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Home » GMO » Garden as if Your Life Depended on it, Because it Just Might
Garden as if Your Life Depended on it, Because it Just Might
Spring has sprung months ago — at least south of the northern tier of states where snow still has a ban on it — and the grass has 'riz. And so has the price of most foods, which is particularly devastating just now when so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, retired or retiring, on declining or fixed incomes and are having to choose between paying their mortgages, credit card bills, car payments, medical and utility bills.
Eating enough and healthily is as important now than any other point in history, as populations are increasing globally, the covert introduction of GMOs into our food supply in the 90's by Monsanto Chemical company, indeed many are eating more fast food, prepared foods, junk food — all of which are also becoming more expensive and more so, toxic with the amounts of pesticides in all produce unless it's organic — there is no question that the impact of the modern food supply is in serious jeopardy.
In some American towns, and not just impoverished backwaters, as many as 30 percent of residents can't afford to feed themselves and their families sufficiently, let alone nutritiously. Here in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina where I live it's 25 percent. Across the country one out of six of the elderly suffers from malnutrition and hunger. And the number of children served one or two of their heartiest, healthiest meals by their schools grows annually as the number of them living at poverty levels tops 20 percent.
Thirty-seven million Americans rely on food banks that now routinely sport half-empty shelves and report near-empty bank accounts. And this is a prosperous nation!
In some cases this round of price hikes on everything from cereal and steak to fresh veggies and bread — and even the flour that can usually be bought cheaply to make it — will be temporary. But over the long-term the systems that have provided most Americans with a diversity, quantity and quality of foods envied by the rest of the world are not going to be as reliable as they were.
What's for Supper Down the Road?
As they move through the next few decades Americans can expect:
The price of conventionally produced food to rise and not come down again;
Prices to roller coaster so that budgeting is unpredictable;
Some foods to become very expensive compared to what we're used to;
And other foods, beginning with some of the multiple versions of the same thing made by the same company to garner a bigger market share and more shelf space, to gradually become unavailable.
Tremors in food supply chains and pricing will make gardening look like a lot more than a hobby, a seasonal workout, a practical way to fill your pantry with your summer favorites, or a physically, spiritually and mentally healing activity, or all four. Gardening and small-scale and collective farming, especially of staple crops and the ones that could stave off malnutrition, could become as important as bringing home the bacon, both the piggy and the dollar kind. Why?
Why Is Gardening So Important Now?
There are at least five reasons why more of us should take up spade, rake and hoe, make compost and raise good soil and garden beds with a vengeance, starting this spring and with an eye toward forever.
1. Peak oil
Most petroleum experts agree that we shot past peak oil in the U.S. around 1971. That's the point at which more than half the readily affordable retrievable oil in reserves has been used up, what remains is more expensive to retrieve, and the dregs are irretrievable.
We've shot or are about to shoot past peak worldwide, estimates of when ranging from 2007 to 2013, with many oil company execs agreeing to at least the latter. There are no new cheap-easy oil fields coming on line. Any new fields you hear about or new methods like tar sands drilling are expensive, water guzzling, dangerous, environmentally disastrous and unlikely to produce more than a few years' worth of oil, and that a decade or more down the line. That means abundant, cheap oil is about to be history. What difference does that make?
For one thing, there is no replacement for oil that can do all that oil has done as cheaply and universally as oil has done it. I offer an exercise in Life Rules , "The ABC's of Peak Oil", which helps readers imaginatively subtract from their lives everything that depends in one way or another on cheap easy oil. It doesn't leave much.
The global economy that presently supplies us with our food, runs on cheap oil and lots of it. It runs slower and less predictably on expensive oil that's hard to get because it's located in hard-to-reach or high-risk conflict-ridden zones. Cheap, abundant food on the shelves of grocery and big box stores and food banks, on our tables and in our bellies depends on cheap abundant oil for fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, and to power farm machinery and transport food from fields to processors and packagers and then to purveyors and consumers, around the world.
Past peak, that system's going to have the half-life of the strontium 90 that's escaping the Fukushimi Dai-ichi reactor: 29 years, or thereabouts. One good global crisis, and not that long.
2. Peak soil & space
A couple of links between peak oil and peak soil: First, it matters that one of the proposed alternatives to oil is biofuels. Acreage around the world is being converted from production of corn, wheat and soy for human and animal consumption — i.e. food — to production of ethanol and biofuels to put in trucks and cars and … which makes remaining corn, et al., more expensive.
Some energy economy geniuses are proposing that Afghans, for example, convert the fields of opium poppies that are their primary agricultural export, not to growing grains or legumes or other staple foods, but to biofuel, which would, not coincidentally, make the gasoline that goes in American military equipment much cheaper and provide Afghans with a profitable market item rather than food.
According to a 2009 National Geographic staff report, "The corn used to make a 25-gallon tank of ethanol would feed one person for a year." Tell that to Archer-Daniels-Midland, Al Gore's deep-pockets friend and mega-ethanol and corn products producer. Second, the huge oil-gluttonous machinery that has made factory farming possible has compacted soils, literally crushing the life out of them.
Arable land in the developing or so-called Third World has been at a premium since time immemorial, thanks to geographic location and/or persistent plundering by empires old and new. Revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East are occurring not just to obtain more democratic governments but also to obtain more food and more affordable food. Revolutionaries are barking up a tree that's seen better days.
In the United States and elsewhere in the developed, read "First" world, arable land has reached peak production. All those petroleum-based products that fueled the Green Revolution of the last century, also produce so many crops, constantly, with support from toxic chemicals and without concern for the microbes that make soil a live, self-regenerating system, that most American farmland — if its farmers didn't go organic a while back — is comprised of dead soils that lack microorganisms in the soil which are an essential part of growing.
Peak oil makes a repeat of the petroleum-driven 20th century 'Green Revolution' impossible, which is good for soil and other living things, not so much for food prices and supplies.
After peak, in soil like in oil, comes descent. Adding insult to injury, every year farmers lose thousands of acres of arable land to urban and suburban sprawl and more tons of topsoil than they produce of grain and other field crops to attrition. Half the Earth's original trove of topsoil, like that which once permitted the American Midwest to feed the world, has been lost to wind and erosion.
Millions of years in the making, it has been depleted and degraded by industrialized agriculture in only a couple of centuries. China's soils ride easterly winds across the Pacific to settle out on cars and rooftops in California while the American Bread Basket's soils are building deltas and dead zones at the mouth of the Mississippi. Like oil, that soil isn't coming back. We can only build it, help it to build itself and wait.
3. Mono-culture
We can cut to the chase on this one. The food we eat is produced on industrial-strength, fossil-fuel-driven super farms. Those farms practice monoculture: the planting one crop, often of one genetic strain of that crop, at a time and sometimes year after year over vast landscapes of plowed field. When thousands of acres of farmland are sown with the same genetic strain of grain, an uncongenial bout of weather, disease or pest to which that strain is susceptible can wipe out the whole crop.
At present the Ug99 fungus, called stem rust, which emerged a decade ago in Africa, could wipe out more than 80 percent of the world's wheat crops as it spreads, according to a 2009 article in the L. A. Times. Recent studies follow its appearance in other countries downwind of eastern Africa where it originated, including Yemen and Iran (where revolutionaries are already protesting rising prices and shortages), which opens the possibility of its emergence further downwind in Central and Eastern Asia.
The race is on to breed resistant plants before it reaches Canada or the U.S. But it can take a decade or more to create a universally adaptable new genetic line that is resistant to a new disease like stem rust that can travel much faster than that. The current spike in the price of wheat is due in part to Ug99 which might properly be renamed "Ugh."
4. Climate instability
Bad weather has lately devastated crops in the upper Midwest, Florida, Mexico, Russia, China, Australia, parts of Africa and elsewhere. Many climate scientists believe we've passed the equivalent of peak friendly and familiar weather, too. And while increasing heat will bedevil harvests, intense cold, downpours and flooding, drought and destructive storm systems will make farming an increasingly hellish occupation if profit is what's being farmed for.
The transitional climate will be unpredictable from season to season and will produce more extremes of weather and weather-related disasters, which means farmers will not be able to assume much about growing seasons, rainfall patterns and getting crops through to harvest. If the past is precedent, the transition from the climate we've been used to for 10,000 years to whatever stable climate emerges out of climate chaos next, could take decades, centuries or even millennia. Especially if we keep messing with it.
When a whole nation's or region's staple crops, especially grains, are lost or on-again-off-again, everything down the line from the crops themselves become more expensive, from meat, poultry and dairy to every kind of processed food.
5. The roller-coaster economy
This isn't the place for me to offer my explanation for the probability of global economic collapse. No pundits, talking-heads or economic analysts (well, very few) deny there are rough economic times ahead. Even many of the cautious among them acknowledge that we may be looking at five or six years of high unemployment and many of the lost jobs won't be coming back. The less cautious, like me, predict the collapse of the whole fossil-fueled, funny-money, inequitable, overly complicated global economic system in the lifetimes of anyone under 50.
Well, at the rate we're going in all the wrong directions politically and economically, I hazard the guess, anyone under 80.
Clearly, depending on the present system to provide us with most or all of our food reliably or long-term, is unwise in the extreme. Which is how we get back to why we need to garden as if our lives depended on it. Bringing food production processes and systems closer to home is going to prove vital to our survival. We need to take producing our own and each other's food as seriously as we've taken producing a money income because increasing numbers of us won't have enough money to buy food in the conventional ways and there will be less of it to buy. So what's our recourse?
Gardening Like Everybody's Business
Under the influence and auspices of the prevailing economy, most Americans have forgotten how to provide for themselves. We've become accustomed to earning money with which we buy provisions. That process is about to have the legs kicked out from under it. Instead of earning money (or its funny-money kin like credit cards) to buy the things we need, we'll need to start providing more of those things for ourselves and each other locally and (bio)regionally.
Gardening — and small-scale farming — while they will need to be undertaken in a businesslike fashion will be less about doing business than about everyone's having something to eat and more people being busy providing it. And while not everyone will be able to garden or farm, we are all able to get up close and personal with those who do.
Contributing source:
Ellen LaConte, an independent scholar, organic gardener and freelance writer living in the Yadkin River watershed of the Piedmont bio-region of North Carolina, is a contributing editor to Green Horizon Magazine and the Ecozoic. Her most recent book is Life Rules (Green Horizon/iUniverse, 2010). LaConte publishes a quarterly online newsletter, Starting Point.
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Steven Peters
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Steven Peters has been a health advocate for more than a decade and proponent for alternative healing by 'Empowering Natural Living' through homeopathic approaches. He is also an activist for social justice and environmental causes in the GMO Labeling and Non-GMO grassroots movements across the country, and a staunch advocate for cannabis education and reform.
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Two projects supporting women who are both artists and mothers have been evolving on two different continents with a shared purpose. The Mother Load is a US-based initiative started by Lesli Robertson and Natalie Macellaio, while Mother Makers, started by Laura Bradshaw-Heap and Laurie Schram, is based in the UK and Europe. Both projects, however, are international in their outlook and network reach. Sandra Wilson talks to them about the aims of the projects and tackling issues of money, support, and recognition.
Sandra Wilson: When were these projects established, and what was the impetus for starting them?
The Mother Load: We started The Mother Load in 2012. We had both attended graduate school together, then began our respective careers in higher education while being members of an art collective, 500X Gallery, for several years. In 2009, Lesli had her son, Liam, and two years later Natalie had her twins, Milo and Fina. Although we had been friends for many years, it wasn't until the birth of our children that we understood that we needed a support system, and one specific to women who had both art and motherhood in their lives.
During the summer of 2012 we started to meet regularly, deciding to simply get in the studio and make. We began by creating small-scale jewelry pieces, combining concrete, silver, and textiles. This jewelry line is called Trestle Designs and it helped to fund our next collaborative project. It was an intersection of both our practices and was a time for us to make, talk, and feel that we were moving forward in our studios when we didn't feel we had the energy. Lesli had an upcoming exhibition in 2013, so we decided it was time to take the conversation out of our studios. We wanted to create something that would give us the platform to reach out and find other artists who were mothers and build a wider network of support and understanding. We decided to create The Mother Load and build from there.
Mother Makers: Mother Makers started in 2017. It came out of a frustration and optimism we discovered we both shared. We said, "OK, let's do something, then!" and we did. We felt dismissed and seen as having opted out, as if motherhood was synonymous with not being a professional. That was never the case. We also felt the richness of the experience of motherhood was underrated as a creative force. Since starting Mother Makers, we have found many artists believe motherhood to have benefited their practice in the long run.
