, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults in the U.S. who had chronic kidney disease from 2001 to 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis in the U.S. in 2015-2016, by ethnicity
Prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among children aged 3 to 17 years in the U.S. from 2014 to 2016, by ethnicity
Prevalence of children aged 3-17 that have ever been diagnosed with an intellectual disability from 2014 to 2016, by ethnicity
Prevalence of children aged 3-17 that have ever been diagnosed with a developmental disability from 2014 to 2016, by ethnicity*
Incidence rate of cancer in the U.S. for the period 2011-2015, by ethnic group and gender (per 100,000 population)
Incidence rates of skin cancer in the U.S. in 2015, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
Incidence rate of prostate cancer in the U.S. from 2011 to 2015, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
Colorectal cancer incidence rates among U.S. residents from 2011 to 2015, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
Five-year relative cancer survival rates in the U.S. in periods between 1975 and 2014, by ethnic group
Cancer death rates in the U.S. for the period 2012-2016, by ethnic group and gender (per 100,000 population)
Mortality rate of uterine cervix cancer among U.S. women from 2012 to 2016, by ethnicity
Distribution of AIDS diagnoses among males in the U.S. in 2017, by ethnicity*
Distribution of AIDS diagnoses among females in the U.S. in 2017, by ethnicity*
Rates of reported cases of gonorrhea in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity and gender (per 100,000 population)
Rates of reported cases of syphilis in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity and gender*
Rates of reported cases of chlamydia in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity and gender
Prevalence of herpes simplex virus type 2 in the U.S. from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of students who used condoms during the last sexual intercourse in 2017, by gender and ethnicity*
Percentage of sexually active high school students in the U.S. who did not use a contraceptive method at last sexual intercourse from 2013 to 2017, by ethnicity*
Percentage of adults in the United States with poor mental health as of 2017, by ethnicity*
Percentage of women in the U.S. who reported poor mental health status in the past month in 2015-2017, by ethnicity*
Percentage of adults in the U.S. with depression from 2013 to 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of persons with serious psychological distress in the past month in the U.S. in 2015-2016, by ethnicity*
Percentage of adults in the U.S. by frequency of stress as of February 2017, by ethnicity
Distribution of U.S. suicide cases with previously known mental health conditions as of 2015, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. population without health care visits in the past 12 months in 2000 and 2016, by ethnicity
Number of times adults in the U.S. went to the doctor for acute treatments in the past year as of 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. adults with outpatient hospital treatments within the preceding 5 years as of 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of men in the U.S. who reported having no personal doctor or health care provider in 2015-2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of persons with a dental visit in the past year in the U.S. in 1997 and 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage and rate of children without health insurance in the U.S. in 2017, by ethnicity
Number of non-elderly people without health insurance in the U.S. in 2017 by ethnicity (in millions)
Percentage of U.S. adults that had ever received treatment for a mental health condition as of 2018, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. Americans who received treatment for alcohol use in 2017, by ethnicity
Death rate in the United States in 2017, by ethnic group and sex (per 100,000 of population)
Asthma death rate among U.S. residents from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity (per one million population)
HIV death rate in the U.S. in 2016, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
Rate of hepatitis C-related deaths in the U.S. in 2016, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
Male deaths by firearm-related injuries per 100,000 resident population in the U.S. from 1970 to 2016, by ethnicity*
Rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2016, by drug type and ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
Heroin overdose death rate in the U.S. in 2016 and 2017, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
U.S. death rate from prescription opioid overdose in 2015 and 2016, by ethnicity (per 100,000 population)
Current, binge, and heavy alcohol use in the United States in 2017, by ethnicity*
Prevalence of smoking among U.S. adults as of 2018, by ethnicity*
Prevalence of physical inactivity among adults in the U.S. as of 2018, by ethnicity*
Average body mass index (BMI) of U.S. men aged 20 years and over from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity
Average body mass index (BMI) of U.S. women aged 20 years and over from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. high school students who were overweight in 2016-2017, by gender and ethnicity*
Percentage of U.S. high school students who were obese in 2016-2017, by gender and ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. Hispanics who were smokers in 2017, by origin and gender
Percentage of U.S. Hispanic youth aged 12 to 19 years who were overweight or obese in 2015 to 2016, by gender
Percentage of U.S. Hispanics aged 20 years and older who were overweight or obese in 2015 to 2016, by gender
Percentage of adults in select countries worldwide who had not visited a doctor or health care provider in the past 12 months as of 2017, by smoking status
Percentage of total deaths worldwide attributable to alcohol in 2016, by disease
Rate of death attributable to alcohol use worldwide in 2010 and 2016, by cause
Percentage of all deaths due to alcohol consumption worldwide in 2010 and 2016, by cause
Distribution of alcohol-attributable deaths worldwide in 2016, by cause and gender
Percentage of U.S. adults that used various forms of tobacco products in 2017, by psychological distress
Number of alcohol-attributable deaths worldwide in 2016, by cause and gender (in thousands)
Number of deaths attributable to alcohol consumption worldwide in 2010 and 2016, by cause (in thousands)
Percentage of U.S. women that reported having counseling for select health behaviors within the past 3 years from 2004 to 2017
Percentage of U.S. adults that used various forms of tobacco products in 2017, by region
Percentage of U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who consumed a select number of drinks during one day of alcohol consumption as of 2018
Percentage of people with alcohol use disorders worldwide in 2016, by country income group
Number of alcohol-attributable deaths worldwide in 2016, by cause (in thousands)
Percentage of U.S. women that reported having counseling for select health behaviors within the past 3 years as of 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of U.S. adults that used various forms of tobacco products in 2017, by ethnicity
Percentage of total deaths worldwide attributable to alcohol in 2016, by disease and gender

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Yeongsan II
Yeongsan Too Good In Munhwa Ilbo
Yeongsan made it five wins from five Korean starts, claiming the Munhwa Ilbo Cup in emphatic fashion at Seoul Racecourse on Sunday.
The gelding, who was sold to Malaysia as a 2-year-old, only to be re-imported at the end of last year, was sent off as the long odds-on favourite for the 7 furlong race.
