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The spectacular emptiness of Roseanne Barr's apology
Roseanne Barr says she's sorry for her racist tweet–while vigorously trying to prove that her tweet wasn't racist. She can't have it both ways.
[Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images]
By Joe Berkowitz 5 minute Read
On Tuesday afternoon, while standing in line to board a flight, I scrolled through the news that Roseanne Barr had tweeted a blatantly racist remark about former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. By the time my flight landed a few hours later, ABC had canceled Barr's exceedingly well-rated Roseanne revival and Viacom decided to pull all reruns of the series off the air.
While the court of public opinion swiftly ruled against Barr, the embattled comedian took the entire day revising her protracted apology in real time. In fact, she probably isn't done yet. It's like when fellow celebrity Trump supporter Kanye West released his 2016 album, The Life of Pablo, and then continued making changes to it for months afterward. In both cases, they needn't have bothered: the initial impression was already made. With Barr, though, everything she said following each apology served to actively undermine it.
Recently, Barr had gotten used to saying whatever the hell she felt like without incurring any consequences. She was an avowed pizzagate believer during the election, and ABC rewarded her by reviving her TV show the following year. Once the show proved to be a hit, she used her platform to dismiss fellow ABC shows Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat in an offensive way, and watched as the ratings remained rock-solid. Her Twitter presence has tended to be what one would generally expect from a person who posed for a 2009 Heeb Magazine cover dressed as Hitler, newly emboldened by a president who is never held to account. Barr spent the weekend leading up to her Jarrett tweet provoking Chelsea Clinton with conspiracy theories. Clearly, she felt untouchable.
Barr's tune changed, though, after the Jarrett tweet, which read: "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj," a reference to Jarrett's birth in Iran and African-American parents. She must have realized right away that she'd crossed a red line and done the one thing racists in America are forbidden from doing: She'd forgotten to be vague. She'd neglected to dress up her remark with coded language and dog whistles, or by suggesting (for five years) that the first African-American president was actually a Kenyan-born Muslim. She'd said the quiet part so loud there was absolutely no room for misinterpretation.
Not long after the original Jarrett tweet, the first apology arrived.
I apologize. I am now leaving Twitter.
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) May 29, 2018
Someone from ABC's no doubt beleaguered PR team must have told her this apology was insufficient and that by mentioning a proposed exit from Twitter in the same breath as the apology, it looked as though she was blaming "being on Twitter" for the racism she'd belched onto the social media network. The Twitter environment Barr selected for herself may have contributed to the false sense of security propelling her blatantly racist tweet, but it absolutely does not excuse it. Within five minutes came apology # 2.
I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.
This mea culpa struck a somewhat more appropriate note. (Barely.) However, it's difficult to take Barr's apology seriously when, just 10 minutes earlier, she aggressively defended her "joke."
ISLAM is not a RACE, lefties. Islam includes EVERY RACE of people.
Of course, Barr's defense conveniently ignores the racial (and racist) component of her Jarrett tweet. Insulting an African-American woman by mentioning the Brotherhood of Islam is a dog whistle; insulting an African-American woman by comparing her to a primate is pretty much Cujo biting you in the face.
Even after Barr was made to realize the full-on PR Hindenburg crash she'd incited, and apologized for it, her fans picked up the slack of studiously ignoring why her tweet was racist. One popular mode of doing so was by claiming that Bill Maher's recent joke that Donald Trump is descended from orangutans is equally as offensive as what Barr tweeted. While Maher's joke may be in bad taste–orangutans never started a fight with the mayor of a U.S. city that was just hit by a category 5 hurricane; these primates don't deserve to be insulted this way–it's not a racist joke. Calling Trump an orangutan has nothing to do with the awful documented history of comparing black people to apes, something H&M had to reckon with earlier this year following its offensive "monkey hoodie" ad.
Following her apology, the smart thing for Barr to have done would have been to take her own advice and leave Twitter. Instead, she continued retweeting supporters–including one who illuminated the Bill Maher defense by posting photos of Trump and an orangutan, above an unfathomably ill-advised side-by-side of Valerie Jarrett and a character from Planet of the Apes.
pic.twitter.com/FFv1A8ppes
— Jodi Oviedo (@JodiJodiBoBodi) May 29, 2018
Retweeting something like the above at such a moment is what career suicide looks like. However, the ape imagery was just one flake in a flurry of retweets, amplifying the many supporters defending Barr. Sharing all these messages excusing her Jarrett tweet voided the sincerity of her multiple apologies, before the flailing comedian capped them off with a bizarre tweet asking her defenders to stop defending her–as though she were physically incapable of not retweeting them and thus digging her hole deeper. The lady doth protest too much, which, according to a recent NFL ruling, is a finable offense.
Barr's no-good, horrible, very bad day appeared to end with one final apology, delivered through BuzzFeed's Kate Aurthur.
Here's @therealroseanne's apology. pic.twitter.com/YWZ6i6WWq7
— Kate Aurthur (@KateAurthur) May 30, 2018
Barr confirmed she'd written those words herself. And then, even though it was getting late on the East Coast, she still found time for one more grotesque, apology-nullifying series of tweets. In what I'll deem the Ambien suite or her symphonic apology, she blamed her racist remark on Ambien tweeting, which she felt "went too far." (Barr deleted the tweets as soon as "Ambien" became the #1 trending topic on Twitter late Tuesday evening.) Ambien has several known side effects, but none of them involves going Klan-level racist. That part of Barr was already present, with Ambien possibly lulling such sublime comfort that she believed her recent resurgence would buffer her against all blowback. She didn't need the Ambien to be wrong.
A person can't actually be sorry while sweating so hard to prove there's nothing to be sorry about. This contradiction is why Donald Trump never apologizes. (Well, that and just plain being a shitty person.) When a public figure has offended most of the country, they can either double down to bolster the remaining die-hards, or apologize to concede that everybody does have a reason to be upset. Roseanne Barr kept swinging wildly back and forth between both, confirming her apology's essential emptiness. That final, desperate one-two punch of sincere-sounding remorse followed by the Ambien excuse is a fitting close to this whirlwind chapter in her life, and a permanent stain on her reputation. And unlike her TV show, there likely won't be a reboot.
Joe Berkowitz is a writer and staff editor at Fast Company. His latest book, Away with Words, is available from Harper Perennial.
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Are you intelligent? Chances are how you answer this question is significantly influenced by cultural prejudice. In our highly technological society we tend to narrowly define intelligence as the ability to reason analytically. Although this certainly is one type of intelligence, it is erroneous to believe this is the only type of intelligence. Howard Garner, a researcher and professor, has studied intelligence for decades. His research has led him to believe that there are at least seven types of intelligence.
1. Linguistic: This type of intelligence includes verbal comprehension, syntax, semantics, and written and oral expression and understanding. Individuals with this type of intelligence tend to learn best through the printed word. Schools cater to this type of learning (along with Logical-Mathematical). Any career which encourages thinking in words, such as writers and lawyers, tends to make the most of this type of intelligence.
2. Logical-Mathematical: This type of intelligence includes inductive and deductive reasoning and computational abilities. Individuals with this type of intelligence tend to learn best through the spoken word, a real plus for students since so much of learning in school is dependent on listening skills. Mathematicians, scientists, and computer programmers make good use of this type of intelligence.
3. Spatial: This type of intelligence utilizes the capacity to represent and manipulate spatial configurations. Individuals with this type of intelligence don't really "get it" until they have actually had a chance to do some "hands on" learning. Pilots, surgeons, architects, and sculptors usually have keen spatial intelligence.
4. Musical: This type of intelligence includes such abilities as pitch discrimination; sensitivity to rhythm; the ability to hear and perform themes in music; and music composition. These individuals actually think in music. Of course, musicians and composers make the most of this type of intelligence.
5. Bodily-Kinesthetic: This type of intelligence is seen in the ability to use all or part of one's body to perform a task or fashion a product. Dancers, athletes, and surgeons make the most of this type of intelligence.
6. Interpersonal: This type of intelligence uses the ability to understand the action and motivations of others and to act sensibly and productively based on that knowledge. Teachers, ministers, politicians, and sales persons demonstrate this type of intelligence.
7. Intrapersonal: This type of intelligence provides a deeper understanding of self, that is, one's own cognitive strengths and weaknesses, feelings and emotions. These are the individuals with excellent "emotional intelligence." They tend to understand themselves well and others almost as well. Counselors often demonstrate this type of intelligence.
Even though most of us to some degree have all seven types of "intelligences," we tend to be strongest in one. It is important to discover your intellectual gifts and develop that potential. By strengthening your strongest type of intelligence you not only increase your ability in that area, it, too, strengthens the other types of intelligences.


