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Explore Phoenix
Patricia Escarcega: Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Tucson Local Expert
Patricia says, Don't leave Phoenix without taking a scenic drive through South Mountain Park, a desert mountain preserve with panoramic views of the city.
More About Patricia
10 Best Phoenix Attractions, Landmarks and Activites to Explore in the Valley
10 Best Spas in Phoenix for Blissing Out in the Desert
10 Great Things to Do with Kids in Metro Phoenix
Romancing the Desert: 10 Romantic Things to Do in Phoenix
Exploring Phoenix On a Budget: 10 Best Free Things to Do in Phoenix
A Desert Holiday: The Best Holiday Attractions in Metro Phoenix
Phoenix Travel Guide
Attraction Slideshow: Family-Friendly Museums in Phoenix
Photo courtesy of Children's Museum of Phoenix
Arizona Railway Museum
Photo courtesy of Arizona Railway Museum
Arizona Capitol Museum
Pioneer Living History Village
Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park
Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art
Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting
Photo courtesy of Hall of Flame Firefighting Museum
Photo courtesy of Phoenix Art Museum
Photo courtesy of Octavio Ruiz Cervera
Photo courtesy of Musical Instrument Museum
Children's Museum of Phoenix
10 Best Family-Friendly Museums in Phoenix: Discover, Explore and Have Fun
BY Patricia Escarcega
Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Tucson Local Expert
Phoenix offers plenty of fun, educational museums that will appeal to both kids and adults. The Children's Museum of Phoenix, located in a conveniently in downtown Phoenix, is a two-story historic building that is jam-packed with fun activities. On the first floor, an enormous climber constructed from recycled materials invites children and their grown-ups to explore the whimsical structure and all its secret twists and turns. The museum also features an art studio, pretend grocery store, and popular noodle forest.
For more hands-on fun, head aross the street from the Children's Museum to the Arizona Science Center. This popular downtown attraction has more than 300 interactive exhibits that explore geology, physiology, weather, physical forces and much more. There is also a giant-screen IMAX theater and planetarium.
If your kids love trains, be sure to plan a stop at the Arizona Railway Museum in Chandler. The museum features restored train cars and a nice collection of railway lanterns.
The Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting, located in the Papago Park area, is another family-friendly destination that highlights more than 100 restored pieces of historic firefighting equipment. There's also a restored fire truck that children can explore and climb. Your young, would-be firefighter can even dress up in authentic firefighter garb during their visit!
Located at Tumbleweed Park, the Arizona Railway Museum is a fascinating storehouse of railroad history. The grounds are populated by restored train cars from all different time periods: a 1906 Baldwin steam locomotive, a 1943 US Army crane, a round end observation car from 1938, a 40-foot refrigerated car dating from 1920, a 1910 wooden Pullman coach, several cabooses and lots more. The museum also has an interesting collection of railroad lanterns, unique railroad china and other equipment. The rail car tour takes you inside the best examples of six different types of rail cars. Self-guided and guided tours are available for kids and families.
Housed in an impressive stone building that once served as the state capitol, this museum documents Arizona's time as a territory and its early statehood. The structure itself is crowned with a copper dome and a 16-foot, zinc Winged Victory statue. Within the building are flags documenting the state's history, including ones representing Spain, Mexico, and the Confederacy. Offices and congressional chambers have been restored to period splendor, and Megargee paintings (with Arizona as their theme) grace the interior. World War II buffs can browse the USS Arizona display, which offers artifacts, recollections from survivors, and a specially commissioned silver service.
Arizona's territorial days are recreated on this 85-acre property, where costumed craftspeople work among authentic and reproduced buildings. Special events like a lively bluegrass festival, a Civil War reenactment, and an antique tractor show are held throughout the year. Adults and children of all ages are invited to stop by and enjoy an afternoon of family fun. The village is a mix of authentic buildings and historically accurate reproductions. You'll get to see the Opera House where Lilly Langtry sang and explore the real-life cabin that survived Arizona's bloodiest range war. There is also a blacksmith shop, sheriff's office and jail. Costumed interpreters bring the whole thing to life.
East Phoenix
This museum and its adjacent park are built on the site of 1500-year-old Hohokam Indian ruins. Exhibits showcase lifestyles of the Hohokam and of other Southwestern tribes, and visitors learn about Phoenix's cultural heritage through displays of arts and crafts created and used by Native Americans. An informative and fun hands-on exhibit encourages children to learn more about archaeology. A fully accessible 2/3 mile trail takes visitors through the prehistoric site, which includes a partially excavated platform mound, ballcourt, and replicated prehistoric houses. The site is conveniently located minutes from downtown Phoenix next to Sky Harbor International Airport. It's a National Historic Landmark and Phoenix Point of Pride site.
The well-regarded, world-famous Heard Museum is one of the world's leading repositories of Native American art. It also features works by contemporary Southwestern artists, craft demonstrations, amphitheater performances, a caf--, and a gift shop. Paintings, drawings, and sculpture figure into the collection, along with domestic objects, textiles, pottery, dolls, and jewelry. The museum's revolving calendar of exhibitions offer new insight into Native American tradition, history and cultural trends. Anyone with even the slightest interest in Southwestern history and culture should make this a must-see destination when visiting the Valley of the Sun. Along with the original Heard Museum in central Phoenix, the museum also has branches established in other parts of the city, including Heard Museum North in Scottsdale, and Heard Museum West in Surprise.
10 Best Attractions near US Airways Center: Explore Downtown Phoenix and Beyond
10 Best Museums in Phoenix: Explore the Valley's Best Cultural Attractions
Presenting the world's largest display of firefighting equipment, this museum highlights 100 restored pieces of hand-to-hand, horse-drawn, and mechanized firefighting equipment from 1725 to 1961. Additional exhibits include a fire truck for children to climb on and several other restored fire engines. A firefighter wannabe can dress up in official-looking coats, hats, and other gear, just like the real thing! The Hall of Flame is located near the borders of Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe in the Phoenix Papago Park area, across from the Phoenix Zoo and next door to Phoenix Municipal Stadium. It makes for a convenient stop if you're checking out these other attractions.
Another institution growing by leaps and bounds, this museum's scope is indisputably international with works representing American, Asian, European and Latin American art. The museum also features exhibits on fashion and the Thorne miniature rooms (rooms from different historical periods, scaled down to hatbox size). With more than more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, modern and contemporary art, expect to spend some time exploring the halls of this vibrant museum. Major exhibitions, film screenings and various cultural events fill the calendar at this popular attraction. Make sure to stop by the gift shop on your way out for unique, art-inspired items.
Housed in a dramatic building next to the city's historic Heritage Square, the Science Center offers well over 300 interactive exhibits. A giant-screen IMAX theater shows educational films, and the planetarium boasts one of the largest domes in the west. Exhibits are organized into galleries that explore human physiology, physical forces, transportation, geology, computers, and applied sciences. Most of exhibits are interactive and hands-on and cater to children of all ages. The Science Center also plays host to regular "Adults Night Out" nights, featuring special lectures, exhibits, and even adult beverages. Classes, camps and other learning programs are offered throughout the year.
The Musical Instrument Museum, also known as the MIM, celebrates art, music and culture by documenting the history of musical instruments from around the world. Everyone from Carlos Santana to Tony Bennett have sung the praises of this bright, open museum, which also hosts a full calendar of live music events. The museum collection includes instruments from 200 countries from around the world, with emphasis on ethnic, folk, and tribal music. Guests are given wireless headsets so they can hear instruments being played at each display, and flat-panel monitors throughout the museum give guests the opportunity to see instruments being performed live. Whether you love Chinese opera or Big Band jazz, the MIM celebrates the joy of musical expression in all its forms.
The Children's Museum of Phoenix, located in the 70,000 square foot historic Monroe School building in downtown Phoenix, offers three floors of exhibits designed to engage young children and the adults who love them. Exhibits are hands-on and interactive, making this a fun place to spend the day with the favorite child in your life. Kids will love exploring the nooks and crannies of The Climber, an amazing multi-storied exhibit created with recycled materials. The Noodle Forest gives kids a sensory adventure in a safe environment, while The Market allows kids to roleplay in a fun grocery store setting. An art studio, book loft, and designated tricycle area add to the fun at this colorful and always-busy museum.
Meet Patricia Escarcega
Patricia Escarcega works as a writer and editor in Phoenix.