Under champion jockey Moon Se Young for the first time, Yeongsan was taken to the lead early on and, with minimal promoting from his jockey, accelerated away from the field in the home straight to record one of the easiest Stakes race victories seen at Seoul for a long time. At least since Magic Dancer last month. Or Queen's Blade the month before.
In the entirely separate race for second place, Sun Gear got the better of Clean Up Speed, a full 12-lengths behind the winner.
Yeongsan is yet to be tested in Korea. He didn't especially impress on the turf in Malaysia where he scored one 2nd place from two total starts, but has taken to the Seoul sand exceptionally well and is, at least until this year's 2-year-old crop start proving their worth, currently the most exciting horse on the peninsula.
Yeongsan II [Menifee – Foxxy Cleo (Peintre Celebre)] (he has to officially be named "II" due to a previous "Yeongsan"), has now won 5 races at distances between 1200 metres and 1700 metres all by wide margins and without facing any challenge. Still officially at class 2, at least for one more race, it may still be a while before we see what he is capable of.
It's wise not to be carried away as we've been here before with the likes of Feel So Good and Fly Top Queen. While the latter has turn out to be a very good horse, she hasn't been quite the international class race she looked early on.
Where Yeongsan goes next is the big question. In an ideal world, he would be taking on the visitors from Japan and Singapore in the SBS Asia Challenge Cup at the end of August over the same distance.
Munhwa Ilbo Stakes – Seoul Racecourse – 1400M – July 13, 2014
2. Sun Gear (KOR) [Vicar – Arabian Jewel (Fraar)] – Lee Chan Ho – 1.8
3. Clean Up Speed (KOR) [Pico Central – Rich Emotions (Rizzi)] – Ikuyasu Kurakane – 2.8
Distances: 12 lengths/0.75 lengths – 13 ran
Posted in Racing Reviews and tagged Munhwa Ilbo Cup, Yeongsan, Yeongsan II on July 13, 2014 by gyongmaman. Leave a comment
Yeongsan II, Fly Top Queen Win Big At Seoul
Two of Seoul's most talked about horses both scored dismissively easy victories as they tuned up for bigger things to come at Seoul Racecourse on Saturday.
Yeongsan II prowls the Seoul paddock
Yeongsan II [Menifee – Foxxy Cleo (Peintre Celebre)] was sold to Malaysia as a 2-year-old but was brought back home last year. Now 4-years-old, he was making his 4th Korean start on Saturday, having won all his previous ones.
Sent off at odds of 1/9, he cruised around the track without breaking into a serious gallop, to crush a sub-par field by 10 lengths. Known as "Yeongsan II" because an Australian import in the late 1990's was also called "Yeongsan", he's now just a couple of races away from class 1.
Fly Top Queen meanwhile landed her first class 1 victory with a similarly easy win in race 11. Billed as an "Asia Challenge Cup Qualifier" the race was intended as preparation for the International Sprint Invitational race at Seoul at the end of August. Fly Top Queen will most likely be among those representing in Korea in the race which will feature runners from Japan and possibly Singapore.
Korea's most expensive ever racehorse, Fly Top Queen [Henny Hughes – Cape Discovery (Cape Town)] moves on to 6 wins from 8 domestic starts.
Posted in News, Racing Reviews and tagged Fly Top Queen, Yeongsan II on June 15, 2014 by gyongmaman. 1 Comment


text:
def slurp(filename):
    with open(filename) as f:
        return f.read()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Spacing carrots is a vital part of routine maintenance. You'll use best practices for spacing during planting and later when you thin plants to give the strongest plants their best shot at maximum growth.
Spacing varies with the stage of life. As seedlings, carrots can tolerate nearby seedlings within a ½-inch space. Later during their growth, competition from nearby carrots can compromise carrot quality. You should aim for two to three inches of space. Generally, the smaller the carrot and its above-ground foliage, the less space you'll need.
Carrots have different needs for spacing, depending upon the stage of growth. When planting carrots, you should place seeds about ½ inch into the ground with a similar distance apart. This spacing allows you to grow more than you need to compensate for seeds that don't germinate and those that you will later thin.
Photo by WikimediaImages licensed under CC0.
Spacing will also vary with the variety. Carrots with a larger diameter like Shin-Kuroda Carrots will need more room with their 3-inch girth than the pencil-thin Mukum Carrots. But it's not just the size of the carrot itself that warrants this spacing.
You will also need to account for carrot spacing between rows. While you'll plant seeds close together, you should place rows between one and two feet apart, again, depending upon the variety. Carrots with larger, robust foliage need more room than smaller varieties with more compact bunches.
Larger carrots, naturally, have larger bunches of above-ground foliage. The extra space is needed to allow for air circulation around the plants. It also ensures that sunlight can adequately reach the leaves where photosynthesis occurs. With carrots, it's important to keep the big picture in mind.
Thinning carrots will also affect carrot spacing. Carrots are slow to germinate. But when they do, it will soon signal a shakeup in spacing requirements. When carrots reach about two inches high, they'll undergo their first experience with thinning.
Rest assured this is a necessary part of the process of growing carrots. Their space requirements change with time. All you're doing is making sure they have the space they need to yield a high-quality harvest.
Thinning optimizes the space available so your carrots can grow to their maximum size. From that small ½ inch spacing, you should thin carrots to two or three inches apart, depending upon the variety. You needn't break out a ruler and thin plants exactly this distance apart.
Rather, use good judgment and cull seedlings that are noticeably smaller or damaged. The purpose is to give the most robust and healthy plants their best shot at making it through to harvest.
You may need to thin carrots another time to optimize your space, especially with varieties with longer growing periods like Healthmaster Carrots. If carrots are not thinned, they become obstacles to themselves.
They can form twisted roots and take on misshapen forms. While it doesn't hurt a carrot technically, it is certainly more pleasing to have a harvest of uniform straight carrots than a lot of weird-looking Franken-carrots. This video from CaliKim29 Garden & Home DIY explains how spacing works.
One of the advantages of growing carrots is that you can have multiple plantings. While the physical distance applies, you will also need to consider the temporal spacing. If you plant successive crops, you can continually harvest carrots throughout the growing season.