So far, what kind of strategies/opportunities for supporting women have started to emerge from the projects?
The Mother Load: For us, it was important to create a platform, both physically and digitally, where we could explore our work as artists and our role as mothers. We had the opportunity to exhibit this project in the US and Scotland in 2015 and 2016. Both exhibitions had interactive elements, promoted the works of mother artists, and involved the community through lectures, workshops, and other forms of outreach.
Through our website and Facebook page, we have continued to add to our list of resources, linking to other artist/mother projects and exhibition opportunities locally and globally. We're excited to see other projects emerge, and we continue to support and promote them, such as Kate Fisher's Both Mother and Artist. We're always hoping that these conversations will continue to be a part of the main conversation and not on the fringes.
Mother Makers: We offer exhibition opportunities, are establishing a positive image of mothers in the field, and provide some community. We're finding a lot of women coming "out of the closet," so to speak, as mothers are feeling less afraid of that part of their identity being known. That in itself really describes the need for changes in how motherhood is viewed in our field.
Exhibiting and sales opportunities are very much needed, but this has been harder to provide as we're both based in different countries. Creating an online presence has had a much bigger impact than we ever imagined. We feel it has the potential to reach a far larger audience, and as such we have been investigating various ways to grow this. The most positive outcome of our activities is that people are emerging out of isolation, and have begun discussing their attitudes toward motherhood's visibility within the arts, and they are supporting each other. Visibility within our field is essential.
What has surprised you the most, coming from your projects?
The Mother Load: For us, it was the unexpected relationships we were able to build across cultures. We sat down one day to chart the growth of our project and visually see how one person led us to another, then to another, and so forth. For example, through happenstance we met Mary Trunk (US), who connected us to Rebekah Tyler (New Zealand), who led us to Nina Rodin (Switzerland), on to Jayne Wilton (UK), to Kim Thornton (UK), who eventually led us to Cadi Froehlich (UK). From one connection, we were able to meet five women in three countries, and, through Skype, have the unique opportunity to speak about our lives. It was beautiful to see that even if you feel isolated at times, there's potential for us to be a part of such a large and connected network of women who want to give encouragement, support, and validation.
The timing of this project has given us the ability to reach out in a way that women's movements had not been able to before. Being a part of the digital age has allowed us the use of social media, free communication, and access to a global society of like-minded women. It has connected us beyond our 100-mile radius to places and corners around the globe. However, we would not be in the position we are as women, artists, and mothers if not for so many generations having already fought for equality, recognition, and support.
Mother Makers: What has surprised us the most is the gendered thinking internalized by both men and women. Sometimes it's harder to convince women that a workplace suited to women and their needs and choices is possible. We seem to get stuck wanting to fit perfectly into a male-oriented world as female artists. In our field, the vast majority of makers are female; all the more reason to make it an environment where women feel comfortable making choices about family planning.
What changes would you like to see in childcare provision that would support mother artists/makers in their art practices?
The Mother Load: This is a challenge because there's very little support in the US for the arts, and even less childcare support for working families. This is a difficult combination of two of the most underfunded elements of our society. Not to be bleak, but in all honesty, it doesn't exist in government or corporations at levels that would make a dent in the need that's out there.
There are nonprofits and other entities working toward this, but currently there isn't a push for government-funded day care, it's only through private businesses and nonprofit that women might be able to find this support. Also, there's still a stigma that each of us has personally felt, one that goes to the core of being an artist, and one that we hope will change moving forward. We battle both internally and externally the justification of what we do and why it's important. Pursuing a career in the arts means you have to invest not only yourself but your time to develop successful works. Both of us have continued to feel the need to justify this time, our focus, and the energy that we choose to put into our practice.
Mother Makers: We need subsidized childcare, that much is clear, but it's interlinked with our profession being taken seriously and our work being seen as work. That's a really difficult thing to pull off, especially in a political climate that doesn't leave much space for the arts in general. But there are so many other smaller things that we can do which require a small mind shift rather than a huge pot of money for artist mothers. For example, events could take place in the daytime so that mothers can actually come, you can put a play kitchen or toys in your space so that kids can be brought along and find something of interest. Focusing just on childcare, though absolutely needed and essential for making, misses some really great opportunities in terms of opening up to the needs of parents. Museums are really good at this because they know they rely on children as their audience. A lot of their strategies could also work in other contexts.
There's been a lot of discussion recently about the idea of a "guaranteed minimum income." Is this something that you think could benefit mothers and their art practices?
The Mother Load: In an ideal world, definitely so. As an artist, you're continually looking at how you'll support your practice. For The Mother Load, we decided early on that pursuing grant support for this project meant that we would be fighting for the very small funds available for artists, and even more so for community-based arts. We decided that what brought us together in the studio in the first place, the making of Trestle Designs, could support this project. We were able to bring in enough income to support much of the project, from materials to shipping work to designing and establishing the website. It gave us the freedom to know that we can financially support our efforts.
But we're a bit sceptical whether this could even be a reality. There are many things to continue to resolve, such as closing the pay gap between men and women and guaranteed maternity and paternity leave for the first year. We look to those things that could be possible in our career lifetime.
Mother Makers: We feel guaranteed minimum income is key for a healthy society, one in which domestic work has a monetary value. However, this isn't enough to provide the support families need if childcare remains too expensive and difficult to obtain. The provision, by state, business, and institutions, of more subsidized childcare is key. Mother Makers is very interested in the development of studio spaces that have integrated childcare (see Procreate Projects's recent trials of the Mother House) and we feel that this could offer a real positive step forward both for women who have children and those who are considering having children.
As women who are mothers strive to keep making, they often consider changes in their practice, such as the scale they work in and an increased focus on the local. What other personal strategies do you feel women adopt?
The Mother Load: Every single woman who we have come across has talked about how her practice has changed and continues to change based on the age of her children and where she is in her career. Each artist is unique in her professional life, support systems, and how she chooses to handle the logistics of staying purposeful in her practice. We've seen that the common ground is that as they raise their children year after year, women's practices evolve and change alongside their children. At times we have found that artists want to work more inclusively, with a community or in collaboration with other artists, and that they want to ensure their work has a greater purpose.
Mother Makers: One of the biggest challenges parents face is time management, and particularly studio time. As more demands are put on your time, energy, and space, it's key to find ways to manage that little bit left to create. Learning to work in smaller chunks of time over longer periods is important, sometimes using only 10 minutes here or there. For some, this is the only time there ever is. Bringing the studio closer to home and adapting tools and materials to be more child-friendly, to make working within the home possible, also happens a lot. These things have an impact on the kind of practice a mother has. Shifts occur between process-led and concept-led work. Some mothers feel mentally more sharp but have less time to make, while others are able to let their hands lead the work but have less mental space left. These are healthy challenges for an established maker. They force us to distill and edit down to the very essentials.
Who are your favorite artist/mothers?
The Mother Load: To answer this, we'd like to focus locally on our own support system of artists. We are fortunate to have Ana Lopez and Dornith Doherty as mentors, colleagues, and friends. As we continue to work on this project, we keep finding women whose work we have admired over the years and who we recently found out are mothers. These include Janine Antoni, Phyllida Barlow, Ann Hamilton, Kara Walker, Sheila Hicks, and Liza Lou, to name a few.
Mother Makers: We highly respect all the mothers we have interviewed for Mother Makers, and how each one has found her own way to progress and grow her career. A historical figure we hugely admire is Barbara Hepworth. In our interview with Liesbeth den Besten, she talked about how the average number of children for the female jewelers she knows is 0.68, while the average number of children per woman in the Western world is closer to 1.5. Barbara Hepworth became one of Britain's leading sculptors while having four children—three of which were triplets. Triplets! If this doesn't prove that having children does not in fact kill a woman's creativity and ability to produce high-quality work, I don't know what does.
In what ways do you think your projects are getting mother artist/makers greater recognition for their work?
The Mother Load: It's not about our individual projects, it's about the collective efforts that are happening across the board. We are among many who are focusing on motherhood and making. After creating The Mother Load, we found a personal freedom to have the conversations outside of our studios. We felt we could professionally discuss all aspects of our lives, from raising children, gaps in resumes, shifts in concepts and making, and more. It's inspiring to be on panel discussions, in classrooms, and in galleries to challenge new audiences to see this duality as a possibility. We have been able to clearly and definitely establish that motherhood and art are able to co-exist in our lives, they are productive together, and are a valid conversation to bring into galleries, institutions, and academia.
Mother Makers: Greater recognition requires more sustained action over a much longer period of time. We can make this issue visible, we can be present, but we cannot force people to see value in us when they don't. Gender inequality is still a huge issue and endemic, so we can't afford to wait to be valued by an external force—we must be the ones doing the valuing.
The immediate issue is less about greater recognition for individual artists, and more about opening up a debate about why it has in the past been the norm to keep motherhood in the private sphere. Regardless of how private a choice it is for us as individuals to have a family, how our choices are perceived, received, and validated is a public issue, and one we need to be proactive about. Ways forward include making the workplace more accessible to different ways of working that are more sensitive to the needs of those who need additional support. Having a family inherently changes how parents work—most so the mother. Time management, materials, tools—all can be affected depending on our individual situation. Yet often after childbirth, women feel the need to continue their careers as if they don't have a family. Giving space to that makes it possible to be there and be a part of the discourse. Without presence, there is no representation.
What male/partner interest have you found in your projects?
The Mother Load: None. We decided from the beginning to focus on mothers in the arts rather than parents in the arts, and all of our efforts, from naming the project to choosing who we engage with, was about centering on women. From numerous conversations with other artists while launching the project, we continued to find a contrast between the way men and women experienced being parents while working in creative professions. This was our opportunity to give a very focused voice.
It's quite refreshing to let go of this idea that you need to be relevant to everyone. No white male artists are asking themselves whether or not mothers will appreciate their work. We need to set ourselves free from the idea that something isn't valid until men take an interest.
Mother Load, you are working on an anthology—how have women artists responded to the call for essays?
The Mother Load: When we sat down in 2017 to look at the last five years of The Mother Load, we asked whether we were a success. Did we push the project hard enough, did we stay up late enough, reach out to enough people, put in enough effort? Also, did we exhibit it enough, find enough venues to show it? There was really no answer, because if we held The Mother Load up against another project, or artist, or metric for gauging artistic success, we couldn't clearly define whether it was a success.
It got us thinking about how women as both artists and mothers must question their roles and work, like we were doing. We knew that this had to be our next step of The Mother Load. We partnered with author Maggie Messitt and stepped into yet another unknown for the project. We were quite overwhelmed by the response for the call for submissions sent out in October 2017. We received over 120 abstracts and were very moved to read through the thoughts and stories shared by the artists on what success meant to them.
Mother Makers have been exhibiting at Munich Jewelry Week—what was the response to the show?
Mother Makers: We have had a wonderful response. It was really heartwarming to see that students especially were very interested and happy to find that we're out there and they don't have to remain childless in order to do what they love. We don't promote motherhood in itself, of course. Not having children is just as valid a choice, and for some women these things are not choices at all. It's wonderful to see how activism can make a real difference to someone who is struggling with how she sees herself and her future. Some of our audience feels that we need to be more political, while to others we seem quite radical already!
What plans have you got for the future of the projects?
The Mother Load: We'll continue to develop the Anthology in 2018.
Mother Makers: We have a number of things in the pipeline, the main being to find more ways to collaborate with other mothers on projects. We have plans for exhibiting again in Munich and getting more artists to work together. We both have a constant battle between our masses of enthusiasm and ideas and the reality of the amount of time we can give, but we're excited to keep pushing Mother Makers in new ways and to keep finding ways to help make motherhood more visible within art and design.
Thanks for raising these important issues and good luck with the next phase of both projects.
Creative Capital has professional development resources for artist parents.
Cultural ReProducers is a one-stop shop for all types of mother/art resources.