There's no denying that moving to a new house is exciting – it's the start of a new chapter in your life. However, before making the move forward there are several things to consider. Such as the appearance and functionality of the kitchen, the size of the bedrooms, and so on. Unfortunately, it's easy to get lost in the moment and forget the most important protective element of a new home – the roof. If you're seriously considering buying a particular property you should find out whether there are any structural issues which could end up costing you thousands of dollars in roof repairs further down the line.
Although the easiest way to check that your roof is sound and secure is to hire a professional roofing company, there are still a few issues that you should be able to spot by yourself.
The roof gutters may look great from ground level but take a look closer to the top to see if they've corroded and may soon need to be replaced.
Check all downpipes and find out where the water is diverted to the ground. Basement leakages and foundation issues can often be prevented if the water has been diverted away from the property.
An important consideration before investing in a property is knowing whether there are any leaks. If there are, then this could be problematic in the rainy season and could even damage electrical appliances.
When looking inside the manhole, see if there is any light coming through the sarking paper.
For a small call out fee of $350+GST Brisco Roofing can meet with you and access your next big purchase to ensure you are not going to be caught out with a lemon!
Meanwhile, if you decide to go ahead with your house purchase you'll need removalists in Brisbane you can trust to get your possessions delivered in one piece! We're always happy to recommend companies that we've had dealings with and one of those is 1300 On the Move Removals. They operate a budget-friendly service with a choice of truck sizes and a fair billing system so you're not paying through the nose. They're friendly, reliable, and efficient.


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Tweeting C. S. Lewis
I started a new Twitter account today @CSLewisToday . I will be tweeting about Lewis' life, a new tweet every day! Follow me there....
C. S. Lewis in California
The photo above is from an assembly I did a couple of weeks ago at American Martyrs Catholic School in Manhattan Beach, California. I spoke to 4th-8th graders about "My Journey with C. S. Lewis". Before I got started, one of the younger students asked me if I was C. S. Lewis! I had the sad duty of telling her that Lewis died the year I was born. However, she and a few hundred other students seemed to enjoy my presentation anyway and many bought my books and asked for my autograph afterwards.... Out of all the groups, young and old, I have spoken to about C. S. Lewis in the past few years, this group had the most questions, and all of their questions were very interesting. In fact, I didn't have enough time to answer them all! During my visit to the Los Angeles area I also spoke to Dr. Diana Glyer's C. S. Lewis class at Azusa Pacific University. My topic there was all about the spiritual themes in "The Last Battle". In addition, I spoke to the Sout
I will be in the Los Angeles area this week speaking about C. S. Lewis in three different locations and signing copies of my newest book, Speaking of Jack: A C. S. Lewis Discussion Guide . On Tuesday afternoon, November 15, I will be speaking to one of Dr. Diana Glyer's English classes at Azusa Pacific University about spiritual themes in The Last Battle . Then, on the morning of Wednesday, November 16, I will be speaking to fourth through eighth graders at American Martyrs School in Manhattan Beach about "My Journey with C. S. Lewis". And in the evening I will be speaking to The Southern California C. S. Lewis Society, meeting at Azusa Pacific University, about "C. S. Lewis, Father Walter Adams & Spiritual Direction". For more information about The Southern California C. S. Lewis Society you may visit their web site here: So. Cal. CSL Society .

