Clara Barton, know as "The Angel of the Battlefield" founded the American Red Cross during the American Civil War.
Federal troops began pouring into the city of Washington, D.C. a city that had been placed under substantial military guard. The Civil War had just begun and the residents in the capital were alarmed and confused by the presence of the newly recruited troops. But for Clara Barton, a former clerk at the Patent Office whose anti-slavery opinions were well known, perceived an immediate need through all the chaos.
Born the youngest of six children, Barton moved from Massachusetts to Washington in 1854, but left in 1857 because of her views on slavery. It was only after Abraham Lincoln was elected as President that she soon returned to the capital.
That's when the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment made their way from Boston to the nation's capital. With 50 police officers escorting the troops through the city of Baltimore, a mob of Maryland's Southern sympathizers began to grow, with mobs gathering and building blockades between the stations.
The atmosphere was full of disdain and it wasn't long before the angry mob began throwing stones and bricks at the soldiers. Soon, individuals began opening fire upon the troops, resulting in one soldier being killed. As a result, the troops were ordered to return fire into the mob, resulting in four soldiers and twelve civilians being killed, with many more injured.
When the soldiers made their way to the train heading to Washington, the citizens of Baltimore learned more troops from the North were on their way, leading to riots that went on into the night, forcing the Mayor, George Brown and the police commissioner to order the railroad bridges north of the city to be burned.
For the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, their arrival in Washington alarmed and confused the residents. Many of the soldiers had lost their belongings, others were wounded, all were hungry and without bedding or clothing other than what they had on their backs.
That's when Barton began her Civil War service. She wasted no time in bringing supplies to the young men of the Sixth Massachusetts Infantry, finding them temporary housing in the unfinished Capitol building. Soon, she was providing them with clothing, assorted foods and supplies for the sick and wounded on behalf of such organizations as the U.S. Sanitary Commission.
But Barton's support didn't end there. She offered personal support to the soldiers by reading to them, writing them letters, listening to their problems and praying with them.
Throughout the war, Barton continued to contribute to the aid of soldiers, acting primarily as an organizer of supply delivery, and arriving at battlefields and hospitals with wagons of sanitary supplies. She further worked to identify the dead and wounded so families would know what happened to their loved ones. But even thought she was a supporter of the Union she served both sides in providing neutral relief, earning her the name of the Angel of the Battlefield.
When the Civil War ended, Barton soon made her way to Georgia, where she would assist a young clerk and former prisoner of the Andersonville prison camp, Dorence Atwater, identify the Union soldiers in unmarked graves who had died at the Confederate prison. It was there that Barton would pour over lists of missing soldiers and match them with Andersonville's Death Register and captured hospital records. With her help, Andersonville's national cemetery was established and because of her aid, she was given the honor of raising the American flag for the first time.
After returning to Washington in 1865, Barton established the Missing Soldier's Office and hired numerous clerks to respond to the more than 60,000 letters she had received from families inquiring about their loved ones. When the Office closed in 1867, Barton and her staff had identified more than 20,000 missing soldiers, including nearly 13,000 who had died at the Andersonville Prison.
By 1869, Barton had travelled to Europe, where for the first time she learned about the Geneva Convention, which had been established in 1866, but which the United States had not signed. It was also during her travel to Europe that she learned of the International Committee of the Red Cross and soon became its strongest advocate. By 1880, the American Red Cross was established, with Barton serving as the organization's first president until 1904. After her resignation, she continued her humanitarian and philanthropy efforts until her death on April 12, 1912 at the age of 90.


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Gongol.com > Archives > 2009 > March 2009
"[A] man raised from the station of a private citizen to the rank of chief magistrate, possessed of a moderate or slender fortune, and looking forward to a period not very remote when he may probably be obliged to return to the station from which he was taken, might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice his duty to his interest, which it would require superlative virtue to withstand. An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate created and circumstanced as would be a President of the United States." - Federalist Paper No. 75
Gongol.com Archives: March 2009
Chinese central-bank governor expresses doubts about the US dollar
And in the process calls for a global currency to replace it as a medium of exchange. Centralized currencies, though, are bad for economic flexibility -- which is exactly the kind of thing that's in greater need now. The "cheapness" of any individual currency communicates a lot of information about what markets believe is happening and what will happen in the country behind it. Sometimes those markets are awfully wrong, but it's still vital to have the information over the long run.
Microsoft asks Internet developers to prepare for MSIE 8
The new version of Internet Explorer finally gets around to a pretty high degree of compliance with Web standards, which ought to help finally kill off the era of browser-dependent website design
Economic trouble is already creating some social unrest in wealthy countries
And that's a very dangerous thing. The rule of law is vital to both individual liberty and economic freedom.
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A Commission Regulation on aviation security that came into force on February 1, 2004, includes a list of items not permitted on aircraft and is intended as a guide for those travelling by air.
The regulation lists items that should not be packed in hand baggage carried onto the aircraft as well as items not allowed in checked baggage.
The list is in accordance with Annex 17 of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a specialised United Nations agency, and is applicable not only to EU countries but also to the 188 member states of ICAO. Read more about prohibited articles on the Swedish Transport Agency's website. At the moment, this is only available in Swedish.


I worked the london circuits back in the 80's, most days it was like riding a space ship. I remember hitting a big patch of diesel on chiswick roundabout, both wheels slid about a foot and a half sideways, but I did not fall off, I was like whoa lol and just carried on. There were times I did fall off. Like on my LC undertaking a car on the roundabout near frian barnet nut house, I opened up too soon at full lean and the back end flipped out. That was expensive.
Or like the pedestrian stepping off a traffic island in the Aldwych, I honked at her at 25 feet and whichever way I moved she moved into my path, it ended in a BOOF but neither she nor I got hurt but the funny part was everyone rushed to pick me up and make sure I was alright, they just ignored her lol.
Or the time I pulled up, forgetting to put down the side stand at the BBC Wood Lane, I had a red face after that one.
Or the time I got talking to a fellow MZ rider in Hampstead Heath, I had just used a phone box to call in and he pulls up, he was wearing a leather jacket but only shorts below, I pointed out the error and he explained he was going cottaging, lol the penny dropped, I shut up and left.
I also managed to not run over Phil Collins as he crossed Stratton St W1 when I was heading for the Berkeley St Thomas Cook office.
Glory days, hell yes. The best part was the social side, lol the wild bunch were tame to the blokes I worked around, a good crowd. The worst part was picking up a package from another rider after an accident and there were plenty of accidents.
I quit in 88 after a near miss, one of those near misses that as its happening your bones ache because you know its going to hurt. As crossed the lights at Pentonville rd a car turned right across my path. but I swerved around it. I knew I was done right there and then, I quit that night.
Good to hear a kindred spirit. Didn't work at London Zoo at any time did you?
Speaking of celebs, delivered/picked up from or bumped into; Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Seb Coe, Zoe Ball, Paul Mcartney, Dave Stewart, Honor Blackman (lovely lady, invited me in), Jane Asher. And some I've forgotten.
Some amazing signatures too. Two stand out; a Japanese chap in the tower block in Shoe Lane - a miniature work of art. And a Nigerian fellow in Northumberland Ave., looked like an African landscape! Couldn't read either of them (like most).
Remembering back now it almost seems like some kind of twilight zone - did it really exist?
Never worked at the zoo but I remember the royal parks banned advertising on vehicles that went through, so you had to hide it or risk getting caught and getting a bollocking lol.
There was money to fund whatever life you wanted to live. Bohemians & nomads, man we were out there on the fringe of society.
Part 1 of 3. I was still on the road then but not featured.
grcamna1, Chris S, Draechon and 2 others like this.
How does one get a job doing this? Is it a thing in the US?
Ran three CX's, followed by the Beemer. After a clean up - flogged with 211,000 on the clock for the same price I paid for it.
And the bike I loved best - seven years on the circuits, and sold with 308,000 miles on the clock.
Guzzi V50III, with various mods and road kill seat cover.
Ancient Swagman tank panniers, Oxford panniers, another ancient Craven Golden Arrow pannier as top box, and monster handlebar muffs with heated grips inside. Toasty warm!
Chris S and aspieman like this.
Pukka CX! I remember the gratitude I had for the (inadvertent) great design of the CX.The way you could dry/warm your gloves and hands on the cylinder heads,the nice flat top tank for putting your coffee and sarnie on and the comfortable seat.The heads used to stop your knees freezing in those terrible winters of the 80s like 85/86.
I'm interested in this too...seems like an awesome job to do for a while.
In frosty weather I'd put a cardboard box under the CX with a hurricane lamp in lit, and covered the lot with a heavy blanket. That would ensure a start left outside in several degrees of frost. If I didn't do that - a non-starter for certain.
Where can you despatch? Any big town, any where in the world. Just check out the courier companies. But don't expect to make any money! Those days are gone.
I think he was wishing it was IN the skip . . .
The late Martin Chater, MD of Pony Express in speechless awe of Messenger 9's (Bill Rankin) Arrow, outside the new unit in Northfields Industrial estate, Beresford Ave., Stonebridge Park.
It did have a good front tyre . . . on the big side, but hey . . .
Nice skip. I thought that thing next to it was an old Ducati for a minute. (Visor now wiped).
What do you think about using London couriers topbox (also known as portable loos) for overlanding 80/20 tarmac/dirt?
Amazed KG is still around.
And for overlanding? Well, a lot of secure volume for your money, while it lasts.
I have a top box on my ATV with those same style latches. They won't stay latched either!
brucerogers and aspieman like this.
Really enjoyed this! So unique!!
Great thread.Living life 'On the Go' and all of you just keep going 'through thick and thin' Subscribed.
We used to just bungee the top box lid down,doing dozens of deliveries and collections every day it worked out quicker.You used to lift the lid with one hand and pop the letter or package in with the other without taking the bungee off.If it didn`t fit it would go in your panniers (if you had them), bag or be bungeed onto the pillion seat.
Funny those catches get a mention. I had them on a Craven pannier that I used as a top box on the pillion. In all the years I was despatching I never locked it - not once - and nothing got nicked (stolen). But the one day I did lock it when parked in Westminster for a couple of hours - it got broken into! They took nothing, just a bunch of provincial town maps and odds and sods in there, nothing of value, but they broke the catch (easy enough).
best thread ever thanks a lot to everyone who posted hope you are all doing well . I read every word and enjoyed every one I laughed a lot too . when I was a youngster I really fancied being a courier more than any other thing to do with bikes but it never came to pass . I had an older friend who done it I looked up to him and wanted to be like him when I grew up . I still haven't I just got older but I have slowed down a lot though and only go real easy in urban areas now giving myself plenty of room . it has paid off too I have avoided crashes because of it . I have had people take me down in the past it was partly my own fault I should have been riding slower and more defensively . I have spent a while looking at you tube videos and I though this was worth sharing .