Singer and actress Bette Midler tried to counter Trump's statement by tweeting a link to Chicago Tribune story which showed that nearly 800 people were murdered in Chicago.
In other words, Trump was talking about the overall number of shooting victims — fatal and non-fatal combined — when he said "more than 4,000." But in her eagerness to make it look like Trump was exaggerating, Midler tweeted that just under 800 people were murdered. She was blissfully unaware that she was comparing apples to oranges, and the sad part is that if she had listened to Trump's whole statement she would have noticed he addressed the raging homicide problem separately.
Gun-controlled Chicago ended 2016 with nearly 4,400 shooting victims and nearly 800 homicides, and the city is already on pace to have more shootings and homicides this year than last. For example, there were 466 shooting victims during the first two months of 2016 but more than 517 shooting victims during the same time period in 2017. There were 101 homicides during the first two months of 2016 but more than 103 during the same time period in 2017.
Trump is correct. Midler jumped the gun.


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Cutler Bay Couple Arrested After Alleged 2014 Sexual Assault of Teen Girl From Spain
Published June 27, 2017 • Updated on June 27, 2017 at 7:55 pm
A Cutler Bay couple was arrested last week after disturbing allegations that they sexually assaulted a teen girl who had come to the United States from Spain in 2014.
Officers charged 50-year-old Dale Leary and 21-year-old Marta San Jose with multiple counts, including lewd and lascivious behavior on a child younger than 16, sexual performance with a child and contributing to the delinquency of a child.
According to the arrest report from Miami-Dade Police, the couple began having contact with the teen – described by officials as being 14 years old at the time of the alleged incidents – after she came to the U.S. in June of that year.
Police say that the couple had sex in front of the victim multiple times while later having Leary perform sex acts on both females and having San Jose and the victim perform sex acts on him.
The couple also is alleged to have given the victim alcohol and taken various photographs, including several nude photos with both women.
Both Leary and San Jose remain behind bars. The victim was reunited with family in Spain.
The couple met after Leary hosted San Jose as part of an international exchange program for students in 2012, when she was 16 years old. Police say Leary flew to Spain to convince San Jose's parents to allow her to return to South Florida, divorcing his wife and marrying San Jose when she turned 18 less than two months before the alleged assaults.
United StatesSouth FloridaJason ParkerAmericaMiami-Dade police