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The Queerest of them all? Hartford, CT?!?
I live a very queer life. Yes, I my home is in Central PA surrounded by Mennonite farms in the middle of a very Conservative Republican congressional district. Still I live my life openly with my adorable spouse, Glen, and our sometimes but often annoying cat Wally, and our housemate Quin and his cat, Dolly. It's not West Hollywood or Chelsea or Boys Town in Chicago, but I feel I live a rich and rewarding life here. And I am glad my neighbors are not cookie cutter versions of me. I like the social, political, and economic diversity in the region.
Downtown Hartford
Queer Hartford!
Before I moved here from Hartford, Connecticut, I had no idea I was dab smack in the middle of queer central. According to Time Magazine:
The Advocate released its annual "queerest cities in America" list on Monday and Hartford, Conn. tops the list for boasting both the country's first legally married gay mayor and thriving social scene featuring LGBT-friendly events.
The state's anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT families seeking to adopt also helped boost Hartford to the top of this year's list.
This year's list is based on "unique and irreverent" criteria formulated by the magazine including LGBT film fests, anti-discrimination laws, stadium shows for artists like Ariana Grande and Janet Jackson, workout studios like SoulCycle, and how many places in the city went "rainbow" when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality.
Rich History of LGBTQ inclusion and activism
New England Yearly Meeting 2015
What I personally love about the area is that it hosts the True Colors Conference, the world's largest LGBTQ youth conference started by Robin McHaelen. It's also has a diverse LGBTQ scene with West Indian, Puerto Rican, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Vietnamese LGBTQ people visible around town. And it is true that there is a long history of LGBTQ activism and openness. The Hartford Quaker Meeting issued a minute in support of marriage equality 30 years ago in March of 1986, the first local meeting in the world to do so.
"The Meeting affirms the goodness of committed, loving relationships and offers recognition and support to those who share this ideal and desire to enter into a permanent relationship based upon it. By tradition, the Meeting recognizes committed union in a celebration of marriage under the care of the Meeting. The same loving care and consideration should be given to both same-sex and heterosexual applicants as outlined in Faith and Practice."
Kurt Vonnegut. (anyone know the original source of this wonderful drawing?)
Cultural Experiences in Hartford
Don't get me started about all of the great food, much of it reasonably priced and the AMAZING Connecticut Forum, which continues to bring in a stunning group of people to converse on stage together four or five times a year. It was through the Connecticut Forum that I got to spend evenings with Harry Shearer from the Simpsons, writer Kurt Vonnegut, and a very kind and very much sloshed Christopher Hitchens. There is the Watkinson School, which years ago had an openly gay head of school. It was also the first place I ever worked only gay myself. What a great community.
I love where I live and my very queer household, but every chance I get, I head back to Hartford.
Other Queer Places
What are the other cities that are supposedly the queerest of them all? Check out the Time magazine article to find out. And what about where you live? What makes your community a special place for transgender, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer people? Leave a comment and let me know.
Thanks to Hillary Sibille for sharing this story with me on Facebook.
Doin' Time in Tromsø, Norway
Ooo Tromsø is SO far North!
Today I head north–like WAY NORTH. I'll be North of the Arctic Circle in the Norwegian city of Tromsø for the International Church Festival. The sun will rise about 7:30 am and set by 4:30 pm, but apparently Tromsø is one of those cities that faces the cold, dark weather with vibrant partying action. The weather actually looks pretty good this week. It is warming there right now than it is here in Central PA.
While there I will perform my newest one-person performance piece, Does This Apocalypse Make Me Look Fat? I will also lead a two-day workshop about how to create a solo-performance piece. I love it when all my worlds come together–theater, faith, queerness, climate change. I see that happening with the conversations that will come out of my play, which looks at broken bodies large and small. Looking at the broken bodies in history, LGBTQ lives, in my own family, and the largest body of them all–Mother Earth–I learn lessons about resiliency and how to remain human in the midst of crushing pain.
Besides the performance work, I am excited about exploring the city of Tromsø. This island city surrounded by mountains is a brilliant place to see the Northern Lights. If I do catch a glimpse, it will be my the first time. Have you ever seen the Northern Lights? Any viewing tips? One stop I want to make is to the Backbeat Kaffe & Vinyl store. I mean coffee and LPs together. Yum.
After a week in Tromsø, I then head to Dallas, TX and my three week Southwest tour. Talk about climate changes! From North of the Arctic Circle to North of South of the Border.
Tromsø and those Northern Lights
I don't know about you, but I get so tired of dragging big suitcases around with me. I mean I shouldn't complain. I get to go to some pretty cool places, but for some reason with this month-long trip I decided to go super light. I will take only a carry-on size suitcase and a small knapsack. Shockingly I squeezed in all of my props for three shows and clothes for three climates, including a down jacket, blue suede shoes, sandals, and hiking boots. I have a feeling though I will have to borrow some things from people along the way.
Throughout the trip I'll post photos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. What sort of things would you like to see?
If you want to hear a scene from my new play, have a listen to my monologue about the Siege of Leningrad during WWII. It is based on researched conducted by Alex Skitolsky when he looked at first-person narratives of women who survived the siege.
Pennsylvania to Colorado by Train — So Sweet
On Monday I hop on Amtrak in Harrisburg, PA and head to Denver, CO for the Creating Change Conference. I love so many things about taking the train. For one I get so much work done. Monday and Tuesday I will write letters, work on the screenplay for the upcoming Transfigurations film (more about that in a future post), and REHEARSE my newest play, Does This Apocalypse Make Me Look Fat? A Comedy about broken bodies, large and small. I will perform this play on Saturday night at the conference.
Sure a full train uses less fossil fuel than the four plane flights I would have needed to get to Denver and back. But I travel on the ground for multiple reasons, not just because I don't want to pollute so much. The pace of the train, the opportunity for solitude or society, the views–both majestic and mundane, make for a lovely trip. So much nicer
Poeina Suddarth
than rushing through airport security then squeezing in a sit for a few hours of dehydrating pressurized air. I know train travel is not perfect. There are long delays at times, especially now with so much crude oil transported by rail. Still train travel works for me (especially when I have a sleeper car for overnight legs.
The other plus is that I will have dinner in Pittsburgh with friend on Monday night, and brunch with another friend in Chicago on Tuesday morning. These are folks I typically would just fly over.
AND I bring my little audio recorder and capture some great sounds and conduct interviews. This fall I interviewed:
Singer/songwriter Poeina Suddarth and even sat in on a rolling live concert. You can listen here.
Chino Young, a wild fire fighter from the Quinault people on the West Coast. He told me how his village is getting relocated because of sea level rise and how so many of the animals of his youth also getting displaced because of climate change. You can listen here.
Have you ever gone on a long distance train ride? How was it? What did you do during the trip? Any travel pointers?
Meet Poeina Suddarth–singer and fellow Amtrak Passenger
Last month as I criss-crossed North America on several trains, I met many wonderful people. Also, as someone who enjoys audio and song, I recorded a lot of train noises as I travelled. You know how the ear can tell the difference between live music and recorded? One day on a train from Portland, Oregon to Sacramento, CA I heard live music from the other end of the Observation Car. There was an energetic woman with a guitar, strumming, singing from her gut, and giving a concert to two other passengers. Turns out I was sharing the train with none other than Poeina Suddarth, an awesome singer/songwriter from LA on tour. She is well known in the Portland music scene and have appear at Pride there and on KBOO's Out Loud program. She told me she even gave voice lessons to one of my favorite singers, Joe Stevens.
Fortunately I had my portable recorder on me, so asked if I could interview her. Poeina did one better; she also let me record one of her newest songs, Miracle. I include the interview and song on the latest episode of Climate Stew where I also talk about train travel–new service, delayed service (thanks a lot crude oil), and discontinued service. We even have a report from the year 2164 looking at train service over the next 150 years (turns out Tom Cruise is going to be around in one form or another for a LONG time.) But the jewel in this audio crown is Poeina Suddarth. Enjoy!
Off the Rails–An Interview with Poeina Suddarth
When they just won't let you stop dancing! Report from South Africa
When I first met Glen Retief, the man who would become my husband, he informed me he was a writer. Inwardly I scoffed, "Yeah, right, everyone is a writer." But a few weeks after our relationship started heating up, he sent me a draft chapter from a memoir he was writing. I read one paragraph and my eyes popped, "Whoa, he really is a writer!" In fact, he is a fine ass writer. Glen ended up winning the 2012 Lambda Literary Prize in the Gay Memoir category for his book, The Jack Bank–A Memoir of a South African Childhood.
Not only is the writing good, his book is fast-paced, it is action packed with a brush with lions in Kruger Park, queer activism during Apartheid in Cape Town, and an Inkatha attack in SOWETO. The book has it all: Wild life, gay sex, violence, and liberation. Recently Glen was feted at the Cape Town Book Fair and honored for his work as a queer activist during the transition to a new South Africa.
In May Glen and I travelled with 15 Susquehanna University students for the Travel Writing in South Africa two week course. This was not your typical tourist trip to South Africa. We mostly stayed in private homes in rural Zulu, Tsonga, and Venda villages. Sleeping on the floor, doing my business in the fields, and having to negotiate ox head soup for lunch became a part of my daily life. It was wonderful, but any true cultural immersion has its tensions.
Writing for Inside Higher Ed, Glen relates an unsettling experience in one of the villages with lots of misunderstanding all around.
"You wouldn't believe what just happened!" says Jade, a light-skinned Dominican student from Long Island.
"What a workout," pants Steph, a short, vivacious brunette from rural Pennsylvania.
Their story tumbles out, even as the outside racket builds and two, four, then seven or so kids poke their heads against the entrance grate, some of them thrusting forward open palms for money—annoyed, I shake my head and shout Voertsek, scram!
What I learn from our students is that around noon, at the homestead where Jenna, Liz, Sarah, and Abby are staying, an impromptu party began. A phone connected to battery-powered speakers; neighbors dropping by. Our students swung around the young children; played hide and seek with them. Then, as the crowd grew, local kids demanded to show the four Americans some Tsonga dance moves. To be good sports, they played along, generating, of course, much laughter and merriment. Then the Tsonga kids began to imitate US vocal pitches and accents by pinching their noses, a game that had already been getting on the Americans' nerves from the previous day.
"At first it all just seemed in good fun," says Liz, sitting in the living-room. "We understand—we're exotic. But the joke went on too long, and then at some point it wasn't good-natured anymore. It began to seem aggressive."
Glen admits in the piece that at this point he judges his students and me harshly. He looked disdainfully down on us as uninformed and misguided Americans who completely misunderstood South African rural culture.
Yet now, in the face of this evidently sincere anguish, I'm surprised at how irritable and unsympathetic I'm feeling towards these students, towards Peterson for identifying with their distress, and towards Americans in general—my adopted compatriots. Within a US cultural framework, this situation seems to evoke scenarios from emotional safety presentations. For me as a South African, though, my current associations are different.
Right now, for example, I'm thinking of the old colonial comic books I read as a child. Tintin in the jungle, doing who-knows-what to upset hundreds of natives, and then shrugging in passive helplessness at their unintelligible reaction: a shrug repeated hundreds of times in my early years, as my white friends and family shook their heads in bewilderment at the peculiar ways of "the blacks." Or the "inscrutable intentions" in Heart of Darkness, a literary mystery that infuriated Chinua Achebe so much, he penned that classic portrait of coherent African reasoning and motivation, Things Fall Apart.
Or, to be perfectly honest—this isn't a thought that shapes itself into words, in the moment, but later I will recognize its unconscious power—the vast crime of apartheid itself, perpetrated by white South Africans when we allowed themselves, specifically, to get spooked by the vision of black people, in large numbers, bullying us. I may not completely realize it yet, but this is the button my students' fears are pushing—the story of my home country's near-destruction—massacres, murders, brutality—by white terror.
Even weeks after the encounter, my conversations with Glen were tense over what happened and how we both interpreted it. But as a skilled writer, Glen eventually sat down and explored the encounter, his own feelings, and his own history. He ultimately created a thoughtful and meaningful personal essay that brings clarity and light.
Find out how things turn out: On Study Abroad, Conscripted Dances, and Mysterious Natives


Regal Pest Management. offers comprehensive insect and rodent control in Scarsdale. We strive to eliminate insect infestations at their source so that you can continue with your business and enjoy your homes.
Call Regal Pest Management right now for help with rodents and insects, in Scarsdale. Our staff is on site and serving our clients throughout the county each day. Below is a basic review of the pests we regularly exterminate throughout the area.
Since Regal Pest Management operates daily in Scarsdale, we have learned quite a bit about this community…With a population of about 18,000 people Scarsdale is a town and village in Westchester County, and falls in the northern suburbs of New York City. The Town of Scarsdale is coextensive with the Village of Scarsdale, but the community has opted to operate solely with a village government.
We have noticed that Scarsdale is well known as an affluent suburb of New York City, and it has regularly placed high in various wealth rankings. In 2013 it was ranked first in CNN Money's list of "top earning towns" with a median family income close to $300,000. The median income for a household in the village was $182,792, The per capita income for the village was $89,907. That ranks as the 59th highest income in the country and second most for towns with a population of over 10,000.
Scarsdale residents have enjoyed success in many fields. James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote "The Spy". Daniel D. Tompkins, five times Governor of New York(1807-1815) and twice Vice President of the United States, was born here. Other Scarsdale residents include distinguished scholars and artists, university presidents, a Nobel prize winner, state senators, members of Presidential cabinets, an astronaut, a New York State Commissioner of Education and presidents of large corporations.
Since Regal Pest Management services this community daily, we are quite familiar with the proper way to conduct business and service our clients through the area and we strive to provide the highest quality service available. Call us today.


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Q: Cannot declare function twice I have two hooks that i am using in the code snippets plugin:
1.
    add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates', 'businessbloomer_hide_free_shipping_for_shipping_class', 10, 2 );

    function businessbloomer_hide_free_shipping_for_shipping_class( $rates, $package ) {

     $shipping_class_target = '1173'; // This is Deluxe Tables shipping class ID
       $in_cart = false;
       foreach ( WC()->cart->get_cart_contents() as $key => $values ) {
          if ( $values[ 'data' ]->get_shipping_class_id() == $shipping_class_target ) {
             $in_cart = true;
             break;
          }
       }
       if ( $in_cart ) {
          unset( $rates['local_pickup:45'] ); // This is Local Pick up shipping method with ID
       }
       return $rates;
    }

*

    add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates', 'businessbloomer_hide_free_shipping_for_shipping_class', 10, 2 );

    function businessbloomer_hide_free_shipping_for_shipping_class( $rates, $package ) {

       $shipping_class_target = '1750'; // This is Stag & Doe shipping class ID
       $in_cart = false;
       foreach ( WC()->cart->get_cart_contents() as $key => $values ) {
          if ( $values[ 'data' ]->get_shipping_class_id() == $shipping_class_target ) {
             $in_cart = true;
             break;
          }
       }
       if ( $in_cart ) {
          unset( $rates['WB_Custom_WooCommerce_Shipping_Method52'] ); // This is Delivery shipping method with ID
       }
       return $rates;

    }

If only one is activated at a time it works!  But it says I cannot declare the function twice, so how do I combine these two?  I have tried so many variations and nothing is working.  Please help!

