<![CDATA[UGAzine - Special Topics]]>Thu, 21 Sep 2017 21:15:08 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[The Vagina Monologues]]>Tue, 23 Feb 2016 22:04:34 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/the-vagina-monologuesPictureEmily Haney
By Emily Haney

What do you know about your vagina? Eve Ensler set out to figure out just that from various women two decades ago. Through her sequence of interviews, asking women questions that typically aren’t talked about, The Vagina Monologues was born. Each monologue represents a different experience or response from all the answers women gave. The tone from the monologues range from funny to angry based on the topic, but each one signifies the fact that maybe we should have conversations about vaginas more often.

The Vagina Monologues arrived on UGA’s campus 17 years ago. The past couple of years the performance has been housed at the Chapel. Although all the rows haven’t necessarily been filled, the performance has drawn in a wide variety of women. Sitting in on a performance one could find veterans or newbies of the show, mothers and daughters and those of all different backgrounds.  The performance this year began with “The Flood,” which was an accidental start. However, the skipping around of monologues worked.

“The Flood” opens with an older speaker talking about a kiss she had with a boy and how this one occurrence for her set the tone for the rest of her love life and how she viewed herself. In the middle of this particular monologue a younger version of the speaker walks out to join in on the story. At times the older and younger version speak together sharing their experience for all. The parallel between the two selves created a somber dynamic. The woman was never able to move on.

“The Flood” introduced the audience to what this performance was going to be all about— women talking about real life experiences of other women. “I like that they can joke about something but make a point at the same time about how important women’s pleasures are. They’re taking that even further,” says Elizabeth Callaway, a sophomore finance major from Atlanta.  “The Flood” led into the introduction where the twenty-one women taking part in the show walked up onto the stage.

Each woman wore the color purple in some form. Some women had purple shoes, others purple scarves, and there was a meaning behind this fashion choice. “Purple is an awareness color for domestic violence. Since this was being put on by Project Safe, they’re doing it to keep in mind and remind people all proceeds go to this charity,” says Kristen Demonbreun a senior social work major from Atlanta. Project Safe works to end domestic violence through programs, advocacy, and support for survivors.

While The Vagina Monologues are meant to make most people a little uncomfortable, they really are all about women’s empowerment. “I’ve been re-energized to fight for the rights of women,” says Vivian Sellers a retired schoolteacher age 64 from Tifton. It really makes you think about where you stand and what you can do to make a difference. The best part of the night was that you got to enjoy a performance and donate to charity at the same time.

<![CDATA[A Letter Revolution]]>Mon, 23 Nov 2015 01:09:33 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/a-letter-revolutionPictureDonica Farwell
Sometimes it seems like no one cares. Fail a test? No one cares. Have relationship problems? No one cares. Drowning in debt? No one cares. How can a college with 26,882 undergraduates feel so isolated? Whether you’re struggling to study in the MLC at 2:30am or sitting in a three hundred-person lecture hall, a thousand problems probably flood your mind, other than the one sitting on your desk. A simple sentence of encouragement from a fellow classmate appears so far out of reach. Suddenly, while trudging to your next class you spot a handwritten letter hanging from a bulletin board. A sense of confusion and curiosity soon shifts to excitement and positivity. It’s time for a letter revolution.

Campus Cursive, an up and coming club at The University of Georgia, provides the unique opportunity for students to spread handwritten words of love, encouragement, and motivation to other UGA students. With over seventy successful chapters across the country, this community of love has finally come to UGA. Students can remember the exciting times of how fantastic it was to receive a handwritten letter during their childhood, before social media took control of communication.

Now, the volunteer process is simple. With no fees and very low time commitment, you can come to a Campus Cursive meeting, only twice a semester, to handwrite letters to be immediately distributed across areas like the MLC and throughout main campus. Students will stumble upon these letters in the bathroom, walking to class, or sitting in the hallway. Personal information and individual beliefs are discouraged to include in the notes, because the uplifting words written in these letters do not discriminate. The letters can be filled with anything from complex stories of journeys from hardship to success or simple words of inspiration. Everyone has their own tough times, but there are no high mountains without valleys. Whether your journey resembles a deep gorge or a slight dip, it is these low points in our life that make the high ones really shine. This low to high transition is the source of strength that Campus Cursive desires to target.

Emily Starling, 19, is a Public Relations major who co-founded Campus Cursive here at UGA. In charge of creating events and recruiting letter writers, Starling contains such passion for Campus Cursive. Starling claims, “We want to see love explode throughout campus. We’re so much more than just the number of people who show up. We are the combined capacity that all of our hearts have to love others.” Bound for success, Campus Cursive lets a simple yet power idea shine through stressful aspects of campus life. Imagine, instead of constantly seeing negative news, having hundreds of these letters of inspiration floating around. “We want everyone to know that no matter what they are going through, they have people rooting for them and standing in their corner,” Starling states. This reassurance represents the purpose of Campus Cursive: to spread love through letters.

Getting involved is just as easy as the process. Follow and message Campus Cursive on Instagram or Facebook to get on an email list that gives information on the next meeting time. Meetings last as long as you want to stay. Starling expressed her excitement to get as many people involved as possible because everyone is invited to join. Writing a letter can be just as rewarding as reading one. “I’ve found that those letters have often led to healing in my own heart, even if I’m writing them for others,” Starling says. Bringing back the art of handwritten letters is not an easy task; however, Starling mentioned that the first Campus Cursive meeting “has the potential to gain a lot of ground at UGA.”

With a growing number of involved students in this low time-commitment volunteer opportunity, Campus Cursive desires to have these letters circulate beyond the boundaries of main campus. With goals to begin delivering letters to specific locations, like homeless shelters, students will be able to touch the hearts of those beyond the arch. Also, as word of Campus Cursive increases, a program delivering letters to specific people will be implemented. Love letter “bundies,” as Starling describes, “are when people send request in for a loved one to receive a bundle of love letters to get through a tough time.” Not surprisingly, this selfless organization has further aspirations to reach as many people as possible.

Next time you walk through the MLC, instead of scrolling through your Facebook feed to view the tragic news of the day, keep an eye out for a handwritten letter. Inspiration and words of love from a stranger might be all you need to make it through that next test, the next relationship failure, or your next financial crisis. Essentially, this incredible volunteer opportunity has come to UGA to spread encouragement through handwritten words. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of the letter revolution.

<![CDATA[Book Review: "The Scorpio Races" by Maggie Stiefvater]]>Mon, 16 Nov 2015 23:53:04 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/book-review-the-scorpio-races-by-maggie-stiefvaterPictureTristyn Angel
In a world where vampires and werewolves are constantly being written about, it is refreshing to find something that is a little off the beaten path. It is even more revitalizing when it involves a creature that is not widely known.

In Maggie Stiefvater’s, The Scorpio Races, centers around two young adult characters, who unexpectedly cross paths, and the fantastical creatures, capaill uisce (pronounced copple ooshka). If you are familiar with kelpies, or “water horses”, this may ring a bell.

The book is a compelling read about the capaill uisce, a dangerous and vicious species, and a race among local men who attempt to tame the wild beasts long enough to ride them. For teenager and underdog, Puck Connelly, who is a struggling orphan, the race is the only way to ensure that what is left of her family remains in one piece. On the other hand, Sean Kendrick, the one who knows the species by heart, is riding to ensure his financial freedom.

After Puck Connelly’s parents were killed when their boat capsized, she remained in the small family’s house with both her older and younger brother. Her older brother attempted to bring in enough money for the rest of the remaining family pieces to thrive on. However, he dropped a bomb on the struggling siblings when he announced that he would be moving away from the island where they lived.

This instigated Puck’s decision to enter the race — something a woman had never done before. The strong and determined young woman was refused to be taken seriously among the other men who entered in the race. True to her character’s development, she did not let that stop her. As one who never grew up around the capaill uisce, she was at a major disadvantage. However, as the plot progressed, she adapted to the disadvantages and gave the local racers a run for their money.

Opposite Puck was Sean Kendrick, another rider in the novel. Like Puck, he had lost his father due to a racing accident with the water horses. After his father’s death, Sean was taken in by the island’s biggest stable owner. There, he was employed as a stablehand with the kelpies who had been captured and tamed over the years. With this experience, and his natural ability with the creatures, Sean Kendrick had always been the top dog to win the races, bringing in money for his employer. Sick of working for another and not having his own freedom, Sean rides in the race to break free.

The entire novel is an engrossing piece that envelops the reader from the start — both from the fresh idea, as well as the well-penned paragraphs that fill each chapter.

From an author who previously wrote a trilogy revolving around temperature sensitive werewolves, I was a bit wary to delve into The Scorpio Races. While her former Shiver book trilogy was less than stellar, Stiefvater has completely redeemed herself with the idea behind the capaill uisce. She has taken a unique idea and turned it into a fantasy world filled with emotion.

The two main riders of the novel cross paths and find each other’s help in the training phases of the race. That being said, romance is a mere undertone and does not stand in the way of the plot. Thank God, finally a novel that does not center solely around someone dating someone else. Instead, each character is developed enough to be independent from each other and still prove to be interesting enough to read about. Most of the novel actually depicts the two separated from each other. However, as their paths do cross, Sean Kendrick welcomes Puck under his tutelage and the two develop a fine friendship.

Stiefvater has done an excellent job of developing two characters and allowing their lives to intersect, instead of depending on their “romance” to further the plot along. In fact, the plot would be able to stand alone without the small flame entirely.

Overall, this novel is a compelling read with a fresh and unique take on the fantastical world of literature. It utilizes a penmanship that reads smoothly throughout it’s entirety. With the plot and character development, which took years to create, the novel has come together almost perfectly. It is definitely a book to read to broaden the sense of the fantasy world.

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

<![CDATA[When Life is Ruff]]>Mon, 12 Oct 2015 00:00:56 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/when-life-is-ruffPictureDonica Farwell
As finals week approaches as it always does, anxious UGA students consistently flock to the crowded Miller Learning Center (MLC). Some visit the study rooms for the first time all semester, while others consider this building their second home. However, during a certain 4-hour period the already packed MLC reaches extreme levels of busy. While students attempt to cram months’ worth of material into a week, “Stressed Dogs for Stressed Dawgs,” an event sponsored by the University Health Center, has brought rescue dogs inside the MLC. The students’ response is overwhelming to the point where a single person is considered lucky if they get to play with a puppy for more than a minute.

Such an overwhelming response is not surprising, considering the pre-existing obsession UGA students have with the guide dogs in-training all over campus. The popular phrase “guide dog puppies” fills photos, posts, and comments across various forms of social media including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Yik Yak.

With all the hype and the strong obsession of cute dogs circulating UGA campus, it’s surprising that more students don’t know about the unique and non-commitment- based volunteer opportunity at Athens- Clarke County Animal Control, which is located only 4.2 miles from UGA campus. Once at the shelter, the simple process begins with a short orientation from the friendly and helpful staff, which is only required on the first visit. After much anticipation, you can proceed to pick out a dog from their concrete kennel. After reading a first person description of the dog, such as, “I am very playful and love to be held” or “I am very shy so take it slow,” you may take the dog out to an interactive play area equipped with benches, soft grass and open space. This lucky puppy can also play with toys and treats you bring in from the front office. Here you can spend time with the dog in a playful environment for as long as you wish while the shelter is open, instead of just for a second on your way to cram for finals. You can continue taking out dogs of various age, breed and personality one at a time for the duration of the visit.

Sarah Halstead, a caretaker and front office worker at Athens-Clarke County Animal Control, emphasized the importance of volunteers in regards to the future of dogs in this temporary home. “It is important that they socialize, get used to other people, and to go out and get exercise,” she says. Halstead further explains the success of this volunteer opportunity by stating how the dogs are, “not nearly as pent up” and have exhibited “better behavior and a quicker rescue.” Essentially, volunteers are necessary because these abandoned, beaten or surrendered dogs need to gain adoptable qualities that display promise for a happy and healthy life. The faster these dogs exhibit these traits, the faster they will get picked up by a local rescue group or even adopted to avoid the horrific fate of being put down.

Assisting at Animal Control is not only easy, fun, and a great item to include on a resume under volunteer work, but it’s personally rewarding as well. Kristine Hicks, a UGA student, volunteer and future foster dog owner states, “I hang out for the dogs, but it is more for me.” Animal Control allows volunteers to foster the successful future of an innocent animal by giving time and love to the dogs, while getting some back in return. For instance, a 2-month old tri-colored hound puppy named Dolly, with such a horrendous past, contained such a positive personality when playing. Despite being abandoned by an abusive owner at such a young age, her floppy ears and long wagging tail wipe away any sad memories. I felt such happiness travel between the both of us, especially after her little nose nuzzled against my knee as I knelt down to rub her spotted belly.

Hicks continues by claiming how volunteering at Animal Control “is addicting” and “an emotional experience.” I wanted to adopt every dog I saw, which made leaving difficult; however, the ability to return and live this same incredible experience again is always uplifting, without fail.

Now, let’s use the dog fascination that UGA students have created through the years to make a difference for dogs in need. Hopefully, word of this non-commitment- based volunteer opportunity will travel fast, so when life is ruff, both dog and human can sneak in a smile on a stressful day.
Athens Clarke County Animal Shelter
125 Buddy Christian Way, Athens, Ga, 30605
Open Thursday-Tuesday 10:00am-4:00pm, closed Wednesday

<![CDATA[I Motion Bi Visibility Day to be Every Day]]>Sun, 04 Oct 2015 22:01:01 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/i-motion-bi-visibility-day-to-be-every-dayPictureDeShonna Johnson
To all my bisexuals, September 23 is known as the day the Purple People raise their flags, take off their invisible cloaks and wreak havoc on the world. The day is, essentially, a ‘buzz off’ (for lack of a less professional word)’ to the persecution that bisexuals face both inside the LGBTQ+ community and out. But why do bisexuals need their own day?* How are they not already noticed? Where is Frank Ocean’s album? All questions a curious mind should ask (however, only two I can answer).

Quite frankly, most of the world rejects the idea that bisexuality actually exists. We are looked at as unicorns, and more times than none, erased from the media and life in general based on our current partner’s perceived sex/gender at the time. Bisexuals face a fair amount of bierasure—or the tendency to ignore, remove or falsify evidence of bisexuality—in TV, film and literature. Quickly name three straight/gay TV characters. Now, name three bisexual TV characters. See, that pause you took to think? That’s my point. Unless you watch “Grey’s Anatomy” and say Callie Torres, your chances of saying a character who is explicitly bisexual (especially a bisexual man), are slim. Sure, it’s implied that Piper from “Orange is the New Black” might be bi or Clarke and Lexa from “The 100,” but that’s the problem. The bisexual identity should not result from implication. We are real and Bi Visibility Day is our time to, for the hundredth time since 1999, showcase our existence.

However, while Bi Visibility Day is a great day to parade in the pink, purple and blue that make up our flag, bisexuals deserve longer than one day. This orientation, along with pansexuality and all other polysexualities, all deserve constant recognition. Some monosexuals, those attracted to only one sex/gender (i.e. straight and gay people), love to invalidate our sexuality through biphobic remarks such as “bisexuals are promiscuous,” “bisexuals can’t be trusted in relationships” and the oh-so-classic, “bisexuals are confused.” Misconceptions surrounding bisexuality can’t be combatted with only one day. Hell, I can’t even reference all of them in one column.

Yet, what can be done by those who aren’t bisexual is to continue learning about the sexuality and to learn to accept bisexuals for what they are: simply people attracted to two or more genders. What can be done by everyone, is to carry on the awareness of the ‘bi’ identity further than September 23. Bisexuals, it’s about time we give our invisible cloaks a rest.

*If you ask this question, you are probably one of the people who asks ‘why do black people need their own month?’ and should seek your local library/African American for assistance.

<![CDATA[Book Review: Between Here and April]]>Sun, 27 Sep 2015 22:01:01 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/book-review-between-here-and-aprilPictureTristyn Angel
After a deeply rooted memory comes rushing back to the surface, Elizabeth Burns investigates her childhood best friend’s disappearance. The mystery becomes an obsession of discovering the truth after she finds a 35-year-old newspaper clipping that reveals a secret kept from her about her friend’s mother, Adele Cassidy.

Elizabeth, who is now a mother herself, sets out on a quest to find anyone who once came in contact with Adele Cassidy, in order to find out what exactly happened 35 years ago when her best friend, April Cassidy, failed to come to school. In searching for answers, questions about Elizabeth’s own life begin to surface. She is forced to face the challenges that she currently deals with about her husband, her children, her job and herself.

Between Here and April, by Deborah Copaken Kogan, is centered around mystery, as the basic plot entails finding evidence of April Cassidy’s disappearance. However, the novel also touches on mental illness and its effects on the life of a person. Mental illness is a recurring theme that many characters face throughout the novel. Several characters deal with illnesses that go undiagnosed, such as depression and postpartum psychosis. The novel conveys a gritty and haunting tone in its depiction of psychosis and mental disorders.

The center plot, consisting of April Cassidy’s disappearance, is appealing in the beginning of the novel. At one point, April and Elizabeth were best friends in grade school, and the next April was never heard from again. The disappearance of a small child is enough to pique the reader’s interest for the rest of the novel and it drives the plot.

As Between Here and April progresses, the author introduces several different thematic threads. In the beginning, the disappearance of April Cassidy was the main plotline. However, Kogan introduced plenty of other aspects to the book, such as dealing with marriage and kids and struggling with depression and psychosis. By the middle of the book, there are so many threads going on that the one central idea, April’s disappearance, seems to disappear itself.

Kogan has an interesting way of portraying her characters, as well. She takes two genders and forms them into two separate categories: women in the novel have depression and suicidal thoughts; and the men in the novel are incessant workaholics who make no time for their families. The main character, Elizabeth, is written as passive, just going through the motions.  She never deals directly with any struggles or troubles that she faces in her life. Paralleling Elizabeth, even though Adele Cassidy also fights depression, she doesn’t seem to deal with her problems, either. Instead, all characters tiptoe around their issues and nothing gets resolved.

The overall plot would be a decent idea, if it had been developed further by the author. Although there were engaging topics to discuss, such as that of mental illness, Kogan seemed to have too many ideas running through her head all at one time. She failed to develop one wholly, which left the novel lacking in many areas.

On the plus side, it’s a relatively quick read and very well written. Kogan has an excellent style of writing that flows smoothly with no choppiness involved. Still, the novel would have benefitted from some serious plot and character development.

Overall rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

<![CDATA[The War on Words]]>Mon, 30 Mar 2015 15:44:09 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/the-war-on-wordsPictureKatie Story
Please stop the bickering. It’s not arguing or passionately defending your beliefs—it has now verged into nitpicking territory. Because this is what modern society has become. We’re just breaking down words or making inane attack comments online.

Because whichever side you choose to be on, left or right, conservative or liberal, both sides have their crazies and their fanatics and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But it now seems the camps are fighting just as much if not more within themselves than between them.

I’ve seen this on social media, or more often the regular broadcast media, where someone does not completely kowtow the exact right way someone likes they then get barraged with how they’re wrong. That is not proper debate or a proper way to help someone understand the error in what they are saying. That is being a thick bully.

If what you are saying is intelligent and follows a sensible line of thinking then go for it. If you can back up what you are saying then shoot. But please let us stop making ourselves hoarse by shouting over the other guy or gal speaking.

<![CDATA[It's All Greek To Me]]>Tue, 24 Mar 2015 20:30:18 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/its-all-greek-to-mePictureKatie Story
It seems that there is a new story out every other week about a fraternity (usually) or sorority making a big mistake. Whether it’s University of Oklahoma’s racist chant video or University of Florida’s blackface party members, it all shows a lack of progression that still has not been made in society overall.

There are, of course, fantastic organizations and socially aware demographics on every college campus. But when societies like this are allowed to exist or are shut down without proper explanation on ways to fix the behavior—it seems like a lost cause.

Racism is still alive and well and these instances only demonstrate that too keenly. When we turn a blind eye to behavior that dehumanizes a group or dredges up the worst of our past only to be revered, it allows for implicit racism to fester on. Sure, we might not be the one singing along or putting on that makeup, but if we act as bystanders we are only perpetuating the hate.

Of course the administration of these schools should know that too. It is their job to foster the growth of their student population and help prepare them for the real world. If we allow the implicit (and sometimes explicit) racism to go on that only pumps it into our adult and daily lives.

It is hard to change old ways and the old racism that permeates this country, but in universities and on campuses everywhere, it is possible to shape young minds and thoughts for the better.

<![CDATA[Hipster Culture Has Ruined the System]]>Mon, 02 Mar 2015 21:43:22 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/hipster-culture-has-ruined-the-systemPictureKatie Story
Let me break this down slightly.

Welcome to high school, here’s your agenda and your social category. You’re definitely going to lose your agenda or at least ruin it in some capacity but your social category you will have for life. At least your high school life.

Because in high school you have your name and you have your place.

But here comes the hipster movement. It’s the movement that celebrates the bizarre and off-beat. It lauds the absurd. It highlights the unknown. It makes a lot of people wear fake glasses.

So now poor high school students around the United States have to navigate between two constraints. Do they conform and look like everyone else so they don’t risk scrutiny and possible alienation? Or do they join this popular movement and show off their quirky, less well-known hobbies and clothing?

It seems this generation is struggling (riding that struggle bus) far more than other generations. But why? Didn’t we solve all those pesky problems back in our grandparents’ days?

There are arguments for either side of that question, but now we’re struggling with something more internal. We’re struggling between our different identities and the hipster movement is a perfect encapsulation of that struggle.

We all want to fit in, we want to be accepted. But the hipster movement is all about standing out and doing your own thing. It’s been popularized and homogenized but at its core it is about true self-expression.

And because of the hipster movement, it seems the system of placing people in boxes and constraining them to their limiting positions is starting to crumble ever so slightly. People will always be stereotyped because that’s how the brain deals with the world around it. But now maybe we can loosen the edges of the boxes we, and the people around us, are so tightly packaged in.

<![CDATA[Ask Her More]]>Wed, 25 Feb 2015 23:19:27 GMThttp://www.georgiaugazine.org/special-topics/ask-her-morePictureKatie Story
Being a regular human being that enjoys talking about herself when provoked, I always thought the most glamorous part of a celebrity’s job was getting to talk hours on end about their daily lives, their current projects, their history, just everything. But until recently, I had not noticed how gender biased the questions can be.

From women constantly being asked how they manage to balance work and family (because really, something must be falling through the cracks) to how they managed to drop so much weight for their Catwoman role/ getting back to “normal” post baby shape. Women are frequently asked very static questions about their appearance. Or very judgmental questions about their home lives.

That rarely happens to men.

Sure, male celebrities get their fair share of stupid and superficial questions, but they also get their fair share of tough and thought-provoking questions.

Which is why the #AskHerMore campaign made me so excited. Women are more than just their dresses and diet routines. We all know that.

Sure, people love gobbling up fashion and diet tips and there is nothing wrong with enjoying that facet of celebrity life. But the moment we relegate women to having these few and vain topics to talk about is the moment girls and women think that is all they should care about.

Which we all know is not true.

So hopefully the handful of journalists that actually care to write thought-provoking pieces (and hopefully those haven’t been fired yet) will take this campaign seriously and start leading the conversations to more interesting waters that don’t exclusively deal with liposuction and Louboutins.


Silver Necklace 'Forever by my Side' with Pearl

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Brilliant chain with a graveerbedel thereto in the form of a cut-away heart. Both are engravable are, for example, 2 children's names, a name + a date, or something else. By-and-by .925 sterling silver and beautiful pearl in the middle, forever beautiful.

♥ The heart is about 2 cm wide and 2.3 cm long (without round-eye).
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Larisa Eptako/Flickr

The emergence of this unlikely coalition has been building for some time: Liberals have long been critical of the criminal-justice status quo, and many “tough on crime” conservatives—growing concerned by the staggering costs of mass incarceration and the system’s impingement on liberty—are beginning to join their liberal and libertarian-minded colleagues. In the past, bills aimed at overhauling the criminal-justice system have stagnated on Capitol Hill, but the bipartisan players who are coming together to push for change means that there are some reforms that could realistically gain traction, even in this divided Congress.

Earned-time credits: These programs, under which prisoners can work to earn an early release by completing classes, job training, and drug rehab, are highly popular among reformers. Many states already offer them, and they’ve been touted as smart, efficient ways to reduce prison populations as well as recidivism rates. Jay Hurst, a criminal-justice lawyer and commentator at the Hill, says that this is the likeliest issue where Congress could pass legislation this year.

Easing up mandatory minimums: These laws, which broadly require those convicted of certain crimes to serve set sentences regardless of the specifics of the case, are considered hallmarks of the tough-on-crime approach politicians used to embrace. Critics, such as advocacy group Families Against the Mandatory Minimum, argue that these laws “undermine justice by preventing judges from fitting the punishment to the individual” and that they are one of the main reasons for overcrowded prisons. According to Jesselyn McCurdy, a criminal-justice expert at the American Civil Liberties Union, half of those locked up in federal prison are there for drug offenses, to which mandatory minimums are often rigorously applied.

Last January, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act, which intended to reduce the size of the prison population and rein in ballooning costs by reducing mandatory minimum sentencing, especially for drug-related crimes. Someone serving a 10-year sentence for a nonviolent crime could theoretically get out in five, under the legislation. The bill also proposed broadening judges’ discretion to sentence below federal minimums, known as the “safety valve” for oversentencing.

The Durbin-Lee bill died in committee—a common fate for criminal-justice legislation—and a total overhaul of mandatory minimums could be a tough ask for this Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s new chair, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is a vocal defender of sentencing minimums. Still, experts say there’s reason to believe some progress could get made. “Safety valve relief could happen this Congress,” Hurst said, because it’s considered a more moderate path to reducing sentences.

Juvenile-justice reform: Criticism has grown louder over the way the justice system treats juveniles, from its practice of trying younger teenagers as adults to its placement of some minors in brutal solitary confinement. Last summer, Booker and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced the REDEEM Act (a.k.a. the Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment Act), which—among other things—aimed to eliminate solitary confinement for minors, and provided incentives, such as first dibs on public safety grant money, to get states to stop trying minors in adult courts.

REDEEM stalled in committee, but Michael Harris, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, thinks this Congress will make progress. “There will be bipartisan support for legislative action on solitary,” Harris says. “There is growing support for limiting it…many places are just using it way too much.”

Reducing recidivism: A major talking point from reformers on the left and the right is the need to transform prisons into places that actually rehabilitate inmates—not the existing “graduate schools of crime” that encourage repeat offenses. For years, “policymakers across the political spectrum saw high rates of re-offense as inevitable,” so they just kept offenders behind bars, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, an office within the Department of Justice. Some states, however, have changed their approaches to incarceration and reduced recidivism rates dramatically. North Carolina passed reforms in 2011 that allocated more resources towards smoothing parolees’ transitions into regular life through advising and planning help. The state’s recidivism rate has gone down nearly 20 percent, and it has closed nine correctional facilities.

In late 2013, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the Federal Prison Reform Act of 2013, which aimed to translate successful state reforms to the federal level. The central proposal was to require that all inmates be classified by risk of recidivism (low, medium, or high) and allocate resources based on that. The bill was not enacted, but Whitehouse’s office confirmed that his cooperation with Sen. Cornyn will continue in this Congress, and it’s possible they’d revive their previous bill.*

Sealing and expunging records: The key provision of Paul and Booker’s REDEEM Act is one that gives adults convicted of nonviolent offenses a path to sealing their criminal records—something that could make finding employment much easier. It also provides for the “automatic expungement” of nonviolent crimes committed before the age of 15, and sealing the records of nonviolent offenders between 15 and 18. Harris thinks this issue could find new life in the new Congress: “It makes sense to pass bills like this.”

Despite the bipartisan efforts, many experts still believe that there are plenty of issues that could pose serious obstacles to compromise. Beyond the disagreement on mandatory minimums, there’s potential conflict on the role of for-profit prisons, which conservatives praise and Democrats like Booker loathe. Additionally, support for loosening drug penalties—particularly for marijuana—is growing broadly popular, but powerful Republicans remain vocal opponents. The ACLU’s McCurdy says that, despite potential hang-ups, she’s encouraged by the bipartisan concern over the state of the justice system. “I’m encouraged by how many diverse groups have come on board, which sends a signal to leadership that this is something the American people really want to get done,” she says.

There is one especially powerful force pushing along reform: The federal government is expected to spend nearly $7 billion on prisons this year, and conservatives in charge of Congress will be under pressure to bring down costs. “With every Congress, I’m hopeful for reform,” Hurst says. “But this Congress’ argument is based on money, not humanity, which is why it’s more realistic that it’d happen.”

Correction: The original version of this article misstated the fate of the Federal Prison Reform Act of 2013.


Самое важное

Стоит начать с самого важного - с преимуществ новых технологий обучения.
  • It's less expensive to produce – Once your asynchronous training programs have been developed, e-Learning is virtually free once you reach the break-even point. Synchronous programs will have continued costs associated with the instructor managing the class, but will still be lower than traditional courses.
  • It's self-paced - Most e-Learning programs can be taken when needed. The e-courses you set up allow the learner to go through smaller chunks of training that can be used and absorbed for a while before moving on.
  • It moves faster - According to an article by Jennifer Salopek in "Training and Development Magazine," e-Learning courses progress up to 50 percent faster than traditional courses. This is partly because the individualized approach allows learners to skip material they already know and understand and move onto the issues they need training on.
  • It provides a consistent message - e-Learning eliminates the problems associated with different instructors teaching slightly different material on the same subject. For company-based training, this is often critical.
  • It can work from any location and any time - e-Learners can go through training sessions from anywhere, usually at anytime. This Just-In-Time (JIT) benefit can make learning possible for people who never would have been able to work it into their schedules prior to the development of e-Learning. (If you manage a corporate learning program, however, be careful about requesting that workers learn on their own time from home.)
  • It can be updated easily and quickly - Online e-Learning sessions are especially easy to keep up-to-date because the updated materials are simply uploaded to a server. CD-ROM-based programs may be slightly more expensive to update and distribute, but still come out cheaper than reprinting manuals and retraining instructors.
  • It can lead to increased retention and a stronger grasp on the subject - This is because of the many elements that are combined in e-Learning to reinforce the message, such as video, audio, quizzes, interaction, etc. There is also the ability to revisit or replay sections of the training that might not have been clear the first time around. Try that in a crowded auditorium!
  • It can be easily managed for large groups of students – Learning Management Systems (LMS) allow corporate training directors, HR managers and others to keep track of the course offerings, schedule or assign training for employees and track their progress and results. Managers can review a student's scores and identify any areas that need additional training.

Только важно помнить, что помимо общих преимуществ, каждая организация найдет свои преимущества длявнедрения e-learning. Это могут быть совершенно не похожие на вышеупомянутые преимущества плюсы, но тем не менее их реализация будет способствовать развитию компании.

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Mosquito Repelling Container Garden Recipe – This recipe was created for a location that gets at least 6-8 hours of sun a day. The plants will grow big and wild in the container, they will flower at different times, and have many different textures of foliage to keep it interesting.


Showing posts with label Dinosaurs.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dinosaurs.. Show all posts

Panthera tigris acutidens

Well, part of this curiosity, how was the Sauroniops?

The Inostrancevia.

Stygimoloch Spinifer

The image you see, is not an evolved Pokemon, or any other animal picture Japanese manga. That which you see is the drawing, a more or less like a real dinosaur, a dinosaur that is listed as one of the strangest-looking dinosaurs ever found there.

The name of this prehistoric animal is Stygimoloch Spinifer, meaning "thorny devil from the river of death" (intriguing name). He was a member of the family of the pachycephalosaurs, this means that family was the "dinosaurs thick heads" (translation mine). Finally, the most characteristic of Stygimoloch Spinifer was that, his head. His skull was not as thick as other pachycephalosaurs, very well, but has a large number of horns, horns on his head on the muzzle, on the back of the skull and other parts of the face ... On the horns, the experts still do not agree on whether they were to defend themselves, to show off to fight with others of the same species as do the deer, etc.. From what I think so we will agree (experts and mortals ) is that the horns give it looks fantastic, like the dragons of the films. In fact I think the first who drew dragons, were inspired by this animal ... but hey, back to real dinosaur.

The Stygimoloch Spinifer was a herbivore that measured just over 3 meters long and about 2 meters high. He had small front legs but instead the rear were long and strong, so considering that it was agile and quick. In fact, he could inhabit the same ecological niche as a deer or an impala in Africa today ... the only thing that did not live back then lions, but Tyrannosaurus Rex.

He lived in the Late Cretaceous (70 million years ago) in North America. And disappeared probably because of the large meteorite that caused the Cretaceous mass extinction.

Evolution: the Purgatorius to men.

Xiongguanlong, the ancestor of T.Rex

A box-shaped skull.
Reinforced temple bones to support the jaw muscles.
A strong spine that holds a large head.
Reduced forelimbs.

Last image taken from

Without quite knowing why, Acrocanthosaurus lived to the public under the shadow of T.Rex, still a great unknown to most and undervalued its role as a hunter at the time of the Cretaceous in North America and Europe.

About the size of T.Rex, the Acrocanthosaurus was a cousin of Allosaurus and, as this was a hunter specializing in large animals, giant sauropods like Diplodocus weighing 6 or 7 times or Pleurocoelus.

The name of this lizard Acrocanthosaurus means "thorn lizard high" and indeed, when it was discovered, even mistook him for the BIG SPINOSARUS (King of Kings). The theme of the spines always generates controversy and do not become experts agree: if they were to regulate the temperature, if it was to swim, to show your mood, or to house unions with strong muscles ... too numerous to write about this but we'll see another day.

Speaking of muscles, the Acrocanthosaurus was very muscular and strong, much more than others allosaurids. Something like an Allosaurus largest and steroids. It measured 12 meters and weighed 5.6 tons, and this made him a bit slow *. He ran and ran up to the big sauropods (which is not that they were cheetahs) long necks and hooked to these formidable pulling their strong claws and bite with all his weight down, dropping these titanic beasts.

* It was the weight and slow what they did to specialize in hunting large animals, or vice versa, hunting big beasts Acrocanthosaurus led to larger and more robust. Finally, the case is to specialize in this way produced an end. Forms were disappearing with the big sauropods, the Acrocanthosaurus were increasingly less likely to hunt and smaller dams could more easily escape them. His strength was his undoing.

Triceratops vs T-rex.

Lengths up to 10 meters long (30 ft).
Weight: up to 12 tons (26.000 lb).
Horn of 1 meter length each. (3 ft)
Height: up to 3 meters. (9 ft)
Speed of 35 km / h

Lengths up to 13 meters long. (40 ft)
Weight: 10 tons. (20.000 lb)
Height: 4 meters. (12 ft)
Mouth with a strong bite.
Speed 40 km / h.

You have certainly heard of Mosasaurus, the great predator of the Cretaceous, a fearsome marine hunter was afraid of other creatures of the sea but ... and Hainosaurus? While not believe it, the Hainosaurus belonged to the same family as the Mosasaurus, Mosasauridae the family.

He was also a marine reptile, an apex predator that lived with her relative Mosasaurus.

Hainosaurus dimensions have been debated: Some experts believe that reached 17 m (57 ft) and 13 m (42 ft) change others, but the vast majority agrees to an average size 15 meters (50ft).

This hunter's skull measuring 1.5 meters (5 ft) long. And in his jaws were more than 60 teeth are sharp and hard. Among their prey were fish, turtles, marine reptiles and even smaller sharks.

The hainosaurus had an elongated body that was perfectly adapted to the water to achieve greater agility and speed. They had fins on the sides and curved tail with fins to swim very fast, to reach out and catch their prey without that it can do almost anything.

This prehistoric animal was specially adapted to be in the water, and some of the questions that have their fossils are related to how and where breeding and giving birth to their young, uncertain whether it was viviparous, oviparous or ovoviviparous.

Although little is known of this marine reptile, I hope you discover more about the wonderful Hainosaurus.

The protofeather or Dinofuzz.,

The protofeathers (or Dinofuzz) ... the great mystery of reptilian scales transition feathers.

What are protofeathers?

The protofeathers are structures shaped keratin hair or bristle and are considered the precursors of feathers.

When did?

Much of all this passionate debate is the date of appearance of the feathers, protofeathers. It is interesting that the oldest fossil
protofeathers are later than the earliest known bird. It makes no sense unless the protofeathers or dinofuzz appeared much earlier (in the Middle Triassic) and therefore would all structures originally present in dinosaurs and their immediate ancestors. Impressions of skin devoid of feathers or protofeathers known (Anatosaurus, Carnotaurus, Tyrannosaurus, etc..) Could be due to a subsequent loss of the outer coating due to the large body mass of these animals (the same reason that the rhinos and elephants have virtually no hair). But this need not be. Anyway ... although I am inclined to this theory, it really is just a theory.

How are the protofeathers?

According to the current expliación: One of reptilian scales ... This is the first spine, then becomes hollow and extends, as it grows, it follows from the skin and forms a cluster of hairs called beards or barbules.

In this video you can see the process of formation of protofeathers.

Why are important protofeathers?

For as we said, are the precursors of feathers. The appearance of the feathers is one of the most controversial issues can be found by paleontologists.

Apart from that it is not clear when they appeared, the experts, agree with in the end, why they left feathers: feathers but now used to fly (the most important feature) is considered to formation of these was a simple cold protection system. A coat of hollow scales isolated from the ravages of time.

Why were transformed into feathers?

Protofeathers are known to be used to maintain body heat and cover the body from the cold. And the fossils discovered (or most) protofeathers concentrations were located on the tail and arms. This allowed them to cover her at night and cover the cold while the temperature down ...

It is no coincidence that birds have feathers on the wings larger (called T-shirts or remiges) and tail (tail feathers or rectrices). They were the first to develop, were the first to appear were also exercising more air resistance. An important feature for small arboreal animals, leaping from branch to branch or thieves fast and small eggs.

What were the first to have protofeathers?

There are several examples of theropods (a group of two-legged carnivores, which is the T. Rex or Velociraptor). Some are: Dilong paradoxus, Sinosauropteryx, Shuvuuia, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, etc ...

But not only are the developers of theropods
Dinofuzz protofeathers or, for example there is the Tianyulong, a small herbivore that is casting doubt on its position in the evolutionary tree and it was discovered 2 years ago.

Finally, there are still many questions to solve, finding fossils and discovering new species. A truly exciting topic of prehistoric life on our planet.

Saurophaganax, theeater of saurians.

Allosaurus fragilis.

Their physical characteristics are:

Length: Nearly 30 feets long.
Height: 13 feets.
Weight: 6000 lb.

Baryonyx "heavy claw. "

* The Argentinosaurus 40 meters and 100 tons. (gray)

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Expert Advice For Alleviating Your Asthma Symptoms

Asthma is a serious medical condition that can affect anyone, from a teenager to a senior citizen. You should always get professional help, and avoid the things that cause your asthma attacks. The information included here will provide you with tips to assist you in managing your condition and help you minimize the chances of having a severe attack.

Avoid being around any known asthma triggers. Certain outdoor areas may be off-limits because they cause allergies to flare up. For others, physical activity can irritate them. Keep a journal of your attacks so that you can start to learn what your triggers are so that you can prevent flareups before they begin.

Talk to a social worker if you do not have health insurance and need medication for your asthma. A social worker can possibly help you with finding treatment and low-cost medications.

Make sure that everyone in your family gets their flu shot. Keep yourself healthy, and without respiratory infections as best you can. You can start by taking simple precautions, such as washing your hands and getting proper vaccinations when due.

If you suffer from asthma, ensure you consume lots of Vitamins E and C. These vitamins make lungs function better and keep symptoms of asthma under control. It is possible to acquire the necessary amounts by eating foods or by taking dietary supplements. Your immune system gets a boost with these vitamins, and this helps protect your body against illnesses and asthma.

People who have asthma should stick to using unscented products. Products that contain fragrance, such as perfumes, colognes, or air fresheners, fill the air with irritants that can trigger an asthma attack. Certain things in the home, such as newly installed carpet or fresh paint, can also release chemical irritants. As much as possible, try to keep your home filled with fresh, pure air.

You should not take asthma lightly. Asthma attacks can kill you, so you should always take the necessary measures to ensure you are safe from worse problems. Always have a backup inhaler with you, and try to limit your exposure to irritating airborne contaminants. Hopefully, you follow these tips, so you can get a handle on your asthma, and control the symptoms better.


20 Month Baby

20 Month Baby

I can already take off my clothes without any help.

I know when something is wrong.

I say 20 to 50 words. I start learning words possibly 5 or more per day.

I enjoy helping with chores around the house.

I pretend to help toys, imitate Mum and Dad such as feeding a baby or driving a car.

I already run well.

I start setting small goals.

I show better signs of bladder control.

I start learning up to 10 words per day.

I become naturally curious about everything, including my genitals. When I was younger I used to play with my fingers and toes and now I will do so with my genitals. But don´t worry Mum and Dad, unless it is nonstop. I may do this in public but don´t make a lot of fuss about it. Just explain to me that some things are done only at home in private.

Go from 20 Month Baby to Baby Development Links


Category Uncategorized

Political History: British Non-Intervention in the Spanish Civil War

“How did Britain’s approach to Non-Intervention change during the Spanish Civil War?” For a civil war whose battlefields were confined to its own nation as a civil war the Spanish Civil War came to exasperate political and societal tensions among societies across Europe in the inter-war period. Due to the ideologically charged nature of the […]

The Internationalisation of American Psychiatry, an Historical Case Study (1909 – 1973)

Regardless of how much one attempts to divorce it from them, the histories of psychiatry and mental health care can only be understood in their social, political and cultural contexts. In practice, there are three methods historians can employ for ventures such as these. Firstly, and typically, studies can be restricted by historians to individual […]

The British Empire and the Chinese Empire: A Comparative Study

Whether it was a lack of relevant material, language barriers, a lack of interest or worse patronizing representations attributed to a Eurocentric mentality historians writing comparative histories of empires have faced issues when articulating their work. Revised ethno-histories of empires would not really take off until Edward Said, seeking to cull Eurocentric practices in the […]

The American Century

The following is a paper submitted as part of my Master’s degree in History. The paper is a ‘historiographical study’, a paper which considers the viewpoints of historians and how arguments have developed. Regardless, I am hoping you get something out of it as the topic it covers is extremely important. Since it is an […]

The Spanish Civil War: Francisco Franco Bahamonde

Hello everyone! Just a small update from my University degree, this time with regards to a new module: The Spanish Civil War. The following is a piece of coursework I just submitted, a ‘Source Analysis’. Basically I have to analyse a specific source and in 1500 words (10% margin either way) pick it apart and […]

Ant-Man & Age of Ultron: Thoughts and Theories

“A Modern American Fairytale”


Movie Review – The Heiresses (Sydney Film Fest 2018)

The story follows the lives of Chela (Ana Brun) and Chiquita (Margarita Irun), whom have both descended from wealthy families in Asuncion, Paraguay. The two have been together for 30 years but recently their finances has worsened and they begin selling off their inherited possessions. But when their debts lead to Chiquita being imprisoned on fraud charges, Chela is forced to live a new phase of her life that would force her out of her shell.

Driving for the first time in years, she begins to provide a local taxi service to a group of elderly wealthy ladies, despite her pride. As Chela settles into her new life, she encounters the much younger Angy, forging a new and exciting connection. Chela finally begins to contemplate on her past and starts to ponder major decisions for her future.

Now that may seem like a depressing story to trudge through, but the characters are well-realized, the performances are compellingly naturalistic and the storytelling is assured and even has a welcome dash of humour, thanks to the sharp, acerbic performance by Marina Martins.

The social context of social status and privileges in Paraguay’s elitist zeitgeist (which is still quite prevalent today) adds a certain punch to the characterizations. In the case of Chela, she is shy of the outside world (and could be suffering from chronic depression) and what it has to offer and yet within the metaphorical shell she has nestled in, she has a sense of pride with what she has before and even after her possessions are taken away.

The storytelling never ventures through predictability nor gets buried in its various subplots and the characters’ growth veers the same way. There are enjoyable moments of intimacy and tenderness like the interactions between Chela and Angy (as well as the housemaid, Pita) that signal the character progression of the former but said attention should also be paid towards the shot selections, which deviate from POV shots and handheld towards more open shots (courtesy of cinematographer Luis Armando Artega), as well as the costume design and make-up, which conveys the gradual vivacity of Chela.

RGB tiff image by MetisIP

But none of those things would be effective if it weren’t for the performances. The majority of the cast are all newcomers or those with relatively little acting experience. Brun is understated and yet magnetic in the way she conveys foreign sensations using her expressive face like fear, hurt and hopefulness with aplomb.

Irun is good as Chiquita, the much more grounded of the pair (who can handle the harshness of life more capably) and as mentioned earlier, Martins is a hoot as Pituca, an older neighbour who selfishly berates Chela to drive her to her ladies’ card games. But the other standout of the film is Ana Ivanova as Angy. Convincingly confident, fierce and comfortably sensual, she shares an enjoyable and lovely rapport with Brun.

While the film may be a bit too understated for its own good (which can test the audience’s patience) and the metaphors may be a bit blatant (one scene involves a spill of a intricately set platter), the film scores mightily with a satisfying ending that achieves what it exactly sets out to do, with a sense of ambiguity as well as a sense of catharsis.

Overall, The Heiresses is a quiet, understated and yet compelling piece of work that is brimming with intimacy, naturalistic performances, assured storytelling and the tactful use of thematically rich subtext. Recommended.

Quickie Review

Great naturalistic performances from the cast

Strong storytelling, with the social backdrop lending the story punch

Assured direction keeps story on course and tone in check

Some visual metaphors are quite blatant

May be a bit too understated for its own good

SCORE: 8/10

Director: Marcelo Martinessi
Screenwriters: Marcelo Martinessi


Streaming live at 10am (PST)

Interactions order

I’ve noticed a problem with the interactions panel that can be a bit annoying. Sometimes when doing complex animations, it can be important to have your commands inside of a group (a set that starts at the same time) in a specific order. For example, lets say I have a set of 5 divs… 1 2 3 4 5… I might want them to stay in that order as a group because perhaps they rotate in that order (or something like that, it doesn’t matter).

Then, let’s say I duplicate that group. I might need that order to change to 2 3 4 5 1 (for sake of clarity as I assemble the animation. Then 3 4 5 1 2; 4 5 1 2 3, and so on. However, if I test the animation in view mode and come back, those layer orders have now changed to something random. Does this make sense? If I set the divs in a certain order in the interactions panel, I want them to stay in that order.

Hi @scottiejhaines

Thanks for posting about this. I think I understand what the issue is but I’m having a hard time reproducing it on my end. Can you please share a Read-Only link to a project where this is happening? Any screenshots or recordings are also helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Hmm, I can’t replicate it anymore either (without changing values). I’m thinking it may have had something to do with trying to reorder elements in a duplicated group and moving to another panel before changing the values of the new group.

On a side note. In the animation panel, it would be nice if we could drag-and-drop elements within groups instead of just to the bottom of a group.

Here is the Webflow link if you still want it. This was a sandbox example for another user, so no big rush. This isn’t for a client.

Open in Webflow


What is flat rate of interest?

What is flat rate of interest?

Flat rate of interest is a way in which banks or NBFCs will calculate your loan repayment. Under the flat rate system your EMI will be calculated without taking into account any periodic payments made by you. So interest on your loan will be charged on the full loan amount throughout the loan tenure. EMI contains repayment made towards both interest and principal amount but a flat rate of interest calculations does not take that into account. An interest on reducing balance on the other hand is calculated as per your outstanding amount and not the original loan.

Hi Reba,

Flat interest rate is the interest rate calculated on the entire loan amount during its entire tenure. However, this does not take into consideration the gradual reduction of the principal amount by monthly EMIs. This is why the Effective Rate of Interest is higher than the Flat Interest Rate that was quoted at the time of the loan sanction.

Looking for a Personal Loan? Click here.

Team BB


California Budget ChallengeAbout Next 10Budget Overview

Budget Basics

The Budget Overview

For many years, California had spent more than it had coming in, and often used short-term solutions and borrowing to balance the budget. The 2018-19 Governor’s May Revise has a fairly large surplus, but tough choices remain about the level of funding needed for state programs, whether to restore reductions to programs that have been made recently, and what changes to consider making our revenue sources more stable in the future. The 2018-19 budget also continues to emphasize building up reserves and maintaining fiscal health in the face of federal uncertainty and a potential recession.

Take the Challenge


"Our estimates suggest that the radiation on the ground from these solar events is very small. And yet the experimental evidence suggests that something is going on that causes birth defects," says Adrian Melott. "We don't understand this, which is good. Something one doesn't understand is a pointer to an interesting scientific problem." (Credit: iStockphoto)

Can cosmic rays cause birth defects?

Airplane crews at high altitude are exposed to potentially harmful levels of radiation from cosmic rays.

“Neutrons which don’t reach the ground do reach airline altitude,” says Adrian Melott, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas. “Flight crews get a lot more radiation dose from neutrons. In fact, during solar particle events, airplanes are diverted away from the North Pole, where a lot more cosmic rays come down.”

Could these cosmic rays pose hazards even at sea level?

A new study in the Journal of Geophysical Research says probably not: those kinds of solar events are too weak to cause worry at ground level.

“We looked at two different studies,” Melott says. “Both of them indicated a connection between cosmic rays and the rate of birth defects. One also associated mutations in cells growing in a petri dish with a 1989 solar particle event.”

“We have a contradiction,” Melott says. “Our estimates suggest that the radiation on the ground from these solar events is very small. And yet the experimental evidence suggests that something is going on that causes birth defects. We don’t understand this, which is good. Something one doesn’t understand is a pointer to an interesting scientific problem.”

Hazardous ‘secondaries’

So the researchers looked at how cosmic rays from the sun create hazardous “secondaries” by reacting with the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Cosmic rays are mostly protons,” Melott says. “Basically, they are the nuclei of atoms—with all the electrons stripped off. Some come from the sun. Others come from all kinds of violent events all over the universe. Most of the ones that hit the Earth’s atmosphere don’t reach the ground, but they set off ‘air showers’ in which other particles are created, and some of them reach the ground.”

The air showers pose the most serious threat for the health of humans and other biology on the Earth’s surface via “ionizing radiation,” he says.

“Ionizing radiation is any radiation that can tear apart an atom or a molecule. It can affect life in many ways, causing skin cancer, birth defects, and other things. Normally, about one-sixth of the penetrating radiation we get down near sea level is from secondaries from cosmic rays.”

Solar radiation around 775 CE

The researchers looked carefully at two forms of radiation formed by solar particle events—muons and neutrons—finding that muons are the most dangerous to biology at the Earth’s surface.

“Muons are a kind of heavy cousin of the electron,” Melott says. “They’re produced in great abundance by cosmic rays and are responsible for most of the radiation we get on the ground from cosmic rays. Neutrons can do a lot of damage. However, very few of them ever reach the ground. We checked this because some of them do reach the ground. We found that they’re likely responsible for a lot less damage than muons, even during a solar particle event.”

Of particular interest to the authors was a massive dose of solar radiation around the years 773-776 CE.

“Carbon-14 evidence was found in tree rings in 2012 that suggests a big radiation dose came down around 775, suggesting a huge solar particle event, at least 10 times larger than any in modern times,” Melott says. “Our calculations suggest that even this was mostly harmless, but maybe there is something wrong with our assumptions. We used ordinary understandings of how muons may cause damage, but perhaps there is some new physics here which makes the muons more dangerous.”

“In calculating the effect of muons, we used standard assumptions about what the effect of muons should be,” Melott says. “Their physics is pretty simple, just that of an electron with a lot of mass.

Researchers from MidAmerica Nazarene University and the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science are coauthors of the study, which the NASA program Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology funded.

Source: University of Kansas

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Street Fighter Battle of the Brothers: Ryu

Street Fighter Battle of the Brothers: Ryu

List Price: $429.00

Sale Price: $399.00

You Save: $30.00 (7%)

Deposit: $40.00
Estimated ship date: July 2018

Statue by Kinetiquettes

Kinetiquettes is proud to present the second figure in their 4 figure 'Battle of the Brothers' diorama, Ryu!

This is a statue of Ryu that is part of the Battle of the Brothers diorama, which includes Ken, Gouken and Gouki (Akuma). This dynamic detailed diorama depicts Ryu about to do his signature move of Shoryuken as breaks through one of the temple guardian statues. The floor tiles at the base are engineered to allow connection to the other dioramas in this line.

Ryu is a video game character and protagonist of the Street Fighter series, first appearing in the original Street Fighter. He is an experienced martial artist, highly focused on his training, aiming to become the strongest he can. He is a silent, humble, and respectful individual, which is often juxtaposed against the light-hearted, fiery persona of his childhood friend Ken. He wanders the world with the desire for complete mastery of his martial art and takes both his travels and training seriously.

In the first Street Fighter, Ryu wore a white headband and red shoes. Over the course of time, he has grown taller and more muscular; his karate gi has grown more tattered, his gloves have changed from brown to red and his headband has changed from white to red. Most notably, his hair color has darkened over time; his original Street Fighter appearance gave him red hair, brown in Street Fighter Alpha, dark brown in Street Fighter II and Street Fighter IV, and black in Street Fighter III and Street Fighter V. The red headband Ryu wears was originally worn by Ken. Ryu gave his white headband to Sakura before getting his red headband.

Note: This item ships from overseas and shipping costs will be higher! Please contact us if you have any questions.


One bombproof sports dog coming right up!

Achieving in sport requires you to get the most in learning and performance from your dog and relationship. To get this, we need a dog that doesn’t get worried or overly aroused by the environments and job that they do as part of the team. How do we get this?

Well, in this video I explain how!

Spending a (very) short amount of time on this leads to leaps in learning and performance. This training is tailored to YOU and YOUR DOG so don’t miss out on it!

I explain how to get a bombproof sports dog in this week’s blog!


Eliot; 'Tradition and the Individual Talent'.

Eliot's“Tradition and the Individual Talent”T.

The keyword "medium" is itself an example of this fungibility, deployed several times in the essay in both its 1“Tradition and Individual Talent” Summary Points T.S Eliot as a critic One of the most seminal critics of his Summary points of T S Eliot's essay.

Elliot, illustrates for us the many reasons poets should detach themselves from their writings and extract any personal elements they may want to be added.Tradition and the Individual Talent: An Essay by T.S.

Like Tzara, and unlike Marinetti, Eliot "Tradition" and "Individual Talent" are synonyms for Eliot, the moments of a reciprocal constitution, two aspects of the same substance.

Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent.

Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously (Eliot, 1919, p.

T.S Eliot Tradition and Individual Talent and The Love Song of J.

'Tradition and the Individual Talent".
Key Ideas
Presented in this Essay
How do these ideas relate to Eliot's Career, the Development of Modernism and wider Modernist Literature and Culture?
How Eliot's ideas are presented in
The Waste Land

Eliot: Tradition and the Individual Talent.

eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of Tradition and the Individual Talent.

Poet Thomas Stearns Eliot—or T.S., as we like to call him—was a man of contradictions. His greatest works—, and the poems that make up the Four Quartets—reflected the despair and desolation of the world after the . Eliot eschewed the London bars and cafes that attracted his fellow writers in favor of his prim and solitary office. Even his physical appearance was so gray and severe-looking that an interviewer once described him as "forbidding and austere, [like] the abbot of an ascetic order."

Yet, the same visitor also pronounced, "There is probably no kinder man in London today than T.S. Eliot." The poet graciously entertained students over tea and offered his name to charitable causes. Eliot enjoyed bourbon and a game of gin rummy. And, in perhaps the greatest contradiction, the man whose smashed poetic conventions believed staunchly that a poet's first obligation was to tradition. Eliot tapped into the wisdom of the ages to produce poems that perfectly captured the emotions of the Western world.

In 1888, Eliot was born in all-American St. Louis, Missouri, but became a British subject in 1927 and spent most of his life in England. Eliot is considered the bard of modernism, the early twentieth-century era during which bold thinkers took the existing forms of art and literature and smashed them with a hammer. "It is very likely that when the literary history of our time comes to be written, it will be characterized as the Age of Eliot, just as we speak now of the Age of Pope or Tennyson," his obituary said. "If we judge a man by the vacancy that his absence from his time would have caused, T.S. Eliot was a giant."

Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent : I

Tradition and the Individual Talent - Wikipedia

In 1917, the literary journal (where Eliot served as an assistant editor) published an essay of his entitled Eliot's manifesto railed against the modern tendency to praise a poet's attempts to be different for the sake of being different. Only by recognizing the poetic traditions he drew upon and suppressing his personal desires, Eliot argued, could a poet truly achieve greatness. (And, yes, Eliot assumed that any great poet would be male.) He elaborated:

Eliot's essay was interesting for two reasons in particular. First, Eliot was coming into his own as a poet at the same time that an Austrian psychiatrist named introduced the idea that there was something to be gained by plunging deep into the inner sanctums of the self. Eliot's essay disputed Freud's argument, valuing the collective unconscious over the individual subconscious. Though the two men held completely separate viewpoints, both of their ideas came to dominate their age. "In [Freud's] opinion there must be sought a collective and individual balance, which should constantly take into account man's primitive instincts," a member of the Swedish Academy said when Eliot received the for literature in 1948. "You, Mr. Eliot, are of the opposite opinion. For you the salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition, which, in our more mature years, lives with greater vigour within us than does primitiveness, and which we must preserve if chaos is to be avoided."

The second reason we find Eliot's emphasis on tradition interesting is that he was about to write one of the most unique, unprecedented poems in the history of the English language.

By 1921, stuck in a boring bank job and an unhappy marriage, Eliot had a bit of a mental breakdown. As he took leave from to recover, he began to reflect on the desolation of post-war European culture. He saw it as a spiritually empty society that had veered too far away from its traditions. It was a level of despair without precedent, and to address it Eliot had to write a poem unlike any other that came before it. In 1922, Eliot founded a literary journal called , and in its first issue he published the result of his efforts—.

was a five-part epic that journeyed through a ruined and desolate world. With its starkly beautiful language, the poem was—and still is—an overwhelming experience to read. " is easier on the ear than on the mind," wrote in 1950. That was putting it mildly. In its 434 lines, the poem wandered into different languages, obscure references, and a cascading riot of images. Some people tossed it aside as too obscure, accusing Eliot of being intentionally confusing ("How better to identify yourself as a serious poet than to be incomprehensible?" writer said of Eliot many years later).

Once again, though, a generation of poets who understood the alienation and horror that Eliot was talking about embraced the epic poem as a masterpiece. Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Anders Osterling, of the poem's indelible impact at Eliot's Nobel ceremony: " now lies a quarter of a century back in time, but unfortunately it has proved that its catastrophic visions still have undiminished actuality in the shadow of the atomic age. The of modern man in a secularized world, without order, meaning, or beauty, here stands out with poignant sincerity."


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    From dream incubation to keeping a flashlight pen by your bedside, Arianna Huffington walks you through your darkest hours

    The power of dreams…and why you should record them

    A throw pillow in Arianna Huffington’s bedroom states, ‘Sleep your way to the top’. And the editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post  lives by it — by sleeping  eight hours a day, that is. The author of 15 books — including 2014’s bestselling Thrive (which tries to redefine success) — had got her wake-up call when she’d collapsed in 2007, to wake up later in a pool of blood. Her doctor’s prognosis: exhaustion. Now an advocate for slumber, her newest book takes us behind the science of it, and explores why the lack of it affects our lives and how we can court it every night. Here is an excerpt from The Sleep Revolution.

    Those who have integrated dreams into their lives have found that the “otherworld” of sleep has become more real — something to be welcomed rather than resisted. For me, it is way more than just feeling recharged. There is also a sense of freedom that comes from less attachment to daily battles, successes, failures, and illusions. My daughter Isabella has a recurring dream that beautifully illustrates this. She is a living stop sign, forcing people to come to a complete stop before moving on with their lives. And instead of dissolving when she wakes up, the dream takes on new relevance when she revisits it during the day, reminding her to pause, reflect, and keep all the demands of her life in perspective.

    There are some simple steps we can take before we go to sleep to reinstate dreams to a central place in our lives and experience firsthand why they matter. After we put our devices aside, wind down, and let go of the day, we can learn from the practices of ancient temples and do a modern-day version of dream incubation. Synesius of Cyrene, a Greek bishop living around the year 400, called dreams oracles, always ready to serve as our “silent counselor.” And dream incubation is a process of preparing our consciousness to receive guidance from our inner counselors. It can be about big life decisions, but also about anything that we want more clarity and wisdom around, however trivial it may seem.
    I love how the Rubin Museum in New York, which houses Asian art, brings dream incubation into our modern lives. It hosts an annual “Dream-Over,” where participants spend the night sleeping among the artworks. A Tibetan Buddhist teacher leads a discussion about the significance of dreams in Tibetan culture, and in the morning “dream gatherers” start a conversation about what everyone dreamed of.
    If I wake up in the middle of the night, even if I have not asked for specific guidance in any part of my life, I write down whatever I remember from my dreams with a pen that has a flashlight attached to it. I find that when I don’t turn on the lamp on my nightstand, it is easier not to lose the thread of my dreams. (And if you’re not sleeping alone, you’re less likely to wake your partner.) When you wake up in the morning, if you want to remember your dreams, don’t grab your cell phone the moment you open your eyes and become inundated with news, texts, and emails. Before letting the outside world in, taking a momentary pause and a few deep breaths can help you recall more of your dreams, reliving the paths traveled while in your dream world. As we learn to recognize the hidden meanings beneath the surface of the everyday, it becomes easier to listen to the inner whisperings that tend to get drowned in the cacophony of our waking life.

    “I started with microscopic steps: adding 30 minutes, taking my devices out of my bedroom, not rushing to my phone first thing. But then, very quickly, the new me drew me like a magnet. The old me was more cranky, more  irritable, more reactive. I found  [the new me] not really reacting. I like living my life like that” —Vogue

    “He (Donald Trump)  displays all of the  symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation—inability to process simple information, emotional instability, outbursts of anger, mood swings and regurgitation of incomprehensible pablum”—Boston Herald

    Reprinted with permission from the Penguin Random House. Rs 599. Available at Starmark. Details: 64550262

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