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Regius Legal Llp Internship
One. At Regius Legal LLP, we are particularly focused on knowledge building and research. Young lawyers bring a lot of fresh perspectives and the firm is always striving to open its doors to new talent. The company believes in a culture of training and mentoring future leaders from day one of internships and each year we intentionally recruit new graduates from these internships to keep the wheel of growth. Associates are personally involved in training articling students on practical, commercial and procedural aspects in order to broaden the academic knowledge they acquire at the Faculty of Law. In addition, our firm has a library of more than 20,000 books accessible to articling students interested in developing a solid foundation for practice. We also have a head of research and paralegal who dedicates time to strengthening that culture of the firm. On the other hand, I have chosen two other different areas of law, namely. International Trade Law and Arbitration As trade becomes "global" in the true sense of the word, cross-border trade has increased. While this offers huge business opportunities, there is also a need to find ways to resolve cross-border disputes arising from different legal and regulatory frameworks. To ensure that companies do not find themselves in troubled waters, international commercial arbitration is quickly becoming the preferred means of dispute resolution between various Indian and international entrepreneurs. Interested candidates can send their CV and cover letter to joinus@regius.legal. 2.
the internship can start between 1 May`18 and 31 May`18 Candidates with an internship experience of 3 months or more 1. Regius LLP is seeking articling students for a 3-month articling placement effective January 21, 2022. The minimum duration of the internship is 3 months, starting January 21, 2022. Another benefit of a strong academic background is that you excel in the art of interpreting laws and legal documents. Taking different academics, some courses at once, familiarized me with multitasking and managing conflicting priorities. It has also helped me a lot in my professional relationships. R. M.
Kiran Jain, the leading litigator, laid the foundation for his legal practice in 1991 by establishing Kiran Jain & Co. as an exclusive exclusive firm. As part of the dispute resolution practice, the practice offers a range of services from land disputes, debt collection, money laundering, white-collar crime, fraud and fraud, family disputes, finances and constitutional challenges. One. Now that we know the inevitable transition to a more technology-driven legal system, the sooner we adapt to progress, the better it will be for us. However, I believe that some aspects of physical hearing cannot and should not be replaced by virtual hearing. For example, judicial proceedings in civil and criminal matters. Indeed, in these stages, eye contact, the study of body language, face-to-face interaction play a very important role. Even some evidence must be physically presented in court. I think critical phases of a case, such as cross-examination, will not be as effective if they are conducted virtually. There is a lot of preparation until the last minute, interactions, brainstorming, transmission of important information between the lawyer, the defense lawyer, the witness and so on.
Where will lawyers be on screen during these trials, which will take place by videoconference? How will interactions with witnesses take place? Will lawyers, clients and witnesses all be in the same place or in different places? How do you request information (as is the case with physical hearings) during questioning or how do you prevent the witness from being called during cross-examination? There are still many questions that need to be answered before a "switchover" to digital means takes place. If you meet the following criteria, send us your CV at joinus@regius.legal. Preference will be given to candidates with internship experience of 3 months or more and a keen interest in litigation. We offer the opportunity to do internships and contribute to our team in our Mumbai office. The person must be physically present at the office premises in Fort, Mumbai and during the internship report from Monday to Saturday at 9:30 am. With the amendment of the Companies Act and the introduction of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), the growth of the company`s practice was inevitable due to the growing customer base that forced us to address some of the most well-known and risky issues in various forums in the above areas. Increasingly, we have also handled domestic and international arbitration proceedings for our clients in various sectors. As a result, as part of its growth initiatives, the firm transitioned from a sole proprietorship to a partnership firm by integrating me as a senior partner and founding Regius Legal LLP in 2018. In addition, some of our corporate clients who have worked with us on the litigation side are very impressed with our professional ethics and legal strategies and have started to involve us in their business/business decisions and plans. This has created a solid foundation for the firm`s corporate practice.
In the next phase of our growth, which is already underway, our partners are already operating a diversified practice covering diversified service offerings in aviation, banking and finance, real estate, maritime, corporate and commercial consulting, joint ventures, intellectual property, information technology and mergers and acquisitions. Regius Legal LLP is a full-service law firm specializing in civil and criminal litigation and dispute resolution. Mr. Kiran Jain laid the foundation for his legal practice in 1991 by founding Kiran Jain & Co as a sole proprietorship. With litigation and dispute resolution at the heart of its practice, the firm has grown significantly and has specialized in areas of law. As part of its growth initiatives, the firm transitioned from a sole proprietorship structure to a partnership by hiring Mr. Ish Jain as a senior partner and establishing Regius Legal LLP in 2018. • Support senior lawyers and partners in litigation They are looking for articling students to contribute to their Mumbai office.
Applicants must be able to physically travel to their office in Mumbai. Q. They are co-partners at Mumbai-based law firm Regius Legal. What are the job opportunities in the company for first-year students? Q. While completing your Specialized LL.M. in four different areas of law, namely (i) International Trade Law, (ii) Intellectual Property Rights, (iii) Arbitration Law, and (iv) Information Technology Law, what were the benefits you can assess to do the same? Q. His law firm Regius Legal LLP is a full-service law firm specializing in civil and criminal litigation and dispute resolution. Would you maintain the niche multi-service dispute resolution practice or do you intend to venture into other practice areas? Through appropriate training and mentorship from our partners, articling students provide support in all areas of law firm practice, including dispute resolution, aviation, technology, civil and criminal litigation, and business and corporate litigation. Assist their lead counsel and partner in litigation and arbitration.
Regius Legal LLP is a full-service law firm specializing in civil and criminal litigation and dispute resolution.


text:
Without a Gun
by Lou 'Gnome' Levite
Biography & AutobiographyTrue CrimeNonfiction
Have you ever wondered why Donald Trump keeps saying everything is rigged? Well, that's because he knows how to rig things; some of which were his casinos. Have you ever wondered if he was a Mafia capo? Just when you thought you knew everything about Donald Trump, the truth of how the Mafia, the Atlantic City casino industry, and Donald Trump stole billion$ "Without a Gun" off naive tourists and gamblers by rigging the games and controlling their employees with psychological head games boarding on strong-arm tactics.
This riveting tell-all follows the book's author, from infancy to young adulthood, as he tries to figure out the reality around him. While attending college, eight miles west of Las Vegas east (Atlantic City, New Jersey), at the age of 19, our protagonist signs up to be a casino craps dealer to make extra spending money on the weekends, only to find out that the games are fixed like a Boardwalk carnival game and he is working for the Mafia.
From 1984 to 1991, Lou Levite, Jr., is working for three separate casinos; the last three years for Donald Trump at his flagship casino and Atlantic City centerpiece, Trump Plaza. He describes in detail, working in the business, recalling the gamblers, the celebrities dealt to, how the games are rigged, and how the employees were expected to act. Lou runs into legal problems with his daughter's mother, Mary, an ex-Caesar's craps dealer who at the time is working for a lawyer who was the son of the well-known Atlantic City mafioso member Paul 'Skinny' D'Amato. She uses her connections to get rid of Lou, but he's not going willingly. Add to that the many years working in the casino industry, and he is taken to attempt suicide. After yelling at his family from behind a locked door one morning about how sick and tired he is of stepping on buttons and hitting switches to steal from people to make Donald Trump look like a hero when he is nothing but a mafia crook, his door is kicked in by two police officers who bring him to the nut ward to silence him. After two weeks, Lou is released from the hospital, where he turns to extortion against Mary to make his life brighter. It works, but only lasts a year and Mary goes back to trying to get rid of Lou. He later meets Frank, a man dating his mother boasts that he's been twice arrested for murder and that he used to run the Trump Castle casino, was a good friend of Ivana Trump's, and to have been Donald Trump's roommate at the Wharton School of Business. Frank offers to help him out of his predicament, but by then it is too late. After feeling cornered and about to be killed by the Mafia, Lou leaves his family and friends behind, going underground in the hopes of surviving this contract he believes Donald Trump has a hand in. Is Donald Trump a Mafia Don? Maybe. But Lou is only alive today to tell this unbelievable story because he changed his name and spent many years in hiding. An interesting read as you watch this young man plan for and make his escape from Donald Trump and the Mafia in a world before computers, the Internet or cell phones.
This book is 378 pages.
Epiphany Publishing
OverDrive Read
Adobe EPUB eBook 684.6 KB