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Jane Helman
Home / Jane Helman
On Oct. 1, 2018 the Tunkhannock athletic department lost one of its most beloved coaches, Jane Helman. She was the girls head track and field coach from 1979 to 2009 and had a substantial impact on just about everyone she encountered. Former Tunkhannock Area athletic director Stew Casterline called Helman, "A great motivator who had a great rapport with her athletes."
Jane Helman was born in Allentown, PA and graduated from William Allen HS in Allentown. She received her Bachelors of Arts in Elementary Education and Teaching from Messiah College and her Masters Degree from Bloomsburg University in PA.
"Jane was very dedicated to her sport and had a knack for putting the girls in the line-up, where they had the best chance for success." Alice Edwards, who coached alongside her in the early years, called Helman, "the most remarkable strategist I've ever seen." Molly O'Malley Watts '95 said: "Running on her team for four years prepared me to play Division I field hockey at Princeton and beyond with the USA teams."
1992 Pennsylvania State Javelin Track Champion Gretchen Grimaud Moore concluded, "Out of all the sports I played, I enjoyed Track & Field the most." She recalled, "Coach Helman always encouraged us to do our best and to cheer each other on as a team. She led by example. I remember her always running to the jumping, throwing, and running competitions to give encouraging words and to find out how we were doing." Moore added, "Coach Helman was one of my role models. I wanted to be a good coach just like her." She knew how to bring out the best in all her athletes. She was a gift to our school and community," Watts said. From the Wyoming County Examiner.
Jane coached 43 individuals District II AAA champions and 7 District Relay Champions. During the 1989-92 seasons under Jane's guidance, the Tunkhannock Area Girls Track & Field team won four straight District II titles. During this run they compiled a 69-0 dual meet record. The 1992 team finished fifth in the PIAA State meet. Jane coached one State Champion and fourteen state place-winners. Her favorite motto was, "Do it for the Doughnuts!"
In addition to the impact she made during her coaching, Jane was a dedicated teacher who helped hundreds of children reach their reading potential. She was actively involved in the Keystone State Literacy Association, attending the first state conference in 1990. Over the years, Jane served in a number of capacities with the KSLA, including Conference Chair, Publications Chair, Vice President and President. her long-time coaching partners and associates with which she shared all of the wonderful accomplishments and cherished memories, were assistant coaches Hollie D'Agata and Dick Daniels. She is sadly missed by her loving brother Daniel and his wife Linda, along with the entire Tunkhannock community.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Jürgen Klopp believes Trent Alexander-Arnold's commitment to development means his new long-term Liverpool deal is fully deserved – but challenged the young defender to ultimately show this is just the latest step on the road to reaching his maximum potential.
The 18-year-old dedicated his future to his boyhood club by inking the deal at Melwood on Friday afternoon, capping off an incredible 12 months in which he has risen from the Academy ranks and established himself firmly within the Reds' first-team set-up.
"It is fantastic news and brilliant that the club have again rewarded his progress," Klopp told Liverpoolfc.com. "I think our appeal to young players with the right attitude is clear: if they commit to their football we will make sure we do well for their present and futures.
"Trent and the people he has in his life - personally and professionally - make such smart decisions. I love that he is so humble, yet has such big ambitions. This is a wonderful mixture.
Alexander-Arnold was promoted to Melwood on a full-time basis last summer and was named on the bench for the opening Premier League game of 2016-17 at Arsenal.
A senior debut arrived in a League Cup tie with Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield in October, and the young Scouser added a further 11 first-team appearances to his tally before the conclusion of the campaign.
"The credit for this is entirely with Trent," Klopp said, reflecting on the No.66's last 12 months. "Yes, those of us around him have played a part as well - coaches, teammates, Academy and development staff. But Trent sets the tone for everything he does with his attitude and character.
"He commits to everything he does: he wants to learn, he wants to grow, he wants to develop and his focus is absolutely in the right place. He embraces being part of the first-team environment. He never shrinks or hides.
Improvement is something Klopp is keen to emphasise the importance of in all of his young players – and Alexander-Arnold is no different.
But in order to do so, the full-back – who can also operate in midfield - will be afforded plenty of patience from the manager and coaching staff.
Klopp said: "This is critical. Trent has continued to grow because he has shown a desire to continue to learn. Learn from his coaches, learn from his teammates and learn from his experiences.
Klopp is also eager to cite the influence of the staff at the Academy in helping shape Alexander-Arnold's career path, having first joined the club's Kirkby complex at the age of six and rising through the age-group ranks before progressing to Melwood permanently.
Therefore, the German insists the team at the youth set-up deserve great credit for the role they've played.
"It is a proud day for our Academy as well as for Trent and his family," said the boss. "He's a boy with the city and club colours flowing through his veins, and for our Academy staff I know moments like this mean a lot to them.
"They play such an important part in guiding the players to the stage where their opportunity with the first-team set-up comes.


Lawsuits require that an injured person identify who they think is responsible for their injuries. This may seem obvious, but it's often difficult to determine which parties shoulder the responsibility for an alleged injury. This issue is often present in medical malpractice lawsuits. Often, multiple medical professionals will perform surgery, those professionals are employed in various medical groups, and the surgery occurs within a regulated hospital. Moreover, as a recent New York surgical error case discussed, a manufacturer of medical products and devices may also be implicated in a medical negligence lawsuit.In a recent case, the plaintiff filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against his plastic surgeon, the plastic surgery surgical group, and the manufacturer of a facial filler product. The court focused on the cause of action as directed toward the medical product manufacturer. Unlike most medical negligence claims in New York, claims against a medical product manufacturer require the establishment of a different theory of liability. Specifically, a party injured as a result of a defective medical product may seek damages against the manufacturer based on theories of a breach of a promise, express or implied, negligence, or strict product liability, including a failure to warn users of dangers. However, under New York law, the manufacturer only owes a duty to warn the physician, rather than the patient, of the product's risks. The manufacturer does not have a duty to warn a patient of risks associated with its product. It instead discharges its duty by providing sufficient information to the physician.
The plaintiff's lawsuit alleged that the product's pharmaceutical representatives were responsible for providing instructions to the physicians on how to use the facial filler product. The plaintiff alleged that the pharmaceutical reps were present on one or more occasions when the physicians were treating the plaintiff. His complaint asserted that the pharmaceutical reps had a duty to assert that the product was used and administered in a safe manner, in accordance with regulatory guidelines.
The court was not convinced by the plaintiff's argument. Instead, the court recited New York law and reasoned that although the manufacturer has a duty to warn a patient's physician of the risks associated with the product, the manufacturer is not responsible for the way the physician uses the device and renders medical care. The court ordered that all of the claims against the manufacturer be dismissed.


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Interesting places in Mallorca
Mallorca is a stunning and paradisiacal place in the Mediterranean area; it is known for its rich culture and history. In addition, Mallorca includes many impressive natural treasures such as sandy beaches with warm water, historical caves and hidden coves to discover.
Visitors can enjoy the magnificent ancient constructions and learn more about old Mallorca in several museums that are found in the city center. Furthermore, the night life in the city is one of the best after Ibiza and Barcelona. It is a city full of pretty Spanish and foreign people, good music and exquisite drinks.
If foreign people want to relax in Mallorca's spectacular beaches, visit the historical city center or travel around the villages and natural areas, they will be amazed at its splendor. Mallorca is very modern and it is always reinventing itself in order to attract more tourists each year.
That is why that the city is considered the Madonna of the tourism in the world. Nowadays, there are several good cities with exclusive hotels, restaurants, sculpture gardens, art galleries and much more.
There are attractive places that foreigners have to visit. Among these places figure: the Arab Baths, the Royal Palace of the Almudaina, the Far de Porto Pí, the Coves de Campanet, the Porto Cristo and the Jardins de Alfabia to mention just a few.
Arab Baths
The Arab Baths are located in Palma de Mallorca, at an ancient building that is still intact, full of quiet and peace. Far de Porto Pí
Far de Porto Pí is one of the oldest lighthouses in Europe; this museum (third oldest museum in Europe)... Royal Palace of La Almudaina
The Royal Palace of La Almudaina is a fortified palace in Palma next to the cathedral


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Case dropped against three 'wanted' men
Nov 27, 2020 | The Big Stories | 0 comments
A fourth man is fined $50,000 for gun and drugs charges
Charges have been dropped against two of the three men for whom a wanted bulletin was issued by police last week. The third man was previously excluded from investigations.
All three turned themselves in to police earlier this week, accompanied by lawyers, in response to the bulletin sent out on November 20.
They were being hunted on gun and drugs offences after police searched a property in Cashew Hill on November 13.
A fourth man – Tyree Smith, 25, of Browne's Avenue – was present when the search was carried out and was arrested and taken into custody.
Smith pleaded guilty yesterday in St John's Magistrate's Court to possession of a 9mm pistol and ammunition, along with possession of 1,015 grams of cannabis, and possession of cannabis with intent to transfer.
He was fined $30,000 for the latter charge and $20,000 for having a gun and ammunition. Smith must pay the fines within six months or spend a year in prison.
Elijah Lewis, 35, and Matthew Edwards, 31, both of Cashew Hill, also appeared before the court on Thursday on similar charges, which were withdrawn.
David Fallen was excluded from the investigations earlier this week.


Albert Dorne was an American illustrator from the 1930s-1960s. His life story is a classic rags to riches story and worth a read. I love his drawings / illustrations and I wish there was a book of his work for sale. Anyway, while searching online for his artwork, I found this advert for his Famous Artist School which I found encouraging.