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Home News Xi Focus: Can-do China curbs COVID-19; what is the truth?
Xi Focus: Can-do China curbs COVID-19; what is the truth?
A review of the practice and experience of China and its people encapsulated in the acronym "PROTECT" was published by state media Xinhua as part of its global propaganda campaign efforts.
At a time when the rest of the world is going to take those responsible to justice, China's Communist Party (CCP) wants an escape besides more gratitude for its handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
But the world has a clearer mind now about the truth behind these sufferings brought about to humanity by the CCP. And it is time for the world to wake up and join hands in the God-gifted mission to eliminate the evil Communist dictators.
Let's take a look at how Xinhua is once again trying to fool around the world:
BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) — As the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has taken a foothold in over 100 countries and regions, the threat of a pandemic has become very real. Still, it would be a pandemic that could be controlled.
Questions revolving around the COVID-19 spread have been mostly about "when, where, and how." How to contain an uneven epidemic at the global level requires different countries tailoring their responses to their scenarios.
As China pledges a continuous fight toward victory with prevention and control efforts having "turned the tide," the effectiveness of its playbook is getting more and more worldwide attention.
Here is a review of the practice and experience of the country and its people encapsulated in the acronym "PROTECT" — Party leadership, "renmin" for the people, openness and transparency, technology and science, early treatment, cooperation with the international community, and targeted and agile approach.
Comment: As the coronavirus spreads around the world, China has been increasingly vocal about what it appears to feel is a lack of appreciation from the global community for its efforts to contain the outbreak, and preventing the crisis from being even worse than it may turn out to be.
Wang Zhonglin, party chief of Wuhan, the virus-hit capital of Hubei province, said in a press conference, ""to carry out gratitude education among the citizens of the whole city, so that they thank (President Xi Jinping), thank the Chinese Communist Party, heed the party, walk with the party, and create strong positive energy."
The whole Wuhan population wants to respond with no other words but "FUCK the CCP!"
For China, the COVID-19 outbreak is a major public health emergency considered to have spread fastest, caused the most extensive infection and has been the hardest to contain over the past 70 years. Defeating an invisible enemy of such ferocity would be impossible without the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
As chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted, political commitment is needed in every country and an all-of-government and all-of-society approach should be adopted.
Under the unified and centralized leadership of the CPC Central Committee, China formed a central leading group on the epidemic, dispatched a central guiding team and demanded a State Council inter-agency task force play its full role in coordination. The country mobilized the whole of government and stayed aggressive in stemming from the virus, with the Chinese people showing a deep commitment to collective action in the face of the common threat.
With President Xi Jinping as the commander-in-chief, Party committees and governments at all levels act in a coordinated national response and follow unified command, coordination and dispatch. They unite as one like a fortress, fully implement the joint prevention and control measures, put up entrenched defense lines and build a strong synergy against the virus.
The solidarity of provinces and cities in support of the most vulnerable populations and communities has been remarkable. Despite ongoing outbreaks in their areas, governors and mayors have continued to send thousands of medical workers and tonnes of vital personal protective equipment supplies into Hubei Province and its capital city Wuhan, the epidemic epicenter.
China's progress in containing the virus should be attributed to government leadership and the cooperation of its people at the same time, Tedros told Xinhua. "It cannot happen without the strong commitment from the government and strong cooperation by the people."
Since the outbreak, the CPC Central Committee has taken the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough prevention and control measures to resolutely curb the spread of the virus in Wuhan and Hubei.
"All prevention and control measures taken by the CPC Central Committee against the virus are to prevent more people from being infected and save more patients' lives," said Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, on Tuesday during his inspection tour in Wuhan.
Comment: It is no doubt that Xi is a sinner of a century. Wang Qishan and the CCP leadership created the coronavirus and spread it to the world. They have kidnapped the 1.4 billion Chinese people and shut their mouths with severe censorship. This dictatorship has evil aims to control the world.
From destroying the traditions and culture of the Chinese nation, persecuting religions, government-organized organ harvesting, putting millions of Xinjiang uighurs to concentration camps…to governance by police and corruption, the crimes of the CCP are hard to put down in words by ink or paper.
To cover up its crimes, the CCP leadership has deceived the whole world, not just the Chinese people that it will build a so-called community of shared future for mankind. This grand propaganda campaign is only part of its efforts in achieving this.
The world has underestimated the evil power of the CCP and they must pay a huge price for that.
The CCP wants the people to learn that it is "always great, bright and correct". Until today, the CCP has been very successful to fool the world around.
RENMIN: THE PEOPLE
Praising the people of Wuhan, Xi said the positive trend in epidemic control could not have been achieved without their sacrifice, devotion, perseverance and efforts. He also sent condolences to people who died in the epidemic and people who sacrificed their lives fighting on the front line on behalf of the CPC Central Committee.
The war on the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 is a people's war in essence. The country has been closely relying on "renmin" — the people — to win the people's war against the epidemic.
The people in Wuhan actively minimized outdoor exposure, canceled public gatherings and accepted travel restrictions, which for them meant staying at home most of the time and suspending normal routines.
Even so, they went to extra lengths to help. The city saw private business owners supplying free coffee and goggles to hospital staff while their businesses stalled, couriers offering to drive medical workers to and from hospitals and grocery store tallymen packing and delivering staples for each household to put food on the table for the city's 10 million residents.
About 20,000 volunteers have been serving as deliverymen, drivers, coordinators and community workers in grocery stores, neighborhoods and hospitals in Wuhan, with an additional 24,000 recruited since late February to meet the delivery needs of neighborhoods in the city, official data showed.
"China's success rests largely with a strong administrative system that it can mobilize in times of threat, combined with the ready agreement of the Chinese people to obey stringent public health procedures," said a recent editorial by Lancet, a prestigious medical journal.
With their concrete actions, Wuhan people have demonstrated the strength and spirit of China, as well as the Chinese people's love for family and the nation, which enables them to stick together through thick and thin, Xi said.
Comment: The CCP has never taken the lives and interests of the Chinese people as top priority. Its main purpose is to preserve the dictatorship by the Communist Party.
Only people with experience within the CCP's system can have a deep understanding of the anti-humanity nature of the CCP.
Before the crisis is over, the CCP governments at all levels have been forcing people to return to work. The result is more people will die of coronavirus spread to save the life of the CCP.
Even in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, people were told they can resume work on Wednesday, a day after President Xi Jinping visited the city for the first time since the outbreak began.
Sadly, Chinese people will suffer more as they have long been brainwashed by the CCP. And many deserve the misery.
When it comes to stemming an epidemic, honesty is the best policy. Xi has stressed frequent release of authoritative information by relevant agencies at different levels, addressing existing problems squarely and responding to public concerns in a timely and specialist manner with a clear aim.
Since January, the State Council Information Office and the National Health Commission have regularly held live press conferences regarding the joint efforts in virus prevention and control. The inter-agency task force under the joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council held press conferences daily. At the same time, many provincial-level regions including Hubei also hold press conferences every day.
On Feb. 25, the State Council Information Office moved the pressroom to Wuhan, so as to facilitate the release of timely, comprehensive and accurate information regarding the forefront of the epidemic battle. Besides, press conferences also frequently gave the floor to frontline personnel including medics, police officers and volunteers, whose stories of devotion to duty touched so many hearts.
By releasing the latest information about the epidemic, prevention and control measures and effects, these press conferences have taken the initiative in responding to public concerns and quashing rumors and thus have further improved the effectiveness of information disclosure.
As a responsible major country, China has also from the start acted openly and transparently in releasing relevant information to the world and seeking international cooperation to prevent the spread of the epidemic worldwide.
Comment by CNN:An interview with Dr. Ai Fen in a prominent Chinese magazine was scrubbed shortly after publication, but on major Chinese social media platforms, users have reposted it over and again as censors try to delete it, including coming up with creative ways to display it in an attempt to avoid automatic deletion, such as writing the text backwards or vertically, or in braille or emojis. Some users described it as a "relay race" to try and stay one step ahead of the censors.
This shows the major challenge Beijing is facing over the coronavirus even as the caseload itself comes under control. By externalizing criticism, China's government may be able to further rally the country behind its leaders.
Donald Trump was right with his administration challenging the CCP dictatorship for the first time in decades although he has been mostly soft in criticizing Xi Jinping.
Report by the Hill: White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien on Wednesday criticized China's response to the coronavirus as a cover-up and said that Beijing cost the global community two months to respond to the outbreak.
"Unfortunately, rather than use best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up," O'Brien said in remarks at the Heritage Foundation. "There's lots of open source reporting from Chinese nationals that the doctors involved were either silenced or put in isolation … so the word of this virus could not get out."
"It probably cost the world community two months to respond," O'Brien continued.
Xi has said science and technology are humanity's most powerful weapon against diseases. China has built a powerful arsenal by giving full play to indigenous solutions.
It has capitalized on the use of technology, big data and AI for COVID-19 preparedness, readiness and response. Authoritative and reliable information, medical guidance, access to online services, provision of educational tools and remote work tools have been developed in and used across China. These services have increased accessibility to health services, reduced misinformation and minimized the impact of fake news.
For example, it has launched a new batch of programs to develop testing products for COVID-19, including more sensitive and rapid detection kits for nucleic acid and antigen and antibody testing.
It promoted treatment with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). TCM has been involved in treating 92.5 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases nationwide, as studies confirmed that TCM and Western medicine work better when combined than used independently in improving the recovery rate and reducing the mortality rate.
It also promptly enlisted new information technologies. Telecom enterprises use big data to analyze the people flows, and the epidemic situation in key areas during important periods, map close contacts and ensure timely supply and distribution of key medical materials.