You should space carrot plantings time-wise to about three weeks apart. This period gives the first lot enough time to germinate. It also allows you to separate harvests visually to detect the differences in size. These guidelines vary with certain cases.
The actual spacing is not necessarily a hard-and-fast rule. Remember, the key is optimizing your space. So, there is room for discretion—especially in special situations like container gardening.
Containers represent a different spacing situation because of the small space with which you are dealing. Optimization is still the order of the day. Instead of spacing carrots ½ inch apart, the plan starts off with an endgame in mind.
Alternatively, you can create parallel rows of plants that are about three inches apart. The idea is the same. Only the fittest will make the cut. Bear in mind that in a container garden, you are growing smaller carrots. You have more leeway in these cases because their personal space is less.
Spacing requirements apply whether you're talking about other carrots or weeds. While the former is okay, the latter is never all right. Weeds that fill in the space between carrots are robbing your carrots of nutrients they need. The only solution for them is to get rid of them.
Because carrots exist relatively closer together than other vegetables, you need to be careful and avoid disturbing the soil even when weeding. Carrots, especially when young, are shallow rooted. Yanking weeds forcibly from the ground risks damaging fragile roots struggling to get a foothold.
You may be wondering why spacing is such a big deal with carrots. They seem small enough, right? Why bother with spacing? The reason for the spacing lies with the carrots themselves. For a plant that can occupy such a small space, they don't handle competition well.
The soil can provide only so much. In fact, it turns out that nutrients are the limiting factor. Carrots thrive best in fertile soils. That requirement sets a high bar. If carrots are forced to compete against each other for nutrients, all the carrots may suffer from few winners.
Your goal for planting carrots is to maximize your yield. Carrot spacing balances the relationship between yield and nutrients. And when you're dealing with plants that exist in such proximity to one another, you have a thin margin for error.
Spacing carrots gives your garden its best chance for a successful harvest by towing the line between yield and soil quality. Because of their slow growth and delicate early stages, the soil quality must be at its best to avoid damage from disturbing the soil. Spacing is one of the easiest ways to give your carrots what they need.


jacquard patterns for double knitting is a stripe pattern--Vertical stripes on side A, horizontal stripes on side B.
In the old fashioned process, to work all the stitches on the needle, you 'process' them twice—First working with yarn A, (working some stitches, and slipping others) then you REPEAT with Yarn B, working the stitches that were previously slipped, and slipping the stitches that were previously worked!(the worked stitches might be Knit or Purl).
2 yarns per row, all stitches worked in a row.
Like other jacquard double knitting, in hand it feels like ribbing (K1, P1) and both yarn are carried together, and moved (front to back) together, but only 1 yarn is used to make a stitch.
Cast on multiple of 4 +3 (my pot holder has 37 (32+3) stitches per side.
The pattern on the 2 yarn rows (the white and pink worked together) is almost identical to the Row 1 and Row 2 of the Vertical and Horizontal stripe pattern.
If you make the Vertical and Horizontal stripe pattern first, this pattern will be easy to learn.
R2 A: using only Dark (pink) K1, S1 across row.
R2 B: using only Dark (pink yarn)*K1, Slip 1… (8 times, then slip 1, slip 1) repeat.
R4A and R4B are the same as R2A and R2B.
Pink 3 (one side patterned, one side solid) is started (with about 3 or so inches knit).
After the first washing, they will shrink in length, and expand in width.. and will be about 10.5 X 10.5 (or about (rough in the head math!) 27c x 27c--and will still be oversized. Washing and shrinking cotton tends to cause it shrink in one direction, and expand in the other!
Very interesting technical write out. I've never understood exactly what was happening before and now I do. Thanks Helen for your pattern.


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package tv.danmaku.ijk.media.player;

import android.graphics.SurfaceTexture;

public interface ISurfaceTextureHost {
    void releaseSurfaceTexture(SurfaceTexture surfaceTexture);
}


April is lined up! There is no limit to the fantastic connections and activities our horses create for us, I have been invited to go to Israel to hold a course for the PRE riders and the dates and participants are now set up, one competition is lined up with Donoso and Start, visiting clients are booked in and I have some serious selecting to do, all in for April! On top of that it seems like my ladies might join in for the April happenings because our weather turned cold again and with that the mares seem to have decided to keep their foals inside. Next week is fullmoon so I am guessing they will pop little pocorns then?! The Novedosa-Donoso should be first and name has to start with an F. Picara-Donoso (if second) will have a name starting with a G, name suggestions are welcome, both foals will be for sale, I have not enough time for more horses!!!


Roy is in Fergus County.
The latitude of Roy is 47.331N. The longitude is -108.959W.
It is in the Mountain Standard time zone. Elevation is 3,494 feet.
Sections below provide additional information and links about Roy travel and tourism, nearby airports, cemeteries, the Fergus County economy, education, environment, genealogy, government, historic sites, libraries, maps, museums, newspapers and other media, nonprofit groups, real estate, recreation, religion, transportation, and weather.
Fergus County supported George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. For more information, see our Roy political report.


text:
TheNewStateman
Mahama Chairs Inauguration of Obasanjo Centre for Good Governance
Former President John D. Mahama on Tuesday chaired a ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria, to inaugurate the Olusegun Obasanjo Centre for Good Governance and Development at the National Open University of Nigeria.
The ceremony, which was also attended by a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar, was an opportunity to honour the former Nigerian President for his commitment and contribution to the promotion of education in Nigeria.
The National Open University of Nigeria which started in the early 1980s was closed down a few years later, until 2001 when then President Obasanjo reopened the institution. It currently has over 300,000 active students across the country.
President Mahama challenged the Centre to research into new and emerging developmental issues and how these can affect governance, democracy and the development of African countries.
He also threw a challenge to Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt to become like Japan and China to propel African growth, noting that "Nigeria has a responsibility to be the driver of economic transformation in West Africa".
Nigeria, he said, has nothing to fear from Ghana or Cote D'Ivoire in an integrated subregion.