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Jamaican spice makers get IFC backing to grow exports
Published:Sunday | February 21, 2016 | 12:00 AMSteven Jackson
Brian McCalla
A jerked pork dish is displayed in Kingston. Jamaican makers of sauces and spices are to get help to tap more deeply into the export market.
Jamaican sauce and spice makers are being offered the chance to position for business in the export market, with backing of US$1 million in technical assistance from the IFC, the private-sector financing arm of the World Bank.
The 'Jamaica Sauces & Spices Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and Value Chain Project' aims to improve market linkages with export markets, address standards and improve operational efficiency of spice makers.
"As a result, MSMEs are expected to save costs and increase sales revenues by increasing quality, diversifying products, and seizing new export market opportunities," said the IFC in project documents.
Sauce earnings alone are on par with Jamaican coffee, which holds a luxurious appeal globally. The global interest for the island's sauce and spice surrounds its jerk seasoning.
Last November, the Jamaican Government took steps to copyright 'Jamaican Jerk' through the registration of a geographical indication (GI), which protects against the use of the Jamaican name to promote or label products made mainly outside the island. It guards against foreign-made products being labelled 'Jamaican style' or 'Jamaican type' or 'Jamaican kind jerk'.
The IFC approval of technical assistance was disclosed this week, but the actual project received the agency's sign-off in January 2015.
Attempts at comment from several sauce makers on the potential implication for their business were unsuccessful.
The project falls under the Cariforum-EU Economic Partnership Agreement, a trade pact between the two blocs.
"It is the first partnership between the European Union and IFC to work with advisory services in Latin America and the Caribbean," said IFC.
The agency said it would support implementation of the EPA Capacity Building (EPA)-II programme, which aims to improve "access of Jamaican products to the rest of the world".
Sauces and coffee each earned US$16 million for Jamaica in 2014, the latest Bank of Jamaica data shows.
In December, the IFC disclosed a US$560,000 ($67-million) coffee project to provide technical assistance to that sector to improve productivity of the crop. That project seeks to work with coffee-processing and/or exporting firms to implement a proposed action plan to "reverse" the declining trend of farm productivity and preserve Jamaica's reputation for premium coffee.
steven.jackson@gleanerjm.com
«Four ganja investors ready for market opening - Applications for permits open April 4
Marley Coffee projects more losses but stronger revenue»


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Data from National Institute on Money in State Politics as of August 4, 2017.
Total candidate fundraising in 2015-16 was approximately $40.7 million (including public financing), slightly higher than in the last presidential election cycle, but short of totals from earlier presidential election cycles in 2003-4 and 2007-08.
About 56 percent of contributions to state supreme court candidates during the 2015-16 cycle came from lawyers, lobbyists, and business interests, a cohort regularly involved in state court matters.
Two states, New Mexico and West Virginia, offered supreme court candidates the option to accept public financing for their supreme court campaigns. In New Mexico, both candidates opted into the system, and nearly all of the expenditures in the race came from public funds. In West Virginia, however, while two of five candidates received public financing, individual candidates were far outspent by outside groups.
While total fundraising during the cycle did not match prior highs, a number of state high court candidates nevertheless raked in huge sums. Of the top ten candidate fundraisers nationwide, nine raised more than $1 million apiece. Pennsylvania Supreme Court candidate Kevin Dougherty topped the list, raising nearly $5.7 million, principally from labor interests and lawyers and lobbyists.


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The pension repayment scandal in the making
First published 09 March 2018 • Updated 15 July 2019
A potential scandal is brewing in the world of defined benefit pensions, which could see tens of thousands of pensioners asked to repay money received in error. There are suggestions that some individuals may be held liable for up to £50,000. Could this really happen, might you be affected – and what could you do about it?
Faulty data supplied to HMRC by employer pension schemes could be soon to cause major problems for a minority of members now receiving their pensions. Mistakes in data entry have caused a small but significant number of these pensions to be overpaid, in some cases by as much as £50,000 over the course of a member's retirement. According to figures from the Pension Protection Fund, up to 46,300 people may have received these overpayments, and could – in theory at least – be asked to pay the money back.
One tiny error = big problems
The problem has arisen due to some scheme members being 'contracted out' of the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS) when contributing in their workplace pension. From 1978 to 1997, companies offering DB schemes could achieve a reduction in their (and their employees') National Insurance contributions by taking employees out of the additional State Pension. The idea was that this would result in lower overall State Pension, but a higher workplace pension which would more than compensate.
But mismatches between HMRC records and employer schemes suggest that some scheme members were listed as contracted out when they weren't. The records date from a period when all data entry was manual. Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb, now policy director at Royal London, explained: 'If you typed a National Insurance number wrong, or put a decimal point in the wrong place, and you are doing this for million and millions of people, even a 0.1 error still gives you thousands of people with the wrong numbers.'
A member incorrectly listed as contracted out of the Additional State Pension would end up receive a higher pension from their workplace pension than they were actually entitled to. The question now is whether or not pension schemes will try to recoup the money that has been paid out in error. Conversely, there may be many pensioners who have not received the full payments they were entitled to – though it is believed that overpayments exceed underpayments.
Sir Steve went to say that trustees face a dilemma when it comes to resolving this issue, in that they have a duty to the existing scheme members as well as to those whose pension are already in payment. 'The trustees aren't allowed to pay money that they shouldn't pay. It will increase the margins, the deficits and it will have an impact on other members.' However, the alternative option of schemes clawing back money from pensioners is unlikely to play well in the media. HMRC have already indicated that it is not a matter for them, saying, 'Pension scheme administrators are responsible for the quality of their records, including data on contracting-out.'
Schemes have until October 2018 to check their data, and it may take another two years to work out how many pensioners have received incorrect benefits. The Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) has found that currently 13 per cent of affected schemes are recouping the overpayments.
Could you be affected?
If you were in a DB pension scheme between 1978 and 1997, there is only a very small chance that you are among those who may be affected. Even if you are, it is still far from certain that all schemes will take any action to recover the money. However, it may be worth talking to a financial adviser who specialises in DB schemes, as they can calculate the amount you should have been entitled to receive under the scheme, and see if this matches up to your actual payments. There is even a small chance that you could have been underpaid, which makes it all the more worthwhile to find out.
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Two Democratic senators want to restore proposed funding and add billions of dollars for local police, firefighters and other first responders to next year's budget.
During a press conference yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking minority member on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2007 budget cuts first responder program funds by $802 million, to a level 23 percent less than this year.
Lieberman said he would offer an amendment during the budget resolution debate to add $8.1 billion to governmentwide homeland security funding, including first responder funds, according to a press release.
Although the senators didn't list the programs they were talking about in the press releases they issued yesterday, the Bush administration has proposed cutting several first responder funding programs altogether, including the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants program and Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, and gutting several others, such as the Community Oriented Policing Services program and Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program.
However, Bush is also proposing to consolidate several funding programs. Representatives of first responders said consolidation means increased competition for funds. First responders say cuts will hamper their ability to buy interoperable communications equipment and other necessities.
Reid said the proposed budget would leave ports and train systems vulnerable and remove police officers from the streets.
Lieberman called the cuts a risky assault on such programs, especially since Hurricane Katrina showed how unprepared the country is for a catastrophe.


HOLLYWOOD >> Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns sat on a couch in Paramount Studios eating salad from a plastic container.
Burns, 60, fishing for some chips in between forkfuls of Chinese chicken, spoke eloquently about such weighty topics as freedom, the pursuit of happiness and the tie-ins of both to our national parks when the conversation turned to his recent project in which he filmed ex-presidents and politicians reading Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
Does he get offended when late night TV hosts poked fun at the project and also at his appearance as a "man with bangs," as David Letterman put it. "No. I don't," he answered without hesitation. When told Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" did a sketch on his "Central Park Five" film, he wanted to know more. "Really? He made a joke about it? I missed it," he said, laughing.
But despite revealing a lighter side, the moppy-haired documentarian would get serious, even emotional, about the movie's theme of conservation and liberty, two deeply American principles joined at the hip.
The movie, an epilogue if you will to his 2009 PBS series "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," purports that setting aside Yosemite for perpetuity was a first for the nation and the world. The idea of preserving wildlands started June 30, 1864 during the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant. That seed sprouted into 401 national parks and hundreds more preserves located in countries spanning the globe.
"This couldn't have happened any place else. It is the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape; the full expression of the democratic experience," Burns said.
"Up until the Yosemite Grant, all lands were owned by nobleman, kings and the very, very wealthy. Now, suddenly, land was owned in common by everyone in the country," he explained.
Burns and the movie's writer, Dayton Duncan, spoke about spreading the gospel of Yosemite and America's national parks to an audience of donors from the Yosemite Conservancy, a group that raised $10.8 million for the park in 2013.
The pair said the movie is relevant to today's struggles for preserving open space by keeping out oil and gas development, as well as preventing devastating wildfires such as the Rim Fire, which consumed 257,000 acres in and around the park last year.
By presenting a historical look at how Yosemite National Park came to be, Burns and Duncan are emphasizing the economic, aesthetic and spiritual roles played by our national parks and forests.
Without the idea that jumped from Lincoln's pen to Yosemite's granite walls, there would be no Yellowstone, technically the nation's first national park. There would be no cathedrals of earth and stone, as Europeans call Yosemite, Zion, the Grand Canyon, etc.
Nearly 150 years ago, with 11,000 men dying each day and a nation on the verge of splitting apart, Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, which gave the land to California. But without funding or enforcement, some of the giant sequoias of Mariposa Grove were logged and Alpine Meadows became denuded by flocks of grazing sheep from poaching herders. It took visionaries such as the Scottish-born John Muir and later, President Theodore Roosevelt, to persuade Congress to make Yosemite a true national park.
Burns' movie celebrates the early park stewards, including the creator of New York City's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, who funded the park's first biological survey out of his own pocket. Galen Clark, appointed as Yosemite's first superintendent, guarded Mariposa Grove from commercialization attempts while Congress withheld his salary for four years.
Duncan said the October shutdown of the federal government reminded the American people once again — and the members of Congress who voted for the shutdown — of the value of America's national parks, monuments and forests.
From 1864 to the present, even lands set aside are constantly threatened and need heroes to fight for them, they said.
Scientists are concerned about the effect of global climate change on the trees, snowmelt and wildlife in Yosemite and other national parks. Burns said his movies don't include references to man-made damage to parks because he prefers not to "preach to the choir" but rather tell a story.
When asked about new calls to restore Hetch Hetchy, the twin to Yosemite Valley taken by San Francisco and filled with water while Yosemite was a national park, Burns said he favors its restoration.
Burns and Duncan view Yosemite as the birth of an idea that grew into America's national parks, which led to saving animal species from extinction, such as the bald eagle, and the bison and wolves of Yellowstone.
The national parks have also led to a better understanding of forest fire ecology, Duncan said. But balancing preservation with recreation is always going to be hard, they said.
"Yes, we want to preserve it and we want people to come to draw sustenance from it," Duncan said, adding that Muir, who also wrote extensively about saving the San Gabriel Mountains, had a motto: The fight for conservation will go on forever.
Returning to Yosemite Valley to shoot the film after spending 10 years making the National Parks series, Burns found himself on a hike near Bridalveil Fall with his daughter when they saw a migrant family whose daughter, about the same age as Burns' daughter, began dancing in and out of the fall's mist.
He said the mountains and centuries-old trees "performed open heart surgery" on him, reminding him of his own childhood and family trips to the national parks and whose hand he was holding at the time.
"We were no different," he said after seeing the Hispanic family at the fall. "All the differences — status, class, race — were erased. I felt gladdened by that," he said.


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Peter Chronis
Events , Identity Governance & Administration , Incident & Breach Response
Breach Aftermath: The Challenge of More Complete Identity Impersonation
In the wake of Equifax and other major breaches, and armed with all of the personally identifiable information that they will ever need and a keen sense of the security controls that modern organizations use, sophisticated fraudsters are finding success as never before. At the center of it all is a new fraud trend: the practice of impersonating legitimate customers at multiple organizations to further a single fraud scheme. Worse still is that traditional security and fraud tools can't see it and some even help enable it. Attend this session for:
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How identity impersonation is manifesting, the implications for different organizations such as financial institutions, merchants, and mobile network operators
What can ultimately be done when a fraudster's version of a consumer is more convincing than the victim's
NSA Uncovers 'Severe' Microsoft Windows Vulnerability
Attorney General Presses Apple to Unlock Shooter's iPhones
Baby's First Data Breach: App Exposes Baby Photos, Videos
SVP, Research Director Head of Fraud & Security, Javelin Strategy and Research
January 21, 2020 @ 2:00 PM (EST)
Will We Ever Have Secure Applications?
OnDemand Webinar | Bringing Zero Trust to the Top of the Agenda
As SVP of Research, Al Pascual leads Javelin's Advisory Services and Custom Research businesses. He provides clients actionable insights on a variety of fraud and security issues, acts as a partner in developing strategies for managing risk, and identifies and raises awareness of future threats and solutions. He researches a range of topics, including the applicability of biometrics in banking and payments, the effect of data breaches on the integrity of consumer identities, the relationship between identity fraud and loyalty, and the best methods for securing payment data and transactions. Pascual has presented findings from Javelin's rigorous, industry-leading research at conferences around the world, including BAI, CARTES, Money20/20, NACHA and RSA. He has also provided commentary on fraud and security issues to American Banker, Bloomberg, CNNMoney, Fox Business, Reuters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Wired. Previously Pascual held risk management roles at HSBC, Goldman Sachs, and FIS. He is a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators, and the Federal Reserve Secure Payments Task Force.


The FlexITTM Pod incorporates an in-row cooler (IRC), aisle-containment system, and six enclosures in one fully enclosed, self-contained unit. The IRC features a unique, 900-millimeter chilled-water cooler with the capacity to cool upwards of 100kW of a data center load. More efficient than traditional CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units, the IRC is designed to meet energy efficiency standards.
The design incorporates all components needed to build out highly efficient data center infrastructure. Physical security is provided at the pod level, as well as individual enclosures. The components are delivered to the customer's data center for easy on-site assembly.
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Rahi manufacturers each FlexIT Pod to the customer's specifications, using standard-size roof and door panels for flexibility and simplified installation.
Learn how the FlexIT Pod's modular construction can help streamline your next deployment.


text:
Posted on February 22, 2021 by ktpharm
Did Hedwig dance today?
They all say that they are a natural couple, and they think so. Having been together again for several years, Shuqing still has to convince herself like this; "We are destined", Shuqing will not know where to say to it. When love comes to the back, that is, to believe in religion, you need to silently recite proverbs and kneel down to pray.
They met at the age of eleven. Yun Song lives on the mountain, and Shuqing lives at the bottom of the mountain. The mountain has several layers, a tunnel was opened, and once a railway was passed, there was an abandoned station near the top of the mountain. The way to the top of the mountain was full of wild pepper trees and densely packed ant nests under the trees. The pepper blooms in May with small white flowers. When it is mature, it is already hot, and the heat is steaming. The fragrance of Jiuyeqing pepper is like a snake, sneaking up the mountain. Shuqing also wants to go up the mountain, but the mountain is the countryside. You should save Laozi to go to the countryside, Mom said. My mother works in three shifts in the factory. In the past two years, I don't know why I have been on night shifts forever. I am in a bad mood. Shuqing learned later that since that year, her mother had menstruation twice a month, once for seven days. She was reluctant to buy sanitary napkins. She had been using menstrual pads. Boxes of straw paper were stacked on the balcony. Shuqing's bed was also there. There, the straw paper has a scent of corrupt grass, which can only be smelled in the deepest hours of the night.
Shuqing lives in the red brick dormitory of Gongjing Salt Factory in Shanxia. There are four dormitories, surrounded by a cement floor. The Salt Factory Children's School is also surrounded by four red brick buildings, and also surrounded by a cement floor. There is no sun at four o'clock and the wind cannot find it. To the exit, all the way up spirally, as if to sweep everyone away. Shuqing shuttled between two identical concrete floors, kicking shuttlecocks, throwing sandbags, skipping ropes, and sprinkling a little rice-buckle sparrow on a skip. Other children would use their homework books to make a fire, burn the sparrows on the spot, tear their legs and eat them, but it's just nonsense, and they can't even pluck their hairs clean. The homework book is not enough to burn, most of the meat is raw and can't chew, but everyone still gathers in a circle, passing a half-baked dead sparrow, one bite, everyone is afraid that they will not be able to chew outside of the circle. That fishy smell. The tree green has been outside the circle. Once I caught an owl and the fire started. She pretended to fall and knocked over the skip. The owl was stunned for a while, and round eyes looked at the tree green. Flew away. Everyone knows that Shuqing did it on purpose, and her life was not so easy at that time, but she got used to it anyway, and her life has not been so easy.
Sometimes everyone would go home to eat, and even before his mother got up, she didn't dare to turn on the lights when she came home. Shuqing squatted down to look at the ants on the ground, or played cricket alone against the wall. The concrete floor cracked, and there was a lot of lawsuit grass growing in the cracks. In the evening, the ants lined up from the lawsuit grass and walked out. When the ants were finished, the sky was almost dark. Mother just roared at the unit door, Fang Shuqing , Give Lao Tzu back to the house for dinner. On the day they met, the ants could not finish walking. Shuqing looked at the window twice, and sneaked home three times to eat biscuits. It was late and it was not dark, and his mother was still awake. The setting sun was in the gap between the building and the building. Showing a way out, Shuqing finished eating the last piece of scallion biscuit, she finally decided to follow the ants like flowing water and walk up the mountain along the road pointed out by the light.
As soon as they went up the hill, the ants spread out and swarmed under this or that pepper tree. The peppercorns are well-ripe, and the whole mountain has a dizzying aroma. Yun Song is already very tall, naked, wearing blue sweatpants with two bars and a pair of big plastic slippers, holding a tattered water-red plastic bucket in his hand, he picks the pepper in the last light . Small clusters of green peppercorns look like cyan fire, but there is no cyan fire in this world.
This is the evening when they first met, Shuqing and Yunsong. Shuqing always asked later, what were you thinking at that time?
Yun Song said every time, who remembers.
Shuqing asked again, how do you feel about me?
Yun Song said, how can it feel that everyone is a kid…Are you wearing a yellow skirt?
Shuqing is wearing a yellow skirt and yellow taffeta.
The funeral gifts here are all cloth collections, hanging out one by one, and the family of the deceased wore white gauze and hurriedly shuttled through the silk and satin. Sometimes the funeral work is grand, and the yard can't be hung, so you can only hang it on both sides along the way into the yard. The bamboo poles are not enough, so they hang on the tree. There are birds on the tree. The birds step on the cloth to rest, sing and pull. Shit, from morning to night. It was like this when Shuqing's father died. He hung two hundred meters on the road. The cloths given in the funeral were all dark black, dark gray, and navy blue. Occasionally there were a few large floral cloths used to make bed sheets and duvet covers. The taffeta hanging on the banyan tree was so yellow that there was no discussion. After the ritual was done in the middle of the night, Shuqing and his mother sent the priest out. From a distance, they could see the silk shining, in the night full of sorrow, joy and incense. Shuqing was always worried that the silk would be stolen. She moved a long bench and sat on the side of the road. After a few hours, she didn't know who called her at the door and asked her to go in and kowtow, then she went in and kowtows, and then came out to guard after kowtow. With. The summer night was so long that she slept on the bench, with the taffeta suspended in the air, like a sun that lingered in the sky.
As soon as the funeral was over, my mother sold the fabric to the tailor shop intermittently. Because she didn't want to be seen, she pretended to move the fabric back to her grandmother's house, carried the cloth back to the town, and carried it to another one. I went to the town to sell it. Only one day a week was available. At the end of the week, it was the second summer. My mother finally left this taffeta and made a big dress for Shuqing. The rest was placed on the top of the wardrobe. Use a plastic rain cloth to cover the dust. Mom can also make a skirt, Shuqing always thinks so. My mother is very beautiful. The wedding photo is hung on the wall and she wears a red dress with a lapel collar. Every time Shuqing looks up and sees it, she still feels beautiful and shocking, but her mother never wears the skirt again. Mom now wears blue overalls and hard-washed jeans. When watching TV, she takes apart the old sweaters, beats them and tears them apart, changes the high collar to the low collar, and then back to the high collar. In winter, I keep wearing my dad. Her brown leather jacket, but she never wore the skirt again.
They later repeatedly confirmed the first sentence said by the two people. Yun Song said, Shuqing asked him, what are you doing?
Shuqing remembered that Yunsong frowned and said, which one are you? You can't do this clothes, attract ink mosquitoes.
The yellow skirt did attract ink mosquitoes, and the ink mosquitoes roared over the sky, and the green trees were trapped in it, like pale black clouds hovered around them. Shuqing couldn't run away no matter what, so he stomped his feet in a hurry, shouted, hello, hello, you save me, why don't you come to save me.
Yun Song waved his hands in vain, but the clouds did not back down. Finally, he poured the pepper in the plastic bucket on the ground and found another box of matches. Yun Song later said that he didn't know why, he would have a box of matches.
Because we are destined, Shuqing thinks, pepper, black mosquito, matches, everything is.
Green pepper is not a blue fire, and there is no blue fire in this world. All the fires are like sunset clouds. They sit among the pepper trees, watching the fire in the world reach the end and the sky is burning again. Shuqing remembered that she thought at the time that the Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother did not know where they lived, whether there were any Jade Emperor and Queen Mother in this world, she hoped so, so there was an explanation for everything. They should have said a lot of things, but in the end everything burned up, clouds, cloud-like ink mosquitoes, funny words, grand sunset; the green trees forgot everything, father's tragic death, and father's death. Mothers who have never laughed will inevitably suffer a beating when they return home. The moon rose to the mid-sky, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl approached the Milky Way infinitely, the dew gradually fell, and the owl sobbed among the dew. This was the first day Shuqing and Yunsong met.
Prev The bright evening twilight of May began to spread over
Next Causes of the Carolingians' aversion to the Dukes of Aquitaine


Country's premier home loan financier, Housing Development Finance Corporation on Tuesday slashed its lending rates by 0.5 per cent effective.
With this reduction, HDFC's Retail Prime Lending Rate stands at 14 per cent. The lender has lowered its RPLR by one per cent since December 2008.
"We are now seeing a reduction in the costs on a portfolio level and as in the past HDFC has ensured that the reduction in cost is passed on to existing customers by way of a reduction in RPLR," HDFC joint managing director Renu Sud Karnad said.
The benefit of reduction in RPLR will accrue to all existing floating rate customers over the period of next three months based on their respective reset dates, HDFC said.
The home loan lender has seen its costs coming down owing to improved operational efficiency and good quality portfolio, HDFC said.
"HDFC continues to efficiently manage its liabilities and reprice its debts. In the current environment there is a time gap between the reduction in the marginal cost of funds and the portfolio cost," HDFC said.


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It's just a stage. A phylotypic stage. Part III: Fish and more
Given that disputes over the existence and meaning of the phylotypic stage and the hourglass model have simmered in various forms for a century and a half, the remarkable correspondence between the hourglass model and gene expression divergence discovered by Kalinka and Varga and colleagues would be big news all by itself. But amazingly, that issue of Nature included two distinct reports on the underpinnings of the phylotypic stage. The other article involved work in another venerable model system in genetics, the zebrafish.
The report is titled "A phylogenetically based transcriptome age index mirrors ontogenetic divergence patterns" and is co-authored by Tomislav Domazet-Loso and Diethard Tautz. To understand how their work has shed light on the phylotypic stage and the evolution of development, we'll need to look first at an approach to the analysis of evolutionary genetics that these two scientists pioneered: phylostratigraphy.
The authors first described phylostratigraphy in 2007 and have since used the approach to examine genes that cause human genetic disease and cancer. They define it as:
a statistical approach for reconstruction of macroevolutionary trends based on the principle of founder gene formation and punctuated emergence of protein families.
The idea is that every gene has a birthday, a point at which it is first identifiable in evolutionary history. Some genes are ancient, having arisen before there were even complex cells, and others are relative juveniles, having arisen much more recently. Genes present today, then, can (in principle) be assigned an "age." Domazet-Loso and Tautz represent the "age" of a gene by the evolutionary "epoch" in which it appeared, by analogy with the identification of the appearance of biological lineages with stratigraphic epochs in earth's history. So for example, some genes appear with the development of true animals (metazoa), and so these genes are assigned to that "stratum" of biological history. In fact, the authors call each epoch a 'phylostratum' to reinforce that metaphor.
So how does this work? To do phylostratigraphic analysis, you need two major sets of tools. First, you need a pretty solid phylogeny, or family tree, of your organism(s) of interest. Second, you need complete or nearly-complete genome sequences of the organism of interest and of organisms that can represent the major branch points (or nodes) in the family tree. The procedure from there seems clear enough: using a well-known alignment program, you search through the family tree for each of the genes in your organism of interest, to see where it is first recognizable in the phylogeny. That point is the phylostratum from which that gene arises. With that data, you could look at the contributions of various phylostrata to various body parts or processes. Or conversely, you could look at the relative age of the sets of genes associated with those body parts or processes. Or you could look at the relative age of the sets of genes associated with different stages of development. And that's what Domazet-Loso and Tautz did in their Nature paper on the hourglass model.
Specifically, the authors took their phylostratigraphic data and merged it with expression data at various stages of zebrafish development; they called the resulting parameter the transcriptome age index (TAI). Basically, they calculated a relative age of the genes that are turned on at each stage of development, corrected for the extent to which particular genes are being used at those stages. Then they mapped the TAI onto the timeline of zebrafish development. And this is what they saw (click to enlarge):
Does that look familiar? Like, say, half an hourglass? In the earliest stages of development, active genes are young-ish, as they are in the juvenile and the adult. In between, the genes that are active are older -- a lot older. And the low point, where genes are oldest? It's the end of segmentation and the beginning of the pharyngula stage. That's the stage that is considered the phylotypic stage in vertebrates. (What this has to do with godless liberalism, I have no idea.) And so we see that hourglass again, this time traced out by the evolutionary age of the genes that are active during the phylotypic stage.
As you look at the graph, you might notice some other interesting periods in the life of a fish. There's a prominent peak of gene youthfulness at 6 hours of development; this corresponds to gastrulation, that wonderful time in your life when you established yourself as a three-layered animal. That peak is due to the activation of a lot of animal-specific genes, namely those that date to the metazoan phylostratum. This includes genes that control cell-cell interactions, certainly a hallmark of animal-building. Those might seem like incredibly basic functions, but they're relatively young compared to even more basic cellular processes, and the genes that control those processes are the ones that predominate during the later phylotypic stage. (The authors showed, in fact, that extremely ancient genes are active uniformly throughout development, whereas the younger gene sets display the hourglass pattern: high-low-high.)
And notice that gene youthfulness declines during aging (after adulthood). Now why would that be? The authors propose that the most recent innovations (facilitated by relatively young genes) are likely to have resulted from adaptation, and so:
The fact that ageing animals revert to older transcriptomes is in line with the notion that animals beyond the reproductive age are not 'visible' to natural selection and can therefore not be subject to specific adaptations any more.
There's a lot more: the study found differences between males and females (look at the dotted lines in the figure), for example. But they also extended their analysis to other animals with known genomes: fruit fly, roundworm and mosquito. In every case they saw the same pattern: young-old-young. Their fly graph displays a pattern strikingly similar to that in the fish, and nicely dovetails with the distinct analysis done by Pavel Tomancak's group (click to enlarge):
Look at the low point, where the genes are the oldest. It's the germband elongation stage -- the recognized phylotypic stage for insects, and the same point singled out in the fly paper. Remarkable.
So to summarize, the two papers, reported separately but simultaneously, strongly support the hourglass model of development, in which embryos are seen to converge on an evolutionarily-ancient form, after diverse beginnings and followed by radical divergence into the wonderful variety of animals seen today and in the past. Domazet-Loso and Tautz explain how these new results make sense of the hourglass:
These consistent overall patterns across phyla, as well as the detailed analysis within zebrafish, suggest that there is a link between evolutionary innovations and the emergence of novel genes. Adaptations are expected to occur primarily in response to altered ecological conditions. Juvenile and adults interact much more with ecological factors than embryos, which may even be a cause for fast postzygotic isolation. Similarly, the zygote may also react to environmental constraints, for example, via the amount of yolk provided in the egg. In contrast, mid-embryonic stages around the phylotypic phase are normally not in direct contact with the environment and are therefore less likely to be subject to ecological adaptations and evolutionary change.
And as they note, Darwin himself made this connection, reflecting on von Baer's earlier observations. Ideas, like genes, can have a long and productive history.
[Cross-posted at Panda's Thumb.]
Domazet-Lošo, T., & Tautz, D. (2010). A phylogenetically based transcriptome age index mirrors ontogenetic divergence patterns. Nature, 468 (7325), 815-818. DOI: 10.1038/nature09632
Topics: Common descent, Development, Genetics
It's just a stage. A phylotypic stage. Part III: F...
It's just a stage. A phylotypic stage. Part II: Th...
It's just a stage. A phylotypic stage. Part I.


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Q: How to correctly punctuate a statement that has a list of questions after a colon?
Option 1: An unemployed individual asks three essential questions following their loss of employment: Do I qualify for EI benefits? If I qualify, how much will I receive? How long will I receive EI benefits for?

What is the correct way to punctuate the sentence above (which can be seen as a list with 3 items, the items being Questions)? I have been pulling out my hair for a week on this and I still can't find a correct answer. I am following the Chicago Manual of Style. And there is nothing there of the sort.
I cannot use numbers or use a vertical list format. Some say put them in quotes, use commas, and add an "and" before the 3rd question  (See Option 2). Some say write the Qs in italics with no quotations but with commas and "and".

Option 2: An unemployed individual asks three essential questions following their loss of employment: "Do I qualify for EI benefits?", "If I qualify, how much will I receive?", and "How long will I receive EI benefits for?"

Please note that I have looked at a similar Question in ELU, the answers there do have some errors (such as not writing a grammatically complete sentence before using a colon, which is required for CMoS) and did not solve my query.

A: Either your option 1 or your option two is grammatically acceptable, and communicates clearly. The choice is one of style, and if your  style guide does not indicate a favored form, use whatever seems best to you. I tend to favor your option 1, my wife favors yout option 2. Or you could recast the sentence to put the three questiosn into indirect speech as:

An unemployed individual asks three essential questions following loss of employment: Is the person qualified for EI benefits, if so, how much will the benefits be and how long will they last.

This avoids the issue.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
By Alena Mae S. Flores – January 15, 2018 at 06:34 pm
Pure Energy Holdings Corp. through unit Just Solar Corp. acquired majority stakes in three solar farms in Central Luzon with a combined capacity of 13.86 megawatts.
Pure Energy said in a statement it signed an agreement to initially buy 60 percent of Solar Powered Agri-Rural Communities Corp., owner of the three solar projects.
The three solar farms are Palauig in Zambales, Morong in Bataan and San Rafael in Bulacan.
The Palauig solar farm in Barangay Salaza has over 5 MW in capacity. It was included in the projects eligible for the solar feed-in tariff of P8.69 per kilowatt-hour under the second wave of installation target of the energy Department.
The Morong solar farm in Barangay Sabang also has over 5 MW in capacity, while the San Rafael solar farm in Barangay Pasong Inchik has a 3.82-MW output.
"This acquisition complements our existing renewable energy portfolio of hydropower plants and geothermal assets. We are optimistic because these power plants have huge economic potential in Central Luzon, and plans are underway to expand their respective capacities. We are excited to begin working and delivering electricity through renewable energy sources in this region," said Pure Energy chief executive officer Dexter Tiu.


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St. Louis Auto Show Rolls Through Town
Written by Chris Curry on January 29, 2015 . Posted in News
From the fast to the flashy, all types of vehicles were on display and revved into performance in this year's St. Louis Auto Show.
Photo by: Chris Curry
The St. Louis Auto Show Jan. 23-25 downtown included a showing by stunt car driver Vaughn Gittin Jr., Hurst Performance Racing and millions of dollars in the world's finest vehicles.
The main attraction was Gittin Jr., a championship drifter who brought three of his cars and demonstrated his tire-spinning, rubber-burning, car-sliding, smoke-billowing techniques in the parking lot of the Edward Jones Dome.
There was a Mustang RTR spec 2, a Ford Mustang RTR spec 5 and a Ford F150 on display; each vehicle was used in his drifting ride-along demonstrations.
The Ford Mustang RTR spec 2 was designed as an upgrade option to a Ford Mustang GT 5.0 and comes as a package sold by more than 50 different dealerships across the country.
The Spec 5 was a total custom rebuild used only for track purposes, outfitted with a Crate Stock Ford Racing engine that has been modified to produce around 485 wheel HP, or 500 brake HP, the difference being the friction lost by the drive train.
Gittin's lead mechanic Joe "Cuz" Iuzzolino said that overnight on Thursday, Jan. 22, the Spec 5 had been vandalized and that the "use of the car was going to be questionable."
He said they were lucky to have enough replacement parts to be able to use it at all, "that is without fuel flying out the back and all over the track."
During a demonstration run the tire usage was about 35,000 miles worth of tread, or going from brand new tire to showing the steel belt, in 15 minutes.
Hurst Performance Racing had on display the 1974 and 1977 Indianapolis 500 official pace cars.
Also on display were the 1972 and 2011 Indianapolis 500 parade cars; the 1972 car was an Oldsmobile 442 designed to show off the Hurst Shifter and was featured with Linda Vaughn, who was a beauty contestant throughout the 1970s.
Hurst also was showing off its modified 2014 Camaro SS with a 420 Crate engine, with fully modified suspension, exhaust and custom rims.
Over 500 production cars were onsite for inspection and perusal, with Ford and Kia having a virtual test drive with a fully automated driving simulation.
St. Louis Rams punter Johnny Hekker was at the Kia location signing autographs and posing for photos.
The Horseless Carriage Club had several cars on display, including a 1956 Jaguar, 1954 Cadillac and more.
The original Corvette Club of St. Louis displayed several cars including a 1973 Stingray and a 2011 Callaway GS.
Also on display were the six finalists in the Trick My Ride Contest, where auto modifiers from the area were able to show their rides off at the Auto Show.
The finalists were a 2004 Infiniti G35, a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette, a 2006 Nissan 350Z, a 1993 Mazda RX7, a 2003 Infiniti G35 sedan and a 1997 Nissan 240SX.
Million Dollar Mile had several cars on display including the Lamborghini Aventador, the Aston Martin Vanquish and several other exotic vehicles.
Tags: 350Z, Aston Martin, Aventador, Callaway GS, Camaro, Chris Curry, Corvette Club of St. Louis, Drifting, F150, Ford, Horseless Carriage Club, Hurst Performance Racing, Indianapolis 500, Infiniti g35, Joe Iuzzolino, Johnny Hekker, Kia, Lamborghini, Linda Vaughn, Mazda, Million Dollar Mile, Mustang, Nissan, Oldsmobile, RX7, Saint Louis Auto Show, Spec 5, Stingray, Vanquish, Vaughn Gittin Jr.
Chris Curry
Christopher Curry is as staff journalist for MBU Timeline. He is a senior working on a B.A. in broadcast media. He spends his spare time with his wife and children.


text:
package com.opengamma.timeseries;

import static org.testng.Assert.assertEquals;
import static org.testng.Assert.assertFalse;
import static org.testng.Assert.assertTrue;
import static org.testng.internal.junit.ArrayAsserts.assertArrayEquals;

import org.testng.annotations.Test;
import org.threeten.bp.LocalDate;

import com.opengamma.timeseries.date.localdate.ImmutableLocalDateDoubleTimeSeries;
import com.opengamma.timeseries.date.localdate.LocalDateDoubleTimeSeries;

/**
 * Unit tests for {@link TimeSeriesUtils}.
 */
public class TimeSeriesUtilsTest {

  /**
   * Tests the exception when the input array is null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToIntPrimitiveWithNullArray() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive((Integer[]) null);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the input is empty.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToIntPrimitiveEmpty() {
    final Object out = TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(new Integer[0]);
    assertTrue(out instanceof int[]);
    assertEquals(((int[]) out).length, 0);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the array has a null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToIntPrimitiveWithNull() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(new Integer[] {1, null, 2});
  }

  /**
   * Tests conversion of an array.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToIntPrimitive() {
    final int n = 100;
    final Integer[] in = new Integer[n];
    final int[] out = new int[n];
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      in[i] = i;
      out[i] = i;
    }
    final Object result = TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(in);
    assertTrue(result instanceof int[]);
    assertArrayEquals((int[]) result, out);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the exception when the input array is null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToLongPrimitiveWithNullArray() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive((Long[]) null);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the input is empty.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToLongPrimitiveEmpty() {
    final Object out = TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(new Long[0]);
    assertTrue(out instanceof long[]);
    assertEquals(((long[]) out).length, 0);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the array has a null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToLongPrimitiveWithNull() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(new Long[] {1L, null, 2L});
  }

  /**
   * Tests conversion of an array.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToLongPrimitive() {
    final int n = 100;
    final Long[] in = new Long[n];
    final long[] out = new long[n];
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      in[i] = (long) i;
      out[i] = i;
    }
    final Object result = TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(in);
    assertTrue(result instanceof long[]);
    assertArrayEquals((long[]) result, out);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the exception when the input array is null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToDoublePrimitiveWithNullArray() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive((Double[]) null);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the input is empty.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToDoublePrimitiveEmpty() {
    final Object out = TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(new Double[0]);
    assertTrue(out instanceof double[]);
    assertEquals(((double[]) out).length, 0);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the array has a null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToDoublePrimitiveWithNull() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(new Double[] {1., null, 2.});
  }

  /**
   * Tests conversion of an array.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToDoublePrimitive() {
    final int n = 100;
    final Double[] in = new Double[n];
    final double[] out = new double[n];
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      in[i] = (double) i;
      out[i] = i;
    }
    final Object result = TimeSeriesUtils.toPrimitive(in);
    assertTrue(result instanceof double[]);
    assertArrayEquals((double[]) result, out, 1e-15);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the exception when the input array is null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToIntObjectWithNullArray() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toObject((int[]) null);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the input is empty.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToIntObjectEmpty() {
    final Object out = TimeSeriesUtils.toObject(new int[0]);
    assertTrue(out instanceof Integer[]);
    assertEquals(((Integer[]) out).length, 0);
  }

  /**
   * Tests conversion of an array.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToIntObject() {
    final int n = 100;
    final int[] in = new int[n];
    final Integer[] out = new Integer[n];
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      out[i] = i;
      in[i] = i;
    }
    final Object result = TimeSeriesUtils.toObject(in);
    assertTrue(result instanceof Integer[]);
    assertArrayEquals((Integer[]) result, out);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the exception when the input array is null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToLongObjectWithNullArray() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toObject((long[]) null);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the input is empty.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToLongObjecteEmpty() {
    final Object out = TimeSeriesUtils.toObject(new long[0]);
    assertTrue(out instanceof Long[]);
    assertEquals(((Long[]) out).length, 0);
  }

  /**
   * Tests conversion of an array.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToLongObject() {
    final int n = 100;
    final long[] in = new long[n];
    final Long[] out = new Long[n];
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      in[i] = i;
      out[i] = (long) i;
    }
    final Object result = TimeSeriesUtils.toObject(in);
    assertTrue(result instanceof Long[]);
    assertArrayEquals((Long[]) result, out);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the exception when the input array is null.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = NullPointerException.class)
  public void testToDoubleObjectWithNullArray() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.toObject((double[]) null);
  }

  /**
   * Tests the result when the input is empty.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToDoubleObjectEmpty() {
    final Object out = TimeSeriesUtils.toObject(new double[0]);
    assertTrue(out instanceof Double[]);
    assertEquals(((Double[]) out).length, 0);
  }

  /**
   * Tests conversion of an array.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToDoubleObject() {
    final int n = 100;
    final double[] in = new double[n];
    final Double[] out = new Double[n];
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
      in[i] = i;
      out[i] = (double) i;
    }
    final Object result = TimeSeriesUtils.toObject(in);
    assertTrue(result instanceof Double[]);
    assertArrayEquals((Double[]) result, out);
  }

  /**
   * Tests close equals.
   */
  @Test
  public void testCloseEquals() {
    final double a = 1e-15;
    final double b = 3e-15;
    final double c = 1.2e-15;
    final double d = 2e-15;
    assertFalse(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(a, b));
    assertTrue(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(a, c));
    assertFalse(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(a, d));
    assertFalse(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(-a, -b));
    assertTrue(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(-a, -c));
    assertFalse(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(-a, -d));
    assertTrue(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(a / 0, b / 0));
    assertFalse(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(a / 0, a));
    assertFalse(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(a / 0, -b / 0));
    assertTrue(TimeSeriesUtils.closeEquals(-a / 0, -b / 0));
  }

  /**
   * Tests conversion to a string.
   */
  @Test
  public void testToString() {
    final LocalDate[] dates = new LocalDate[] { LocalDate.of(2018, 1, 1), LocalDate.of(2018, 1, 4), LocalDate.of(2018, 1, 7) };
    final double[] values = new double[] { 3.4, 2.3, 6.4 };
    final LocalDateDoubleTimeSeries ts = ImmutableLocalDateDoubleTimeSeries.of(dates, values);
    assertEquals(TimeSeriesUtils.toString(ts), "ImmutableLocalDateDoubleTimeSeries[(2018-01-01, 3.4), (2018-01-04, 2.3), (2018-01-07, 6.4)]");
  }

  /**
   * Test input checkers.
   */
  @Test
  public void testIsTrue() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.isTrue(true, "message");
  }

  /**
   * Test input checkers.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = IllegalArgumentException.class)
  public void testIsNotTrue() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.isTrue(false, "message");
  }

  /**
   * Test input checkers.
   */
  @Test
  public void testIsNotNull() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.notNull(new Object(), "message");
  }

  /**
   * Test input checkers.
   */
  @Test(expectedExceptions = IllegalArgumentException.class)
  public void testIsNull() {
    TimeSeriesUtils.notNull(null, "message");
  }
}


Support for LMC ministries in 2018 has been strong. As December approaches those wanting to make a gift for supporting missional multiplication in LMC are encouraged to do so. With LMC joining Mennonite World Conference, there will be an expectation for financial support from LMC to MWC, which will increase the LMC budget. The connection with MWC will greatly expand global relationships and the already existing significant international connections. With the increase in the number of congregations served and the enlarged geographic footprint, there is some modest pressure to increase staffing. Your end of year gift will help decide how to handle that pressure.


Today we look at how to install Steam on Ubuntu 16.04 via the MATE Software Boutique. The software boutique is easy to install with the command below, as seen in the video, and Steam is just one of the great apps which you can easily install! Enjoy!
If you run into any errors, please don't hesitate to contact me!


Yesterday, one girl aged about 8 visited our office and her role was to help the Intern who manages the front office. She did a very good job, escorting visitors to meeting rooms, delivering packages and ordering lunch for people. At the end of the day, I left before she was due to leave and I went to say bye.
Hey Sweetie, I am leaving now. Bye bye.
Okay, it was fun having you around.
Oh no, I forgot, I won't see you tomorrow!
I will not be coming in tomorrow.
Why will you not be coming in?
I need to do my hair, I cannot be coming to the office with such hair!
Really! Look at my hair, it isn't all that and I will still be coming to the office tomorrow.
Your hair isn't bad. All the same I am not coming tomorrow.
So now you get to select which days you come and which ones you don't?
Excuse me! I can select which days I come and which ones I don't. I am an Out-tern!!


Bainbridge Technologies have arranged for Graham Cahill, one of 4WD Action's most popular 4WD journalists, to help us launch the CTEK 20 Amp Off-Road Charging System at the 4X4 Show in Melbourne on August 19 – 21.
So if you are in Melbourne don't miss out! Come join us and swap yarns with Graham.
Win a CTEK 20 Amp Off-Road Charging System!
This top piece of kit is an essential item for any 4WD adventure. The CTEK 20 Amp Off-Road Charging System includes the very popular CTEK D250S Dual and a new CTEK Monitor.
If you can't get to the Melbourne Show don't worry you can still score a bargain!
Bainbridge Technologies has a special show offer for all our customers, new and old. You can get the 20 Amp Off-Road Charging System for only $595 with free freight AND we are adding in a bonus CTEK Battery Sense valued at $99.
Bainbridge Technologies hopes to see you at this years' Melbourne 4X4 show!
Remember if you can't make it to the show you can still grab a great deal from us.


Accidents, UN1119, Trailer broken down.
7.?, 8. June Lau Tobler or Lk. Delton.
Community Band, UN1088, 1947, Norman K. Solum, Band director; photo taken at Devil's Lk.
Conservation Club Party. During Viet Nam conflict.
Display, 8-1981AB, Propaganda display, buy war bonds.
Leishout - BOW, ? - BOW, Ralph Harding - Safety, Moroney - Production, ?, Capt.


text:
Home›Popular orchestra›Omicron sounds a sour note for Cross Border Orchestra
Omicron sounds a sour note for Cross Border Orchestra
It has been "such a difficult time – worse than last year in some ways," says Sharon Treacy Dunne, director of The Cross Border Orchestra.
As well as canceling their 25th anniversary concert which would have seen them return to New York's famous Carnegie Hall in October 2020, they also had to cancel the hugely popular 2021 Peace Proms tour.
This fall, they announced details of the 2022 Peace Proms tour in February and March, with dates in Ireland and the UK, but the number of cases is already rising and the specter of the new Omicron variant is casting a shadow over it. these plans.
"After 17 months of Zoom rehearsals and overwhelming video editing, the orchestra resumed live rehearsals in August," says Sharon.
"We have to put all kinds of security measures in place, from separating wood and brass using screens, to Co2 monitors, to disinfection misters – you name it."]
"But we are so lucky to be based at Coláiste Chu Chulainn and to have the support of Director Tomas Sharkey, who has been amazing, and the use of the incredible facilities and spaces there."
She says at this point the orchestra is the best they've ever been and they're ready to hit the road.
All of their Peace Proms school choirs rehearse the best they can and are so excited about concerts.
"But between the very high incidence of COVID-29 among schoolchildren and now Omicron causing major uncertainty," she said.
"Everyone's safety is our top priority and so we had to put tickets on hold until we knew more. We are determined to launch concerts in the New Year! We may have to push back our dates, but we will do everything possible to achieve them.
Longer term, they plan to postpone their 25th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall for St. Patrick's Day 2023.