The AI technology is applied to support COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment, no-contact delivery and drug selection as well as vaccine development, while 5G-empowered robots have been providing medical services such as remote care, body temperature tests, spraying disinfectants, cleaning and drug delivery.
Chinese researchers have also developed an AI-assisted computed tomography analysis system, offering a more accurate distinction of a patient with COVID-19 or common viral pneumonia amid the intensive clinical demands in the anti-epidemic fight.
Comment: The CCP regime has a plan to take over America by 2035 in AI technology and other areas. Unfortunately the CCP has a evil mind to use technology for evil means rather improving the livelihood of its people.
Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro and Senator Marco Rubio told that the coronavirus crisis is an alarming "wake-up call" about American vulnerabilities in a globalized world.
For years, Rubio says, China has enticed American multinational corporations with access to its markets in exchange for off-shoring and sharing intellectual property. Americans watched as Beijing captured critical portions of global supply chains, including in pharmaceutical drugs and medical equipment.
An Atlantic report says, President Trump has so far refrained from publicly criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping and, besides issuing travel restrictions, from taking antagonistic actions akin to the tariffs he imposed in response to China's trade practices. Yet some of the nationalist hawks in his administration, who are engaged in a long-running struggle over China policy with the president's more internationalist, dovish advisers, have been outspoken about how the public-health emergency could factor into Trump's "America first" agenda.
Speed is everything. China's progress in curbing the epidemic has proved the approach of early detection, reporting, isolation and treatment the most primitive yet the most effective.
Xi has reiterated the importance of the approach. He urged more efforts to resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic, hospitalize all confirmed patients, conduct thorough tests of all suspected patients and isolate all those close contacts. He demanded to track and manage every potential risk without leaving any dead corners.
To leave no COVID-19 patient unattended and snap the spread of the illness, Wuhan built two hospitals, Huoshenshan and Leishenshan, in two weeks, as well as 16 temporary hospitals converted from sports stadiums and exhibition halls. The 16 temporary hospitals have been closed by Tuesday as patients were discharged.
The country also saw factories built in six days to replenish the supply of face masks, while auto and apparel makers adapted their production lines for medical supplies.
Chinese scientists and public health experts have been refining their response in tandem with the latest clinical discoveries at what a China-WHO joint mission team on COVID-19 called a "remarkable speed," which provided the vital evidence base for China's strategy, gaining precious time for the response.
Comment: Some analysts say "Understanding the factors that affect a person's immune response to COVID-19 will likely matter as much as or more than understanding the virus itself." But few people would understand that the CCP is the most deadly virus.
The CCP government's measures look more effective than the west when it locks down a whole city and restricts the movement of an entire country. The CCP's way of eliminating poverty is to eliminate the poor people directly. The same story is with curbing the virus spread.
So, to understand the nature of the Communist Party is more important for the world to find a better solution to the coronavirus crisis.
COOPERATION WITH INT'L COMMUNITY
Xi noted that public health security is a common challenge to human beings as a whole, and all countries need to join hands to deal with it.
Amid its no-holds-barred domestic battle against the virus, China has actively and voluntarily cooperated with and shared information with the international community, buying time for a global response to the virus and offering help when needed.
Tedros commended China's quick moves in identifying and sequencing the novel coronavirus pathogen and sharing the sequence with the rest of the world, which has enabled the world to prepare for testing, diagnostics and other actions.
China has donated testing kits, masks, hazmat suits, thermometers and other supplies to countries including Iran, Iraq, Japan and the Republic of Korea, while doctors in Wuhan shared treatment experiences with their Italian counterparts in a teleconference.
To help fortify public health systems in developing countries, China announced a donation of 20 million U.S. dollars to the WHO in support of the global fight against COVID-19.
Comment: The threat of a coronavirus pandemic is "very real," World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday.
But the corrupt WHO chief who argued it would be the "first pandemic in history that could be controlled, " said this after more than 100,000 cases of COVID-19 reported in 100 countries.
Tedros shall be among the first evils to be brought to justice when it comes to punishing those responsible.
TARGETED, AGILE APPROACH
"When Wuhan wins, Hubei wins. When Hubei wins, China wins." In a pep talk to frontline medical staff in the epicenter of the outbreak in early February, Xi had clarified how the country would break the chains of transmission and resolutely win the people's war against the epidemic.
The priority given to Wuhan and Hubei reflects a fundamental strategy — the country prioritized coordinated national response as well as local flexibility. Differentiated policies have been adopted for epidemic control and restoration of economic and social order in different places.
"In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history," according to a report by the China-WHO joint mission team which investigated COVID-19 in China last month.
The strategy that underpinned this containment effort was initially a national approach that promoted universal temperature monitoring, masking and hand washing. However, as the outbreak evolved and knowledge was gained, a science and risk-based approach was taken to tailor implementation. Specific containment measures were adjusted to the provincial, county and even community context, the capacity of the setting and the nature of novel coronavirus transmission there, the report said.
Hubei Province and the city of Wuhan are required to take more stringent, more targeted and more effective measures to curb the spread of the epidemic within their jurisdictions and beyond, and ensure the supply of all kinds of materials and necessities for the local people.
Local authorities also adopt the region-specific approach in terms of restoring the normal order of life and businesses, expanding business operations in light of local health risks.
In this two-front war — combating the outbreak and bolstering economic and social development — China tries to outmaneuver the difficulties with measures tailored to the local context. The recovery of China's economy has gained momentum thanks to the approach.
Comment: To deal with any crisis, the CCP measures have always been harsh and dramatic, regardless of causing tragedies to human lives. That's the way of their governance.
Also we are going to see more drastic ups and downs (more downs) in Wall Street's stock market; only when the big financiers (who have colluded with the CCP in the past decades) feel their pain with the losses could they realize the threats by the CCP government.
Many of the world's politicians and big bankers in close connection with the CCP will fall with this coronavirus.
The CCP government was not elected by the people with votes. When it wins, the whole of humanity will suffer.
It is truly time for the world to wake up and join forces to take down the evil dictatorship.
Everything has already started.
Edited and commented by Cloudy Seagail
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Birds are mentioned in many quotes, proverbs and bird sayings so many times in our lives we think little about them. There are too many instances to cover everything, but I have tried to provide as many popular bird quotes and other sayings about birds as I can. You will see that many of the popular quotes are used frequently in everyday speech. They just seem to pop up unexpectedly in ordinary talk in many cases.
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text:
Perspective > Medscape Dermatology > Conference Reports
Highlights of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology Annual Meeting
July 6-9, 2006; Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Brandie J. Metz, MD
Vulvar Diseases in Children
Deana Funaro, MD, from Hôpital Ste-Justine in Montreal, Canada, spoke about vulvar diseases in children.[1] Determining the etiology of genital ulceration in young girls and adolescent females can be very challenging. In adult women, the top 5 causes of genital ulceration are herpes simplex virus (HSV), erosive candidiasis, erosive lichen planus (LP), lichen sclerosis et atrophicus (LS et A), and aphthosis. Little is known about these conditions in the pediatric population, however. The list of causes of vulvar diseases in children includes some of the same conditions (aphthosis, HSV), but also includes autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's disease and Behcet's syndrome. Genital ulcers in girls may also be caused by other infectious agents, such as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Mycoplasma. Genital ulceration also has been reported as a presenting manifestation of infectious mononucleosis.[2] The diagnosis of an EBV genital ulcer can be difficult to confirm because, according to Dr. Funaro, a Monospot test can be negative in up to 50% of children. Diagnosis can be made by measuring serum antibodies, specifically EBV IgM. EBV can also be demonstrated by PCR. Lesions tend to heal in 1 to 4 weeks. Treatment is supportive, and the ulcers do not tend to recur.
Dr. Funaro recommends that physicians avoid empiric treatment of genital ulcers in children, but rather attempt to reach a diagnosis and treat accordingly. The history should include a sexual history and a history of sexually transmitted diseases. Bacterial and viral cultures should be performed. Blood tests that may be helpful include HSV and EBV serologies, and, in the case of complex aphthosis, determination of iron, folate, zinc, and vitamin B12 levels. A complete blood count should also be obtained, because cyclic neutropenia can cause genital ulcers. Biopsies may be helpful to exclude some diagnoses but are not always diagnostic.
Dr. Funaro emphasized the important concept that in the case of lichen simplex chronicus (LSC), it is important to reexamine the patient after treatment, because LSC can mask the presence of underlying pruritic vulvar disease such as LS et A or psoriasis.
Medscape Dermatology. 2006;7(2) © 2006 Medscape
Cite this: Highlights of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology Annual Meeting - Medscape - Nov 30, 2006.
Brandie J. Metz, MD, Assistant Professor, Departments of Dermatology and Pediatrics, University of California-Irvine; Chief of Pediatric Dermatology, University of California-Irvine Medical Center, Irvine, California
Disclosure: Brandie J. Metz, MD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
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Poet Maya Angelou once remarked, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Everyone possesses a unique story that they continue to write knowingly or subconsciously throughout their lives. However, the choice to uncover that story and share it with others lies in our hands.
Since the 2018-2019 school year marks the third year of operation for the Force File, I cannot help but reminisce on the untold stories (and unspoken issues) that our student-writers have dared to discover and share with the Charter community. In past years, Force File members have highlighted the advocacy of Charter students during the National School Walkout and helped rally the community around admirable causes such as the B+ Foundation, Force 5K and refugee education. We are proud of our young writers for precisely this - storytelling with a purpose.
As we continue honoring this tradition and building bridges between the newspaper and Charter students, we are launching a series of monthly storytelling competitions, where anyone at Charter can submit a piece of writing — essay, short story, or poem — about a unique story from their life that has crucially shaped them. It can be comedic, reflective, or matter-of-fact — whatever makes sense for that experience. The winning stories will be published in the print newspaper with special pieces of student artwork to accompany them. Also, selected writers will receive prizes ranging from gift cards to books etc. We encourage you all to participate in these challenges, and we cannot wait to read over the entries. Hopefully, this opportunity provides a creative outlet for you to voice yourself and better connect with things that are important to you and your community.
There is only one question left: what's your untold story and how do you choose to share it?