A: I agree with Pat in the comments: the easiest thing to do would be to rename the function in one of the two snippets, changing the name both on the function definition and the add_filter line. But if you did want to combine the two into a single snippet you could do something like this:
function businessbloomer_hide_free_shipping_for_shipping_class( $rates, $package ) {
    $deluxe_tables_shipping_class_target = '1173';
    $stag_and_doe_shipping_class_target = '1750';

    $hide_local_pickup = false;
    $hide_delivery_shipping = false;

    foreach ( WC()->cart->get_cart_contents() as $key => $values ) {
        $shipping_class_id = $values[ 'data' ]->get_shipping_class_id();
        if ( $deluxe_tables_shipping_class_target == $shipping_class_id ) {
            $hide_local_pickup = true;
        } elseif ( $stag_and_doe_shipping_class_target == $shipping_class_id ) {
            $hide_delivery_shipping = true;
        }
    }
    if ( $hide_local_pickup ) {
        // This is Local Pick up shipping method with ID
        unset( $rates['local_pickup:45'] );
    }
    if ( $hide_delivery_shipping ) {
        // This is Delivery shipping method with ID
        unset( $rates['WB_Custom_WooCommerce_Shipping_Method52'] );
    }
    return $rates;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates',
            'businessbloomer_hide_free_shipping_for_shipping_class', 10, 2 );

(You could also change the code to use === in the two == $shipping_class_id lines but I don't know if WooCommerce stores that ID as a string or a number, so == is safer.)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Armed Islamic Group (GIA)
The Armed Islamic Group or GIA is based in Algeria and was founded in the early 1990s by veterans of the war in Afghanistan following the Algerian Government's ban on the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in December 1991. In 1993, GIA began a high-profile campaign of terrorist acts and quickly became one of Algeria's most radical and violent extremist groups. It distinguished itself from other groups operating in Algeria by its indiscriminate targeting of intellectuals and other civilians. GIA has been involved in a number of terrorist acts, including hijacking, bombing civilian sites, attacking civilians and ambushing Algerian security forces. Between 1992 and 2002, GIA reportedly killed more than 100 foreigners, mostly Europeans, in Algeria. Wikipedia and the Council on Foreign Relations cite al-Jama'ah al-Islamiyah al-Musallaha as an alias for GIA, but they appear to be different groups. GIA is both an ally and rival faction of AQIM, as well as sharing members.By…
Armed Islamic Group (GIA), also known as Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), Al-Jama'ah al-Islamiyah al-Musallah, Groupe Islamique Armee', Al-Jama'ah al-Islamiyah al-Musallah, Green Khmer, Groupe Islamique Arme, Groupement Islamique Arme, Jama'a Islamiya Moussalaha is an inactive group formed c. 1989.
TRAC Analysis: Ideology
Ideological Sources of Radical Islam - Religious (Islamic), Left Wing Terrorist Groups (Maoist, Marxist, Communist, Socialist), Jihadist Terrorist Groups - Religious (Islamic), Current Regime Nationalists Terrorist Groups
Terrorist Strategy in Countering Counter-Insurgency, Arms Supplies and Terrorism, Kidnapping/Hostage Taking as a Terrorist Tactic, Attacks on Soft Targets, Bombings, Assassinations as a Terrorist Tactic, Armed Assault, Hijacking as a Terrorist Tactic
Attacks on Soft Targets, Attacks on Aid Workers / NGO's / Contractors
Responses by Terrorists
Terrorist Strategy in Countering Counter-Insurgency, Arms Supplies and Terrorism


The updated version of this post can be found here - in my new blog.
This is the third post in the Estimations in Agile development series.
In the previous posts we've learned how to breakdown features to epics, user stories to tasks, and how to estimate epics and user stories. We talked about the three prioritization cycles and their importance, and why relative units like story points work better than time based units like ideal days.
In this post I want to focus on the sprint and on the meeting that starts the sprint – the sprint planning. I'll show you why technical tasks, unlike epics and user stories, should be estimated in time based units like hours.
A sprint's purpose is to deliver value to a user and receive feedback. If by the end of the sprint, a user doesn't receive any value or the team doesn't receive any feedback for their work, the sprint wasn't successful. Only after seeing real working features, a user can tell that they are, indeed, what he needs.
A "user story" shares the exact same purpose – deliver a value to a user, that means that we should be able to accomplish at least a single user story in a sprint.
The top user story in the backlog is the one that we need to deliver first since it is the most valuable to the user. But how do we know if that user story actually fits into a single sprint?
Let's drill down to each of those methods.
This method basically states that by the end of the sprint, a chosen feature(user story) must be ready. This method is usually used when the team has a deadline that cannot be changed like a commitment for stakeholders or an external constraint. The team will literally do whatever it takes to accomplish the feature. Including long hours and even weekends. The team will not be able to keep up with this for long.
Avoid using this method if possible. However if the company does work like this, then it is important to take the right buffers and plan ahead in order to remove the dependency between the external and the internal dates.
Velocity planning method uses the team's average 'velocity' in order to determine the amount of user stories for the sprint.
Velocity is a metric that defines the amount of story points a team accomplishes in a single sprint.
For example, if a team finished a total of 10 story points 2 sprints ago and another 10 story points in the last sprint, then its velocity is 10 story points.
When planning based on previous velocity, in the upcoming sprint the team should take user stories with total of 10 story points.
This method is obviously better than the previous one. However this method is not accurate enough for a two weeks sprint resolution.
The velocity based planning is relying on addition of relative units – story points. The problem with adding these values is that 1SP + 2SP != 3SP.
A story point is a relative unit that describes a story's complexity relatively to another story (X is 2 times harder than Y). This unit is great for comparing stories and deciding on their priority, however a 2SP task doesn't equal to two 1SP tasks. As a matter of fact, 2SP task doesn't necessarily take the same amount of time that as another 2SP task.
Let's assume that our project is already running for 10 sprints. We could look back at every user story in every sprint and give it the actual time it took. This will allow us to convert story points to time. Let's say that after that calculation 1SP is equal to an average of 12 hours.
As you can see that despite the fact that the average is 12, we had tasks that took less and some that took more. The standard deviation becomes bigger as the SP number value is higher (some 3SP tasks will take 30 hours while others may take 45 -50% more). It should not be a surprise – after all 2SP states that it is 2 times more complex than 1SP task, it doesn't mean that every time it will take twice as long.
Therefore if you plan your sprint using velocity don't be surprised if some of the tasks take longer than others although they have the same SP value, and that you won't finish all the planned tasks by the end of the sprint.
A sprint's length is constant (read here why) it can be 1 - 4 weeks longs. Either way it is known, hence we know how many working days there are in the sprint.
We also know of how many working hours are there in a single day of a sprint.
And we also know how many team members to we have.
For example in a 2 week sprint we have 10 work days, 9 hours a day and 4 team members. 10 X 9 X 4 = 360 hours.
However we don't actually have 360 hours right? What about all the meetings? The days off and other known wastes.We know most of our wastes when we plan for 2 weeks ahead. We also know another thing – we don't actually work 9 hours a day, take off lunch, breaks, vacations, support hours and other context switches and it will be more like 6.
Each team member can easily calculate his capacity by simply looking at his calendar, so in order for the total capacity to be accurate, a sprint capacity calculation should consider every team member individually.
That is the sprint capacity (for a 1 week sprint).
The capacity represents the absolute amount of work that the team can handle in hours. The sprint's capacity is like an empty glass which size is determined by the team members working time (also hours).
The size of the glass is in hours, therefore in order to fill it we also need to use hours. Unlike big features, epics or user stories which are hard to estimate, tasks should be well defined and should require a relatively small effort (no longer than 3 days). The tasks estimation is created using "poker planning".
After estimating the first task we add it to our sprint backlog and basically "fill the glass" a little.
We can see that we haven't reached our capacity yet. Therefore we can keep estimating until we'll reach it.
We had successfully filled our time with…time! Before the planning we have removed all the known potential wastes and therefore we have a pretty good reason to believe that we'll complete all the tasks in the sprint on time.
We could wait for the end of the sprint and find out whether our estimations were correct, or we could use some useful metrics to verify daily that we are on track.
We could also use some other metrics that will allow us to improve our estimations over time, and for the grand finale, we can use a very special metrics that will help us to predict the future.
Read about all that and more in the next and the last post of this series.
Great series! I really appreciate it..
Thank you! The next one will be up soon.
"There are 3 methods to decide how many user stories can fit in a sprint"
Do you have a reference for this? Isn't there any other methods? Is it possibly in Mike Cohn's book?
Hi Dennis, I cannot see how to reply to your other blogs as they are on a different set-up and don't seem to allow for comments.
I was interested in what method you use for estimation? Your previous article suggest that you do but which one?
Also when do you start estimations for Epics and features?
It seems like you would estimate all epics at the start of a project but with features it is unclear when you do this i.e. are they all done at this start or on every sprint?
I estimate the known epics in shirt sizes (story points) to get a seance of magnitude and initial prioritization.
After we decide on the next epic we split to user stories which we also estimate in story points to identify risks and unknowns and prioritization.
We don't estimate all the user stories. just the ones we feel that are required for the upcoming few iterations.
Each sprint I estimate the tasks for the sprint using hours.
The epics estimation is in story points (T shirt size) exactly as you did. No need to further estimations since the whole purpose is to give you a sense of size and complexity in order to help with prioritization. In some cases even if the 3rd epic is the smallest you still cannot start it before the first one which might be the largest. The prioritization will be more helpful later, when you decide between 7th or the 8th epic.
The sizes are relative so it doesn't really matter what will you choose as long as it works for. You'll adjust along the way. Have retros and check that the numbers work for you.