Renowned Civil Engineer takes Bawumia on over cost analysis of road construction
How Akufo Addo Killed His First Wife In A Fit Of Rage-Autopsy Report Bares It All
GHANA DONATES $2 MILLION TOWARDS RECONSTRUCTION OF NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL
NABCO to spend GHc 260,000 on new LOGO
AKUFO ADDO ASKS CHRAJ TO INVESTIGATE KRL SCANDAL
AKUFO ADDO ADMITS KRL PAYMENTS
..... Your Authentic News Source
Money Swine: Kwame Eugene, King Promise and Kidi back D'banj's Show at Private New Year Party of Akufo Addo's Executive Secretary.
[Video]: Bawumia supporters angrily attack Prophet Owusu Bempah's Church
Scandal Part 2 - CRIME ALERT: Ghana Maritime Authority Director General Holds Two Passports With Two Different Dates Of Birth
Scandal Part 1 : Over AGED Ghana Maritime Authority CEO in massive CHOP CHOP
Breaking News : National Security Halts PUSAG Election.
Breaking News: Akufo-Addo Slaps 2.5% Tax on Electricity Consumers
Contest As President If You Think Economy Is Hard - Akufo-Addo's Boy To Ghanaians


text:
Annals of Endurance
The Hardest Test
Drugs and the Tour de France.
By Julian Barnes
In the first week of July, as the Tour de France meandered joustingly down the flat western side of the country, I visited a small cycling museum in the mid-Wales spa town of Llandrindod Wells. Halfway around this testament to curatorial obsession, among the velocipedes and the 1896 Crypto Front Wheel Drivers, the passionate arrangements of cable clips and repair-outfit tins, there is a small display window containing the vestimentary leavings of the British cyclist Tom Simpson. A grubby white jersey with zippered neck, maker's emblem (Le Coq Sportif), big Union Jacks on each shoulder, and discolored glue bands across the thorax indicating the removal of perhaps a sponsor's name, perhaps the colored stripes awarded for some previous triumph. Black trunks with "PEUGEOT" embroidered in surprisingly delicate white stitchwork across the left thigh. Chamois-palmed string-backed cycling gloves with big white press buttons at the back of the wrist, and the fingers mittenishly cut off at the first joint. This is what Simpson had been wearing on July 13, 1967, during the thirteenth stage of the Tour, when he collapsed on Mont Ventoux, the highest of the Provençal Alps. Thirty-three years to the day of his death, the 2000 Tour was due to climb the mountain again.
Back in 1962, Simpson had been the first British rider ever to wear the race leader's yellow jersey (only three other Britons have acquired it since); he had been World Champion in 1965, and in 1967 had already won Paris-Nice, the early-season classic flatteringly known as the Race to the Sun. He was a strong, gutsy cyclist, popular with fellow-riders, the press, and the public. He also played up cheerfully to the Englishman's image, posing emblematically with bowler hat and furled umbrella. A memorial to him near the summit of Mont Ventoux lists his achievements as "Olympic Medallist, World Champion, British Sporting Ambassador," and the last of these three is no sentimental piety. If sport increasingly becomes a focus for brain-dead chauvinism, it also, at its best, acts as a solvent, transcending national identity and raising the sport, and the sportsperson, above such concerns. Simpson was one of those transplanted stars who won over a foreign public, and his martyrish suffering on a French mountain added to the myth. His name is still widely remembered in France—more so, probably, than in Britain.
Mont Ventoux, which rises to just over nineteen hundred metres, doesn't appear especially sharp-sided or rebarbative from a distance. For those on foot, it is comparatively welcoming: Petrarch climbed it with his brother and two servants in 1336, and a local hiking firm offers nighttime ascents for the reasonably fit with a promise of spectacular sunrises. For the Tour rider, it is another matter. Other mountains in the race may be higher or steeper but seem more friendly, or more functional—or at least more routine, being climbed more often. The Ventoux is a one-off. Its appearance is perpetually wintry: the top few hundred metres are covered with a whitish scree, giving the illusion of a snowbound summit even in high summer. A few amateur botanists may scour its slopes for polar flora (the Spitzbergen saxifrage, the Greenland poppy), but there is little other recreational activity on offer here. The Ventoux is just a bleak and hulking mountain with an observatory at the top. There is no reason for going up it except that the Tour planners order you to go up it. Cyclists fear and hate the place, while the fact that the Tour, which follows a different route every year, makes the ascent only once every five years or so increases its mystique, builds its broodingness. The American Lance Armstrong called the Tour de France "a contest in purposeless suffering" in his autobiography, "It's Not About the Bike"; the climb of Mont Ventoux epitomizes this implacably.
When the tree line runs out, there is nothing up there but you and the weather, which is violent and capricious. The story goes that on the day Simpson died a thermometer in a café halfway up the mountain exploded when registering fifty-four degrees centigrade (officially, the temperature was in the nineties Fahrenheit). But there is one thing cyclists fear as much as heat: wind. One task of the support riders in a team is to protect their leader from the wind; they cluster around him on windy stretches like worker bees protecting the queen. (This abnegation is also self-interested, for in the Tour the monarch is also a cash crop, his prize money being divided among the team at the race's end.) But on the mountains, where the weaker fall away, the top riders are often left to themselves, unprotected. And the Ventoux, where the mistral mixes with the tramontane, is officially the windiest place on earth: in February, 1967, the world gusting record was set there, at three hundred and twenty kilometres per hour. Popular etymology derives Ventoux from vent, "wind," making it Windy Mountain; appropriate but erroneous. The proper etymology—vinturi, from the Ligurian root ven, meaning mountain—is duller but perhaps truer. Mount Mountain: a place to make bikers feel they're climbing not one peak but two; a place to give bikers double vision.