text:
Semiduplex
About Semiduplex
Contacting Semiduplex
June 6, 2016 Canon Law, Church, Hermeneutic of Conspiracy, Inside Baseball
You know and I know that we wouldn't be satisfied
The Holy Father, on June 4, issued the Apostolic Letter in the form of a Motu Proprio Come una madre amorevole. ("Like a loving mother.") The text is in Italian, and, so far, an English version has not been made available. One anticipates that an English translation will be made available in due course—though, recall that Mitis iudex Dominus Iesus was not made available in English for quite some time after it was promulgated—and one can always obtain a machine translation ad interim. Edward Pentin, of course, has some coverage at the National Catholic Register, where he reports:
In a new Apostolic Letter, issued motu proprio, entitled "Come una madre amorevole" (As a Loving Mother), the new norms provide for the removal of bishops (or those equivalent to them in Canon Law) from their offices in cases where they have "through negligence, committed or omitted acts that have caused grave harm to others, either with regard to physical persons, or with regard to the community itself."
The Letter also clarifies in cases of "abuse of minors or vulnerable adults, it is sufficient that the lack of diligence be grave."
The director of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, said in an explanatory note that the apostolic letter "insists on the importance of vigilant care for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults, calling for a 'particular diligence."
Therefore, he continued, "it clarifies that negligence regarding cases of sexual abuse committed against children or vulnerable adults are among the 'grave causes' that justify removal from ecclesiastical offices, even of bishops."
(Emphasis supplied and hyperlink omitted.)
For our part, we note that Come una madre amorevole will undoubtedly be represented as establishing a mechanism by which bishops negligent in sex-abuse cases can be removed; however, it is by no means limited to that circumstance. It seems to us that, under Article I, § 1, of the motu proprio, almost any very grave negligence (Art. I, § 2) having a physical, moral, spiritual, or financial effect could result in an a process being initiated (likely in the Congregation for Bishops, Art. II, §§ 1–2).
Imagine the possibilities!
Robert Grosseteste's integralism
Frederick, Aquinas, and sacrilege
Private property and the common good
Another debate over integralist law
Due process, manifest crimes, and electronic order
THVRSDAY EDITION… on Robert Grosseteste's integrali…
MONDAY EDITION… on Another debate over integralis…
FRIDAY EDITION… on The hour of the lawyers
The Juridical Turn |… on The hour of the lawyers
The Property and Pow… on Common-good conservatism, Vati…
Faint Humor
Hermeneutic of Conspiracy
Inside Baseball
Lettergate
Link Roundup
Mitis iudex
Synod 2015
Vatileaks II


Legalise Cannabis Oil in the U.K for medical use! Joy given 6wks to live cannabis oil has nearly cured her.
Allow people to grow the Cannabis plant without a license!
Could Cannabis help treat bone diseases?
Could CBD help treat Perthes Disease?


text:
Rogers Behavioral Health opens Sheboygan outpatient clinic
Community Needs Assessment and Community Benefit
Lives are Changed
Posted on 06/28/21 08:00:am
Rogers will also open its first-ever supportive living facility in August
SHEBOYGAN, WIS. (June 28, 2021) — Rogers Behavioral Health, one of the nation's largest not-for-profit mental health treatment providers, opened an outpatient clinic today in Sheboygan. Located at 1108 S. Wildwood Ave., the clinic treats OCD, anxiety, depression, other mood disorders, and co-occurring substance use in adults and adolescents ages 12 to 17.
"More people than ever are seeking mental health and addiction services, including here in the Sheboygan area," said Pat Hammer, president and CEO of Rogers Behavioral Health. "With the opening of our new treatment center, we are honored to become part of the solution in the community by providing access to high-quality, specialized care close to home."
The 10,000-square-foot outpatient clinic can serve up to 12 adolescents and 28 adults at a time. Multidisciplinary teams, led by board-certified psychiatrists, work closely with patients and families to develop a personalized plan with clinically effective therapies.
"Our mission at Rogers is to help people reach their full potential for health and well-being," said clinical director David Jacobi, PhD. "We accomplish that in part by using evidence-based treatments and determining what mix of services is most appropriate for each patient."
In addition to the outpatient clinic, Rogers will open its first-ever supportive living services in August. A separate space adjacent to the clinic, it will accommodate up to 12 adult patients at a time and provide them with a place to call home during treatment as they prepare to transition back into everyday life.
The environment supports recovery through shared experience and builds strength and hope with treatment teams who are available for coaching and mentoring. The space will feature a common living room, dining room, kitchen, and shared bedrooms with kitchenettes and bathrooms.
The supportive living space for adults is not only a first for Rogers, but it will be unique to the local offering of behavioral health services. While traditional supportive living facilities focus primarily on addiction, Rogers' environment will be a safe place for those undergoing treatment for addiction, as well as OCD, anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders.
"The community has welcomed us with open arms and has expressed so much interest and excitement in the new treatment location," Dr. Jacobi said. "We look forward to becoming an integral part of the community and providing a safe haven for Sheboygan-area residents on their path to recovery."
The clinic staff is comprised of nearly 20 individuals, including Dr. Jacobi, Sean LeNoue, MD, therapists, behavioral specialists, registered nurses, and an advanced practice nurse. Rogers is hiring for a therapist and a few coordinators to work at the supportive living facility. For more information, visit rogersbh.org/careers.
The Sheboygan treatment location is a $4 million project made possible by a donor, who would like to remain anonymous. The clinic and supportive living facility were built by Project 4. JB Site Design & Engineering, Distinctive Design Group, and interior designer Marie Tock were also affiliated with the project.
To request a free, confidential screening, call 800-767-4411. For more information, visit rogersbh.org/sheboygan.
Rogers Behavioral Health is a nationally recognized, not-for-profit provider of mental health and addiction services. Rogers offers evidence-based treatment for adults, children and teens with depression and mood disorders, eating disorders, addiction, OCD and anxiety disorders, trauma and PTSD. In addition to a growing network of regional locations in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington, Rogers operates three inpatient behavioral health hospitals, 14 residential programs and eight outpatient centers in Wisconsin. The System also includes Rogers Behavioral Health Foundation and Rogers InHealth. Learn more at rogersbh.org.


text:
microscopiq
art • games • change
Archive for the 'Serious' Category
Speaking at Living Game Worlds
December 1, 2008	in Games and Serious	Comments
Just hit the ground in Atlanta, where I'll be speaking at Living Game Worlds 4 this week. It's always great fun to hang out with folks like Raph Koster, T.L. Taylor, Randy Farmer, and Ian Bogost. My talk will focus on the design challenges we faced building games in virtual worlds — the Virtual Team Building Games project, which I lead at IBM Research. Looking forward to some good discussion. If you're at LGW4, stop by and say hi!
Check out our notes on LGW3 at Inside Living Game Worlds. For more, see the Living Game Worlds site.
Inside Living Game Worlds
April 5, 2007	in Games and Serious	4 Comments
What makes a next generation game? At Living Game Worlds III last week, some really bright folks got together to talk about just that question. And the answer came like a chorus: It's not about wicked-fast number crunching, liquid AI, and poly pushing by the pound, but games the engage the soul and go beyond conventional expectations of what a game should be. Looking back on a day overflowing with interesting people and ideas, a few things stick out:
Katie Salen talked accuracy vs. authenticity, the notion that just because a game accurately models some real-world activity or place does not guarantee that players will perceive it that way. "Reality" is in the player's head, not in the physical world. Game design, then, is a constant negotiation between design decisions and player expectations. And it's always different. There's no one game that every player plays.
Janet Murray made the case that games are our most primal form of cultural expression, even predating speech. They emerged from an urge to document experiences and culture, to reenact them over time and pass them on to future generations. She argued that game play is a central, even instinctual, urge in all cultures and that shows how much further videogames could reach.
Tracy Fullerton pointed out that game mechanics are a significant limiting factor in the industry today. The mechanics are the message; where narrative is the organizing principle of film, mechanics are the organizing principle of games. The problem the industry faces is that new mechanics are hard, time consuming, and costly to develop. It's easier to stick with what you know works. But developing new mechanics is essential because they are so central to advancing the state of the art — providing game developers access to significantly new and different content.
A particularly inspiring session focused on Games of the Oppressed, featuring three games that aim to help those in need. A Force More Powerful, an RTS-like sim, provides the oppressed masses with strategies to confront and defeat violent leaders using nonviolent means. The now famous (and rightfully so) Darfur is Dying was demonstrated in addition to some lovely avatar creation art for a new title. Lastly, we got a walkthrough of the inner-city afterschool program that designed Ayiti: The Cost of Life, a game that explores poverty and obstacles to education in contemporary Haiti.
Some heated exchanges came during the discussion of indie game festival Slamdance ejecting Super Columbine RPG and the ensuing firestorm of publicity. "Why is it OK to make a film about Columbine but not a game?" being the key question. (Joystiq has more)
The day ended with another central question: Nobody ever told a kid to stop reading a book and go outside, but you hear it all the time with TV and videogames. Why is that? What does that say about the relationship between our culture and gaming? What does it say about the ground game designers have yet to explore? Food for thought and food for the future.
Wii vs. Your Teeth
March 22, 2007	in Games and Serious	9 Comments
Seen in a recent demo session at work, these Wiimote plaque removers had me smiling on sight. When the creators controlled a game by brushing their teeth with them, though, I spit out my drink. Welcome to Wii Oral Sports.
The game (shot here) involves keeping your character alive in a perilous fish tank. Only by brushing your teeth with the correct motion and making sure to cover every last tooth can you escape harm. The idea, of course, is that kids don't do the greatest job of dental care so anything that helps them avoid rabbid tooth is goodness. Some might complain the game has little to do with the real-world task but that just earns extra charm points in my book.
Heck, they even showed playing improves brushing behavior in an experiment. Once the game was taken away, though, bad habits returned. We all know what the solution to that one is, don't we? Wii for everyone! Nintendo needs to get on the stick.
The demo was titled "Lifestyle Ubiquitous Gaming: Making Daily Lives Fun" and shown as part of PerComm 2007. It was built by a bunch of folks from the Distributed and Ubiquitous Computing Lab in Tokyo.
For more unlikely tooth defense techniques, witness the Cavity Creeps.
It's Only Fun When You Ain't Learning
January 25, 2007	in Games and Serious	8 Comments
Out of the UK comes a fantasy role playing game that cost twice what a typical high-end title (like Gears of War) does to develop. So, the selling point is top-notch production values and seriously epic story, right? Not so much. The big deal with this game is that it was designed to teach literacy and math skills to kids. Before you get into that "Games and learning? Blech!" look on your face, stick with me a minute.
At the recent Games for Change Salon at Parsons, I talked to many people who were psyched about serious games, but I also heard from a surprising number of folks who weren't. The unimpressed said things like: "the more learning you put in a game, the less fun it is." It's really not an unreasonable position considering how many examples support the argument (and how few don't). Raph Koster puts it like this:
Games work best at teaching when the challenges are organic to the experience, rather than out of left field. This is why so many educational games suck — just strapping an incentive structure on rote practice doesn't work very well, compared to instead building a long-term goal structure, and then presenting challenges on the way. The "fill the hold" example works because the students have a goal that isn't learning. I think this is the fundamental error many educators make — they think that everyone finds learning for learning's sake to be engaging.
The path for educational games is to start with something that users care about, and just take care to select a goal that naturally offers up the sorts of challenges that we want to teach.
But isn't that also the fundamental problem? Creating fun game challenges that naturally convey specific (and significant) educational content ain't easy. That's because, while some content is fairly easy to teach through in-game challenges (solving logic puzzles being a particularly popular example), others are much harder. How would we make learning the parts of speech fun, for instance? Surely it's possible, but finding that perfect game element it fits naturally with might take some work.
And this brings out a central challenge for the serious games community: game design is an art. It's really hard enough to design a game that's "merely" fun without having to service particular learning goals as well. Doing both is a daunting task and likely explains why more serious games don't come from the traditional game industry. Fortunately, that's changing. Nintendo's Brain Age has been huge, Square's chief strategist is keynoting this year's Serious Games Summit, and I'm sure there's more just over the horizon.
It's encouraging to see these heavy hitters interested in making learning a central aspect of new games. As the industry grows, diversification becomes an increasingly important survival strategy. And diversity keeps the games interesting, too. Imagine that. If diversity is essential, could it be that some significant part of the the future of games hinges on making them educational? How'd that be for turning the tables?
War is Hella Fun
December 13, 2006	in Games, Serious and War	1 Comment
Have you ever played an emotionally wrenching wargame? When was the last time a first person shooter made you cry? Ever spent weeks torn up over the pain and suffering endured by your troops in an RTS? Why not?
That question might sound strange, but stick with me a second… You see, over the years I've been addicted to all sorts of shooting games, exploding games, running-people-over-with-tanks games. Mostly because the good ones are hella fun, especially with friends. But part of me always felt a little weird about it. In January's Edge, Lorne Lanning put it this way:
That's when a medium really has power — the idea of the artist, mythologically, is to show us the way, or the wrong way, even. It's showing the world something it needs to know, but for some reason isn't necessarily able to see. You see it in a great movie, book, or play, but it's not happening in games. What I see instead is we say: 'Hmm, why don't we take war, and make it as visually realistic as possible, then sterilize so that it's just fun', and there's something very perverted about that.
And particularly perverted considering that my country is at war as we speak. How is it that so many games fetishize guns and ammo but don't quite manage to attach the same import to people?
I'm certainly not looking to start up the whole murder simulator debate again (heck, I liked Manhunt). But I am hopeful that more will consider the fact that we are making fabulously fun games from experiences that are anything but. It's not so much that I fear the folks are being desensitized to violence or that games like Battlefield or Quake 3 or Defcon shouldn't exist. (I love that stuff!)
My point is more that game developers are missing a fantastic opportunity to help players better understand what troops really go through on deployment. That might not be as much fun but, then, neither is war. And as powerful a medium as gaming is, it seems a shame not to explore all its dimensions.
Update: Edge just put the full text of Lorne's interview online. Worth a read — the guy makes points.
Emotionally Available
October 12, 2006	in Art/Design, Games and Serious	7 Comments
When I think about the games I love most, the thing that jumps out is not graphics or story or control mechanism, but emotion. Because that's what it all adds up to when it's done right. And that's what I think a recent Atlantic article that focuses largely on Façade is getting at, too. It suggests the way forward for games lies in finding ways to connect with players on a more deeply emotional level, the claim being that this is when games will approach art. (I'd argue that a few games have already archived the status of art, but let's not go there just now.)
It's a beautiful notion and certainly, in the abstract, the sort of connection that all games should shoot for in their unique ways. The article discusses two approaches to eliciting emotion that show promise: making characters more emotionally intelligent (Façade) and creating an environment where players can experience the "magical delight of creation" (Spore).
But there's more. What we are really talking about is no longer letting players take the easy way out. There's no "You Win! Thanks for playing!" but rather lots of hard questions and no easy answers.
Continue reading 'Emotionally Available'
August 11, 2006	in Games and Serious	1 Comment
When I first played Darfur is Dying some months ago, I wasn't expecting much. I mean how much of the awful situation in Darfur could really be communicated through a hopelessly impoverished flash game? I expected to feel insulted. Heck, I insisted on being insulted. And I was wrong.
As simple as it is, Darfur is Dying engages the imagination — asking the player to see themselves in a different skin and a different place, where things we take for granted (like getting water) become complex and dangerous and not guaranteed. It stuck with me. There's something about actively playing that role, however abstract, that brings this lesson home the way a thousand news stories just can't. Or, maybe it's the combination of those thousand news stories and the opportunity to imagine yourself as part of them. It's anti-escapism.
What I find fascinating about Darfur is Dying (and many other serious games) is how little it takes to make this happen. There are no full 3D environments, no orchestral score, no 80 hours of gameplay, no multi-million dollar budget, no five years of development. Just thoughtful design. As far as design goes, then, it harkens back to the golden age of videogames in the 1980's. And that begs the question: how repeatable is this? What does it take to create games on other topics that provoke similar feelings?
Many old school "educational games" motivated rote learning with dessert (finish the math problems and you get to play space invaders), but what really sets serious games (new and old) apart is that they insist on incorporating learning strongly with gameplay rather than tacking it on. They insist on working to make learning engaging, transparent. They are learning-by-doing, but they protect you from the dangers of doing it for real.
There's a lot of breath in serious games (everything from Falcon 4 to Guitar Hero to Sim City to Pump Expeditions seems to fall in), but my favorites tend to have a socially relevant message. They don't so much try to teach you how to operate a tank as to change your attitudes about someone, someplace, something.
So, while the serious games moniker typically refers broadly to games that teach real world knowledge or skills, I prefer to think of serious games as games with a serious message as well (like the G4C folks). They make you emotional. They make you rethink. They make you want to find out more. They motivate. And, ultimately, that is one of the most powerful things interactive media can do.
For more, see the Serious Games Initiative
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text:
package de.jdynameta.base.metainfo.impl;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import de.jdynameta.base.metainfo.ClassInfo;
import de.jdynameta.base.metainfo.ClassRepository;