Honeycomb is delighted to be working with our client, an established and respected distribution organisation based in Mallusk. We are seeking to appoint an experienced Sales Support Administrator to join their existing team. Excellent salary + benefits.


Mumbai, April 11: In a bizarre incident, a 32-year-old female Human Resources (HR) executive, who went missing from Mumbai on Tuesday, was located at Madgaon railway station in Goa the next day. The HR executive, identified as Supriya Chavan, had reportedly gone missing after she got into a Western Railway (WR) local train on Tuesday morning to reach her workplace in Prabhadevi. Reports inform that she usually boards the 7.13 am Churchgate-bound local from Borivli. The incident took place on Tuesday, when she followed the same travel routine but did not reach office. Terror Attack Warning in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh: Western Railway Beefs Up Security, Sounds Alert at All Its Stations.
According to a report by TOI, when Supriya called her family on Wednesday, she said that she doesn't remember anything and had no clue how she landed in Goa. The woman, who works at a Prabhadevi firm, lives in Dahisar with her husband Ramchandra.
The incident came to light after Supriya's colleagues contacted her family about her absence. They tried to call her but her phone was switched off. Soon after, her family members lodged a missing complaint with Dahisar police and checked the CCTV footage at Borivli station. Moreover, her family had also put out an announcement on the smartphone application, M-Indicator.
The TOI report states that on Wednesday, Supriya called up her husband and told him that she was at Madgaon and could not recollect how she had got there. Soon after, her husband booked a flight ticket and rushed to Goa. The report quotes Anup, Supriya's brother-in-law saying that the Railway Protection Force (RPF) at Madgaon spotted her and came to her aid. The report states that while her handset was with her, her sim card was missing.
Reports inform that around Rs 2,000 was missing from her belongings while the family also informed that Rs 10,000 had been withdrawn from Surpiya's bank account on the same morning when she went missing. Around Rs 8,000 in cash was found on her. Relatives said some of her valuables were also missing.


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Review of "Inside Llewyn Davis"
Llewyn Davis is a not very successful folk singer in New York in the early 1960s. That's it really. He is not a terribly bad singer - not comically bad, though the songs he chooses are unremittingly miserable. If the film wanted, it could portray him as a good singer without him actually having to sing any better. He's shot sympathetically when he's singing - it's only the reactions of others (lukewarm applause, mildly negative responses by agents and promoters) that tell us that he's supposed to be not terribly good.
In fact, he's not much good at anything. He doesn't relate well to other people, and he treats them badly. But unlike say Sammy Glick in 'What Makes Sammy Run' he doesn't climb upwards on the backs of the people he has treated badly. He slides down on their backs. Even the really bad dulcimer-playing woman at the folk club who he barracks from the small audience turns out to have a tough and violent husband who beats him up Llewyn in an alleyway.
He can't look out of a window without bumping his head on the frame, he can't have sex with a woman without making her pregnant, he can't throw out a box of old stuff from his parents' house without throwing out important identity documents with it.
I could go on but it would only be recapitulating the misery of the film. It's supposed to be warm and funny, but it's not. It's about failure and the tragedy of caring about something that you're don't do very well. It reminded me of Amadeus in that respect. Not a bad film at all, and beautiful to look at, but not what you could call enjoyable.
Small side note: almost everyone in the film is white. Maybe that just reflects how separate the worlds of black and white people were in the early 1960s.
Posted by Jeremy Green at 12:31 PM
Prologue: Mohács, August 1526
Smart cities partnership between Cisco and AGT


There's such love in these poems.
Each poet—whether they're meditating on the violence of white supremacy or making intimate the phobia of driving—writes from a commitment to define disability as an illuminating and even divine aspect of the human landscape. A landscape of affection. Of inarguable beauty.
we'll part every sea like scripture.
Similarly, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's "Adaptive device" offers to hold readers in the way that our adaptive devices can form the very seat of ourselves, act like a soft chair for sitting in. (My own hearing aids are, indeed, my comfort zone, although I often forget that they're there, tucked away as they are.) And Chelsea Grimmer's epistolary poems read as confessions, love letters to those who so often surround us when we're in the depths of chronic illness: doctors and our pets.
have you ever stared at the abyss and had it stare back at you?
This poem puts another lens on the deep need to reclaim and redefine the Deaf and/or disabled body—to send every person back to themselves, into a space of compassion.
And finally, in Eileen Murphy's "Down to Zero," is a landscape I know very well: the phobia of driving. The poem unfolds in a way that is as perturbing as the anxiety itself feels, but it also acts a way into the psychic energy of the speaker, her vulnerability. To live there and feel the resolution unfold is to heal. I've been carved a space to sit down, to feel the valuable, exposed thoughts and feelings of a friend.
As I reflect on these poems of Issue 3, I feel we've traveled a long journey already since our founding in March 2016. The founding was in the midst of a new movement led by Deaf and disabled Americans—before the movement, the election focused on the usual (albeit important) topics: women's reproductive rights, mass incarceration, immigration, LGBTQ rights—but without the nuance an intersectional lens would provide. The movement has started to turn that tide.
Now, we find ourselves on the other side of the election, our expectations understandably blunted, and our fears heightened for so many reasons. But you know what? We Deaf and disabled folks have been here before. We've always lived this, which means the fight isn't over. The movement continues.
Never forget that you matter. We matter. And we will not give up. In the meantime: here's the fuel for your fight.


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Rivarennes is een gemeente in het Franse departement Indre (regio Centre-Val de Loire) en telt 543 inwoners (2005). De plaats maakt deel uit van het arrondissement Le Blanc.

Geografie
De oppervlakte van Rivarennes bedraagt 38,3 km², de bevolkingsdichtheid is 14,2 inwoners per km².

Demografie
Onderstaande figuur toont het verloop van het inwonertal (bron: INSEE-tellingen).