LEE: Hello, we're Lee and Pat Sneller.
I was initially diagnosed in 2005 with Mild Cognitive Impairment. We received the word that I have Alzheimer's Disease in 2009. Not a day I'll easily forget!
Here we were, both enrolled in clinical trials as healthy volunteers, and we're told less than a third of the way through the testing that I have Alzheimer's.
I don't think I'll ever forget the impact of that announcement – out of the blue – completely not expecting it – I was devastated.
Before February 6, 2009, I was Lee Sneller, father, husband, businessman, son.
After February 6th, I became Lee Sneller who has Alzheimer's.
It became an identifier, whether I liked it or not.
PAT: And Lee wasn't the only one impacted. Learning news like this is like throwing a boulder into a pond – the ripples are immediate and powerful.
We both felt like we'd been punched in the stomach, it left us breathless – shocked – in disbelief. And devastated.
Because, we knew already that Alzheimer's disease is not curable, can't be delayed, and can't even be stopped. The diagnosis happened to both of us, not just Lee.
Alzheimer's is now a part of both our lives.
LEE: It isn't OK that my wife worries about me, and that my kids worry about me. Heck, I worry about me! It's not good that at the age of 71, when I should be thinking about traveling and playing with my grandchildren, Pat and I are worrying about the next drug therapies and insurance claims and deductibles.
However, I decided to accept the changes in my life because I refuse to lose myself in grief and anger. I choose not to waste one moment of my life.
Don't think that I accepted this diagnosis over night, because I didn't – I had to learn to accept what has happened. But I'm NOT hiding any more.
I am learning as much as I can about the disease. For example, I decided to join an early Alzheimer's support group called the Trailblazers, sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association, and this has helped me grow strong to meet the challenges I now face. I CHOOSE ACTION.
PAT: The Trailblazers support system also is for caregivers, so I, too, have a voice there. It has been extremely helpful to meet with other couples who are traveling this same road .
The group has allowed both Lee and I to learn from others, share our own experiences, and have the opportunity to speak with family caregivers in the community and professionals like you. We appreciate Carole Larkin's invitation to speak with you today!
You may have heard that routines are good for people with Alzheimer's, and I think that's very true. Knowing what to expect during the course of a day adds a layer of comfort and security that allows me to function better.
For example, when I get up every morning, I go outside to retrieve the newspapers. Both Pat and I enjoy reading about the community and current events. Sometimes she will have questions for me about something I read, and this helps me focus and work harder to remember. We have always enjoyed a good give and take, and we see no reason to stop now.
I make my own breakfast and lunch – Pat teases me that I always make the same thing for these meals – but, what can I say, I'm an engineer, I like things to be the same!
After my shower, I like to go for a walk down the street around a pond that's nearby. I treasure hearing the birds, feeling the sun on my skin, and interacting with nature. It's a brisk walk that gives me some exercise and stimulation. I always carry my cell phone so I can call Pat if I need her; sometimes, SHE calls ME because I don't return on time. Usually, I get sidetracked by visiting with neighbors on the way. Computers are still central to my life, and I frequently check messages. I have found that I can't do two things at once, the way I used to – if I'm on the computer, it's time to turn the radio or TV off. I still have a lot of email friends, whom I talk to a lot.
After lunch, I may doze off for a catnap – keep in mind, I DON'T take naps! – then I work crossword puzzles and spend more time on the computer. I actually don't watch TV during the day.
PAT: Lee does a great job staying engaged with life. As a businessman, he always mentored people. He continues that today by coaching people who have their own small business or those who want to start a business. As a SCORE volunteer, he works as a counselor to provide guidance and advice. SCORE stands for: Service Corps of Retired Executives. It is an agency of the Small Business Administration. Lee meets with clients every week in the Flower Mound Chamber of Commerce offices. He also helps to organize monthly meetings, sends out emails, collects RSVPs, and helps the chapter stay on top of things. He does have some problems with this occasionally, sometimes forgetting to add something to a communication. He has decided to ask someone to review the emails before he sends them out so that he can continue to fill this role.
He finds this responsibility very satisfying, since it speaks to his strengths in organization.
Lee also enjoys playing solitaire on the computer – which, by the way, I also find very addicting! He is good about identifying his own frustration when a task becomes challenging. He is able to shift gears and work on something else when necessary, and can then return to the task once he's taken a break.
Right now he's working on a really difficult DVD classification system for our collection of over 500 movies – it's such a monster of a task that we may both need help to get it solved.
LEE: I would rather do it myself! But Pat is great about understanding that I need to do things on my own, and she wants me to do as much for myself as I possibly can.
PAT: Carole also wanted to know if we had made any changes to our diet and exercise. We had already determined that we wanted to be healthier, but we're doing even more now to take care of ourselves. We prefer our meals to be baked, broiled or grilled – we don't like fried foods. We are eating more fish these days, and taking extra supplements for omega 3 oils and Vitamin D. In addition, we don't eat much sugar, and we do each have one glass of red wine with dinner for the antioxidants.
Lee used to have high cholesterol, but in the last several years his numbers have improved and he needs only a very low dose of a statin drug to keep everything on target. From a medical standpoint, Lee remains on Namenda and Aricept, and he feels these have helped him.
LEE: Changing directions for a moment…you may be wondering what kinds of changes we may have noticed so far during the disease process. That's a little hard to answer, as I originally was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment – I'm not quite sure when the Alzheimer's disease became predominant. However, I can give a concrete example.
I still have a group of friends in the neighborhood called the "Geezers". We go out for lunch once a week at different restaurants. I've noticed since my diagnosis that I have more trouble reading a menu – it's like there are too many choices, which are confusing. My friends know I have some trouble with this, so one of them generally helps me go over the menu and make a choice.
Also, I have trouble calculating a tip now. It used to be, I could do any math problem you can think of in my head – but now, math is an abstract that is very difficult to understand. So, my friends help me out with that, too. Pat and I decided I should just take cash, not a credit card, and it seems to work out fine that way.
I also have trouble with a cell phone these days. It's harder to remember numbers, so that's an issue. But I still carry one, so Pat can call me even if I don't remember how to call her.
I don't drive any more. Both Pat and I felt that it would be safer for her to drive, or have one of my friends drive when I need to get somewhere. Sure, it can be frustrating, especially when I want to get somewhere in a hurry. It's also upsetting sometimes to remember that I can't just go somewhere when I want to – I have to wait until a ride is available. Pat and my friends are great at understanding this and trying their best to take me wherever I want to go, whenever they can.
PAT: Other changes – well, Lee is having more difficulty with word finding. Sometimes he's able to count to 5, and the word will come. It may be less a matter of memory, and more that it's taking longer for Lee to process incoming information. He eventually gets there, but it takes longer.
What he mentioned, about being able to calculate tips – the problem is more extensive than that. He actually cannot use a calculator any more. All we can think is that his ability to utilize abstract reasoning is now being affected by the disease.
Judgment – the capacity that allows us to think, abstractly, about a range of possibilities, assess them in terms of our values and the potential outcomes, and make choices that are to our best advantage.
Of these, Lee is having a little trouble with language and attention; a fair amount with abstract thinking; and a moderate amount of difficulty with memory.
His strengths include reasoning, perception, judgment, and organization.
Lee understands what is going on in his environment and within his relationships, and he's still very much HERE.
For me, I first became aware of issues when I realized I wasn't always remembering everything that had happened recently.
The others with Alzheimer's that I've met through Trailblazers are all unique individuals.
Each one has his or her own set of strengths and weaknesses, and they learn to compensate differently.
With Pat's help, I've learned how to compensate to some extent.
Probably the biggest thing I worry about since I've received the diagnosis is, What does the future hold? Will I know how to compensate? My own feelings about the disease are largely positive, because I've chosen to take charge where I can.
I want to focus on the good things in my life, not because I'm in denial, but because I recognize that life still holds much that is good and worthwhile.
I do not want to be a burden to my family I want to be the best that I can be – for as long as I can--and I accept that as MY responsibility.
PAT: My feelings about Alzheimer's a little different at this point. Of course I support Lee and his vision, and I'll continue to do so.
I see, looking back, that Lee's having Alzheimer's disease has forced me to become someone who DOES, rather than someone who OBSERVES.
I've had to learn about goals and objectives and strategies, because this disease has forced me to.
If nothing else, Alzheimer's disease has given me DIRECTION and PURPOSE. Besides trying to learn as much about this disease as I can, we both volunteer at the Alzheimer's Association, Greater Dallas Chapter to help make a difference.
Knowing what Alzheimer's disease is makes a difference. Learning how to help our loved ones makes caregiving easier. Advocating for all those affected by Alzheimer's disease gives us all a voice. Helping to raise awareness benefits us all.
YES, THERE IS LIFE AFTER A DIAGNOSIS OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE AND WE'RE LIVING PROOF OF THIS!!!