As I drove toward the mountain the day before the Tour climbed it, there was cloud hanging over its summit, but otherwise the day felt clear, if breezy. This changed quickly on the upper slopes. Cloud covered the top fifteen hundred feet or so; visibility dropped to a few yards; the wind rose. By the side of the road, hardy fans who had arrived early to claim their places were double-chocking the wheels of their camper vans and piling stones halfway up the rims for extra security. The Simpson memorial—the profile of a crouched rider set on a granite slab—is placed a kilometre and a half from the summit on the eastern side. It has a handsome simplicity subverted by the clutter of heartfelt junk laid on the steps in front of it. Some mourners have simply added a large white stone from the nearby slope; but more have overlaid the site with a jumble of cycling castoffs—water bottles, logoed caps, T-shirts, energy bars, a saddle, a couple of tires, a symbolic broken wheel. It is part Jewish grave, part the tumultuous altar of some popular if dubious Catholic saint. All this was difficult to take in because the cold and the wind were pulling so much water into my eyes. It felt locally strange to be attempting some vague act of homage while being barely able to stand; more largely strange in that the winds—gusting at more than a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour that day—seemed to have absolutely no effect in dispersing the cloud. After a few minutes, I got back into the car and drove down the mountain to Bédoin, where I found that the bones of my fingers and toes still ached from the cold. I craved a whiskey. An hour or so later, snow fell on the summit.
When Petrarch set out on his ascent, he encountered, like any modern journalist, a quotable peasant who just happened to have climbed the mountain himself fifty years previously. However, the fellow "had got for his pains nothing except fatigue and regret, and clothes and body torn by the rocks and briars. No one, so far as he or his companions knew, had ever tried the ascent before or after him." Petrarch's brother headed for the summit by the most direct, and therefore hardest, route; while the poet, being wilier or lazier, kept trying to find an easier way. Each time the trail would prove false, and this shameful halfheartedness brought Ovid to mind. "To wish is little: we must long with the utmost eagerness to gain our end." For Petrarch, the excursion up the Ventoux turned out to be a metaphor of the spiritual journey: it is uphill all the way, and there are no shortcuts.
But bikers, like hikers, are always looking for shortcuts. Next to the Simpson display window in Llandrindod Wells, I saw a publicity photograph of Mrs. Billie Dovey, a prewar cycling belle promoted as "the Rudge-Whitworth 'Keep Fit Girl.' " This smiling, bespectacled icon pedals toward us in sepia innocence, an advertisement for comradely physical improvement, the healthy life, mens sana in corpore sano. But, as in most sports, the higher and the more professional you go, the less Corinthian it becomes. Various factors led to Simpson's death on July 13, 1967: the heat, the mountain, the lack of support (he was riding with a weak national team), the pressure on a rider approaching thirty to win the Tour before his time passed. But a prime cause of Simpson's death on Mont Ventoux was the use of amphetamines, which helped his body ignore sense, and made his last words a dying plea to be put back on his bike. Traces of amphetamines were found in Simpson's body and among his kit. Speed kills, the moralists asserted. But Simpson's case was hardly egregious. Amphetamines—famously used to keep bomber crews alert on long missions—were widely consumed by cyclists in the postwar years. Their explosive effect caused them to be nicknamed la bomba in Italian, la bombe in French, and the somewhat more sinister atoom in Dutch. In the late fifties, the legendary Italian rider Fausto Coppi was asked on French radio if all riders took la bomba. "Yes," he replied, "and those who claim the opposite aren't worth talking to about cycling." "So did you take la bomba?" the interviewer continued. "Yes, whenever it was necessary." "And when was it necessary?" "Practically all the time." The five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil told the French sports daily L'Équipe in the year Simpson died, "You'd have to be an imbecile or a hypocrite to imagine that a professional cyclist who rides 235 days a year can hold himself together without stimulants."
Benjo Maso, the Dutch sociologist and historian of cycling, enlightened and depressed me about the prehistory of drug use. In the early days, this meant mainly strychnine, cocaine, and morphine, though there were also folksier pick-me-ups, like bull's blood and the crushed testicles of wild animals. An Englishman named Linton died from his exertions in the Bordeaux-Paris race of 1896; his death was generally attributed to the use of drugs, probably morphine. In the nineteen-twenties, riders used "incredible amounts of booze." Maso cited another Bordeaux-Paris race (the event called for herculean stamina, being run in a single stretch, right through the night), in which the allowance per man in one team was a bottle of eau-de-vie, some port, some white wine, and some champagne. These alcoholic habits continued; there are photos of Tour de France riders refuelling in bars and cafés. At Bédoin, where the Ventoux climb begins, Simpson is said to have complicated his body by stopping off with other riders for a drink; rumor has served him with a whiskey and a pastis. This may sound foolishly self-defeating now, but at the time Tour regulations permitted the riders' support staff to give them liquid only at certain intervals; moreover, there was a general belief among the peloton (the main bunch of riders) that alcohol taken during the course of an event did you no harm, since it was quickly sweated out. Athletes and alcohol: I remembered that Captain Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel, in 1875, had washed his breakfast down that day with claret, and sustained himself on the way to Calais with brandy and "strong old ale." Has it always been going on, I asked Maso. "Well, they had breath tests for alcohol in the ancient Olympic games," he replied.
This all seems less shocking when you look at the terrain and remember that the riders have to cover three thousand six hundred and thirty kilometres in three weeks, with only two rest days. The Tour de France is easily the most punishing endurance event in the athletic world. A triathlon, by comparison, is a fun run. (Armstrong was a triathlete before becoming a professional cyclist.) The British rider David Millar, a Tour débutant this year, summed up a day that for him had consisted of eight and a half hours in the saddle, followed by a two-hour traffic jam to get to a hotel where the restaurant had closed and he was unable even to get a massage: "Sadomasochism," he said. If driving down the Ventoux to Bédoin leaves you croaking for a whiskey, you'd certainly need one if asked to cycle up it; even the Rudge-Whitworth Keep Fit Girl might take a snifter. The nearest equivalent to her on the Tour de France was perhaps Gino Bartali, Coppi's great rival, who won the race twice, in 1938 and 1948. "I didn't need drugs," he once said. "Faith in the Madonna kept me from feeling fatigue and pain." But such Petrarchianism was rare; for many riders miracles existed only in capsule form. With amphetamines, there was even a certain rough justice: they helped get you up the mountain one day but exacted their price the next. Both Coppi and Simpson were among riders known for their défaillances, their days of weakness; though doubtless climbing the Ventoux without chemical help would leave you pretty tired the next day anyway.