Externe links

Gemeente in Indre

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Organising young workers: it can be done!
Submitted by AWL on 22 February, 2008 - 2:57
New Zealand union organiser Mike Treen and French union activist Axel Persson spoke on organising, unionising and fighting for the rights of — mostly young — workers in the fast food industry.
They were speaking at a No Sweat meeting in the University of London Union on Saturday 16 February.
Axel Persson
Union activism in the fast food industry first started up after a 2002 strike in McDonalds that lasted for over a year. About a year ago a few of us in the CGT union decided to do some serious union work in the industry. We decided that we needed at least one person in each restaurant if we were going to be successful. Given that no one was coming to the union by us leafleting outside, we decided to "colonise", to send members in to work there.
I applied for a job at a Quick in Paris [Quick is a French fast food chain, similar to McDonalds]; it is the biggest in France with over 150 workers. I needed to let people know that someone in the restaurant was a union member. Either I could try to talk to each and every worker (and of course I tried to talk to many people) or I could produce a bulletin to get out to everyone. The bulletin option proved to be the most useful tool, providing a backbone for the union.
The bulletin's contents related to the working conditions of the restaurant; everyone could recognise what the bulletin was talking about — this was their working life. Facts about the inadequacy of the equipment, about a manager making a racist remark, about promises on wages being reneged on, and so on.
I produced this bulletin on my own initiative, but others in the union helped me to do it.
I started handing it out in front of the lockers, talking to people about what was in it. I also put it in each and every locker. The bulletin told the workers that the union would be operating in the workplace and if they wanted to discuss anything they could come to me.
Some of these workers had never met a union activist before, and maybe didn't even know what purpose the union served. The first step then is to explain the role of the union, that it was there to stand up for the workers.
After a few weeks of handing out the bulletin, discussions began to multiply. People began to talk about the content, point out what was missing etc. I would suggest they should write the next article... people began to be associated with the bulletin. I was no longer the only person.
After about two months we had a group of members and union sympathisers. We decided to announce the presence of the union in a bigger, more public way. We put a union table outside the restaurant with flyers, papers, leaflets. Union activists from other fast food restaurants came along. We advertised the event to the workers inside and told people they could come along to discuss any issues they might have. Several dozen people came and talked to us. It was the start of a real union of seven people within the restaurant.
After asking people what the main demands should be, we launched a petition. The demands were better pay, better job security and more regular and predictable hours. We didn't think the managers would cave into our demands. The petition was to help build organisation, to get names and contact details. And we wanted show the workers what the managers were about — they rejected the demands. We got about 60 signatures.
We haven't managed yet to organise a complete walkout at my restaurant. We have organised strikes of specific groups of workers. Usually these take place between 11am and 2pm, as that is the time when 80% of the profits are made. We organised a picket line in my kitchen, to demand gloves for handling hot water.
We are not yet at the stage where we can organise a national campaign against Quick. We are still building the organisation at the grass roots.
This kind of union activity has been much more successful in southern France. This month the CGT managed to organise a 24 hour strike simultaneously at 17 McDonalds restaurants.
It is also important to address the issues that affect these young workers outside of their work. In Paris especially these workers come from the poor neighbourhoods and they face poverty, unemployment, poor housing and sometimes police harrassment. Usually they end up in the fast food industry because they need the money and there are no other jobs for them. So we used more direct political propaganda to get talking to people and get into wider discussions.
A significant proportion of the workers leave after a short time. There is an extremely high turnover. They want to find something better. It has been difficult to convince people to join a union if they don't intend to stay. That is why we make sure that the people building the union whom we rely on intend to stay there for at least six to eight months.
All of us working in fast food unionism in France agree that our activity has to be extremely dyamic, offensive, radical and directly political. If union activism has no backbone no one will see the need for it. As the saying goes, you should be "as radical as reality itself" if you want to be up to the task.
Any time strike action has happened in fast food in France it has always been very radical, pretty impressive, with demonstrations, picket lines and occupations. People don't usually go on strike but when they do it usually lasts.
For example the first strike ever in fast food was not over pay, but a solidarity strike in defence of two sacked union activists. It lasted for a year and they won.
Mike Treen
IN 2005-6, over those two years, there was a campaign to reunionise the fast food sector as well as call centres, hotels, casinos and similar industries. At the end of that campaign we had union-negotiated collective employment agreements at all of the big fast food chains: McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Starbucks, Wendy's and some smaller ones.
We had recruited two to three thousand fast food workers. And we had organised a major political campaign associated with the key demand for $12 [about £5] an hour minimum wage and the abolition of youth rates for 16 and 17 year olds countrywide. From beginning of this year we will have a $12 an hour minimum wage and the abolition of youth rates in fast food. Winning those key demands was a big issue in New Zealand's broader political and industrial news.
Where did it all start? It was a very long way from here. In the early 1990s, the New Zealand labour movement went through a deep recession, lasting five or six years. During this period, industrial activity declined to the lowest point since records began. Union membership went from 49% of the workforce to 22%.
Industrial laws were adopted that made it very difficult for unions to organise: outlawed strikes outside the negotiating period, outlawed political strikes, outlawed solidarity strikes. It made it very difficult to access workplaces to recruit etc. It was illegal to organise industrial action for a multi-employer collective agreement.
When the law was brought in every single worker was put onto an individual agreement that was the same as their previous collective agreement, but in order for the union to be able to continue to negotiate on your behalf you had to sign an individual authorisation. It was very difficult for some unions to manage that. Many were eliminated overnight.
The central bureaucracy of the union movement capitulated completely to these changes and refused to organise broader industrial struggle, let alone a general strike, despite the fact that there was overwhelming sentiment for such a struggle and a general strike. Motions calling for it in workplaces were crushed by the bureaucracy.
The impact of the recession and the new law was intensified by the demoralising effect of this failure to resist. From that time real wages were under sustained attack. In New Zealand real wages, hourly rates, for unskilled workers declined by 25%. Real incomes for the people we represent declined by 30% or 40%.
All of the legal wage protections which stipulated overtime rates, Sunday rates and so on, went. Minimum conditions were now very limited - three weeks holiday, five days sick leave, that was about it, especially in areas were the workers were more vulnerable. The unions had no strength. Everything else had to be negotiated again. It was a stunning assault on working people.
Officially unemployment was 10% (although in real terms higher). Official unemployment for Maoris (who make up 14% of the population) was 30%, again higher in real terms. Working-class communities in south Auckland were devastated.
The free trade policies adopted by both Labour and the Tories [the New Zealand National Party] led to massive factory closures. The entire car industry was eliminated, textile industries were closed. Other industries with traditionally strong union organisation, like the meat industry, were restructured and thousands lost their jobs. There used to be four meat plants with one or two thousand workers each. There is now one plant.
Union bargaining became concession bargaining only. Over 15 years there was no attempt or struggle to maintain levels of income or organisation. In so far as you had a collective agreement, it was how much below inflation your settlement was going to be. It was accepted that it was going to be below inflation. There were exceptions, but in general that was it, espcially in the private sector.
In the private sector levels of unionisation went down to 9%. In other countries union rates went down, but collective bargaining coverage remained very high (in Australia for example). In New Zealand that wasn't the case at all.
Concession bargaining remained the norm until 2005. In that year things began to change. Even the more conservative unions, for instance the engineering and manufactuing union, were calling for 5% when inflation was running at 3%. This was a radical change. But it happened far too late.
From the mid-1990s there was a sustained economic recovery. It came after a decade of rising employment. Unemployment levels are down to 3.4% of the workforce, one of the lowest in the OECD. From 1996 the union movement should have been reorganising and rebuilding in the private sector. Unemployment was no longer the terror it had been prior to 1996.
In 1999 a Labor-Alliance [the Alliance Party was a leftish split from Labor] government changed the law on union rights. Union organisers regained access to workplaces. The unions now had the right to pursue multi-employer collective agreements through industrial action. Political and solidarity actions are still outawed, and you can only take action in the bargaining period. But there are few other limitations. You don't have to give notice to employers or ballot for example. In 2000, replacing striking workers with outside scabs was also outlawed. However, there was still voluntary unionism, there was a freemarket in unions and the unions still competed for each others' members.
Left activists, in the Alliance Party, were bewildered by the failure of the unions to take advantage of this new law. If someone rang up a union for help, it wasn't a recruiting oppourtunity. They would refuse to talk to you. If you weren't a paying member of the union you had no rights to any support. The loss of confidence in organising workers for struggle, the cynicism involved, was total. However, more struggles began to happen in the mid-2000s, as some unions began to raise their sights.
As a consequence of the implosion of the Alliance Party [over sending troops to Afghanistan, which the left opposed] some of us were liberated from the parliamentary framework; we were able to reorient, to help to organise the people we'd claimed to be the political repsentatives of. We needed to re-earn the right to speak for working people. In the 2002 election the vote for the Alliance Party (now two organisations) collapsed.
Many of us still wanted to be part of a political anti-capitalist project, but we felt we had to re-earn the right to do that. One way we can do that is by seriously engaging in struggles to advance the interests of workers, through political and industrial campaigning. In some cases that involved getting jobs with existing unions.
In my and Matt McCarten's case there was another job we wanted to do — to organise the working poor, to reunionise the precarious. We decided to form a new union.
In the end we didn't have to do that because a little union called Unite existed, with less than a hundred members, run in a voluntary capacity by Alliance Party union officials, with a broad membership clause. We were given the mandate to do an organising campaign in Auckland and an initial donation of $500.
We had a gut feeling and confidence that we could do this. We did not believe young people wouldn't join a union if they were asked and we had the right now under the new law to ask them.They were on the minimum wage, and with minimal unemployment there was not much to lose even if you did stick your neck out. It would always be possible to get another job with no rights.
Surveys also said that the main reason people don't join unions everywhere in the world is that nobody asks them. That statistic applies to young people as much as anyone else.
We had no plan B. This was not play acting. We borrowed, begged, stole money to do this. We weren't new to this, of course. Matt had been a union organiser and leader of the hotel workers' union, leading a struggle to democratise it, before he became President of the Alliance Party. When Matt said he was going to do something, people took note. They gave or lent us the money we needed.
In Unite, we faced no encumbrances. No-one telling us they knew better. No one telling us about the "organising model".
I had never heard about the "organising model" until we started doing this. We were told off for not following the model that had been so sucessful in the previous decade in organising no one at all! It was almost like a religious mantra with some unions.
Our premise was to have a public political campaign, and that we were going to throw everything possible at the organising effort. We had three or four paid organisers, on the minimum wage. That's all. All the rest was done by volunteers.
These workers had nothing to lose. But in order to fight, they had to believe you were going to fight with them, you weren't going to be there one week and gone the next week, you were going to come back. If they were victimised you were going to protect them. If you could show that militancy, people would rise to the occasion.
We tested it out in a couple of places, and as we had no bureaucracy involved, we could change our minds, switching things around if they didn't work.
We had a membership form which we copied off another union with all the usual personal details. One day one of our organisers, a hotel worker and volunteer, went to one of the nice hotels in Auckland to speak to the housekeepers and came back with a notebook full of names and addresses of people interested in joining the union, 60 names. We thought "if only she'd taken some membership forms."
Then we thought, hang on, all the information we want is name and address, phone and email. So our membership form became like a petition, with half dozen names per sheet. The process of signing up became more collective.
We made our fees simple. Our fees were 1% of earnings up to a maximum. We had to give people something before they started to pay. We told them we would deliver the company to the negotiating table. You don't have to pay the fees until we've got them to sit down with your representatives.
We hand over the memberships at that point. Everything is a collective process and there is no chance of victimisation. What we achieve at the negotiation is up to you we said. That depends on how many members you have, how willing you are to fight, what sort of struggle you want to organise.
A lot of people hadn't seen a union before, they didn't know what a union was. Our message was that you can't negotiate individually, you can only do it as part of a collective.
The trial in two places, two cinema complexes, was a great success. It was a very young, very casualised workforce. We signed up around 300 workers, which was pretty much everyone.
We discovered the big issues were ones involving personal dignity. These kids were given two free tickets each week, but they were taken off you for every petty infraction. If you were five minutes late, if you had a sick day, looked the wrong way at the manager, you lost your "comps". The main issue was having the tickets as a right.
We also got an extra five mintues on the paid break in the shift inserted into the contract, so that people could actually have a cup of tea, or a cigarette, or whatever. This was the first time a paid break had actually been negotiated in New Zealand for a very long time.
We also found that we could sign people up very quickly. That gave us confidence to move on.
We were never going to be able to organise trench warfare in these industries, pull people out for long periods of time. But we were going to be able to push employers into signing agreements.
We went after the brands with a public, political campaign, to humiliate them.
In May 2005 we launched a recruitment drive in against Restaurant Brands, who run Starbucks, Pizza Hut and KFC in New Zealand. They were the biggest. They had 7,000 employees, the biggest employer of young people in the country. We signed up about 1,000 members in Auckland.
We had little strikes, for a couple of hours each, in different stores, moving from store to store. This helped build confidence. But it wasn't enough. So then we did marches in Auckland, a Town Hall meeting with a broad range of speakers, a big concert in the park. But none of this was enough.
Then a group of high school students came to us and said they wanted to organise a strike of their own. They had been inspired by this campaign (and many of them worked in the stores). They wanted twenty buses, so we hired twenty buses. They filled them! The police tried to stop them marching, but they streamed through the centre of town, stopping, sitting down and screaming outside every fast food outlet. A few days later the company called us and said they wanted to talk.
We got a deal. Security of hours, a youth rate that was 90% of the adult rate, minimum length of shifts, union rights. It was only a matter of time before we knocked over McDonalds. They fought it. They gave a pay rise to all the non-union staff, they threatened to sue workers who went on strike, they threatened to sue us; but we won. The very last was Burger King.
What was proved conclusively was that young workers will fight if they think they have a chance of winning.
During the campaign there were lots of texts and email messages going out. We did mass texting and emailing to let people know what was going on. We should have a regular electronic newsletter, that's on our agenda. Even when we do our stop-work meetings, at Sky City for example, we will do a mass text to everybody. We use it whenever we have an event.
How will we keep up the membership? We have an absolute insistence on routine visits to all of the sites. We have a monthly newspaper, which gets out to all of the sites. We also have a constant process of trying to identify delegates and get them to our regular delegates' conference. They have a role in maintaining the organisation on their site. We can keep up membership through developing a delegate structure.
Getting the supervisors in is very important. They are the people that carry the experience to pass on to new people. We are careful about formulating demands in contract negotiations that relate to that group, and each time we've negotiated we've managed to win improvements. We've not had to have strikes in this round, mostly, though there have been a few in the picture theatres.
Generally the employers know we could cause them quite a bit of difficulty if they don't negotiate seriously. So delegates are pretty proud of the union and make sure people join the union.
We have mostly kept up the membership, despite the huge turnover, so we must be doing some things right.
We are now looking at ways to get the minimum wage up to something like $15 an hour (which is almost two thirds of the average wage). If we can do that for some groups of workers, it will help win it more generally. The next big thing is to raise the bar of the minimum wage. We need to develop a pubic campaign around that.
The other thing is fluctuating hours. Hours are more secure now, but not good enough; the companies are still are still not obliged to offer regular hours. There is still lots to be done.
Tackling the union bureaucracies
Trade union organisation has always tended to centre in the better-off sections of the...
Preparing a counter-offensive
We need to meet any employers' offensive with a counter-offensive
PCS plans new drive
Like all workers, civil servants are now facing at least five years of an extremely...
A national contract for all school workers
Winning recruitment rights, organising rights, and bargaining rights for school support...
Industrial news in brief
Lewisham to ballot for boycott; Royal Parks workers win; South Western Railway strikes...
SweatshopsSolidarity 127, 21 February 2008Union organising


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There have been many words for LOVE: eros, philia, agape. This series want to account for as many versions of love as possible. In doing so it affirms what literature itself affirms: that there are as many ways to love as there are human beings.


text:
Q: Node.js Error - Website shows "Cannot GET /" When I open the site page it shows Cannot GET /
I tried reading other posts about this problem, but I can't seem to fix this. I am new to this and can not figure this out myself.
require('./config/db');

const app = require('express')();
const port = 3000;

const UserRouter = require('./api/User');

const bodyParser = require('express').json;
app.use(bodyParser());

app.use('/user', UserRouter)

app.listen(port, () => {
    console.log(`Server running on port ${port}`);
})

A: Every route inside UserRouter start with /user
If you did something like this :

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();

router.get('/signup', function(req, res) {
  /* http://localhost:${port}/user/signup */
});

//Put at the end or will be trigered every time you call a route starting with /user
router.get('*', function(req, res) {
  /* http://localhost:${port}/user */
});

signup will be able to access logging inside /User route


In Antsiranana (known as Diego Suarez), we will discover streets invaded by Renault 4 cars and colonnaded houses. On the second day, we will set off for Amber Mountain National Park (300,000 ha), renowned for its botanical richness. We will take the the "Voie des Mille Arbres" (Path of a Thousand Trees) which is characterized, among others, by various palm trees and "strangling" ficus, the ramy, whose sap smells like turpentine, orchids… Crowned lemur, Sanford lemur, mute Brookesia (3cm chameleon), uroplate (flat gecko that merges with the bark of a tree) and other endemic animals inhabit the forest.
The world knows the Tsingy de Bemaraha, but Antsiranana is also home to exceptional tsingy, including the Red Tsingy and the Ankarana Tsingy. We will encounter lemurs, mongooses, bats and owls during a hike in the Ankarana Tsingy National Park.
On the fourth day, we will set of for Ankify, a coastal village, starting point for Nosy Be. We will have a foretaste of "the perfume island" with the ylang-ylang, coffee and cocoa plantations that line the road! Once in Nosy Be, we will discover more sugar cane, cinnamon, coffee, pepper and ylang-ylang fields. But the main interest of this destination is the sea! It is a paradise for diving and water sports enthusiasts! The seabed is just wonderful!
Welcome upon arrival in Antananarivo, and connecting flight to Diego Suarez.
The Détours Madagascar team welcomes you at the airport.
Visit of the city with its colonnaded houses, its market and its port. Lunch and afternoon free.
A full day visiting the Amber Mountain National Park. This volcanic Quaternary structure is 300 000 ha wide. The diversity of its fauna and flora makes it one of the most visited natural parks in the Northern part of Madagascar.
Accompanied by a local guide, we will discover this very interesting botanical site, by the Thousand Trees Way, going from lichen to orchids, from various species of palm trees to "strangling" ficus, and passing by the ramy, an endemic tree whose sap has a strong turpentine smell.
Animals are not left aside, with 11 species of lemurs living inside the park : among them the crowned lemur, the Sanford Lemur, and also one of the smallest chameleons in the world, Brookesia tuberculata (barely 3 cm long, including the tail). We will need the trained eye of our local guide to spot this one.
We might also spot the uroplatus, a flat gecko whose nickname is the King of Camouflage, because he covers up perfectly with the trees' bark on which he sits.
Picnic lunch at the Roussettes Forest station, and back to the hotel at the end of the day.
From the small village of Sadjoavato, we will do a little detour towards the village of Irodo, to visit the Red Tsingy. Made of stoneware, limestone, marl and laterite rich in iron oxide (which gives them their red colour), the Red Tsingy are the result of the erosion of a layered ground uncovered by deforestation. This unreal place, which can be visited by foot, is pretty outlandish, and definitely worth seeing.
We then reach again the National 6 and head towards Mahamasina, doorstep of the Ankarana Tsingy.
The picturesque sites and landscapes are not left with the Tsingy Rary and turrets of Tsingy.
Picnic lunch along the way.
Road to Ankify, village by the sea. We will discover the coffee, ylang ylang and cocoa plantations located along the road.
After breakfast, transfer by speedboat from the port of Ankify to Nosy Be.
Nosy Be, or "the big island" is the best known of the Malagasy islands. Also called the island of perfumes, Nosy Be alternates cultures of ylang-ylang, cane sugar, coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, pepper and other spices.
Arrival at the port of hell city then transfer by taxi to your hotel.
Many possible activities at the departure from the hotel: water sports, fishing, walking in the Islands and out to sea, motorbikes and bicycles rental. The reception of your hotel will advise you and direct you to these activities. At the end of the day, we recommend a walk to the Passot mount that offers a superb panorama over the whole island at the sunset or just lazing on the beach.
Breakfast at the hotel and transfer to the airport of Hell-Ville (Andoany) for the return flight to Antananarivo.
Don't hesitate to get in touch with us for further information !


Description: This course covers all GMP 211 sub-parts including Part 11 and electronic batch records. Also, this course covers more than 30 elements of a modern quality system, it's requirements, expectations, and examples. Each element is explored with applicable regulation from US FDA, Health Canada, European Union WHO and ICH (for multinationals).
Design: Content based, experiential (real site specific examples), 483's evaluation and Warning Letter discussions. Case studies.
Recently, the FDA has issued an increasing number of warning letters citing inadequate employee GMP training.
Meanwhile, companies consistently claim their employees are trained and they can prove it by presenting stacks of sign-in sheets from training sessions. This is the training hoax —operators are told in just a few hours about the contents of hundreds of pages of SOPs.
As a result, these reportedly trained professionals can't possibly have learned the material and have little recollection of procedures or knowledge of how to handle deviations, resulting in defects, recalls and other product problems that cost companies untold billions of dollars.
This 5 Hrs online course is intended for professionals in the Medical Device, Biotechnology,Pharmaceutical Industry. Although not presently stated in the draft , the same guide could be used by FDA Regulated Industries personnel.


Location varies with schedule availablility. Must be completed within a 10 week period.
Check the calendar or call (802) 598-6757 for availability.
I require 24 hours cancellation/rescheduling notice. If you are unable to make a scheduled Private Lesson, you will be charged for the lesson. Please call (802) 598-6757 to reschedule.
If you are unable to make one of the scheduled group classes in your series, and I am teaching that same series at another location, you are welcome to attend the corresponding class at the other location.
ssional dance teachers how to teach dancing, and thousands of dancers how to dance and how to improve their dancing. To see pictures from this event, please visit our photo gallery.
On Friday, September 16th, 2005, members of the Vermont partner dancing community came together to put on the "Second Annual Camp Ta-Kum-Ta Benefit Partner Dance Showcase" to support Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, Vermonts cancer camp for kids.
I produced a cable access TV program, "Care to Dance?". The purpose of this program was to show all those people who have always wanted to learn to dance that it is fun, and relatively easy, to learn to dance.


Fusion food at its best! These Korean beef tacos are packed with flavorful beef, veggies, rice, kimchi, and a delectable gochujang sauce.
I'm back with yet another fun way to use that tasty Instant Pot Korean Beef: tacos!
Is there anyone out there that doesn't love a good taco? I have 37398 taco recipes on my site and I'm here today with another one because, well, I just love tacos.


Twenty-first century media have seen a rise not only in remakes and "re-imaginings" (television series like Hawaii 5-0 or Battlestar Galactica, video games like Tomb Raider, or films like Ghostbusters) but also transmedia adaptations (comic book series becoming television becoming video games, board games and Hallowe'en costumes, a la The Walking Dead), works based in nostalgic callback (Ready Player One, Wreck-it Ralph), fan-written versions of media (Fifty Shades of Grey is fan fiction of Twilight) and genre-bending remixes (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). However, while a wider body of work exists on transmedia storytelling and adaptation, remakes are still a rich and largely unexplored subject even as interest in the remake phenomenon continues to grow.
Broad-ranging and multidisciplinary, this series invites analysis of remakes, reboots, and adaptations in contemporary media from videogames to television to the internet. How are we re-using and remixing our stories? What does that tell us about ourselves, our cultures, and our times? Multidisciplinary approaches are welcome from scholars working in areas such as gender studies, race, sexuality, disability, cultural studies, fan studies, sociology, or aesthetic and technical research. Titles in the series set out to say something about who we are, where we've come from, and where we're going, as read in our popular culture and the stories we tell ourselves over and over again.


text:
What a beautiful hypothesis! It explains a lot!
The Italian version of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species opens with a preface by Luca and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza. They are two of the four children of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, an Italian geneticist, academic, researcher, and professor emeritus at Stanford University in California, who died in 2018 and became known for his research activities in population genetics. He was also involved in anthropology and history in his studies of human migration.
From https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/obituaries/luigi-cavalli-sforza-dies.html
Since I could not find the English version of the preface anywhere, I would like to translate and summarize it in this article. Therefore, the following text is a summary and translation of the preface written by Luca and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza.
Translation: "It is said that when Laplace, the great French astronomer, presented Napoleon with a copy of his Celestial Mechanics, in which he described universal gravitation and advanced hypotheses on the formation of the solar system, Napoleon remarked: "Mr Laplace, they tell me that you have written this big book on the design of the universe, without ever mentioning its Creator". "This is a hypothesis I did not need", replied Laplace. When Napoleon, amused, reported this conviction to the mathematician Lagrange, he exclaimed: "What a beautiful hypothesis! It explains a lot! ". Two hundred years later, modern texts on astronomy continue to describe the behaviour of celestial bodies without the need for a God creator. In science, no unnecessary hypotheses are introduced to explain events. While no one nowadays argues about divine intervention in the history of the cosmos, a similar question resurfaces from time to time in biology. Since Darwin's time, the theory of evolution has made enormous progress and can explain a great deal of the history of life. Today, our relationship with primates is no longer in question. It has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
From Stutz, 2014: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264417273_Embodied_Niche_Construction_in_the_Hominin_Lineage_Semiotic_Structure_and_Sustained_Attention_in_Human_Embodied_Cognition/citations
Nevertheless, it still meets with the most vigorous resistance from the ultra-conservative fringes of Baptist Christians (a powerful political force in the south of the United States) and ultra-orthodox Jews. On the other hand, it does not seem to create any difficulties for either Catholicism or Islam. What is questioned today is whether evolution is sufficient to explain the extraordinary complexity of life: how is it possible that living beings have developed such a variety of forms? How can an organ such as the eye have achieved its extreme complexity only under natural forces?
From: https://www.phos.co.uk/journal/the-evolution-of-sight
Someone says there must be an Intelligent Design guiding the history of life, intervening in the mechanisms of evolution (with a view to some goal, it is assumed, but this is not stated). The Intelligent Design movement was born as a political fact in the United States; it is promoted by foundations financed by ultra-conservative billionaires and engaged in specific activities, such as supporting those who sue state schools to have the biblical account of creation taught alongside the theory of evolution as an equal alternative. The extreme right-wing label with which the movement was born does not help its spread in Europe, where there has been enough ideology. The absence of scientific arguments makes it fiddly to counter directly. An organism can only live if it interacts with its living environment to obtain food and can only pass on its DNA to the next generation if it becomes an adult and reproduces. However, the environment is constantly changing. Only those who remain 'adapted' to their environment can continue to live. Natural selection acts by automatically filtering, like a rigid sieve, the best types to survive and reproduce, environment by environment and circumstance by circumstance.
From: https://www.britannica.com/science/evolution-scientific-theory/Adaptive-radiation
The theory of evolution by mutation and natural selection says precisely this: living species evolve under the impetus of chance and necessity. Darwin's theory of evolution provides an excellent key to interpreting what we see around us and deepening our knowledge of the molecules that make life possible." - End of translation.
Science and religion have always had harsh disagreements about explaining the existence of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution (of both abiotic and biotic factors). My opinion is that science should not be concerned with the beliefs of others if the views of others do not limit science. But, at the same time, religions should help scientists find the right path following moral rules and ethics. Both science and religion are great powers that give humankind its singularity. Therefore, they should work together to make our species more just, educated and happy.