text:
Politics|Conservative Star's Small-Town Roots
https://nyti.ms/SdgBK0
Politics | The Long Run
Conservative Star's Small-Town Roots
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, JIM RUTENBERG, MIKE McINTIRE and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG AUG. 13, 2012
Charles Lazzio of Lake Geneva, Wis., spoke with Mr. Ryan during a town-hall-style meeting in 2010 in Elkhorn. Credit Darren Hauck for The New York Times
JANESVILLE, Wis. — Representative Paul D. Ryan's childhood home here was not overtly partisan. His parents were enthusiastic supporters of Representative Les Aspin, a Democrat, yet adored President Ronald Reagan from their glimpses of him on the evening news. But the death of his father when Mr. Ryan was only 16 punctured his life of math tests and bike riding, and in that fissure, the seeds of his worldview were planted.
"Paul went to work at McDonald's and began to pull his own weight, and becomes class president the same year," said his brother Tobin. "It is remarkable that he chose a path of individual responsibility and maturity rather than letting grief take a different course." He added: "Some of his political views did begin to coalesce around the time of my father's passing."
His self-reliance followed him to summer camp, where as a counselor he canoed and hiked, and into young adulthood, where he took up deer hunting, a fact noted in his engagement notice in 2000 in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "Ryan is an avid hunter and fisherman," the paper reported, "who does his own skinning and butchering and makes his own Polish sausage and bratwurst."
It followed him into college, where he immediately took a passionate interest in the canon of conservative economic theorists and writers — Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises — who inspired the up-and-coming generation of libertarian-minded activists and lawmakers.
It followed him to Congress, where his brand of conservative economics, honed in Washington's conservative policy and research groups, eventually inspired the Tea Party freshmen in the House for whom Mr. Ryan has served as seer, cheerleader and workout buddy.
And, finally, it captured the imagination of Mitt Romney, who named Mr. Ryan as the Republicans' presumptive vice-presidential nominee on Saturday.
In Mr. Ryan, he has found not only a sympathetic life story to animate his campaign — which he seized upon when he spoke on Saturday of how Mr. Ryan's father's death "forced him to grow up earlier than any young man should" — but also a politician who fills in what many see as the gaps in Mr. Romney's conservative bona fides. Mr. Ryan is a strict supply-side budget expert and social conservative who counts fans across the Republican spectrum. He has been a driving force, if not always a visible one, in the party's biggest fights with President Obama, including last year's budget impasse that took the nation to the brink of default.
Mr. Ryan's enormous influence was apparent last summer when Representative Eric Cantor, the second most powerful House Republican, told Mr. Obama during negotiations over an attempted bipartisan "grand bargain" that Mr. Ryan disliked its policy and was concerned that a deal would pave the way for Mr. Obama's easy re-election, according to a Democrat and a Republican who were briefed on the conversation.
On Sunday, an official in Mr. Cantor's office disputed the characterization, and a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, who was also there, said he "has no recollection of such a discussion."
Yet even if he is viewed as politically pure by the modern-day standards of his party's base, he is not without contradictions. The nation's first Generation X vice-presidential candidate, he is an avowed proponent of free markets whose family has interests in oil leases. But he counts Rage Against the Machine, which sings about the greed of oil companies and whose Web site praises the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street movement, among his favorite bands.
He also voted for the bank bailout known as TARP and for President George W. Bush's prescription drug benefit for the elderly, both of which are loathed by Tea Party activists. And even as he delved more deeply into libertarian economic theory in college, his tuition was partially paid by the Social Security benefits he received after his father died.
Mr. Ryan's remarkable rise from small-town prom king to the No. 2 on the Republican presidential ticket reflects a combination of sheer will and patience, with the ideological leanings that began in Janesville and were cultivated in Washington finally finding their moment on a raised platform in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday morning.
A Janesville Childhood: Fun, Faith and Politics
Mr. Ryan, the youngest of Paul M. and Betty Ryan's four children, was born in 1970 and grew up in Janesville's historic Courthouse Hill neighborhood, where he still lives. A passel of neighborhood kids graduated from riding bicycles to the usual antics of high school.
Paul D. Ryan, right, the president of his junior class, in the 1987 yearbook of Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville, Wis. He was 16 when his father died.
Roz Thorpe, who raised her family across the street from the Ryans, said her own son and young Paul annually canvassed the neighborhood for donations to the charity promoted by Jerry Lewis. "There was this whole group of kids, and they just had a great time," Mrs. Thorpe said. "Paul was maybe a little more serious than the others."
An uncle started a neighborhood Fourth of July parade decades ago, and Mr. Ryan's father was a respected lawyer in town.
Not quite a nerd (he was a bit too cute for that) and not precisely a jock (his soccer career lasted a single year, his high school coach said), Mr. Ryan was best known for being outgoing, much like his mother. He was studious and interested in the outdoor life, which he cultivated as a counselor at Camp Manito-wish, run by the Y.M.C.A.
Mr. Ryan's political views may have been inspired around the dinner table when he was a teenager, according to his brother. "Every night at 6 we had family dinner, and we discussed things," Tobin Ryan said.
"We would talk about what Ronald Reagan was doing, the course of action he was bringing for our country, and Paul was absorbing these things," he said. "I don't think it was a great professor who opened his eyes in college.
"The part of his speech that hit me hard was his mentioning that my father said we should all be part of the solution, not the problem," Tobin Ryan said, referring to his brother's speech after Mr. Romney's announcement on Saturday in Virginia.
The Ryans are Catholic — Paul was an altar boy — which was "an important part of Paul's value system," Tobin Ryan said. "We were raised to develop our faith and beliefs independently." Mr. Ryan, more than his wife, Janna, often takes their three children to church, Mrs. Thorpe said.
Mr. Ryan's Congressional voting record reflects a religiously conservative bent; he was a co-sponsor of legislation that would have declared human life to begin at fertilization.
His childhood was interrupted in his sophomore year of high school, when Mr. Ryan discovered his father dead in his bed of a heart attack. "I remember looking out the front door and seeing the paramedics," Mrs. Thorpe said. "Paul came to our house and stayed with us for the remainder of the day and was really pretty upset. Paul was always a pretty levelheaded kid. This was a very big event."
Mr. Ryan's mother went back to college, and with his two oldest siblings long gone from home, he began to rely even more on Tobin for emotional support and guidance. "He and I shared a bedroom growing up," said Tobin Ryan, who is five years older than his brother. "I have him to blame for having clouds and little birdies on my wall in my teenager years."
He added: "We certainly went through a lot and grew even closer through that experience. You saw a normal teenager sort of wake up the next day without a father, an 80-year-old grandmother with advanced Alzheimer's in the room next door and mother who decides to go back to college."
The next year, Mr. Ryan ran for class president and won. He also immersed himself in after-school jobs and other extracurricular activities.
"He just seemed to be involved in a lot of things," said Patrick Lyons, a childhood friend with whom Mr. Ryan still spends weekends barbecuing at each other's homes (going out to dinner has become harder with the rise of Mr. Ryan's political celebrity). His numerous activities in high school led to an award suggesting that he was, in polite terms, a politically astute suck-up.
Mr. Ryan, and his wife, Janna, live in Janesville, Wis., with their children, daughter Liza and sons Charlie and Sam. Credit Ryanforcongress2008
His brother's role as confidant remains, and he is perhaps the center of Mr. Ryan's brain trust. "We live a block away from each other," Tobin Ryan said. "We consult on everything. Paul and I have allowed our lives to become intertwined. Our kids go to the same school. Our wives talk every day."
In College, A Freshman With a Ph.D. Attitude
Paul Ryan was already steeped in conservative economic theory by the end of his freshman year at Miami University in Ohio, where he arrived in 1988.
"He was a normal college student," Tobin Ryan said, "except when it came to economic policy. He was a Ph.D. student in freshmen's clothes. I recall him referring to Hayek. I was an economics major myself; I don't think I was as enthusiastic."
Mr. Ryan's trickle-down economic theories were already in place, said Professor Rich Hart, who would help Mr. Ryan hone his political persona.
"I think Paul came to Miami University with these core conservative beliefs from an economic standpoint," said Professor Hart, an outspoken libertarian who taught an intermediate macroeconomic theory course that Mr. Ryan took in his junior year. "He was reading Locke and Hayek, and I don't know if he was reading Ayn Rand, but I had certainly read Ayn Rand, and I talked to him about it."