/**
 * @author rs
 * @version 13.06.2002
 */
public class DefaultClassRepository implements ClassRepository
{

    private final List<ClassInfo> allClassInfos;
    private final ClassRepositoryValidator classValidator;
    private final String repoName;

    public DefaultClassRepository(String aRepoName)
    {
        this.repoName = aRepoName;
        this.allClassInfos = new ArrayList<>();
        this.classValidator = new DefaultClassRepositoryValidator();
    }

    @Override
    public String getRepoName()
    {
        return repoName;
    }

    public void addClassInfo(ClassInfo aInfo) throws InvalidClassInfoException
    {
        validateClassInfo(aInfo);
        allClassInfos.add(aInfo);
    }

    /**
     * Gets the allClassInfos.
     *
     * @return Returns a List
     */
    @Override
    public Iterable<? extends ClassInfo> getAllClassInfosIter()
    {
        return allClassInfos;
    }

    /**
     * Make sure that the class breaks no validation rule
     *
     * @param aClassInfoToAdd
     * @throws InvalidClassInfoException
     */
    protected void validateClassInfo(ClassInfo aClassInfoToAdd) throws InvalidClassInfoException
    {
        this.classValidator.validateClassInfo(aClassInfoToAdd, this.allClassInfos);
    }

    @Override
    public ClassInfo getClassForName(String internalClassName)
    {
        ClassInfo resultClass = null;

        for (ClassInfo type : this.getAllClassInfosIter())
        {
            if (type.getInternalName().equals(internalClassName))
            {
                resultClass = type;
                break;
            }
        }

        return resultClass;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


A good way to start the new year is at the pub, which for us meant a new roof in Ebony Colorsteel for the Kirwee Hotel.
We know it was a good choice of colour and profile for the pub. People can make a mistake trying to use a more contemporary profile such as Trapezoidal on older buildings when Corrugate is timeless and works extremely well.


I'm on a roll today! Highly motivated even :-)) This Friday, me and husband fly off to Nusa Dua for the weekend, just to chill. In the meantime, I'm plundering my chest of new stones.
These are natural silver quartz stones which I've teamed with sterling silver spacers and 2 smooth black agate large rondells, just to break the monotony.
Never too early! Approx 81 days to Christmas!


text:
Location: Santa Fe County.
Santa Fe Historic District
Santa Fe Plaza
Barrio de Analco Historic District
The second oldest city in the United States, Santa Fe still reflects to a remarkable degree—in its architecture, customs, people, and language—its Indian-Spanish-Mexican heritage. Site of an ancient Indian village and since 1610 capital of New Mexico under Spain, Mexico, and the United States, La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco (The Royal City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis) is truly the "Cradle of the Southwest." As in few other places in the United States, the blend of cultures that resulted from Spanish settlement can be seen and experienced.
Pueblo- and Territorial-style buildings line the narrow streets; Spanish language and customs predominate; historic sites and buildings abound. Santa Fe—also a modern art and cultural center—has made special efforts to preserve its heritage. A number of excellent museums, most of them units of the Museum of New Mexico, trace the history of this ancient city and its environs from the days of prehistoric Indians, through the Spanish and Mexican periods, to the present.
The focal point on the plaza in Santa Fe is the Palace of the Governors, a Registered National Historic Landmark. The plaza itself—also a Registered National Historic Landmark (relating primarily to the Santa Fe Trail)—has significant associations with early Indian-Spanish history. The Spanish used it for official, religious, and military functions. In fact, the entire pageantry of 17th-century Spanish conquest and settlement, Pueblo Revolt, and Spanish reconquest reached their climax in or near the plaza.
Among the many other important sites and buildings throughout the city of Santa Fe associated with the Spanish period are:
(1) Chapel of San Miguel. Originally built by Fray Alfonso de Benavides in 1626, this chapel is one of the oldest in the United States. It was partially destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. After the reconquest, in 1692, it was rebuilt on the same site and for the next 50 years served as the military chapel of Santa Fe. Impressive carved altar decorations, historic paintings—some dating from the 13th century—and a bell said to have been cast in Spain in 1536 are interesting features. An excellent example of an 18th-century Spanish chapel, San Miguel still serves as a parish church.
(2) Rosario Chapel. Standing in the old Spanish cemetery northwest of Santa Fe, this chapel was originally built by De Vargas on the spot where his army camped while besieging Santa Fe during the reconquest of 1692. Rebuilt in 1807 and still used as a church, it is the starting point for the De Vargas procession, which commemorates the reconquest annually during Fiesta.
(3) Guadalupe Church. Built about 1795, this still-active parish church is the oldest shrine in the United States dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
(4) Barrio de Analco. This district, which surrounds the Chapel of San Miguel, was occupied by Mexican Indians who came north with the Spaniards. During the Pueblo Revolt it was razed, but after the reconquest it became the residential section for soldiers, servants, Indians, and genizaros (halfbreeds). Its historic buildings and narrow, winding streets make it one of the most picturesque sections of the city.
Numerous residences and commercial buildings also date from the Spanish period. Among them are the Gregorio Crespin House, the so-called "Oldest House," El Zaguan, and the Borrego House. Many of these fine old buildings have been marked with plaques by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.


text:
D Archer Electrical Engineers & Contractors Ltd
Local Electrician Services To Northampton, The Home Counties and Central England
Electric Vehicle Chargers
Home › Health & Safety
D Archer Electrical Services Northamptonshire
Health & Safety Policy Statement
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 imposes statutory duty on D Archer Electrical Engineers & Contractors Ltd to ensure, in so far as is reasonably practicable , the health, safety and welfare of its employees whilst at work and others who may be affected by that work. Our employees also have a duty to take care of themselves and others that may be affected by their acts or omissions.
To enable these duties to be carried out, it is our intent to ensure that responsibilities for health and safety matters are effectively assigned, accepted and fulfilled within the Company.
Therefore D Archer Electrical Engineers & Contractors will, in so far as is reasonably practicable, ensure that;
1.Adequate resources, both financial and otherwise, are assigned to ensure the proper provision for health and safety at work.
2.Risk assessments are carried out and periodically reviewed.
3.Systems of work that are safe and without risks to health are established and followed.
4.Arrangements are made and complied with for the safe use, handling, storage and transport of articles and substances for use at work.
5.Employees are provided with such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to secure their safety and health at work and the safety of others that may be affected by their actions. Training will include induction, work practices, plant and equipment training as necessary and any required to meet current legislation as it applies to our undertaking.
6.Where appropriate health surveillance will be provided for employees.
7.Plant, and work equipment is provided and maintained in a safe condition and without risks to health.
8.Employees working environment is safe and without risks to health and adequate arrangements is made for their welfare whilst at work.
9.Employees working environment is safe and provided with adequate means of access and egress.
10.Investigate and record all accidents/incidents occurring at work and take reasonable action to prevent a reoccurrence. To keep regular statistics of all accidents/incidents and review areas where safety is possibly lacking.
11.Monitoring activities are undertaken to maintain agreed standards.
12.Arrangements are in place for effective employee consultation regarding health, safety and welfare matters.
13.D Archer Electrical Engineers & Contractors Ltd employs a competent person to assist in applying the provisions of Environment Health and Safety legislation.
14.The H & S policy and procedures shall be reviewed at least annually in order to reflect any change in legislation or working practices, and amended accordingly.
The Company requires all employees and sub-contractors, when at work to;
1.Take reasonable care for the health and safety of themselves and others that may be affected by their acts or omissions at work.
2.Co-operate with D Archer Electrical Engineers & Contractors Ltd in its statutory duties.
3.Not interfere with or misuse anything provided in the interest of health & safety.
Revision No 1 2010
2 Meadow Close
Mawsley
NN14 1JY
E-mail: enquiries@darcherelectrical.co.uk
© 2019 D Archer Electrical Engineers & Contractors Ltd
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Founder : Tresford Himanansa II.
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Browse & Shop our large selection of Parisian Themed Bridal Shower from most popular online stores as seen on April 22, 2019.
Parisian Themed Bridal Shower - The Best Selection Of Halloween Costumes, Accessories & Animatronics.
Don't satisfied with Parisian Themed Bridal Shower searching results or looking for more similar searches? Try to exlore these related searches: Board Hat, Halloween Costumes Movie Characters Homemade, Kids Pink Cowboy Hat.


In accordance with MAPPS bylaws, the nomination and election process for the MAPPS Board of Directors is hereby initiated and announced.
As the MAPPS President I have appointed Mitch Long of GRW to Chair the 2018 Nominations Committee. An announcement for additional volunteers to participate on the Nominations Committee will be sent shortly. This important committee will recommend the slate of candidates for election to the MAPPS Board of Directors.
The terms of the following Directors expire in July, 2018: Bob Hanson, Chris Ogier, Brian Raber.
Please note, Board positions are 2-year terms, and there are no term limits.
A call for individuals to serve on the Nominations Committee should be issued in mid-April to the membership with responses by the end of April. The President and Chair selects the members of the Nominations Committee, and the President formally appoints the full committee.
The full Nominations Committee, along with a call for Board Candidates, will be announced by mid-May.
Individuals who wish to be considered for election to the MAPPS Board can submit interest in writing to the Chairman no later than the end of May.
The Nominations Committee next evaluates and ranks those who formally submitted letters of interest.
The Nominations Committee will announce its recommended slate of candidates by the end of June.
The election of Directors will take place at the annual business meeting of MAPPS during the Summer Conference.
Any individual not nominated by the Nominations Committee can be considered by a nomination from the floor at that meeting, provided that notice is filed with President 2 weeks from the Summer Conference.
be from a firm (or family of firms with common ownership relationships) that has not recently been represented on the MAPPS Board so as to spread among the member firms an equitable opportunity to participate on the Board.
Brief (not more than two (2) pages) biographical sketch of the candidate to include education, experience, registrations/certifications, past participation in MAPPS activities including positions, leadership, political activity, and a statement as to why he/she desires to be a member of the MAPPS Board of Directors.
Please contact Brian Raber at brian.raber@merrick.com, or 720-320-4843 if you have any questions.


This post is a starter for others but also a reminder for myself. September 18, 2014 made it four years that I have been running blackcoffeepoet.com. Four years! This past year I have fallen off the keyboard: irregular postings and discontent readers because of my irregularity. For three years I posted 3x a week. Time to get back to that schedule. The next few points are a reminder of what I have to do to get back to there and what novice bloggers can learn from my experience.
Readers generally don't visit blogs and sites that post irregularly. Why visit and outdated blog or website?
Choose days that work for you to publish work and let your readers know your schedule. After setting your schedule stick to it! Nothing irritates readers more than coming to a site and seeing an old post they've already read. In this day and age readers like new content and consistency.
Readers like to know where they are going and what they are going to get: focus.
Without a them and focus I would not have the worldwide following that I do.
A title lets the reader know what your post is about. Titles are also picked up by GOOGLE search (I'm still learning about this). Good titles matched with good writing are win win!
Over the last four years my titles have not been the best in terms of attracting GOOGLE. I'll be going back to change titles and using the topical titles to let my readers know what they are in for.
Bad titles I have used in terms of GOOGLE have been my interviews. Example: "Interview With…". The persons name would be best to start off with.
If your readers comment on your blog the best thing to do is to respond. For the first two years I did not do that. Bad move! Readers I have started to interact with have been coming back to my blog. Response equals respect. I may not agree with all peoples who read my blog, or comment, but I respect the fact that they took the time to visit, read, and write me.
Good posts should not be left in the past. Feature your most successful posts on a special page on your blog. Click on my page Popular Posts. New and old readers visit several of my posts that are now two and three years old.
A Popular Posts page and a search bar (look to the right) help your readers go back in the past. Again, old posts are not bad posts. With the important topics I highlight I want readers to have access to them at all times.
The whole purpose of this post is to remind me not to be away from my readers to long periods of time. If you want to lose regular readers or new readers visiting your blog stay in active.
We are going full circle here: Post Consistently!


text:
There is so much to see and do at Colchester Museums that you will be spoilt for choice.
Covering thousands of years of history, a visit to one of our museums or art galleries will take you on a fascinating journey through time!
Colchester Castle
Hollytrees Museum
Ipswich Museums
Museum sessions
Castles as Homes
Romans in Colchester
Toys and Homes
Victorian Lives
Group Visit Information
Arts Award Supporter
A Turner At The Castle
Included in admission
Suitable for Everyone
Exhibition, Arts and Craft, Special
'Walton Bridges' was painted by Turner in 1806 close to his home on the River Thames. It is widely regarded as the first oil painting by Turner to have been based on oil sketches made in the open air, a practice that was to become a significant element to his work, and one that makes this painting so important.
Colchester + Ipswich Museums were instrumental in a bid to help save this important painting for the nation when, in 2019, a rescue bid was launched with Norfolk Museum Service. With the aid of major grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund, the Friends of Ipswich Museums and a private donor, this nationally important painting was successfully saved for the East of England and the nation. Further support from the Friends of Colchester Museums has enabled us to bring this stunning artwork to Colchester Castle.
This display has also been made possible as a result of the Government Indemnity Scheme. Colchester + Ipswich Museums would like to thank HM Government for providing Government Indemnity and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England for arranging it.
This event is included as part of Castle admission.
For your safety and comfort, we are asking visitors to book a ticket in advance for a timed entry to visit Colchester Castle.
You will be able to book your visit up to 14 days in advance by calling our booking line on 01206 282939 between the hours of 10am – 4.30pm (11am – 4.30pm on Sundays)
Click here for more information + booking
museums@colchester.gov.uk
Colchester Castle App
Ancient Colchester App
Colchester Museums Development Foundation
Jobs with Colchester + Ipswich Museums
Colchester Borough Council
Ipswich Borough Council
Visit Colchester
All About Ipswich
Designed by Colchester Borough Council Online Team
Where will your adventure start?
Exhibitions + Displays


text:
Leptospermum sphaerocarpum is a species of shrub that is endemic to New South Wales. It has thin, firm bark, elliptical, sharply-pointed leaves, greenish white or pink flowers and fruit that remain on the plant at maturity.

Description
Leptospermum sphaerocarpum is a shrub that typically grows to a height of  with thin, firm bark and young stems usually covered with soft hairs. It has broad to narrow elliptical leaves  long  and  wide with a sharply-pointed tip and tapering at the base to a short, thick petiole. The flowers are greenish white or pink, mostly  wide and arranged singly on short side shoots. There are many reddish brown bracts at the base of the flower bud but which fall off long before the flower opens. The floral cup is densely silky-hairy,  long and the sepals broadly egg-shaped, about  long. The petals are  long and the stamens  long. Flowering mainly occurs from October to November and the fruit is a capsule  wide with woody valves and that remains on the plant at maturity.

Taxonomy and naming
Leptospermum sphaerocarpum was first formally described in 1932 by Edwin Cheel in the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, from specimens he collected near Rylstone.

Distribution and habitat
This tea-tree in grows in heath and forest on sandstone ridges and cliffs In the Warrumbungles and south to the Blue Mountains and upper Hunter River in New South Wales.

References

sphaerocarpum
Flora of New South Wales
Myrtales of Australia
Plants described in 1932
Taxa named by Edwin Cheel

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia