text:
Katja Benrath (* 1. September 1979 in Erbach (Odenwald)) ist eine deutsche Schauspielerin und Regisseurin.

Leben
Katja Benrath ist aufgewachsen in Stockstadt am Main. Nach der Trennung ihrer Eltern zog sie im Alter von neun Jahren mit ihrer Mutter nach Lübeck. Nach dem Abitur am Katharineum zu Lübeck machte sie eine Lehre als Schneiderin am Theater Wuppertaler Bühnen und nähte unter anderem für Pina Bausch.

Von 2002 bis 2006 studierte sie am Vienna Konservatorium in Wien Schauspiel und Gesang. Sie spielte bei Film- und Fernsehproduktionen, im Theater sowie in Musicals mit.

Nachdem sie begonnen hatte, Kurzfilme zu schreiben und Regie zu führen, studierte sie ab 2014 an der Hamburg Media School, die sie 2016 mit einem Master of Arts in Film abschloss. Ihre Abschlussarbeit, der Film Watu Wote – All of us, gewann 2017 einen Student Academy Award (Studentenoscar) in Gold in der Kategorie Narrative (International Film Schools) und wurde für den Oscar 2018 in der Kategorie Bester Kurzfilm nominiert.

Ihre Kurzfilme Tilda, Im Himmel kotzt man nicht und Puppenspiel wurden von der Deutschen Film- und Medienbewertung mit dem Prädikat Besonders wertvoll ausgezeichnet.

2018 wurde sie in die Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences berufen, die jährlich die Oscars vergibt.

Filmografie

Schauspielerin
 2005: Karo und der liebe Gott, Regie: Danielle Proskar
 2005/06: Tom Turbo (Fernsehserie)

Regisseurin
 2009: Puppenspiel
 2013: Im Himmel kotzt man nicht
 2015: Wo warst du
 2015: Schwimmstunde
 2015: Tilda
 2017: Watu Wote – All of us
 2019: Rocca verändert die Welt
 2020: Das Leben ist kein Kindergarten (Fernsehfilmreihe)
 2022: Ein Wahnsinnstag

Ehrenpreis Deutsche Krebshilfe
Den ersten "Ehrenpreis Rauch-frei-Siegel" erhielten die Regisseurin Katja Benrath und Produzentin Steffi Ackermann (Warner Bros. Germany) 2019 für den Familienfilm Rocca verändert die Welt verliehen in Würdigung, dass die Geschichte um das elfjährige Mädchen Rocca ohne Raucher-Szenen auskam. Die von der Stiftung Deutsche Krebshilfe und vom Aktionsbündnis Nichtrauchen (ABNR) vergebene Auszeichnung wurde auf einer internationalen Pressekonferenz zum Weltnichtrauchertag im Mai in Berlin von Krebshilfe-Vorstandsvorsitzenden Gerd Nettekoven und der ABNR-Vorsitzenden Martina Pötschke-Langer den Preisträgerinnen überreicht. In seinem Dank an die Filmschaffenden beklagte Nettekoven, dass "der gesellschaftliche Trend zum Nichtrauchen sich nicht adäquat in Filmen widerspiegelt". Dies müsse sich ändern. Krebshilfe und ABNR kündigten an, den Ehrenpreis weiterhin an gesellschaftsbewusste Filmemacher in Anerkennung ihrer vorbildlichen Leistungen zu verleihen.

Auszeichnungen
Puppenspiel 2011:
 Prädikat besonders Wertvoll
 Écu-European Film Festival – best Director
 Canada int. Film Festival – Royal Reel Award

Im Himmel kotzt man nicht 2013–2014:
 Prädikat besonders wertvoll
 Murnau-Kurzfilmpreis der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung für Im Himmel kotzt man nicht
 Innovationspreis Filmzeit Kaufbeuren
 Houston int. Film Festival – Platinum Remi Award
 Naoussa International Film Festival, Griechenland – Beste Filmmusik (E.Kaplan, F. Hirschmann)
 Oder-Kurzfilm-Spektakel – Publikumspreis
 Malta Int. Short Film Festival – Golden Night Award

Schwimmstunde 2015/16
 Filmzeit Kaufbeuren – Innovationspreis
 Kontrast – Das Bayreuther Festival – 2. PlatzPublikumspreis

Wo warst Du 2015–2016
 Giffoni Film Festival – 2. Gryphon Award für den besten Kurzfilm

Watu Wote – All of us 2017
 Studio Hamburg Nachwuchspreis für Watu Wote – All of us
 2017: Student Academy Award für Watu Wote – All of us* 44th Student Academy Awards, USA: Narrative (International Film Schools)
 DC Shorts Film Festival, Washington, USA: Audience Favorite Award
 Alpinale, Nenzing, Österreich: Bester Hochschulfilm, Das Goldene Einhorn & 2. Platz Publikumspreis
 Fünf Seen Filmfestival, Gilching: Publikumspreis Kurzfilm
 OpenEyes Filmfest, Marburg: Publikumspreis
 Shorts at Moonlight, Frankfurt: Kurzfilmpreis
 Durban International Film Festival, Durban, Südafrika: Best African Short Film
 Zanzibar International Film Festival, Tansania: Best African Film
 Deutscher Kamerapreis 2017, Nachwuchspreis des Deutschen Kamerapreises, Kamera: Felix Striegel
 Wendland Shorts Kurzfilmfestival: Publikumspreis & Produzentenpreis Goldener Zollstock
 Brooklyn Film Festival, New York, USA: Best Narrative Short
 Leiden International Short Film Experience, Niederlande: Audience Choice Award
 Bermuda International Film Festival, USA: Best Short Film & Audience Award
 Sehsüchte Internationales Studenten Film Festival, Potsdam-Babelsberg: Publikums Preis & Beste Produktion
 San Sebastian International Human Rights Film Festival, Spanien: Best Short Film
 GRR Giovani Registi Raccontano, Ravenna, Italien: International School And Academy Award
 Annual Port Townsend Film Festival, WA, USA: Official Selection
 The International Short Film Festival of Cyprus: International Competition
 BronzeLens Film Festival, Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Competition
 HollyShorts Film Festival, LA, USA: Official Selection
 LA Shorts International Film Festival, USA: Competition
 Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, Israel: Wettbewerb
 Eat My Shorts – Hagener Kurzfilmfestival 2017: 2. Platz
 Studio Hamburg Nachwuchspreis 2017: Bester Kurzfilm
 First Steps, Berlin: Nominiert in der Kategorie "Kurz- und Animationsfilm" und "NO FEAR" Award für Nachwuchsproduzenten
 Biberacher Filmfestspiele – Kurzfilmbiber
 FILMZ – Festival des deutschen Kinos – Gewinner Wettbewerb Mittellanger Film
 Friedenspreis des Deutschen Films – Die Brücke – Nachwuchspreis

Weblinks

 Katja Benrath Offizielle Website
 Katja Benrath Webseite der Hamburg Media School

Einzelnachweise

Filmregisseur
Theaterschauspieler
Filmschauspieler
Deutscher
Geboren 1979
Frau

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Gates Ave Plumbing and Heating is committed to providing affordable, reliable service for all your plumbing, heating and cooling needs. Centrally located in New York, we are in a position meet the needs of customers throughout all the New York area. We also serve customers in and around New York plus much, much more. We are more than able to handle your most challenging projects, from leaking sinks to complete plumbing and heating systems. We offer a friendly, reliable working relationship with all of our customers.
We understand that in today's challenging times everyone is trying to save where they can. Gates Ave Plumbing and Heating is committed to providing you with honest estimates, high quality workmanship, and affordable pricing. Our areas of expertise encompass all aspects of mechanical installations and we believe, with our experience over the past years, that we offer a superior level of service and quality. We will respond to a pre-designed specification or participate in a design-build solution. Our modern facility includes piping and sheet metal fabrication.
Gates Ave Plumbing and Heating employs a fully trained and licensed Service Department, allowing us to promptly respond to any service issues which may arise. We service, repair and replace furnaces, boilers, water heaters, sinks, leaks, drain cleaning, fireplaces and much more. We also offer a 24 hour on-call emergency service. Call us today for all of your plumbing and heating needs. Gates Ave Plumbing and Heating will discuss the problem with you, provide valuable advice and can soon be on his way to fix your problem.


Pendragon Motor Group Limited is a credit broker/intermediary that can introduce you to a limited number of lenders to provide funding for your vehicle. They may incentivise us for introducing you to them. Finance provided by Vauxhall Finance, a trading style of GMAC UK plc, PO Box 6666, Cardiff CF15 7YT. Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) agreement for a new Vauxhall Corsa 1.4  Griffin 3dr ordered between 1st April 2019 and 30th June 2019. Offer applies to private individuals, Vauxhall Partners and small businesses 1-24 units (purchase only). All other customers are excluded. Finance is only available to persons aged 18 or over, subject to status and UK residents. Guarantee/Indemnities may be required. Contract mileage of 5,000 miles per annum and an excess mileage charge of 9p (per mile). Savings shown are against manufacturer list price and may include: Upgrade and/or Finance Deposit Allowances where stated. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer. Images are for illustration purposes only and may show optional specification or paint options at extra cost. Further charges may apply subject to vehicle condition and mileage if you return the vehicle at the end of the agreement. Calls to 0333 numbers cost the same as calling a landline; even when you are using a mobile. Calls are also included in FREE minutes with landline and mobile contracts. All information is correct at time of publication and offer and terms are subject to change without notice. Offers end 30th June 2019. Exclusions apply.


First recorded during a radio session, it had a different arrangement, than recorded for the band's third album, Peace. When that album was scrapped, it was re-recorded for the replacement album, Electric. An extended remix was also created and released on a 12" single.
Love Removal Machine, 7", CAN, DJ96, promo, sticker on cover "talkin' 'bout love"
Love Removal Machine, 7", CAN, SOV 2387, sticker on cover "talkin' 'bout love"


text:
College review by Lisa Bleich
Oberlin is a music lovers dream. As we walked into the new music building a student randomly broke out into song. A world-class viola played in the background while we congregated into the recording studio. As we were leaving to go on tour, a trio of bases was jamming in the atrium. Oberlin has 2400 students in their liberal arts college, 600 students in their world-renowned music conservatory and about 30-40 kids in a five-year joint degree that provides a BA and BA of music from both colleges. Students benefit from having so many musically inclined people in one place from TGIF lawn parties with students jamming on the lawn to the opportunity to attend one of the 550 concerts performed in a given school year.
Oberlin Tour Guides
Oberlin students are quirky, artsy, creative, green, crunchy, passionate, flexible thinkers, and friendly. Students all have "weird obsessions" as one of the students at dinner commented. He was a Narrative Arts major, one that he created to combine his love of songwriting, music, story-telling and oral communication. Another student created his own major of jazz entrepreneurship, a dual degree between the conservatory and the Creativity and Leadership department. His goal was to open up his own music venue in Oberlin. He even received a $30,000 grant as seed money to get him started when he graduates. However, many students also focus on the sciences and Oberlin has outstanding departments to support them. Our student panel was extremely animated and at times, the students overlapped in their enthusiasm to share their ideas.
The Buildings are as eclectic and disjointed as the people, ranging from modern to traditional to funky. In speaking with the future Dean of Student Affairs, he said that Oberlin has invested in several building projects during the economic down turn because they were able to build at a good price. That is reflected in an amazing state-of –the art science quad, a modern, new music building, and a sustainable new freshman dorm. However, there are also parts of campus that look tired and quite run down.
There is a central green quad area that runs the length of the campus and connects the campus to downtown Oberlin, which has a collection of independent restaurants, shops and coffee houses. Students say they use the town a lot and really enjoy the close connection with town. Students live on campus freshman year and after sophomore year have the option to live in one of the many themed housing options or student coop where students collectively cook in a house. There are also numerous off campus apartments and houses that students can choose to live in.
Eco building
Oberlin has a strong commitment to sustainability and to that end some of the science students created a device that measures the energy consumption per building. Students have contests to see who can use the lowest amount of energy. This device has been so popular, that these students developed a company to sell these devises to other institutions.
Oberlin is a unique environment for highly creative, quirky, passionate students who love music and enjoy stimulating conversations with like-minded individuals. Oberlin is also a great place for science students who have a passion for the creative side as well.
College of Arts & Sciences Admissions
101 N. Professor Street
39 W. College St.
www.new.oberlin.edu
Oberlin Collegehttp://cbmentor2018.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cbmlogofinal.pngCollege Bound Mentorhttps://collegeboundmentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Oberlin.jpg200px200px
Get a jump on preparing for the college application process. Whether you're a freshman or senior, it's never too early or too late to get started.
New Jersey Office: 908-789-8566
Michigan Office : 917-509-7291
Get the latest news and advice from the College Bound Mentor team! [constantcontactapi formid="1"]
Our Goal is to help students and parents navigate the application process in an organized and proven way. We will help you identify the right schools and guide you every step of the way. We know how to do this right!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


If you have any problems getting a room at the SCMS hotel, email hotel@scmsconference.com.
Christine Becker: [00:00:15] Welcome to Cinema Journal presents Aca Media. I'm Christine Becker.
Christine Becker: And it's nearing the end of the semester. We've just got finals week to go, and wow, I'm looking forward to this one being over, I've got to say. I mean, I always am. It's good to end.
Michael Kackman: Yeah, always, always.
Michael Kackman: A [soup's on] of crises.
Christine Becker: Yes, that has just been a lot to go through. It's been - I almost said the word fun. I don't quite mean that, but there's been challenges to the teaching in the last month.
Michael Kackman: These are not boring times.
Christine Becker: [00:00:48] No, these are not boring times and I've in many ways re-doubled my devotion to teaching and to talking with students and I've really been buoyed by how passionate and thoughtful my students have been through this time, so it's a good thing for that, I guess, if you've got to find silver linings.
Michael Kackman: [00:01:08] Yeah. You know, they're pretty amazing. You know? And we're in the middle of some sort of epochal change, right? Regardless of one's personal political perspective, we are in the middle of or maybe at the beginning of what is increasingly looking like a fairly radical overhaul of our understanding of our civic culture and how it's mediated and what kinds of mechanisms we have to communicate with one another across political divides.
[00:01:43] And it's pretty high-stakes stuff and really difficult. That's a difficult moment to all of a sudden be, "Okay, welcome, voter. Here are your keys to adulthood."
Christine Becker: Right, and to figure out how to talk to about that with students, which actually we've been touting, the previous couple of months, the interview that we've got coming in this episode with Susan Ohmer, and I'm very proud to say I think Susan Ohmer delivers on what we said she was going to give us to help us understand what it's like to teach during this climate, and specifically teach about politics.
[00:02:18] And then we also touted, I think, that if anyone could make us feel at least a little bit warm and fuzzy inside about this, it's Susan Ohmer, and I do think she does that.
Michael Kackman: Yeah. We are lucky enough to have her just down the hall from us as our colleague, but for the rest of us, I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Christine Becker: And let me make just one quick note on the audio here, I recorded this interview and it was the end of the semester, I screwed up a few things, so the first few minutes sound a little funky and then it flips after four minutes. I had it on the wrong setting, so I apologize for the sudden shift. Maybe that's a nice metaphor for the ground shifting underneath us. The audio, all the things around us are shifting, so that's reflected in our interview.
Michael Kackman: You don't need to adjust your set.
Christine Becker: Okay, thank you.
Michael Kackman: [00:02:58] We also have coming up, after the conversation with Susan Ohmer, we have a conversation with Leslie LeMond talking about how it is that SCMS is organized and how conferences are put on and the hotel selection process and that sort of thing. So we'll bring that to you shortly.
Christine Becker: [00:03:32] Susan Ohmer is associate professor in the Department of film, television and theater and the William T Carey and Helen Kuhn Carey chair of modern communication at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of George Gallup in Hollywood, from Columbia University Press and is currently completing a book on the Disney studio during the 1940s. She teaches classes in the film and television history and culture, including film and television culture, Walt Disney, and of most interest to this interview, , media and presidential elections.
[00:03:58] And this semester, she has a taught two sections of that course; one to freshman and another to juniors and seniors. I am joined here at Notre Dame by my colleague, Susan Ohmer. Thank you so much for joining Aca Media, Susan.
Susan Ohmer: Thank you for inviting me.
Christine Becker: We are very tired to talk - literally I just said we are very tired to talk.
Susan Ohmer: We are. We are both tired.
Christine Becker: I literally meant to say we are very excited, but I think that's a Freudian slip. We're going to leave that in there. I'm very tired now. There are two weeks left in the semester, and especially the last month since the election has been a very exhausting time, or the last two weeks. I don't know, it's felt like years.
[00:04:32] But in fact, that's why we really wanted to talk to you, because you're finishing up a class, in fact two classes - we'll get to that in the second - on media and the presidency, and I'm just really fascinated to hear how that experience has gone. You've taught this multiple times now. You teach it during presidential election years, so you've taught in a number of times and so I'm curious how this time around has compared it to the previous times. The unique challenges of doing a class like this, benefits, drawbacks. What has this time been like?
Susan Ohmer: [00:04:57] Well, you're right. I started teaching this class during the 2000 election, which was memorable in many ways, and I've taught it every four years since. I always look forward to it. I love the subject. It is a joy to talk with our students about their thoughts and ideas about elections, but this one was memorable and positive and negative ways. One thing I've been thinking about is that this is an election - in the past, I used to struggle with the persona I would adopt in the classroom. So when I first started teaching this class, some of my colleagues in journalism, for example, advised that I should be neutral; I should not give away my political views.
[00:05:35] I should do my very best to be objective. And I obviously succeeded at that, because one day when I was going on about something, a student came up to me and said, "Now, I can tell you're a strong supporter of George Bush," so I thought, "Okay, I've gone too far in the other direction." So I tried that for two elections, and then I think it was in '08 I thought, "This is not what people do. It's not me."
[00:05:58] So I decided I was going to be candid. I said I don't want you to waste five minutes guessing your professors thoughts. It doesn't matter what my thoughts are. It's your thoughts that are important. So here's what I think, here's what I am, but my goal in this class is for all of us to create an environment where we can talk to each other and listen attentively. That there are not many places in our society where we can do that about politics.
[00:06:26] And, I said if you feel me tilting in a certain direction, just call me on it. It's okay. And once, a student did say, "I think you're tilting." But I think I was going off on a rant at that point. But in general, I've found I'm much more comfortable with that and I think the students appreciate the honesty, that we all have a strong views and the important thing is how we talk about them and how we support them and how we develop our ideas. So I have felt that this year in particular, that's been a real challenge. I set as a goal that we model an environment of respectful listening, and it's not an environment that we've had much in this election.
[00:07:00] So in that sense, the class was unusual, I think, but I've really tried to do that, to sort of break down some of that divisiveness. And I've been impressed, students are respectful towards each other. They understand that we are all in this together and they really do listen to each other, even when they obviously disagree.
Christine Becker: Well, that must have been especially interesting in teaching right after the election, because I taught the morning after the election and my first class is on media stardom, and when there's something really big going on, you have that debate, like, "Do I bring this into the classroom or do I not?"
[00:07:32] And I'm never comfortable bringing in something that feels separate from the topic, but media stardom is about - except for a class on media and the presidency, is about is on the nose as you can get. So we had a really interesting conversation, but it was one of the hardest days I've ever had to teach. It was so stressful. I didn't know what they were going to say. I didn't know what I was going to say. I don't know if I was going to say the wrong thing. There were a couple of things where I felt like I said the wrong thing, so what was that day like in that class? We had a lot of really heightened emotions tied to that.
Susan Ohmer: [00:08:01] Well, what was striking about that is that we did a secret ballot on election day. I didn't do it before, then I didn't want anybody to worry about being outed but we did a secret ballot on election day and it came out that in one class, two of 18 students voted for Trump and then the other class, three of about 30 voted for Trump. So it was a small number, and certainly smaller than the general population. But before the election, the people who voted for Trump did not reveal themselves.
[00:08:30] They were much more cautious. And I figured that. I figured people were holding back, for whatever reasons. The class after the election, they came out of the woodwork. They seemed empowered to speak. Like, "All right, we won, now I can talk about why that is or why I voted for him." I think that was a welcome element to the conversation, because they had been a much more quiet before the election, so they did feel now that they could speak. Now, the students who voted for Clinton were distraught.
[00:09:00] I mean, the emotion, as you say, was very high that day. They were talking not only about how could this happen, but about the impact on their lives and the lives of other students. That people who were here as part of the DACA program were worried about what would happen. People were worried about family members or friends being deported. They were worried about applications for their lives down the road. I mean, there was, compared to other times I've taught this, a much more emotional, much more fearful, genuinely fearful and anxious reaction about how this was going to affect them.
[00:09:37] It wasn't just a change in administration. It was, "My life could be offended because of this." So that was really striking compared to previous years.
Christine Becker: And I wanted to follow up with one other aspect of the course, because you had two versions of this course. One that you talk to freshman here at Notre Dame and then one to upperclassman. So what comparisons and contrasts stand out between those two student bases. What is the contrast between that?
Susan Ohmer: [00:09:58] Well, this is the first time I did that, and I can't wait to do this in 2020, because it was fascinating. The freshman, it's their first semester in college, so one of the things they're getting used to is, "What can we talk about in college?" You could see them gaining more confidence in their own voices, that yes, we can talk about, for example, the Black Lives Matter movement. We can talk about your experiences, your friends experiences, what you think about this. You don't have to hold back, that this is what we're here for. You know, our university president talk about universities as a place where we can freely and frankly explore ideas.
[00:10:31] And I believe that passionately, it is one of the goals that I tried to communicate to the freshman. So the other thing that was wonderful about them is that they are discovering what it means to be a voter. And in some ways, I'm really sorry it was this election this could form their baseline idea of what an election is. I'll never forget the day after Trump was asked whether or not he would accept the results and he said, "If I went." One of the students, in all innocence, raise his hands and said, "Now, is this what they would say after the election"
[00:11:01] I just said, "Oh no. Of course it isn't, but how would you know that? So I worry sometimes about the ideas they're developing about what an election is like, because this is not normal. But in general, what is also exciting about working with the first year students is that there's a lot of this class that deals with election history. We had a long segment on the debates and we televised debates and particular moments and how they were put together and they did a great deal of reading about it. And the freshman hadn't seen any of these. Things were really new for them and exciting.
[00:11:36] The juniors and seniors, film and TV majors. Very sophisticated at analyzing images. They're more cynical because they understand how things work. The freshmen are still in shock that these things go on. But they're becoming very sophisticated analysts. But the juniors and seniors, I think, reflect the benefit of the education that they have here. They have a very broad context of history and politics and they're able to represent their ideas thoughtfully.
[00:12:07] That training in philosophy, I think, pays off. They write well, they have a broader framework of understanding. This isn't completely new to them. They have some other parallels that they can understand it with.
Christine Becker: As you mentioned, there, you focus a lot on history in your class, presidential campaigns and elections, so I'm curious about which of those, first of all, which every time do you get really excited about getting to teach? Which particular moments in history. And then also which ones seem most relevant right now?
[00:12:39] We had a lot of people saying, "I've never seen anything like this." So are there precedents for some of this? Is there something that isn't unprecedented? So what are some of the key moments in history you like to reflect on?
Susan Ohmer: [00:12:49] It's interesting, because it varies with each election, and you don't always know. This summer, I was thinking, "Okay, what's the comparison going to be?" And then I realized, and in fact the New York Times said it about a month after I realized it, so I thought, "Okay, I'm in good company," 1968. Because there's a perception of disorder and unrest and people are protesting and the economy is troubled and we're in a war that is not always popular.
[00:13:13] And along comes a Republican who says, "I can restore order. I will bring back stability. I will bring back the country that you know and love from the past." So absolutely, that sense of things are going a month and I'm the one who can bring it back. And of course we know what happens after that but that we will see it again. So '68. And my freshman started reading Normal Mailer's Miami and the Seize of Chicago. And there, one of the things I did was to sort of take them back to television in 1968.
[00:13:44] So we watched footage and media pulled from the Democratic convention, but we also looked at television footage of the time of the Vietnam war, when the cameras went into the field and you saw people bloodied and wounded on camera. They had never seen this. So when we talked about, "This is what you watch it during dinner," and I remember that. You turned on the evening news, which is what there was then, and you saw that, and they were just stunned by it.
[00:14:11] We also look at footage from some guerrilla filmmakers in Chicago who showed what happened along Michigan Avenue during the protests, and there was this a lost woman from the suburbs driving down the street and these soldiers in gas masks, full regalia stop her car, make her get out, and the students, who are used to shopping at Nike Town are saying, "Look at that, that's the bridge on Michigan Avenue." It really brought it home for them. So the '68 comparison was perfect for this election in some disturbing ways, too, but really perfect for it..
[00:14:43] The other thing that I really like to teach is the debates, because the class is in sync with the process of the election. Though in the past, before this year, we started when the conventions were on because we started in August, and up until now, that's when the conventions took place. So I felt really sad this year that the conventions happened in July, so we didn't get to do it live, although we still talked about conventions. But, we were able to focus on debates. And as you know, the president of the University had a forum on debates and Bob Schieffer was here and other moderators, Jim Lehrer.
[00:15:20] My freshmen read Larry's book on the debates, "Tension City," so there he was. The other reason I love teaching this class is that you don't always get to teach a class that is in sync with current events. I'm a historian, so to teach something that is happening now is really fun. And also, it helps the students see that what they're learning matters to these people. Like I'll never forget, when Bob Schieffer was up there on stage, he was talking about slogans in campaigns. And he said, for example, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."
[00:15:53] Well, we had just look at the election of 1840. And literally, I was sitting at the end of a row of 24 people and I felt this wave go all the way down the row. "Did you hear that? Did you hear that? Bob Schieffer knows about Tippecanoe and Tyler too." So that was really cool, that suddenly they realized here's somebody who's involved in current events, and he knows about this stuff that we studied in class. So that was great, that it has actual meaning to people.
Christine Becker: Also, I'm curious to get your perspective, since you especially have this long perspective on other historical moments, on the media strategies the candidates use to do this campaign and Trump's often very unusual media strategies and then Hillary's perhaps more traditional ones.
Susan Ohmer: [00:16:31] It's a huge question, because one of the things she talked about, too, is other elections that paralleled this one. And one thing that my students are seeing is how much things remain the same. Like one of them is writing a paper on the campaign of 1992, and she said she was reading a transcript of some of the debates and she had to double check what year it was because they were talking about the economy and the war in the Middle East and Clinton running as an outsider.
[00:16:58] And she said, really, you would think it was today. So one thing that strikes he was how things don't change in that way. But another thing that we see is that in the past 20 years, we've had this tension between political campaigns that are extraordinarily media-savvy. I taught the War Room this morning, and that's very much the filmmakers Hegedus and Pennebaker focus very much on Carville and Stephanopoulos in 1992.
[00:17:25] And they're the media strategists, the campaign strategists. So it's a film about the process of thinking about a campaign. They actually wanted to follow Clinton, but he had other people following him so he said "No." So they decided to focus on his strategists and his communications people. So it's meta in that sense that you're reflecting on the process. Is there is a strain in our field of reflecting very deeply about the construction of the political persona, the strategy behind different advertising campaign. We train our students to do it. I train them to do it in this class.
[00:17:58] So there's this awareness of the construction of the image, but at the same time, we've had a trend certainly since Primary Colors in the early '90s, but since 2000 as well, of the films that take apart the image. Think of Alexander Pelosi's Journeys with George, which my students just love. George Bush the son is this relaxed, affable guy who was teasing the press and they hang out with them. You get why people like them. You really do.
[00:18:27] The notion that would you want to have a beer with this guy? Absolutely. The whole plane would want to have a beer with him. So you have media that purports to give us the actual person, the behind-the-scenes person. And both of these are coming in the tension. And what was fascinating about this campaign is that Hillary, I think, exemplified all the strategic expertise of the past 20 years. I mean, she had great advisors, she had her husband, she knew what she was doing. It was textbook perfect in that sense.
[00:18:59] But she is, and I was thinking today, too, if you wanted to develop a political resume, she had it in every way. Senator, Secretary of State, First Lady, whatever. If you deliberately prepared yourself to do this, she did it. But, she was up against a disruptor, and that's what he was, in a year of disruption. And here's a guy who just makes up his own rules, apparently. And I think one of the questions for us going forward is just how accidentally or intuitively disruptive was this? How much was it strategic?
[00:19:34] So for example, in the war room, there's a sequence of where Stephanopoulos and cargo go into the spin room after the third debate and they spin and Mary Madeleine Spin. So we talk with the first year students about what spinning was and what it accomplished, and then I played them a clip from Trump where he went into the spin room. And you may remember, it was this cataclysmic moment, like, "The candidate is in the spin room, not his PR people."
[00:20:02] Not even Kellyanne Conway, but him. And of course, what happens? The press drops everything. It doesn't matter who else is in there, they go for him. So I asked the class, "If you were a reporter and the candidate comes in, why would you drop everything and cover him?" So we got into ideas of he's not the spin person, he's the candidate. So in that sense, it's more real. So he's working with that. He is also creating life news.
[00:20:30] And, he is continuing the debate, in a way, it's the offstage portion. They asked him flat out questions like, "Well, how exactly are you going to do this?" You know, the debate formalizes it and he has his formal answer, but in the spin room it has the same problems as everything else he said. No specifics. Somebody said, "How are you going to do all of this?" He pointed to his forehead and the reporter said, "What do you mean?" And he said, "It's intelligence. It's up here." That's not a policy.
[00:21:00] But that was a complete disruption of the usual mechanism of the press. But I do think the question is how calculated, in fact, that was. The dynamic of ending the construction of images in the most sophisticated way, but also media that purports to give us the authentic selves the, and then here comes a somebody was saying, "I'm just me. I say what I think, etc. etc." But you've got to wonder - he's a smart guy who knows television the way others really don't.
[00:21:32] So I think one of the stories in the next couple of years will be the thinking and the calculations behind some of these choices.
Christine Becker: It is so difficult to get our grounding. Just in the past week, he's been tweeting things and people are saying, "Oh, he's tweeting these ridiculous things, complaining about the press because he wanted to distract us from the global [bintrest] and so forth." And yet, especially a lot of this is so off-the-cuff, and this morning he was tweeting about how we should put people in jail who burn the flag, you know, I'm hard-pressed to find that there is actually a strategy there, because he seems like he's just got this sort of thin-skinned way of going off-the-cuff, and I think the media then, that's so outside of what their usual practices are, they don't know what to do with him.
[00:22:16] And so you've got some just reporting it straight, some calling him out for lying. The other part of this that's very confusing going forward is this notion of trying to understand who they really are, the idea that we're all looking through different filters, too. So my dad sent me this email, a list of "facts" about Donald Trump, which was clearly - like it started with, "He was born on this date" and reported to be just this straight up, into ideology and tried to kind of praise him for his business and so forth.
Susan Ohmer: [00:23:08] Right. I mean, it's that we can help our students develop further, but are already out there. A student was in this afternoon and we were talking about that, that if your parents or your grandparents think that way, they're not in class and they may not believe what you say. But this is interesting that you bring this up, because last week, one of the big topics of conversation in the media was the notion of fake news and how people get these ideas from fake news.
[00:23:33] And one conclusion that was bandied about by various columnists is that media are partly to blame, because they don't call it out reporting is often, "Trump says X and Clinton says Y and nobody says Trump is flat out lying or that's completely wrong because they don't want to appear to be partisan." However, one of the things I found so astonishing this week is when Trump, yesterday, said that there was widespread voter fraud in three states, and when the New York Times and other outlets reported this the headline was, "Trump, without any evidence, says..." They would not have done that two weeks ago.
[00:24:09] They really wouldn't have. They would just report it. So to have that as the first sentence you hear us that maybe there's going to be more attention to calling it out. But certainly, encouraging our students to check the source, to look more carefully, but they are educated. They understand how to do this. So, you're right, the question is other people and, also, how you have a discussion with the people coming from such different frameworks.
[00:24:35] One thing I said to my classes right at the beginning is I genuinely don't understand some of these things. For example, why someone who had lost a job in a coal mine would think that the man who lives in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue above Tiffany's - well, not above Tiffany's, but above jewelry stores, would understand the situation. I genuinely don't get that, but obviously people believe that. And the class was very helpful about offering their thoughts about why this might be.
[00:25:02] But it illustrates why it is important to be frank about what we don't understand and listen to what people say, because maybe in the past there have been at disagreements and we can see different sides. But this year, I think a lot of us are genuinely stunned. Be really don't get it so having the ability to talk to each other and listen is even more important, I think.
Christine Becker: [00:25:24] Which also, I think, is so exhausting the past few, because we're having to have conversation things were not used to and, you know, hopefully we can take some positives away from that. I guess speaking of that, and then going forward, two questions, then. One, what do you think these should be focused on going forward in a Trump presidency, and then secondly what kind of skills and knowledge should we be instilling in our students, specifically?
Susan Ohmer: [00:25:45] Well, one thing I thought about is I think we've done a very good job of educating our students to take images apart. Some of them have become cynical, some of them are proud of their skill, but they can do that. Is that all we need in this environment? I don't think so. And, I think more of their good old liberal arts education is what's needed to be able to understand sources, to make arguments intelligently, to take apart someone's assertions when they just don't make any sense.
[00:26:11] I mean actual critical thinking skills that focus on, dare I say, content as much as the structure of the medium in which it's expressed. We're going to need that. I don't think it's just a question of taking images apart. Another thing I think is there is this desire for authenticity, for going directly to the people, the believe that the media interferes. Trump supposedly loves Twitter because it's direct.
[00:26:40] Well, that was the same thing that Franklin Roosevelt felt about radio when he gave his fireside chats, going directly to people. So I think it would be great to help our students understand how authenticity works, how it can be a choice and a construct that doesn't look like one, but it can be one. And so how that can be a strategic decision, why it's beneficial to do an end run around major media outlets or you go live to present yourself, but how is that, in fact, being used to accomplish certain strategic goals.
[00:27:16] So I see those as two very important things to focus on. We'll equip them to deal with the environment that they're in going forward.
Christine Becker: Well, the last question is do you want to spoil for us what are the final words you're going to say to your students as they go out the door into the Trump presidency starting next month?
Susan Ohmer: [00:27:33] I'm still thinking about it, but one of the things, and it makes me laugh to think of it now, when I first started teaching this course, I was very worried about what would I do after the election because we have another couple of weeks of the semester and I thought, "Oh, what could I do?" But then I realized, well, first of all, you can do all sorts of things. But, we have the inauguration. So I thought, "I want students to be equipped, when they see the inauguration." For example, how much of it is required by law, which is very little, and how much of it is tradition and what people have done in the past that we are carrying on?
[00:28:04] So we're going to talk about that. The other thing we're doing this week is first ladies, which is my absolute favorite thing. If I were reincarnated, I would come back as an historian of first ladies. No kidding. It's so fabulous, because of the way that first ladies represent ideas about women's roles in different time periods. We've had some stunners. Today, we talked about Mrs. Washington and Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison, who illustrate different aspects of being a first lady, but all of them anticipate or model characteristics that we have now in first ladies.
[00:28:37] They're very memorable in that way, but I would say, you know, I'm still thinking about what I want to say to them, but I want them to feel that they're better-equipped to understand and participate in their environment. And I want them to realize that the education that they have and the critical skills that they have will make it possible for them to be active and intelligent participants and not to hesitate. Don't hold back, don't be quiet.
[00:29:05] You know, we're hearing this notion now, "Give them a chance." Well, we have no choice. Or "Don't criticize just yet." I say you start talking about what you agree or disagree with from day one, because decisions are being made that are going to set the tone and the framework for the next four years, so you'd better believe you speak up. So I want to encourage them to do that. To not, to see our class as a model that can maybe help them going forward to do that.
[00:29:31] I want to feel they are so anxious and they are so fearful that they can deal with this and that they are equipped to deal with the and that they have a good base to move forward from. So however that comes out on the last day, that's what I hope to take away.
Christine Becker: Well, that sounds great. And I've got to say, this interview sounds very inspirational, because that's been one thing I've struggled with. You know, I feel like in many ways, Trump is a rebuke of everything I teach, and so there's that motivation of getting up in the morning, how do you keep teaching? Because you said, also, we can't teach everybody.
[00:30:02] But having command of a classroom and, you know, the gift to help students better navigate this world and through how all this world is mediated for us, media studies, I think media studies couldn't be more important. As hard as it is, sometimes, for me to get up in the morning to teach it, it's also a clarion call of important it is, so thank you for the inspiration you've offered to Aca Media listeners today.
Susan Ohmer: My pleasure. Thank you, Chris.
Christine Becker: [00:30:51] All right, well we hope you found that to be a really invigorating interview. Susan is such an insightful person and such a great teacher, and so we really think her for giving a lot of insight at this difficult moment in this semester.
Michael Kackman: Yes, many thanks.
Christine Becker: Yes. Well, next up we want to give you a little bit more information about how the SCMS conference works. So we got a chance to talk to SCMS' conference coordinator, Leslie LeMond, to help fill in the membership about how all this stuff at the conference happens, because I think a lot of us kind of just show up and the conference is there and we love things and we hate things that we don't really know how those things come together. So we wanted to get some insight on that from Leslie LeMond.
Christine Becker: [00:31:38] I would like to welcome to the Aca Media podcast Leslie LeMond.
Christine Becker: We all know Leslie. If you've been to an SCMS conference, you have seen Leslie LeMond in the registration room or running around trying to put out fires. And so we're really grateful to her for talking to Aca Media listeners give us some insight on the SCMS conference and how it's all put together, so your title is SCMS conference manager. What duties does that position entail and how have your duties changed as SCMS has changed over the years?
Leslie LeMond: [00:32:07] First, I wanted to say that the SCMS conference is absolutely a group effort every year, as I'm sure you know. So many people give tirelessly of their time to pull off the conference each year, and most of them are volunteers. That being the board, the program chair, the program committee, the host committee, the sig caucus event coordinators, I could just go on and on. I'm constantly amazed at how much of a well-oiled machine SCMS is, especially knowing how small our wonderful staff is and how well-run we are by our extremely dedicated and hard-working board.
[00:32:46] The next thing I kind of want to say is how much I care for this organization and how fiercely loyal I am to it. The first SCMS I attended was in 1996 in Dallas, and I was Justin Wyatt's RA at the time. I was in grad school, and my duties that semester were to assist Justin with the Dallas conference. As you can imagine, I totally dug that experience. It was Todd Haynes, Lodge Kerrigan, Jennifer Montgomery and getting it to meet all the scholars that I have been reading and studying for years and years. So what was there not to like?
Christine Becker: I have to just quickly interrupt. That was my very first SCMS.
Leslie LeMond: Was it really?
Christine Becker: Yes, it was.
Leslie LeMond: [00:33:31] Oh, we're together, then, Chris. That's great. I wish we had a picture of us both from back then. So that was 1996, and in 1999, I was working as a freelance production coordinator on film and television and live events in Dallas. And thankfully, luckily, Justin Wyatt and Bob Coker called and asked me to come work with SCMS again. And so I've done so ever since.
[00:34:02] I work year-round for SCMS. It's kind of always been difficult for me to explain what I do for the society because it's really more of a fusion of all sorts of things because my responsibilities have grown as the organization has. I'm someone whose job it is to handle details, but I'll try to be a little bit more broad when I'm speaking about my responsibilities so not as to bore everyone to tears.
[00:34:24] So some of the things I do are assist the board in selecting the conference site, doing leg work and research, negotiating the contract with the hotel, negotiating another contract with whatever audiovisual company that we decided to go with, negotiating a third contract with our event services company, which is the people that provide us with registration counters and signage and stuff like that. I coordinate and manage the conference in terms of tying the hotels, the vendors, the board, the home office, the program committee, the host committee, exhibitors, advertisers, etc. all kind of together.
[00:35:05] And handling the logistics as it pertains to panels and workshops and meetings and events and other such things and all that sort of thing. And then I helped try to market the conference, get out as much helpful information to our members about the upcoming conference to make it the most pleasurable experience for them as possible. And then what I do with my part of the program is I work with Del LeMond, who happens to be my brother, to take the information from the program committee, which comes to us having been copyedited by Mark Haynes.
[00:35:43] This is what I mean, this is such a group effort, so the program comes to us from the program committee. It's been copyedited by Mark Haynes, they work from Bruce Brazeau has been done, figuring out the maze of the conference panel workshop scheduling, information from exhibitors and other affiliated groups regarding recessions and events, along with advertising. We take all of that information and we kind of hunker down for an extremely intense three weeks of putting it all together.
[00:36:19] I always say that three weeks scares me, because if somebody gets sick or whatever, well, you just have to get it done anyway because we've got a printer deadline to meet. And then we send the physical program to the program chair, the president, the home office, Mark Haynes, people who have looked at it in its other forms to kind of look it over. It gets proofed many times. Then once the program is done and to the printer, that's when we start with the full-time logistics of room setups and tables and AV and catering and the awards ceremony and that kind of stuff.
[00:36:59] The good thing is that by the time that we have stared at that program for weeks and weeks and weeks, we are really familiar with it and able to work through it pretty well. If you're listening to this podcast and you've never listened to the Aca Media segment with Bruce Brasell that you all did about the panel and workshop scheduling, I highly recommend that you Google that, because it will make your head spin, and we're just amazed every year what he does with that.
[00:37:29] And lastly, just in explaining my job, I just wanted to thank two people that I couldn't exist without on an annual basis, and that's the two people who helped me with the conference. Their names are Ginger Lee and the other one is my brother, Del LeMond. Ginger is my right hand at the conference. She makes sure everything is running smoothly each day, and Del helps me, along with the layout and design of our conference programs, he designs the graphics and the signage and the social media art and all that kind of stuff, the award ceremony slides, and he works with SCMS on a special projects throughout the year as well.
Christine Becker: Well, that's a lot. There's a lot of things that you're juggling in that job.
Leslie LeMond: [00:38:12] It's fun. And it's interesting and it's always different. So I enjoy it.
Christine Becker: Well, let me ask about one particular ball that you juggle, then, because I think that a lot of our listeners want to know about how we end up with particular venues for the SMS conference.
Leslie LeMond: [00:38:28] I will say that the process is not always the same. It depends, among other things, on kind of what type of economic market you're in. For the sake of our conversation, for instance, I'll talk about the market we're in now, which is a seller's market. Hotels are enjoying record levels of occupancy and demand, which means that rights are declining, and group space is increasingly hard for us to find. We've kind of had to hone our negotiating strategy to try to get the space and dates and rates and concessions and all that we have all become accustomed to.
[00:39:01] A great deal of research is done before board meetings, kind of reaching out to hotels, convention visitor bureaus, national sales representatives, all trying to figure out which cities might be welcoming to us at any particular time. As most people know, the board has always tried to stick with kind of going from region to region; you know, east, west, central, international, and kind of trying to keep that equal.
[00:39:33] But lately, because it is such a seller's market and our membership has made it clear that the most important thing about the conference, and a certain way of looking at it is the nightly rate that were able to give people. We kind of had to go with a, "Well, where can we get the best deal?" So we haven't always been able to stick with the East/West/central/international, but we like to, when we can, and we definitely always try.
[00:40:02] I really never seen the hotel industry like this, and I've been doing this for a very long time, and everybody that I work with and that does a similar job as myself, they all say the same thing, but at the same time, you can get too crazy about it because the industry and the economy is so cyclical, and hotels are so skittish that they're looking into booking further ahead than normal because they're in this sellers' market, and they're trying to grab as much business as they can while they're in the driver's seat. It's understandable.
[00:40:34] Some people are forecasting that hotels will be like this for the rest of the decade. Some people are saying that it will start to taper off in 2017. I tend to think that based on our political climate in this country in particular, that there's no way for anybody to forecast what's going to happen. But I can tell you that supply is not keeping up with the demand in terms of hotels in a great deal of what we call tier one cities.
Leslie LeMond: [00:41:09] Tier one cities are typically the big convention cities in the country, you know? Chicago, Orlando, Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco. Most of the cities that we go to are considered tier one cities, but it also pertains to things like airports with ample nonstop access, hotel inventory, abundant dining, a certain amount of commendable sleeping rooms, leisure travel appeal, all that kind of stuff.
[00:41:40] And as the rates are going up in the tier one cities, tier two cities are kind of following suit, which are the smaller, like Birmingham Alabama, places like that, Pittsburgh. So we're just trying to go kind of - I hate to say it, but where the wind takes us, but it really is wherever we feel we can get our membership the best bang for their buck kind of thing.
[00:42:05] A few of the issues that hotels have had with us as an organization is our rooms to space ratio. Everyone that's ever been to an SCMS conference and knows that we take up an immense amount of meeting space. We almost killed the meeting space in any hotel that were. So they take issue with us about that.
[00:42:30] We need to be in a hotel that has about 800 guest rooms to get kind of meeting space that we need, and when we're looking at hotels that have that many guest rooms and we're only willing to contract for 350, 400, maybe 450, even on peak nights, the hotels are turning us down, as they can find larger groups to take almost all of their inventory and pay them more in food and beverage and that kind of thing.
[00:42:59] So that leads me to the next one. A lot of them take issue with they believe that we don't order enough food and beverage, that our room block is not high enough, that our dates are limited. We always have been a sticking around the March or almost March dates, and our rate parameters. You know, we go in being very transparent and saying we would never want our rate to be more than XYZ. You know, we want the lowest rate you can possibly give us.
[00:43:29] It would be nice if we could raise our contracted room nights. We're trying an experiment in Chicago and raising it as much as we feel is responsible while still protecting the organization. That's really the reason why everybody's always a saying, you know, if you can stay at the conference hotel, please do. One way to look at it is the room nights the kind of subsidize everything else we do, because that's how the hotels look at it. The more room nights we can block, the better.
[00:44:02] And I completely understand if there is someone listening to this that says that they have called the hotel and our room block has been sold out before, and that's because we have to protect the society and can only contract for as many rooms as we can wisely forecast for based on past history. So if more people stayed at the conference hotel, we could increase our room block. That being said, we do monitor our room block on almost a daily basis and we add as many rooms as if the hotel will allow us on the back and even after our contract has been sold out.
[00:44:39] If you ever have trouble getting a room at the hotel, I would ask that people please email hotel@scmsconference.com and we will work with you and to do all that we can to get you a room in the hotel.
Christine Becker: Well, after your first answer, my metaphor was juggling. This second answer seems like it's, you know, trying to throw a dart into a pretty thin bull's-eye. You've got a very particular range of possibilities you have to accomplish all that. Are there any additional behind-the-scenes aspects of planning the SCMS conferences that you wish more members knew about?
Leslie LeMond: [00:45:15] I kind of want to share what SCMS looks for in a site as well so that people understand that we really do look for all of the things that they care about. We look for location and accessibility, convenience, easy transport, hubs for competing airlines. If you are cities then you'd think have hotels with enough space to accommodate us. Probably most of us realize that.
[00:45:40] We strongly prefer hotels that protect the labor force and avoided jurisdictions where there are policies in place that our members are likely to find objectionable. We take into account how easily our international members would be able to get to a certain place. Is the hotel ADA certified? Is there enough meeting space? The flow and kind of the layout of the space, will we be able to find an AV company that meets our needs? Is the hotel and aesthetically pleasing? Will people have a natural light? Can you walk to quick restaurants for lunch and dinner? What are their sustainability and green policies?
[00:46:19] What are their policies on the LGBT community? Their inclusiveness and diversity policies, just basically how much can we negotiate and say and what will our SCMS attendees' experience be? We try to make it as comfortable and inclusive for everyone that attends. In terms of what I would love for more of our members is to know about, I wish that everyone knew how mindful and deliberative the process is.
[00:46:53] How everything that the board does is done with a great deal of care and with thought about how it will affect our members and what's best for our members. In terms of conference planning, nothing is willy-nilly. You know, the board and the staff carefully weigh all kinds of decisions about we're not only to hold the conference, but the size of the conference, the budget of the conference, the events of the conference, how to give people as many value-added benefits like complementary Wi-Fi in the guest room or free Wi-Fi in the meeting space.
Christine Becker: Good to know.
Michael Kackman: ...posted to their hotel room. Yeah, to their hotel room every night, so just trying to give people as much as we possibly can. The fact that the conference is a very large puzzle with 1,000 little pieces that somehow has to go together with something for people to keep in mind.
[00:48:03] All of us tend to focus on the things that we care about or are interested in, but the conference has to be a place where everyone feels valued and heard and where people can choose to participate as little or as much as they wish, and I'm proud of that SCMS is an inclusive organization that values differences. That we've looked into going to all of the following cities; New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Washington DC, Baltimore, Portland, San Diego, Miami, Pittsburgh, Dallas, New Orleans, Nashville, Cuba, Puerto Rico.
[00:48:44] Basically, if you can think of it, we've looked into it. We also looked into international cities, and right now, that's just difficult, financially, for us as a society. Another thing on the survey, too, are people mentioned that they attended other conferences, and their nightly rates are better. And that's it typically when we hear about things like that, I'll respond and say, you know, when is that conference? Because it's generally in December or January and you just have to remember that our conference is in March, where a great deal of places consider that peak season.
[00:49:22] And even when it's not peak season for a particular city, like in Chicago it's not considered peak season, but we still have competition over spring break and things like that. And then, many times, many people have said that they have a better rate at a bigger conference. It's a bigger conference, where that organization can give more room nights to the hotel, so they're just able to negotiate a cheaper rate.
[00:49:47] So those are really the things that I hope that people take away from this, that we really do, we really are working very, very hard to try to get the best deals for everyone and that the conference sites are really just not, you know, things seem very random sometimes and just drive. People think they are just drawn out of thin air because a particular person must want to go to a particular place, but that's not what's been happening.
Christine Becker: All right, then my third metaphor is you are a ninja. This sounds like ninja skills to be able to navigate and negotiate all of that.
Leslie LeMond: Thanks, that's very nice of you.
Christine Becker: Well, let me get you out with one last question, then. If you have any things we should know about going into Chicago in March 2017, any tips about the conference venue we should know about?
Leslie LeMond: [00:50:38] One thing that I think I should share that most people probably don't realize and we will be getting more information out soon is that a portion conference will take place in the car club, which is connected to the Fairmont Chicago, so we will have some panels and workshops and events in the Fairmont Chicago and some in the mid-America club, and they're connected by a headway, basically, by a walkway.
[00:51:09] But there will be a little bit more, you know, it'll be like if people can remember being at the Hilton Chicago where it's this massive building and you're walking from one end to the other, but we did this thing where we videotape it and we timed it and multiple people did it in different ways and we just thought when we compared it with the other hotels that were up against it, we felt like it was the best choice because it was giving us - all the rooms have an abundance of natural light. We feel like people will feel comfortable and be able to walk around and there are lots of networking little places to sit, you know, sit and gather and we'll have nice lounge this year.
[00:51:55] We're really looking forward to it. We think it will be a very successful conference. The conference program, the draft will be put up soon online. 2017 is shaping up to be a wonderful SCMS conference, so we look forward to it.
Christine Becker: I hope we also have the wonderful circumstances we had last time of just having to run into the furry conference so I hope there's something as delightful this time.
Leslie LeMond: [00:52:23] Yes, I agree. I agree.
Christine Becker: I assume that was one of the things you couldn't possibly plan for with your ninja skills, that we would we with furries. But that ended up being, I think the talk of the conference. So even sometimes you can just log into good stuff.
Leslie LeMond: [00:52:36] Right, that was great, I have to say.
Christine Becker: Right. Well, thank you so much for this information. We really greatly appreciate it. We look forward to seeing you all in Chicago in March.
Leslie LeMond: Thank you, Chris.
Michael Kackman: Well, it's great to hear from Les. She's been working on hosting SCMS conferences forever. She is the man.
Christine Becker: [00:53:01] Yeah. And that along scope of knowledge is really informative to the membership, who we just experienced all of it in a piecemeal way it is to hear an overall view of how it all comes together, that is really important and informative.
Michael Kackman: And for so many of us, SCMS is the big conference, and so it feels like, you know, it might feel like a small large conference compared to something like MLA or something, but of course when you're a conference organizer and negotiating with hotels, we are actually a really large, small conference, which upends some of those expectations about how space will be allocated and stuff. It's a challenge.
Christine Becker: [00:53:37] Yeah, and we're grateful to everyone who works so hard, because that conference is hugely important to people. I mean, it's critical in terms of things like hiring and promotion for participation in SCMS, so we're grateful for all the work that into that platform available to us.
Michael Kackman: Yeah, so many thanks to Leslie to all of the hard-working staff is, thank you.
Michael Kackman: Cue the jingle bells.
Christine Becker: Yes, it's the end of the year and we're in that kind of reflective, looking back on the year mood.
Michael Kackman: Pass the eggnog.
Christine Becker: Yeah. Well, there you go. We should have started with that. Just give some extra thank yous to the people who helped make Aca Media happen across the years. So first of all, SCMS gives us a grant to help pay to keep this going, so thank you so much to SCMS for the great support you give us all year long.
Michael Kackman: And that support also comes in the form of back channel emails from some of you and some of the members of the board and the staff who are really generous with their suggestions and ideas and helpful. So we're very grateful for that.
Christine Becker: [00:54:47] Definitely. We also want to thank - I started to say our else, but that seems really insulting to describe the people working alongside us. We're all a Santa clauses. So Bill Kirkpatrick at Denison University and the Department of medications at Denison University, thank you so much for all of the help, insight and support and encouragement.
Michael Kackman: Yeah. Bill has been involved in this from the very beginning. I think he was on board even before I was, right? As a producer?
Michael Kackman: Rue the day.
Michael Kackman: blame Bill. Bill built, essentially, our website and the public face of Aca Media is engineered by Bill.
Christine Becker: Yep. We also, in just about every possible way, couldn't do this without Todd Thompson. I mentioned earlier that I screwed up the audio on Susan Ohmer's interview, and I screwed it up and way more ways than you guys could even imagine, but we have Todd Thompson and the incredible work he can do with even the smallest to the largest a mistake and fixing all of our errors and making us a sound like we have some measure of competence. I swear we do.
[00:55:56] But the way Todd polishes everything and then add in the music, it's just a really incredible work he does. We wouldn't be Aca Media without Todd Thompson's expertise.
Michael Kackman: It's true. Sometimes working with a pro makes a big difference.
Christine Becker: Right. And then I think did Joel and Stephanie come on board this your last year?
Michael Kackman: I think it was around this time last year, because we met up at SCMS and we'd already been working together for a few months.
Christine Becker: Yeah, so if we had a particularly good year, I think we can then thank especially Joel Neville Anderson, especially at University of Rochester, and Stephanie Brown at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, so thanks so much to them for stepping up to volunteer to help. And again, in all kinds of ways you listeners that don't have any idea, they're doing all kinds of stuff behind the scenes, so we're so grateful to the help that they've offered us.
Christine Becker: All right. And just a few final housekeeping notes. Thank you to, in this particular episode, Susan Ohmer for giving us a really great insight into teaching in this very difficult time.
Michael Kackman: We're grateful to Leslie LeMond, the SCMS conference coordinator for sharing some of her experience and insights.
Michael Kackman: Those of you who are teachers and now that the numbers matter, but the thing that everybody goes straight to other comments. So if you got some things to share, we're all ears.
Christine Becker: Fill out our evals.
Michael Kackman: Yeah, fill out those evals. We can't grade without them.
Christine Becker: Yes. All right, well, that wraps us up for 2016. You'll next year us in the year 2017.
Michael Kackman: Jingle, jingle, jingle.


In our increasingly religious world, religious freedom is important because it shapes the lives and sufferings of hundreds of millions of people. But increasing empirical evidence, including the recently released Heritage Foundation-Wall Street Journal Index of economic freedom, also suggests that it is an avenue to many other human benefits, including most notably, economic ones. Consequently, hard nosed politicians, economists and businesspeople need to take it more seriously.
Our current survey of a hundred countries and territories finds that religious freedom correlates strongly and significantly with Freedom House's civil liberty index (.862) and political liberties index (.822), with Reporters Without Borders' press freedom index (.804), with the longevity of democracy (.646), and the Heritage/WSJ scale of freedom from corruption (.608).
Some of the most striking relations are with economic wellbeing. The countries with the worst religious freedom records — Burma, China-Tibet, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, the Maldives, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan usually have terrible economic records, though Saudi Arabia has oil. A similar relation holds at high levels of freedom, and for those in the middle.
This also holds for economic freedom. In statistical terms, our religious freedom scores have a correlation of .656 with the 2008 Economic Freedom Index. Also, the level of earned income for females, measured in purchasing power parity dollars, goes down as government restrictions on religious freedom go up (– .565), and the same is true for males, though to a slightly lesser degree (– .535). Economic wellbeing, as measured by human development indices, is also inversely related to such restrictions, as is having fewer physicians (– .251), higher infant mortality (.437), and a higher percentage of underweight children (.293). Brian Grim, of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, who did these calculations, found more than one hundred statistically significant relations.
These measures are, of course, merely correlations and do not establish that one causes the other. However, the scores reflect more than the intuitively plausible idea that different freedoms often go together: there are good indications that religious freedom contributes to good economic outcomes.
In a recent American Sociological Review article, Grim, together with Roger Finke, conclude that their data show that "while governments typically view religious regulation as a necessity to maintain order and reduce potential violence, the irony is that more regulation leads to increased persecution, which means less order and more violence." Since disorder and violence are known to be bad for economic growth and wellbeing, then religious repression is also.
The evidence is that closed religious systems hamper personal responsibility and therefore economic development. This means that, if we want prosperity, then we should promote religious freedom. If we want economic growth and development, we need to allow religious groups and people to follow their beliefs. Companies and other economic actors should realize the importance of religious freedom, and seek to do business that builds and reinforces it.
This is also important for negotiations with religiously repressive regimes. Some, like Mugabe's Zimbabwe, care not a whit about their population's wellbeing but others, such as China and Vietnam, desperately want strong economic growth, not least because their legitimacy depends on it. If they can be shown that their religious repression actually hampers their development goals they might be persuaded to do something even a good bit more about it.
Of course, China might respond that it needs no lessons from anybody in how to promote growth. But China is a poor country, with a per capita income about two thirds that of Botswana's: it's just that when you have 1.3 billion capita then you have a colossus of a demoninator. Mainland China is far outpaced by religiously free Taiwan and Hong Kong. Areas within China, such as Tibet, that are worse in religious freedom are correspondingly, worse economically.
Tom Farr, previously the Director of the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom, describes in his forthcoming World of Faith and Freedom the continuing "strong diplomatic distaste for understanding religion as a policy matter." This distaste needs to be overcome. Religious freedom needs to be moved from the fringes of diplomacy, and economics and business, and given a centrality that reflects its growing importance; otherwise we will be ill equipped to face a modern world in which religion increasingly shapes political and economic actors.


text:
Devil's staircase may refer to:

Places
 a path through the Aonach Eagach ridge, Scotland
 Devil's Staircase (New Zealand), a section of New Zealand State Highway 6 in Otago
 a feature on the Afon Irfon in the Cambrian Mountains, Wales
 a waterfall on the Coosa River at Wetumpka, Alabama, U.S.
 a descent on the Peak Cavern caves in Castleton, Derbyshire, England
 a path in The Silverpeaks, New Zealand
 a ridge in the White Cloud Mountains, Idaho, U.S.
 a road in Ohiya, Sri Lanka
 an intrusion dike near Sambro Island Light, near Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada
 Devil's Staircase Wilderness, a nature reserve in the Oregon Coast Range, U.S.

Arts and entertainment
 L'Escalier du diable, the thirteenth of the Études, Book II by György Ligeti
 The Devil's Staircase, a 2009 novel by Helen FitzGerald
 The Devil's Staircase, a 2011 production by Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps

Other uses
 a singular function in mathematics
 Cantor function
 Baguenaudier, a disentanglement puzzle


text:
Leominster fans can blame Walker System
By Sean Sweeney and Correspondent |
PUBLISHED: February 23, 2014 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: July 11, 2019 at 12:00 a.m.
With the drastic realignments of high school basketball upon us for the first time in recent memory, there was plenty of head-scratching and second-guessing when the Western Mass. basketball seedings were released Saturday.
At 16-4, Leominster is the fifth seed in Division 1 and will have to travel to Holyoke for its opening game. Meanwhile, in Division 2, 9-10 North Middlesex is seeded fourth and will host South Hadley.
For Fitchburg, St. Bernard's, Nashoba Regional, Oakmont, Monty Tech and Lunenburg's basketball teams, which found out their opponents on Friday, everything is copacetic and as it has been for years. Those schools were seeded the good old-fashioned Central Mass. way — via straight win-loss record and coin flips (really, it's pulling names out of a hat, but that's another argument for another time). The more you win, the better your seed.
But Leominster, North Middlesex and several other Central Mass. programs were judged on the Walker System, a mainstay of Western Mass. tournaments for years.
The only thing with it is you need a math degree to figure it all out.
The Walker System evaluates teams by a mathematical formula that incorporates win percentage, strength of schedule, and records vs. playoff teams. Strength of schedule and record vs. qualified teams are adjusted for division and league based on a points system. Wins against Division 1 teams are worth 5 points; Division 2 are 4; Division 3 are 3; Division 4 are 2.
In addition, wins against teams in the Valley League are worth 6 points, while wins against Tri-County League teams are worth 1.
North Middlesex's boys were able to get a high seed due to their participation in Mid-Wach A, a Division 1 league.
Meanwhile, the Leominster boys, despite their 16-4 record, have a long bus ride ahead of them. Yes, the Blue Devils play in the Division 1 Mid-Wach A, too, but West Springfield and Holyoke are both seeded higher with 14-6 records due to their Valley League schedule, where they get that additional point per victory.
Follow Sean Sweeney on Twitter @MrSeanMSweeney
Sean Sweeney


The Monkeys: One More Monkey?
I saw this baby on FB and here I am to add more to the fact that my mommy is in lurve with your new baby! What a little love and I hope all the big kitties will be kind to theis little "grizzly bear".
What a pretty little kitten - people are so thoughtless when they just dump them - thank goodness you found her and we know she will have a lovely home with you.
Karen, you are just like me, a cat magnet. I am so glad that cute thing is staying with you. We knew you couldn't resist. That is karma that it came to your door. Someone knew what they were doing.Hopefully it all works out. Take care and a big thanks from us.
Wow, she's a doll! Wonder if whoever abandoned her knew you had cats and would take her in (or hoped). A pox on that human for abandoning this sweet baby in the first place, but at least she's safe with you!
We are sure that kitten knew just the door to go to! She wanted to be a Monkey and we're so glad she is! She's precious!
She is so adorable and sweet! Maybe you should name her "2nd Bedroom" Ha!Just kidding. When faced with more Monkeys...just get a bigger place! Love it!
Oh, poor camel. And to have a broken back from such a tiny meower.
What a sweetie pie! Since she was the straw that broke the camel's back (poor Camel), maybe you should call her Strawberry! MOL.
I really don't know how anyone could possibly abandon such a cute little fluffball! In any case, she was very smart to know which door to come meowing at!
Oh my goodness! What a cutie! Yeah, I can see where the camel would get his back broken..
Hmm, names... Guess who came to dinner! Sidney, lol! I don't know the character's name, but I'm sure it wouldn't be unisex anyway and Sidney Poitier is/was as handsome as this kitty is pretty!
She showed up in time for breakfast? Breakfast at/with Tiffany!
She looks like a flower name to us...Lily? Tulip?
What an adorably irresistible little one! I can see why you have fallen in love with her already. I'll bet she's chock full of PURRSonality, too!
A name that came to mind when I looked at her is "Lady Grey", which is, oddly enough one of my favourite kinds of tea. Lady Grey is the feminine version of Earl Grey.
Right now she's just a little lady, but some day she's be lady kitty sized.
It was obviously meant to me because she found you!
What a cutie ! We are sure she didn't come fortuitously to your door : she knew where to meow !
This kitten is so very precious. Even we want to place kisses on its cute little snout!
But what a strange abandonment story. How weird, could really someone in the building just throw its own cat out into the hallway?
This story sounds so much like Bob the Street Cat!
Dear Cod what a cutie! Mom would be a mess if that kitten showed up here! Concats!
She is absolutely beautiful and precious! She is one very lucky kitten to get to be a Monkey. Congratulations on the new addition to the family!
Oh my goodness!!! She is just the most adorable little thing. How about Misty...because it's mysterious how she came to meow at your door.
Awww !!!!! Me and mom fall in love with her too !
So adorable, Sooooooooo Cute !!!!!
People often abandon cats at apartment complexes. You have a lot of potential "homes" in a small area.
We think she looks like a beautiful gray Pearl.
oh my she is one of the most beautiful kittens I have ever seen! It is almost like she was sent from above.
Hmmmm...you found her in the wee hours of the morning?
You know the song Chelsea Morning? I would name her "Chelsea"
Aw, she is the cutest! We bet some human knew you were a cat lover and left that kitten at your door. Though how someone could abandon a kitten as cute as her is beyond us!
Oh what a little cutie!! Love those white mittens. So sweet.
What an amazingly adorable straw! :) and smart too, finding such a good home for herself.
Our Mommy fell in love with her, too! SHe is a sweet baby and was lucky to pick your door!
Oh what a cute lovely little monkey straw! We are in love! Purrs!
Seriously, how could anybody abandon that little cutie pie??? IN any case, we are very thankful she decided to cry in front of *your* door. Poor camel!
She sure knew which door to meow at. She is adorable. It is beyond me how anyone could abandon such a cutie. I am sure she will tell you her name in time.
What a little sweetie! They always seem to know whose door to go to. Concats on your new sweetheart and family member.


Since the very beginning of our community, the Sisters of Life have been reaching out with practical assistance and spiritual and emotional support to pregnant women in crisis. The Visitation Mission is a mission of love, in person and by phone, to vulnerable, pregnant women. By providing the emotional and practical resources a woman needs, we hope to allow her the opportunity to respond with courage and dignity to one of life's most difficult moments.
We have been privileged to serve hundreds of young women who have found themselves pregnant under circumstances that have created a very real experience of a major crisis in their lives. Almost all who contact us have been abandoned emotionally and often physically by those in their lives to whom they normally look for support: the fathers of their unborn children, their parents, close relatives, friends and co-workers.
Many have reached out to us determined to somehow find a way to give their babies life, after having suffered one or more abortions in a pain-filled past. They come from all walks of life, ethnicities, and faith traditions.
In a culture of death such as ours, we see the beautiful miracle of God's grace at work in the lives of these women. Our vocation as consecrated religious allows us to be the voice and agent of Christ's tender love and mercy to these women and their little ones. We strive to bring His peace, the gift of hope and a "beginning joy" to each of these women God sends our way, even amidst what the women themselves readily admit are "non-ideal circumstances." We have witnessed the truth that "life is always a good" as we have watched it slowly but surely blossom forth in so many of these courageous women with a heart faithful to the call to love.
Consider attending a Co-Workers of Life Training Day to learn more about how you can put your gifts at the service of others.


Proof why Tungsten bass fishing jigs matter.
The Eurotackle Tungsten Flipping Jig should have been named "Skipping Jig" thanks to its incredible ability to be perfectly skipped under docks, limbs and into tight quarters. Built with a flat shape to skip and slide through heavy cover and timber to entice bass tucked underneath. The unique properties of tungsten also gives anglers the ability to fish a jig with the same weight as its lead counterparts in a smaller and more compact offering. This in turn makes it easier to work through thick gass and dense structure. Additionally, tungsten also possesses a higher level of sensitivity than lead and allows anglers to more accurately decipher between strikes and structure. Constructed with a premium needlepoint hook extremely rust resistant, specially sealed paint coating, and a high-end weedguard, the Eurotackle Tungsten Flipping Jig is just what is needed to help put more fish in the boat.


text:
The Strawbs
Friday, October 27, at the Winchester.
By Mark Keresman
While many 1970s British prog-rock bands sound quaintly dated these days (Yes, Moody Blues, Genesis), the Strawbs remain eminently listenable. Their best albums -- Grave New World, Bursting at the Seams -- sound even better today. Perhaps that's because the Strawbs were far more song-oriented than their artier peers -- they started out the Strawberry Hill Boys, a bluegrass-influenced Britfolk outfit that once counted the late Sandy Denny as a member. The Strawbs are still going strong, albeit in an acoustic setting, featuring Dave Cousins, Dave Lambert, Chas Cronk, and, for some shows, John Hawken. Thankfully, a career-spanning boxed set is coming soon.


text:
11 Things You Should Know About Rodenbach
By Milez March 8, 2019
Rodenbach, a legendary Belgian brewery in West Flanders, is synonymous with the Flanders or Flemish Red beer style. Founded almost 200 years ago, the brewery is now part of Swinkels Family Brewers, a 300-year-old family business that also owns Palm.
Love sour beer? Read on for 11 more things you should know about Rodenbach.
It's fit for a feast.
Rodenbach is made for the dinner table. It balances tart, fruity acidity with soft oak notes, like wine. It's thirst-quenching and light on the palate, despite its deep red color and complexity from mixed-fermentation barrel aging. At about half the alcohol by volume of wine, it's a food-pairing beverage you can pour all meal long.
You can thank Rodenbach for sour beers.
The company was founded by the Rodenbach family in 1821 in Roeselare, Belgium, a town in West Flanders. It specializes in oak-aged mixed-fermentation ales, specifically the Flemish Red Ale, a ruby-hued, tart, wine-like beer style now synonymous with the Flanders region. Sour ales are the only type of beer Rodenbach produces.
It's been winning awards since 1894.
Rodenbach is the most-awarded brewery in the world, a spokesperson tells VinePair. Its accolades began in 1894 at the World's Fair in Antwerp, Belgium. More recently, in 2018, Rodenbach's Vintage label was named the "World's Best Sour Beer" by the World Beer Awards.
Rodenbach takes time.
To make Rodenbach, sour beer is aged for a minimum of two years in giant oak casks called foeders. The foeders are made with 150-year-old French oak. Each has the capacity of about 90 wine barrels, or about 8,000 gallons of beer.
It really loves oak.
Rodenbach has 294 oak foeders on its premises. They hold what the company believes is the largest collection of wood-aged beer in the world. Additionally, the brewery has its own coopers who build and maintain the enormous barrel collection.
It's delicious times six.
Rodenbach's portfolio currently includes six beers. Rodenbach Classic, the brewery's original Flemish red ale, is a blend of one-quarter "mature" beer and three-quarters "young" beer. Rodenbach Vintage is a limited release that ages for two years in a single oak foeder before bottling. The Rodenbach Grand Cru blend is made with two-thirds mature beer and one-third young beer. Rodenbach Alexander is a blend of Rodenbach Grand Cru macerated with sour cherries, and Rodenbach Caractère Rouge is aged an extra six months with cherries, raspberries, and cranberries. It was developed in 2011 in collaboration with two-Michelin-star chef Viki Geunes.
Finally, Rodenbach FruitAge, offered in 8.5-ounce cans, is a refreshing blend of aged ale, young ale, and 9 percent red fruit juice. It's sweet, sour, sessionable, and adorably portable.
Rodenbach's brewmaster loves the brewery so much, he lived there.
Rudi Ghequire, Rodenbach brewmaster, has been an employee at the brewery for 37 years. While working his way up the ranks, he even lived at the brewery for several years, a spokesperson tells VinePair.
Michael Jackson was a 'superfan.'
Legendary beer and whiskey writer Michael Jackson (note: not the King of Pop) was a Rodenbach "superfan," a spokesperson tells VinePair. Jackson dubbed it "the most refreshing beer in the world," thanks to its acidity.
It's Belgian in the truest sense.
Rodenbach is not only responsible for popularizing Belgian sour beer. It allegedly played a role in the creation of Belgium itself. According to a video produced by the brewery, the Rodenbach family helped secure Belgium's independence from the Netherlands in 1830. Pedro Rodenbach, the brewery's founder, was in the military and fought on the front lines of the Belgian revolution. Alexander, his brother, stood beside Leopold I when he was sworn in as the first King of the Belgians. And Constantijn, another brother, co-authored the Belgian national anthem, the Brabançonne.
It's bitter about dry-hopped sour beers.
"I think a lot of accidental infected beers came on the market as sour beer," Rudi Ghequire said on the Craft Beer & Brewing podcast last year. "If I taste sour beer with dry hopping notes in it, this is not normal. Bitterness and sourness [do not] go together."
In that case, we'd venture to guess he's not a fan of sour IPAs.
In 2019, Rodenbach announced its first-ever brewery collaboration.
In January 2019, Rodenbach announced its first-ever collaboration beer with Dogfish Head Craft Brewery of Milton, Del. Rudi Ghequire said in a press release that he found a "kindred spirit" in Dogfish Head, calling the partnership a "historic moment."
Leave it to Rodenbach to keep making history.
The article 11 Things You Should Know About Rodenbach appeared first on VinePair.
Prev PostIf It's Not Orange, It's Not Authentic: How to Buy Pinot Grigio Like an Italian
Next PostThe Differences Between Parmesan, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and Grana Padano, Explained


Homewood Early Learning Center (ELC) offers a program that focuses on not only what children learn, but also how children learn. Our curriculum integrates physical, social, emotional, and intellectual experiences for individual growth and development. Play is at the center of the program, so classrooms are organized for active and purposeful play. We agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics' statement that, "Play is important to healthy brain development." (Ginsburg, 2006).
Play generally has a bad reputation. It's considered frivolous. However, if you look at the way humankind learns, most of what we've ever learned was through playing and experimenting. Children are marvelous learning machines. They're born ready to learn. Through play, they learn to make choices and navigate relationships. Making play dough helps them learn the science of mixing and heating. Blocks teach symmetry, gravity, design, and math concepts such as fractions. While doing all this play, children also learn colors, shapes, letters, and executive function skills such as reasoning, problem solving and planning.
Our curriculum includes experiences with music, movement, art, literature, language, mathematics and science in an educational program that encourages the acquisition of concepts and skills through experimentation and discovery. Children learn the power of literacy when we weave it into purposeful play. Activities such as running, climbing, bike-riding, balancing, and digging develop large muscles and build strong, healthy bodies.
Homewood ELC's curriculum is modeled on these kinds of playful interactions.
The principles of play-based learning are backed by child development theorists including Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Maria Montessori.


text:
Delhi govt approves projects worth Rs 12 cr to...
Max Hospital Mohali completes 750 successful transplants
This makes Max Healthcare first amongst its peer in private healthcare to achieve this feat
Chandigarh: Chosen as a preferred centre for routine and complex kidney transplants, Max Hospital, Mohali has crossed the 750 mark since its inception in 2013. This makes Max Healthcare the first amongst its peer in private healthcare to achieve this feat.
Since its inception in 2013, Max's Kidney Transplant Unit has done variety of transplants and difficult cases like ABO incompatible transplant, a transplant across different blood groups), swap transplants, pediatric transplants, patient with 2nd transplant and 3rd transplants.
Dr. Munish Chauhan, senior consultant of nephrology & kidney transplant said that oOur team is dedicated to help patients through every stage of a successful transplant, offering transplant services to patients with even the most complex medical conditions.
He further said that kidney transplant is a treatment of choice for patients with end stage kidney failure since it improves the quality of life by removing the need for multiple dialysis and reduces mortality.
Vivan Singh Gill, vice president & zonal head, Max Hospitals, Punjab said," We are North India' largest kidney living donor program, providing exceptional patient care and achieving excellent results for recipients and donors."
Our hospital caters to patients from Punjab, Haryana, J&K and Himachal Pradesh in the immediate neighbouring states. Other than these, patients arrive from as far as Manipur, Guwahati and Bihar. The living kidney transplantation program in India has evolved in the past 45-yr and is currently the 2nd largest program in numbers after USA, maintained Gill.
Dr Vinay Sakhuja, director nephrology and transplant medicine informed that it is estimated that almost annually 2,20,000 people require kidney transplant in India. Against this, currently approximately 7,500 kidney transplants are performed at 250 kidney transplant centers in India. Of these, 90% come from living donors and 10% from deceased donors, he remarked.
Kidney Transplant Unit at Max also included Dr Manish Singla, senior consultant- nephrology and kidney transplant and Dr Jagdish Sethi, senior consultant and chief transplant surgeon.
Meanwhile out of total 749 transplants performed at Max , 15 were swap transplants, 10 pediatric transplant, 15 second transplant and 3 third transplants.
The 20 transplants were done in 2013 followed by 120, 113, 94, 123, 124 and 144 in the year 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Innocent Hearts College of Education celebrates Intl. Women's Day
Shah praises Amarinder on national security stand
IANS Feb 13, 2022
Strict action to be taken against people not paying salary...
Punjab scraps 1,498 compliances for trade, industry, citizens:...
cityairnews Aug 14, 2021
Hartek Group launches Hartek Foundation to create better...
cityairnews Feb 22, 2021
Amid covid curbs, Punjab CM appeals to kisan unions to...
cityairnews Jul 16, 2020


text:
Home Celebrity Q&AChef Lyon TV Show?
Chef Lyon TV Show?
https://americanprofile.com/articles/chef-lyon-cookbook-tv-show/
By Paulette Cohn on August 6, 2012
https://americanprofile.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/chef-nathan-lyon-2012-150x150.jpg
I just bought Nathan Lyon's cookbook, "Great Food Starts Fresh." Does he also have a TV show?
—Natalie Kornilova, St. Augustine, Fla.
Lyon, 41, got his start on TV as one of the competitors on "The Next Food Network Star." He lost to Guy Fieri, but instead of giving up, he took his platform–from the market to your table–to the folks at Discovery Health, where "A Lyon in the Kitchen" aired for several years.
This summer, Lyon is combining two of his favorite ingredients–travel and good food–in a new show for Veria Living TV called "Good Food America With Chef Nathan Lyon," in which he travels America exploring signature dishes to find the healthiest recipes, which are also the tastiest.
"I have always wanted to work with different chefs around the country who may or may not prepare food the same way I do," says the Arlington, Va.-born chef. "Each part of America has its own thumbprint. When you go to the Pacific Northwest, they have certain types of food locally there that has nothing to do with the food you would find in Southern Florida. The show is a celebration of American cuisine, which is so vast and so different."
With both his cookbook–which promotes seasonal cooking–and TV series, Lyon is hoping to get people to change their eating habits. His goal is to get people to learn how to cook just a handful of healthy dishes and to shop at farmer's market–or if not that, to at least perimeter shop in groceries, which means mainly the outside aisles where you don't find processed food.
"My advice for families that are really busy is when you go to the grocery store, pick up bags of frozen vegetable–like a bag of corn or pea–and canned beans and tomatoes," he says. "What I am not into is when you get a giant whatever that is filled with sodium and fat. That doesn't benefit your health."


Appointed by Governor Timothy M. Kaine on August 15, 2008, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of G. Steven Agee and began his service on August 19, 2008. Elected by the General Assembly on February 11, 2009, to a 12-year term beginning February 1, 2009. Service terminated by retirement.
Appointed and sworn in, 276 Va., v; oath, ix; confirmed by the General Assembly, Journals of the Senate of Virginia, 2009 Regular Session, 651; career, transcript of investiture on September 5, 2008, published in 276 Va., xi-xxii; birthplace and education, Martindale- Hubble Law Directory (Summit, NJ: Martindale-Hubble, Inc., 1954-), 1980 ed., entry for Compton, Latimer, Compton, & Compton, 1980; appointed to the Court of Appeals, Theresa Vargas, "County Judges on Rise at Circuit, Appeals Courts," Washington Post, November 29, 2007, PW01; senior justice effective September 1, 2015, order, June 4, 2015, Supreme Court of Virginia Order Book.