The two would often meet outside class, not to talk about the course, Mr. Hart said, but to discuss political philosophy. "We had these discussions about the role of government. We both believed in the conservative view that government should be limited, because the most important thing is individual freedom, individual liberty, and along with that freedom goes individual responsibility."
Thomas Hall, a professor of economics at the college, said Mr. Ryan's intelligence was matched by his confidence and communications skills. "He was one of the best students in the class," he said. "He was conscientious, and he was especially articulate, both verbally and in writing ability."
Mr. Ryan's public speaking "stood out from the other students," Mr. Hall said. "He also had a quiet confidence that stood out. What I mean by that is that he was a confident young man in a pleasant way. He was confident without being full of himself."
In college, Mr. Ryan would take in Green Bay Packers games on television, play on his fraternity's football team or work out in a gym across the street from the fraternity house.
"I would not call him a partyer," said Kent Taylor, 40, a sports anchorman in Louisville, Ky., and a former fraternity brother of Mr. Ryan's at Delta Tau Delta. "He was pretty serious and focused all the time and knew what he wanted to do. He was locked into his academics. He was interested in the economy and how it works from an early age in college. I think his seriousness set him apart from other folks in the fraternity and the university as a whole."
Mr. Ryan earned a bachelor of arts degree in economics and political science in 1992, and his political leanings and ambitions were right there on the surface, friends said. "Paul was always a politician," said Scott Friedman, a former fraternity brother who was a year behind Mr. Ryan. "He was friendly with everybody. He was into debating the issues, and he was into talking about policy and economics."
Conversations centered less on girls and football and more on the policy issues of the day. "I always knew that he was a conservative Republican, and I knew that he wanted to be a congressman from his college days," Mr. Friedman said. "Typically, the discussions with him were around adultlike stuff. He would talk about trickle-down economics and why that would be a better approach to running the country's economy."
As it happened, the university was in the district of a congressman named John A. Boehner, and in 1992, Mr. Ryan served as a volunteer on his campaign, putting up yard signs. "He had a much more worldly perspective than other students, in the sense that he was not interested in level, flat conversations about the mundane," said A. G. Hollis, 41, who owns a real estate company in Chicago and is another former fraternity brother.
Secret Service agents were posted on Sunday outside the home that Mr. Ryan and his wife, Janna, bought for $421,000 in 2010 in Janesville, Wis., the town where he grew up. Credit Mark Hertzberg for The New York Times
First Run For the House, With Jack Kemp's Help
In 1998, as Mr. Ryan was making his first run for elective office, a nationally known politician — the party's vice-presidential candidate two years earlier — came to Janesville to campaign for him: Jack Kemp, Mr. Ryan's mentor, was in town.
The two had become close during Mr. Ryan's years as a legislative aide and policy analyst in Washington. It was a relationship that went beyond the two men's shared interest in tax cuts and supply-side economics. "I think he sort of viewed Jack Kemp as something of a second father," Professor Hart said.
The relationship began when Mr. Ryan was in college. In 1991, Professor Hart recommended him for a summer internship in the office of Senator Bob Kasten, a Wisconsin Republican who had worked closely with Mr. Kemp. Mr. Kasten remembers Mr. Ryan as intellectually curious and interested in policy far more than he was in politics. "He was just interested in the ideas," said Mr. Kasten, who was defeated by Russ Feingold, a Democrat, in 1992. "We never talked about him someday wanting to be a congressman or a senator or a vice president."
Mr. Ryan joined Mr. Kasten's staff full time after graduating from Miami University, working on issues like tax incentives for small businesses and a reduction in the capital gains tax. A few months after Mr. Kasten lost his seat, Mr. Ryan went to work for Empower America, a conservative advocacy group that was founded by Mr. Kemp; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations under President Reagan; and William J. Bennett, a former education secretary in Mr. Reagan's administration.
Mr. Ryan was drawn to Ms. Kirkpatrick's emphasis on foreign policy and to Mr. Bennett's interest in morality, but he was most animated when he worked with Mr. Kemp, said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who was among Empower America's founders and who ran the group. "He worked mainly around Kemp on economic policy," Mr. Weber said. "That was his passion."
Judith Nolan, Mr. Kemp's daughter, worked in community outreach at Empower America during the time that Mr. Ryan was there. She said her father often turned to the young staff member for advice.
"My dad was so impressed with him," she said, adding that he often had Mr. Ryan act as his researcher. "It impressed me that my dad, who had loved economics and studied it, would turn to someone so young."
There was also pride, she added. "He definitely treated him like a son and would put his arm around him and introduce him and say, 'Here's the future of our party.' " Mr. Kemp's son Jimmy, who runs the Jack Kemp Foundation, says he sees a direct link between his father's message of the 1990s and Mr. Ryan's in 2012. "When Paul talked about America being an idea in his Saturday morning speech in Norfolk, that was very consistent with Dad's message," Mr. Kemp said. "Dad believed in the power of ideas, that humans get their rights not from the government, but from nature and God, as Paul described."
In 1997, Mr. Ryan decided to move back to Janesville, where he worked for a time in the family construction business founded by his great-grandfather. He sought a House seat the next year, sharing his ambitions with the Thorpes. "We were visiting D.C., and he came to dinner with us one night and talked to us about running," Mrs. Thorpe said. "We encouraged him. At that point he had been living there a long time, and it just seemed natural."
Mr. Ryan, campaigning against tax increases and in favor of gun ownership rights, won that first race handily, 57 percent to 43 percent.
Over the years, Mr. Ryan's emphasis shifted. Mr. Kemp was not nearly as concerned with cutting government programs as Mr. Ryan is today. They agreed on taxes, but their views on spending and the role of government were different.
Mr. Ryan has become much more of a deficit hawk than Mr. Kemp, who died in 2009, ever was. But they shared an optimistic outlook and a core belief that politics could be waged in a civil manner. Last year, the Jack Kemp Foundation honored Mr. Ryan with its first Kemp Leadership Award, and Joanne Kemp, Mr. Kemp's widow, attended a Romney-Ryan rally in Manassas, Va., on Saturday. Mr. Ryan publicly recognized her there, and cited Mr. Kemp as one of his mentors.
"He's much more of a number cruncher than my father was," Mr. Kemp said, "but I think one of the lessons he learned from Dad was to communicate with a smile, and there's no need to attack opposing politicians on a personal level because the arguments should be about ideas."
Mr. Ryan, left, watching returns in November 1998, when he was first elected to the House. Campaign staff members joining him in Burlington, Wis., included Caithness Kuyper, right, and Andrew Speth. Credit Mark Hertzberg/Racine Journal Times
The Tea Party Finds a Voice on Capitol Hill
Ask one of the 87 Republican freshmen who came rolling into Washington in 2010 — many of them with no political experience — whom they most idolize in Congress, and chances are Paul Ryan's name will come up. Mr. Ryan speaks their language of shrinking government, shares their passion for chin-out communications and is culturally and politically more in sync with newer members, many of them say, than some of the other more senior members, including some in the leadership.
He is, in essence, the leader of a team that followed him to Washington. "Our class that came was a mandate against what had been happening in the House," said Representative Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, who worked as a nurse before being elected. "He has been fighting this fight for years and years, and we were able to come in and help and support him."
His willingness to articulate his beliefs, and stick to them even when they are used as a baseball bat against his party, has drawn admiration too. "Sometimes we talk about what needs to be done together to shrink the size of government," Ms. Ellmers said, "but then we hold back a little on how we message it. He was right out there; he took it all, and he put himself right in the forefront.
For less experienced members, Mr. Ryan's knowledge of the federal budget has also been animating. Many wander into his office for advice on how to vote on bills, or, in the beginning, how to decode them.
Representative Trey Gowdy, a Republican, said that Mr. Ryan even took time to call constituents in his South Carolina district who were displeased with the spate of short-term budget measures used to keep the government running. "There are not many people of his station in Congress who would sit in his office and call someone else's constituents to explain something." Mr. Ryan, as a joke, has also offered to pay for and schedule haircuts for Mr. Gowdy, who often needs them.
Several members recalled a meeting last year with Mr. Obama, who had invited Republicans to the White House for an off-the-record conversation about the debt and deficit. According to some who attended, Mr. Obama conceded in the meeting that he understood entitlement programs needed to be changed if they were to be sustained. Mr. Ryan then accused Mr. Obama of failing to lead on cutting entitlements, as other members looked on in shock and amusement.