Such speedy, boozy days now seem almost innocent; and they were innocent in that Coppi's use of la bomba didn't contravene cycling regulations of the day—amphetamines were declared illegal only in the mid-sixties. The quantum leap came when drugs designed to stimulate were replaced—or, in real terms, joined—by drugs designed to fortify, notably growth hormones and EPO (erythropoietin), the synthetic version of a naturally occurring hormone which is often prescribed for dialysis and chemotherapy patients. Instead of helping suppress pain and giving you the illusion that you were stronger than you actually were, the new drugs really did make you stronger. In addition, Maso explained, "There are no bad days, as with amphetamines." From the early to the mid-nineties, EPO became the drug of choice among many professional cyclists. Its function is to raise the red-blood-cell count, which sends more oxygen to the tissues, thus increasing your endurance and your powers of recovery. If there are two riders of equal ability, the one taking EPO will beat the one who remains clean; it is as simple as that. EPO was banned in 1990, even though its actual presence could not be proved; only its suspicious consequences were detectable.
There is a downside, of course. Bike riders, like other top athletes, are so fit that their heart rate is preternaturally low; EPO thickens the blood, making it harder to pump around the body, and also more liable to clot. In the early days of EPO, there were a number of mysterious deaths—usually from a heart attack, usually in the middle of the night—of otherwise healthy cyclists. The assumption was that their heart rate had dropped during sleep and became simply insufficient to pump the blood. To counter this, EPO takers were said to get up in the middle of the night to exercise. Some also used a kind of thoracic alarm clock, which woke them when their heart rate dropped too low.
If you want to put a date on the final loss of innocence (ours, not that of the inner cycling world), you could do worse than suggest July 8, 1998—a century on from Linton's win in Bordeaux-Paris. Willy Voet, a Belgian soigneur, was stopped by customs officers at the French border. Soigneur means healer, and the job traditionally consists of giving massages and overseeing the day-to-day fitness of the riders. Voet worked for the Festina team. (In the Tour, teams are named after their sponsors—hence, for example, Deutsche Telekom, Rabobank, U.S. Postal Service, and the improbable Farm Frites.) He was on his way to join the start of that year's race and transporting, in two refrigerated bags, "234 doses of EPO, 80 phials of growth hormones, 160 capsules of testosterone, and 60 capsules of Asaflow, an aspirin-based product which fluidifies the blood." (The International Cycling Union currently restricts more than a hundred substances, and Tour doctors test three or four riders each day.) During a subsequent three-year ban, Voet wrote his memoirs, "Massacre à la Chaîne," where he sets out dispassionately, and with rather unconvincing remorse, the drugs he administered: amphetamines, corticoids, growth hormones (clenbuterol, creatine, nandrolone), and, of course, EPO. Voet explains that each drug has a specific function for the various parts of a stage race: thus, sprinters would take trinitrin five or six kilometres before the finish to help them launch their final attack. la bomba has given way to "le pot belges " (the Belgian mixture), whose typical contents might be: amphetamines, antalgics, caffeine, cocaine, heroin, and sometimes corticoids. This is a world in which the phrase "caffeine injection" refers not to a double espresso but to something with a needle on the end which helps you get through a time trial in the mountains. Voet describes how the soigneur is constantly tinkering and adjusting, in full collusion with his charge. (Here the notion that riders are sometimes slipped wicked substances without their knowledge is thoroughly mocked.) He reports that Richard Virenque, the highly popular French leader of the Festina team, was worried about his preparation for a time-trial stage during the 1997 Tour de France. But Voet himself wasn't worried: "Given his regular treatments of EPO and especially growth hormones, he was as ready as he would ever be. All he needed was a well-timed injection of caffeine, plus Solucamphre (to open his bronchial tubes)."
In this world, the dunces and losers are those who rely on their clean physiques. Voet cites the case of Charly Mottet, a top French rider of the eighties and nineties, who came to the RMO team, where amazement was expressed that "the bloke was clean." Mottet had, in many people's view, the talent to win the Tour, but Voet recognized that he lacked "the wherewithal to make it happen." In other words, he refused the tempting pharmacopoeia. Mottet was known for his weakness over the final third of the Tour, and the soigneur's conclusion is as sad as it is hypocritical: "Yes indeed, Charly never had the career that he deserved."
Voet's disclosures after his arrest led to a police raid on the Festina team in their hotel, and the riders' ejection from the Tour on Day Seven. Six other teams quit in protest—though their departures were open to alternative explanation. One by one, various members of the Festina team admitted illegal drug use, though Virenque protested his innocence from the start and continues to do so. The only note of unintentional comedy that year came during a judicial hearing in Lille, when the judge put it to him that "you must have known what was going on because you were the leader." Virenque, in a panicky mishearing, replied, "Me a dealer? No, I am not a dealer." (The two English words are used in French.) Whereupon Virenque's lawyer interjected, "No, Richard, the judge said leader. It's not an offense to be a leader."
In racing terms, EPO led to what was christened "the two-speed Tour"—those using it and those not. It also produced a blurring of the traditional distinction between endurance men and climbers. All of a sudden, riders of quite chunky body profile were motoring up hills previously the preserve of the quail-bodied climber. In retrospect, various heroic exploits now seem more dubious.
Voet explains the mechanics and use of EPO. The soigneur takes a blood sample from a rider, puts it in a portable centrifuge, and obtains a reading of the hematocrit, or red-blood-cell level in percentage terms. An average man might have a level of forty-four per cent, which would fluctuate with exertion, dehydration, blood loss, altitude, and other conditions. A soigneur would therefore monitor his charges in the runup to a big race and administer EPO if the blood needed boosting: he would also adjust accordingly throughout the event. In 1997, the International Cycling Union fixed the legal limit at fifty per cent. But since soigneurs would examine their riders' blood daily, only bad calibration would make you fail an official test.
The 2000 Tour was largely decided on the Pyrenean climb to Hautacam, on Monday, July 10th. After five hours of cycling, a hundred and ninety-one kilometres, and two high mountain passes, Lance Armstrong, the 1999 winner, climbed the final fourteen kilometres at such a pace as to put all his main rivals at least four minutes behind him in the over-all classification. Virenque was one of those overtaken in Armstrong's exhilarating attack: "He came upon us like an airplane." During last year's win, Armstrong had faced some skepticism from the French press. How could a promising, aggressive, but often unthinking rider, after receiving treatment for testicular cancer, which had already metastasized into the lungs and brain, return and not only ride the Tour but actually win it? Renewed determination, a body outline refashioned by chemotherapy, a greater acceptance of suffering, and a wiser tactical approach—these were not sufficient answers for some. Perhaps the cancer drugs had inadvertently beneficial side effects? (Ironically, Armstrong's doctors had at one point prescribed EPO.)
Armstrong spent much of last year reiterating "I'm clean" at press conferences, and felt that journalists deliberately misconstrued him when he spoke French. He is a lean, prickly, single-minded character, whose stance before the microphone implies that tact is for girls; he is after victory, not popularity. This approach did little to wash away doubt. Daniel Baal, the president of the French Cycling Federation, told the London Sunday Times after Hautacam, "I would love to know what is happening today.…I do not know if we must speak of a new method [of doping] or of a new substance. The controls have had some impact, I saw many riders in difficulty on the climbs and that was good. But then must I have enthusiasm for how the race is being won?" Baal's problem is simply this: to know what he has seen.
Despite what might seem to outsiders a vast moral taint, the Tour remains extremely popular in France. This is the more surprising given that the last French victory, by Bernard Hinault, came fifteen years ago. Since then, the race has been won by two Americans, two Spaniards, an Irishman, a Dane, a German, and an Italian. (Imagine the hyperbolically named World Series becoming such a foreign preserve for so long: how would the networks, and the average American fan, react?) In 1999, not a single stage was won by the French; this year, they managed just two out of twenty-one. Such robust zeal for the victories of others confirms the suspicion that the French sports fan tends to be as much a devotee of the sport itself as of the team or of the nation, to be more of a purist than his Anglo-Saxon equivalent.
Purist does not, however, mean moralist. Footage of French police thundering into cyclists' hotel rooms in mid-Tour may delight editorialists, but it offends many domestic cycling fans. The name of Richard Virenque was painted on the tarmac of the Ventoux climb as often this year as any other. (For that matter, when members of the Festina team returned to competition after their 1998 disgrace, and appeared in the Vuelta, the Tour of Spain, they were greeted with applause from Spanish fans.) There is an instinctive French anti-authoritarianism that causes many to side unflinchingly with their heroes against the judiciary, the gendarmerie, and opportunistic politicians. But cycling is also different in one key respect. In other sports, fans go to a stadium, where there are entrance fees, tacky souvenirs, overpriced food, a general marshalling and corralling, and a professional exploitation of the fan's emotions. With the Tour de France, the heroes come to you, to your village, your town, or arrange a rendezvous on the slopes of some spectacular mountain. The Tour is free, you choose where you watch it from, bring your own picnic, and the marketing hard sell consists of little more than a van offering official Tour T-shirts at sixty francs a throw just before the race arrives. Then you get to see your heroes' grimacing faces from merely a few feet away; every seat is a ringside seat. These aspects make the Tour unique, and still rightly cherished by the French.
Some play it as a jour de fête, part of a communal thrill in small village or country byway; the more hard core will spend a couple of buffeted nights on the Ventoux in an ad-hoc trailer park, suffering the wind and cold in fellow-feeling with the riders; the fan who wants to know what is actually happening will follow the live TV feed from helicopter and motorbike cameras. Satellite dishes clamped to many of the camper vans indicate that methods two and three are often combined, but most go for one and three. So on July 13th—by which time the wind had dropped, and the temperature at the top of Mont Ventoux had risen to a generous six degrees centigrade—I headed for Saint-Didier, a small village east of Carpentras. The peloton would reach here after half an hour's riding, at some time between 12:27 P.M., if the riders were averaging thirty-eight kph, and 12:39 P.M., if they were dawdling along at thirty-four kph. Their route, down a plane-lined alley toward a handsome 1756 belfry gate, was marked out by chunky red-and-white barriers. The curbside tables at the Bar du Siècle had been bagged early; outside Coiffure Salon Martine the eponymous hairdresser and her friends sat in white plastic chairs sipping white wine; there was minimalist bunting in the trees and a group of tots with tricolores painted on their cheeks being inducted into the mystery of the Tour. A couple of policemen were genially ignored as they tried to stop the crowd leaning too far into the road.
First comes the publicity caravan and the team cars, bikes mounted on their roofs, spare wheels rotating idly; then a ten-minute warning of the race's approach, and the approaching clatter of the TV helicopter. Then, at 12:35 P.M.—indicating a slowish tempo—it goes like this: two riders suddenly appear round the bend and are past, whoosh, before you can turn your head—thirty seconds—three main groups—whoosh whoosh whoosh—three small groups—a few dropped riders—the very last one a member of the Cofidis team, because by now your eyes have adjusted—you also note he has ginger hair—then whoosh he is gone—and a swift two minutes are concluded with the blaring horns of the final race cars. I had expected it to go quickly, but in trying to take in everything I had seen virtually nothing. I hadn't recognized a single rider, because I hadn't specifically looked out for Armstrong or Virenque or Marco Pantani, the 1998 winner. They were in amongst the lean and gaudy figures going faster than I was prepared for. Only when they clustered in groups did I recognize team colors: the pink of Telekom, the blue-and-white of Banesto, and the Spanish-omelette colors of Mapei. Still, I had seen almost nothing from just a few feet away, and in a spirit of benign fellow-feeling. That was the point of the jour de fête. Then I drove off to find a television while Coiffure Salon Martine reopened and the Bar du Siècle clattered on with more drinks.
Two and a half hours later, after making a long loop without ever losing sight of the Ventoux, the race reached Bédoin, where Simpson may have had his last drink. The remnants of an early escape were chased down; Armstrong sent his U.S. Postal teammates Tyler Hamilton and Kevin Livingston to the front, a fierce pace was set, and what the French call la grande lessive (the big wash—or, perhaps, the great rinse) began, as rider after rider was slowly dropped. With ten kilometres left, the cleansing had reduced the leading group to six (Armstrong, the second-placed Jan Ullrich, of Germany, and Virenque among them), with Pantani—a tiny, bald, earringed Italian climber—hanging off the back. They passed Danish flags painted on the road, though the Danes had little to cheer this year; then another national enclave marked "BELGIUM DYNAMITE" and blazoned with the name of the Belgian sprinter Tom Steels, who had dropped out earlier in the day and didn't get to read his name; there were signs for Polti and Rabobank, Pantani and Virenque. The crowds gradually thickened as the mountain exerted its mute thrall.
The previous time Armstrong had ridden up Mont Ventoux, in the Dauphiné Libéré, earlier in the year, he had cracked, and lost over a minute to Tyler Hamilton. The experience had left him apprehensive. This time, however, he watched as others cracked. At Hautacam, he had produced a great attacking ride; here, for most of the ascent, he showed how enthralling a great defensive ride can be. He stayed with his main rivals for the yellow jersey, keeping a steady pace, showing no weakness, and implicitly telling them, You want to win this thing? Then you'll have to attack me. And none of them were strong enough to do so—except an intermittently revitalized Pantani, who had started the day more than ten minutes behind Armstrong. The race leader allowed him to climb ahead, carried on monitoring Ullrich and Virenque, and then, with three thousand metres to go, left his defensive posture and raced across to Pantani, taking a full half minute out of Ullrich and Virenque in the process. He passed the Simpson memorial without so much as a nod. Alongside Pantani, he kept telling him, "Plus vite! Plus vite!" and the two rode to the summit together, where in the last few feet Armstrong eased to give Pantani the day's victory. It was a geste de seigneur, French commentators agreed. To the rest of the field, Armstrong's ride up the Ventoux simply said, I'm the boss. They believed it; and, apart from a bad afternoon on the Tour's final mountain, five days later, he rode as boss to Paris and final victory.
Pantani won another stage before retiring from the race, perhaps to concentrate on his forthcoming criminal trial in Forlì, in central Italy, for the use of banned substances back in 1995. The final mountain stage was won by Virenque, who himself faces the judiciary in Lille this autumn, charged with "complicity to supply, incite the use of, and administer drugs"; also with "complicity in their import, possession, supply, transport, and acquisition." How many of those who went up the Ventoux last month were taking something fortifying yet legal, or illegal yet undetectable, or illegal yet detectable yet worth taking the risk for? The evidence is always contradictory. Riders who are notoriously clean, like the Englishman Chris Boardman, a world-class time trialist regularly defeated by the mountains, never seem to notice anything going on. Whereas the whistle-blowers, the drug takers, and the drug givers offer a picture in which everyone is doing it and only the naïve or the ridiculously principled abstain. Benjo Maso once asked a French rider from the seventies named Lecroq what percentage of riders took drugs in his day. "One hundred and twenty per cent," he replied, meaning that the masseurs, soigneurs, mechanics, and support staff would be doing so as well. Voet confirmed this social overflowing of the drug habit, but his own estimate was that sixty per cent of the peloton are users.
That was then, of course. This year is different—which is always the argument. On the eve of the 2000 tour, the International Cycling Union announced that a test for EPO had finally been found, if not yet perfected. Urine samples would be taken from riders, and frozen until the test was ready. With this threat of retrospective justice in place, officialdom prayed for a cleaner Tour. Except that three riders were thrown off for overheated hematocrit levels on the very first day. Except that several top riders cited in Voet's book as taking all the drugs he administered were still riding—and riding well—in this year's Tour. The results of the tests for EPO may not be known for some time, but the first drug news to come through is unsettling: thirty-eight of ninety-six urine samples taken this year contained corticosteroids and salbutamol, which are on the restricted list.
The world portrayed by Voet is enclosed, secretive, furiously competitive, and not too bothered about moral questions. Chris Boardman told the Sunday Times, "My own reasons for not taking drugs are ultimately more practical than moral. Why should I risk it?" To which the seductive answer comes: Because with this new drug it isn't a risk; you're ahead of the game in both senses. Voet describes Virenque approaching a hospital biologist and trying to get some synthetic hemoglobin (which oxygenates the blood without raising the hematocrit level); according to one source, it is already being deployed widely in Italian sport. Voet also derides the notion that a test for EPO will clean up the Tour: "EPO is already being supplanted by other forms of doping, both cellular and molecular." During Voet's last weeks at Festina, the team doctor was busy studying the sporting application of the cancer drug interleukin. It would be ironic indeed if Armstrong, medical victim and sporting hero to many, had inadvertently redirected attention from laboratories to hospitals.
Does it matter, finally, if a leader swaps consonants and becomes a dealer? Cyclists use bike technology to beat one another; they use performance labs and wind tunnels to discover the best aerodynamic positions; they are "computer slaves," as Armstrong puts it. The U.S. Postal team riders have two-way radio contact and wear heart monitors so that their team director can tell them to adjust their pedalling accordingly. Would it matter if they also used drug technology to acquire that additional edge?
It matters, I think, for three reasons. Sentimentally, we want there still to be some connection, however thinned, between the world of the Rudge-Whitworth Keep Fit Girl and that of the professional cyclist. Morally, we are still Petrarchians, and recognize that certain shortcuts are wrong. Sport's history is bleakened when we remember those defeated by East German women swimmers in the days of Communism, or by certain American athletes whose body profiles thickened alarmingly in close-season training. In cycling's case, we need only quote Voet's epitaph for Charly Mottet: "Yes indeed, Charly never had the career that he deserved." Finally, and practically, it matters because the complex relationship between spectator and athlete, fandom's pot belge of explosive emotions, depends at bottom on truth and trust. The Tour de France may be an example of "purposeless suffering"; it is also, as Armstrong says, "the most gallant athletic endeavor in the world." Whether we are the puzzled president of the French Cycling Federation on Hautacam, or Martine of Coiffure Salon Martine sitting by the roadside in Saint-Didier waiting for two minutes of lurid Lycra to pass, what we need and what we want is simply this: to know what we have seen. ♦
Published in the print edition of the August 21, 2000, issue.
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