That does not mean that Mr. Ryan has not had to work overtime whipping members to vote for his budget, which did not cut as much as some of them would have liked. Admiration is no guarantee of agreement, as Mr. Boehner, now the House speaker, has learned.
Mr. Ryan's charms have also worked on Democrats, but only to a point. Likability does not translate to agreeability.
In an interview, former Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, a centrist Democrat, said he was impressed when Mr. Ryan reached out to him to discuss tackling entitlements after Mr. Bayh made one of his frequent calls for fiscal responsibility.
"He came to visit me in my office and was very nice and laid out some of his ideas about entitlement reform," Mr. Bayh said. Still, complimenting Mr. Ryan as "a nice, humble guy," Mr. Bayh added, "I thought some of his ideas went a little too far."
Indeed, even as Mr. Ryan calls for bipartisan agreement on the most important — and thorny — domestic political issues, his own proposals strike at the heart of Democratic orthodoxy. And he has played a central role in nearly all of the big policy fights against the opposition party that have defined the past few years.
His legislation with Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire to create private investment accounts for Social Security benefits became a starting point for talks over Mr. Bush's plan to do so at the start of his second term. Mr. Bush ultimately dropped his bid to overhaul Social Security, unable to overcome resistance from Democrats, some Republicans and elderly voters who expressed fear it would gut the program.
That, of course, was only a precursor to his attempts during Mr. Obama's presidency to change the way Medicare is administered and vastly cut government spending while holding a line against taxes.
Representative Paul D. Ryan, with Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, responding to President Obama's address on the national debt in April 2011. Mr. Ryan and Mr. Cantor are two of the self-styled "Young Guns" of Congress. Credit Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times
Even as he was climbing the ranks and emerging as his party's most forceful spokesman for cutting entitlement spending, Mr. Ryan was becoming one of the House's most prodigious fund-raisers. Many donors, especially libertarian-leaning financiers, envisioned him as a future presidential contender.
In a contrast to life with rank and file in the House, Mr. Ryan joined Cliff Asness, a prominent hedge fund founder, and a friend of Mr. Asness's for a meal last year at an expensive Capitol Hill bistro, where the three men shared two $350 bottles of Pinot Noir.
"I wanted to pick his brain," Mr. Ryan explained about the dinner date to Talking Points Memo, a news Web site, which obtained pictures of the meal from another diner. The meeting with Mr. Asness, a leading Republican donor, marked Mr. Ryan's entry into elite donor circles: When Mr. Ryan presented his budget plan at the Economic Club of Chicago last year, he was introduced by Anne Griffin, who with her husband, Kenneth, is a major donor to conservative causes. Executives working for Charles and David Koch, the billionaire conservative philanthropists, are now among the top donors to Mr. Ryan's campaign committee and leadership PAC, as are employees of the hedge fund founded by the conservative billionaire Paul Singer.
So far during the 2012 election, Mr. Ryan's campaign committee and his leadership PAC have raised more than $8.5 million, one of the biggest totals in Congress. Mr. Ryan has used the money to amass influence among like-minded conservatives in the House, transferring more than a million dollars to other Republican candidates and party committees, and he has teamed up with other self-styled "Young Guns," like Mr. Cantor, to groom and raise money for promising candidates.
But fund-raising has also brought Mr. Ryan some headaches. Beginning in the late 1990s, a Wisconsin businessman, Dennis Troha, and members of his family began donating tens of thousands of dollars to Mr. Ryan's campaigns, while Mr. Troha helped organize a fund-raiser for the lawmaker.
In 2005, Mr. Ryan signed a letter urging his colleagues to approve a provision sought by JHT Trucking, a company in his district, easing federal trucking rules, and also urged Bush administration officials to adopt the change, which was adopted. The following year, Mr. Ryan pressured federal regulators to issue a decision on an application to build a Wisconsin casino, a project in which Mr. Troha at the time held a stake.
Mr. Ryan had defended the interventions as routine constituent service. But in 2007, Mr. Troha pleaded guilty to federal charges that he had evaded campaign contribution limits by using his children to funnel contributions to Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, a Democrat, and President George W. Bush, in an effort to advance the trucking bill and casino development. An associate of Mr. Troha also pleaded guilty to charges that he had worked with Mr. Troha to funnel illegal corporate contributions to elected officials, including Mr. Ryan.
Mr. Ryan was not implicated in the investigations or charged with any crime, and there was no indication he knew the contributions were tainted. Following Mr. Troha's indictment, he donated the family's contributions to charity.
Serving His District and Building a Fortune
Mr. Ryan had barely been in Congress two weeks when a crisis hit his hometown: Gillette announced that it was closing its Parker Pen factory and moving about 300 jobs overseas.
Parker Pen had long been the pride of Janesville, a blue-collar city where George S. Parker II, an heir to the pen maker's founder, still lived in an imposing Georgian-style brick house around the corner from Mr. Ryan's childhood home. The closing announcement in January 1999 was bitterly painful, and Mr. Ryan's office let it be known that he was working to help the community cope.
But there was not much Mr. Ryan or anyone else could do to prevent the plant from closing, so Janesville absorbed the hit and moved on. And so did Mr. Ryan, getting elected six more times and, in a twist that says much about how far he has come since he was elected to Congress at age 28, eventually buying Mr. Parker's 5,800-square-foot, six-bedroom estate.
Mr. Ryan and his wife, Janna, purchased the house for $421,000 in 2010, a price they could easily afford. The Ryans have assets that were valued last year between $2 million and $7.7 million, according to Mr. Ryan's personal financial disclosures, putting him in the upper echelons of House members in terms of wealth.
Still, while the Ryans are affluent by any measure, their wealth is not on the scale of Mr. Romney's or of Capitol Hill's richest, whose assets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And the Ryans are not known for conspicuous displays of wealth.
Former Representative Jack Kemp of New York, and Mr. Ryan appeared together in 2004 to promote a bill that would have allowed creation of individual investment accounts for retirement. Credit Chris Maddaloni/Roll Call, via Getty Images
The old Parker house had been vacant for six years and needed a lot of work when the Ryans bought it. Rather than hire an army of contractors, Mr. Ryan did much of the renovation himself, neighbors said. State Senator Tim Cullen, a Democrat from Janesville who has known the Ryan family for most of his life, recalled Mr. Ryan coming outside to chat with him one day shortly after buying the house.
"The door was open, and he was wearing old clothes and was in there doing the painting and repair work himself," Mr. Cullen said. "That's just who he is, very much a product of Janesville — down-to-earth, basic people."
Mr. Ryan is famous for sleeping in his office while in Washington, and he enjoys the same no-frills recreational pursuits — hunting, fishing and working out — that he has pursued since before he was married. Mrs. Ryan, a tax lawyer, put her professional career aside to raise their three young children. Family vacations tend toward backpacking outings.
Much of the Ryans' wealth is in the form of trusts and inheritances, some of them acquired fairly recently.
Mr. Ryan reported two tax-deferred college savings plans, with a combined value of between $150,000 and $300,000. He also reported two investment partnerships worth, in total, between $350,000 and $750,000, mostly containing shares of stock in well-known companies, including Apple, Goodrich, Kraft Foods, Visa and Whole Foods. Both partnerships were formed by Mr. Ryan and other family members to manage assets left by his grandparents and an aunt.
Mrs. Ryan has reported receiving a trust after her mother died in 2010 that is valued between $1 million and $5 million, according to a letter Mr. Ryan filed with his latest financial disclosure. Mrs. Ryan also has longstanding interests in several mining and oil exploration investments in Oklahoma and Texas managed by her father, Dan Little, a lawyer in Oklahoma whose clients include oil and gas companies. Those investments generated as much as $150,000 in income last year.
Friends say that the Ryans visit Mrs. Ryan's relatives in Oklahoma, where she is from, several times a year, but that she generally prefers to stay at home in Janesville. Mr. Ryan has also seemed to try to stay close to home despite his rising profile in Washington, sometimes leaving Washington for Janesville on Thursday evenings and delaying his return to the capital until Tuesday mornings.
Weighing In on a Bargain on the Deficit and Debt
Last summer, as the nation faced a potentially cataclysmic debt default, President Obama met at the White House with a handful of Congressional leaders in an attempt to reach a "grand bargain" that could avert disaster — and, more important, overcome partisan gridlock to balance the budget over the long term.
During the talks, Mr. Obama invited Mr. Boehner and Mr. Cantor into the Oval Office, where the conversation was said to include possible sticking points, including Mr. Ryan's concerns. But by then, Mr. Ryan had articulated his worries on policy grounds, saying he did not believe that the White House and the Democrats were willing to make the spending cuts he viewed as necessary to balance the budget.
And, in an interview with CNN to discuss the talks that July, he said that the Democrats were failing to agree to lower overall tax rates that Republicans were seeking in return for closing loopholes, which ultimately, he warned, would lead to tax increases. "That is not what we saw coming together with this big deal," he said in the interview. "And if you don't get the tax rates down, then it really is a tax increase."
Similar opposition to the deficit deals proposed by the Simpson-Bowles commission — on which he sat as a member — and a Senate group known as the Gang of Six has led Democrats to question the seriousness of his calls for bipartisanship. Those questions are certain to feed Obama campaign attacks in the coming weeks.
As a congressman, Mr. Ryan has never been under the heavy fire of a national — or even a statewide — campaign. And as the presidential campaign heats up, Janesville should become more of a refuge for him than ever.
Up until now, said people around Janesville, it feels as if Mr. Ryan has never really left.
Like many of the more conservative members of Congress, he had chosen not to take an apartment in Washington, living instead in his office or occasionally staying with relatives in Maryland. He often holds town-hall-style meetings, and he called his hometown paper, The Gazette, on Saturday night to give them an account of his decision to join the campaign. Mr. Ryan is also a bit of a fixture at his children's school, where he tries to attend events.
"We try not to talk about politics when he is in town," Mr. Lyons said. "They are not into status or anything like that. To me it's still just Paul."
Jennifer Steinhauer reported from Janesville, Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington, and Jim Rutenberg and Mike McIntire from New York. Nicholas Confessore contributed reporting from New York, and Serge Kovaleski from Denver. Kitty Bennett contributed research from Seattle, and Sheelagh McNeill from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on August 13, 2012, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Conservative Star's Small-Town Roots. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Dershowitz: Pistorius Will Get Off Easy
By Shannon Sims
Oscar Pistorius in the Pretoria High Court on May 6, 2014, in Pretoria, South Africa.
SourceAlon Skuy/Getty
Because it's the trial of the decade — and a big test for South Africa.
The world's most famous criminal lawyer understands Oscar Pistorius' fear — or at least the fear he claimed. About 20 years ago, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and his wife were awoken in their home around 2 a.m., by a sound. Hearing his wife scream after she went downstairs, he raced to her just in time to spot an intruder crawling out the window with his leather jacket and house keys in tow. "That was very, very frightening," says the Harvard lawyer; after that incident, he and his wife moved into a hotel for a few days.
The intrusion is just one reason that Dershowitz, like millions around the world, is glued to the most infamous (alleged) break-in in recent history. We're talking, of course, about the trial of the so-called Blade Runner, South Africa's handicapped star sprinter. Last month, Pistorius was found guilty of "culpable homicide," not murder, in the death of his 29-year-old model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Sentencing arguments are being heard this week, and any day now, the world will learn how Pistorius will be punished: It could be as little as a fine or as much as 15 years behind bars.
Dershowitz, who has helped score victories in some of recent history's most notorious trials, believes the case is far from over.
To some degree, the merits of the Blade Runner case have already been aired and dissected in the court of global public opinion. So have arguments over whether the case was mishandled ("I think the prosecutor was a bully," says Dershowitz) and whether Pistorius should have been openly emotional ("I think that was stupid").
But Dershowitz, who has helped score victories in some of recent history's most notorious trials — from O.J. Simpson to Patty Hearst to Claus von Bülow — believes the case is far from over. For starters, the 76-year-old attorney believes an appeal is certain because the judge's decision was "legally incoherent." Then there's South Africa's legal culture — something Dershowitz knows and cares about. Back in the day, he worked with Nelson Mandela's lawyers to secure Mandela's release from Robben Island. But 20 years after the end of apartheid, the country is dealing with a serious crime issue and, Dershowitz says, a politicized judiciary.
Alan Dershowitz (right) and his client Claus von Bülow in von Bülow's New York apartment on April 27, 1984
Source Keith Meyers/Redux
We caught up with the storied defense lawyer over the phone. He was in Washington, D.C., on the eve of a Supreme Court appearance on a patent matter.
Questions and answers have been reordered and condensed for clarity.
OZY: Is Pistorius guilty?
I can't read his mind. I don't know the answer to that question. Did he honestly believe there was an intruder? Did he know his girlfriend was not in bed? I'm not empathetic if he used the "intruder" as an excuse to kill his girlfriend, who he was having problems with. But I just don't know. When you're in the middle of the night and you don't have legs …
And because I don't know, I say he has to be acquitted. We have a principle of law: Better 10 guilty go free than one innocent be wrongfully deprived. But the judge didn't believe that. [Pistorius] may be guilty, but this was not sufficient evidence.
OZY: What's your take on Judge Thokozile Masipa's opinion?
It's legally incoherent. Either [Pistorius] knew [Steenkamp] was behind there, in which case it's murder, or he didn't know she was behind there, in which case it's innocent self-defense. But there's no possibility of an intermediate verdict in this case. This was clearly a compromise verdict that should not be allowed to stand. My prediction is that the appellate court will reverse the conviction.
My own view was that [Judge Masipa] wasn't sure whether he did or didn't know, and so she split the difference. But when you have reasonable doubt — if you're not sure — you must acquit. If there's reasonable doubt about guilt, if there's reasonable doubt about what he knew, he must be acquitted. It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who once said to his law clerk, who'd complained about an unjust verdict, "We're not in the justice business, we're in the law business."
OZY: Are there any virtues to a compromise verdict?
Zero, zero, zero. NO virtues … I think this will be reversed — if the appellate courts have the courage to do so.
OZY: What sentence do you think he'll get?
I think [Judge Masipa] is going to give him a lenient sentence in order to avoid being reversed by the appellate court. The harsher the sentence she gives him, the more likely it will be reversed. She's doing a political calculation, as well; she doesn't want to be reversed. I think it will be somewhere between probation and a relatively short term. I don't think he's going 10 or 15 years.
OZY: How does the Pistorius case bear on South Africa's legal system?
South Africa does not have the best legal system in the world. I think in the end this will come out as a very controversial system. People are appointed to the bench largely on the basis of what role they took in terms of the fight against apartheid. So you get a lot of very radical, very opinionated political figures on the bench these days, rather than judicial figures.
Every white [South African] knows that you have to be concerned about black intruders … . But you can't make that argument.
OZY: How has the political context influenced the case?
I think, in general, his basic defense he couldn't present to a black woman judge. Every white person in South Africa knows that you have to be concerned about black intruders in the middle of the night. But you can't make that argument. Because it would sound racist to a black woman judge. So that argument couldn't be performed overtly. Had it been a jury, had it been a white jury, then that argument would have been performed.
I've been in South Africa several times, you know. Both whites and blacks — both middle-class and upper-class whites and blacks — are terrified. They have one of the highest crime rates in the world. It's essentially a war zone. But you can't perform that kind of defense.
I was part of the legal team that tried to get Mandela out of prison; when he was in prison, I worked closely with his other lawyers. I had tremendous admiration for the antiapartheid movement, but I am very disappointed in South Africa. The plight of blacks in townships doesn't look much improved from the apartheid period.
Alan Dershowitz is Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard University. His new ebook is Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas.
Shannon Sims Follow Shannon Sims on Twitter Follow Shannon Sims on Facebook Contact Shannon Sims
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When explorer Jan Van Riebeeck – the founder of Cape Town - landed on the southernmost tip of Africa, so began a whole new adventure. Most importantly he planted the first vines that became today's vineyards and that started the world's love affair with South African wine. Morrisons Signature wines are very much part of that story. Our wine experts only put the signature on wines that are the best-in-class, at the best prices. And they've unearthed an absolute cracker with this brilliant Chenin Blanc. Crisp, fruity and beautifully balanced, it's the perfect partner for a creamy pasta bake or a Saturday night take-away Thai green curry. If you haven't tried Chenin Blanc before, you'll find it a refreshing change from your usual Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc.
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text:
Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud és un municipi francès situat al departament de Deux-Sèvres i a la regió de la Nova Aquitània. L'any 2007 tenia 1.553 habitants.

Demografia

Població
El 2007 la població de fet de Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud era de 1.553 persones. Hi havia 652 famílies de les quals 200 eren unipersonals (88 homes vivint sols i 112 dones vivint soles), 220 parelles sense fills, 200 parelles amb fills i 32 famílies monoparentals amb fills.

La població ha evolucionat segons el següent gràfic:

Habitants censats

Habitatges
El 2007 hi havia 847 habitatges, 668 eren l'habitatge principal de la família, 113 eren segones residències i 66 estaven desocupats. 786 eren cases i 25 eren apartaments. Dels 668 habitatges principals, 487 estaven ocupats pels seus propietaris, 163 estaven llogats i ocupats pels llogaters i 18 estaven cedits a títol gratuït; 29 tenien una cambra, 34 en tenien dues, 81 en tenien tres, 162 en tenien quatre i 362 en tenien cinc o més. 544 habitatges disposaven pel capbaix d'una plaça de pàrquing. A 275 habitatges hi havia un automòbil i a 323 n'hi havia dos o més.

Piràmide de població
La piràmide de població per edats i sexe el 2009 era:

Economia
El 2007 la població en edat de treballar era de 948 persones, 680 eren actives i 268 eren inactives. De les 680 persones actives 603 estaven ocupades (323 homes i 280 dones) i 77 estaven aturades (46 homes i 31 dones). De les 268 persones inactives 114 estaven jubilades, 75 estaven estudiant i 79 estaven classificades com a «altres inactius».

Ingressos
El 2009 a Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud hi havia 669 unitats fiscals que integraven 1.596,5 persones, la mediana anual d'ingressos fiscals per persona era de 15.403 €.

Activitats econòmiques
Dels 69 establiments que hi havia el 2007, 1 era d'una empresa alimentària, 1 d'una empresa de fabricació de material elèctric, 1 d'una empresa de fabricació d'altres productes industrials, 13 d'empreses de construcció, 15 d'empreses de comerç i reparació d'automòbils, 2 d'empreses de transport, 8 d'empreses d'hostatgeria i restauració, 1 d'una empresa d'informació i comunicació, 3 d'empreses financeres, 3 d'empreses immobiliàries, 8 d'empreses de serveis, 7 d'entitats de l'administració pública i 6 d'empreses classificades com a «altres activitats de serveis».

Dels 26 establiments de servei als particulars que hi havia el 2009, 1 era una oficina de correu, 1 una oficina bancària, 1 funerària, 5 tallers de reparació d'automòbils i de material agrícola, 4 paletes, 1 guixaire pintor, 1 fusteria, 3 lampisteries, 2 electricistes, 2 perruqueries, 3 restaurants i 2 agències immobiliàries.

Dels 5 establiments comercials que hi havia el 2009, 1 era una botiga de més de 120 m², 1 una fleca, 1 una carnisseria, 1 una llibreria i 1 una botiga de roba.

L'any 2000 a Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud hi havia 29 explotacions agrícoles que ocupaven un total de 2.016 hectàrees.

Equipaments sanitaris i escolars
L'únic equipament sanitari que hi havia el 2009 era una farmàcia.

El 2009 hi havia una escola elemental.

Poblacions més properes
El següent diagrama mostra les poblacions més properes.

Referències

 Résumé statistique Fitxa resum de dades estadístiques de Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud a l'INSEE.
 Évolution et structure de la population Fitxa amb el detall de dades de Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud a l'INSEE
 France par commune Dades detallades de tots els municipis de França accessibles a partir del mapa.

Municipis de Deux-Sèvres

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia